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zaccahrycrookes · 3 years

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My Grandfather

In reality my Grandpa influenced my life in more ways than I could ever express. If I look at my life my three biggest passions, or the three major parts of my life are all heavily influenced by him.

Although less traditional than Grandpas chosen path he influenced my own spiritual journey, faith in something more than just this physical world, and a want to be of service to others. Grandpa influenced my deep love of adventure, nature, and travel. Thirdly Grandpa influenced my passion for the arts and craftsmanship. From music, to painting and writing, to woodwork.

My grandfather was an incredible man. Many people would ask me what his trade was, often they where surprised when I told them he wasn't a tradie and that he was a successful small business owner. They where surprised because he could do every trade in the book from building, electrics, mechanics, plumbing, to tiling and landscaping. You name it he could do it. From an early age he taught me how to use tools and work with wood.

He grew up on a farm in rural Victoria, he had a large family with many siblings. As a young man he worked the farm then his older bother got him a job in the bank. He would make surf skis on the side with a friend. As well as the surf skis he was an avid fisherman, hiker, and rode a motor bike.

Also a greatly gifted musician we was a master piano player and also played the guitar. He was part way finishing his final and most expert Piano exam when his Dad had a stroke.

After the stroke he would get annoyed at Grandpas continual practice of scales so Grandpa swapped to singing. He sung solo, in duets, and part of choirs. Deeply involved with the Church he would sing in the choir, play the organ, and conduct the choir. He had an unmistakable voice that could be heard no matter how many people he was singing with.

Toward the end of his time at the bank he cashed in all his long service leave packed Grandma and all the kids into a camper and went around Australia. I have so many wonderful stories about that trip, and it lit a fire under him. He loved Queensland, and found he loved road tripping around Australia. Not too long after arriving back in Victoria he quit at the bank and opened a general store, sold it and bought a hardware store around this time his mother passed, once that happened he sold the hardware packed everything up and moved to a little sea side town north of Brisbane (Toorbul).

There he and Grandma bought a general store/ newsagent/ takeaway joint. The property also had holiday rental flats. This is where my Mum, Aunts, and Uncles grew up. At one point I know he was also a bus driver up here in QLD.

I did also, living just two blocks from the house they lived in. Living at the seaside Grandpa taught me to fish and would often take me out in his little boat out into the passage and up along the estuaries. When I was six we moved inland to Dayboro, pretty quickly Grandma and Grandpa followed us.

Eventually he and Grandma retired closing the shop and buying a camper van, this is where they begun travelling Australia. After a while and quickly after we had moved they sold the Toorbul house and spent ten years on the road. Six months over summer with us out at Dayboro where Grandpa became an integral part of the church and community. Then six months over winter travelling in their motorhome. They did this for almost two decades.

My grandpa taught me so much about life. Art, music, tools, travelling, religion and faith (although my journey with faith is somewhat unconventional compared to his. He loved to play, and was always so full of joy and laughter.

The only time I saw him angry was if he fucked something up in the shed and got mad at himself. I remember once talking about faith with him, he said he only ever lost touch with 'God' once. When they had moved to Toorbul, he was sure this little seaside would boom but it never did and he struggled for awhile there to support the entire family with the shop and flats. He soon became content with what they had and knew they'd be ok. With that his faith returned.

His whole life was dedicated to service of others, never would he say no or decline to help anyone in need. I remember often helping him fix things and do odd jobs for family members and friends. Especially as he got older and less agile he would tell me what to do. I clearly remember him teaching me how to tile one of my Aunties bathroom.

Toward the end Grandpa could barely walk, or do anything. He hated how fragile and immobile he has become. It even took a great amount of energy to sit outside and watch my brother and I work. He was truly a good man, I don't think I could say or have one negative memory of him. Even if it was something he didn't understand like my anxiety or my addiction, he never judged. Always laughing or smiling.

I remember my last real conversation with him, he was sitting by the front door while I worked on pulling up some old pavers and levelling out the gravel under them. We chatted about allot of things through that hour or so. I think he was pretty content with the life had led and was ready to go. He would have hated to die slowly so in a way drooping dead from a heart attack was the best way for him to pass. Even that whole scenario still plays through my mind daily.

His last words where "Exhausted, I am just so exhausted". In answering when my Grandma asked how he was that morning.

#life #death #loss #grandparent #exhuasted #dying #Memories #australia #brisbane #faith #living #music

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crowgale · 3 years

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Resident Evil 2 AU

Claire Redfield x Elza Walker

Generally the characters are the same, but with a kick of real so they aren't blank slates. Elza herself is a street-smart, confident young woman with a troubled past.

Born Elizibeth Walker in Anchorage, Alaska to parents separated before she was born, her father was an fortuitous yet endearing construction worker who took custody of her until he went missing during the construction of an Umbrella Research Facility in the Rockies during her early teens and was then sent to Connecticut to live with her mother, who was an abusive drug addict.

In her teens she developed a keen interest in motorcycles while overstudying in a library to avoid her mother and further strengthed it with part-time jobs in various mechanics. Eventually she lost hope in her father being found and her increasingly hostile mother drove her to runaway from home, using connections she developed through gangs and mechanics to move to Florida and join an amatuer racing contest in Daytona under the alias 'Elza' (Her father's nickname for her)... where she broke the track record 4 times (The first was the previous fastest lap time, she then broke her own fastest laps 3 times).

By her 18th birthday she had left her criminal ties behind and became a minor celebrity on the fast track to becoming a professional bike racer. She had sponsers ready to pay her into any university she wanted, emancipation from her mother and enough money saved up from work and victories to let her live as an independant young woman.

Elizabeth was gone. She was Elza now, and she had found her path to happiness.

By 1996 Claire had enrolled in the University of Houstan, Texas. Chris hoped she would enrol in Kansas City so she'd be closer to him but she wasn't going to be his little sister forever. She had grown up quick after their parents died... they both did.

Elza and Claire first met the week before classes started, Claire having just moved into the dorms a day before; Elza arriving like a perfect storm the next day on an customised kawasaki sports bike and a trailer full of her belongings.

Claire recognised her of course, her debut into the racing world made national headlines. So like a dork Claire was shy and tried to avoid Elza as she rode in on her Harley Davidson, after running an errand off campus.

Elza however, heard the sound of a Harley and wanted to know who owned it. She took one look at Claire in her red leather shorts, that 'Made in Heaven' jacket tied around her waist and that tight black bodysuit she had no business looking so sexy in, decided 'Yeah, I'm chilling with you!" and was having none of it.

There was, what a native of Northern Ireland like myself would call, a fresher's fair that night and like a hawk Elza seeked out the introverted Claire and started asking about her bike.

By the end of the night, Claire's shyness vanished upon realising that the seemingly untouchable queen of bikers, whose body was covered in tattoos and whose hair was as wild and untamed as the wind, was actually a massive dork. Elza however found someone who had quickly seen her and not the racing queen. The dealbreaker came when Elza asked what made her get a bike to begin with.

"Well... my brother owned a Suzuki before but... I guess I saw the film 'Akira' and that's what made me do it"

"Oh my god bitch me too!!!"

The two would then become firm friends. Elza being the misadventurous one who managed to talk Claire into actually leaving the library and give herself a break from studying; Claire being the one to get them out of trouble and keep Elza grounded. The two became a power-couple without realising, defending the other from rude people who mocked Elza for daring to be a woman racer or harassed Claire for her looks or for trying to latch onto a celebrity. It went without saying no one could harass these women if they wanted their hearing and face intact.

Things would eventually become more personal between the two. The week after New Years, Elza received news that her mother had died from a drug overdose. Although she didn't need to, Claire bought a side-car for her bike and rode her to New London for the funeral.

The service itself was tense. Elza being uncharacteristically silent and the lack of relatives worried Claire as the service ended. She never saw Elza's eyes look so cold as she gave her eulogy, which she soon realised was a stock eulogy the minister gave to those who didn't write one.

A while after she was buried in the a man approached Elza in the cemetary, introduced himself as her mother's dealer and decided that since she was a famous racer her mother's debt would pass on to Elza and that she would pay him else there would be cpnsequences; it goes without saying she refused to pay off the debt and apathetically asked him to leave.

Claire was on him like a wolf the moment he slapped her and was ready to kill him when he started to threaten her with a knife.

She very nearly did.

They left New London that evening amidst a police BOLO for a woman with auburn hair seen kicking the living shit out of a man in a graveyard. They made it to Kent Island before a blizzard rolled in and they had to say at an inn along the Chesepeake Bay.

That night Claire meant to apologise for her actions, stating she saw her get hit and just... reacted. But Elza pulled her into a tight hug and finally released her pent up emotions. She told Claire about her fathers disappearance, about the years of torment at her mothers hands, that this wasn't the first time something like this happened, that she doesn't understand why she's crying if she hated her mother so much and how much it hurt to remember all those terrrible things and have someone make her feel like that scared little girl again.

Claire, feeling her best friend shake in her arms, doesn't know what to say. She's silent for a time as Elza holds onto her like a lifeline, as if letting go would make her fall off the Earth itself. She finally tells Elza that she isn't that little girl anymore.

"You are Elza Walker! Yhe Woman who can never be slowed! You're unreachable! Unstoppable! And no one will ever hurt you again!... I... don't want to see you hurt again"

Elza didn't speak for a while after that... but eventually she did and what she said broke Claire.

"I've wished for someone like you my whole life Claire"

Life returned to normal soon after that. One tournament race was enough to bring Elza Walker roaring back to life and with a vengeance. She was faster, she was braver, her smile after each weekly victory able to light up the world... or at least Claire's, who now made it a point to go to every race, or at least watch it on TV if the race was in a city too far out of reach.

Elza knew Claire was watching her... she figured that's why she was doing better now.

Spring came and went, the summer exams now already a fading memory to the pair, but foreshadowed by Claire losing her part-time job and being unable to find another one. With no means to pay for her student fees it looked like she would be forced to drop-out.

But Elza wouldn't have any of it.

"I know how you can pay off your fees. A guy in my pit crew retired a month ago and I've been short two hands ever since. It's hard work but the pays good and if I make pro next month it'll be even better"; she said idly at a bar one evening.

"You... you want me in your pit crew?"; Claire asked incredulously.

"No, I want you as my personal pitbabe so I can drool at you in a tight spandex jumpsuit looking all cute with dirt on your face"; Elza said with a lop-sided smile.

"Ha!"

"Hm... seriously Claire, I want you there with me. I can't imagine anyone better to look after me on the track"; Elza said confidently.

"...You do take way too many risks"; Claire mused, before Elza held her cheek in her hands.

"You told me once that I am the woman who can never be slowed... well Redfield, I'd slow down for you!"

Elza's manager might have called her decision to hire Claire personally driven and entirely unprofessional. However, Claire proved herself highly compotent within a week of employment, being able to keep up with the repairs, adjustments and tyre changes her job demanded.

It was also found that Elza actually listened to Claire whenever she was pushing her luck, which turned out to be a blessing in the final race of the season in San Francesco. Her main rival who was tied for 1st with Elza didn't want to lose to a woman, and in the final 3 laps had begun making poor judgement calls to try and keep up with her. Risky overtakes, tight cornering and high speed was equally met, and soon Elza found herself in a dogfight she refused to lose.

If Claire hadn't screamed at her to brake before the last corner, she would have been thrown off her bike with her rival after an attemped inside lane overtake resulted in them losing control of the bike and wiping out.

Elza won of course, making it into the professional league. It was a dream come true. At no point after she took off her helmet and locked teary eyes with Claire could she make any expression that wasn't a bashful smile or tears of joy. It also seemed like she couldn't stop looking at Claire during the victory reception or later that night on the train ride home... where she had too much to drink, leaving Claire having to help Elza meander into the sleeping car after the 8th Buttery Nipple.

She helped her move herself onto the bed, but Elza didn't let go of her hand. Instead she brought her hand to her lips and kissed her knuckles and held it to her cheek as she openly wept.

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fandom-imagines-stories · 4 years

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Guiding Stars

Ezra x Reader

Words: 3653

Summary: After nearly three years of surviving on that shithole planet, Ezra escapes with Cee and the two journey to the planet he once called home in hopes of starting a new life. You have been living in hope that one day, the man you love will come home despite everyone telling you to move on. When Ezra shows up at your door with a teenage girl and one arm, both of you wonder just how much has changed.

Notes: Again, I’m writing for a bunch of Pedro characters, so please please please leave a review or send in a message to let me know what you all think of them! Also, I just really love the idea of mixing Ezra with Wicked Game by Chris Isaak, so there’s one in here.

“Do you want to lock up, or should I?” Your coworker, Ella, drew you out of your thoughts. Your eyes were trained up at the sky, studying the glittering stars above. It was a critical part of your nightly routine. Every night, before you closed down the shop, you looked up at the sky. Your apartment didn’t have any windows, so it was your only chance to just take in the vastness of space above you.

“I’ll get it, thanks El.” You came away from the window just as a ship passed overhead. The robotic repair store that you worked at had had a busy day and you were relieved to be heading home. You punched in the lock code and waited for that familiar click before you hoped on your ratty old hover-bike and rode home.

The city was dirty and the air was filled with smog, but you couldn’t bring yourself to leave, even now that you had made a little more money. You had every opportunity to get on a shuttle and fly off to some new and exciting planet, but you remained in your tiny apartment on that sad little lump of rock just as you had for nearly a decade. Many of your friends had moved off, started families, continued their lives. They all asked you the same question whenever they visited.

“Why don’t you get out of that place? You have so much potential.”

You gave them all the same answer. If you left, he wouldn’t be able to find you.

You slid your key-card through the slot and your apartment door squeaked open. It was dark and barely big enough for one person even though it once housed two. You cleaned off the grease from your hands and arms and broke off a piece of stale bread for dinner. It didn’t matter whether or not the shop was bringing in more money; real food was a luxury anywhere on the planet.

You sat in the dark, the obnoxious glow of artificial lighting giving you a headache.You said your prayers, though you could hardly remember who or what you prayed to anymore. Whoever could bring him home.

You would hold out for one more day, you told yourself. Tomorrow, you would pack up and get off this shitty excuse of a planet and make a name for yourself. Somewhere sunny. Somewhere with real, living trees, not the plastic imposters that lined the city streets. You couldn’t count the amount of times you’d promised yourself that. Every night, probably. You knew you would never leave. You couldn’t.

They had told you he was dead. That he got sick on that godforsaken green planet and that they had to leave his body behind because it was ‘contaminated’. They told you to move on. Everyone else that had known him did. All of his friends mourned him for a few weeks and then went on with their lives, most of them moving away. But his crew all had a look of guilt. Even without their lying eyes, you felt in your soul that he was out there, somewhere, trying to get back to you by the hands of the guiding stars.

You hadn’t seen him in four years, but sometimes, when you were stuck in that place between awake and dreaming, you could feel his arms slip around you. You could feel the bed shift with his weight. And you could feel his lips graze yours just before you finally fell asleep.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” Cee huffed, looking up at the shabby sign. Ezra blew out a breath.

“This is the one.” He recognized the chipped paint and the smell of burning metal from the smelting works down the street. Mel’s Robotics. He’d been back here many times in his dreams while he was stuck on that planet. Cee wrinkled her nose and he chuckled. “If you wish for better accommodations, Little Bird, you are free to search for it yourself.” His sweet drawl in his voice had annoyed her when they first met, but she had grown used to it, finding it almost comforting. “That apartment building should be just around the corner.”

While the air was polluted and smelled of smoke, he couldn’t help but revel in the sensation of walking outside without a cumbersome suit inhibiting his every move. He felt free for the first time in three years.

“You seem cheery.” Cee noted with feigned annoyance. She was just as happy to be off that planet as he was. “Who is this woman anyway? How do you know she’s even still here?” Ezra sighed.

“I don’t.”

The two entered the apartment complex wearily, Cee checking around every corner they turned. She shook her head at her own paranoia. This was a residential planet. Disgusting and over populated, but residential. There were no monsters or toxic particles in the air here, unless you counted the smog. But hey, at least she wouldn’t have to cut off any more arms.

He led her up a flight of stairs, searching for door number 416. As soon as he found it, he pulled on the chain around his neck, revealing a small metal key. Cee pointed at the card reader next to the door.

“I think you’ve got the wrong kind of key.” Ezra chuckled.

“It would appear so, little bird, but you see, when I lived here, I used this,” He held up the old-fashioned key, it’s teeth glistening in the light. He’d kept it in pristine conditioning, hoping that he would have a home to return to one day. “I never was very skilled with technology, so my lovely partner had this put in for me.” He pressed a notch on the knob of the door and a piece of metal slid away, revealing a lock.

Ezra put the key in, but stopped before he turned it, the impact of the situation suddenly hitting him. What if you weren’t here? What if you were here and you didn’t want to see him? What if you had forgotten about him?

“What are you waiting for?” Cee asked, a slight trace of fear in her voice. Was something wrong? Ezra closed his eyes and took a deep, calming breath and turned the key.

It was as if he was stepping into one of his dreams. Everything looked the same. The same beat-up leather sofa. The same smell of ink from your blueprints and the earthy aroma of your favorite tea. For a moment, he thought he would cry, falling to the floor of the home he’d been desperately trying to get back to for four years. Cee could see his emotional state and didn’t say anything for a while, letting him drink in the memory. She was almost jealous. She never really had a home to miss.

“It doesn’t look like she’s here.” Cee noted after he started to roam around. He stopped in front of a shelf, picking up an old photo. It was taken the night that they had moved in together. A group of friends had surprised the two of you with a party and snapped the photo as he carried you in, bridal style.

“She stayed.” He whispered to himself almost in disbelief. He didn’t notice that Cee was next to him.

“You look happy.” Cee gave him a half smile, examining the photo over his shoulder. He quickly put the frame back on the shelf.

“She should be back soon. If I remember correctly, and I believe I do, the shop isn’t open on weekends.” He motioned for her to sit on the worn-out sofa. He should have felt awkward, waiting around on the couch for her to come home. But it was his home too. Besides, he’s the one that bought the damn thing. He didn’t think his heart would ever stop beating so fast until he heard the door open and it stopped all together.

You had seen him so many times in your dreams that you didn’t even stop when you saw him out of the corner of your eye. You went straight to the small kitchen to put away a few groceries. It wasn’t until you turned around, seeing him standing there looking at you with those big brown eyes that you could have sworn were filled with tears.

“Hello my Dove,” He greeted, his voice catching in his throat. He never thought he would get to call you that again. You never thought you’d hear it. You slowly stepped towards him, worried that if you moved too fast he would vanish.

“E-Ezra?” You felt like all of the air had left your body and only he could give it back. “T-this is…. Am I dreaming?” You weren’t sure if you could handle waking up to an empty room again. Ezra chuckled, a single tear spilling over as he shook his head.

“No, sweetheart,” He stepped towards you and placed his hand on your cheek. Just feeling his rough, warm skin made your heart leap. “I’m here.”

You weren’t sure which happened first; throwing your arms around his neck and nearly tackling him in a hug or the endless amount of tears that poured down your face as you cried into his chest. His hand cradled the back of your head and he wished that he could hold you properly. But you didn't even notice.

“I knew it.” You sobbed. “I knew you weren’t dead. They all told me to leave, but I knew that you would come back to me.” When you pulled away so you could look at that face you’d longed to see for four years, you noticed his injury. His right arm was gone, the empty sleeve of his shirt hanging loosely by his side. Ezra knew what you were looking at and was suddenly uncomfortable.

“It’s a long story.” He muttered. You collected your thoughts, thousands of questions swimming around in your head, and you took his face in your hands.

“It doesn’t matter.” You beamed. “The only thing that matters is that you're here.” You pulled his face down to yours, colliding your lips together. Your body ignited. It felt like this was the first breath you’d taken in the last four years. Ezra was sure that he had been dead up until this moment and you brought him back to life with the soft touch of your lips. It wasn’t until he felt the annoyed tap on his shoulder that he pulled away.

“Oh, one more thing.” He stepped aside to reveal a young girl standing behind him. “This is Cee.”

“Hi.” She greeted awkwardly, her arms crossed over her chest as she tried to read your expression. “I guess I’m part of the long story.”

“Don’t be modest now.” He smirked. “I wouldn’t have made it off of the Green without her.” If it wasn’t for her, he would still have an arm, Cee thought. You smiled at her brighter than anyone had ever smiled at her before.

“Thank you.”

Cee felt an odd, warm feeling in her chest and Ezra could have sworn he saw a small smile grace her lips. He cleared his throat and turned back to you.

“Now, I know it’s quite a lot to ask, but I was hoping that I may take residence here again. And Cee would be with us too, if that’s alright.” They had talked about her staying with him on the journey here. Seeing as she didn’t really have many options, she said if they could make it without killing each other that she would give it a chance. You shook your head with a laugh, running your hands through his hair, curling that blonde streak around your finger.

“This is your home, Ezra. Always and forever.” You pressed a gentler kiss to his lips before looking at Cee. “And please stay. This apartment is small, but I’d be more than willing to make room for you.”

“That would be very nice.” Cee said as politely as she knew how. She wasn’t used to people being so kind to her. Hell, she wasn’t sure how someone like you could put up with Ezra, but she was glad that you did. You put a hand on her shoulder and ushered them both into the kitchen.

“Come on, I’ll fix us some dinner.”

For the next few days, the sun shined a little brighter every morning and the stars glittered more each night. It was as if Ezra was all the light you ever needed. And Cee was wonderful. She became interested in the shop after a few visits and asked if she could help out. You were more than happy to have her join you and Ella loved her too. You started a special project while Ella showed her the ropes of the robotics business. Everything was perfect… until it wasn’t.

It wasn’t until you came home late with Cee from the shop that you realized that Ezra wasn’t the same. Sure, he was your sweet and loving Ezra with that sexy southern drawl. But he was also the Ezra that was stuck in the Green for four years, alone except for the mute creature he kept for company.

“You didn’t tell me you were going to be late.” He whispered, sitting on the couch and staring at the wall.

“Yeah, sorry, we just got caught up in some work.” You laughed, draping an arm around the younger girl’s shoulders. You put down the large case containing your work. “Cee’s got real talent.”

“I don’t like not being informed of your extended absence.” Usually his well-though wording turned you on, but when he finally turned his head to look at you, his eyes were dark. “I’ve been sitting here, worrying about you for a long while now.”

“I’m sorry, honey.” You walked towards him, a confused and nervous smile tugging at your lips, hoping to calm him down. His whole body was tense, like stuck gears about to break. “Ezra, what’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong?” He scoffed. “I have been pacing here for hours not knowing when the two of you would be coming back.” He stood up and loomed over you, his eyes glaring and his mouth in a snarl. “I’m not a patient man, Y/N. You know this. Waitin leads to worryin and you know how I get when I worry!” His voice was a booming growl now and his face was inches from yours.

It only took him a moment to come back. When the green faded in his mind, he saw only the frightened look in your eyes. He hadn’t realized that his hand was gripping your arm. You tried not to show how much his tight hold hurt. Ezra’s face immediately softened and he dropped his hand to his side.

“You can put that down little bird.” He sighed, not taking his eyes off of you. Cee put down the screwdriver she had been holding, ready to attack if he did something to you.

“Ezra…” You stepped away from him, backing towards your room.

“Sweetheart, I-”

“Maybe you should sleep out here tonight.” You said, more of a demand than a suggestion. You knew that he would never hurt you. Of course he would never hurt you. But Ezra was different.

His shoulders slumped a little and he looked at the floor.

“No, of course.” His defeated expression nearly broke your heart. He mustered a small smile. “My apologies, ladies. I hope you both sleep well.” As calm as he tried to appear, his heart was pounding in his ears.

Cee went into her room while you lingered in the doorway of your own, watching Ezra grab an old quilt and lie down on the couch. You just needed some time to think. You could feel his sad gaze upon you as you closed the door.

You had grown so used to the silence of an empty home that almost any noise in the night woke you up. The sound of quiet, painful groans and mutterings stirred you from your sleep. You opened your door as silently as possible, peaking out into the living room. Ezra was still asleep, but he was thrashing back and forth, his face contorted with fear.

“I have to get back…” He whispered, his voice filled with suffering. “I have to get back to her…”

“Ezra?” You said softly, walking towards him.

“No.” He winced. Whatever was haunting him was getting worse. “I have to get out. I have to get out!” His whispers had turned to terrified screams and you couldn’t bear it any longer.

“Ezra, baby, wake up.” You put a hand on his cheek, hoping that your gentle touch could soothe him, but he kept fighting. His hand clutched his chest and you saw the angry red scar.

“I’m going to die here.” He cried, his voice cracking. “I’m going to die.”

“Ezra, you aren’t there anymore. You’re safe. You’re with me.” You shook him and he shot up, breathing heavily as his eyes adjusted to the dark living room. You ran your hand up and down his back.

“I’m not there.” He said in between pants, his eyes frantically scanning the room for whatever villain plagued his dream. “I’m not there.”

“You’re home, Ezra.” You couldn’t help the tears that fell. Seeing him so afraid tore at your heart.

“Home,” He slowly turned his body around so that he was facing you. A small, crooked smile formed on his lips. “That’s right. Home.” You pulled him to you, resting his head on your chest as you ran your fingers through his hair.

“What happened to you out there?” You whispered, more of a sad statement than a question. You wished that you could soothe every bad memory from his mind, but you knew that you couldn’t erase the past four years. He held onto you as tightly as he could and you were reminded of what you and Cee had been working on for the past few days.

You stood up slowly, grabbing his hand.

“I have something for you.” You guided him to the case that you had set on the kitchen counter and you unlocked the mechanisms. Inside, was a long, robotic arm. “I don’t know if it’s something that you want. I don’t want to pressure you or anything, I just thought it would be nice to give you something. It was actually Cee’s idea.”

Ezra examined the device with a look of awe. You lifted it out of the case and showed him how it worked.

“You wouldn’t even need an operation. You just strap it on and this,” You held up a small neurotransmitter that would adhere to the back of his neck, “Would be able to transmit your brainwaves to the device, making it function like a regular limb.”

He didn’t know what to say. He knew that you were brilliant at what you did, but this was beyond what he could have imagined. All he could do was smile and you bit your lip nervously.

“Do you want to try it?”

He nodded and sat down, allowing you to work. You fastened the straps so that it rested comfortably against his side. Then you put on the transmitter. Looking to him for permission and receiving it, you finished prepping the device.

“Is it… working?” He asked, raising a brow. You sucked in a breath.

“You tell me.” You started to walk, but your foot caught on the leg of the chair. Before you could fall, you felt his hand grab your arm. His right hand.

“Incredible.” He gasped, tears springing to his eyes. He didn’t fight them. Instead, he let you kiss them off of his cheeks, leading him back into the living room.

“Do you like it?”

“Do I like it?” He lifted you up into the air, twirling you around and looking at you like you were the sun. He set you down again and crossed the room to the small music-device in the corner. “Well, my dove, it’ll make it a whole lot easier to do this.” He pressed a few buttons and that familiar guitar intro. As the song began to play, he walked back towards you, his movements steady and invited.

The world was on fire and no one could save me but you

“Our song.” You grinned. It was the song that had played when you met. He had played it when you moved in together. And now it played when you found each other again. He took you into his arms, the cool metal of the robotic arm pressing against your skin. You didn’t mind. It felt nice in contrast to the hot air around you.

The two of you began to sway, dancing slowly in the warmth of each other’s embrace. You were sure that you had died and this is what your heaven was. Ezra forever, his lips never leaving your own.

“What a wicked thing to do.” He whispered in your ear along with the lyrics. His lips grazed your ear. “To make me dream of you.” You brought his face to yours for a deep and passionate kiss, stilling dancing in the middle of the living room.

Cee smiled slightly as she peaked from her room. She had forgotten what it was like to see two people love each other, if she even knew to begin with. She quietly closed her door again and went back to bed, leaving the two of you to enjoy your moment.

In the following weeks, the three of you decided to move off of that lump of rock and search for a better place. But you knew that it didn’t really matter. Wherever you ended up, as long as you were with Ezra, and now Cee, you knew that you would be home.

@rae-gar-targaryen; @jnniferjreau; @ladamari68; @libellule2001; @c-ly-g; @themandjalorian; @pascalisthepunkest

#ezra is my love #ezra #prospect #ezra x reader #pedro pascal x reader #pedro pascal imagines #i love his man so much guys

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ladydorian · 4 years

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tag game ★~(•◡•✿) 50 questions you’ve never been asked before

THIS LOOKS SO MUCH FUN thank you @ithinkwehitametaphor

what colour is your hair brush?

I had a green and white one for years but it just broke so I’m using my backup mini black one that I keep in my purse until I can get another.

Are you typically too warm or too cold?

I’m usually cold except for in the summer.

what were you doing 45 minutes ago?

Proofreading IFUs while blasting music to drown out the sound of my neighbor blasting music.

what is your favorite candy bar?

Oooh Japanese Kit Kats. I’ve got some matcha ones in the cabinet right now, but the apple pie ones were also really good.

have you ever been to a professional sports event?

Mostly baseball and hockey when I was younger. Nothing recently, I’m not terribly interested in sports.

what is the last thing you said out loud?

“Saigo ni nan to itte ita kke anata wa nan to itte ita kke...” (I was not even paying attention while writing this but “Kekka-ron” by SUPER BEAVER came on and I automatically started singing the opening lines)

what is your favorite ice cream?

So I really can’t eat dairy (even tho I do sometimes), but there’s this brand of coconut milk ice cream called Luna & Larry, and their cherry amaretto is the besssssst.

what was the last thing you had to drink?

Drinking coffee right now.

do you like your wallet?

It’s cute, it’s pink and black and has cats on it, and I bought it from an anime con a couple years ago.

what was the last thing you ate?

Chocolate almond milk pudding for breakfast.

did you buy any new clothes last weekend?

No but I bought these awesome Shintaro Kago enamel pins for when I finally get off my ass and redo my itabag (link contains kittens exploding from cute girls’ faces, and there is a bit of blood - also the site is very NSFW).

the last sporting event you watched?

We watched some marble racing after seeing John Oliver talk about it.

what is your favorite flavor of popcorn?

Caramel I guess. Not a huge popcorn eater.

who is the last person you sent a text message to?

I texted my brother Mark about Rakuten Global Market closing. Though I’ve only bought maybe one j-rock CD off of there once. I usually just go to cdjapan.

ever go camping?

A few times. I’m really scared of bugs and spiders, so it’s not something I do often. But I’ve had the fun experience of getting up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night and seeing a snake slither right past the building.

do you go to church every Sunday?

I haven’t been in a church since I was in high school (except for funerals) and I’d like to keep it that way.

do you have a tan?

I don’t tan, I burn. I got my dad’s Italian hair and my mom’s Irish skin.

do you prefer Chinese food or pizza?

Oooh, Chinese food. Especially crab rangoon if they’re homemade.

do you drink your soda with a straw?

I slam that shit straight outta the can.

what color socks do you usually wear?

If I had a choice, I would never wear socks. But when I do wear them, they’re usually novelty socks with, like, tacos and poptarts all over them.

do you ever drive above the speed limit?

When my stepdad taught me how to drive, he said “always go 10 miles over the speed limit, because that’s what everyone else is doing and they’ll run you off the road otherwise.” I’ve only gotten caught about 3 or 4 times.

what terrifies you?

Talking to people. Being judged. Failure. All my friends abandoning me. Being alone.

look to your left, what do you see?

My ONE OK ROCK tote bag with an Arches cold press watercolor pad sticking out of it. I need to paint larger pictures more. That’s good quality just sitting around going to waste.

what chore do you hate?

Emptying the dishwasher when it’s cleaned.

what do you think of when you hear an Australian accent?

That episode of the Simpsons when they went to Australia because Bart got in trouble, and Marge went to the bar asking for a tea and the guy just kept saying “Beer?” -- “No, TEA.” “BEER?”

what’s your favorite soda?

La Croix, though it’s technically sparkling water.

do you go in a fast food place or just hit the drive-thrus?

I usually just get takeout, I haven’t been in a typical fast food place or a drive-thru in years (unless you count the Korean chicken wing place, I guess that’s kind of like fast food. But I don’t go to McD’s or anything.).

who’s the last person you talked to?

I told Greg I was going to throw some laundry in but he already did it.

favorite cut of beef?

Not really a steak person but I’ll eat a burger all day long.

last song you listened to?

[Alexandros] - “Philosophy” (it’s gotten me thru some tough shit a couple months ago)

last book you read?

I read @ithinkwehitametaphor‘s Narcos fanfiction and @mouthface‘s Brommet wip. I’m a straight-up fanfic person these days.

favorite day of the week?

Probably Saturday, but Friday is a close second.

can you say the alphabet backwards?

Oh god no.

how do you like your coffee?

1/2 - 1 teaspoon of sugar. No cream.

favorite pair of shoes?

I got an old pair of Chinese Laundry black boots with studs in the heels that I wish I had bought 2 pairs of before they were discontinued.

the time you normally go to sleep?

During the week, about 10:30PM - 11:30 (it’s a little later now that I’m working from home). Weekends are usually between 1AM-2 (look, I’m old OK).

the time you normally get up?

8:30AM or so (working from home), and between 9AM-10 on weekends.

what do you prefer, sunrise or sunsets?

I have maybe been awake for 2-3 sunrises in my life, so sunsets it is.

how many blankets on your bed?

Just one.

Describe your kitchen plates.

I have a couple plain blue ones and then some white with black trim. I think they were all housewarming gifts from my grandma from about 10 years ago.

do you have a favorite alcoholic beverage?

Vodka and beer.

do you play cards?

I used to on occasion, but I don’t have friends who live around me, so I don’t really have anyone to play with.

what color is your car?

Red with the coolest bumper stickers ever.

can you change a tire?

If I need to, I guess.

favorite job you’ve ever had?

I don’t think I’ve ever had a job I liked.

how did you get your biggest scar?

I fell off a bike at Soulcycle a couple years ago and punched a quarter-sized hole in my right thigh. Rode thru the entire 45-minute class, drove home, made dinner, and about 2 hours later finally asked Greg to take a look at it. I thought it was just a scrape, but he told me we were going to the hospital immediately as fat tissue was leaking out of it. I ended up getting 10 stitches and was called “one badass bitch” for my ridiculous pain tolerance.

what did you do today that made someone else happy?

Idk, I like to think I’m a good listener if anyone wants/needs to talk.

I’m always terrified of bothering people, so if you want to do this, please do!

#ask meme

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obsessed-with-fictional-boys · 5 years

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5 Years Older

ENDGAME SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay so I know like no one’s gonna read this but I’m gonna post it anyway.

Imagine: Reuniting with Peter after the snap

Word Count: 1403

This isn’t a request I just saw Endgame today and had random inspiration!!

(Also be warned it really hasn’t been edited)

It was supposed to be a normal day. Or, what you would call normal in today’s world. With half of the universe gone, including my widowed mother, all I did was try to survive. At 7:30 in the morning, I woke up and rode my bicycle to the nearest corner store. I dropped what was left of my mom’s savings onto the counter and bought a box of cereal, which would last me at most a few weeks, peanut butter, and a loaf of bread, which would last me a week if I only ate half-sandwiches every day. Tomorrow I’d have to go through my mom’s things for money.

Riding back home, I opened the old screen door and plopped down on the couch. With the power gone out cause I couldn’t pay the bills, I flicked through some old comic books, slowly eating a peanut butter sandwich, desperately trying to make it last longer. I couldn’t bear to get up and go through my mom’s things to see what I could sell. It was just too painful.

Right after my mom died, I immediately started researching--after I stopped crying. And the Avengers--well, the ones that were still alive--had posted something about how this Titan, Thanos, had collected things called infinity stones and wiped out half the population of the universe. I didn’t want to believe it, but since I live in a world where aliens pour through a wormhole in space and gamma rays can turn you green and angry, I didn’t think they’d made it up. And I wanted to go up and punch Thanos right across his purple, grape-looking, potato-chip looking chin.

I visited the memorial of all the Vanished and cried when I saw the name of my best friend, Peter Parker, among them. I knew he was Spider-man, but I didn’t exactly realize how dangerous the job actually was until this. Until Thanos.

5 whole years I’d spent like this, doing nothing with my life other than eating and sitting. Occasionally I’d bike around the block, but even then I was surviving off so little food I couldn’t keep it up for long. I was trying to make my money last. I’d lasted maybe a year and a half off the money I’d made during my night-time job. But with the owner of the restaurant vanished, and with almost everyone in Lily Dale, New York dusted, there wasn’t much I could do to get money. Once I tried to visit another restaurant, but the owner had thrown me out after a day because I ‘didn’t look cleanly enough.’ And perhaps the fact that I accidentally spilled a whole gallon of tea because a customer tripped me set the owner off.

Later that day, a little after noon while I was playing solitaire, I heard a loud thump upstairs in my mom’s bedroom. I froze, listening, my heart pounding like a drum in my chest. I crept quietly towards the kitchen and grabbed my dad’s old shotgun. It wasn’t loaded, but the intruder didn’t need to know yet. I cautiously crept up the stairs, my footsteps light and calculating, as not to make the floor creak. I burst into the room, screaming, “Hands up!” while aiming the shotgun straight at the intruder’s chest. Except the intruder was my-

“Mom?!” The shotgun clattered to my side, forgotten.

“Sweetheart!” My mom breathed, rushing to me and hugging me. I started crying right then and there. I sobbed into her shoulder, but then she pulled away from me and looked at me.

“You’ve grown!” She said, her eyes glistening with tears.

“And you haven’t aged a day,” I say, wiping my tears on my sleeve.

Wait. If mom’s back...wouldn’t that mean Peter would be too?

My mom ushered me downstairs, and we had dinner (which was cereal and sandwiches) and talked about everything that had happened over the past 5 years.

“So school just...stopped?” My mom questioned, shoving the rest of her sandwich in her mouth.

“Yeah. So many people got dusted that the school just stopped running.”

We kept talking, but even through all that Peter was still on my mind. I was worried about him.

That night, while my mom was at the store, I heard a knock at the door. I grabbed the shotgun again, but this time I just walked straight up to the door. I threw it open and saw Peter. His eyes were red and puffy, but he looked alive and well. I stepped out onto the front porch, setting the shotgun down on the interior of the doorway. I circled around him, inspecting him for any signs of battle. He watched me cautiously, and I could see the gears turning in his brain as he tried to calculate my reaction.

I stopped circling and stood directly in front of him.

“You haven’t changed one bit,” I said, smiling at him. He exhaled in relief, leaning in to hug me. I accepted it, but my heart was still beating inside my chest rapidly. Even after 5 years, he still was able to make my heart go crazy.

“And you changed completely.”

“I missed you,” he mumbled into my shoulder.

“I missed you too.”

We stayed like that for a minute, but I realized that we were just standing out on the front porch, so I ushered him inside and sat him down on our couch.

“Sorry that everything’s a little messy, I’ve been living by myself for 5 years.”

He gaped at me, “Five years! You’re five years older than me! You’ve been living alone!” He started to ramble more stuff, but I shoved a bowl of cereal in his face.

“I’m fine. Money didn’t run out.” I paused, then rubbed my face. “Okay, maybe that’s a lie, and maybe I had to go hungry a few days. But that doesn’t matter, what matters is that you’re here, alive and breathing.” He kind of stared at me, probably being the worrywart he is. He looked me up and down once, and I shifted uncomfortably under his gaze.

“Come home with me.” He said bluntly.

I gaped at him. “Uh, what?”

“Come home with me. You haven’t been eating enough, and surviving off cereal and peanut butter is really bad.” He said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Plus, Aunt May makes really good lasagna.”

I paused, then said, “Alright.”

“Wait, really? I thought you would’ve put up more of a fight.”

“Wow, nice to know you think so highly of me.” I crossed the room, grabbing a blank piece of paper and pencil to scribble out a quick note to my mom. I shrugged into my coat and motioned for him to go out the door.

“Lead the way, Spider-boy.”

As Peter walked me home from his house, we bumped shoulders and talked about everything and anything. Mostly it was me updating him about all that had happened lately. Eventually, his hand just sorta slipped into mine, but I didn’t choose to mention it.

Until I did.

“What’s this?” I said, motioning to our intertwined hands. Peter looked at me sheepishly, and let go of my hand quickly. I grabbed his hand again and said, “I never said I didn’t like it. I was just wondering why you did it.”

He sent a heart-stopping grin my way. “I spent 5 years in the soul stone. I guess I just felt spontaneous.”

We arrived at my house, and I stepped on the front step of the porch and turned to face Peter.

“Maybe I’ll be spontaneous too,” I said, bending down to press a quick kiss to his cheek. I leaned back up and turned to go but Peter caught my arm.

“You missed.”

“I-what?” I laughed, turning back to him.

“You missed,” he said, shrugging.

I giggled and pressed a kiss to his lips. My face turned ruby red and I rushed up the stairs and inside. In the doorway, I turned slightly and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Pete.”

He grinned, and I closed the door. I quickly rushed to the window and pulled back the curtains and saw him smile and brush his fingers across his lips. He looked my way, and I blushed again but blew him a kiss. He smiled a real and genuine smile, and I couldn’t help but sigh wonderfully.

I was in love with a superhero.

So this is the first one-shot/imagine I’ve done on this website, so tell me what you think!! Also send in requests please I have no inspiration (only random moments)

#peter parker x reader #peter parker fluff #peter parker angst #endgame #avengers endgame #avengers fanfiction #peter parker imagines #endgame spoilers

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romancandlemagazine · 5 years

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An Interview with Wig Worland

If you walked into a WHSmiths during the 1990s, then chances are that you will have seen the high-calibre work of Wig Worland.

As a photographer at seminal skateboard magazines like R.A.D. and Sidewalk, his sharp eye helped capture a relatable world of British skating, a million miles away from sun-drenched California schoolyards.

First question - when did you start taking photos? Was there something that set you off with it?

I started in school when one of the better teachers realised I wasn't going anywhere academically and lent me her camera. I don't think there was anything else I could have done to be honest. I started to assist photographers straight out of school.

How did you end up doing skate photography? What was the camera set-up back then?

I grew up near an adventure playground. One day in the early ‘80s a quarter pipe with 'Skatopia' written on it appeared there. We would ride our BMX bikes on it. A few weeks later a guy called Wurzel appeared - he literally dropped over the fence.

All of us, including Wurzel, rode bikes for a bit but as the world transformed around us we all got into skateboarding. One of my best friends at the time was London street skating legend Phil Chapman. He let me take pictures of him and I got better at it.

It’s funny how when you're young it just doesn't occur to you that those are the formative years, even though that’s what every older person is saying to you at the time.

My first camera was a Canon FTB with a 24mm lens - I couldn't afford a fisheye lens. I then wasted more time and energy on a 17mm lens. It was really terrible, but I did get my first picture published in RAD using it.

What was that?

A guy called Doc with a chuck on handrail at the bus station in Milton Keynes in an article in R.A.D. in 1990. In the same article came my second and third published picture. It was such a pivotal moment in my life but just like buses, three came along at once.

Do you remember the first photo you took where you thought, “I’m getting quite good at this”?

Not any single shot, but I think when I got to shoot Manzoori or Channer or Wainwright, I was beginning to shoot people who were making great pictures all the time. The trips back and forth to the lab became less fuelled with anxiety and worry about what I was doing.

So something must have been going right, maybe I knew enough about the dark art of shooting on slide film that I could relax into it. A bit anyway.

The late 80s and early 90s are quite a while ago now. What are some things people forgot about that time?

There was no Instagram! There wasn't anywhere other than the monthly magazines (and of course books) to get any information about anything. It really is odd to say it now because we are all so used to finding anything out that we want to know immediately.

My sister has a theory that technology is making us all more stupid. We simply don't have to retain any information anymore. To get from place to place you don't even need a sense of direction, just flick on 'Waze' or whatever and it tells you where to go.

How weird was it to be a skater or a rider in the late 80s? Obviously now skating is going through another 'cool wave', but how much stick did you get back then for it?

We got so much hassle from everybody at the time. It’s ridiculous when you think about how 'cool' it all is now. We didn’t care at all though. We knew what we were doing was way more important than simply school or fashion or T.V. or whatever else our other friends or peers were into. We were involved in making something happen.

R.A.D. was split fairly evenly between skating and riding. Was there much of a divide at the time? And what were your opinions on the other avenues of raditude?

I'll fully admit it; I went from BMX to skateboard. I was probably a little too young to catch the first wave of skateboarding in the UK. I was six or seven and my mum wouldn't let me have a board, though my best mate at the time had much older brothers so I can claim to have ridden a Logan Earth Ski in the 70s.

By the time BMX hit I was a little more in control of my life. I saved up my lunch money for an entire year so I could buy a Kuwahara ET. My friends and I had so much fun knocking about on those bikes in the 80s — it was amazing. Before I knew it I'd given up BMX 'racing’ and was getting more serious about BMX 'freestyle' (which really is an oxymoron when you stop to think about it).

Within a year or two I had switched to a GT Performer and I was entering freestyle 'contests' and wearing ever more dodgy clothing. Obviously we didn't know it at the time but they really were the formative years of my life.

A good friend from that time, Lee Reynolds moved to California and went on to become a very successful freestyle pro rider with Haro. Back then we all hung out at Mons ramp like one big happy family, and that’s where I started to meet more people.

As BMX started to die, I just moved my attention to skateboarding. There was just so much to get into. You can do way more stuff with a skateboard than a bike! Sorry to the entire BMX community.

What were you looking at for inspiration back then? Even your early photos had a definite style.

I was looking at BMX Action and BMX Plus from America that would appear periodically in the newsagents near my school. Then Freestylin' and Transworld, and Thrasher when I could find it. Back then Thrasher wasn't quite so appealing — it was half a music magazine with really cheap paper, and was scrappy compared to glossier titles of the day. It’s amazing how Thrasher has outlasted them all.

I loved Spike and Windy, and, obviously J Grant Britain, but I also really love TLB's pictures. He really was an amazing complete photographer - properly trained and much better than me. Now I have had a chance to see the stuff in the RAD archive, I can't begin to say how amazing it is. It might not have looked all that good in the mag but that was because of the awful print quality. When the book comes out you’ll see what I mean.

R.A.D. faded into the shortly-lived Phat in the early 90s. How did Sidewalk come about?

Andy Horsely and I were doing a magazine called The System during the last days of TLB R.A.D. When R.A.D. was sold to yet another publisher that was out of town, Tim didn’t want to leave London. He thought it was a dead end. By a series of strange occurrences Andy Horsely and I managed to get ourselves in the door at R.A.D. There’s a bit more to this story, but the full version will be in the book hopefully.

Whereas early skate magazines had their fair share of day-glo high-top fashions and boned-out, high-zoot grabs, Sidewalk had a much more British look. Was this intentional? Or was this just a reflection of the times?

It was absolutely intentional. We wanted it to look like a British skate magazine, and perhaps naively, we wanted it to feature all British people, in Britain. The US skate magazine culture was, and still is, so dominant, but we wanted to showcase the UK.

At the time the world was beginning to see Rowley, Penny and Wainwright but we knew there was so much more. Making an all-British magazine was way more difficult than any of us imagined and I'm not sure how sustainable that idea was (and still is). We tried our very best given the resources we had.

Was there things you wouldn't photograph - maybe dodgy outfits or questionable moves?

We had an unspoken ban on the Benihana at Sidewalk. Ha! I wonder if anyone else would admit to that. Everything else was totally fine. We even put Dan Cates in the mag with all his craziness for heaven’s sake!

The mid-90s seemed like the real glory days of magazines. They were thick, they came out once a month, they had all sorts of mad stuff in them… and they could all be bought from WHSmiths for a few quid. Why do you reckon there were so many good mags around at this time?

It was really the only way to communicate before the internet really took a grip. Nowadays, you put your tricks up on Instagram and let the world judge you. Back then, we shot the photo, we took it to the lab, and then it was sent off to be printed in cyan, magenta, yellow and black on paper.

After a lot of fuss and bother, the magazine hit the shelves and the rest of the world could see the moments that I had had all to myself. It really was an incredible moment. I'm not sure I'd go back to it though! It was pretty insular and created some difficult politics. It's probably a bit more democratic now. If you don't like what somebody is doing, you 'unfollow' them and that's that.

What was a typical day like back in the early Sidewalk days? Was there a typical day?

Probably wake up late and head to the office via the lab, to pick up the film from the previous day. Maybe pet the dog when I got there for a bit. Horse would invariably arrive later than me and we'd get lunch. After looking through some pictures on the light table I'd head out to shoot skaters in various parts of the country.

One day I'd be in Hull, the next in Birmingham and the next in London. It was a pretty insane schedule to be honest.

I’ve said this before in other interviews but I’ll say it again, I hated driving up and down the motorway system in the UK, but I loved the people I met along the way. I really don’t think there was anyone that I didn’t like — it was incredible. A good example of this is driving to Hull, which is a really long way from anywhere. But when I got there, there was Eggy and Banksy and Scott. Amazing people.

This might be a bit of a camera tech guy question… but imagine I’m stood at the top of that flatbank hip at Radlands and a young Tom Penny is cruising towards me… how do I capture the action? Should I pan? Is my flash mounted on the top of my camera… or on a cable… or on a stand? What film should I use?

If you're at a comp it's best that your flash is mounted on your camera, because if you’re trying to be clever like I was in the 90s trying to use an off-camera flash on a lead (Windy Osborn/Spike Jonze style) you're going to miss a lot of shots. Yes, always pan with the subject if you can, it's just better and I'd use whatever film you can afford. It’s really expensive and you only have 36 to 39 shots depending on how clever, or stupid, your camera is.

If it’s not contest day then spend a little longer on your lighting. But not so long that you forget to shoot the scene, the look of the place and the informal portraits of the skaters. You’ll regret that later on if you don’t shoot that stuff. Ahem…

Sidewalk did a very good job of making some fairly drab looking spots pretty good. That photo of a lad named Cookie gapping from a Carpet Right car park in the rain comes to mind… something like that could easily look pretty depressing in lesser hands. What were your tricks for making these fairly everyday places look decent?

Bring your own sun — a portable flash. Oh, and a little jiggery pokery with the slide film we were using as well. Also, know what you’re doing, and how the film is going to react to the light. Photography is all about various kinds of lies to create the shot you want.

I’m glad you remembered that Cookie shot because it is pretty special. He was such an amazing, positive person. Never mind my photograph, but how did a person stay positive when you had such terrible conditions to skate in! It’s not exactly California.

Pretty much sums up how we should all approach life, the Cookie story...

I don’t know if I’m looking into this too much, but a lot of the Sidewalk stuff celebrated British culture rather than disguise it. I’m not sure where I’m going with this question, but do you think it’s important that people embrace their situation, rather than endlessly dream of California?

My entire life’s philosophy is to draw out what you can from the place where you are, rather than dreaming that somewhere else has the answer. This ridiculous dreaming is the reason that the air is so polluted these days with people crossing the world on long haul flights to wherever and with people driving from perfectly fine A, to almost certainly nearly the same B.

Of course all this is fine for me to say, I don’t have a car but I live in London where there is a brilliantly sophisticated Public transport system. I grew up in Milton Keynes so it wasn’t a shock to get to California and see the state they’re in, but I truly believe the car has ruined a lot. Not least for our children who can no longer play in the streets primarily because of the number of vehicles on the road. Rant over.

Haha fair enough. What were some of the hassles of making a magazine back then? Any camera mishaps or blatant errors come to mind?

Radio slaves were terrible but they still are. That’s the nature of radio waves in a very wet country. There was some dodgy kit but you could usually spot it pretty quickly and pass it on. I did have all my cameras stolen from the boot of my car once which did feel like the end of the world at the time. Grant Brittain very kindly sent me one of his old cameras and a fish eye to start me off again and Pete Hellicar rang round all the big names in the industry in the UK asking for donations to get me started again. Really kind, amazing people.

The problems were always with the printers or repro people. Handing over your precious photographs and layouts to people who aren’t as invested in the project shall we say. Having said that, there weren’t that many problems, only ever issues that the editor or I would notice.

I’d say skate photography fits under the documentary category, but how far would you go to get a better photo? I know moving the occasional rucksack out of shot is fairly commonplace, but I’ve heard stories of photographers carrying around brighter clothes for people to wear so they stand out more.

There are a few skaters who would bring their own brighter clothes for the shoot. Have a look through my shots and see if you can guess who they are for a fun game. I think this is brilliant.

I don't think that skateboard photography is documentary at all. It’s a collaboration between the skateboarder and the photographer to produce the best image they possibly can.

What about the days when nothing happened? Surely there must have been a few afternoons when no one was feeling it, or did the fact you had a big camera bag egg people on a bit? It rains a lot in Britain, I'm sure you've noticed. On those days, if you were lucky, we'd sit about in the local Skateshop. If we were less lucky we'd get caught at the local indoor skate park and wait for the rain to stop. I remember thinking then that I would never get that time back, now of course if I had that time back I would do just the same thing. Amazing days. I'm sure people did feel motivated by having a magazine photographer in town to shoot pictures of them yes, but that just makes me wonder what it's like now? You can literally shoot a picture whenever you like and upload it anywhere.

Do you think these advances in technology have improved skate photography or not?

I would have killed for a digital camera back when I was shooting skateboarding every day. I’d not only have been able to see what I had in terms of stills, but shooting sequences would have had a lot less pressure involved as well. A couple of people have said that seeing the used rolls of bails lining up on the stairs or pavement beside me gave them extra incentive to land the trick, but it made for some pretty heated sessions.

The Chris Oliver kickflip off a bus stop into bank with another drop springs to mind. Fair play to the ginger genius though, he bloody landed it, and he can say he did it on film as well. So, so sick.

Did you enjoy doing sequence shots or was it just a case of documenting the new tech?

I wasn't really interested in shooting sequences to be honest, I always thought that was the job of the video camera. In some ways I wish I stuck with that attitude and concentrated on the style of the skater rather than the high tech that they could put down. I think that would have made for a more interesting back catalogue.

This is maybe another fairly camera-orientated question, but I’m interested, so the casual readers will have to suffer… you were maybe one of the first skate photographers to push the studio-lighting style out into the real world. What led to this development?

Ollie Barton thinks I was the first to do the studio on the street thing. I guess other people had tried using flash slaves off camera before, but I made it my own. I was the first out there with portable studio flash which had more spread of light than the dedicated flashes made by camera manufactures. I'm sure I was responsible for keeping the Lumedyne brand going for a while. Lumedyne really are the most terrible looking lights that have ever come to market, made from bits bought from Maplin or Radio Shack, but they worked quite well and everybody had them in the early 2000s.

Did setting up multiple flashes in ropey areas ever become a problem?

It's funny you know, I never felt odd about setting up lighting anywhere. If you’re prepared to pop a light out on a dodgy estate then you’re serious about getting something done. I think most people whoever they are respect that, some are even interested in it.

There were a few hairy moments — like a car taking out a light in downtown Stockport while shooting late at night. But the light was in the middle of the street, so that one was on me. Nobody ever picked one up and legged it. Not once, but as I said they don't look expensive so maybe that was enough.

Maybe a bit of an obvious question, but do you have a favourite photograph you’ve taken? And are there any photos which you wish you took?

As I rather flippantly alluded to earlier, I don’t feel I shot anywhere near enough incidental stuff. I was too interested in making the lighting right to capture the trick perfectly. If I could go back I’d have a point and shoot with me at all times and I’d use it constantly.

I don’t have a favourite photograph. There are just too many, of so many amazing friends and brilliant talented people. I couldn’t pick one above all others.

Today it’s easier than ever to take a photograph. Is this good or bad? Has the advent of phone-based camera gadgetry devalued the art (or at least the science) of photography?

No, it hasn't devalued it. Because more people have cameras, more people are interested in photography. If you want to lug around a huge old school view camera to shoot pictures then there are sub-genres of sub-cultures that can more easily facilitate that stuff nowadays. Of course more people think they can do it, but it's still the case that only some people do it well.

Have you got any wise-words you’d like to add?

No, just enjoy life as best you can. We’re not all going to be famous or millionaires, so don’t believe anyone when they tell you to follow your dreams — real life might conspire to not let you get there. Life just happens to most people.

#Interviews #photography #sidewalk #wig worland #skateboarding #skate

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blogs-from-europe · 5 years

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Paris

We did not intend to come to Paris. We had planned ot head to Venice, but the coronavirus outbreak in northern Italy was kicking off and it seemed stupid to charge into the middle of it. Instead, we re-routed to Paris with no real plans for what we were going to do for the next month.

We took the Eurostar high speed train from London to Paris: there was wifi, cushy chairs, and some catered snacks we purchased from Marks & Spencers. The dining in London was meh, but their store-bought snacks blow Australia out of the water. Down with the Coles / Woolworths duopoly!

We arrived into Paris around 9pm and walked from the train station to our hotel. This may displease some of the parents reading this missive, but Matt and I did not check Smart Traveller before booking to go to Paris. It turns out that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade considers France quite dangerous! The whole country has been slapped with an "Exercise a high degree of caution” warning, and this isn’t because of the coronavirus, this is down to the amount of violent crime tourists are likely to encounter (armed robberies on trains, car theft, etc.) and the riots. Oh and the likelihood of terrorist attacks. We certainly noticed in France that the cops were heavily armed: we saw a police officer cradling a machine gun during a friendly exchange with a citizen to give directions.

On our Sunday night walk from the train station to our hotel, the streets were mostly empty. We passed a number of sex shops, massage parlours with red lights, groups of men standing around apparently doing nothing, sex workers, and suspicious men selling cigarettes on street corners. We were on high alert for pick-pockets and the violent crimes which Smart Traveller had warned us about: with our enormous backpacks we were effectively wearing neon signs saying ‘We are tourists! Please rob us!’. Despite our fears we made it to the hotel safely. The hotel was a last-minute booking as part of our rescheduling to avoid Italy so we didn’t have many options when booking online: I think it would be safe to say that our hotel was one of the worst in Paris. We were given tokens to access the shared shower down the hallway from our room: for our three night stay we were given four tokens, effectively rationing our showers for the stay. (Again, parents reading this may be troubled to learn that we only ended up using three of the four tokens – the person who only showered once has a name beginning with ‘M’ and ending with ‘atthew’.)

Another charming feature of the hotel was the low ceilings, roughly only two meters in height:

For our first day in Paris, it rained all day.

To stay out of the rain, we picked a couple of indoor activities: a visit to the Musee de Cluny (famous for its Lady and Unicorn tapestries and various other medieval art) and a visit to the Pantheon. After paying to get in, we realised that the Lady and Unicorn tapestries section of the museum was closed. Disappointingly, a promising section of the museum called ‘Treasures’ was also closed – I must confess, Matt and I did inadvertently go into the Treasures section and stole a fleeting glance at a magnificent tapestry before a strict Frenchman told us (in French so this may not be an exact translation) “Can’t you see this section of the museum is closed? No treasures for you! Get the hell out!”. Utimately we only got to see some old rocks and a bath. Overall rating for Musee de Cluny is 1/5. Matt observed that it should really be called the “Musee de Close-y”.

Next we trudged uphill through heavy rain to the Pantheon. Matt had expressed his indifference towards visiting churches, but I thought Foucault’s pendulum (housed in the church) might be of interest to him. Turns out, the Pantheon has many great qualities: it’s an amazing sandstone church built in the 1700s. During the Enlightenment, the church became a sort of secular shrine to the great figures of France including writers, politicians, scientists, etc. In addition to looking through the church (which included a huge dome, Foucault’s pendulum and some cool paintings of Joan of Arc) we got to explore the crypt which was much more pleasant and well-lit than you might expect a crypt to be.

Contrary to popular opinion, we did not find the waiters of Paris to be particularly snooty (maybe this is because we are residents of Fitzroy, which is home to many snooty waiters – mostly with fluoro hair and ripped jeans) but we did notice that they would greet us assuming we were French with a ‘Bonjour!’ or ‘Bonsoir!’ and when we would respond in attempted French they lose a little of their joie de vivre and would immediately switch to English. This was obviously intended as a kindness and did make things easier for ordering and finding a table, but meant we were robbed of the chance to practice our French. This also suggests that our pronunciation of ‘Bonjour’ is so poor that we cannot even pass for particularly uncultured or stupid Frenchmen.

To get around we tried renting electric scooters and bikes via Uber, with mixed results: there was terror, joy, and some frustration with Uber’s capricious parking rules.

For the super-interested, here are some other things we got up to in Paris:

Montmarte: We rode our electric bikes to Montmatre, an area famous for Sacre Coeur, an old church with a fantastic view, and the Moulin Rouge. The ride was mostly uphill, but on the electric bicycle was quite easy.

Wine tasting: We also did a wine tasting via Airbnb. Key takeaway: Chardonnay in France is not aged in oak barrels, meaning it doesn’t have that strong oaky taste (which I often find to be kind of cloying). Matt and I never really liked the taste of Australian chardonnay, so this was probably because of the barrel flavour. We also learned about tannins (broken down grape skins which appear in red wines) and about how rose is made (red grapes, but the skin is taken out sooner!)

Catacombs: There are old mines under Paris, which were the source of the sandstone used to build many of the city’s great buildings. These were later filled with bones after the central cemeteries were filled. We both regretted visiting the catacombs as it was very somber and confronting: millions of bones, hundreds of years old, piled on top of each other in a network of disused mines. Who enjoys this stuff?? We both felt sad and flat after the Catacombs, but then stopped for a hot chocolate and apple pastry which improved the mood. Afterwards we agreed to not visit any more mass graves.

Champs Elysées: We walked past the Louvre and gardens, Champs Elysées, Arc de Triomphe – a lovely area. We stopped for crepes and paid 1.5 euro (~$2.50 in Australian dollars) to use a public bathroom.

We also spent some time watching street hustlers. In the photo below, just below the Eiffel Tower you’ll see a ring of people in black.

We watched them for half an hour or so. They stand together all day pretending to play a three-shell game, betting 100 euro a pop. The idea with the game is that the dealer hides a ball under one cup, then quickly shuffles all three cups to ‘hide’ the ball - the person who paid to play can then pick the cup which they think holds the ball. If they are right, they get 200 euro; if they are wrong they lose the lot. We inferred the people dressed in black are working with the dealer, spending all day pretending to play. They win some, they lose some, they clap and say “bravo!”. The idea is to make it look like riotous good fun for people passing by so that they might be tempted to play. They’re essentially just shuffing money around within their group. A key part of the scam is that after each shuffle one of the group picks a cup which, if you’ve been paying attention to the shuffle, clearly does not hold the ball - the incorrect guess is jeered at by the group and then someone else guesses correctly to much cheering. This makes the game look easy, and probably fools observers into thinking they’re especially good at the shell game because they can find the ball every time. I can only assume that when someone is playing the game for real, the shuffle is much faster and tricker to follow.

After watching for a while, we saw a middle-aged tourist approach the group, watch from the side for a while, and then scurry away to pull cash out of his money belt. His friend tried to talk him out of it. He played anyway. We watched him lose. His friend walked off in disgust. He lost again. He walked off to find his friend. The shell game people packed up after that. I assume they also pick your pockets when they can.

There were a few more tourist-scams going around, but we didn’t have any trouble. We don’t know why these three golden retreivers were standing sentinel outside the subway...

... but we can only assume it was a part of some kind of elaborate hoax.

Matt and I are now in Chamonix, a ski town in the French alps. He is practicing the ukulele and I am writing this. We’re staying in an Airbnb - our hosts are have at least three cats (two of whom have deigned to let me pat them) and we were warned that if we hear a noise like someone tapping on the window during the night it is just the local deer inadvertently banging their horns on the window while they try to eat whatever bits of grass near the house aren’t under snow.

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kelleyish · 5 years

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I have told myself several times over the last few weeks I should make a post, but then I never did. Who knows what thoughts have now been lost to the sands of time? I bet they were super important, too.

We’re about a week and a half from Thanksgiving. Last weekend I took a trip to Memphis to see Chip’s/my friends. I mean, they genuinely are my friends, but I feel obligated to say they were Chip’s friends first. I don’t want to name check them on here, so we’ll just call them B and K. B was already Chip’s friend when I met him, and K he met through bike riding a couple years after that. But I’ve known them both for over two decades at this point.

They’re both super sweet guys, both married and have a kid each. B’s daughter asked me while I was there how I knew her dad. I explained that her dad had been friends with my husband, and that even though my husband had passed away, her dad still wanted to be friends with me because he’s awesome.

I wasn’t very successful in making any lifelong friends of my own, but luckily Chip was. I see these guys usually once a year or so, and we communicate by text very occasionally, and yet they’re the kind of friends where it doesn’t matter how often you see them, as soon as you meet up it’s like no time has passed.

Both guys are still big bike riders, so I took my bike with me and one morning we rode from midtown Memphis through downtown and across the Mississippi River into Arkansas. I got to wear my cold-weather bike leggings for the first time ever, because they were too small when I bought them.

They both noticed and were impressed by my weight loss, which is nice. They saw me near my highest weight last fall, so being 80 lbs down made for a nice noticeable difference.

I wish I had good news on the weight loss front but unfortunately I’ve been off the wagon since before the trip. As always happens I put on a bunch of water weight when I went back to eating carbs and the scale has been inching up near 300 again the last couple days. I told myself today was the day I got back on, but then I didn’t. Perhaps tomorrow.

What else? I’ve been struggling to do anything of importance since I got back, really. I haven’t done any transcription (and in the last week they’ve changed up the pay scale on jobs which is probably going to negatively impact my earnings). I’ve also tried to work on my business stuff but haven’t gotten terribly far.

What I have been doing is cracking open a ton of pecans. We collected over 10 lbs of pecans from the tree in my parents’ front yard over the course of a month, and now after letting them dry a couple weeks I’ve started shelling them. It’s a very slow process and the nut cracking device makes your hand hurt. I’m going to try to make some keto glazed pecans tomorrow, though.

Disney Plus came out and I shared my login with my family. Several months ago I took advantage of a deal where if you prepaid for three years of service it only cost $4 a month, so I did that. My sister shares her Hulu and HBO with me, so I told her I’d get Disney and return the favor. And since you can have up to 4 streams going at once I just shared it with the whole fam.

So far all I’ve watched is Endgame (which I hadn’t seen since the theatre since I can’t download things at my house right now) and the original animated Sleeping Beauty. I used to like that movie as a kid, now i just get annoyed at how everyone, including her, acts like her being 16 makes her a grown-ass adult. Like her father and the prince’s father are sitting around talking about how they want to get them married off immediately and get started on the grandchildren. Just... yuck.

Also, the deal was she was cursed to prick her finger on a spinning wheel before the sun sets on her 16th birthday, right? So the fairies take her away and raise her in the woods, and they bring her back to the castle on her birthday, where Maleficent gets her. How about maybe you wait just like ONE MORE DAY before coming out of hiding?

Of course they’d already been found out by that time because the henchman crow sees the fairies using magic, but assuming that hadn’t happened, if the curse were going to be averted if they’d kept her successfully safe until the date had passed, why wouldn’t you just wait that extra day?

There’s a bunch of good movies out in the theatre right now, I need to go see more, but this last week I saw the new Terminator movie and Jojo Rabbit. Terminator was fine, enjoyable enough. I think Mackenzie Davis makes a good action hero, and all the comic relief stuff with Arnold was great. I also liked the guy playing the new terminator, I was familiar with him having played Ghost Rider on Agents of Shield.

Jojo Rabbit I saw last night and it was just fantastic. I’m a slut for anything Taika Watiti does in general, and this didn’t disappoint. It’s a mix of comedy and drama, similar to Hunt for the Wilderpeople. The cast was stacked with talent - the child actors are incredible, Scar Jo was great as the mom, Sam Rockwell, Theon Greyjoy, Fat Amy, Stephen Merchant as a comical but menacing Gestapo agent, and of course Taika himself as imaginary Hitler. So, so good, with a few haunting scenes that are still running through my mind today.

#my own posts

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cupidmissed-blog · 5 years

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My Story

This is my story. Now I need to preface this by saying my story takes place twenty some odd years ago. I had moved on from this story long ago and have had a great life and have a family I love very much. This is just a story of I wonder what could have been. I love my wife and am very thankful for the years we have had together. We have all had those people who came and went from our lives but never left our hearts.

So let’s travel back to 1992/1993. I was living and working in Philadelphia when an opportunity I could not pass up came my way. The only downside to it was it required me to move 2 hours away. Now I was born and raised around the Philly area and had lived there my entire life save the 4 years I went to college at the University of Delaware but honestly that’s only about 45 minutes to an hour from home. My closest friends still lived around Philly so to me Philly was always home.

So when I had to relocate I still thought of Philly was home and I was still traveling the 2 hour trip to the area on the weekends to hang out with my friends. On really nice weekends I would ride my 1998 Honda Shadow instead of driving.

On one of those nice weekends that I rode my bike to Philly one of my friends was home on leave from the Navy and wanted to get a group of us to take our bikes and hit a lot of our old hangouts. So my buddies planned a route that would take us from Philly to Delaware and into southern New Jersey. It was a great ride and the last place we hit was a club in Mt Ephraim NJ. It was a club we didn’t go to regularly but our Navy friend really wanted to stop there while most of us wanted to go to Bonnie’s in Atco which back in the day was a decent metal club. We decided since he was the one home on leave we went where he wanted to go.

So we ride to the club and where really surprised at what a good choice it was to go there, especially for Squid boy (that’s what we called him after he joined the Navy). He was doing real well with the ladies that night especially once they found out he was in the service.

So we are sitting at our tables and Squid boy is talking to a couple girls along with Bill and Steve. I was talking with Dan or maybe Tommy when she walked in. This gorgeous petite creature that just floored me. I must have been staring because one of the guys punched me in the shoulder and said I just stopped talking mid sentence. All I could do was point and say “Her”. One of the girls Squid boy was talking to overheard and turned to us and said “Oh that’s Tori she works here. Would you like me to introduce you?” All I could do was nod everybody had a good laugh at that. So once Tori came back out the girl waved her over and introduced us.

We hadn’t planned on staying at the club as long as we did but Squid boy was doing really well for himselfand we were all having a good time so we stayed. Now Tori was working but every chance she had she came over to see us we flirted a lot throughout the night and every time she came over she would put her hand on my shoulder while she talked with us.

Sadly it was finally time for us to hit the road and head back home. Saying good night to all our new friends Tori and I had talked about possibly doing something the following weekend but never really made and concrete plans. I gave her my number and told her to give me a call if she wanted to. Now remember this was before the days of internet and everybody having cellphones, and we still had to pay extra for long distance calls.

The following week I caught myself thinking about Tori and when the weekend rolled around I made my trek to Philly to find everyone was busy with other plans but Denny let me crash on his couch for the weekend, and he and I talked about heading to the shore for the day on Sunday. I thought about hitting up some other friends I had worked with before but kind of lost touch with since my move. When that didn’t pan out on a whim I called the club that Tori worked at and the guy that answered the phone said she was working later that night. So I decided to head back to Jersey and just see what came of that.

I rolled into the club around 10 or 11 and as soon as I walked in I heard someone call my name and I turned to see who it was just in time to be almost bowled over as Tori greeted me with a huge hug. I still remember the scent of her perfume. After she released me from her hug she said she was sorry for not calling she really wanted to but lost my number. Of course who hasn’t heard that one before? I played it off but she took me by the hand and led me to a table and sat down with me. She told he she honestly was hoping that I would come into the club again soon because she really lost my number but wasn’t expecting it to be so soon. She actually wasn’t supposed to be working that weekend but came in to cover for someone who called in sick. I said it must be fate then. She had to get back to work but asked me not to leave, I told her I had nowhere else to be. Every chance she had she would find me in the club and take time to talk with me. At the end of the night we made more definite plans to meet up the following weekend so we could really talk and get to know each other.

The next day when my buddy Denny and I were down at the shore he asked what I did the night before. I told him about going back to the club in Jersey and talking to Tori. He asked what it was about her because he never seen me act like this about a girl. I told him I honestly didn’t know it was just something about her that really got to me.

The next weekend rolled around and I headed to Jersey to see Tori, unfortunately it was looking to be a crappy weekend weather wise so I drove my car instead of taking my bike. I met up with Tori and we spent the evening talking and getting to know each other. God we must have talked about everything we compared tattoos, back then I only had one of a thorny rose on my upper arm. Hers was really cool it was the comedy and tragedy masks on the front of her hip. I found out her dad was teaching her to ride a motorcycle and she had gotten a Yamaha. She told me how she kept burning her calf on the tailpipe. We said once she got her license she should go on a ride with my buddies and I.

Way too early the evening came to a close and we made plans to meet again. I found my self often thinking about her wondering what she was up to, hoping she was thinking about me.

Eventually my trips to the Philly area were more to see her and less to see my friends, although I did still hang out with them they weren’t the main reason for me to make the trip. The weekdays could not go by fast enough for me, I couldn’t wait to hold her in my arms or even just talk to her. I got to know a few of the people she worked with and I struck up a sort of friendship with one of the bouncers, he was a good dude and I was glad to know someone had her back when I wasn’t around.

I never actually told her how I felt about her but I am sure it was pretty obvious. At least it was to my friends, and trust me they all let me know it was obvious.

Sadly life kinda got in the way. Slowly my job required me to work a few weekends here and there but I would still go see her when I could. Then other things stared popping up that required my attention. Eventually the trips became fewer and fewer. I lost touch with Tori and I really regret it.

A couple of years later one of my buddies was getting married so we all took home to a couple clubs around Christopher Columbus Blvd for his bachelor party. We ended the night at the Dollhouse, I mean it was a bachelor party after all. We I walked in the bouncer by the front door all decked out in his tuxedo looked at me and questioningly called me by name. It was the bouncer from Tori’s club. He greeted me very warmly and he asked me how Tori was doing. I said I was hoping he could tell me. He waved me over to the bar and walked with me. When we got there he said he heard Tori had gotten married a few months before and he had heard through the grapevine it was to someone she met at the club and just assumed it was me. God did it feel like the world dropped out from underneath me. He must have sensed it because he bought me a drink and apologized for telling me. Well that totally put a downer on the rest of my evening.

That was the last I ever heard about Tori, sadly. I have and still do find myself thinking about her, hoping her life turned out well. I also hope she might think about me once in a while and our time together, and pray she knows how I felt about her all those years ago.

#lost love #Tori #still love her #mt ephraim #do you think about me #my story

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husheduphistory · 5 years

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Queen B of Miami: The Sensational Bessie Stringfield

Since blasting into existence in the late nineteenth century, motorcycles have captured every eye they have crossed. Freedom, mystery, fun, and rebellion are all tags people often adhere to those who dare to ride these machines, but when one certain person tore through towns they also provoked feeling of shock and, unfortunately, anger. Despite this, they never stopped riding. Their name was Bessie Stringfield. She was a woman. She was black. And regardless of the dangers facing her in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, she boldly rode for herself and her country declaring “What I did was fun, and I loved it.”

Bessie Stringfield image via MotorcycleMuseum.com.

Matching the mystique of her motorcycle is Bessie’s own life story. Although some accounts claim she was born in North Carolina, several other accounts and Bessie herself state that she was born on February 11th 1911 in Kingston, Jamaica to a Dutch domestic servant named Maria Ellis and her Jamaican employer James Ferguson. Before she was five years old Bessie found herself uprooted from home when her family relocated to Boston, but the more tragic shift was to come soon after their arrival. In one version of events, both her parents died from smallpox shortly after the move. In another, her mother died of the disease and her father, unable to cope with the loss, left young Bessie abandoned on a Boston street and vanished from her life. After living in an orphanage for a few years Bessie was finally adopted by a wealthy and devout Irish Catholic woman who took the girl into her family and treated her as an absolute equal. When her sixteenth birthday was on the horizon, Bessie had a very specific request, she had been trying out their neighbor’s motorcycle and she wanted one to call her very own. Her mother told her that nice girls didn’t go around riding motorcycles but when her birthday arrived Bessie’s wish was granted and her mother presented her with a 1928 Indian Scout motorcycle.

A young Bessie on her motorcycle. Image via MotorcycleMuseum.com.

Bessie had very little experience with motorcycles but once she began riding she proved to have a natural talent, one she attributed to her strong faith and “the man upstairs”, claiming she prayed to be able to ride and she woke up possessing the skills. Once she began riding Bessie was unstoppable and after graduating high school she took off on trips all over New England, but she wanted more. She began playing a game where she would toss a penny onto a map and traveling wherever it landed carrying only her leather jacket, a money belt, and extra clothes that could be rolled up into her bike’s saddlebags. In 1930 when Bessie was nineteen years old she completed her first solo cross country trip on her bike, the first ever by a black woman, and in the coming years she made seven more cross country trips and traveled through all lower forty-eight states. In order to finance her excursions she turned to her talents and began performing riding stunts in carnivals along the way including the infamous Wall of Death, a stunt that involved a large round cage where she would ride around the inside with enough speed to be suspended sideways on the walls.

Bessie Stringfield image via MotorcycleMuseum.com.

It might sound like a dream, riding around the country on your motorcycle, performing in carnivals, and answering to no one. But the horrible fact was that every time Bessie Stringfield rode on any of the twenty-seven Harley Davidson motorcycles that she owned throughout her life she was putting herself at risk. In the 1930s and 40s many parts of the country were deeply segregated and did not look kindly at any black woman, let alone one who rode a motorcycle and did exactly as she pleased. She used The Negro Motorist Green Book to find safe places to sleep across the country and when no one gave her a bed she slept on her motorcycle in the parking lots of gas stations using her jacket as a pillow and propping her feet up on the seat. In one horrific incident Stringfield was traveling through the deep south and in Georgia she was confronted by the Ku Klux Klan but she literally left them in the dust, jumping on her bike and riding away faster than any of them could follow. She was very aware of how dangerous her riding was but she did not worry, always saying that her faith made her believe she would always be safe and taken care of.

During a ride In the 1940s Stringfield stopped inside a movie theater to rest and she saw a newsreel about women helping in the war effort. Inspired by the reel, Stringfield went on to enlist as the only woman in a black motorcycle dispatch unit of the United States army. It was not as simple as just signing up, in order to join the unit she had to pass a battery of tests including riding up sandy hills and being able to weave a bridge made of rope and tree limbs by hand. Once again Stringfield defied the naysayers, passed her tests, and ran classified documents in between domestic bases on her bike from 1941 to 1945, all with an U.S. Army emblem proudly affixed to the front of her bike. Unbelievably, she still encountered racism while making her government deliveries with one encounter resulting in her being run off of the road by a man driving a pickup truck. Nothing phased Stringfield though, she simply brushed off the incidents and continued on her way.

Bessie Stringfield image via MotorcycleMuseum.com.

By the 1950s Stringfield decided she needed some sort of home base and she settled near Miami, Florida and looked for a new direction. In her years on the road she had married and divorced six men (all but one were twenty years her junior), had three children who all died as infants, and officially adopted her third husband’s last name Stringfield at his request because he felt she made the name famous. She bought a house and initially pursued a career in cooking but she switched gears again becoming a licensed practical nurse.

A rare image of Bessie Stringfield without her bike. Image via MotorcycleMuseum.com.

She may have made some changes but she never stopped riding and defying those who tried to hold her down. After run-ins with Florida law enforcement who tried to tell her she was not allowed to ride her motorcycle she met with the chief of police personally asking him to meet her in a park so she could prove her riding ability. He agreed, and after their meeting she was never bothered by the Miami police again. Stringfield went on and founded the Iron Horse Motorcycle Club, used her house as a place for riders to socialize, led motorcycle brigades in parades and celebrations (sometimes with two of her beloved poodles riding along on her knees), rode her motorcycle to mass every Sunday, and was dubbed “The Motorcycle Queen of Miami”. Her local fame never affected her though and she remained humble, becoming friends with the families she worked with, and creating stories wherever she went. One account from the child of a family friend recalls a day when their mother was unable to pick them up from school so Stringfield picked them up and brought them back on her bike, “We found Bessie out there on her Harley and in her leather jacket…I was just a little kid so I was only wrapped around half of her..I could feel the heat from the exhaust on my leg…All the kids were going crazy”.

Later in life Stringfield continued to defy anything that tried to keep her from the road. In the 1980s her motorcycle was vandalized and she considered selling her house in order to replace it, refusing to ever own a used motorcycle. Instead, she rented or borrowed bikes when she wanted to ride. As she grew older and he health began to decline her doctors urged her to stop riding, but she refused, saying that if she stopped riding she would die so she would just never stop.

True to her word, Stringfield did not stop but her ride finally came to an end on February 16th 1993 after suffering complications from an enlarged heart. She was adamant that when she died she did not want a service, but those who knew her had other ideas and people from as far away from Texas congregated in Florida to remember the Motorcycle Queen of Miami.

When Ohio’s Motorcycle Heritage Museum opened in 1990 they included Stringfield in their opening exhibits and the honors continued after her death. In 2000 the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) created the Bessie Stringfield Award to be given annually to distinguished women bringing emerging markets to the motorcycling world. In 2002 Bessie Stringfield was inducted into the American Motorcyclist Association Hall of Fame and she continues to be honored yearly in the Bessie Stringfield’s All Female Ride, a long distance riding event including pep rallies, speaking engagements, and educational events on long distance biking in honor of the motorcycle pioneer.

In 2016 the ride ended in Stringfield’s last residence of Opa-Locka, Florida and the mayor of Miami Gardens officially proclaimed June 24th as Bessie Stringfield Day.

Bessie Stringfield image via MotorcycleMuseum.com.

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To read more about the incredible life of Bessie Stringfield please visit https://bessiestringfieldbook.com/ and keep an eye out for the exclusive authorized biography by Ann Ferrar.

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ryoflame · 5 years

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Welcome to Melburn Roobaix!

Any cyclist worth their salt knows about Paris-Roubaix, the gruelling French race known for its difficulty, danger and cobblestones. Well sometime ago (forever, if you believe them) the wonderful people at FYXO decided Melbourne, my home city, needed it’s own version of the race.

They took the seriousness down a notch, tracked a route through our fair city totalling about 50km, gave everyone scavenger hunt-style question sheets to fill out en route–and this year was the first year I gave it a go.

Loads more photos below!

I had bought a ticket to the Melburn Roobaix at the last minute; it was something I’d been trying to decide on for a while and it was only when a close friend of mine said she’d do it with me that I decided to take the plunge. Recently I’d been lucky enough to get my hands on a beautiful road bike that was absolutely worth more than what I paid for it, and I’d owned this bike for a week before deciding to put it through the gruelling 50km event.

Juicy!

The FYXO team wanted to create an event that would be a challenge, while at the same time remaining fun, tongue-in-cheek and family friendly. There was a less devastating ‘petite Roobaix’ for parents with young kids, but I was amazed to see a lot of kids 10-15 giving it a red hot try on BMX bikes or road bikes of their own. Families were out and about together and it was awesome to see.

A big part of it was the dressing up aspect, too! They encouraged costumes and crazy bikes, so we saw everything from a cardboard Pac Man being chased by an equally cardboard Ghost, to a Mad Hatter and Alice in Wonderland on a tandem bicycle with the dormouse in a basket on the back, to the full team of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

All with bike helmets, of course. Safety first!

Loads of people had poured creativity into their outfits and I felt a little under-dressed! As I’d come in so late I hadn’t planned for anything except my signature citrus-y vibe which I made sure to bring in with me. Melbourne had treated us with the perfect weather for cycling; the sun was out and the air was brisk, just perfect for getting warmed up with a nice bike ride.

There was a crazy amount of people on the starting field, more than I had expected to be there. We were soon picking up our starter kit which had our map, our question sheet and loads of fun little goodies like a sticker pack and pen, other Roobaix bits and bobs.

We headed off sometime just after 9:30am on this brisk and hectic Sunday morning.

One thing I quickly noticed; Melburn Roobaix was a fantastic way to see a city that I had lived in for years, yet somehow had never properly explored. We started off along a beautiful river trail I had always admired from a distance, winding through gorgeous forest area, that I had always thought to myself I’ll ride that bike path one day.

Even once we hit the streets we went down laneways and through areas I had never previously visited–had a reason to visit–and there was so much to see and do! So many gorgeous old buildings and great little cafes!

There were so many riders doing the Roobaix that you were really never on a stretch of road on your own, there was always a group of cyclists within eyesight somewhere, which was very useful if you lost track of where the signage was. It varied between actual signs with arrows pointing in the right direction stuck to things and stencilled arrows on the pavement, but neither were very frequent which led people to pause in their cycling trek to often check their maps, or simply to follow the cyclists who seemed to know where they were going..

If you were set on completing your scavenger hunt questionnaire you had to pay even closer attention though… where was the answer to that darn question?!

At many places there would be clusters of cyclists stopped, whether they were reassessing the route, grabbing a much-needed drink, fixing their bikes or just having a good rest. My cycling buddy and I didn’t want to stop anywhere too early because we figured once you got to sitting down it would be much harder to get yourself moving again! There were lots of cafes and rest places along the set route and we saw stacks of bicycles at each one.

One of the cafes was also a scavenger hunt answer, with two other answers nearby, and it was one of the most popular spots for people to stop for this reason. It was also a solid third of the way into the run, and by this point we decided we’d deserved a rest; by now it was getting to 12pm so we’d been cycling pretty solidly for two hours.

Can you spot me?

I had packed food for myself which I had brought with me, but I couldn’t resist a small reward in a maple and brown sugar glazed donut and a tasty soy chai. While we rested I also took the opportunity to eat my homemade peanut-butter and jam sandwich, which was definitely needed, and immediately felt renewed! Peanut butter gave me the protein I needed, the yummy seeded bread the carbs and the jam was a bit of a sugar kick to get me going again.

Up until this point we’d had a few small laneways of cobblestones which had been uncomfortable. The largest stretches of cobbles came in the second half and boy were they unpleasant!

The cobblestones are a defining characteristic of the Roobaix so we had kinda known what we’d be in for, but that didn’t make them any easier to traverse. I was on my roadbike, a carbon-framed beast that weighed next to nothing with tyres barely wider than the width of my finger; this is a bike suited to smooth flat streets and not the uneven terror of cobbled laneways.

Every time my bike’s tyres skidded on stone my heart stopped for a fraction of a second as I tried to straighten myself up. My cycling buddy’s bike was heavier with thicker tyers and fared much better, but I really had to take it easy on these stretches and concentrate as even the slightest lapse in judgement was going to send me crashing to the ground.

Not gonna lie, pretty terrifying.

It was getting tougher with every additional stretch of cobbles too, they seemed to go on forever sometimes and then even when we ended up on smooth surfaces my butt and arms were so sore (the latter from tension mostly, trying to maintain steering) that I hardly seemed to find any kind of rest. Plus we still had a lot of ground to cover!!

Honestly, my favourite part? Watching where the cyclists congregated. Seeing everyone just getting along doing the same thing, stopping for coffee or a beer, stopping along the side of the road and chatting with strangers and sharing tips, scavenger hunt answers and directions. There was a sense of camaraderie, mutual understanding and overall fun. There were people of all ages, going at all kinds of paces. Even when we didn’t stop at the same place as other people, seeing them as we rode by all having a jolly old time was an uplifting experience that energised me and kept me going.

That, and I had a cycling buddy. I don’t think I would have had nearly as much fun if I hadn’t had someone to share it all with, so a big thanks to my bestie who is always there to come with me through my crazy adventures, you’re the best!

More importantly, WE DID IT!

Here we are at Brunswick Velodrome, the finish line of the Roobaix, which we hit just after 3pm which meant we’d been out and about for approx. five and a half hours. By the time we got there the sun had disappeared, the wind had picked up and we were cold and exhausted but we had DONE IT! We took advantage of the tasty food trucks at the finish line before taking our bikes for one last cycle to the train station to head home (it was too cold for anything else!).

It was overall an amazing experience and one that I’m really glad I got to do, even if it was a super last minute decision. I’ll definitely be doing next year’s, and I’ll definitely work on a costume for it!!

Sadly I had forgotten to activate my Fitbit at the beginning so I have no tracked map in my phone, but my stats do say I have 289min of cycling clocked up all up for that day, cut in half by our lunch stop at around 12pm. I think that’s a bloody good outcome!!

See you next year, Melburn Roobaix!!

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londoncapsule · 6 years

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Transcript of Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s interview on the Howard Stern Show

I put together a rough transcript of Jeff’s latest appearance on the Howard Stern Show on 9 April 2018.

Since it was an almost hour-long interview, it’s quite a long list and also due to the NSFW topics discussed, you can find the rest of the transcript under the ‘Keep reading’ bar.

During the interview Stern asked Jeff some highly personal questions as well, but Jeff answered all of them (and did so with class and humour, I think) so proceed at your own risk if you’re not comfortable with reading about such personal stuff.

On fans and fame

- Jeff lets his beard grow long now because he’s off work, “it’s my farm thing” and “hopefully people don’t stop me on the street to tell me to go to hell”, because he gets all sorts of stuff in the streets these days

- since he’s on The Walking Dead he has experienced a new level of fame with fans, paparazzi and autograph hunters even stalking him at the airport by buying a plane ticket and stalking him at the gate, there were even fights breaking out in Chicago when he refused to sign stuff for people who were trampling over other people at the airport

- while leaving Good Morning America that morning he was called a “motherfucker” for not stopping to sign when he was late for the Howard Stern Show, which really pissed him off because they were acting like he owed them somehow, but he was like “I don’t know you, guys”

- he doesn’t want to stop for selfies all the time, especially when he’s out and about with his wife and kids, the only time he sometimes makes an exception when it’s for a little kid (unless they are being manipulated by their parents standing behind them), the kids can get any but it’s the adults that are “super rude”, but he loves the fans and tries to be very good to them, it’s “the guys trying to make a living selling your autograph online” who bother him

On his farm

- their farm has “turned into more or less a rescue operation”, they take in a lot of alpaca and now have like 16 of them, because alpaca were thought to be the “it” animals some years ago and many people got rid of them later, they are really sweet animals except for shearing time once or twice a year when they spit on you, but they have to be sheared because they don’t shed and the summer heat is not good for them, Jeff has someone helping him with their shearing but he sits on top of them while they gets sheared and they process the wool and at some point they could have a little business of it, but for now they give the wool to friends who knit

- his six-month old baby donkey, Paxton is following him around the farm like a puppy, he got three donkeys last year for Father’s Day from Hil, and 2 days later there were four donkeys, they didn’t know that one of the donkeys was pregnant, he was there when Paxton was born and he imprinted on Jeff, before the press tour he had to “fix him” because Paxton just started getting amorous and he didn’t want him to breed with his mother, so Jeff’s not sure if upon his return Paxton will look him in the eye again

- he just wants to be a “gentleman farmer”, it’s now kinda turning into a more full-time thing for them, he has a total of 120 acres of land and “it’s neat” and “really beautiful”

- they are active in the community and still have the candy store they saved together with Paul Rudd

- Rhinebeck is an an hour and a half from New York City, “hour forty tops”

- when he was doing The Good Wife he took the train to go to work, because it takes him 12 minutes to get to the Poughkeepsie station from his farm and then he took the train to Penn Station every day

- Jeff invited Stern to visit him on the farm for the day to paint, but Stern was worried because they don’t know each other that well and “you are Negan”, but Jeff replied “I’m not really Negan in real life though man!”

- Stern was still worried about the idea, so Jeff offered to leave him the farm, or they can walk or drive around the farm, he has 40 acres of just woods, three houses on the property, he’s got a herd of highland kettle, every spring they bring in yearling melt cows with their mothers he raises and then they go to the milk farm and then he brings in another set

- Jeff loves the farm life so much that sometimes he doesn’t want to go back to acting, but he hasn’t made enough money yet to do that, Stern asked him how much money he would need to stop acting and just live on the farm comfortably and take care of his family, to which Jeff said that he wants the farm to be completely paid off and his kids to go to college, he doesn’t need a big number, “I don’t know, 20? But like taxed and for that you have to make 40″ but he doesn’t think he’s getting there

On his bromance with Norman

- Norman is “awesome” and he “loves him”, he’s family and was the first person to come and see Jeff’s baby after she was born

- Jeff and Norman met like 20 years ago, they hung out, were in the same circle but then he didn’t see or talk to him for 10 years at least and when Jeff joined the show they “were just joined at the hip”, Norman was super stoked that Jeff got the role and that he knew him, but had nothing to do with Jeff getting the role, they are together all the time, Norman bought a place up near Jeff’s farm in Rhinebeck, their bromance is ”solid” and Jeff’s happy that at almost 52 he has a best friend

- he was the type of guy with a guy best friend in his 20s but when he started dating and then met Hilarie that “all went out the fucking window” and since he lives on the farm now with his family there are “no boyfriends around anymore”

- Jeff and Norman live next to each other in Georgia and are there without significant others for most of their lives now, when they’re not working they are on their bikes and sometimes when Norman’s not working that day he would drive by the set (they live an hour away from the set) to meet Jeff and they would have some bro time, that’s their quality time together, but since they are on their bikes they are not talking to each other, but on the show Negan and Daryl "are totally not bro at all”

- Jeff confirmed that Norman and Diane Kruger are together and that “she’s beautiful” and “he’s very happy” and that Stern should have him on the show because he’s listening to him every day too

On riding motorbikes

- last year Jeff and Norman rode on Norman’s TV show Ride around Spain and this year in London (which was “kinda sucky because it rained the whole time”) and all over England and while shooting they follow the camera van so they don’t have to know the way or check the GPS

- Jeff is aware of the dangers of biking and has seen some bad stuff but has always ridden knock-on on that and has always been very lucky

- he has 7 bikes, is a Harley guy (Norman’s a Triumph guy), has wanted a Harley Davidson since he was a kid and has had a relationship with Harley Davidson ever since he could afford to buy his first one

- Jeff’s dad rides too, he has a Harley as well and Jeff just saw him three weeks before the interview, they were riding together out in Palm Desert

On acting

- Jeff still thinks about his former manager who had dropped him before he made his big break by landing Grey’s Anatomy, Supernatural and Weeds, and kinda hopes “she’s kicking herself in the balls” but he doesn’t run into her these days since he moved from California years ago and now lives in Upstate New York

- Howard asked his opinion on when a struggling actor should give up acting and Jeff said that he doesn’t know because he was there at that point when he was ready to give up but at 37 he didn’t know what to do, if should he go back to college (he dropped out of college after 1 month) and he survived by building decks and fences and had no fall-back plan (”I put all my eggs in one basket”), he didn’t own a home, had a room mate, his biggest concern was making sure his dog had food and he had rent on the table, his parents weren’t fully behind his plans either, since he only got minor roles (or he wasn’t even recognisable due to being masked as an alien) or roles in shows that got cancelled or were not picked up, so what kept him in the game was that he had nothing else to do and from the age of 30 on he kept extending the deadline by 1 more year of when he would give up, he did auditions but always almost got the role, he was always auditioning for Jon Hamm (”fucking Jon Hamm destroyed my shit for a while”)

- Jeff thinks that “we don’t make enough movies anymore”, there are huge blockbusters but not enough little art films out there with brilliant acting, it’s all going on TV now, Jeff loves TV but doesn’t know what’s going on anymore because there is so much of it, it’s hard to keep up, but he wants to start watching The Bachelor because Howard likes it so much

On The Walking Dead

- Jeff promised to get Stern a Lucille so he can bash some people over the head

- Stern hates that the night scenes on The Walking Dead are too dark and you can’t see anything and Jeff has a problem with that too and hates night shoots and would do anything but night shoots, and thinks that work suffers because of that for the acting and the crew, especially midway through the season (“you’re all hurtin’, everybody’s in bad shape”)

- when they killed of Carl he “wasn’t happy” and was “bummed” because he had been a fan of the comic book before taking on the show and one of his favourite storylines was the Carl-Negan relationship, it was one of the reasons he wanted to do the show and now it’s “fucking gone”

- Andy broke Jeff’s nose in the mid-season finale of season 8 during their fist fight, and Jeff knew that he was going to punch him because Andy gets so amped up before scenes, drinks a lot of coffee, gets excited, and they did rehearse the scene but Andy went from 50% during rehearsal to 130% when the cameras were rolling, Jeff knew immediately when the scene started that they were too close to each other in the scene, they were hitting each other and on the second hit Andy cracked him on the bridge of his nose, he dropped to a knee and his eyes watered and he was like “Ah, dude!”, Andy was more upset about it than Jeff, “he’s not an asshole at all, he’s a great dude”, they kept shooting, Jeff took a minute, put an ice pack on his nose and went back to shooting after 10 minutes, and Andy sent Jeff the a massage certificate and a facial the day after, but Jeff doesn’t do them, “Andy is one of the sweetest people you’ll ever meet in your life”, his nose was just popped back into place and had an X-ray done later but it was just a hairline fraction with a little bit of blood, but later in the season Jeff “kicked Andy in the nuts” which made him feel better

On the Negan vs Rick relationship

- they talked about Jeff saying on GMA that morning that he feels that on The Walking Dead Negan and Rick are equally bad, Howard said that Negan is way worse than Rick, because he forces women to marry him and fuck him, to which Jeff argued that “we never see him fuck, we don’t know”, but then they argued that he’s trying to get them pregnant, but Jeff said that “that was him getting in Dwight’s head” and Howard added that Negan irons the faces of people and burns them in the furnace as punishment and Rick would never do that, and he’s enslaving people, but Jeff argued that he isn’t enslaving them and they can go if they want

- Jeff mentioned the the kill ratio, Rick killed 50 of his people in their sleep and started the whole conflict, “Negan hasn’t done anything to Rick and his group” at that point, then Daryl took out another 20 of his guys with a bazooka, by this point Negan had lost like 70 people and then Negan killed Abraham as punishment, but because Norman/Daryl punched him, he sadly had to kill Glenn too, but Jeff “still blames Norman for that”

On Rampage and Dwayne Johnson

- Dwayne Johnson’s huge success is driving Jeff nuts “maybe a little bit”, he thinks Dwayne is such a big movie star because he’s got the ability to make fun of himself and is kinda self-deprecating and “as an audience we love that” and we all think that he’s a guy we could have a beer with, Dwayne works very hard, and Jeff wouldn’t be surprised if he ran for president, he thinks Dwayne is a very smart guy business wise, and Jeff calls him “Dwayne” or just “Rock”

- when Dwayne landed on him during a stunt while shooting the scene where the plane goes down he felt “like a freezer falling” on him but they have never worked out together

- they talked about the feud Dwayne Johnson and Vin Diesel had during shooting The Fast & Furious about Vin not coming out of his trailer, which neither Stern, nor Jeff understand (”it’s one of my peeves”), Jeff said he’s with Dwayne on this, because when he arrives on the set he’s ready to go and do the scene

- Rampage is “a popcorn movie at its finest” and “believe it or not it has some heart in there” and Dwayne and George are “cute as shit” in the movie

- Howard was wondering if George had a cock and massive balls in the movie but Jeff said no, later Howard’s looked up that an erect gorilla cock is 1 to 3 inches long only, and they were talking about cock sizes, to which Jeff added that “I’m all talk myself”

- they mentioned how hot Naomie Harris is, “she’s the real deal, a really cool chick”, Howard asked if she had a boyfriend and Jeff said no because she can’t meet any good men and she even asked Jeff if he knew anybody but he said that all the decent guys he knows are with somebody and “she’s gorgeous”, but maybe she’s too picky but Howard commented that Jeff should feel great around women like her being the greatest guy around them and that they eat their heart out that they can’t be with him because he’s married already, to which Jeff was just snickering

On his private life and family

- his first marriage didn’t end because he was a struggling actor but because his best friend had an affair with his wife, and he’s still his friend, it didn’t even faze him really, and wasn’t mad at her because “we shouldn’t have gotten married”, it was a stupid thing, they were married for like 3 months, but he was really disappointed with his buddy for breaking the bro code and didn’t talk to him for a year and then ended up with him in a fist fight at an audition at the Warner Brothers lot but then it was over and now they are buddies again, but his marriage was gonna get annulled regardless, they were both too young, too stupid and six years later they were friendly again with his ex-wife, it was a Vegas wedding because they didn’t have any money, and being married when you are broke is “ridiculous”, because he couldn’t even support himself or feed his dog

- he calls his new-born daughter Georgie, they named her after an episode of Bonanza (”A Girl Named George”) and Gus was named after Augustus McCrae in Lonesome Dove, because Jeff’s got “this western theme going” and thinks that “in my other life I must have been a cowboy of some sort”

- he could live without acting “a lot less”, he would be happy to do one movie a year, and do some writing and try directing at some point in his life, but he’s been so busy going from one job to the other and he feels like he’s missing out, he’s really feeling it now with Gus, when he leaves to work (he’s shooting The Walking Dead between the end of April until Thanksgiving) and he tries to get home on weekends but it’s not enough with an 8-year old and it gets really emotional, but with George “unless you have a boob with some milk in it, she doesn’t give a shit” and “she looks at me after like 5 minutes like ‘Where’s my mum? Give me my mum!’“

- Jeff doesn’t work out (”Dude, does it look like I work out? I throw around bails of hay around on the farm.”), he hasn’t seen the inside of a gym in 20 years, he works the farm as exercise, down in their basement they have a running machine but it just has 1 mile on and is “collecting dust”, Gus has a genetic disorder called PKU, his body can’t process protein so he eats a protein shake, which made Jeff’s and Hilarie’s diet much healthier, they watch what they eat, he walks his 120-acre farm as much as possible, he’s doing chores and dinking around, he chops a lot of wood, he heats his farm in the winter time with fire wood

- he doesn’t have a huge entourage, is “low maintenance”

- both of his kids were born at a hospital, not at home, he delivered them, cut the umbilical cord, had no idea what to do, thought he would be there just to lend support or hold a leg, but they had a midwife who pushed him in there as soon as the baby’s head was crowning, with Gus he waited too long and he got stuck in “no-man’s land” and “his head was shaped like a cone”, with George he was ready, and as soon as she crowned he grabbed her by the cheeks and pulled her right out perfectly

- Stern was wondering if having seen Hil give birth to their kids and the image of “the baby’s head poking through the vagina” is bothering Jeff sexually now, to which Jeff said that he has “seen a vagina before” and for some reason separates the two, it’s not the same thing, and Hil is “more beautiful than she’s ever been” and “was the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen while letting it all hang out”

- Stern asked if they went back right back into “banging” to which Jeff replied that it takes a little bit, a little healing and letting that rest, but “yeah, we do all right”

- Stern asked him if they wanted more kids, to which he said “Jeez, no! We’re tapping out. Oh, dude, I’m 52!”, it’s too perfect that they have a boy and a girl now, since they were trying for a second baby since Gus was born, it was a rough go, they lost a couple of babies, it was an emotional ride for them so now “we’re done” and he thinks he will "snip the balls”, if he did it to his donkey he “might as well do it to myself”, but he feels that now he’s almost so old it “maybe shouldn’t work anyway”, Stern suggested that he should wear a rubber, because it slows him down, to which Jeff replied “I got you, I feel you on that” and “I don’t know what we will do” and he’s gonna “Howard Stern my shit” and Stern added that fucking a woman is the greatest thing to which Jeff said it’s something magical, but they agreed to discuss this further together on a different occasion together with Norman

- during the farewells Jeff said to Stern that “I just love ya” and the thing he had been the most proud of in his career was being on the show before and he still has people coming up to him every day saying that his interview on Stern was the greatest thing they had ever heard

If you want to listen to the full interview, you can do it here.

#jdm #jeffrey dean morgan #howard stern #hilarie burton #gus morgan #norman reedus #dwayne johnson #twd #the walking dead #rampage

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ahumanexperiencemoment · 6 years

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“Sometimes the Road Calls (or It’s A Midlife Crisis)” Part 3 Of 3.

I slept pretty soundly and woke up around nine in the morning. The bed was firm but honestly, I don’t think it would have mattered how soft or firm the bed was… I was so worn out, I probably would have slept soundly on the floor. After a quick shower, I got dressed and pushed my bike outside and loaded it up. I walked over to turn the keys in where a young lady sat behind the counter. She was 8 months pregnant and was about to pop. She said she had to check the room, so I walked with her and learned more about her. I asked her if it was her first child and she told me that it was going to be her fourth which was surprising to me because she didn’t look old enough to have that many kids. As I get older, I am really getting bad at gauging age. I think that happens to all of us. After she cleared the room, I got my safe deposit money back because since I paid in cash, I had to leave money the night before. I started my bike and rode across the street to a gas station to fill up before I set out on the second day of my adventure.

(Terre Haute, Indiana before I started)

I pulled into the gas station across the street from the motel and one of the pumps didn’t work, so I had to roll around to another one. Frustratingly, the gas came out rather quickly and splashed all over my hand and the fuel tank. I went to grab towels from the dispenser where they kept the windshield wiper squeegee and it was empty, as was the cleaning solution. I went inside to the bathroom, which only had an air blower to dry hands with. Thankfully though, near the drink machines, there was another sink with napkins, so I washed my hands as best as I could, wet down a few napkins and walked back out to clean my fuel tank. I then returned and washed my hands and arm again but I couldn’t seem to get rid of that gas smell… ugh…. A great start to a long day…. I was hoping that wasn’t an omen about the course of the remainder of the day.

I decided to go inside and grab a bottled water and a breakfast bar and I ended up talking to the manager of the store. I told him conversationally that once you get gas on you, it is so tough to get off. He agreed and said it happens to him all the time. The conversation went forward, as some conversations do, and he asked about my trip and where I was heading. We talked for a bit longer and I learned he had been a manager for several plus years and he commiserated on a tough life of working at that location, dealing with ungrateful and entitled people. He shared a couple of stories and finally, I had to back out of the conversation by being polite but telling him that I had to get going, because I had many miles to go that day. He understood but to be honest, he looked rather sad standing behind that counter. An older gentleman with a droopy mustache and eyes behind dusty glasses. Sometimes, we make choices in life and we don’t know the full ramifications of those choices until many years later. And sometimes, we don’t like those choices. I got that feeling listening to him that day. As I got on my bike and started away, I waved at the guy through the window and he waved back.

Now, I was on the road again. I was having trouble with my duffle bag because it kept on wanting to tilt and lean to one side. No matter what I did to cinch it down, it just didn’t want to work. So, I ended up riding for a little bit, stopping, readjusting and then continuing on. It wasn’t long before my hand started cramping up and hurting again but thankfully, there was a lot of straight shots and small towns to get through.

A couple hours later I rolled through Vincennes and onto Princeton, Indiana where I turned right and headed into Illinois. First stop was rolling through Mount Carmel. I am glad that I came this way. Twenty years ago, when I was a young marine, I came this way in the dead of the night. I just finished my Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) school and I had the option to drive all the way home to the panhandle of Florida from Maryland, which would have taken sixteen plus hours, or I could drive to Southern Illinois where I have a ton of extended family and it would only have been eleven or so hours. This would have been around 1998 and that was the first time I drove through Mount Carmel and Carmi, Illinois. So, it was interesting to me to drive that same route twenty years later. Of course, I didn’t recognize it, as it was in the middle of the night and so many years ago the first time. But for whatever reason, those two town names have stuck in my mind ever since then.

(Mount Carmel, Illinois)

I stopped off and gassed up again in Mount Carmel, Illinois. I spoke with a gentleman while filling up and we talked about the motorcycle. After I gassed up, I pulled over to a parking area in the shade of the store and decided to take an extended break. I walked into the store to use the restroom and grab something to eat and drink. I should have found a place to sit and eat but for some reason, when I am on the road, I go into this “travel mode” where I just go…I don’t get hungry, I don’t get thirsty, I just fall into this zombie like mode to just get to the next stop. Once I stop though, I am reminded like a distant thought crossing the void, “hey, you might be hungry” and then before I know it, it grows to the point of awareness. Besides the slight pang of hunger, I was also getting dehydrated. Although I drank water throughout the day before, it wasn’t near enough and I didn’t put on any sunscreen that first day and surprisingly, you can still get a pretty good sunburn, even in the latter part of the day. I looked for something good to eat but there didn’t seem to be much in the way of options, so I decided to get a Lunchable. I actually like Lunchables - crackers, cheese, and ham or turkey with a cold Capri sun and a Reese’s Peanut Butter. I also bought a Gatorade. I walked up the counter and the nice young lady and I exchanged pleasantries as she got me my change. I walked back out and plopped right down next to the bike on the curb. I sucked that Capri sun down and then slowly ate the rest of the tray. I was just enjoying the moment, watching the cars drive by. It wasn’t long before I was done. Lunchables aren’t that big so I threw the package away and guzzled down half the Gatorade. Since I was dehydrated, I could feel the headache coming, which wouldn’t be good because with the hard tail, feeling every bump in the road would not be a good thing to experience. After I was done with the Gatorade, I threw away my trash, stretched and got back on the bike.

(Where I sat in the shade eating lunch)

A few miles later, I was having issues with my duffel bag again and was getting frustrated… Well, I was always frustrated, I was getting past frustrated. Finally, I just pulled off in a little town named Cowling, Illinois. I pulled into the parking lot of a little country church and tried to re-cinch my gear down. During the process of adjustment, one of the straps just broke and I finally decided to just wear it like a back pack, which worked out surprisingly well. Why hadn’t I done it earlier? Oh well, lesson learned.

I got back on the road and headed into Carmi, Illinois which was a bustling town. Like I wrote earlier, the last time I came through was twenty years ago, so I didn’t recognize anything, and the size of the town surprised me. There was road work near where the train tracks crossed the road I was traveling, but thankfully, it didn’t hold me up for very long. There were two very bored-looking guys holding a “Stop” and “Slow” sign, due to there only being one lane open. When I left Carmi, the weather was cloudy but still sunny. It wasn’t long before I saw a storm looming in the distance. That’s one thing about the Midwest and southern Illinois in the summer - storms pop up lightning fast (no pun intended). I thought and hoped that I could make it to my destination before the storm and I crossed paths, but before long it started sprinkling sporadically and I then decided that I would pull off to put on my rain gear in the next town, which happened to be Norris, Illinois. It’s funny but I made it all day the day before and I was less than an hour away from my destination so naturally, rain would come. I write that in jest, but it did seem Murphy’s law dictated that I couldn’t have a trip without a little rain. But to be honest, we all need a little rain from time to time in life. It helps us to appreciate those times we do have it good. I suited up in the rain gear and continued on.

(Norris, Illinois where I pulled over to suit up in rain gear)

Finally, I made it to Eldorado Illinois, and thankfully I had the forethought to put on the rain gear because the bottom dropped out and I was riding in the rain. Kind of like those bugs I mentioned earlier… the rain hurts just as bad. But, since I had on the jacket, the pelting wasn’t too bad, however, it was hard to see with my glasses getting wet. It was slow-going because I just didn’t trust the roadway with it being wet, so I slowed down even more. Cars passed me by, which slung more water on me. It went on this way for quite a while until I hit Harrisburg Illinois. When I hit the outskirts, the rain stopped, and the sun made its appearance again. I rode past many stores and many places in Harrisburg that I had grown up shopping at, during the years when I was visiting every summer. Over here was where the local video rental store was, over there was the new Walmart, which was down the road from where the old Walmart was. There is where my aunt still gets milk that comes in glass bottles. And here, the Dairy Queen…You get the idea. I continued on. About six miles outside, between Harrisburg and Stonefort is the little town of Carrier Mills.

I decided to stop off in Carrier Mills to gas up again before traveling a few more miles to my destination. I didn’t know what the next day would bring so I figured it was best to fill the gas tank. As I was gassing up, I met and talked with an older gentleman who asked me about my bike and who I was visiting. It turned out that he knew my aunt and uncle – they had grown up together. Small world. The more you travel, the smaller it gets. Since I was coming to the end of my trip, I was eager to get to it so I hopped back on the bike and continued on.

After leaving Carrier Mills, it was just a few miles before I finally made it to the last town and destination of my trip, Stonefort, Illinois. I turned on the road that went past the small country church I attended every summer with my aunt. I have many fond memories there. It looks like it has grown quite a bit since the time I went, but I will never forget the people I knew there when I was a kid. I also passed by the trailer where my cousin’s grandmother lived. It’s always weird to see people live in a place that you either lived at or spent a lot of time at previously. You wonder how they decorated it, and does it look or smell the same inside…just general thoughts like these. I don’t know who lives in that trailer now, nor did I see them when I drove past, but they keep the place up pretty well. My aunt lives about a mile outside of town and it didn’t take long before I arrived at her house. They weren’t home, but they left the door open for me, so I went inside. I was so exhausted and before long, the storm opened up again. I sat on the couch and with the rain hammering on the roof and thunder rolling in the distance and across the sky, I slept… and slept hard.

(My destination out side Stonefort, Illinois)

It was a great adventure and my body was sore, but I loved every minute of it. In retrospect, I am so glad that my wife met me with the truck. I thought about that a lot during those two days of riding, especially when my hand hurt the worst. If I had to drive the entire way from Southern Illinois to New Orleans on the bike, I just don’t think I would have made it… or it would have taken me a lot longer than I wanted it to. Who knows though…maybe in the future, I will attempt it, but I am glad that for whatever reason, it didn’t work out this time. I got my little adventure, and my mom, and my wife got to come up and enjoy time with family for the family reunion. All in all, it was a great trip.

From start to finish, I traveled almost 400 miles. I saw places and met people in passing I never had the chance of seeing before and sadly, will probably never see again. This trip really struck home how fast we all are in our endeavors to get somewhere. There were a couple times when I was out there all alone and saw those big nice Harleys or Honda Goldwings pass me like I was standing still, but they didn’t get to see the landscape like I did. Being forced to go slow, I really had time to take it all in. From the kids playing down the side street in a town I passed through, to well-kept and not so well-kept yards, to the roadside flower beds, I was able to see it all. I think life can be like that too. People are zipping here and there, and, in our haste, we miss so much. I think life would be better for us all if we just learned or forced ourselves to slow down. I know…it’s easier said than done. We all have different motivations for what we do. I think deep down, we all want to leave behind a legacy of some sort, but most of us don’t know why or how. One thing is for sure…we are in pursuit of it.

#writer #short story #writing #life adventure #life #advice #memory #adventure #motorcycle trip #travel #country #southern illinois #Mount Carmel Illinois #Carmi Illinois #ahumanexperiencemoment

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automaticphantomalpaca · 3 years

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What Is an E-Bike? Here’s Everything You Need to Know

The first thing you should know about e-bikes is that they’re here to stay. Electric bike sales jumped by an incredible 145 percent from 2019 to 2020 alone, according to the market research firm NPD Group. It’s a nearly $244 billion industry as of last year, and there’s no sign of a slowdown.

Some view the rise of e-bikes as a threat, as though standard bikes will go the way of the penny-farthing once everyone goes electric. But fear not: E-bikes aren’t here to rob us of our human-powered way of life. In fact, they may very well enhance it—especially as travel and commuting habits change following the global pandemic and shift of work commuting. So as we roll our way into peak riding season, here’s everything you need to know about the electric revolution.

1. E-bikes make pedaling easier.

Generally speaking, e-bikes are electric bicycles with a battery-powered “assist” that comes via pedaling and, in some cases, a throttle. When you push the pedals on a pedal-assist e-bike, a small motor engages and gives you a boost, so you can zip up hills and cruise over tough terrain without gassing yourself. Called “pedelecs,” they feel just like conventional bikes—but better, says Ed Benjamin, senior managing director at the consulting firm eCycleElectric. “You control your speed with your feet, like with a regular bike,” he says. “You just feel really powerful and accelerate easily.”

In addition to the pedal-assist feature, some e-bikes come with a throttle that engages the motor with the press of a button. These belong to a separate class of e-bike that, obviously, doesn’t offer a pure cycling experience; they’re also illegal in some municipalities. Interestingly, Benjamin says, people who aren’t already “cyclists” tend to gravitate toward throttle bikes at first, but then turn around and choose a pedal-assist for their next purchase.

2. They go pretty fast… to a point.

The harder you pedal, the bigger the boost, the faster you’ll ride—to a point. E-bikes let you hum along at a brisk clip, but they aren’t motorcycles. You’ll never hammer down the road at 45 mph. The motor is governed to stop propelling you further when you hit 20 to 28 miles per hour, depending on the bike. So you’ll save time on your commute (I shave about three minutes off a five-mile trip) but still enjoy the scenery.

You can also control how big of an assist you get. Most e-bikes come with a power switch that lets you adjust the boost setting from “eco” (low) to “turbo” (high), for when you want a little more oomph to help you, say, up a steep hill.

3. You’ll ride a lot more, even if you already ride a lot.

Getting an e-bike can dramatically increase how often you ride, according to a survey of nearly 1,800 e-bike owners in North America. Beforehand, 55 percent of respondents said they rode daily or weekly. After buying an e-bike, that number soared to 91 percent. It makes sense: Even if you’re super fit, you still get tired (likely from training or racing) and remounting your bike can feel like a chore. If you have an e-bike, you can continue riding while giving your knackered legs a bit of a break. You can also go faster, which makes biking for longer trips more attractive, even when you’re pressed for time.

For those who aren’t frequent riders, e-bikes open up a whole new world, like fat tire electric bike. While you may not be conditioned to ride 5-10 miles at a time, you can cover those distances easily with an electric assist, which is a great way to build endurance and confidence. That same survey found that 94 percent of non-cyclists rode daily or weekly after getting an electric city bike.

4. There’s an e-bike for everything.

Name a type of riding, and there’s an e-bike for that. If you have zero interest in an electric road bike, you may find yourself head over heels for a high-capacity e-cargo bike that can haul 400 pounds of stuff while still cruising at a cool 15 mph. E-bikes are available in fat, cargo, commuter, recreational, hardtail, full-suspension electric mountain bike, and even performance road bike styles. For proof, here are a dozen e-bikes we love for every type of cyclist.

5. They can replace driving.

“People are buying electric bicycles as a way to reduce car trips,” Benjamin says. The data backs him up: 28 percent of survey respondents said they bought an e-bike specifically to replace driving a car. And many other reasons buyers listed for wanting an e-bike—including carrying cargo and kids, avoiding parking and traffic, and environmental concerns—also indicate a desire to get out from behind the wheel. Plus, you don’t need to change clothes or clean up when you arrive at your destination, because you don’t have to work up as much of a sweat.

Consider, too, that more than half of all driving trips are shorter than 10 miles, with some surveys reporting that the average single trip amounts to just 5.95 miles. That’s a no-brainer distance to cover by e-bike. In fact, the survey found that owners replaced 46 percent of their car commutes and 30 percent of their driving errands with electric road bike rides. All you need is a great commuter bag to carry your stuff, and you’re set.

6. Yes, you still get exercise.

E-bikes, including electric folding bike, do some of the work for you, but they still count as exercise, especially for people who have otherwise been sedentary. Colorado University researchers found that when 20 non-exercising men and women e-biked about 40 minutes three days a week, they improved their cardiovascular fitness and blood sugar in just one month. “Many people are not fit enough to ride long enough to get meaningful health and fitness benefits from biking,” Benjamin says. “Put them on an electric bike and they can go out and ride for an hour and get a significant amount of exercise.”

Even if you’re in excellent shape and very fit, you still can get exercise by e-biking. When I did a head-to-head comparison of commuting with my cross bike versus a recreational e-bike, I found that my relative effort was much lower, and I burned about half as many calories, on the e-bike. But I still burned something—up to 200 calories per hour, the equivalent of what you burn by walking. And I opted for quick e-bike rides to town where I would usually drive, which means I was considerably more active overall.

7. The batteries are getting better.

There’s no getting around it: E-bikes give you yet another device to charge. Right now, you can expect your battery to last anywhere from 35 to 100 miles before it needs a recharge. Where you fall in that range depends on the size of the battery and how much power the motor draws. Obviously, if you buzz around on “turbo” all day, you’ll run out of juice faster than if you run on lower, more economical settings. But we also expect batteries to improve in the future.

8. Trail access can be tricky.

E-bikes remain a subject of controversy in mountain biking circles, some think it more is electric scooter, or a citycoco, and inside the city, we can also see electric wheelchairs. You may not be able to take one on your favorite singletrack right now, as most non-motorized trails prohibit them. However, things have been tilting in a more permissive direction. IMBA, the sport’s largest public advocacy group, shifted its stance to support allowing access for some pedal-assist e-bikes (those that top out at 20 mph) on some trails. With every major manufacturer making e-mountain bikes, more access is likely only a matter of time. “In a few years, people will realize that electric mountain bikes have no more trail impact than a regular mountain bike,” Benjamin says.

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sun-writer-blog · 7 years

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The Library

Inspired by a post I saw on here, here's a piece of what's been stuck in my head. Any feedback is welcome and appreciated! I hope you enjoy. There's two more parts after this.

Part 2 | Part 3

Mike adored it when Ms. Jane came to read to the kids.

Her eyes - which often appeared distant and closed - now twinkled with an inner radiance. An unabashed grin played across her lips as the kids giggled at the story she read to them - something called Frog and Toad are Friends. She sat “criss-crossed applesauce” (which is how she described it to the kids, her nose crinkling up as she did so) surrounded by kindergarteners. Her pale blue dress stood out as she sat on the yellow carpet that covered the children’s section of Hawkins Public Library. The kids hung onto her every word. She seemed most alive with them.

Surprisingly when his best friends would come around to mess with him as he worked, Mike wouldn’t deny what he thought about the social worker who read to the kids once a week (“Mostly on Wednesdays, but sometimes she comes in on Tuesdays to practice reading the book to herself,” he would tell them when they asked). She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

“Well stop staring forlornly and ask her to the ball already!”

Lucas was always the practical one of the group, and all of this unrequited love that had his friend acting like a sick puppy for the past few months was ridiculous to him. The library had a fundraising gala once a year along with Toys for Tots to get new children’s books, and since Mike was the Head Librarian for Children’s Books he was obliged to attend “with a guest”. Since Lucas was in the Marine Corps Reserve, he would also be in attendance at the Gala. Mike had tried to sucker his sister Nancy into going with him, but it hadn’t worked out in his favor.

“Go ask a girl who’s not your sister for a change, Mike.”

“It’s Hawkins, Nancy, I know everyone like they’re my sister.”

That was a bit of an exaggeration, but the underlying truth was that Mike was another one of those poor unfortunate souls who was born, raised, and destined to die in a small town. The only new kid who had moved here in the past ten years was Max, and Lucas had started dating her within a few weeks. Will was already going because his brother Jonathan was hired to take photographs of the event and had an extra ticket, and Dustin was going because he wanted to donate and had bought a ticket himself. So that left Ms. Jane.

Dustin started playing with the scanner on Mike’s desk to check out books, which made him irritated. Mike wasn’t a neat freak, but he liked everything on his desk to be in a certain place. Dustin, therefore, always moved things around whenever he had the chance. “Just ask her dude. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“She’ll think I’m a weirdo for talking to her.”

“We already think you’re a weirdo for talking so much about her.”

“Thanks Lucas. I always knew you were my best friend.” Mike leaned back into his leather chair and rubbed his eyes. “What time is it?”

“2:53. You have seven minutes to figure out how you’re gonna ask a girl to the dance.” Dustin looked at his watch. “Shit-”

Mike shoved Dustin and shushed him immediately. “There are kids man!” Lucas laughed and ruffled Mike’s shaggy black hair - another thing that drove him insane - and Mike slapped his hands away while Lucas teased him for his librarian shushing skills.

“Alright, I gotta go. I’m gonna late for an interview at school. I’m going for Mr. Clarke’s old job. You coming guys?”

Will shook his head and put his hands in the pockets of his brown leather jacket. “You guys go ahead, I rode my bike here.”

“Suit yourself.” Before he turned to leave, Dustin turned a stapler upside down on Mike’s desk and stared at him in the eyes, pointing a finger between him and the girl in the blue dress. Ask her! He mouthed as Lucas dragged him out. Will rested his elbows on the desk as he and Mike casually watched as Ms. Hopper began to wrap up another adventure of Frog and Toad. “Do you really think I should go for it, Will?” MIke asked cautiously. He and Lucas might have been best friends, but Will and Mike had grown closer while Dustin went off to a different college and Lucas joined the military.

“What’s the most attractive thing about her?”

“Her voice.” Mike answered instantly. “I love the way she pronounces words. Like they’re all new and strange and wonderful. I love listening to her read.”

Will smiled softly to himself, the two boys still not making eye contact with one another. They might have been close, but they both were uncomfortable with the vulnerability. “Ask her, Mike. I think she’ll say yes.”

“Why’s that?”

“She’s been looking at you for the past 15 minutes while we were talking.”

Mike tried to control the butterflies in his stomach when he heard that, and let out a shaky breath. The next two minutes felt like an hour, but slowly the kids rose from the ground and their parents began to trickle in one by one to pick them up. Mike started to rise from his chair, but two boys rushed over to him with a few books in their hands. He smiled at them. “Hello, boys!”

“Hi Mr. Mike!” The kids answered in unison. They were twins, and the most avid readers Mike had ever met. Last week he had suggested they pick up some copies of an adventure novel he loved as a kid, and they must have already finished them. “We wanna return the first book and check out the second, third, and fourth!”

“If that’s okay” one of them added quickly. Mike pursed his lips.

“I dunno...how fast are you going to read them?” He joked. The kids beamed gallantly.

“All of them today, Mr. Mike!”

He laughed and nodded as he began to scan the books. “I guess I’ll make an exception for you two, then.” Will had disappeared among the crowd of parents and kids, and as Mike glanced up from his desk he couldn’t see the social worker either. He gave the books back to the twins and started to put his desk back in place as the parents trickled out, cursing Dustin and Lucas for messing with his things. Every few seconds he would glance up from his work, but after a few minutes the children’s library was very empty, yet again.

Mike slumped back into his chair and stared at his desk clock. The red lights seem to mock him. 3:01 PM.

“Excuse me?”

Mike looked up and felt his heart in his throat. It was her, black hair and chocolate brown eyes and pale blue dress and all. Her name tag read “Hi! My name is Jane” in big bold letters, and underneath in much smaller font “Hawkins Social Services”. Her eyes were wide, as if she hadn’t expected Mike to answer her, and Mike was sure he looked like a deer in headlights as well. “Um, h-hi! Did you, uh, have a question?”

“Stupid stupid, Mike. You’re blowing it.” He thought to himself.

“I, um, wanted to ask about a book. For next week. We just finished up all of the books in our series.” She picked at her fingers and tried to force a nervous smile. “If you have any suggestions?”

Mike nodded quickly - probably too quickly to play it smooth. “Yeah! Frog and Toad was good, i’m sad to hear it’s over.”

She smiled a little more easily and raised an eyebrow. “You were listening?”

His eyes widened further and he stumbled over his words, his cheeks blushing. “I-I mean, just a little bit. Do you want to try The Chronicles of Narnia next? I loved those books as a kid.”

“Yeah! Those would be great.” There was a painful silence for a moment, and she bit her lower lip - another thing that made Mike’s heart flutter. He suddenly reached out his hand.

“I’m Mike. Short for Michael.” Everyone knows that, dummy, he thought. “You’re Jane?”

“You can call me Eleven.” She corrected quickly, nervousness in her tone. “Jane is pretty formal.”

Mike smiled and let out a shaky breath. He would ask her about that name later. “Okay, how about El? Short for Eleven.”

El nodded, another smile tugging on her lips. “Perfect.”

“Um, so, El, there’s this ball here at the library this friday. Not like, a literal ball, just a dance. It’s actually a gala, or whatever. But I have an extra ticket and I wanted to know if you would like to go. With me. Because you spend a lot of time here reading ot the kids and the gala is meant to fundraise for the library and -"

“What time?”

Mike stopped babbling and looked into El’s eyes again. She was biting her lip - a nervous habit, he decided - and she almost looked like she was holding her breath. “I could pick you up at 5?”

“Okay!” She replied, so quickly that they both started laughing. Mike was grinning from ear to ear, and their cheeks were both fiery red. “Do you have a piece of paper and a pen?” Mike instantly handed the items to her - including his favorite purple pen he used specifically for Dungeons and Dragons campaigns - and she scribbled something down, putting it in the inside cover of the last book of Frog and Toad. She handed the book to him, wiggled her fingers as a good-bye and flashed a brief smile before hurrying away. Mike watched her go through the door as Will entered, a knowing smirk on his face.

Mike mouthed Thank you to his friend before opening the cover of the book and reading the scrap of paper. Her handwriting was bubbly, which distracted him at first from the actual words she wrote after her address:

Thank you for the invite. See you Friday.

Jane "El" Hopper

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