#and i emailed them at like 1:00 when i first found out my flight was going to be delayed asking if they could check on him

[graysongraysoff]

I feel like a bad cat mom my baby deserves better 😭

[lovehypegirl]

EPISODE 1

synopsis: the beginning of y/n's biggest kickoff role! paring: jujutsu kaisen actor au x y/n warnings: some cursing probably but either way, none notes: visuals are at the end of the episode and I recommend that you view them first

10:00 AM - NEW YORK CITY - THE PLAZA HOTEL (NEW YORK STATE, USA)

y/n sat on a chair in her hotel room at the Plaza Hotel in New York City

She had just finished up her MIUMIU photo shoot the previous day and was relaxing, enjoying her Belgian Waffle from room service, and watching a new episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians as her phone rang

She reached over to the chair next to her and checked the screen to see her manager calling

She paused the TV as she answered the call

"Hello?" she said, food still in her mouth

"y/n? Hello! How are you?" her manager - Kyube - asked

"I'm doing fine...enjoying the hotels room service while I can..what's up?"

"Have you checked your email yet?"

"Uhh which one? I have like 7 different accounts" she picked a strawberry from her plate

"The one where your audition results come through? Did you check it?"

"I mean I would if I could find my computer"

"Just do it on your phone"

"But I'm on call with you?"

"I'll tell you then. The role you auditioned for in Jujutsu Kaisen?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

"You got the part! You'll need to head to JFK immediately. Like today. I already bought your plane tickets and your flight is red-eye. I know it's ten in the morning but since you tend to wait until the last minute to pack but please do it now"

"Twin you can drop this all on me at once"

"I just did! You'll need to leave by 8 or 9 so start getting ready by one in the afternoon. Your flight will take you to San Francisco for a layover and then over the Pacific to Japan"

"Ooookay..so 17 hours?" y/n said as she yanked her pink suitcases out of the closet

"That's right! Oh, and I'll be meeting you at the gate at SFO when you land"

"Okay, thanks for letting me know" y/n placed her Hermes shopping bags on the bed and began to take the boxes out leaving them unopened and carefully placing them in her suitcases

9:00 PM - JOHN F. KENNEDY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT - NEW YORK CITY (NEW YORK STATE, USA)

y/n waited by her gate after making it through the nightmare of security and baggage check

She tugged on her sweatshirt and sweatpants combo each with the Yankee logo. Naturally, she choose the most comfortable outfit for a 17 hour flight

Lowering her Yankees cap down on her head to avoid getting noticed as she ate her donuts from Dunkin'

"Gate 34, now boarding. Repeat: Gate 34, now boarding. Please proceed to Gate 34 should it be your designated gate" the announcement came from the loudspeaker and y/n wiped her mouth and threw out any trash in the nearby trashcan and she picked up her travel bag and walked to the gate

"Any passengers now boarding first class line up at the checkpoint. Repeat: Any passengers now boarding first class please line up at the checkpoint"

y/n moved over to the checkpoint and handed the flight attendant her boarding pass

The woman's eyes widened slightly as she saw who's name was on the boarding pass and y/n smiled slightly albeit awkwardly

"I'm a huge fan!" the woman whispered as she let y/n onto the plane

y/n quickly found her spot in first class and tossed her bag down and sunk into the plush chair as people began to board the plane

Before she fell asleep, a Twitter notification hit her phone but she was too lazy to check it, opting to sleep instead

9:00 PM (WESTERN TIME) - SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT - SAN FRANCISCO (CALIFORNIA, USA)

y/n yawened as she got off the plane and looked around for her manager

"She should be here..." y/n muttered under her breath "hmmm...ah! There she is"

Kyube was sitting to the side in the lounge area typing away at her computer which was covered in NewJeans and Twice stickers that y/n had given her

"Kyu!" y/n called out as she walked to her manager

Kyube looked up at the sound of the girls voice "y/n! Hi love, how are you?" Kyube stood up to hug the girl. y/n was shorter than Kyube...probably since Kyube never left the house without her heels

Her manager was very beautiful and a former actress, but a past accident didn't allow her to return to her career

"I'm good, how are you?" y/n looked up at Kyube

"I'm doing fine, honey. Are you hungry? Our flight for Japan leaves in about an hour and a half, would you like to go eat?"

"Yes please"

"Alright then"

10:30 PM (WESTERN TIME) - SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT - SAN FRANCISCO (CALIFORNIA, USA)

"Gate 5 now boarding. Repeat: Gate 5 is now boarding. Please proceed to Gate 5 should it be your designated gate"

y/n looked up from her finished plate as the announcement

"There we go!" Kyube stood up and took their plates to the counter

"On your feet, y/n. Time to go"

"Any passengers now boarding first class line up at the checkpoint. Repeat: Any passengers now boarding first class please line up at the checkpoint"

y/n walked to the checkpoint with her manager and Kyube handed in their boarding passes

They made their way into first class and y/n practically lunged for the comfortable seat, ready to sleep again

She put her headphones on and scrolled through the artists that she followed on Spotify to find one to fall asleep to

NOW PLAYING: ICHIKO AOBA ON SHUFFLE

She kept her eyes on the leaving city as they began to fly over the Pacific ocean

2:30 PM (ASIA TIME) - HANEDA AIRPORT - HANEDAKUKO, OTA CITY, TOKYO METROPOLITAN PREFECTURE (JAPAN)

y/n woke up to someone gently patting her arm

"y/n? y/n the plane is landing...time to wake up" Kyube moved her hand to gently pat the girls hair

"mmmm..." y/n rubbed at her eyes as she slowly opened the window and squinted her eyes to adjust to the light

Below them, Japan was coming closer and closer to the plane as it began the descent

"What time is it?" she said groggily as the plane jolted from it's landing

"2:30 pm" Kyube said as the plane slowed to a stop and the post-flight announcement came onto the loudspeaker

"C'mon honey, time to go" Kyube held her hand out for y/n to take and y/n did so hauling herself to her feet

The duo walked out of the plane and into Haneda Airport

"Are you hungry? I want to get a coffee" Kyube said as they walked deeper into the airport

"Yeah can we go to Dunkin?" y/n looked up at her manager

"Sure, but we need to get our bags first"

"'Kay"

The duo went to the baggage claim carousels and y/n placed her hands on her knees staring intently at the suitcases went by. It was a little impossible to miss her pink suitcase among the darker colored suitcases but it never hurt to be careful

Once y/n's suitcases came down the carousel, she hauled them off albeit clumsy and helped Kyube get her suitcases which were way heaver and larger than y/n's

"What on Earth do you have in those?"

"Shoes"

"Good grief"

Once they got out of the baggage claim area, they made their way to the food court to buy coffee for Kyube and donuts for y/n

"Kyube pleeeeaaasseeee!!!! pleasepleasepleaseplease!"

"No, you are getting one donut and that's it. Donuts and Tanghulu isn't a meal. You want strawberries? We'll get you a fruit bowl, but no donuts and Tanghulu together"

"Please...? I promise I won't wander around unknown areas or talk to strangers again!"

"My words are final"

"Aww man. But I'll take you up on that fruit bowl"

Kyube and y/n sat at a table in the food court. Kyube was working on y/n's upcoming schedule for and y/n was posting her dumb shit on twitter

y/n placed her phone down as she poked a piece of cantaloupe with her fork and looked to the side but she spotted two familiar people a few tables away

"Hey...Kyube?"

"Yes?"

"Who're they? They look familiar" y/n pointed a thumb to the somewhat familiar duo

Kyube looked in the direction that y/n was pointing in and squinted her eyes from behind her sharp rectangular glasses (the bayonetta glasses)

"Thats Gojo Satoru and Geto Suguru...you've been in a movie with Geto once, you were young though"

"Huh...are they filming Jujutsu Kaisen too?"

"I can't tell you that"

y/n picked up her phone to scroll through twitter again and decided to eat her donut in three bites. Her eyebrows furrowed as she saw a tweet from a familiar name

y/n snickered and looked over her shoulder at Gojo and Geto. The former had moved his sunglasses onto his forehead and was gaping at his phone

'pretend like you've got no idea' she mouthed to Geto who nodded

"y/n please do not cause problems" Kyube scolded

"Alright...y/n, we need to leave now to get to the hotel in time"

"Okay" y/n stood up and threw out the now empty cup that once held fruit and the bag from the donut

She followed Kyube out of the airport and passed the table that Gojo and Geto were out giving the duo a shit-eating grin

Gojo playfully stuck his toungue out at her and she returned the gesture in the same playful manner

"Come along y/n" Kyube beckoned the girl "Our car will be here shortly"

"Coming!"

TAGLIST

@moonmalice @lavender-hvze

VISUALS: PLAZA HOTEL ROOM

SUITCASE

KYUBE YAMAMOTO

© 𝙇𝙊𝙑𝙀𝙃𝙔𝙋𝙀𝙂𝙄𝙍𝙇 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟰 | modification and translation of my works on any platforms are strictly prohibited

[kitkats-mikrokosmos]

you who led me through that maze, you are my light - chapter 1: such stuff as dreams are made

crossposted on ao3

genre: fluff, slowish burn, romance pairing: ot7 x reader summary: ❝ this rain, too, is coming to an end i won’t let go of your hand anymore i wish that you would love me ❞

(or the one in which bighit holds a raffle for army to spend 4 months with bts in a remote lakehouse, and you win)

word count: 1390 warnings: cursing

see author notes at the end

Words could not begin to describe the cocktail of emotions that shot straight through your veins as you stared down at your phone.

"Dear (L/N) (F/N),     Congratulations! You've won the raffle!     Please contact us by January 31st, 2021 to claim your prize.     We look forward to hearing from you. -BigHit Entertainment"

This had to be a joke, right? There was no way that this was real. Spam or a cruel joke from your family or maybe this was a dream.

You reached over and pinched your forearm. Hard.

The only thing that resulted was an explosion of stinging pain across your nerves and involuntary tears springing to your eyes.

So this wasn't a dream. But that still left spam or a joke.

It was totally in character for either of your brothers to pull something like this. But you didn't know if they knew how to spoof an email address, and, as you peered at the screen, you realized that address looked very official.

Quickly, you opened an incognito browser and did a Google search for BigHit's email address (addresses?). There was no guarantee of credibility, but still, it was better than operating under the assumption of goodwill. That was the sort of thing that got you hacked and all of your data sold on the dark web, and that was something you'd rather avoid. Once you'd found emails that looked like they might be correct, you opened the email again to compare them. The result had your heart hammering in your chest and your pulse fluttering in your throat like hummingbird wings.

They were almost identical.

This was probably the real deal.

This was probably the real deal.

You leaned back in your chair, a bark of disbelieving laughter leaving your lips.

Well shit.

You had some plans to make, you guess.

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

"Dear (L/N) (F/N),     We discussed what you mentioned in your last email, and, in the effort of making you more comfortable, we thought that we might send the boys out one at a time to join you in the as-of-yet undisclosed location. You would have a week to get to know each other individually before another member would join you both.     Is this sufficient? -BigHit Entertainment"

"Dear BigHit Entertainment,     That sounds great! Thank you so much for being so understanding. I really appreciate it. -(F/N) (L/N)"

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

"Your plane will leave tomorrow at 6:00 AM. Sorry, but that ended up being the most convenient time."

"It's fine, I understand," you said, smiling even though you wanted to cry at the thought of waking up at 4 in the morning so that you could make the plane ride. You'd have to make an emergency order from Target for a couple of those Starbucks frappucinos. You absently scrawled a reminder to yourself down onto a sticky note that you stuck to your corkboard, phone balanced between your shoulder and your ear.

Oh, how you missed the days when you could just drive to the store down the road and pick up whatever junk food you happened to be craving at the moment.

Still, life goes on.

"All precautions will be taken, of course. Still, when you arrive in Seoul, you'll be required to quarantine for two weeks. I know you've already been informed, but I just wanted to double-check one more time: you are okay with this, correct?"

"Yes. Yes, I am."

You'd expected it, in fact. They couldn't have known for certain that the ARMY that won the raffle would be from Korea, and there were all sorts of travel restrictions, worsened by winter - that they could fly you in at all was nothing short of a miracle. Quarantine seemed obvious.

You'd rather not spend time holed up in some hotel or someplace for fourteen days, waiting to see if you'll start displaying symptoms, but you'd also rather not get other people sick by accident - especially not the boys. The only way those two things could coincide was if the pandemic was over, and, unfortunately, things weren't there yet. You were still praying for a vaccine, but in the meantime.

"All right, I believe that's everything. We look forward to meeting you, (L/N)-ssi."

"I look forward to meeting you, too. Thank you. I really appreciate this opportunity."

It sounded like the person on the other end was smiling when they replied, "Of course. Have a good day."

"You, too."

"Bye."

You hung up and turned in your chair. Your suitcases were packed and waiting by the front door, and butterflies swooped in your stomach. In less than 24 hours, you'd be hopping on a plane to Korea, and in a little more than 2 weeks, you'd be meeting BTS.

Already, you were nervous. You couldn't imagine how much of a wreck you'd become as the day approached. Still, that was something for future-you to deal with. Present-you had enough on your plate.

First order of business: ordering coffee.

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

You blinked blearily up at the airport.

Where to now? you wondered as you stepped through the automatic doors. Multiple signs blinked at you to please wear a mask, and you adjusted yours a little, fixing it on the bridge of your nose. You glanced around. There weren't any obvious directions or anything.

"Uh, are you (Y/N) (L/N)?" an unfamiliar voice spoke.

You turned.

A woman in a pressed blue uniform and a matching mask stood there. She stopped the mandatory six feet away, and, judging from the crinkles of her eyes, she was smiling at you.

"That's me," you said, reshouldering your carry-on bag.

"Excellent!" she chirped, in true customer service fashion.

You felt bad for her, having to be this upbeat at ass o'clock in the morning. Maybe she could recommend you her coffee brand. Or maybe she was just fueled by spite like you'd been when you worked at the coffee shop downtown. Opening was always a fucking nightmare.

"Please follow me." She gestured onwards, then began walking.

You trailed behind.

"I'll take you to security," she continued as she walked, her heels clicking against the linoleum. "You'll be flying on a private plane today. Whoever's flying you out must really want to be sure you're safe." She paused. "And have a lot of money." She gave a tottering laugh.

You probably would've found the joke funnier if you were actually awake, but alas. You'd had two of your three coffees already, but there was only so much caffeine could do when it was up against the existential nightmare of an early morning.

Luckily, she didn't seem particularly daunted by her less-than-enthusiastic audience. Instead, she kept chattering on - about what, you weren't sure; you were having an incredibly hard time focusing your foggy brain to focus on anything for longer than 0.2 seconds.

You were flying to Korea. Jesus Christ. The reality was finally sinking in - as much as it could, given your current state. What country had you saved in a past life to be this lucky?

You likewise went through security in a daze, still reeling. You were only slightly more coherent when you were boarding the plane.

The flight attendant gave you a sympathetic smile and advised that you try to get some sleep - it was going to be a long flight.

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

14 hours later, give or take, the plane had touched down in Seoul. You disembarked and were immediately swept away, rushed through customs before being deposited into the care of BigHit employees. One notable employee being Kim Hyun-Woo, whom had been the one you communicated with primarily as this whole thing was being set up.

He greeted you with a wide grin. "It's so great to finally be able to meet you in person, (L/N)-ssi."

You tried to return his smile as best you could. "You as well." You yawned. "Sorry, that was a really long flight."

"I understand." He nodded and gestured to the car. "If you'll climb inside, we'll take you to the hotel you'll be staying at for the duration of your quarantine."

You did so, and you were soon on your way.

You watched Seoul's cityscape slide by, the brilliant lights offset by the dark of the night, and you wondered why it was that you felt like your life was about to change. Forever.

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

Short first chapter I know, but the next chapter will be longer - and juicier. You’ll be joined by the first member next chapter, so be sure to vote to decide who that’ll be.

[your-modern-shakespeare]

A Little Too Real (14)

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 4.5, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 7.5, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 10.5, Part 11, Part 11.5, Part 12, Part 13

Summary: RealityTV!AU- You are a wardrobe supervisor for a popular TV network. The show is planning a reality TV show like the bachelor and Bucky is the newest contestant. But as the competition starts he realizes that he doesn’t like any of the girls…on the show anyway.

Pairing : Bucky x Reader 

Word Count: 8090

A/N: Well...this is it guys! The very last chapter of A Little too Real. There WILL be an epilogue but I am so sad to see this one go. I want to say a big thank you to everyone who has read and loved this story and I hope you guys stick around to see what I have planned next. I love you guys and enjoy!

P.S. There is a lot of theatre Wardrobe lingo in this chapter, sop if you get confused or have no idea what I’m talking about HERE is a guide that explains everything

Warnings: Angst, Fluff, Kissing, Fluff, 

Y/N’S POV

My flight landed around 1 am and because it was so late and I had no way to get into my apartment until at least tomorrow, I checked into a hotel. I opened the room to a big king size bed and dropped my bags on the floor before collapsing on the bed. I didn’t bother to get changed or anything that involved me getting off the bed, I kicked off my shoes and climbed under the covers. I didn’t have the energy to do much else at this point, so falling asleep was easy.

When the morning came and my alarm went off, I begrudgingly rolled out of bed and got ready for the day. I had two four hour calls with one hour long lunch, which meant that my first call was at nine and still too early considering how little sleep I got last night. 

It wasn’t that I wasn’t tired enough to go to sleep, believe me I was, but the guilt of leaving and the rampant thoughts of Bucky kept me from sleeping peacefully and woke me quite frequently. And of course the time difference kind of messed with my head. 

But I showered, getting the airplane grim off of me, and did a little bit of makeup, wanting to look a little nice for my first day. I also chose something a little nicer to wear, but still comfortable enough to do all of my work. 

According to the Assistant Costume Designer the first fitting for the day started at 9 am which was also the start of my call, unfortunately. So I left my hotel, got in a cab and made it to theatre 30 minutes earlier than the call time, wanting to have a chance to set up the fitting and get a lay of the theatre beforehand. 

Once I got to the theatre I walked around the building until I found the stage door which was already open. Going inside I found one of the security guards who gave me my pass and key card for the theatre and was even nice enough to show me down to the wardrobe room, which he also unlocked for me. Inside the wardrobe room were racks upon racks of clothing and on the table, meant to be my workspace, was a stack of paperwork and keys to the wardrobe room, I was guessing. I grabbed the key off the desk first and grabbed the Roscosmos keychain that Bucky had bought for me, placing the key on the ring before putting it in my bag, where I couldn’t lose it. Then I started to go through the racks of clothing, opting to fill out paperwork after the fittings. 

Not only were these costumes absolutely stunning with the different brocades and laces but also being in the Renaissance fashion made them so much more outstanding. So, knowing that Leah would be the first girl in today, I went ahead and pulled her costumes and put them on the rack inside the fitting room. I also found my notepad for notes and put things out on the table, just in case we would need them, like safety pins, straight pins, measuring tapes, and a few other things that we probably wouldn’t need but I put out anyway.  Hopefully we wouldn’t need too much since these were final fittings. 

So then it just became a waiting game. I was hoping that the assistant would get there before the actress did but sometimes it just depended on the person. From what I had heard I had gotten a good assistant to work with, so despite me always wanting to be early, I’m sure she would be on time for the fitting. 

When I had finished setting up the fitting room, even pulling the next two sets of fittings and setting them closer to the fitting room, I decided to walk around the theatre, get a lay of the land. Depending on the show, the union status, and touring company, how nice the rehearsal space tended to vary. For instance, the first tour I ever worked was a small show with only about 14 performers, it was non-equity, and the touring company couldn’t afford to fly us anywhere so we were on a bus, which meant we were in a rather small theatre for the two months of rehearsals, fittings, and tech. With this show, where there were 22 performers, where this new tour was equity, and where we got hotels and flights, we got a much bigger theatre with space and organization and the ability to do a really good job setting up this tour. 

So I wandered around looking at this beautiful theatre, wondering about what shows had played there, meeting a few people along the way, and eventually circled back to the Wardrobe room before 9:00 came around. I walked into the room, seeing someone looking at the clothing on the rack outside the fitting room, the ones for the two later fittings. 

“They’re absolutely beautiful.” I said, grabbing her attention. 

“Gregg doesn’t do anything but beautiful.” 

“No he doesn’t. You must be Nakia.” 

“And you must be Y/N. It’s nice to finally meet you.” 

“It’s nice to meet you too.” I reached out and shook her hand and then we turned back to the costumes. 

“Well, I guess let me get you caught up on what I’ve done so far before the first actress gets here.”

“Sounds like a good idea.”

“So first, we have two four hour calls today, one for the three fittings and the second for the crew watch. I’ve gone ahead and started the paperwork for the costumes that have already been fitted, made the piecelists and hopefully after the run tonight I can start on the tracking. I also want to start an extra list for this next round of fittings so that we can start buying skins and of course I’ll go back to the actors who’ve already been fitted and ask them what they’ll want. I’ll make a list and have the shopper go pick up those items and extras for our gondola backstock. And I’m not sure if you know or not, but I already sent an email to Gregg asking him if he was using Broadway costumes for swings, since we had one drop out last minute.”

“Yeah, he handed me a stack of costumes this morning, they’re in my car.”

“Great, she’s our third fitting so, if you want I could go and grab them and bring them in?”

“Oh no, I have someone whose helping me out for the day, he’ll bring them in in a bit.”

“Okay. Other than that, the run through starts after the lunch break. You can sit in the house and make note of anything you see and I’m going to be backstage walking through the old supervisor notes and talking to the actors about what they think they’ll need for their quick changes and whether or not anything needs to change.”

“You’re not going to watch the show?”

“I’m going to be on the road with this tour for over a year, I think I’ll know the show front and back in no time.” 

So the two of us started going over some of the other fittings from before, still waiting for our first actress to come in. We got to about 9:15 when I started thinking that she wasn’t coming. 

“You know, in my experience, I’ve never had anyone show up this late to a fitting before.”

“Oh...did I tell you 9?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry I meant 10. I must have been thinking 9 because we get done at 1 and a four hour call starts at 9. Leah won’t be here until 10 though.”

“Okay, well there’s plenty of stuff to do until she gets here and I’m hoping your assistant will get here before she will.”

“He should be here any second.”

“Well before he gets here I’m going to grab the rest of those shoes. I just got them back from the shop and now that they’re painted the color that Gregg wanted, we can order shoe paint too. It’s as if everything is coming together.”

“Yeah as if.” We both laughed. 

So I went to the back of the room and grabbed as many boxes of shoes as I could, kind of like a juggling act, knowing either way that I would have to take a second trip. I set the boxes down outside the fitting room, on the ground below the costumes, grabbing Nakia’s attention while I put them in the correct order. 

“Hey, did we ever get those other LaDucas in?” 

“I couldn’t tell you the first thing about any LaDucas.” 

That voice made the whole world stop and the only thing I could hear was the erratic beat of my heart. I wasn’t sure when I was going to see him again, I knew I would but I didn’t think it would be today. 

I slowly stood from my crouched position and turned to face him, for a brief second wondering if I had just imagined the voice as him. 

He stood there looking as handsome as ever in a tuxedo, the nicest one I had seen him in to date, and yet he looked absolutely exhausted and like he hadn’t slept in a while. 

“Bucky...what are you doing here?” 

“Well Nakia asked me to bring in those costumes.” He gestured to some costumes wrapped in plastic hanging up on the rack next to the other costumes for the fittings. 

“I meant what are you doing in New York?” 

“I came to be with you.” 

“You flew out here—“ 

“To be with you and to do this.” He stepped forward and placed his hands on either side of my face, pulling me to him and, finally, kissing me. I relished in his kiss, sinking into his embrace, enjoying the moment...even if it was only for a moment. 

I pulled away from him but not too far from his embrace. “You know, just because you show up at my work and sweep me off my feet, doesn’t mean I’m going to quit.” 

“I know.” And again with the kiss...God, his lips...

And yet I pulled away from him again, my breath starting to get a little labored. “And this kiss doesn’t fix everything.” But God did I wish it could. And because it didn’t, I just wanted to be clear with him, despite the fact that he was doing a pretty good job of clouding all rational thought. It was just...when he kissed me it made me feel like I had before, all the times we had spent together before it all blew up in our faces. It was as if every time he brought his lips back to mine, there was something that reminded me of every reason I loved him. 

“I know.” Kissing me again, he held me longer this time not letting me out of his grasp too quickly but letting me pull away anyway.

“There’s a lot that we need to talk about before things can go back to normal, a lot that I’m still confused about.”

“I know.” This time when he kissed me, he moved his arms around my waist, pulling me even closer to him. This time I lingered a little longer with him, pulling away what seemed like forever later, when I was able to think of something else to say. 

“And—“ 

“I love you.” He interrupted. 

“You love me?” 

“I love you so much, I have loved you since the second I saw you in that interview. I loved you every time you sassed me, I loved you every time you smiled or laughed, I loved you when you hated me, and I’ve loved you every second in-between. I know that there’s a lot that I need make up for and a lot that I have to explain but I would spend a lifetime getting in your good graces again if it meant that I got to be with you.” 

“You love me?” He smiled and let out a laugh.

 “Is that all you heard?” I tried to say something to him, anything but the shock of hearing those words said to me by him, made things very hard to comprehend. I mean I had heard what he said, all of it, but in my head it was as if there was absolutely nothing there, nothing but those words. “I’ll say it a million more times, if it will convince you of how much I love you.” He moved his hands back up to hold my face. “Because I do, I love you, I love you, I love you and I’ll never stop loving you.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“I love you too...I have for a while.”

“That is the most heavenly thing I have ever heard you say.” He had this huge smile on his face and I couldn’t help but smile back at him. And this time when we kissed it felt different, I had pushed all the doubts and fears aside for one blissful moment. “Say it again?” He asked when he pulled away. 

“I love you.”

“I will never get tired of hearing that and I love you too.”

“Bucky—”

“Don’t say anything yet. I know that you probably have a lot going through your mind right now, but if you’re willing, just stick with me a little while longer.”

“Don’t think for a second that I would give up so easily. What we have is worth a lot more than one mistake and two weeks without seeing each other.”

“I’m really glad to hear that. And I know that you’re about to have some fittings, but I would love to take you out for lunch...and maybe explain some things.”

“Anything with food is a win for me.”

“I see how I rank.” I laughed at him and moved out of his embrace for the first time since he walked in. 

“So what are you going to do for the next three hours?”

“Well I was thinking about getting a room in a hotel nearby, take a nap, shower, change.”

“I was about to ask where you were taking me for lunch, you know, considering the fact that you’re wearing a tuxedo.”

“Yeah…” He laughed a bit at his outfit, “I picked it out for you, but then you didn’t come to filming so of course I had to wear it here. And despite the romantic that makes me out to be I do have to admit that I came straight here so I didn’t really think about changing. I really just kind of took advantage of the circumstance.”

This time I laughed at him, this was definitely the man that I loved. “Well, I like it a lot and I love a good romantic gesture. But to give you as much time as possible, you are more than welcome to go to my hotel room and do whatever you need to. I will say though, I need you to be back to the theatre by 1:00 if we’re going to get as much time as possible for lunch.”

“That I think I can do.”

“Good, so go get a nap in because you look exhausted.”

“Thanks.”

“Your welcome.”

I grabbed my bag and gave him my room key before he left. Nakia came back in and had this smile on her face, I didn’t say anything to her about it, I just spent the time I had left getting ready for the fittings. 

And as fittings usually go, there wasn’t much to say. The three girls who came in today were incredibly nice and took the hour they were allotted to ask questions and to try on their looks for the show. Nakia explained when they would be wearing certain costumes and I made sure to take note of anything that I would need, as well as everything that still needed to be done. The only thing that didn’t settle when I saw Bucky for the first time, was how real the fittings made this feel. I was leaving LA, I was leaving my friends and the worst of all was that I was leaving Bucky. I knew that these three would always be there, but the idea of getting on the road and living out my dream made me torn inside. 

I had taken this job because I thought I was alone, that I could head out and be completely fine, cut myself off from the world and from everyone who had ever left me or done wrong by me. But being with Bucky, no matter how fake the show had been, made my whole world better. He made me want to be happy, he made me push myself, and he gave me everything I had ever dreamed of, even if he didn’t realize it. 

Before the third fitting was done, having luckily caught Bucky before he left the hotel,  I texted him and asked if we could just order lunch from room service and stay in. Of course he was on board with that, but I just didn’t want to have a conversation like this in public. The short walk back to the hotel gave me the confidence to say exactly what I planned to, running everything in my head before stepping into the lobby. 

I took the elevator up to the room and knocked on the door, waiting only a couple of seconds for him to open. 

“Hey.” He said, already looking a lot better after a nap and shower, I could only assume. He was simply wearing jeans and a henley, but it was the way that the henley hugged his muscles that distracted me from what he had just said, my mind completely dropping all of the preparations I had just done moments ago.

He stepped out of the way to let me into the room, still looking at me for some kind of response. “Hi.” I managed to get out as he closed the door behind me and took my things from me. I watched as he did, having to remind myself, after the three hour break from each other, that he was actually here. 

“See something you like?” He asked, when I hadn’t torn my gaze away from him. He just smiled at me, making his way back over to me. 

“You.” I said, feeling relief at the fact that I didn’t need to hide what I felt for him anymore. I could so simply say that I liked him, so simply gawk at how handsome he was, it was a nice feeling. 

“Me?” 

“Who else would I look at?” Now standing in front of me he leaned down and kissed me, wrapping his arms around my waist and really distracting me from the actual objective of this lunch. 

I pulled away. “Bucky…” Even though I was smiling, I tried to give him a serious look, letting him know that I meant business.

“What? It was your fault.”

“My fault?”

“Don’t start something you don’t have time to finish.”

“Me?”

“Yes you, you were the one watching me...thinking about me.”

“You were the one who put on the tightest shirt you owned.”

“I see how it is.”

“Bucky…”

“I’m kidding. But it is noted that you like my shirt.” He winked at me and gave me one of those heart stopping smiles.

“Let’s order lunch before you get me into any more trouble.”

So we climbed up on the bed and grabbed the menu, quickly ordering before things got serious.

“So…” He started. 

“So…”

“I definitely owe you an explanation.” The happy look on his face had completely disappeared. 

“You know that this isn’t going to change the way that I feel about you.”

“I just don’t want you to be upset again.”

“Believe it or not, I think that putting what happened behind me is the best thing I can do right now.”

“Really?”

“I would like to know what happened though.”

“Okay...the morning after our date, I woke up before you did so that I could make you breakfast. Honestly, the best part of that morning was just how beautiful you looked, how peaceful you were, and just remembering everything about that night, how wonderful it all was. I went downstairs to the kitchen and right as I got there, my phone went off. I kind of figured it was someone from the network so I didn’t answer at first, figuring I could deal with them when I got back, but they kept calling. So I finally answered.

“It was a representative from the legal department and...and they told me that they knew that we were seeing each other and that they had proof. I didn’t know what it was at the time, but they obviously had video from the kiss in the wardrobe trailer. At first I tried to dispute it, but he kept going on about how it was in violation of your contract to date a coworker. Initially I thought that it would be an easy fix, that we would just have to keep us under wraps while at work. It was when he started talking about Jackson that I realized that this was a real problem. 

“He told me that there had been some legal issues right after they arrested him. His lawyer tried to get him released on the grounds that I had assaulted him, that the whole thing had just been a misunderstanding between the two of us. Of course Asa fixed everything, but because I had punched him at work on network property, it was the network’s responsibility to protect me. So there’s the first strike against us.”

“The first?”

“The second one being all the time off you had. With your accident, you not being able to work and there only being the two of you, they had to start paying Wanda overtime for all the extra hours she was coming in. Not to mention they were still paying you because it was an accident you had no control over.”

“Please tell me that that’s it.”

“No...this one is my fault again. The thing with Chloe kind of blew up. First of all the ambulance and medical costs automatically went to the network because you were injured by a coworker on network property. They had planned on suing Chloe at first because she was the one at fault and there were a ton of witnesses that saw what happened. But her lawyer was counter suing because there was a grey area when it came to whether or not you were actually still working for the network or if your paid leave meant that you werent. Then there was the question on whether she actually did anything to you that harmed you or if it was all because you were sick before you came in that morning.”

“God, what a mess.”

“A very big legal mess and really a lot to keep from you, especially after having always told you everything. I understand that you would be upset.”

“I’m more upset that I was kept out of this, not really the fact that you didn’t tell me. I can understand a gag order and the reasons for upholding that. But you shouldn’t have had to handle that on your own.” 

“Strangely enough, there were actually three gag orders.”

“Three?”

“Anything legal that happened with the network was heavily protected because they didn’t want any news outlets to get word of all the legal issues that they had with this show. The first gag order came from Jackson’s lawsuit, the second from Chloe’s, and the third from ours.”

“Ours?”

“More or less. The thing with Jackson was my fault, kicking Chloe off the show was my fault—”

“None of this is your fault.”

“I have to take some, that’s kind of why it’s ours and not just yours. That morning, I had to think quick and I obviously made a decision that wasn’t ideal. But after everything that he told me, after everything that you just went through, I couldn’t let the network take what your father had left for you. I had an inkling of what I had to do but I didn’t want to get to that point, so I called a different lawyer, not wanting to take Peggy away from you, and got a professional opinion. 

“He told me that the only way for this to go away was to take away the only thing that they had on us, which was the idea that the reason I did what I did, was for you. And the only way I could think of doing that was to make you really mad at me, so that you wouldn’t talk to me. But he also said that there was no other option than to pick someone on the show and finish the contract.”

“I was going to ask you about that.”

“I chose Ulani.”

“I thought you would.”

“Well her girlfriend was very understanding so that was nice.”

“What?” I was completely shocked. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah. Ulani actually came to me and told me all about Diana and how they were in the exact same situation as we were, she wanted to help out. It was also nice to have someone to talk to about everything, well what I could talk about, but it was also nice because I knew that she wasn’t trying to be with me.”

“Wait, Diana...from props?”

“Yeah.”

“I would have never thought. When you said that you chose Ulani I felt a little jealous, but I’m really happy to hear that she’s happy with someone else. Not to mention, Diana is a total sweetheart.”

“You’re cute when you’re jealous.” He leaned over and kissed me quickly. “But no need to worry, because I choose you and I’m always going to choose you. I think the question is...are you going to choose me too?”

“Bucky, like I said before I’m not that upset anymore. The truth is I want to be with you, you’ve made me happier than anyone I’ve ever dated and honestly I can’t imagine my life without you. This...us, was always a little too real. In that world of fake words and plastic personalities, I couldn’t even begin to believe that I had met someone as incredible as you. It’s why I never said anything to you, I felt like we were stuck in a fantasy and that at any moment I would wake up and my reality would be without you. I should have known better because you are the most real thing I’ve ever had. But the fantasy is over and this is the real world...and you’re here.” 

“I’m here for good.” 

“But there are things to consider, things that change things, very real things.” 

“No matter what ‘things’ you have going through that head of yours, I’m still not going anywhere.” 

“But—“ 

“What are you thinking about?” 

“A lot.” 

“Give me one.” 

“Well...the biggest one, my job. I may have taken this job when I was sad and not in the right headspace, but this is my life and I’m about to go on tour for more than a year. I hate to even think about it, but every relationship I have ever had has fallen apart under the pressure and quite frankly the distance, including mine with you. I mean, no matter what I did or how much I loved  someone... they still left. If you left again...I love you so much that I don’t think I would make it through again.” I was starting to get really emotional. 

“I’m here for every bump and curve, for every good moment and bad. What can I do to convince you that I’m not going anywhere?” 

“I don’t know. I don’t know the first thing about a normal relationship. I don’t know how to quiet this anxiety and worry running through my head and I’m scared that I’ll do something to mess everything up.” 

“Nothing you could do would ever scare me away. It was absolutely amazing to have you so close to me these past couple of months, a dream really. We’ve gone through more together as friends than most couples ever have to deal with and we were by each other’s side the whole time, disregarding the legal stuff. Our relationship is the most real thing I have ever experienced and transitioning into something more will come with its challenges. But just because we aren’t close to each other doesn’t mean that I don’t love you or want to be near you every second of every day. Just because we’ve been through some of the toughest things doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t go through more or even less with you. You are my everything...and you don’t give that up once you find it.” 

“Really?” 

“Really. I know it may be tough sometimes and we’ll figure things out as we go but I can’t imagine doing it with anyone else.” 

“Me either.” 

This time when he kissed me there was a relief that hadn’t been there before. No, we didn’t have everything figured out and we didn’t know the answers to every question we had but for the first time none of that seemed to matter, the fact that we loved each other was enough. And that was enough to push the doubts away. 

“So I have a proposal then.” I said between kisses. 

“Did you get me a ring?” He smiled at me and I laughed at him. “I’m kidding. What’s your proposal?”

“Can we just...start over...in a sense?”

“What do you mean?”

“You were my best friend for months and even though we were fighting our feelings for each other, there was something so pure between us. I feel like lately all we’ve had are awkward conversations and the occasional small talk. I never wanted us to get there, I don’t want anything between us to be awkward or tense, we’ve never been that way before.”

“I don’t want to be that way either.”

“Good. But the reason I ask is because of something my dad said. I’ve been thinking about him a lot and…” I paused, trying my best to keep my emotions at bay; he placed his hand on mine, giving me a small but great comfort. “The call that he had made to me, that day of our kiss in the trailer, I asked him about you after you left. He told me that only some people are lucky enough to find the person that they will spend the rest of their life with and honestly I think I got really lucky with you.”

“You got lucky with me? No, I got lucky with you, I never thought that you would love me.”

“Well, I do. And I want to put these last two weeks behind us and I want to have a first date where you’re not forced to disappear in the morning. I want to start fresh on the boyfriend/girlfriend front, so we don’t have to think about what happened.” 

“Okay.” 

“But that means that you have to come up with an even better first date.” 

“Challenge accepted...I’ve got all of New York for ideas.” 

“I’m off Monday.” I moved closer to him on the bed.

“Perfect.” His face, his lips moved even closer...

“I love you.” 

“I love you.” And our kiss, was one of a new beginning. 

****

BUCKY’S POV

I thought that I was going to have a harder time trying to convince Y/N that I hadn’t completely screwed up. I had already been feeling terrible about everything, doubting if she was ever going to give me a chance again, but getting what happened out in the open seemed to really help things. There was time to figure out the logistics of our relationship, there was time to get answers and time to fix the doubts; that would come with loving each other and diving head first into an actual relationship with Y/N. She had given me a second chance and that’s all I could have asked for. I would spend a lifetime making up to her these past two weeks, but lucky for me it seemed like that was already moving to the past. 

So with the conversation done for the moment, and everything seemingly good between us, we ate our lunch, made some small talk, and she got ready to head back to work. Which meant that I needed to find something to do for the next four hours. 

“I don’t suppose that you would want to come with me? We’re just watching the show and then there will be a production meeting afterwards. You can’t come to that but I’m sure I could sneak you in for the show.” 

Or maybe not. 

“Yeah I would love to go.” 

So we headed back to the theatre and met up with Nakia before heading into the “house” as they call it. We sat in the middle of the orchestra level and Y/N grabbed a notepad, pen, and a huge stack of notes. Nakia had her laptop, a walkie talkie and her own huge stack of notes. 

We didn’t have to wait long for them to start the show, they didn’t want to waste any time, seeing as, according to Y/N, the show was two and a half hours long. The opening number started and the cast came out on stage in there street clothes and though it was underwhelming without the spectacle of costumes and whatnot, they started out strong and sounded great. But let me tell you, for a crew watch there sure was a lot of talking.

It seemed like Nakia and Y/N had something to talk about every time someone walked on or off stage, which was frequent. Not only that but there was a tech table, as Y/N had explained earlier, that was constantly calling cues and talking about something that needed to be fixed. So if I was going to have to listen to people talk amongst the singing I opted to listen to Y/N, at least that way I would be learning something new about her job. 

And tuning in, I definitely had a lot to learn. The lingo was the biggest thing, there were a lot of things I’m sure that didn’t get used outside of a theatre: pit pads, doubles, gondola and gondola village (she couldn't mean a boat right), DeLuca’s, tap mics, wings, ASM, PSM, DSM, Dead clothes, Prop box, on deck, preset baskets, tech week, 10 of 12 day, and more. 

The whole thing seemed pretty confusing to me but I tried my best to catch on to what I could and I made note of things to ask about later. And then we got to intermission. 

“You doing okay?” She asked me when the house lights came back up and I could really see her. 

“Yeah, I find it kind of weird though that you’re supposed to be watching the show and yet everyone is talking.” 

“Unfortunately that’s just how everything works when we’re this close to opening.”

“I was able to hear some of the things you were talking about but I didn’t understand most of it.”

“Yeah, there’s a lot more to theatre than there is to film...at least in Wardrobe.”

“Seems like it.” 

“That and there’s a lot more that goes into a traveling production, we want to make sure that we have whatever we need for anything that could happen.”

So for the next fifteen minutes of intermission I asked Y/N questions about the things that I noticed and then it was on to Act 2. 

This time around I didn’t have nearly as many questions and everyone seemed a little quieter this time around. It was nice to just pay attention to the show and to laugh at all the jokes and smile at the crazy musical number that happened towards the end. One thing's for sure, I was definitely going to get tickets to see this show. 

Sooner than expected this time around, the show finished and the actors all came out on stage. The director quickly went up and started to give notes so that they could leave as soon as he was done, Y/N explained. So while he spoke to the actors, all of the technical crew started to gather around the tech table with notepads and the like. 

“So why don’t you go and wait out in the lobby for me? Maybe find somewhere we can go for dinner.” She said to me.

“That I can do.”

“I’ll be out as soon as I can.”

“Okay.” So I walked out and found a bench to sit on in the lobby, pulled out my phone and started to look around the area for a good place to eat dinner. 

NAKIA: Hey. Just heard from T and it looks like he’s getting off at the same time we are. Double date? 

BUCKY: Sounds good to me. Any places in mind? 

NAKIA: Yeah. I’ll have T make a reservation. 

BUCKY: Great. 

Not having a distraction anymore, certainly did make sitting in the lobby by myself that much longer. And yet somewhere amongst the waiting the actors came out and made their way out of the theatre. 

For some reason I thought I had been in the clear once the show was over. I thought that the world would forget about me and move on to another bachelor. I should have assumed differently. 

Pretty much all of the girls came over to me and started asking me questions about the show and asking to take a photo with me. I didn’t really want to be in any photos, because I knew that once they posted them, someone would have something to say about me being in New York the day after the show ended and not with Ulani. But I did want to be nice to them so that when they found out I was with Y/N they wouldn’t be rude to her or to me when I visited. 

So I took the pictures and answered there questions and hoped that this wouldn’t all explode in my face. But the question that they all seemed to be asking was why I was in New York, let alone a closed rehearsal for a touring show. 

I wasn’t exactly sure what Y/N wanted me to say, so instead of saying something that could possibly get us both in trouble I told them that I was here for work and that a friend of mine was working the tour. I would explain what happened to Y/N later. 

But when that was over and they all left me alone I decided to hide myself from anyone else and play around on my phone until Y/N was done. 

Which was much later. 

I had fallen asleep by that point, laying in the most awkward position on the bench.  Despite having slept earlier, even if it had been really short, I didn’t think that I would pass out waiting for Y/N.

I woke up to the feeling of her lips on mine, even if it was just a peck, and when I opened my eyes, I saw her beautiful face and a smile that stole my heart.

“Hi, Mr. Sleepyhead.” She was sitting on the ground next to me, her fingers running through my hair. 

“I didn’t mean to fall asleep.” I smiled back at her and moved to sit up. 

“I know. Are you ready go?”

“I am if you are.”

I stood up and helped her off the ground and then we made our way back to the hotel to change for dinner. 

“So, I hope you don’t mind but Nakia texted me earlier and asked if we wanted to go to dinner with her and her boyfriend, you know like a double date. She set up a reservation for us at this place, but if you’re not up for it I would understand.”

“No, I’m good for a double date. But I am more curious to know how you know Nakia.”

“I don’t know her, not really, I know her boyfriend. We kind of went to school together.”

“Kind of?”

“Yeah. I went to MIT, he went to Harvard. We met at a bar our Freshman year and then moved in together after that. We lived together until we both graduated and have been friends ever since.”

“Well then I’m excited to meet him.”

“I’m sure you’ll like him.”

We made it back to the hotel and into our room, Y/N going straight into the closet to grab her dress for the night and the iron and board. 

“Why don’t you let me do that?” I asked, taking the board from her hands and setting it up. 

“You want to press my dress for me.”

“You’ve had a long day and you should relax.”

“You fell asleep on a bench earlier, if anyone should relax it should be you.”

“That? That was a power nap. I feel fine…” I took the iron from her hands and moved her back towards the bed. “Let me help, you relax.”

“Ok. But I’m going to go fix my hair first, I wasn’t really in the mood to do anything with it this morning.”

“You look beautiful just the way you are.” I stepped in front of her, blocking her path to the bathroom. 

“Thank you.” She reached up and kissed me...I would never get over that. 

In a moment of sheer distraction she passed by me and went into the bathroom, leaving me with the pressing. So I got to work. 

The dress was a beautiful shade of blue, I could only imagine that it would look amazing on Y/N, but I might of bit off more than expected. The dress was long and there was a lot to the skirt, not to mention near impossible to get the top let alone the sleeves. But I wasn’t going to let Y/N down and I told her that I would get it done, even if it did take me longer than it would have if she had done it. 

She must have been watching me for sometime because I could hear her trying to hold back her laughter when I couldn’t figure out the best way to get the front of the dress pressed with its wrap style. 

“Bucky, please let me help.”

“No, I got it.” Then I felt her hands on top of mine, slowly prying the iron from my hands. 

“We need to leave soon and you still need to get dressed. Thank you for pressing my dress.”

“But I didn’t finish.”

“Just a little advice...I usually do the top first so that the skirt doesn’t get wrinkled. Also it’s a lot easier to go back through when it’s hung up and just let them steam from the iron get the wrinkles out of the top.”

“Good to know.”

So as she finished her dress, I went into the restroom and put my suit on, having already pressed it earlier and took a couple of minutes to fix my hair back into place. 

I walked out into the main room and quickly stopped in my place. I probably should have said something or gone back into the bathroom but I was completely frozen in place. 

Seeing Y/N in her bra and underwear shouldn’t be weird right? I mean I had seen her in less...a lot less and she had definitely seen me the same way. And yet she amazed me. She was just so simply getting dressed, an everyday action, but seeing her in this way, in a way that no one else got to, made me feel a greater love for her. I got to see her scars and imperfections, I saw her past painted on her skin and I saw the insecurities she tried to hide with clothing. Everyone got to see her strength and her confidence, but I was lucky enough to see everything that they didn’t. And knowing that, having finally admitted my love for her, I couldn’t help but stare and become even more entranced by her beauty and just wonder how I had somehow won her heart. 

“See something you like?” She turned around to face me, obviously knowing that I was behind her, still with a glowing smile on her face. 

“You.” I said smiling back at her. 

“Well that is definitely something we should bring up later, but now we have to go.” She winked at me and I couldn’t help but laugh at her. God I was doomed, this woman would be the death of me. 

We both put on our shoes and headed down to our ride to the restaurant. I opened the door for her and slid in right next to her, and as soon as we were settled and on our way, Y/N grabbed my hand and held it in hers. 

We didn’t really talk on the drive. It wasn’t that we didn’t want to talk to each other, it was that there wasn’t anything to say. We had talked about the biggest elephant in the room and despite how complicated I had made things, we had come to an understanding about everything. We weren’t 100% good and we would still have our issues but for now, we were fine, we had each other. Everything else would come with time. 

We pulled up in front of the restaurant and I helped her out of the car, before escorting her into the restaurant. I gave the hostess my name and she showed us to our table which was already occupied by Nakia and T’Challa. I walked over to him first and gave him a big hug, I couldn’t even remember the last time I had seen him. 

“Hey Buck.” 

“Hey T.” I said. “Or is it your highness now?”

“One article called me that and now I can’t seem to escape it.”

“I have to admit that it suits you.”

“Yeah...whatever. How have you been?”

“I’m doing great.” The four of us sat down at the table and our hostess placed menus in front of us before leaving us alone. 

“You know, Nakia and I watched your show.”

“Did you? Well, don’t believe everything you see. I ended up a lot luckier than I did on the show.” I reached out for Y/N’s hand and she placed hers in mine, we both smiled at each other. “But...forgetting about the show, this is Y/N, my girlfriend. Y/N, this is my friend T’Challa, you probably know him as the King of Broadway.” 

“If you want to stay friends, you’ll stop calling me that.”

“I don’t want to be a fangirl but I saw you as Coalhouse in Ragtime and your performance was outstanding, absolutely incredible.” Y/N said to him. 

“Thank you, that was actually my first lead role on broadway, and it was the show where I met Nakia.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, she was the Wardrobe Supervisor and I was the actor—”

“And the rest is history.” Nakia finished. She reached over and grabbed his hand, just like I had with Y/N.

Our waiter came over to our table and took our drink orders and then headed over to the bar. And then Nakia asked the question that I’m sure was on both of their minds. 

“Ever since you called me, I’ve been very curious about the two of you. So I have to know...what’s your story?” She said referring to the two of us. 

“That is a...very complicated question.” I said with a smile on my face. 

I looked over at Y/N and the feeling that I felt looking at her, out to dinner with our friends, and free from everyone holding us back, was the best feeling in the world. I never wanted this feeling to leave, this feeling of complete and utter love for someone else, the feeling that I would do absolutely anything to see that smile on her face or hear her laugh fill a room. I had known before that she would be my world but now there was no doubt that she was my everything, and that was an incredible feeling.

“Our story? Well...it all started with an interview.” She began. 

****

EPILOGUE 

Tell Me What You Think Here

Tags: @fangirl1802, @seargantbcky, @lust-for-pan, @38leticia, @barnes-and-noble-girl, @karipaleta, @capandbuck, @camillechan, @findacauseandserveit, @audasia25, @kendallefire , @alicerozenju, @snuggleducky, @mell-bell, @lifeasabookbutterfly, @the-red-world-of-jess-chibi, @iamwarrenspeace, @ssweet-empowerment, @chook007 , @juliagolia87, @jjsoccer11, @smol-flower-kiddo, @mrsdaamneron, @isaxhorror, @barnesism, @thatgirlrowan, @linki-locks11, @janeyboo, @vgurl18, @guera31, @bornfortherainydays, @carryonmy-assbutt, @calwitch

[catalinda04]

Carried Away Chapter 52: On Tour

Masterlist

“Does everyone have their passports? Does everyone have their money? Good, then give mom and dad a hug, and let’s get on the move!” Lucy looked over her group of 22 students and two chaperones accompanying her to Europe. The students dispersed to find their parents and give them one last hug before their bus left the school parking lot for the airport. Lucy’s mom, Marie, and Emma were the two chaperones. John Claussen hugged his daughter tight, and gave her a kiss on the cheek before turning to his wife.

Looking around Lucy noted several tearful parents, and more than one tearful student waving goodbye to each other as they boarded the bus. The students were all excited for all the sights they would get to see, the parents were fearful to send their babies out into the world. Lucy felt an even mixture of nerves, excitement, and calm. The students had been raising money for this trip for two years, and it was finally here. She was getting to show her students a couple of her favorite cities in the world, and of course, Henry would be waiting for her in Madrid.

On the bus to the airport, Lucy talked strategy with Emma and Marie, assigned duty days, and talked group dynamics. Each chaperone was assigned a “team” of travelers. Lucy had hand picked her team of her favorite students, mostly consisting of her drama students.

“And Henry is joining us in Madrid?” Marie asked.

“Yes. His premier is the first night we’re in Madrid, then, hopefully, he’ll join us for the next day when we head out to Toledo.”

“Are you going to this premiere too?” Marie asked her daughter.

“No. I can’t leave the group. These parents have entrusted their kids to me. I can’t just go off for the evening and party. Plus I don’t have anything to wear. Can you imagine what a dress would look like by the time we’ve switched hotels three times?”

“I’m sure Emma and I could handle them for one evening.” Marie insisted.

“I don’t doubt that you could, but when push comes to shove, if anything happens, it’s my butt on the line.” Lucy explained.

“You, my dear, are much too cautious.”

“That’s not what you said last year when I said I was going to Europe for six weeks,” she reminded her mother.

“It comes and goes.” Marie laughed.

When Lucy and the group were checked in at the airport and had found their gate, Lucy released them to find lunch. “Stay in groups of 3 or more, don’t go out of security, and be back here by 1:30.” Lucy told the group before sending them off. She turned to Emma and Marie, “lunch?” She asked, and the two women nodded in agreement. They finally settled on a food court lunch, and went their separate ways before coming back to share a table. While Emma and Marie ate at a normal speed, Lucy sped through her meal.

“Hungry?” Emma asked laughing.

“No, I told Henry I’d call before we boarded. Then if we have enough time in Amsterdam, I’m going to call him after we land.” Lucy said. Emma gagged.

“Very funny. Do I need to remind you what you were like last Spring? And I haven’t seen him in almost a month.”

“Why didn’t he come after the Asia leg of the press tour?” Marie asked.

“I told him not to. Between the end of the year and last minute prep for the trip, I didn’t need the distraction. I mean we’ve talked almost every day, but it’s not the same.”

“Go. Talk to your ridiculously good looking, British boyfriend. We’ll see you at the gate.” Emma laughed, shooing her friend away.

Lucy found a quiet corner near their gate and called Henry. Lucy could hear the smile in his voice as he answered the call. After sharing their I miss yous and can’t wait to see yous, Lucy commented, “Emma says we’re nauseating. I told her to shut her trap.” Lucy laughed.

“Well done. I’m counting the days until I can see you again.” Henry said, making Lucy swoon.

“Me too. I’m torn. I don’t want the trip to go too fast, we’ve all been looking forward to this for two years, but I want to be in Madrid already so I can see you. I probably won’t be able to call much before Madrid. Internet is usually spotty at the hotels they book us in, and we’re so tired at the end of the day of touring anyway that all we want to do is shower off the day, and sleep. But I’ll be able to check my texts.”

“Remind me what your itinerary is again.” Henry said, loving how excited Lucy was when she talked about all the activities they had packed into very few days. Eventually the time came for the call to disconnect, the travelers were starting to congregate at the gate, and boarding would begin soon.

“Darcy, I have to go. I love you! And I’ll see you in 9 days. If I can call from Amsterdam, I will, but I also promised Sarah that I’d call her, since we’ll be so close.”

“Well, Cupcake, if I hear from you, I will, and if not, have a phenomenal time, and I will see you in 9 days. Madrid or bust.”

“I love you, Henry.” Lucy said thickly, her eyes watering slightly.

“I love you too, Lucy.” Henry said wistfully.

Lucy wiped her eyes and rejoined her group. They were allowed priority board because of the size of their group. Lucy settled into her cramped seat near the back of the plane, an aisle on her right side, her mother on her left. “I miss flying with Henry.” Lucy grumbled.

“Well, you’re stuck back here with us commoners for this trip. When you fly back to London, you can fly in luxury, until then I don’t want to hear it. You at least have an aisle.” Said her mother from the middle seat.

The flight passed uneventfully, and the group landed in Amsterdam, for a layover of a few hours before flying to Milan to start their tour. Lucy guided the tired teens through customs and they all found their gate. Lucy gave the same instructions as in Minneapolis. The travelers all looked exhausted, and went in search of coffee. Lucy attempted a call to Henry, but his phone went to voicemail. Lucy was disappointed but tried not to let her emotions take over. She was jet lagged and had to be on her game for the kids. She called Sarah, who did answer. They had a brief conversation, mostly about the upcoming trip, and the flight they had just finished. She was smiling by the time she disconnected the call with her friend. The kids were starting to migrate back to their gate. Most looking slightly more awake, and clutching shopping bags from airport stores.

Most of the group, including Lucy slept on the short flight from Amsterdam to Milan. Lucy led the tired but excited group through customs and baggage claim. Finally they met their tour director, Giuseppe, a handsome Italian man with gorgeous olive toned skin, and dark hair. “He’ll be popular with the girls.” Lucy thought as she introduced herself to him. He led the group to a waiting bus to take them to the Cinque Terre.

Once Lucy was sure her kids had what they needed, she approached Giuseppe. She had exchanged several emails with him before the tour, but now that the tour had started, she wanted to reconfirm that Henry would be welcome to join the group in Madrid.

“Ciao, Giuseppe.” Lucy said, taking a place in the seat next to the man.

“Ciao, Lucia. What can I do for you?”

“I just wanted to remind you that my boyfriend will be meeting us in Madrid, and will probably be coming with us to Toledo.”

“Yes, I remember, thank you for reminding me. Will he be joining us for any meals?”

“I don’t know. I’ll text him when I have WiFi. When do you need to know?”

“The day before is fine. But while I have have you up here, we have some things to take care of,” he said pulling a binder from his bag. He and Lucy arranged the students room assignments and talked about any food allergies the group had. Eventually the group arrived at their hotel in time to check in and explore the city for an hour or so before dinner.

Lucy looked around at her students, most looked like they would fall asleep in their pesto. Lucy felt the same. After their dinner, Lucy called a group meeting where she went over the following day’s itinerary, and scheduled curfew time. None of the students complained about the 9:00 curfew she set, they all went straight to their rooms for a decent night’s sleep.

The morning arrived bright and beautiful. The warm Italian air blew through the open window of her hotel room as Lucy readied herself for the first day of actual touring. She met all of the travelers in the hotel’s restaurant area for breakfast, and reminded them to pack or wear their swimsuits.

With more than a little confusion, the group managed to board their bus to the train station, then the train that would take them into the Cinque Terre. They arrived to the first of the five little villages around mid morning. The sign at the train station read, Riomaggiore. There were several people on the platform waiting to catch the train to the next village. Lucy instructed her travelers to disembark and stand clear of the other passengers until the train had departed.

Lucy was doing a quick head count of her team when she heard a voice ask her, “Mi scusi, Signorina. Dov’è it porto?”

Lucy finished her count, and turned toward the voice. “I’m sorry, I don’t speak ital...HENRY!” She exclaimed, recognizing the handsome man in the tank top, cargo shorts, and baseball cap. She ran to him, jumping to wrap her legs around his waist as her arms encircled his neck. She pressed her lips to his in a kiss that felt like coming home.

“Lucia? Scusami, but we’re going this way.” Lucy heard Giuseppe say behind her. Lucy jumped apart from Henry.

“Sorry, Giuseppe. This is my boyfriend Henry. Henry this is Giuseppe our tour director.” Lucy said, making introductions. The two men shook hands.

“I thought he was not joining us until Madrid.” Giuseppe said to Lucy.

“Oh, I’m just here for the day,” Henry explained. “I have to be in Rome for work in two days, so I thought I would pop in to see my girl.”

“Well, benvenuto in Italia.” Giuseppe greeted, “We’re all going this way.” He indicated behind him, out of the station. Lucy took Henry’s hand and they followed the group off the platform. Giuseppe led the group through the tunnel into the city, and gave directions to different sights, as well as the meeting time to go to the next village.

Lucy called her group around. “Ok guys. You heard Giuseppe. I want to to either be with an adult, or in groups of 3 or more. Be back here,” she pointed to the spot they were standing on, “by 11:20. That’s 10 minutes before Giuseppe’s time. Remember, groups of 3 or more, or with an adult, watch your belongings, and have some fun. You are excused.” Lucy said, sending the kids off. Most stayed for another minute to say hello to Henry, before they took off. Lucy turned to Emma and Marie. “Look what I found!” she pointed to Henry.

“It’s nice to see you again Henry.” Marie said, pulling the tall man in for a hug. This was the first time she had seen him since the breakup.

“Marie, it’s lovely to see you again. How are you?” Henry asked, returning the hug.

“Well, I’m in Italy, so I can’t complain,” she joked.

“Emma, lovely to see you again as well.” He hugged Lucy’s friend.

“Sure, first you take away my prom date, now you take away my travel companion. So rude,” Emma joked.

“Only for today. I’m on my way to Rome for some press obligations. I thought it would be fun to surprise everyone.” He explained wrapping his arm around Lucy’s shoulders. Lucy leaned into his side, smiling like a fool.

“Should we go explore?” Lucy asked the group, and the four set off up the hill through the town. They passed several groups of students.

“Really guys? Gelato at,” she checked her watch, “10:15 in the morning?”

“We’re on vacation,” was their response.

“Fair enough. But make sure you’re drinking water too!” She called to them as they walked on.

The four adults wandered the streets of the little village, popping into shops as they felt like it. Emma and Marie either hung back from the couple, or walked ahead, to give them some space.

At the appointed time, Lucy was pleased to see all of her students gathered on time. They boarded the train to the next village. Manarola, the sign for this village read. Lucy gave the students their gathering time, and let them roam freely. Lucy, Henry, Marie, and Emma found a cafe, and claimed a table. Emma and Henry ordered coffee, while Marie and Lucy ordered ice water. The day had turned quite warm. Henry kept the women entertained with stories from the press tour, most of which Lucy had already heard, but was happy to listen to again, simple because Henry was there in person telling the story.

The four wandered the city, making their way to waterfront, where a group of the students had found a rock and were jumping off of it, into the Mediterranean. Lucy laughed, took pictures, and warned them to be careful.

The group made their way to the last of the villages they would be visiting. Monterroso al Mare. Giuseppe told them they would have the most time here. They would meet back at the train station at 6:00 to go back to their hotel for the evening. Lucy organized her travelers, helping them find places to get lunch. Henry joined Lucy, Emma, Marie and six travelers at a long table at a quaint cafe. Lucy answered questions about Italian cuisine, proud that the students would expand their horizons.

When everyone had finished their meals, Lucy asked their server for their checks. The server informed Lucy the bill had been taken care of by the gentleman at the end of the table, and nodded in Henry’s direction. Lucy gave him a look that said, thank you, and you shouldn’t have done that.

“Chicos and chicas, I think you all owe a very large grazie, to Henry. He paid for everyone’s lunch today.” she told the kids. Their eyes went wide, and a couple of the girls stood to give Henry a hug in thanks.

“Mom, Emma, I think Henry and I are going to wander by ourselves for a bit. We’ll meet you at the gelato stand by the train station in, say, two hours?”

“I wondered when you would cast us off. See you then.” Emma said, waving.

Henry and Lucy walked back to the beach. Henry claimed them a couple of beach chairs, and they sat in the shade, soaking in each others presence. Hey took off their shoes and walked down the beach, playing in the gentle waves rolling up on the sand. Then it happened. A girl approached Henry. He had been recognized. Lucy stood off to the side while Henry signed autographs and she volunteered to take pictures. Lucy wasn’t sure how long the picture session went on, but she looked at her watch, and caught Henry’s attention, pointing at her wrist, indicating it was time to go. Henry excused himself politely, took Lucy’s hand and together they walked toward the gelato stand. Lucy looked behind her to see more than one camera phone being pointed in their direction.

“Sorry about that darling.” Henry apologized.

“You have nothing to apologize for. I know that being with you in public carries the risk of attention. It’s just part and parcel of being with you.”

Henry kissed her temple, “Well thank you for tolerating it, Cupcake.”

“I tolerate it because I love you, Darcy.” Lucy replied kissing the underside of his jaw.

Lucy and Henry said goodbye at the train station. Lucy knew the entire bus of travelers was watching them, but she didn’t care. She kissed Henry deeply, and left him with a promise to see him in a week. Henry stood waving as the bus pulled away, and Lucy steadfastly didn’t meet the gazes of the other Tour Leaders on the bus. She assumed she’d probably get some questions from them at the leader’s meeting that night, but it was nothing she couldn’t handle.

Lucy stared out the window of the bus, when a voice drifted back to her. One of the students from one of the other groups was talking to his Tour Leader. “Superman was here today! I got my picture with him! Check it out!” The boy of about 15 showed his phone to his teacher. She looked at the screen, then back at Lucy. Yes, a lot of questions. Lucy thought to herself.

The rest of the trip passed quickly. Lucy managed to not lose any of her students, and to her knowledge none of them had snuck out at night. On the high-speed train from Barcelona to Madrid, Lucy looked the picture of impatience. Her fingers drummed on the armrest of her seat, she checked her watch, and the estimated arrival time.

“Honey, you need to calm down. You’re doing to give yourself an aneurysm. Settle down. The train will get to the station on time, and Henry will probably be waiting for you at the hotel, just like you arranged. But you need to stop that drumming before I break all of your fingers.” Marie said, putting her hand over her daughter’s.

“Sorry mom. I don’t know why I’m so anxious. I just saw him a week ago!”

“I believe they call it love honey.” Marie laughed, and Lucy managed to settle herself.

The train stopped at Atocha station, in the center of the city. Lucy and the group collected their luggage and began the trek to their hotel, which was just a few blocks from the station. Lucy, who had been at the back of the pack for most of the tour, lead the pack to the hotel. Henry was indeed waiting in the lobby. Lucy flung herself into his arms, ecstatic to see him again, then quickly separated from him. She had told her travelers that everything was hotter in Madrid, and she was right. She was a sweaty mess, just from the three block walk from the train station.

“Darling, I can’t stay. I have to get back to the press. But I will see you later. Leave your phone on, and I can call you when I’m done.” Henry said, kissing Lucy’s forehead before exiting the hotel as the last of the group arrived. Lucy didn’t see the wink exchanged by Marie and Henry.

The group deposited their luggage in their assigned rooms quickly, before heading right back out for lunch and a visit to the Prado museum. After spending their allotted two hours at the Prado, the group returned to the hotel to freshen-up for their evening tour in the Puerta del Sol and dinner nearby. Lucy unlocked the room she was sharing with her mother, and saw a garment bag hanging on the bathroom door that hadn’t been there when she left earlier. There was a note attached to the bag.

Cupcake -

I’ve worked out everything with your mother. Put on the dress, and make yourself look as beautiful as I think you are. A car will be around to collect you at 5:00.

Darcy

Lucy turned to her mother, who was smirking. “Mom, I told you. I can’t just leave the group. I’m responsible for them!”

     Marie walked to her daughter, and put her hand on her shoulders. “Dear, nothing is going to happen. Emma and I have this. Go have fun. We’re doing a walking tour and dinner, nothing bad is going to happen. Now, you had better start getting ready, you only have about 90 minutes.”

It was close, but with the help of Emma, Marie, and couple of the girls, Lucy was just being zipped into the dress Henry had procured for her, when the front desk called, telling her the car was waiting.

Marie surveyed her daughter. The dress was simple, but beautiful. The fabric was light and airy, which was a godsend in the hot Madrid atmosphere. The gorgeous sapphire blue material dipped into a V at Lucy’s neck. It flowed away from her waist gently down to her knee in the front, while the back had a slight train. The dress billowed whenever Lucy took a step, creating a dramatic silhouette. She looked beautiful. Henry had even thought to supply shoes for her. The simple white strappy sandals showcased the tan Lucy had acquired in the past week. One of the girls styled Lucy’s hair in a sideways braid, ending in curls. Paired with the dress, Marie barely recognized her daughter.

“Mom, here’s my phone. Call Henry’s number if there’s an emergency, and I will call you when we’re done at the premiere.” Lucy said, giving her mother a hug before rushing out the door and down to the waiting car.

Lucy found a driver waiting for her in the lobby. He escorted her out to the waiting car and opened the door for her. He navigated the Madrid city traffic with ease, and pulled up to a plaza near the Plaza Mayor. The driver came around to open the door for Lucy. She exited the car, and easily found the entrance to the red carpet. She showed the pass Henry had included in his note, and gave her name. She was led to a waiting area, but was not left waiting long, before Henry arrived, looking stunning in a cream colored suit with a shirt almost the same color as her dress.

“You came!” He yelled as he saw her, pulling her close carefully.

“I wasn’t really given much choice.” She gave him one of her teacher looks. “You colluded with my mother.”

“Are you terribly upset?” He asked, hoping he wasn’t in serious trouble.

“No. I wanted to come, but if anything happens, I’m blaming you.”

“Fair enough.” he agreed with a grin.

As they walked the red carpet, Lucy thought about how she’d gotten to this point. How she was now going to be in a newspaper in a third country. She, who normally tried to make sure there were as few pictures of her out in the public as possible, was now attending her second movie premiere at the arm of the lead actor.   

When the interviewers asked Henry about her and they discovered she was a Spanish teacher, they asked her to come forward as well. She begged off in the best Spanish she could muster in the situation. Her nerves had all but pushed all of her Spanish knowledge out of her brain. It took all she had to remember, “No gracias, este es la noche de mi novio. Lo siento. (No thank you. This is my boyfriend’s night.I’m sorry.) But she did notice an increase in the number of flashes after her profession was announced. “Aye dios mio.” she thought to herself.

Chapter 51           Chapter 53

Riomaggiore

Manarola

Monterroso Al Mare

Lucy’s Premiere Dress

[narcopathicabuse]

The 11 Most Common Narcissistic Hoovering Tactics December 27, 2016 Bree Bonchay, LCSW MANIPULATION TACTICS, NARCISSISTS

There’s a phenomenon we’ve all experienced at least one time called Synchronicity. It’s when you think of someone you haven’t thought about in years and then run into them a few hours later. Synchronicity always reminds me of another phenomenon that I call, Coincidental Hoovering. This phenomenon, more often than not, happens to the former partners, and relatives of narcissists. It’s when you finally start feeling some relief and peace in your life and make a giant Stover move like finally deleting your ex’s telephone number, or an even bigger Stover move, and change your number, and then out of the blue, you receive some kind of communication or an unexpected visit from your narcissist.

This never fails! I see it time, and time again. In fact, whenever a client tells me that they’re finally feeling better, and decided to get rid of that old box of mementos in their garage, or they’ve mustered the strength to block their ex from their mobile phone and email, I always get a little concerned.

I worry because due to the phenomenon of Coincidental Hoovering, they’re now almost certainly destined to receive some form of correspondence from their narcissist. And even though they’ve made great progress, they’re still so susceptible to being sucked back (hoovered) into the relationship, that they’ve worked so hard to forget.

Hoovers are hard to resist, especially when you finally get to hear all the things you’ve wanted to hear. But hoovers aren’t a compliment by any stretch of the imagination. You may feel a momentary sense of vindication, and confirmation to learn that your replacement target wasn’t better than you like the narcissist had made it seem on social media, but the true motivations behind the hoover aren’t what they appear to be on the surface.

The narcissist may really miss you, but not for the reasons you would want them to. They may miss what you gave them –free room and board, adulation, companionship, sex, or whatever their needs are. They may hoover you because they need a third party (you) to triangulate and manipulate their new victim with. They may just be filling their reserve tanks in preparation for periods of famine, or infidelity, and are surveying the availability of potential resources. Or, they may be in need of a quick ego boost and are looking to siphon some supply wherever they can get it the fastest, and with the least amount of effort.

It’s so easy to look for the positive in people, and wonder if maybe he/she isn’t a narcissist after all? Maybe you were wrong about them? Maybe the time apart has made him/her realize just how much they really appreciate you?

When in doubt, consider this –even though the apologies and sweet talk can be so convincing, and appear as if they’ve really changed, and truly mean what they’re saying– change for a non-narcissistic person doesn’t come easy. It is a very long, and slow process for anyone to truly change core parts of their personality. If it’s even possible for a narcissist to change, it would take years. And after years, the change may not even be very significant, or lasting. For you to realistically assess if there has been any real, and lasting change, you would need to spend at least 5 years, maybe 10 years, with many periods of relapse.

When we receive hoover messages, we instantly begin engaging in loophole-type thinking. We avoid the negative, and override the little voices in our heads, and get lost in the hope, and potential of things. After all, who wants to focus on the negative, and worry about all the doomsday what if questions, when it’s so much more enjoyable to stay in the moment and bask in the happy, positive thoughts?

But, failing to see the red flags, and the potential for serious harm is how we got here in the first place. If we neglect to read between the lines of these hoover messages or fail to remind ourselves of all the reasons we made the decision to implement no contact in the first place, we are setting ourselves up for even worse treatment the second time around. Post hoover relationships always begin with a brief honeymoon period where everything is Amaaaazing, and then they are followed by an even worse, and more rapid devalue period than the first go round.

The 11 Most Common Hoovering Tactics 1. The Cowardly Hoover

If you can count how many times your ex-narcissist said he/she was sorry on one hand, then you might want to prepare yourself for this tactic. This tactic is used by cowardly narcissists. The narcissist recruits a third party (usually one of their relatives) to send you a message, to get a temperature on you. The message will appear like it’s coming from the sender who is reaching out because they miss you, and just want to know how you’re doing, but it’s actually a fact-finding, temperature gauging mission the narcissist has sent them on to determine whether the coast is clear and if you’re open to contact abuse.

2. The Backhanded Hoover

The backhanded Hoover is a seemingly short, and sweet text that feigns caring, or yearning. Although, it’s a disguised insult because it’s really just a lazy text that takes all of two seconds of effort. Usually, these texts are three words or less –“I miss you.” “How are you?” “Thinking of you…”– And they’re sent with the intent to lure you back, but this time into the role of side supply.

3. The Proclamation

The proclamation is an excessively long text, or email, where the narcissist recites a litany of I’m sorry’s, and declares to have had an epiphany, and changed. The narcissist readily admits to his/her wrongdoings and misdeeds and apologizes profusely for hurting you. What’s missing from this proclamation is any real evidence of change. It’s just a lot of pretty hyperbole.

4. The Flip

The flip is a tactic where the narcissist flips the hoover back on you. Again, much like the cowardly hoover tactic, this tactic is usually executed by the more cowardly, prideful variety of narcissists. Remember too much pride is just a cover for the need to always be right. This hoover is all about securing an ego boost and surveying the amount of control they still have over you. “Did you call me?” “Was that you I saw parked in front of my house?”

5. The False Concern

The false concern is a tactic where the narcissist fakes concern for your well-being while appearing like the nice guy/gal. This tactic is used by narcissists, who are trying to disguise their real motives for contacting you beneath an aura of concern and caring. “Hey, are you okay?” “I heard you weren’t doing well, do you need anything?” “I know you don’t want to talk to me, so I won’t bother you anymore.”

6. The Purposely-Accidental Text

The purposely-accidental Hoover is intended to create a sense of urgency to sucker you into responding. It is a tactic many narcissists use to manipulate you, by appealing to your innate quality of compassion, by creating a sense of urgency. This type of text is sent to you on purpose but is camouflaged to appear to be sent to you by mistake, so you’ll feel a sense of obligation, and urgency to respond, and let the narcissist know to re-send the message to the intended recipient. “Mom’s flight has been changed, she wanted me to tell you to pick her up at 7:00 pm instead of 9:00 pm tonight.” “Hey, I’m hung up at work and I won’t be able to go over to your house and feed your dog. Sorry!”

7. The Sentimental Tug

This hoover tactic is meant to trick you into reminiscing about the past and becoming nostalgic, by reminding you of the sentimental moments the two of you shared. It may be littered with kissy face emojis, and xoxo’s, or it could be an inside joke only you would understand. “Hi, I just finished watching our favorite movie, and couldn’t help thinking of you.” “I was cleaning out my desk drawer, and found that card you gave me for my birthday.”

8. The Crisis

This tactic of needing to inform you about some real, or fabricated crisis, is a desperate tactic used to elicit and exploit your sympathy, and concern. Narcissists love to play the role of victim and get people to feel sorry for them. “My best friend was just diagnosed with cancer.” “I just got out of the hospital.” “Something horrible (fill in the blank_____) just happened, and I’m having a really difficult time right now.”

9. The Excuse To Contact Object

Many narcissists will purposely leave something of theirs at your house, and conveniently forget to pick it up, as arranged, so they will have an excuse to contact you at some future date. Or, they will fail to return something of yours, and hold onto it as an excuse to contact you months later, with the offer to return the recently discovered item. “Hi, I found your hair tie, would you like me to drop it by?” “I still have your gym water bottle, would you like to come get it?” “I think I left my sauce pan at your house. Can you look for it and let me know?”

1o. The Abuse Amnesia Text

The narcissist sends you a text conveniently pretending to forget that they abused you, cheated on you, smeared you, and replaced you before you even had time to change your Facebook relationship status. The narcissist acts as if none of that ever happened. There is no apology, no acknowledgment, no discussion, no accountability. If he/she can forget it happened, so should you.

11. The Bait and Ghost

This cruel tactic is used to assess how much control, and influence the narcissist still has over you. Or, it could be used to find out if you’re still a potential source of supply that he/she may draw from at some future point. The narcissist will send you a text to bait you into a conversation, and as soon as you respond, the narcissist will go silent and ghost you.

If someone treated you like crap, discarded you, replaced you as if you never existed, or all of the above, and all it takes for them to wiggle their way back into your life is a cowardly hoover, apologetic email, or a purposely-accidental text, the real question you have to ask yourself before you tap send is, “By replying, what message am I sending them?”

And for those of you who have written me messages expressing how you feel worthless, and doubly rejected because your ex-narcissists hasn’t hoovered you, and you’ve read that ALL narcissists hoover. This is simply not true. All narcissists don’t hoover. But don’t think you’re in the clear just yet, because you haven’t received a hoover. Many people don’t receive hoovers until five, ten, or more years have passed. There are many reasons why your ex hasn’t hoovered you, and none of them have anything to do with your worth. The most important thing to keep in mind is, if they aren’t contacting you, you’re much better off.

Bree Bonchay, LCSW, is a psychotherapist with over 18 years of experience working in the field of mental health and trauma recovery. She specializes in helping people recover from toxic relationships and shares her insights about Narcissistic Personality Disorder and psychopathy in her blog FreeFromToxic. Her articles have been featured in major online magazines and she has appeared on radio as a guest expert. She is also a dedicated advocate, educator, and facilitates survivor support groups and workshops.

                                           Click To Order

Suffering from narcissistic abuse? Join Narcissistic Abuse & Toxic Relationship Forum on Facebook.

Copyright © 2016 Bree Bonchay.  All Rights Reserved.

[la-appel-du-vide]

02•19•20 - QUEENSTOWN

This morning was a crazy one. We woke up later than planned, and by the time we left for the airport, we were supposed to already be there. And THEN the TRAFFIC. We hit rush hour completely, and were in a line of cars five miles long. Insta-stressed. We waited, and waited, and waited, and we were convinced we’d miss the flight. We moved 10 feet in 20 minutes. There was an empty lane to the left of us, that said “Transit Lane – T3 from 6:30 AM-10:00 AM” and we weren’t sure what it meant, but we decided to risk it and assume it was a carpool lane, so we took it. We FLEW past all of the traffic, and were on the freeway in a matter of minutes. Cut our drive time to the airport down from 32 minutes to like 14. Come to find out later, that was definitely against the law. T3 means you have to have at least 3 people in your car to use that lane. Oops. It was an honest, risky, mistake. But it was honestly the only thing that saved us making that flight.

We didn’t even have time to refuel our rental car, so we had to drop it off knowing we’d have to pay a bunch extra for gas as a result. But it was either that, or miss the flight. You do what you gotta do! Turns out, this whole car rental has been a nightmare. A couple days later, we were charged $667 for this dumb car. We tried to ask the Budget office in Queenstown what had gone wrong, as we were quoted somewhere around $450, and realized we had ZERO paperwork from Budget Auckland to prove there was even a contract. They didn’t offer us paperwork, they didn’t email us paperwork…. So frustrating. And they spent almost an hour looking for the rental in their system before they eventually found it. What a waste of time and money. We are going to try and dispute the insane charges, but we’re doubtful it will get better. UGH. PSA – Rent your cars super far in advance, from refutable companies, and GET ALL THE PAPERWORK. TAKE LICENSE PLATE PHOTOS. SO. DONE.

Flying into Queenstown – it looked absolutely beautiful!! So green, so many mountains, shining lakes… little did I know that this would become my favorite city of the entire trip. We landed and picked up our final rental car, and walked out into the fresh Queenstown air. As happy as I was to be there, my stomach was also a bit in knots, because this was BUNGY DAY. I’d been denial about bungy jumping the entire trip, and kept pushing the thought of it into the back of my mind during this day as well.

We weren’t able to check into our Airbnb early, or even drop off our stuff, so we just had to take it with us downtown. We parked and started walking through the cute streets, looking for a place to have lunch. It reminded me so much of Park City, but bigger, and with a gorgeous body of water (not sure if it’s a lake or the ocean or what, but regardless…. Stunning). We had some churros, and ate lunch at one of the 200 restaurant options in the area. And then… it was go time.

So here’s the thing – I also thought I would never bungy jump hahaha. But when you’re in New Zealand, home of the original commercial bungy jump, and home of bungy jumping in general, you just have to do it. We drove 20 minutes up to the Kawarau Bridge, where commercial bungy jumping was started on the bridge after it was closed to traffic. It was the perfect day to do it – I SUPPOSE – because the sun was shining, the water below was the most beautiful of blue, and there were large crowds watching and cheering everybody on.

It’s not that I’m afraid of heights, they’re really fine by me, but more the concept of going head-first that had me hesitant to do it. So I took it in steps. Booked the jump a few months back, but hey! That doesn’t mean I have to go through with it. Drove to the bridge, but hey again! Still don’t have to do it! Got checked it – but could still back out. Got the equipment on – doesn’t mean I have to jump! You get the point. I was in denial up until the point I flung myself from the platform. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

We got there about an hour early, and since they’re so busy, we just had to wait it out. We sat out on the viewing deck, watching people jump one after another. Ironically, watching them jump made me less nervous. It looked fun – once you get yourself off the platform! The best part was watching the old people do it! I knew that if they could be that brave – so could I hahaha. The record age is 91!! Wow.

When we checked in, they had to check our weight so many times – which is comforting to know that they want to be certain they have everything right to keep you safe. I wanted to go first, so that I’d have Beach with me up at the top for encouragement. I was way more nervous than she was. The problem was, they ended up splitting us up at the top anyway into two separate lines, so I couldn’t even talk to her if I wanted to! Rude. (; Another problem, I had to tuck my shirt into my bra so that I didn’t flash everyone while I was falling haha. Not exactly the look I was going for, but better than the alternative (;

When it was my turn, they had me sit down so they could wrap the towels and harness around my ankles. It was tight, and I was freaking out, but trying to stay calm. The guy in front of me was absolutely freaking out, but they were able to talk him through it and get him to jump. They said he was the 113th jumper that day, making me the 115th, and that no one had had any problems, and we would be just fine. That’s also comforting. He also told me only about 1% of people end up backing out at the last second, and I knew I couldn’t be one of those people.

He asked if I wanted to do a water touch and I said yes. He gave me two choices: A – he goes conservative and I might touch the water or I might not or B – he makes sure I touch the water, but there’s a chance my whole head goes in too. For some crazy reason, I chose B. Who am I?!?

Then I stood up, and shuffled my way over to the edge, trying to stay cool and collected – but yeah, I was freaking out hahaha. He counted down from five, told me to keep my chin down and my arms up, and then told me to jump. I’m honestly shocked that I jumped at the first count of five. I never do that. I think I just wanted the anxiety to be OVER. But I was brave, and there I went.

WHAT AN ADRENALINE RUSH. I’ve done a lot of things, but this tops the charts for the most insane adrenaline rush, and most terrifying experience, of my entire life. That free fall was insane – the water is coming at you so fast, and before you know it you get ripped upside down and snapped back like a rubber band. I DID touch the water, but only a little bit with my hands, so that’s ideal. My body was in a state of chaos, getting flip-flopped around like a rag doll. But I absolutely remember flying back up and standing straight up vertically somehow, and thinking that this was not what was supposed to be happening hahaha. No worries, I got absolutely ripped back the other direction in no time, but what a sensation.

It was actually such a blast. What a cool thing to do in such a gorgeous place. Then you have to grab onto a pole, and get pulled down into a little life raft at the bottom. Weird to be suspended upside down while they unhook you. I was QUAKING when I got into the boat. My muscles were all just shaking, probably from all the adrenaline.

They dropped me off at shore, and I got to watch Beach jump! Fun to see her do it – she was also so brave and went for it without hesitation. She told me that she had a moment where her heart stopped and she genuinely thought she was going to die during that free fall, and I could tell by her face when she landed in the boat that she was actually SHOOK. I’ve never seen something affect her like that, so that was freaking awesome hahaha.

We felt SO ACCOMPLISHED! Live more, fear less!!

We went and collected our photos and videos, which are awesome, and then hung out to watch a few more jumpers and relax. We had the best iced chocolates in the world (basically glorified Nesquik with ice, but it freaking slaps) and were absolutely on cloud nine the rest of the afternoon.

We drove back into town for dinner, and stumbled upon a massive line of people out the door. I stopped and asked someone what they were waiting for, and she let us know that Fergburger had been named the best burger in the world, and that there was never a time that people weren’t lined up out the door to try one. I’m not really a burger person, but who can say no to that? We jumped in line to find out if it lived up to the hype. Not gonna lie – it was a pretty good burger. Great sauce, great flavor, and I added avocado to mine so that always makes everything better. Who knew we’d try the best burger in the world today too!

Ended a fun, crazy day with dessert down by the water – and determined that Queenstown is absolutely perfect, in every possible way.

[dirtyrottensocialist]

An In-Depth, Too-Long, Somewhat Political Review of Venice

Many of you will know that my spouse and I recently went to Venice, Italy to celebrate our fifth anniversary. It's a place we had both wanted to go for a long time, and a dream come true for us to have been able to save the money for the trip. This review will take you on all the ups and downs of the travel, accommodations, touristy things, and quirky differences from America, sprinkled, of course, with important political commentary.

Day 1: We woke up at 5:30am PST to load the car, drop off the cat at my parents' house, and get to our airport parking. That presented our first issue of the day. When we arrived at the address where I had paid for parking at the exact time we had reserved, we found a sketchy looking parking lot at what looked like an auto repair shop that was gated and locked. I called the number on the reservation and there was no answer. I went back to the app where I had paid for the parking, touched the link to the address and it pointed up the road a bit. We went about half way there and the map app said it was back where we originally were. Called the number again and after several rings, it was finally answered. The man could barely speak English (I'm not exaggerating when I say that every single person IN ITALY that we interacted with spoke English more clearly). He had no idea what I was talking about and when I asked for clarification about something he said, he hung up on me. We were so mad.

At this point, I decided we would go into the first airport parking lot we saw. This was the best thing that happened all day. We pulled in to Jiffy Parking, got an automated ticket to leave on the dash, and found a parking place. Thirty seconds later, a shuttle arrived to take us to the airport, directly to our airline with one other family. Check in and baggage check at SeaTac was relatively painless. Our flight was easy to find and we boarded in a timely fashion. We had a nice flight crew and had chosen the part of the plane that has the most leg room. The flight went well and arrived slightly early to JFK, about 7:30pm EDT. That's when it all went wrong.

JFK Airport is just terrible. We stood in a HUGE line to get on a shuttle to go to a different terminal to catch our connection, causing us some anxiety, but we made it. For this flight, I had gone online and chosen seats by the window, where there are only two seats, so we would not have to be right next to any strangers. We were boarded and taxiing from the gate fairly quickly.

After quite a while of waiting, we were finally in the air. Everything seemed to be going well for the first hour and a half and we had made it over the far eastern reaches of Canadian land when suddenly, our flight tracker changed to say we were going back to New York. We thought it was a glitch for a couple minutes, but then the captain came over the speaker and told us about a problem. One of the two navigation screens was not working properly and he didn't feel comfortable taking us over the Atlantic with it not working. We were returning to JFK, but we had to burn off a bunch of fuel first in order to be a safe weight to land. So, over four hours after leaving JFK, here we were again.

After taking my phone off of airplane mode, I read the panicked texts from my mother and father who had been watching the flight tracker that suddenly lost data and had spent over an hour on hold with Delta trying to figure out what happened, only to receive no answers whatsoever. We were then told that the maintenance crew would be boarding and we'd hopefully be on our way again soon. About 10 minutes later, we were informed that the problem was completely fixed and we would be on our way again soon. That was a lie. A few minutes later, someone who sounded like he was about 12 told us that they did not have a backup flight crew to run our plane and the current flight crew would be over their alotted time if we left now. As a result, we would be rescheduled on a plane tomorrow afternoon. We were livid.

At this point we were directed to a Delta help desk at another gate and stood in a non-moving line for over an hour, being repeatedly told conflicting things by different Delta employees, AND being told that if we wanted our checked bags, we would have to wait about two hours for them. As a reminder, Delta is the company that infamously spent advertising money to convince their workers not to unionize, and instead to buy a video game console. Clearly they don't want their customer service employees communicating too much, and it definitely showed.

We had received emails saying that we had been re-booked on a flight that was going to leave at 4:10pm EDT on the 25th to Frankfurt on Lufthansa and catch another layover to Venice from there. About that same time, a Delta employee who looked rather in charge ensured all of us that we would be re-booked for the 5:00 non-stop and that we would all be on it in our same seats that we originally chose. Customers around us in line received the notification that they were rebooked on the new flight, but we did not. Also in this line, I sent an email to our hotel in Venice saying that we would not be arriving until the following morning. They were very understanding and got back to me, in English, before I had moved 10 feet in this line.

When we FINALLY reached the front of the line, we received hotel and taxi vouchers for the night. We expressed our concern about the flight discrepancy. The agent looked us up and said we were booked on the flight to Frankfurt. We told him what the other guy told us and he said "they must be rebooking you then" as if that was supposed to make us feel better. We were given a number to call for the taxi, but not at all told where to go to find it.

We found another Delta agent who gave us vague, incomplete directions about where to go to find the taxi dispatcher. We spent at least another half an hour wandering around asking any random employee where we were supposed to go and getting different answers everywhere. We called the taxi company and the guy told us to "Go upstairs and out door 1". If you've ever been to JFK, you know how maddeningly unhelpful that is when you don't know where you are to begin with. Finally we ran across the same guy that gave us our vouchers and asked him where the hell we were supposed to go. He walked us upstairs, around the corner, and out the DEPARTURES entrance to where more people were waiting for taxis. We called the guy again to ask about our taxi and he said they were probably sending a shuttle or bus since there were so many of us going to the same hotel.

After a little while longer, a car showed up and we elected to share it with two other ladies (a mother and daughter I think) who were on our flight and going to the same hotel. Our driver must have been the most incompetent driver in all of NYC. He looked at our vouchers like they had come from another planet and he had never seen words before. Asked us where to go and didn't know the place. The younger woman we were sharing the taxi with and I both looked up the address and told it to him several times. He stared at his own GPS like he had never seen an electronic device before for about 2 minutes while we repeatedly told him the address. Finally, the younger woman asked if she could enter it. He said yes and handed it to her. Within seconds, we were on our way.

His car was equipped with a beeping sound whenever he drifted over a line. I can't tell you how many times it beeped. When we finally arrived at the hotel, the people who had left JFK after us, had already arrived. The man at the Holiday Inn Express in Lynbrook was the most efficient and competent person I had spoken with all day. Asked us how many people and how many beds, handed us a key, told us what floor, and what time breakfast was. Thank God. At 4:45am EDT, we went to bed. Keep in mind, we had been up since 5:30am PDT. What. A Day!

Day 2: I had been tossing and turning all night, worrying about our flights and our baggage, so luckily, I was awake and looking at my phone on the night stand at 9:30am when it started quietly buzzing as I was getting a call from Delta. I answered it and went into the bathroom to talk. The lady said we were booked on the 4:10pm to Frankfurt with a connection to Venice. I told her what the in-charge-looking guy had told us the night before and she said "You must have been auto-booked by our system." I told her that other customers were too, but they had received notifications rectifying it. I asked why I was being put on another layover in a country I was not planning to go to when I paid for a non-stop flight. She said she could get us on the non-stop that everyone else was on and that she would also be sending both of us $100 check from Delta for our trouble. I asked her about our bags and she said we would have to check with baggage services when we got to the airport in case they had been rerouted to Frankfurt.

At this point we were both pretty awake and decided to just call the car service to get back to the airport with plenty of time to spare so we could deal with all of the baggage things. The car arrived and our jaws hit the floor. It was the SAME DRIVER as the night before. Luckily this time, he was going to JFK, which every single driver in NYC knows how to get to. We got there in one piece and found a Delta agent. For our bags, we were directed to "Baggage Services", which was past a security point that we were not supposed to go into, but the guy let us in since he could see the entrance from where he was.

Baggage services told us that our bags would automatically be loaded onto the replacement flight and were not scheduled to go to Germany. Thank goodness. We left to go print our new boarding passes. When we did this, it said we had zero checked bags, so we printed the passes and asked an agent at baggage check about it. She told us the same thing that baggage services said, so we were set to go. Now for JFK security, which was sort of long and annoying, but I've been through worse at that airport. So we found our gate, hung out, had food and drink, and got to the plane on time. We were boarded and put in the middle section, where we were seated next to a stranger and had no window view, which is not what we were told would happen. Thankfully, this trip went smoothly and we arrived in Venice at about 7:30am CEST.

Here, we got off the plane and immediately into a standing-only bus that took us to the terminal. Customs were unfathomably easy. We walked up to a window, handed both of our passports to the guy inside, he opened them, stamped them, and handed them back to us. We then went immediately to baggage claim and found our luggage right away. We got our bus passes from a kiosk and hopped on the bus out front to go to our hotel.

We had made it to Venice! Our bus ride went well and was thankfully fairly air-conditioned, because the weather outside was both hot and insanely humid. Some ticket enforcement guys got on, looked directly at me and said "Ticket?" in English. I don't know what gave me away, but it was apparently obvious to these guys that we were not from Italy. Might have been how much we glowed in the sun with our bleach white skin. Italians are very tan, apparently because they walk EVERYWHERE. We walked about 25 minutes from where the bus let us off at the Mestre train station to Hotel Roma in Marghera. We were soaked with sweat and absolutely exhausted from the travel, heat, and humidity by the time we got there. We walked inside and the man at the desk said "Buon Giorno." I responded with the same and asked "Parli Inglese?" He said he knew a little and I thought he spoke it very well.

We got checked in and directed up to our room. It was a little old fashioned, but very nice. It had a physical key for the door, but also attached to this key was a card that you had to put into a slot in the room in order for any power in the room to work. After fighting to figure out the air conditioner for a couple minutes, we called the front desk because we couldn't figure it out. The guy arrived in seconds and flipped the switch behind the bathroom door to turn it on. We each zipped through the shower as the old A/C unit slowly cooled the room and went straight to bed.

When we woke up, it was close to 6:00pm CEST, and we were very hungry. Just down the road was a pizzeria called Al Calesse, so we got ready and headed out into the humid heat, finally arriving around 7:30pm. This place was hopping, super busy (though I guess it was a Friday night). The waitress looked at us and said something in Italian. When we looked back at her, wide-eyed, she switched to English and told us to wait a moment. When she took us to our table, it was extremely close to the table next to it, so it could be used as two groups of two or a group of four. The people at the other half of this table were a father and son. We sat awkwardly for a moment and looked at the menu, which had a union jack on it, clearly indicating English translations. It was then that we realized the two people sitting next to us were speaking English as well. We got to talking to the father. He was from Canada, though he currently lives in the UK, which explained his son's British accent. They were very nice and we had a good chat learning about each other.

Just before the waitress came back to take our orders, I noticed something about the English translations on the menu. Peperoni was described as sliced red peppers. I immediately looked it up on my phone. Sure enough, in Italy, peperoni is a red pepper pizza. What Americans call pepperoni is actually sliced spicy salami, commonly called diavola in Italy. I'm so glad I discovered this before we ordered. The meal and dessert were absolutely delicious, and we continued to have a good time with the Canadian man and his son, though, if you're somehow reading this, Canadian friend, we tried Aperol spritz a few days later, and it's absolutely disgusting, how do you have taste buds and drink that stuff? Anyway, happy actual anniversary to us that evening. We went back to the hotel room for the night, since we knew nothing would be open at that point and didn't want to deal with the night bus schedule. We attempted to nap a bit, but it didn't really work that well.

Day 3: I went down to breakfast in the morning and had delicious authentic Italian cappuccino, which was included in our hotel breakfast. We then got ready and headed out for the supermarket, which didn't open until 8:30am, and there is no such thing as a convenience store in Italy, it would seem. We were mostly in search of bottled water, which we found, but they have none of the same brands as America, which as we found out, does make a significant difference. People of Italy, what in the world do you do to your bottled water? Do you not filter it enough? Does it come from somewhere weird? It just plain doesn't taste good, and is somehow not as thirst quenching as American water, even when served ice cold. I really don't get it. We tried several brands of bottled water in Italy and they were all gross.

Anyway, we slept a little bit and got up around 11:00am to head into actual Venezia. We caught the bus and headed that way in the humid heat. There is one road in and out of Venezia, and once you get there, everything is walking paths and canals, you won't even find a bicycle.

Now, we had to find my friend from childhood, who happened to be in Venice at the same time on a completely separate and much longer Europe tour. After a bit of walking, we found her at the boat station and met her roommate from Brazil. Then we hopped on the boat for Murano, the island that is known for glass art. The boat was full, so we had to stand, and just as we stepped on, the lightning and rain started. Great. We got off at the first stop that wasn't a cemetery and started exploring. The first thing we found was a public bathroom, yay! Except, you have to pay to use it. 1 Euro 50 just to pee in a dang toilet and wash your hands afterward. We skipped it for now and went into a glass museum and gift shop. Here we found a really cool black and gold glass gondola that said "Venezia" on the side, which we decided to get. We kept walking and looking at glass things, but every demonstration or museum we went up to cost money, and my friend's roommate seemed morally opposed to spending money on anything she didn't get to keep. So we kept walking in the very humid heat.

At one point, the lightning and rain started again, so we went to a covered walkway between two glass gift shops (I'm telling you, there was nothing but glass on this island) and found a very dirty, but totally chill black cat that was hanging out staying out of the rain. He let me pet him, and even meowed at me when I stopped. It was the least scared stranger cat I've ever seen, and he was totally content to hang out between these two glass shops to stay dry.

We continued walking and walking and by this point, both of us were getting worn out, sleepy, dehydrated, hungry, and just all around not happy, so I got a selfie with my childhood friend, 5,500 miles away from our hometown, and parted ways. We paid 1.50 each to go to the damn bathroom, got some terrible bottled water, and got back on the boat to the main land. I should mention that all of these boat rides were included in our public transport pass. It was incredibly easy to use, and definitely worth it to just get a pass and never have to worry about paying. We got back to the bus station and on the bus back to Marghera. It was so hot and humid and we needed food. We decided to just go back to Al Calesse, but there is something odd about Italian restaurants. Everything is later. I mentioned that the supermarkets don't open until 8:30am. Well the restaurants close between lunch and dinner, which I guess isn't unheard of over here, but they don't open for dinner until 6:00pm at the earliest, if it's fancy, 7:30pm.

So here we are at 4:00 and nothing is open, so we just headed back to the hotel to chug some terrible water, eat some Oreos from the super market, which were largely the same, but came in different packaging, and recover and take a nap in the air conditioned hotel room. We were up, ready and at Al Calesse at 6:00pm on the dot and had the whole restaurant to ourselves. We had more delicious food and then headed to the bus to go back to Venezia. After a bit of a walk, we found our destination, the Venice Jazz Club.

This place was so cool. It was just a little hole-in-the-wall business that you wouldn't be able to find if you weren't looking for it. We had our own small table right at the front by the piano. Our tickets included our first drink, so I ordered a Negroni, a traditional Italian cocktail. They serve a simple dinner before the show for anyone who wanted to buy it, but we had just eaten, so I just ordered their tiramisu special, which was absolutely incredible. The show itself was fantastic. The host/pianist/server/possible owner was fantastic. The show was done in English and featured a tribute to Miles Davis. The pianist was out of this world incredible and the rest of the four piece band were fantastic. At the end of the night, I bought a t-shirt and we went back to our hotel. My feet were killing me and had blisters everywhere, but the evening was a treat and we had a great time.

Day 4: I woke up about 8:30, got ready, and went down to breakfast for more good food and delicious cappuccino. Got back up to the room and my love was still asleep, so I decided to lay down for a bit. Well, we woke up around 2:00pm. Jet lag is a real struggle, folks. We got on the bus and headed back to Venezia in, of course, the very humid heat. This time we got on the vaporetto (water bus) to San Marco, home to the famous St. Marks Basilica and Doge's Palace. Well, we looked around the square for a bit and decided we were very hungry, so we found a great pizzeria and had some more delicious food.

A side note about the restaurants here: customer service is very different. You are seated and given menus, the server comes back to take your order, and then your food comes out, when it's ready, regardless of anyone else at your table. Once you have your food, it is likely that you won't see the server again; you'll probably have to flag them down if you want dessert. In most places, you go up to the counter to pay, having never seen how much you owe, because, again, the server does not come to your table after they have brought food to you. To be honest, I absolutely love everything about this. No one is artificially nice, no one is asking how everything is when you've just shoved a bite of food in your mouth, no one is hounding you to order dessert. If you want something, you ask for it. If not, you are free to eat your meal in peace. It's amazing. The worst part about Venice restaurants is that, even though they all have air conditioning, they leave all the doors and windows open to let in all the heat, bugs, and pigeons. People. Close the windows. I promise it's a more pleasant experience.

Anyway, when we finished at that restaurant, we headed back to the square, which was now completely overrun with pigeons. I stood at the edge of a raised platform where the pigeons were gathered for a moment when a man came up to me and grabbed my arm, turning my hand palm up, and putting some rice in it. Suddenly my entire arm was covered in pigeons. We got a picture and then, and only then, did this man ask for money. I gave him 5 Euros to appease him, but it really rubbed me the wrong way (I believe this behavior is illegal in America). He forced a service on me and then demanded payment. Not cool, even if we did get a couple good pictures.

At this point, we discovered that St. Marks is only open for a very narrow window on Sundays and we had missed it. So instead, we went around to a couple of gift shops to get souvenirs for home, and then stopped for some delicious gelato. We also found a place that sold a small container of Espresso Merlot, which I had to have, and this Aperol Spritz, which we had heard about (I'm looking at you, Canadian friend). So we went back through St. Mark's Square to catch the vaporetto back to the bus station. Side note: there are signs everywhere asking that you respect Venice and please don't litter, but along most of the streets, there are absolutely zero garbage cans, we finally found a garbage can back at the square. However, it was high tide, and the entirety of St. Marks Square was flooded. We waded through the shin-deep water and got a picture of our feet. We posted it with the caption from the recent Spiderman movie: "In Venice, you get your socks wet."

This is a good time to talk about the water in Venice, and to get a bit political again, about something that shouldn't be political at all. If anyone visits Venice and tells you they don't believe in climate change, they are either completely blind, or completely stupid. All over Venice, at any tide level, there are stairways that disappear into the water, down to waterways that used to go alongside the canal, but are now a few feet underwater at low tide. Every water-side building, which is almost everything in Venice, has basement levels that are no longer accessible, slowly drowning because we can't seem to stop killing the planet. When we walked through that square, there was water that went right up to tables in the square. A raised platform with a grand piano and other musicians sat in front of a grand building, these wonderful musicians just playing away to the people sitting at tables with their feet in the water while others wade by. It reminded me of the scene in the movie Titanic, where the musicians just keep playing as everything around them is sinking into the ocean. Everything about Venice was a harsh reminder of how much climate change has done, and what we are on the verge of losing if we don't stop it. St. Mark's Cathedral was first built in the 800s. The water was up to the steps in front of it.

Anyway, we went back to the hotel for the evening and tried out our drinks. The Espresso Merlot was mediocre merlot that barely tasted like it had any espresso, and the Aperol spritz was absolutely disgusting. This stuff is everywhere in Venice and I have no idea why. We both agreed it was terrible. I drank it, of course, but it wasn’t good. So we tried to get a bit of a nap, because we had to start turning our sleep around for our return flight in a couple days. We set the alarms for 7:00am and tried to sleep after waking up at 2:00pm.

Day 5: After not enough sleep, we got up at 7:00, I had my morning cappuccino and breakfast, and we went back upstairs to plan the day. After hanging out for a while and chugging some water to help hydrate for the day, we ventured into the heat. We hopped on the bus to Venezia, determined to see St. Mark's today. When we arrived, the tide was out, which was great, but the line was horrendous. We elected to go for lunch first to see if the line died down.

I wasn't very hungry yet, so I ordered a chicken caesar salad, and lord let me tell you, Italy even does that better than we do. I'm not huge into bacon, but it's mostly because nowhere in America serves it the way I like. We tend to put dark, crispy bacon on anything that we can get away with putting it on, and it crunches and shatters and ruins the texture of everything. This salad had two strips of bacon, cooked lightly, not too greasy, with a wonderful chewy, but not floppy texture. Hands down best bacon I've ever had. This salad also came with fresh slices of parmesan cheese on it. Those were just the trimmings. The salad was fabulous and fresh and the chicken was tender and tasty. If I could go back to Italy, I would do so just for the food. Everything was somehow more delicious than it is here, but you could also tell it was way better for you. The food wasn't full of gross preservatives or any of the other crap we put in our food. It was all delicious.

After lunch, I realized that I hadn't done any wine-tasting yet, so we found a wine bar. This place was very interesting. I told the server I was interested in wine tasting and she brought me to a tall and wide round table with a machine on it. This machine held each bottle of wine and produced different sized tastes or glasses from a spout in front of the bottle. They didn't offer a flight, but you could get a taste, a glass, or a larger amount (third of a liter maybe?) for different prices, and of course, the bottle if you want. Different wines were priced at different levels for everything. The first one I tasted was from one of the oldest wine families in Tuscany. The taste alone was 3.50. The bottle? 75 Euros. The second wine I tasted was very good, but couldn't hold a candle to the first. I bought a 75 Euro bottle of wine, and I do not regret it at all. I'm looking forward to drinking it.

After this, we headed back out to St. Mark's, which still had a line, but it had died down a bit. We eventually reached the front and received our audio tour devices that we had paid for with our city pass. When we were about to enter, I was told that I needed to pull up my sleeves to cover my shoulders (I was wearing a cold shoulder dress). Apparently shoulders make Jesus cry in catholic or something. At least the guy was nice about it and didn't make me buy a "modesty shawl" for 2 Euros.

Inside the Basilica was incredible. It was so much quieter and darker than outside, but was lighted enough to see all of the incredibly detailed art. The domes of the basilica were humongous and every millimeter of them was covered in intricate gold and vivid colored paintings. There were statues of all of the apostles plus other biblical figures above the alter. Over the seating area, there was a huge 3D red glass cross candle chandelier. It wasn't lit, but you could see how incredible it would look if it was. The history of this place was fascinating. It was originally built in the 800s, which is mind-boggling. We stood inside this incredibly complex architectural structure with decades, if not centuries of art that is over four times as old as our country. We headed back out into the square and hopped the vaporetto.

It was at this point where the heat and humidity really started to get to me and I wasn't feeling very well. I'm almost positive I had some sort of heat exhaustion. So we went back to our hotel since it seemed to be the only place we could reliably find air conditioning. After chugging some more terrible water and laying on the bed for about an hour in the A/C, I felt so much better, and we headed back out for our evening activity.

After switching from bus to vaporetto, we realized that we were heading in the right direction, but the route we were on did not actually stop at the place we needed to go. So we got off as close as we could and pretty much power walked to our destination. We made it in time for the most iconic part of Venice, our gondola serenade.

We were on boats of 6 people, so there were 4 more people on our boat, plus our gondolier. Our six boats traveled together with one of the gondolas having a singer and accordion player who sang to us the whole way. We got to see some of the smaller canals instead of just the grand canal that the vaporetti and water taxis take all the time. I recognized two of the songs that were sung: Santa Lucia, and the finale and quintessential gondola song, O Sole Mio. I cried because the experience was so iconic. At the end of the ride, we headed back to the hotel for the night with the plan of getting up even earlier the next day, and we set our alarms for 5:00am.

Day 6: There were two more iconic things we hadn't done yet, so we got on the bus early. This is a good time to mention the ups and downs of the public transit and general attitudes in Italy. The busses and vaporetti were very convenient, ran regularly, and were incredibly easy to use and navigate. The downside is that literally everyone uses them and you hardly ever get to sit down on any of them, often being crammed way too close to strangers and sweating all over each other because, while they do have air conditioning, it is not adequate for that many people. Another note about group behavior in Italy, no one makes any attempt to get out of the way of anyone. Italians, particularly Italian men, will just plain walk at you and if they run into you, so be it. They will cross two inches in front of you without thinking anything of it, and don't really have personal bubbles. On top of that, lines are not much of a thing. They’re more like clumps. Patiently waiting in line for the vaporetto? Someone will push right past you and stand next to the person at the front of the line. This was true everywhere, even at the airport. Very strange.

Anyway, the first thing we did that day was go to the famous Rialto Bridge. 7:00am is the absolute perfect time of day to do this. We had been passing under this bridge on vaporetti all week and it was always packed full of people. Early in the morning, we were able to walk right up to the top, see the great view, get a couple pictures, and head back down. At the base of the bridge, we found a café that had pizza, so we stopped, had some diavola, tiramisu, and a fantastic latte macchiato. We bought some bottled water to go and hopped back on the vaporetto to St. Mark's Square one more time. We had to see Doge's Palace.

Since the Basilica doesn't open until 9:45am, the square was pretty calm and the line for the palace was almost nonexistent. We got through security easily and wandered into a giant courtyard, again full of incredible intricate sculptures and paintings at every turn. We went through some museum exhibits and found the only bathroom in the whole city that's just plain free. There was a huge, ornate working clock that towered over the square alongside many sculptures. The most high-class gondola we had ever seen was on display. It reminded us of carriages for royalty that you would see in movies, but in a gondola form instead of a horse-drawn vehicle. It clearly must have been for the Doge himself.

We grabbed a couple more souvenirs and mint slushies and headed back to the main bus terminal area. I had to get a couple more bottles of wine, so we found a little café/wine shop and bought a couple of fairly cheap bottles without tasting. I have now broken into the chianti I bought, and it is extremely good for the price. We headed back to the hotel and waited for the gelateria around the corner to open at 3:30 so I could get an affogato, which was exquisite. When we got back to the hotel this time, we paid our hotel bill (the city tax was not included in Expedia) since we were going to be leaving very early in the morning to catch a 6:00am flight.

We got everything packed up and planned to go back to Al Calesse one more time, but discovered that it was completely closed on Tuesdays. We instead went around the corner to a different pizzeria, but decided to order the food for takeout since this place had no air conditioning at all. We went to bed as early as we could stand, knowing we'd have to get up at an absurd hour.

Day 7: The one thing I didn't really like about the hotel besides having a hard bed (I never like hotel beds, it wasn't that bad) was that there was no clock in the room at all. We only had one plug adapter, so our phones were on the other side of the bed. Because of this, the only time indicator I had when I woke up on any given day was whether or not the sun was up, and since the alarm was set for 3:00am, that was not a good indicator of whether or not I needed to be awake. So I got up and went to the bathroom at 1:23am and couldn’t get back to sleep.

It didn't take long for both of us to be up and about after that, so we just got ready and I called the taxi company, which was honestly probably the scariest thing I did in Italy. The company had an automated menu that was completely in Italian and I couldn't keep up with it. Eventually it brought me to a real person and I hopefully asked, "parli Inglese?" to which she responded, "yes." I asked for the taxi, was put back on hold to an automated message, and then was brought back to the person, who said "five minutes." We hurried and went downstairs to turn in the key.

Once outside for approximately 15 seconds, the taxi pulled up and the driver confirmed, in English, that we were going to the airport while helping us with our suitcases. He drove us straight there with no problems. We checked in to the kiosk and then waited (in a clump, not a line) to check our bags. We were worried at first because there were no staff members anywhere, but that's because there were no  mid-night flights from this airport. The earliest departure was 5:50am, so the staff members didn't get there until about 4:30am.

Once through security, I found a café and got a double cappuccino and a croissant for breakfast while we waited for the reader-boards to tell us what gate our flight was leaving from (it wasn't on the boarding passes). We got to our gate and were taken out to a bus that would take us to the tarmac. We boarded from the rear of the plane and found our seats. For this Air France flight, I had paid extra to select our seats to be in the only row that had two seats instead of three. This is not where our seats were. We were next to a stranger on a flight, again, the very thing I had tried my best to avoid the whole time, and it just didn't want to work out for us.

The flight went fairly smoothly except the people speaking the English translations in French accents were too quiet and difficult to understand, so we basically had no idea what was going on. Also, our row got skipped for beverage service, so we were sitting there eating croissants with no liquid.

We got into Paris and had to go through customs. It was just as easy as Italy, only they made us go one at a time, which was slightly scary, but only for a brief moment. We found our gate after going through a huge fancy terminal. Everything was white, fancy, and expensive. Cartier, Prada, Coco Chanel, there was even a caviar bar in the middle of the promenade. I did, however, see one very familiar green logo that I couldn't pass up. I got my frappuccino from Starbucks and ate a sandwich while we waited near our gate.

When they started boarding, we started seeing the harsh realities of America rear their ugly heads. Before entering the line, we were stopped by security and asked questions such as, "Does everything in your bags belong to you? Did anyone approach you and ask you to bring anything on the plane for them? Have you seen anything suspicious?" etc. Once through that, we were led to an automated gate. You scan your boarding pass and it either turns green and lets you through, or it turns red and you go to the side for additional screening. We got through just fine. Every single person who was turned away for additional screening was some shade of brown. I was sad and disgusted with my white privilege in America, and I hadn't even left Europe yet.

We were boarded in our seats on the side of the plane with no one next to us for the longest flight of our trip. Everything seemed to be going fine, but then I tried to buckle my seat belt. Now, I am a plus-size woman, but I am literally one size larger than the average American woman. This was a Boeing 767-300 plane, made right in my home state of Washington, and this seat belt was not long enough for me to buckle it. I've never had to ask for a seat belt extender in my life, but I had to ask the nice flight attendant to get me one. She got distracted with a group of four kids and one mother who were not seated all together, and that was not going to work for the ages of these kids. So she forgot about my extender until I reminded her.

This was an 11-hour flight from Paris to Seattle, so it was the one flight on our trip for which we were planning to purchase the in-flight wi-fi from Delta, but once we were off the ground, it was announced that it would not be available on this flight. Ugh. So we tried to get a nap, but it just didn't work. That group of four kids were quite well-behaved, but 11 hours is a really long flight for four kids under 10, and they just got a little loud sometimes. It wasn't their fault and the mom did a great job of trying to keep them quiet, it was just tough, and I couldn't complain about my circumstances. This group of four kids and a mother were black as night and clearly Muslim, and they were traveling from a foreign country to the US during a time when ICE is stripping children from their mothers left and right. We've been back for two weeks and I still hope and pray they made it through customs as a family.

Speaking of customs, American customs absolutely suck. First they separate you into two giant lines, American and Canadian citizens in one line, and everyone else in the other. We were told it could be up to an hour to get through customs, and we had people who were trying to make connections that were told they had to wait. We finally got to the front of the citizen line and went to a kiosk that scanned our passports, asked a bunch of questions, and took pictures of our faces that were then printed out on receipts. We then had to take these receipts and our passports to a physical person, who asked us all of the same questions while stamping our receipts. Then we were let free into baggage claim, which was remarkably fast (thank you SeaTac). To leave the baggage claim area, we had to show our stamped receipts to yet another person before we could exit into the underground train that took us to the terminal.

Once out of that mess, we went straight to ground transportation. Within a couple minutes, a Jiffy Parking shuttle was there to take us to our car. It was simple and easy. We inserted the dash ticket into a machine and paid the amount for the time the car was there. We then headed to the Jack in the Box across the street where we got milkshakes and Dasani bottled water which we drank in an enclosed, air conditioned room and each of us used the free bathroom. We drove back, picked up the cat from my parents' house, and headed home. We managed to stay up until 8:30 that night, which amounted to about a 28 hour day for both of us if you don't count the couple minutes of dozing on the plane.

Overall: Venice is a beautiful, enchanting place full of history and incredible experiences. If you get a chance to go, you should go and take it all in while it's still above water. However, don't go in the middle of summer when it's crowded as hell and too hot and humid to breathe. Also, don't ever fly Delta. Ever. I guess I can be glad that I didn't find poop in my blanket. If you don't get that joke, go watch the Nicole Byer episode of Comedians of the World on Netflix. Shoutout to the unsung hero of our vacation, Jiffy Parking. If you need airport parking at SeaTac, they are fantastic. While I'm happy to be back in the land of free bathrooms and drinkable bottled water, I have to say this whole trip made me really not proud to be American. We need to do better, everyone. There are plenty of places in the world that are managing not to shoot each other, tear families apart, deny climate change, shove endless crap into their food, and bankrupt people who need medical care. We can do  better, and we have a responsibility to make sure we do. Buona Notte, Amici.

[irescot]

Last Days and postcripts

No, not the Apocalypse.  

It should have been Last Day, but man proposes and God disposes.  Or man plans and God laughs.

An extremely pleasant taxi driver (as all have been in both Ireland and Scotland) got us to the airport in plenty of time, and in due time we checked our bags, got new boarding passes, and went through Irish security.

Then, because Dublin is a US pre-clearance city (meaning the US has immigration and customs officials there to do all the security that normally we would go through on entering the US), we went through our second security and this time we had to take our shoes off (they don't do that in Europe).  Going through security is no one's favorite thing, and doing it twice does not improve it.  But at least we got it all out of the way.

Costco had booked us all on Delta.  Carol was going to Detroit via Boston and she was leaving first, about maybe 20 minutes before us.  We were going to LAX through Atlanta. 

Rather than give you a play by play, which is the way I would normally go, I'll hit the highlights.  At about 100 miles from Atlanta we were diverted to Detroit, because of high winds from the tail end of Hurricane Irma.  When we reached Detroit 2 hours later, after standing in re-booking lines for about 20 minutes, we found out that there were no flights from Detroit to either LAX or SAN.  So we were told to get back on the plane we had left.  2 hours later we were back in Atlanta.

After 40 minutes in another re-booking line, we were able to get seats on a 9:30 pm flight to LAX; we only had a 2.5 hour wait.  Then the flight was delayed 30 minutes.  Then we boarded and were on our way to LAX.  We landed there and got our baggage and then called John (Barbara Hudson's son, for those of you who know her) and told him we were there.  Poor John had started a couple of times to pick us up, because Delta was not always up to date; fortunately Sharon kept messaging him to tell him what was actually happening and to give him our final, final ETA at LAX.  Still, it could not have been fun for him, and we appreciate that he was already at the airport, and that he was his usual good natured self.

So at 2:00 (-ish) am Tuesday morning, John dropped us at the house.  We had been up for 24 hours and all we wanted was to go to sleep.  So we didn't bother with the suitcases, we just went to sleep. 

And that was the end of our Ireland and Scotland 2017 trip. ----------------  ------------------------  ------------------------- I need to add a couple of items as a postscript.

1) When we left, we asked Kathy from Road-Runner Errands to pick up our mail, like we always to when we go on trips, and left her the mailbox key.  For paranoid reasons, we don't like having our mail held by the PO.  But Kathy emailed us and told us that it was impossible for her to open our mailbox and a lot of stuff was piling up.  She was having difficulty with the key.  We were not surprised, because we ourselves have a little difficulty with the key.  So I told her the little tricks we use.  It still didn't work.  So like it or not, we had to put a hold on our mail.  Fortunately, it can be done online, so we did it from Ireland. 

Unfortunately, the hold ended on Monday, and Monday someone at the PO erroneously (they admitted to that) sent one of the packages we received back to the sender.  It turned out to be the package with the gifts we had picked up for most people (not the extra clothes).  We found out this when Sharon went to the PO on Wednesday to pick up the held mail.  The PO said they would try to retrieve it, but we all knew that wouldn't work.

Oh well.

Then after we got back, I asked Kathy to come by so I could pay her and so I could show her how the key worked.  When she handed me the key, my jaw dropped.  Stupid me had given her the front door key.  Still gobsmacked, I took out my key chain, and there it was, totally untouched and with me the entire trip, my mail box key.  I apologized profusely, but as I said earlier, Oh well.  

2) Every Irish taxi driver raved about the Gaelic games: hurling and football.  We managed to watch the All Ireland Senior Hurling Championship finals on TV the day before we went on the Ireland tour, and had a great time watching the game.  Then when Sharon went to church the last Sunday evening in Ireland, the priest told the congregation not to be surprised if the following Sunday he showed up with blue and white colors, the colors of Dublin County, because they were playing County Mayo in the All Ireland Senior Gaelic Football Championship Finals.

What our Irish taxi drivers told us is that County Mayo had not won a championship since 1951, and it's not because they have had bad teams (several times, like now, they've made it to the finals), but rather because of the curse.  We immediately thought of the Cubs' Billy Goat curse. 

It turned out that in 1951 when the County Mayo team was returning home from winning an away game, they passed a funeral in the town of Foxford.  The priest or the widow (the story of the curse is not clear on this) cursed the team for not stopping and paying their respects.  The curse stated that they would never win a championship as long as any member of the team was still alive.   Well, it appears that there are 3 members of the team that are still alive.  I remember making a joke (probably in bad taste) about how those 3 guys must not have been real fans; if they had been, they would have killed themselves already. 

When I was partially compos mentis, I went on the internet and found out that it was possible to see the Gaelic football finals because there is an Irish website that would stream the finals, for just $25.  It's a website for the Irish diaspora, all the Irish that have moved abroad and want to keep up with their two favorite sports.  The game would happen at 15:30 in Ireland, which I figured was 7:30 am today (9/17).  But you could also watch a replay instead.  So this morning we watched a replay of the finals, enjoyed them a lot, and I'm here to tell you that the curse is alive and working still.  County Dublin won by 1 point. 

I can't thank you enough for reading my blog. Cheers!

[back-home-ballers]

How I Won SNL Tickets: info + tips

I promise this’ll be the last post I make about my SNL experience for those who are sick of hearing about it, but I’ve been working on this since Sunday and I wanted to address a few questions and give a few tips for the show + meeting the cast after (I know a lot of what I’m going to touch on are things I was curious about prior to, and after winning as well)

PART 1 (HOW I WON) - Okay so I sent an email for the April biggest fan contest maybe a day after they tweeted about it from SNL’s official twitter. They’ve been doing these contests every month since February I think, so I’d be on the lookout for a May contest in the near future. In terms of what to put in the email, I honestly could not tell you what they’re looking for, or how closely they read the emails. I know some people have sent serious emails and won, and others have sent funny emails and won. I personally sent a “funny” email with a few serious notes. So I sent that in mid/late March & I received an email on the morning of April 6th that I’d won tickets for the April 15th show (9 days notice). You have to email them back within 24 hours to confirm your tickets & it’s apparently hit or miss whether or not you receive confirmation of your confirmation. 

If you don’t win tickets through this contest, or the August lottery, you can always do standby. I have personally never done standby, so I cannot speak to that experience, but I know general information for that can be found on NBC’s website. For the show I went to, standby was insane because of Harry Styles, people had been lined up all week. However, I hear for most other shows, if you get there sometime on Friday before like, 6-7 pm you’ll be fine. Just know the significance of the host & musical guest, and remember stand-by does not guarantee you’ll get in. 

PART 2 (THE DAY OF THE SHOW & NYC) - I live in NY, but I go to school in the Midwest (moving back to NYC in the Fall, but that’s irrelevant) and we were on Easter break so getting a flight home wasn’t a big deal, and I had a place to stay. I know if you’re coming from far away & you win on short notice, NY is expensive so here’s a few mini-tips on that I guess: first, it’s usually cheaper to fly into LGA. I know that LGA is objectively the worst, but like, money. In terms of lodging, I might try to stay outside of Midtown and take public transit. Midtown is a money sucking hole, and I would avoid it for most of your trip (Although, if it’s your first time in NY or you really love touristy stuff, Midtown is a great place to explore). The entire city is super expensive so plan accordingly.

If you’re going to dress rehearsal, I know my letter said to check in BY 7 pm, but they let us upstairs at 6:15 pm. So when you get upstairs, MAKE SURE YOUR CELL PHONE IS OFF AND AWAY. There is absolutely no photography. There will be a page at the top of the stairs, and you tell them what line you’re in. There are two separate lines that I saw. From what I gathered, I think one line was people who know people, and one was contest or lottery winners. So you go up to a desk and show them your ID (it’s SO important that you bring a valid photo-ID with your date of birth on it) & your confirmation letter. Then they’ll give you a wristband, and an envelope with your tickets in it. The wristbands for dress rehearsal were either blue, or purple. There were very few purple wristbands, and everyone I saw with a purple wristband ended up in a floor seat.

After you get your tickets, you go through security, which is basically just a metal detector. They said no bags, so we didn’t even bring purses, but it looks like you’re allowed to have purses and just not backpacks. I wouldn’t risk it though if you think your purse might be too big. After security you go to the Peacock Lounge where another page looks at your envelope and directs you to either of the sides or the middle section. So this is going to sound kind of off but here’s what I observed about the sides: On one of the sides, you had the purple wristbands, and other generally good looking people. On another far side were people who seemed to know the NBC staff, and in the middle were the common folks. My friend and I were in the middle section. So you sit there awhile & they play music and there are big screens with pictures from sketches and it’s all cool and fun. 

When they started loading the audience, they called the purple wristbands first. Then they called by envelope number & letter or symbol. So the people on the good-looking side generally all left first, then people who seemed to know people all seemed to have stars on their envelopes and they went up next, and then they started calling plain numbers from the middle section. Our envelope number was 30, and I didn’t realize that we were literally the last number until they called up to 25 and it was only my friend & I plus these two guys were left in the little waiting area. So we joked with them about how we’re plebes, and blah blah blah so they eventually say “Everyone else in the Peacock Lounge may now make their way to the elevators”. So we got up, and got in line at the elevators, and I guess they started letting standby people into the waiting area because eventually they started lining up behind us. 

Once you get up in the elevators, everything is totally random. We got separated from our new friends in the studio, and despite being last, we ended up with good seats. We were on the center bend and we could see pretty much everything. They let in 30-40 girls from standby and most of them were way to the side in the kind of crappy seats where you can’t see the two main stages. A few standby people ended up in the center sections in seats that weren’t filled, and they were the last ones in.

PART 3 (THE SHOW ITSELF) - So the studio itself is a whole lot smaller than I imagined, and with the exception of that side section, most seats are incredible. The show starts with Che doing stand-up, and he was actually pretty funny. After that, Kenan, Kate, Vanessa, and Sasheer came out and did the cool song & dance thing warming up with the band, and then they set up for the cold open. I had a Trump cold-open, so it was cool to see Baldwin in his element. He seems to always be in the zone. So they do a countdown, and then the cold-open happens, and let me tell you, the rush between the cold-open and the monologue is real. They do the cold open in front of the main stage, as many of you know, so they have like a minute to get the whole set out, and it’s really something else to watch.

So they do the monologue, and I know for mine, they had dancers. So they swapped out everyone who was on the floor for the dancers, and then while the dancers were in the hallway, the people in floor seats had to literally run back. The people on the floor move a TON. So be prepared for that if you’re on the floor, especially in the front row.

They do sketches all over the studio, so at one point or another, one is going to be happening right under you where you can’t see it, and cameras can sometimes get in the way even when they’re directly in front of you. It’s all cool though, because there are TV screens you can watch on, or if you’re set on looking at the floor, it can sometimes be fun to sit and read the cue cards even if you can’t see the cast.

The musical guest performs twice for those of you who aren’t familiar with the set up of SNL, and with Harry Styles, the stand-by people were going insane. Staff yelled at them at least five times, and I know it’s exciting being in the studio, but it’s important to remember that it is a studio, and that people are working. So that’s just a little side bar there.

For Weekend Update they set up two big black things on either side of the set for the shot I assume, and during dress rehearsal Che & Jost told several different versions of the same joke to I assume see which one got the best reaction.

At the end of the show, as soon as goodbyes are over, they sort of rush you out so they can prepare for the live show (I don’t know how it is after live) Sometimes you can spot cast members in the hallway which is cool, I saw Colin & Bobby as I was walking out. You come out in the NBC store, so it literally feels like you just went on a Universal ride or something.

PART 4 (THE BARRICADE & MEETING THE CAST) - If you’re planning on trying to meet the cast afterwards, they come out under the 49th street marquee. If you’re planning on doing standby and your priority is meeting the cast, I would choose dress rehearsal tickets because they set up the barricades and people are out there before the live show gets out.

My friend and I started lurking outside around 10:40 pm and they set up the barricades around 12:40 am. Most people showed up around 11:30 pm. They set them up on the side closer to the street so stand around that side before they set them up. 

The cast members start coming out around 1:15 am usually from what I hear. I know Leslie came out at that time, and went straight to her car. Most of them came out between 1:30 am and 2:00 am.

I think my biggest tip if you’re going to do barricade is be respectful. Treat not only the cast with respect, but the people surrounding you. I think being respectful entails a lot of things, and for me the biggest things were people hopping the barricades. First of all, don’t do that. For one thing, when security tells you to move, you might not get whatever spot you originally had on the barricade back (and if you push your way back into it, then that’s like a double dick move) and second, the barricade is a physical boundary that is there for a reason. I know it sucks to be like penned in, and to feel like an inferior, but it’s ultimately to keep the cast, and everyone there safe.

My last two-cents on respect is I generally recommend asking before taking pictures, or videos, and always express gratitude. In terms of cast obligations, they are not required to take any pictures, or videos, or sign things, so don’t feel bad, or angry if they don’t stop or have to leave.

PART 5 (FINAL BITS & PIECES) - In terms of accommodations, NBC is great. My friend has trouble with stairs due to a disability, and as long as you correspond with them before the show, they’ll be able to make whatever you need happen. I know if you win the biggest fan contest on Twitter and you can’t make the show you win for, they’ve changed certain people’s dates. I don’t know how that works, but I know it has happened. In general, everyone at NBC is super helpful, and friendly, and they do everything in their power to make sure you have a great night.

So I hope this was helpful, and informative (I’ve been working on it since Sunday). If you have any other questions, feel free to shoot me a message. Otherwise, have an amazing morning/day/night/evening, and good luck with your SNL adventures!

[thejustinmarshall]

Three Days On The Arctic Haute Route

  [NOTE: 2020 is the tenth year of my blog at Semi-Rad.com, and since I started it, I’ve been fortunate to get to do some pretty wonderful adventures. Throughout this year, I’ll be writing about 12 favorite adventures I’ve had since I started writing about the outdoors, one per month. This is the first in the series.]

[all photos by Tommy Penick]

On Deck C of the MS Nordenstjernen, anchored almost 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle, passengers clomp around in ski boots, stuff backpacks, and fuss with life jackets as snow falls through the fog into the dark water of the Stønnesbotn fjord outside. Everyone is excited, because everyone is skiing today, the first day of our three days of skiing on the Arctic Haute Route—except the one guy who drank too much in the lounge last night and missed his group’s departure to shore. He has frantically asked around to join another group, but our guide, Bjørn, has politely explained to him that we’re at capacity, with five skiers to one guide.

Another reason I suspect he says no: Bjørn is motivated to ski today, a lot. His plan for us today is to hop on the tender boats that will motor us over to shore in five minutes, take the bus 15 minutes across one of the narrow fingers of this island, Senja, to the shore just below Breidtinden (3,284 feet, the highest peak on the island), and then traverse back across the island, summiting another peak (Tuva, 2,168 feet) before skiing down to shore again. All in all, about 8 miles of skiing, and just under 3,900 feet of climbing.

There are 60 of us, including eight guides, on the MS Nordenstjernen—a 290-foot ship with four passenger decks, that served more than 50 years on Norway’s Hurtigruten coastal cruise line before it was retired in 2012. The boat is described as “nostalgic and venerable” in promotional literature, and feels more like a real ship than a fancy cruise ship, something out of a Wes Anderson movie. In the old Hurtigruten brochure, under the heading, “FITNESS ROOM, SAUNA, POOL, JACUZZI,” it says, “There are no such facilities on board MS Nordstjernen.” (For 2020, Arctic Haute Route trips will be on a newer boat, the MS Quest, built in 1992.)

The Arctic Haute Route, dreamed up by Nina Kristine Madsen Geelmuyden and her husband Fredrik Geelmuyden, owners of the Norwegian Adventure Company, works like this: Skiers board the boat in Tromsø, Norway, the afternoon of Day 1. We cruise south, anchoring in a fjord for the evening, and sleep on the ship. On Day 2, we get dropped on shore, ski all day, and return to the ship in mid- to late afternoon. We cruise south again to another fjord, spend the night on the ship, and ski new terrain on Day 3, returning to the ship and heading south again to anchor in one last fjord. The final day of skiing, on Day 4, ends at a bus that takes us to the airport at Svolvær, where we all catch flights home. The boat turns around to head north with a new group of skiers the next day. There are eight Arctic Haute Route trips per season (March 19-April 21), four southbound and four northbound, and a charter bus carrying everyone’s skis parallels the boat’s course the entire time.

The bus dropped us off for our first ski day, fat snowflakes dropping on us as we skinned up through thin trees, the peaks around us shrouded in low clouds. Our group of skiers: myself, photographer Tommy Penick, and three lively Norwegian guys from Oslo in their 50s: Ragnar, Frode, and Rune. Our guide, Bjørn Kruse, owns and operates the Romsdal Ski Lodge with his wife, and works as a guide on the Arctic Haute Route as a break over the winter.

We climbed above a fjord, Mefjorden, that opens into the Norwegian Sea about 10 miles northwest from us. Occasionally the clouds opened up to reveal peaks all around our path, on the mountainous northern coast of Senja, a 612-square-mile island connected to the mainland by a single bridge. I should have started cold but didn’t, and too many layers had me sweating as we climbed. Before the trip, I had skied exactly one day so far that season, spending most of my time running and training for a couple mountain ultramarathons. I was not exactly expecting to make great turns. When we ripped our skins off after about 40 minutes of climbing for a little 300-foot run down a gully, my fears were confirmed: my quads were burning after three turns in powder. But it was still so good.

We skinned up two shorter, mellow climbs, before dropping down into a valley for our final climb, 1700 feet into sunny blue skies to the summit of a peak called Tuva. From the top, we looked down to see our tiny ship parked in the fjord. I skied down last, not so confident in my wobbly legs, and also not wanting the rest of the group to observe my sloppy survival skiing through the trees to the road. Bjørn, it was clear, would find the best possible skiable snow, partly for us as his clients, but also because he just loves to ski. We arrived at the bus at 3:30 p.m., and after a short ride and a quick tender boat ride, I plopped down to drink coffee and watch the mountains go past a lounge window as the boat cruised out of the fjord and on to our next stop.

Mention Norway to someone and one of the first things you will probably hear them say is the word “expensive.” Compared to traveling to a lot of places, like Mexico or Thailand, it is. The Arctic Haute Route, for three and a half days on the ship, costs 19,900 Norwegian Kroner per person, or about $2,230 in U.S. dollars. Which is objectively not cheap—but includes all food, transportation, and lodging during the trip, plus three days of backcountry ski guiding. It is certainly one of the most expensive trips I’ve done, but in full disclosure, my trip was paid for by the Norwegian government’s tourism body, in hopes that I would write about it. I don’t do many press trips, and I don’t seek them out, but when this email landed in my inbox, it sounded like a trip I shouldn’t pass up. The question for me to answer was: If I had to pay for it out of my own pocket, would I? Now that I know what it’s like, yes. I can’t pretend to be 100 percent objective about it, but I can say this: if it sucked, I just wouldn’t write about it. And it didn’t suck.

There are only a few places in the world where you can go on a “ski cruise”—Norway, Alaska, Antarctica, and Svalbard (which is of course, part of Norway), and the Arctic Haute Route is one of the more affordable of those destinations. And much more “ski” than “cruise,” or at least my idea of cruises, which is something like David Foster Wallace’s “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again.” A bright-white ship 20+ times the size of the MS Nordensjternen plowing through bright blue Caribbean ocean water in all-day sunshine, fancy dinners, activities on the ship, and 10 times as many passengers on board, most of whom make way more money than I do and who don’t necessarily want to spend six hours and 3,000 calories a day skiing uphill and downhill. That sort of thing.

The similarities between a luxury cruise line and the Arctic Haute Route were probably limited to the fact that they both utilize boats. Although I’m sure some of the folks on our trip had some money, if you lived in Norway, something like the Arctic Haute Route is pretty affordable, not much more expensive than a four-day trip to ski Breckenridge or Vail if you live in Chicago. The food on the MS Nordenstjernen was fancy (the menu was developed by Gunnar Hvarnes, Norway’s 2009 Chef of the Year)—but no one wore fancy clothes to dinner. I can’t speak for other passengers, but Tommy and I didn’t shower our entire time on the boat, and no one seemed to notice. It was just enough of a cruise to feel like we had nothing to worry about besides eating, sleeping, and skiing, but not so chichi that it ruined the feel of an adventure.

Tommy and I went up to the bridge to visit the captain on the afternoon of Day 2, and found the Polish first mate instead, looking over his 180-degree view of the ship’s course and navigating us straight down the middle of the almost mile-wide fjord, snowy mountains poking out of the water on the horizon. His tools, brightly colored charts on multiple computer monitors and electric panels, were laid among and on top of a few of the ship’s remaining old instruments. He explained that the old stuff was no longer in use—just decorative now. Tommy took photos around the bridge, and then pointed at one lever, suggesting that a human hand on it might make for a better photo with the old Norwegian markings: Halv, Sakte, Ganske Sakte, Klar, Stopp, Vel. I grabbed it and moved it just a half-inch, and the first mate very gently noted to us, “We still use that one.” I jumped back and apologized, even though he seemed unconcerned.

I asked, “What is it for?”

“Speed.” We all laughed.

Once we stepped onto the boat on the first day in Tromsø, we never stepped foot onto land except to ski—every morning we had a buffet breakfast (and packed a lunch from the buffet breakfast, to eat while skiing), and dinner again, on the boat. Some days we saw several other groups from our ship, some days we hardly saw anyone. We got up at 6:15 a.m., hopped in the tender boats between 8:00 and 8:40 a.m., and were clicking into our skis by 9 a.m. or earlier every day, skinning up, dropping in off the top of a peak, and skiing until 3 p.m. every day.

Depending on how you measure it, Norway has either the second-largest or seventh-largest length of coastline of all the countries in the world. Either way, its coastline is at least 36,000 miles long, and is comprised of tens of thousands of islands and more than 1,000 fjords. The majority of the land in the country is rugged, non-arable, and mountainous. To be on a ship cruising through the fjords, on a day with decent visibility, is a large part of the fun of a trip like this.

As the MS Nordenstjernen motored past the southern coast of Hinnoøya in the late afternoon of Day 2, I sat on the port side of the empty restaurant sipping coffee and writing in a pocket notebook as the daylight started to fade over the coastline. I looked out the window over the black water, to the shore, waves of snowy mountains rising out of the fjord. One triangular rock face stood out, its sheer north face dropping almost straight down for hundreds of meters. I recognized it from photos: Stetind, Norway’s national mountain. I had obsessively scoured the Internet for information about climbing it a few years ago, then decided I couldn’t justify a special trip for one route. I figured I’d never see it in person, let alone from a ship 15 miles away, in the winter. Through the glass, I took the best iphone photo I could, then admitted defeat and decided to just enjoyed the moment instead of faffing around trying to capture it. William Cecil Slingsby, an English climber considered the father of Norwegian mountaineering, famously called it “the ugliest mountain I ever saw.” I guess I would disagree, along with all the people who voted it Norway’s national mountain in 2002.

Our final ski day was supposed to be a short one, since everyone on the boat was flying home later in the afternoon. I felt less than great, tired from the previous two long ski days and still unable to shake a bit of a cold I’d had when I left the U.S.. I looked out the window as I ate breakfast, watching rain mixed with snow fall on the water next to the ship, halfway wishing someone would just say I should take the day off. Tommy was tired too, but around the boat, no one seemed to be making moves to not go skiing.

We hopped on the last tender boat off the ship at 8:40 a.m., saying goodbye to the MS Njordenstern, and clicked into our skis again to skin up the south slopes of Sautinden, a 1,955-foot peak. The wind grew increasingly hostile as we gained the open slopes of the upper half of the peak’s west face, and in 40 mph gusts, we bailed to a saddle on the east ridge, and then across the north face, where the sun came out and the wind quieted. After a few laps up and down the north side, Bjørn took us back up to the saddle, where Frode decided he’d had a good day, and joined another group to head back down to a waiting bus. We skinned up the east face of Sautinden, still pretty windy but tolerable, on snow with a half-inch-thick crust on top that made it difficult to climb, even with ski crampons on. Directly south of us, the sun poked under the afternoon clouds and bounced off the waters of the Austnesfjorden, pointing almost straight south for eight miles. I tried to take an iphone video, noticing immediately that the wind was vibrating my phone, and put it away.

A few minutes of insecure skinning later, we stood on the wind-packed summit of Sautinden, our last peak of the trip, and looked down on the water below. Bjørn led us off the summit to where he thought there would be good skiing, a sunny bowl on the east face of the peak—which probably meant a sizable walk at the bottom to the bus, parked on the edge of the fjord on the other side of the mountain. After about 150 feet of crusty garbage down the steep face, it turned to powder, and I linked eight or 10 of my best turns of the entire trip, finally getting my shit together and actually skiing at the end of the last day. We kept going down, paying for our great snow and turns with an exit through tight, short trees, over a barely-covered boulderfield, stepping over a 2 ½-foot tall fence into someone’s backyard, where a mellow golden retriever greeted us and got a healthy ration of ski-gloved pets as we popped off our skis for the 20-minute walk back to the awaiting bus, and then the real world.

—Brendan

The post Three Days On The Arctic Haute Route appeared first on semi-rad.com.

from Explore https://semi-rad.com/2020/01/three-days-on-the-arctic-haute-route/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[olivereliott]

Three Days On The Arctic Haute Route

  [NOTE: 2020 is the tenth year of my blog at Semi-Rad.com, and since I started it, I’ve been fortunate to get to do some pretty wonderful adventures. Throughout this year, I’ll be writing about 12 favorite adventures I’ve had since I started writing about the outdoors, one per month. This is the first in the series.]

[all photos by Tommy Penick]

On Deck C of the MS Nordenstjernen, anchored almost 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle, passengers clomp around in ski boots, stuff backpacks, and fuss with life jackets as snow falls through the fog into the dark water of the Stønnesbotn fjord outside. Everyone is excited, because everyone is skiing today, the first day of our three days of skiing on the Arctic Haute Route—except the one guy who drank too much in the lounge last night and missed his group’s departure to shore. He has frantically asked around to join another group, but our guide, Bjørn, has politely explained to him that we’re at capacity, with five skiers to one guide.

Another reason I suspect he says no: Bjørn is motivated to ski today, a lot. His plan for us today is to hop on the tender boats that will motor us over to shore in five minutes, take the bus 15 minutes across one of the narrow fingers of this island, Senja, to the shore just below Breidtinden (3,284 feet, the highest peak on the island), and then traverse back across the island, summiting another peak (Tuva, 2,168 feet) before skiing down to shore again. All in all, about 8 miles of skiing, and just under 3,900 feet of climbing.

There are 60 of us, including eight guides, on the MS Nordenstjernen—a 290-foot ship with four passenger decks, that served more than 50 years on Norway’s Hurtigruten coastal cruise line before it was retired in 2012. The boat is described as “nostalgic and venerable” in promotional literature, and feels more like a real ship than a fancy cruise ship, something out of a Wes Anderson movie. In the old Hurtigruten brochure, under the heading, “FITNESS ROOM, SAUNA, POOL, JACUZZI,” it says, “There are no such facilities on board MS Nordstjernen.” (For 2020, Arctic Haute Route trips will be on a newer boat, the MS Quest, built in 1992.)

The Arctic Haute Route, dreamed up by Nina Kristine Madsen Geelmuyden and her husband Fredrik Geelmuyden, owners of the Norwegian Adventure Company, works like this: Skiers board the boat in Tromsø, Norway, the afternoon of Day 1. We cruise south, anchoring in a fjord for the evening, and sleep on the ship. On Day 2, we get dropped on shore, ski all day, and return to the ship in mid- to late afternoon. We cruise south again to another fjord, spend the night on the ship, and ski new terrain on Day 3, returning to the ship and heading south again to anchor in one last fjord. The final day of skiing, on Day 4, ends at a bus that takes us to the airport at Svolvær, where we all catch flights home. The boat turns around to head north with a new group of skiers the next day. There are eight Arctic Haute Route trips per season (March 19-April 21), four southbound and four northbound, and a charter bus carrying everyone’s skis parallels the boat’s course the entire time.

The bus dropped us off for our first ski day, fat snowflakes dropping on us as we skinned up through thin trees, the peaks around us shrouded in low clouds. Our group of skiers: myself, photographer Tommy Penick, and three lively Norwegian guys from Oslo in their 50s: Ragnar, Frode, and Rune. Our guide, Bjørn Kruse, owns and operates the Romsdal Ski Lodge with his wife, and works as a guide on the Arctic Haute Route as a break over the winter.

We climbed above a fjord, Mefjorden, that opens into the Norwegian Sea about 10 miles northwest from us. Occasionally the clouds opened up to reveal peaks all around our path, on the mountainous northern coast of Senja, a 612-square-mile island connected to the mainland by a single bridge. I should have started cold but didn’t, and too many layers had me sweating as we climbed. Before the trip, I had skied exactly one day so far that season, spending most of my time running and training for a couple mountain ultramarathons. I was not exactly expecting to make great turns. When we ripped our skins off after about 40 minutes of climbing for a little 300-foot run down a gully, my fears were confirmed: my quads were burning after three turns in powder. But it was still so good.

We skinned up two shorter, mellow climbs, before dropping down into a valley for our final climb, 1700 feet into sunny blue skies to the summit of a peak called Tuva. From the top, we looked down to see our tiny ship parked in the fjord. I skied down last, not so confident in my wobbly legs, and also not wanting the rest of the group to observe my sloppy survival skiing through the trees to the road. Bjørn, it was clear, would find the best possible skiable snow, partly for us as his clients, but also because he just loves to ski. We arrived at the bus at 3:30 p.m., and after a short ride and a quick tender boat ride, I plopped down to drink coffee and watch the mountains go past a lounge window as the boat cruised out of the fjord and on to our next stop.

Mention Norway to someone and one of the first things you will probably hear them say is the word “expensive.” Compared to traveling to a lot of places, like Mexico or Thailand, it is. The Arctic Haute Route, for three and a half days on the ship, costs 19,900 Norwegian Kroner per person, or about $2,230 in U.S. dollars. Which is objectively not cheap—but includes all food, transportation, and lodging during the trip, plus three days of backcountry ski guiding. It is certainly one of the most expensive trips I’ve done, but in full disclosure, my trip was paid for by the Norwegian government’s tourism body, in hopes that I would write about it. I don’t do many press trips, and I don’t seek them out, but when this email landed in my inbox, it sounded like a trip I shouldn’t pass up. The question for me to answer was: If I had to pay for it out of my own pocket, would I? Now that I know what it’s like, yes. I can’t pretend to be 100 percent objective about it, but I can say this: if it sucked, I just wouldn’t write about it. And it didn’t suck.

There are only a few places in the world where you can go on a “ski cruise”—Norway, Alaska, Antarctica, and Svalbard (which is of course, part of Norway), and the Arctic Haute Route is one of the more affordable of those destinations. And much more “ski” than “cruise,” or at least my idea of cruises, which is something like David Foster Wallace’s “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again.” A bright-white ship 20+ times the size of the MS Nordensjternen plowing through bright blue Caribbean ocean water in all-day sunshine, fancy dinners, activities on the ship, and 10 times as many passengers on board, most of whom make way more money than I do and who don’t necessarily want to spend six hours and 3,000 calories a day skiing uphill and downhill. That sort of thing.

The similarities between a luxury cruise line and the Arctic Haute Route were probably limited to the fact that they both utilize boats. Although I’m sure some of the folks on our trip had some money, if you lived in Norway, something like the Arctic Haute Route is pretty affordable, not much more expensive than a four-day trip to ski Breckenridge or Vail if you live in Chicago. The food on the MS Nordenstjernen was fancy (the menu was developed by Gunnar Hvarnes, Norway’s 2009 Chef of the Year)—but no one wore fancy clothes to dinner. I can’t speak for other passengers, but Tommy and I didn’t shower our entire time on the boat, and no one seemed to notice. It was just enough of a cruise to feel like we had nothing to worry about besides eating, sleeping, and skiing, but not so chichi that it ruined the feel of an adventure.

Tommy and I went up to the bridge to visit the captain on the afternoon of Day 2, and found the Polish first mate instead, looking over his 180-degree view of the ship’s course and navigating us straight down the middle of the almost mile-wide fjord, snowy mountains poking out of the water on the horizon. His tools, brightly colored charts on multiple computer monitors and electric panels, were laid among and on top of a few of the ship’s remaining old instruments. He explained that the old stuff was no longer in use—just decorative now. Tommy took photos around the bridge, and then pointed at one lever, suggesting that a human hand on it might make for a better photo with the old Norwegian markings: Halv, Sakte, Ganske Sakte, Klar, Stopp, Vel. I grabbed it and moved it just a half-inch, and the first mate very gently noted to us, “We still use that one.” I jumped back and apologized, even though he seemed unconcerned.

I asked, “What is it for?”

“Speed.” We all laughed.

Once we stepped onto the boat on the first day in Tromsø, we never stepped foot onto land except to ski—every morning we had a buffet breakfast (and packed a lunch from the buffet breakfast, to eat while skiing), and dinner again, on the boat. Some days we saw several other groups from our ship, some days we hardly saw anyone. We got up at 6:15 a.m., hopped in the tender boats between 8:00 and 8:40 a.m., and were clicking into our skis by 9 a.m. or earlier every day, skinning up, dropping in off the top of a peak, and skiing until 3 p.m. every day.

Depending on how you measure it, Norway has either the second-largest or seventh-largest length of coastline of all the countries in the world. Either way, its coastline is at least 36,000 miles long, and is comprised of tens of thousands of islands and more than 1,000 fjords. The majority of the land in the country is rugged, non-arable, and mountainous. To be on a ship cruising through the fjords, on a day with decent visibility, is a large part of the fun of a trip like this.

As the MS Nordenstjernen motored past the southern coast of Hinnoøya in the late afternoon of Day 2, I sat on the port side of the empty restaurant sipping coffee and writing in a pocket notebook as the daylight started to fade over the coastline. I looked out the window over the black water, to the shore, waves of snowy mountains rising out of the fjord. One triangular rock face stood out, its sheer north face dropping almost straight down for hundreds of meters. I recognized it from photos: Stetind, Norway’s national mountain. I had obsessively scoured the Internet for information about climbing it a few years ago, then decided I couldn’t justify a special trip for one route. I figured I’d never see it in person, let alone from a ship 15 miles away, in the winter. Through the glass, I took the best iphone photo I could, then admitted defeat and decided to just enjoyed the moment instead of faffing around trying to capture it. William Cecil Slingsby, an English climber considered the father of Norwegian mountaineering, famously called it “the ugliest mountain I ever saw.” I guess I would disagree, along with all the people who voted it Norway’s national mountain in 2002.

Our final ski day was supposed to be a short one, since everyone on the boat was flying home later in the afternoon. I felt less than great, tired from the previous two long ski days and still unable to shake a bit of a cold I’d had when I left the U.S.. I looked out the window as I ate breakfast, watching rain mixed with snow fall on the water next to the ship, halfway wishing someone would just say I should take the day off. Tommy was tired too, but around the boat, no one seemed to be making moves to not go skiing.

We hopped on the last tender boat off the ship at 8:40 a.m., saying goodbye to the MS Njordenstern, and clicked into our skis again to skin up the south slopes of Sautinden, a 1,955-foot peak. The wind grew increasingly hostile as we gained the open slopes of the upper half of the peak’s west face, and in 40 mph gusts, we bailed to a saddle on the east ridge, and then across the north face, where the sun came out and the wind quieted. After a few laps up and down the north side, Bjørn took us back up to the saddle, where Frode decided he’d had a good day, and joined another group to head back down to a waiting bus. We skinned up the east face of Sautinden, still pretty windy but tolerable, on snow with a half-inch-thick crust on top that made it difficult to climb, even with ski crampons on. Directly south of us, the sun poked under the afternoon clouds and bounced off the waters of the Austnesfjorden, pointing almost straight south for eight miles. I tried to take an iphone video, noticing immediately that the wind was vibrating my phone, and put it away.

A few minutes of insecure skinning later, we stood on the wind-packed summit of Sautinden, our last peak of the trip, and looked down on the water below. Bjørn led us off the summit to where he thought there would be good skiing, a sunny bowl on the east face of the peak—which probably meant a sizable walk at the bottom to the bus, parked on the edge of the fjord on the other side of the mountain. After about 150 feet of crusty garbage down the steep face, it turned to powder, and I linked eight or 10 of my best turns of the entire trip, finally getting my shit together and actually skiing at the end of the last day. We kept going down, paying for our great snow and turns with an exit through tight, short trees, over a barely-covered boulderfield, stepping over a 2 ½-foot tall fence into someone’s backyard, where a mellow golden retriever greeted us and got a healthy ration of ski-gloved pets as we popped off our skis for the 20-minute walk back to the awaiting bus, and then the real world.

—Brendan

The post Three Days On The Arctic Haute Route appeared first on semi-rad.com.

[freshmusicfreak]

Having done a lot of Anjuna-related travel in the weeks prior to Anjunabeach, my excitement didn’t really develop until I was waiting for my Anjuna Angel John at the Portland airport.  As we got to the gate, we ran into 6 Portland Anjunafam who were on our flight. Erin had painted an amazing picture of Above & Beyond playing to a crowd and had arranged gifting it to them at Anjunabeach the next day.  John and I scurried to the lounge to grab some breakfast and requisite mimosas before our flight boarded. After takeoff, one of the flight attendants noticed John’s A&B Acoustic shirt and asked if we were also going to Anjunabeach.  She said her kids had hooked her on A&B years ago and then gave us free drinks!

The rest of our Anjunacrew was on a later flight so we hopped in the hotel van to chill with our friends.  As it was Erin’s birthday weekend, Devon had a round of tequila shots delivered to the room as they discussed their tattoo plans.  They found a parlor that was taking walk-ins, so off we went for some birthday tattoos! Anjuna logo for Erin, Cirez D for Judit, and J’ai envie de toi for Devon while the rest of us went to lunch.  

Anjunaflight #1

Anjunaflight #2

Anjunacrew Has Landed

Anjunavan

John and I were picked up in the Anjunavan and reunited with our Anjunacrew to head to our Anjunabnb.  (You bet your ass we were Anjuna-labeling everything all weekend!) There’d been a bit of a snafu with our original airbnb being double-booked and since we tend to make magic happen, we were re-booked at no extra charge at a nicer spot half a block from the beach!  Like kids at camp, we all rushed the rooms to claim our beds, changed and headed to the beach.

We dragged the speaker to the beach to blast some Anjuna and I ran straight to the ocean.  Having grown up in Hawaii, I’m a water baby, so Lance and I went for a swim while Anjunadad David was yelling at us “don’t go so far!”  I could hear Anjunamom Ashley saying “she grew up in Hawaii, I’m sure she’s fine!” The sun was disappearing in the clouds as we did a quick change and then walked to a local taco spot where we lost Devon to see Gareth Emery at TIME.  We told him to report back on how it was since we would be there for Above & Beyond’s Anjunabeach afterparty the following night. Tacos and margaritas were had and we did a booze stop on our way back. Invite texts and calls were going out to the homies as we tested out how soundproofed the house was.  After doing a bit of an Ace Ventura sliding glass door test, we were cleared to par-tay!

Saltwater Makes Me Happy

On the Decks in the Anjunabnb

Michael got the turntables fired up and the Elliptical Sun crew were the first to show up.  Of course there was the inevitable arguing over who wanted what tracks played. This then led into who was the most anticipated act and what tracks might be played at Anjunabeach the next day.  More Portland and Seattle friends dropped by throughout the night and as the party wound down, Devon finally rolled in around 3am. Apparently his phone died and he walked several miles in the wrong direction til he was able to catch a cab.  After cleaning his tattoo we all headed to bed.

One of the first ones up, I started rounding up the crew for some brunch.  Nikki and I were searching for a good spot and landed on the same one right on the water.  As we opened the menus, we were a bit shocked by the cost of breakfast (Cali, right?!?) until we noticed that it included bottomless mimosas.  Suddenly the price was totally worth it! After we imbibed about a bottle of champs each we headed back to the Anjunabnb. With the arrival of Amy, our Anjunacrew was complete.  While the girls started getting ready, Michael hit the decks again.

After herding the cats, everyone piled into the Anjunavan and we headed to Anjunabeach.  Seeing all the beautiful glittery people walking towards the venue was really exciting! An Anjunafam friend was giving away a VIP ticket, so I messaged him on FB and he emailed me the ticket.  GODDAMN I LOVE ANJUNAFAM! I could now hang out with John in VIP if I wanted, not to mention the bathrooms are always nicer #girlproblems. We parked a ways from the venue and along the walk, David found a giant palm leaf which he decided was going to be his totem, and dubbed it the Anjunafan.  Anjunamom Ash was against the idea, whereas I was in full support. A, I wanted to see what security said when he walked in with it. B, I’d benefit from being able to spot the crew from anywhere in the crowd. And C, I mean, come on, it was going to be a source of endless hilarity. This was when David dubbed his wife Ash as the angel on his shoulder, and me, the devil, since I’m always egging him on.  It was a pretty fair assessment.

We split up to walk in the different GA and VIP entries and immediately bump into Cody, a friend of John’s I’d met at 250.  He said to his girl friend, “do you remember Sandra from 250?” And she goes “YEAH! The butt biter!” Yup, that’s me! I do have a tendency to bite beautiful women’s bubbly butts at festivals.  Of course, AFTER asking for permission, cause my momma raised me right. #notsorry

GA Meetup

Heading into VIP

WA Anjunafam

Unfortunately, we’d missed most of the yoga set so we meandered our way through the VIP area, found a convenient entrance directly onto the rail and then made our way back to find our group as Luttrell began.  Having seen him multiple times in the last couple months, I decided to enjoy more of the venue than I normally do and convinced John to go on the carnival swings since I didn’t get to ride any rides at Paradiso the weekend before.  It was on our walk to the carnival rides that I realized exactly how big the venue was and remembered how taxing it is to walk on sand. John needed to stop for a breather and we discussed how sexy our calves were gonna be the next day.  Thankfully the line was short, so we only had to wait a little bit before I was hopping on a swing. I made John take a picture and as soon as it started up I imagined I was a P-51 Mustang with my arms out like an airplane, making bomber noises and returning imaginary fire from the Luftwaffe.  Of course I had to ham it up even more as the swings dipped us down towards the line of people waiting for their turn and was amply rewarded by them cracking up, a few even returned fire. Oh yes, I really am a huge nerd. Feeling light as a feather after some time in flight, John and I decided to check things out a little and found a giant beach chair, so of course took the photo opportunity.  The crowd was growing by the time we found our friends again where we danced together until I flitted off like the social butterfly that I am.

I returned to the rail, a bit stage left where I met a beautiful new friend, Claire, who was seeing A&B for the very first time.  Introductions were made to her group, a mixture of newbies and old hats. As I was chatting with them, all of the sudden someone surprised me and lifted me up on their shoulders.  I almost toppled over backwards, but Devon had me. The view was amazing from up there and we danced a bit to the mustachioed man’s Don’t Forget to Breathe, one of my Luttrell favorites until he put me down.  I decided I wanted to wear his shades for a while so we swapped, although it took some convincing that my heart sunglasses looked as good on him as they did on me. One of my favorite people to dance with, Devon and I did some swing dance twirls and then he shuffled it up a bit.  Ran into Eevee, another Seattle friend I’d just spent the past weekend with at Paradiso and we all danced together at the rail.

Lane 8 came on and we headed back to our group since several of them are huge fans of his.  Most of us had been at his This Never Happened Portland tour stop and I wanted to experience it with them again.  His set started out with some fire, which I was very thankful for as he tends to be a little more chill. We danced together til his set started veering back into the more subtle deep house he prefers.  I was hoping that he’d play Skin and Bones, but alas! Feeling a bit antsy, I asked if anyone wanted to go on the carnival swings. Three of the group were ready, so I led the way.

Now, crowds don’t typically bother me at all, but as I was ducking and dodging people, it seemed like the Ferris Wheel was even farther away than it had been when we left the crew.  I got a slightly panicky feeling and then reminded myself I was surrounded by Anjunafam, so just chill girl, you got this! In the line for the swings, the group picked if they were going to be Allies or Axis, as I informed them we were about to be in the dogfight of our lives.  When I asked which way to return fire if I holler that there’s a Messerschmitt approaching at your 3:00 and was met with blank looks, I had to explain the clock system to the amateurs of the group. After they understood the system, I made some new friends in line who wanted to play along.  When we got up and started swinging around, there were 7 of us all shooting and returning fire.

After the ride we walked back the long way to get a drink and make our way back to the VIP section.  We came across a zombie who was taking pictures with girls and then asking for their numbers to send the picture to them.  Mmmmhmmmm… I see you dude. Mat Zo was on by this time and I was transported back to Red Rocks where I’d seen Mat play for the first time.  Just like Red Rocks, he was my most anticipated act of the day, and he didn’t disappoint. His set was a great mix of hits from the 2012 Anjunabeats presents, 2013 Damage Control and 2016 Self Assemble.  As we were yet again cutting through the crowd to find our friends, he hit us with his fresh new house release Bad Posture. So rather than doing my typical “excuse me, excuse me hon” dipping through the crowd, I was dancing through/with everyone and giving high fives as he fed that funky track right into Soul Food.  Knife Party’s Destroy Them With Lasers was on by the time we found the Anjunacrew and I jumped around with them while I was hearing Mike Myers saying LASERS in my head. Then Mat blew my mind when I heard the opening chords of Underworld’s Born Slippy. I was momentarily speechless and stood there with my mouth hanging open.  1995’s Born Slippy was one of the first electronic tracks I’d ever heard, and it’s one of the iconic tracks that paved my way into the world of raves. And GODDAMMIT, he did it again with a remix of Lustral’s 1997 track Everytime. I’m officially a Mat Zo fangirl. Where’s the Mat Zo fanclub at? Sign me up!

Anjunabeach Chair

Half of the Anjunacrew

Erin Gives the Boys her Painting

Above & Beyond took the stage and the boys got things going with a Chocolate and Sirens of the Sea mash up, which was perfection as it matched the Sirens kandi gifted by Amy that morning that I was fist bumping as I danced.  All of the sudden I spotted Hayley, a fellow Anjuna Angel in front of us so I scooched through the crowd to finally meet in person. We’d been dancing next to each other at Porter Robinson in Vegas the month prior and yet this was the first time we officially met.  The wistful piano of Cold Feet began and Hayley turned and gave me the biggest hug. She knew it was a track that makes me hurt a bit as I’ve had several men in my life who have trampled me with their cold feet. I stayed with Hayley’s group through Virtual Self’s Ghost Voices which we’d both heard Porter play in Vegas.  I then decided I needed to get back up to the rail to see Paavo and Tony up close and personal with my new friends.

What I’ve always admired about Above & Beyond is their seamless transitions and how the lyrics in the succession of tracks belong together.  I recently healed from a devastating break up and became Alright Now and it’s often been the beat of the drum touching me Lovingly that’s made me forget about my bad luck with love.  It was perfect timing that I was bequeathing my new friends their first pieces of Anjunabeach-themed kandi that the track of the same name began playing. As I danced around with my eyes closed, it truly was Happiness Amplified and my smile only grew bigger as I recognized Andrew Bayer’s remix of the 2000 classic Strange World.  Remembering that David had specifically requested that I NOT social butterfly all day and make sure I spent time with him, I headed back as I could tell by the cooling air that it would be ending soon. Jumping up and down to Ilan’s Will We Remain as I made my way back to the Anjunacrew, David was nowhere to be found. Oh well… I tried David!  With arms around each other, we sang our hearts out to Sun & Moon and of course screamed for an encore as the music died down.

I’ve never seen the boys NOT play an encore, and their selection of On The Beach was a bit of odd perfection.  While swaying to this gentle melody, I looked around and saw many people with tears in their eyes. The ending of any Above & Beyond event tends to leave me overjoyed and ebullient, but this track left me melancholy.  Were it not for the knowledge that I was going to see the boys play TIME in a couple hours, I would’ve broken into tears then and there as Justine sang “Say goodbye to all your friends. Time to leave and go home again.  Sad to fly and leave behind the sun.” I can barely wait til the next time I see all my furry friends on the beach!

Anjunafam in an Anjunabnb on Anjunabeach Having done a lot of Anjuna-related travel in the weeks prior to Anjunabeach, my excitement didn’t really develop until I was waiting for my Anjuna Angel John at the Portland airport.  

[lesliepump]

Podcast #151: How Westlaw Lost its Copyright, with Alan Sugarman

In this episode we’re joined by Alan Sugarman to talk about the landmark case that opened up access to law and ultimately resulted in more options for online legal research today.

Alan Sugarman

Alan Sugarman founded HyperLaw in 1991 to publish electronic law treatises linked to case law. A graduate electrical engineer from Tufts University with a law degree from the University of Chicago, Sugarman has been a litigator and corporate lawyer at law firms, corporate law departments and governmental agencies. In the 1990s, HyperLaw was a disrupter of the legal publishing industry. HyperLaw successfully challenged Westlaw’s copyright claims to the text and citations of court opinions.

You can follow Alan on LinkedIn.

Thanks to Ruby Receptionists and Clio for sponsoring this episode!

Listen & Subscribe

To listen to the podcast, just scroll up and hit the play button (or click the link to this post if you are reading this by email).

To make sure you don’t miss an episode of The Lawyerist Podcast, subscribe now in iTunes, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast player. Or find out about new episodes by subscribing to our email newsletter.

Transcript

This transcript was prepared by Rev.com.

Speaker 1: Welcome to the Lawyerist Podcast with Sam Glover and Aaron Street. Each week, Lawyerist brings you advice and interviews to help you build a more successful law practice in today’s challenging and constantly changing legal market. And now, here are Sam and Aaron.

Sam Glover: Hi, I’m Sam Glover.

Aaron Street: And I’m Aaron Street. And this is episode 151 of The Lawyerist Podcast, part of the Legal Talk Network. Today we’re talking with Alan Sugarman, whose HyperLaw service in the early 1990s paved the way for modern research services like Google Scholar and Fastcase.

Sam Glover: Today’s podcast is sponsored by Ruby Receptionist, and its smart, charming receptionists who are perfect for small firms. Visit callruby.com/lawyerist to get a free trial with Ruby.

Aaron Street: Today’s podcast is also sponsored by Clio Legal Practice Management Software. Clio makes running your law firm easier. Try it for free today at clio.com.

So, I guess today’s episode with Alan Sugarman is kind of one in our ongoing series on how we got to this place where open access to law is a conversation. We’ve had a number of these interviews with Tim Stanley, and Ed Walters, and Sarah Glassmeyer. I think this’ll be an interesting story as piece of that.

Sam Glover: Yeah, I kind of geek out on the nuts and bolts of how we get to where we are today, and one of the reasons why I’m interested in open access to law is that law is kind of the oil, Ed Walters would say, on which innovation in a lot of legal tech works, right? Like, if you wanna build AI, you have to have a dataset to train it on and a lot of that comes from open access to law. You can’t have it unless it’s open. So that’s why I’ve been doing some of these interviews, because I think it’s fascinating.

But I think what you will also hear as an undercurrent in some of these interviews … It was there with Tim Stanley, and with Carl Malamud, and it’s here in my interview with Alan Sugarman, is that some of today’s competitive landscape is due to a series of incidents that have resulted in grudges, that weren’t always pretty. And I think you’ll hear that today, I think you’ve probably heard that in some of the previous ones.

But the lawsuit over HyperLaw and the history of it and background and what happened is pretty interesting, so here’s my interview with Alan. Just another note, my audio, again, isn’t great for the first two minutes this week, but then it clears up and please be reassured that I’ve upgraded my recording gear at home so snow days won’t muck up my interviews so much anymore.

Aaron Street: Oh, good.

Sam Glover: Here we go.

Alan Sugarman: Hello, I’m Alan Sugarman. I am an attorney in New York City, I’ve been practicing since 1971, and I’m the founder of HyperLaw, which in modern day terms was the disrupter of the legal publishing industry. And we took on the monopolist West Publishing and we beat them and that was in 1997 and 1998.

Sam Glover: Awesome. Thanks for being with us today, Alan. Maybe before we dive into the litigation, which I really wanna talk about, what was the lay of the land before HyperLaw came along in 1991? What did legal research look like back then?

Alan Sugarman: Well, legal research back then was still largely paper-based, and people used books and people used the key numbering system to do their research. Lexis had been founded in the 70s, and West Publishing Company, which people call today West Law, created its online service a few years later. It was the federal government that it really initiated legal research online or … digital legal research was done by the Air Force, Flight.

Flight was an effort by the US Air Force to digitize US Supreme Court decisions. And it was made available to lawyers in the US government. And then that evolved into something called Jurist, which the department of justice worked on, and they were digitizing legal opinions, federal opinions, starting in the 80s. And then they got West Publishing Company to help them do the digitizing, and gave West an exclusive contract and made it clear that those cases weren’t subject to FOIA requests.

So there was litigation where people were trying to get their hands on Jurist, and then the big thing that happened was in the mid-80s, Lexis decided it was going to start using the so-called star-pagination that West had developed. The site to the page, the volume and page number of the cases. So, West jumped on them, and following something they did for almost 10 years after that, they of course sued them in Minnesota, in the federal courts where they’d been cultivating judges for years, and where the cases would be reviewed in the eighth circuit where they’d been cultivating judges. So West jumped on Lexis, which was owned by Mead … And by the way, Lexis was originally a product of the Ohio State Bar … And West was able to get an injunction against Mead, claiming they had copyrights and the text, the enhanced text, and the citations, and won in the eighth circuit which wasn’t a surprise, given some of the things that had gone on, including the debit award which was basically paying off federal judges with awards and trips to resorts.

Sam Glover: I mean that sounds pretty cutthroat! We don’t normally think of legal research as a cutthroat industry, but …

Alan Sugarman: Oh no, West was incredibly litigious. They were suing people right and left and at this point in time, the cost of converting paper opinions to text was pretty expensive. Now this was way before Optical Character Recognition, and even in the 90s, “OCR” as we call it, was not so robust and so the way they had to do it was have it keyed in and even the facilities to do keying in, basically in India, were not as developed as they are today. So it was a big expense just to get a court case converted digitally, and of course at that time, even if there were some word processors around, judges were … I would say 95% of all opinions were being typed on electric typewriters or handwritten. So there was no way of getting digital versions from the court. And if they were digital versions, they were in specialized publishing printing software.

Sam Glover: I mean that kinda puts it in perspective, ’cause when I talked to Ed Walters, I’m appalled by how much effort they put in to maintain legal decisions coming into Fastcase’s database, but by contrast, the amount of effort that you had to put in to do that back in the 80s and 90s sounds like it was just crazy higher effort.

Alan Sugarman: Well, [inaudible 00: 07: 21] worse than that, I think West didn’t even bother even once decisions were available in Word Processing. It wasn’t worth the time to try to convert the digital Word Processing files. There were so many different programs, ways that people did it. And formatting and everything else. It was just, at the end of the day, easier for them to send it to India or somewhere else and get it double-keyed and bring it back to the US.

Or, so they just ignored that. In a minute I’ll get to what we did.

Sam Glover: Well yeah I wanna hear about that too.

Alan Sugarman: Okay so West [inaudible 00: 08: 04] basically gave a monopoly to West over the content and the citation to the content of judicial opinions. And so our involvement was that I’ve been very involved with computers in the law for years, in fact in the early 80s I’d even taught a course in computer literacy for lawyers in 1982. My original computer had 4k of memory. If people know what that means.

Sam Glover: Yeah.

Alan Sugarman: So I was pretty involved with this. When I came off my big case in 1990 I finished up a real estate book and decided that I wanted to do an electronic version. I reserved the rights with my publisher John Wiley who didn’t know what I meant when I said I wanted to do an electronic version. And I wanted to link into the cases. So my question is, where do I find the cases? This was all going to be on floppy disk, if you can believe it.

Sam Glover: Yeah.

Alan Sugarman: And then CD-ROM. So I wrote a letter to West saying, “Look I know the only place I can find the decisions is from you. From my litigation experience I spent far too much time wandering around court clerks offices and dusting boxes trying to find old files.”

So I wrote them and they said, “No.” And they basically said, quote said, “Proceed at your own risk.” And I knew they’d been after other people and they were starting to take the position that if you did a brief with links to cases that you had to get their permission. If you went to a law library and wanted to photocopy a case they wouldn’t do it unless basically they paid a fee to West.

Sam Glover: Wow really?

Alan Sugarman: Oh yeah.

Sam Glover: That’s crazy.

Alan Sugarman: Absolutely true. Absolutely. So West wanted to control everything. Now this was 1991 before the internet, but I had realized that digital linking to briefs for example or treatises would be the way of the future of development of law. It wasn’t so much legal research but it was the ability to present the case to the reader without having to go do legal research. And I realized this with [inaudible 00: 10: 26] the whole development of law, I was offended by it. And I’d read an article about hyper-linking by Vannevar Bush, which he predicted this back in the 40s.

So I created HyperLaw to do my book. And then I decided that maybe the first thing to do to test West and also to perhaps create a future product would be to start publishing the texts of the US Supreme Court. Now at that time they had a very elaborate funky system for making cases available to newspapers and publishers. And you had to sign up and go through all of this security stuff and there were maybe 10 to 20 publishers in the country who did this. But we managed to sign up by thousands of dollars of secure hardware. I mean we were just accepting a down lope I think in their mind. If we get a download from them we can mess up their system.

So we got the decisions, we got them all formatted, cleaned up, found a search engine that would fit on a floppy disk in a CD-ROM, released it. And the idea I had was perhaps to do reviews of Supreme Court cases or something like that, and so you could buy every year, I never did this, but buy every year a review of the Supreme Court cases for the year and you can link in to all the cases. So that was the idea.

Sam Glover: It sounds like HyperLaw was basically like Microsoft Encarta. Where both the software and all the data is on the CD that you would buy.

Alan Sugarman: That was the idea.

Sam Glover: Yeah.

Alan Sugarman: So we then released the CD at Legal Tech in New York in 1992, we were the only company with any CD product. We were told the CD was a dead technology. But I would tell you the West people went hovering around my booth. We didn’t sell very many. It was not a commercial success. I then discovered that some of the Court of Appeals were starting to release the Federal Court of Appeals opinions on their bulletin boards. And so I decided I would download as many as I could and put those on a CD. And that turned into an elaborate product.

I had two or three interns from Columbia Law School, one who was a good programmer, and I did my own programming. And it was a huge problem of downloading cases, figuring out if you had duplicates, cleaning them up, each one was a different format. But we put together a pretty nice case which had meta-data in it. We used pretty intelligent searching to create the meta-data. And we had a real product. And then we went to the American Association of Law Libraries Convention in 1993 in Boston, which is really big, it’s a big event in legal publishing. And West again came hovering around my booth and I mentioned that, “Well we don’t have all the cases.” And they said, “Well you better not use our cases.” Well, I took that as a threat.

Then what happened in 1994, Matthew Bender, which was an independent company then was trying to publish treatises of New York case law, and they needed the cases. They wanted to do the same thing I had in mind. I’m not claiming to be original in any way. Because it was obvious that was the way, what people wanted to have.

They were running into problems, but they wanted to use the citations to the cases. The volume and page number.

Sam Glover: Whereas you were just using the cases themselves.

Alan Sugarman: Well we were downloading the cases which had nothing to do with West. But what we wanted to do was fill in the gaps with the cases that weren’t being downloaded. Because the courts weren’t so complete.

Anyway Matthew Bender sued West in New York City, where we’re located in the Southern District of New York where I was admitted to practice law, and had practiced. And sued them for declaratory judgment. And when I saw that, this was early in 94, I said, “Oh no. We’re gonna have another fix where two big companies sue each other and after they beat each other and the lawyers collect their legal fees enter into a private settlement and everyone else will be screwed.”

So four weeks later we intervened. And I have a very long detailed complaint that we filed. And my friends Paul Ruskin and Carl Hartman agreed to basically be pro bono lawyers with the hope of getting legal fees at the end. And they put an awful lot of work into it. And we were allowed to intervene. And we pursued the case and I won’t go into all the details but-

Sam Glover: Was the core of it though, was it a fight over the citation system then, or?

Alan Sugarman: In the beginning Matthew Bender seemed to be interested in both. But I always was interested in the text part.

Sam Glover: Yeah.

Alan Sugarman: In fact, in 19, I left this out of my story, but after West v. Mead the Supreme Court came down with the Fice case which totally undermined the theories in the West v. Mead case. And then Mead and [inaudible 00: 15: 49] got Barney Frank to introduce some legislation in 1992 in Congress. H.R. 5522. And to make the citations not copyrightable.

And we went down to Washington and we filed our brief where we said, “Well that’s fine but we also wanna make the text not copyrightable.” ‘Cause West would claim if it corrected parallel citations, corrected typos, added the attorneys names, that they were entitled to copyright protection for that. And if you picked up a West case you didn’t know what they were asserting copyright for or not. It was very interesting then, that no one else in the legal publishing industry would support our position on text. Okay. So when we got into the Matthew Bender case, Matthew Bender I think initially was going to fight for both text and the citation system, and then they were acquired by Mead Data.

And Mead had so much money invested in his own conversion to text that they did not want us to take that position. In fact they even fought us at the end when we got before the Supreme Court. You know, they wanted the Supreme Court to overturn our win.

Sam Glover: I mean effectively what you have happening is two people with essentially identical reporters are saying that they each have different copyrights in their own version of it.

Alan Sugarman: Well yeah. They didn’t want people going on Lexis and downloading the text of cases and saying, “You can’t copyright it.” And they didn’t wanna depend upon a contract, you know contract with Lexis to keep you from copying it.

Sam Glover: Right.

Alan Sugarman: Okay. So we both won the citation case and then Matthew Bender sort of disappeared. And we alone won the text case. And as far as I’m concerned the text case was much more important than the citation.

Sam Glover: Yeah.

Alan Sugarman: And we won at the 2nd Circuit. Cert was denied by the U.S. Supreme Court. We came back to get legal fees, the judge said we were David and Goliath. And won the case. Awarded us fees. The 2nd Circuit said, “No. You’re not substantial.” They would say, “There was a substantial issue.” Which is really ridiculous. ‘Cause no one ever supported the Mead case. There you are. So we were sitting there in 1997, 98, the last legal fees decision was 2001. So that’s what happened in that case.

But basically our case made Google Scholar. Google Law possible.

Sam Glover: Right ’cause the outcome is now you can, obviously you can publish the text of cases and you can use the citation system right? Or is the citation system still in doubt.

Alan Sugarman: No there’s no doubt on the citation system. And initially, oddly Google did not include the citations. And I would write them, I never really talked to anyone senior there. But I would say, “Why aren’t you putting the citation in?” And now they have the citation in there. The pagination for the published opinions.

Sam Glover: So we need to take a quick break to hear from our sponsors and when we come back I wanna talk about what happened to HyperLaw after that and maybe spend a little time talking about the impact of that decision, that ordeal, that litigation today. And what maybe still needs to happen to keep the law free. So we’ll be back in a moment.

This podcast is supported by Ruby Receptionist. As a matter of fact, Ruby answers our phones at Lawyerist, and my firm was a paying Ruby customer before that. Here’s what I love about Ruby. When I’m in the middle of something I hate to be interrupted. So when the phone rings, it annoys me, and that often carries over into the conversation I have after I pick up the phone. Which is why I’m better off not answering my own phone, instead Ruby answers the phone and if the person on the other end asks for me, a friendly cheerful receptionist from Ruby calls me and asks if I want them to put the call through. It’s a buffer that gives me a minute to let go of my annoyance and be a better human being during the call.

If you wanna be a better human being on the phone, give Ruby a try. Go to callruby.com/lawyerist to sign up and Ruby will waive the $95 set-up fee. If you aren’t happy with Ruby for any reason, you can get your money back during your first three weeks. I’m pretty sure you’ll stick around, but since there’s no risk, you might as well try.

Aaron Street: Imagine what you could do with an extra eight hours per week. You could invest in marketing your firm. You could spend more time helping clients in need. Or you could catch your daughter’s soccer game. That’s how much time legal professionals save with Cleo, the world’s leading practice management software. With Cleo, tracking time, billing, and matter management are fast and easy. Giving you more time to focus on what really matters. And Cleo is a complete practice management platform with plenty of tools and over fifty integrations to help you automate daily tasks such as document generation and court calendaring. See how the right software can make it easier to manage your practice. Try Cleo for free today at cleo.com

Sam Glover: So Alan after the decision what happened to HyperLaw? It’s not on the market today as far as I know so were you able to take that and run with it or what happened?

Alan Sugarman: In 94, 5, and 6, we were litigating against the largest law firms in the country. We actually went through three law firms that West had. And in the end they had to have Arthur Miller from Harvard Law School come down and argue for them in the 2nd Circuit. I was, just doing the case was overwhelming me, and by the time 1998 came around I had run through all my money. So I had to go back into the real world and make a living.

Sam Glover: Yeah.

Alan Sugarman: So HyperLaw still exists. I comment on things from time to time. Do some litigation support. But we at least in the 2nd Circuit, we have this absolute right, there’s no way West can touch us in the 2nd Circuit. They can’t play that game.

During this whole period of time there were other fights going on involving the vendor-neutral citation, Pacer, we were very active in testifying before the ABA committees on this, and there’s the judicial conference. We work with the American Association of Law Libraries, and I want to give a real heads up to Jamie Love for the taxpayer assets project, who was extremely supportive. That’s a [inaudible 00: 22: 15] group. He got involved in 95 and he was, we work with him a lot. We were all over the country. And one of the big issues had to do with the vendor-neutral citation. Which, even today I don’t understand what’s going on. But let me explain something about the vendor-neutral citation.

Sam Glover: Yeah.

Alan Sugarman: Our position was that vendor-neutral citation had to be one that could be immediately citable. The day the opinion came out you could cite to that opinion and use that citation forever and ever. And how do you do that? You have the name of the court, the date, and the docket number. And there you are. You have a permanent cite.

The other people involved with this got all involved with this idea where the courts have to control what you can publish and not publish, and you should have a sequence number, etc., etc., etc.

Sam Glover: Well and the citation thing is, even though you can use West’s or Lexis’ citations, they still control the citation. What you’re effectively waiting for is them to put it in a book and give it a page number, which is, I’m not even sure if that’s even a real thing anymore. I’m sure they still publish books but they’re not super relevant to anyone. But you’re still waiting on them to decide what the citation is which is hard especially since nobody actually cares if it’s in a book anymore.

Alan Sugarman: Absolutely Sam, and I think first of all you’re talking just about the published opinions. There are also unpublished-

Sam Glover: Right.

Alan Sugarman: … opinions. And most people actively use unpublished opinions and there’s a lot of courts say you can’t cite a case that’s not been published in a book, but that’s evaporating day by day.

Sam Glover: Well it’s also really torturing the meaning of published when everything is being published. It’s just a technicality.

Alan Sugarman: It is. Although I always say judges did not want their bad decisions or embarrassing decisions to be published. And West controlled what was published.

Sam Glover: Right.

Alan Sugarman: West did not publish our victories in a text case. There’s a full written decision and they didn’t put it in the federal supplement. I wonder why. But let me go back to what you were saying since you’ve really practiced law. Have you ever gotten a Lexis cite to a case that was never published and then, but you only use Westlaw.

Sam Glover: Right.

Alan Sugarman: And then you go try to find it in Westlaw and you can’t find it because there’s a lot of discretion in how you name a case.

Sam Glover: Yep.

Alan Sugarman: And you spend hours trying to find it. That’s just extraordinary that, that can happen today. I believe today that all cites to all court opinions should have the docket number of the case in it. And for unpublished opinions a lot of courts are disseminating them and they’re available on all the various services. If you had the docket number and someone cites a Lexis cite and includes the docket number, you wouldn’t have to go and pay money to West or Lexis to go find the case.

Sam Glover: Right.

Alan Sugarman: I can tell you just three weeks ago I got a brief in a case and he cites three different Lexis cases from the New York lower court. And even with the name of the case and going to the court system I couldn’t find the cases. Even though they’re somewhere in their electronic system. And there’s another reason to use the docket number. And that is the docket number allows you to link the lower court opinion to the appellate opinion. All appellate opinions should list the docket number of the case below. If you go into Google Scholar now they have a problem of linking an unpublished lower court, district court opinion to an appellate court opinion. The Federal Appellate Court.

Sam Glover: Right but that should be a piece of cake.

Alan Sugarman: If they included the docket number in both. But all these groups including the American Association of Law Libraries, GPO, Recap, Google Scholar, and Legal Information Institute Citation System, none of them require the docket number in the citation even of an unpublished decision. I have been very explicit with them about this and it just doesn’t happen. Tim Stanley at Jurist goes better, he includes the docket number, and he also includes the more specific cite which is the docket entry number on the docket sheet for the federal opinions that he publishes. That is a beautiful cite. I’m just waiting for them to wake up for this. I’ve been fighting this for 10 years, people look at me like I don’t know what I’m talking about. And eventually we’ll get there.

Sam Glover: Yeah. I mean the HyperLaw decision, the litigation really paved the way for what we have today which is, you really do have a choice. In at least some surveys, services like Fast Case are neck and neck with Westlaw and LexisNexis, which is kind of amazing at this point. And you’ve got all kinds of other secondary services. Bloomberg, you know is charging hard to catch up with everyone. And so is, I think it’s Case Maker, and there’s a bunch of them out there now. And I think none of this would have existed if Bender and then you hadn’t dived into this litigation.

Alan Sugarman: Well Google Scholar is the beautiful-

Sam Glover: And Google yes of course.

Alan Sugarman: Okay. I frankly even when I was using Lexis, which I stopped using, but I would always start my research in Google Scholar.

Sam Glover: Yeah.

Alan Sugarman: It’s faster, quicker, more informative, and also reaches outside of the case network to find more information. I give them really great credit for what they’ve done and they’ve pushed the whole field far, everybody else that’s doing this kind of stuff is basically trailing behind in their footprints.

I mean at the same time that certain people were paying allegedly $600,000 to digitize the Federal Reporter, Google was doing it at the same time.

Sam Glover: Yeah.

Alan Sugarman: Of course I’m not from California so there’s almost a mafia out there. Not really sure what goes on out there. But I had always assumed that Google was paying for this. But I don’t know. I don’t know the whole thing. People claim they paid for it. And then when they were finished, they said, “We now have all federal court opinions available for nothing.” And I said to them, “That’s not true.” I said, “90% of the federal appellate court opinions are unpublished opinions. You don’t have any of those.”

Sam Glover: Yeah. So what can the average lawyer do to support the move towards neutral citations?

Alan Sugarman: Well the first thing they oughta do, when they write briefs is to start adding the docket number of cases that only have, certainly that only have Westlaw or Lexis cites, or that are unpublished. They should put that in every single cite so that judges who, by the way, today a lot of judges are pretty sophisticated in this. But, just to get people used to seeing that.

Sam Glover: I mean I feel like a small active rebellion would be for all of us to use vendor-neutral citations first and then put the Westlaw or Lexis citations in a footnote or something.

Alan Sugarman: I would not include the Lexis or Westlaw cite. In fact I don’t. I put in the docket number because if you have the docket number and the name of the court you can find the opinion in Lexis or Westlaw quickly. Because docket numbers is one of their meta-data fields. You can search them.

Sam Glover: Well and in many courts you can link directly to the court in the docket anyway. So.

Alan Sugarman: Right.

Sam Glover: Well Alan thank you for your work and for telling us about it. Thanks for being the one to stand up and do this because it has at least opened the door to a much more robust market for legal research options.

Alan Sugarman: I’m glad that it has come to fruition. And again I thank Google Scholar for what they have done, which has taken full use of what we accomplished in 1997.

Sam Glover: Well maybe in another 20 years we can get back together and see if vendor-neutral citation has finally come around.

Alan Sugarman: I hope so.

Sam Glover: I’ll see ya then.

Alan Sugarman: Anyway Sam, nice talking to you.

Sam Glover: You too.

Alan Sugarman: Bye-bye.

Podcast #151: How Westlaw Lost its Copyright, with Alan Sugarman was originally published on Lawyerist.com.

from Law and Politics https://lawyerist.com/podcast-151-alan-sugarman/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[martechadvisor-blog]

What’s Your Team Doing With All the Extra Time Your Tech Tools Save You?

There’s no shortage of software solutions out there that are designed to make our jobs easier and save marketers time. The newly released 2017 Marketing Technology Landscape Supergraphic just uncovered 5,381 different options available this year, a 40% increase over last year’s figure.

There are apps that help us with marketing automation and personalization, content distribution and syndication, influencer and advocate marketing, webinars, survey creation and distribution, digital asset management, digital reviews and approvals—and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

And what are we doing with all the time we’re saving?

Well, we’re working more. According to the U.S. State of Marketing Work Report, only 35% of marketers stay within the standard 40-hour work week. Everyone else works between 41 and 60 hours a week.

Can You Really “Save” Time?

Almost 30 years ago, comedian Jerry Seinfeld poked fun at the very idea of saving time, citing a few of the recent innovations of the time:

“At the end of your life, there’s no extra time saved up anywhere… you’ll be going, wait a minute, there’s got to be some extra time here. I had a microwave oven, Velcro sneakers, clip on tie. What about that?”

When we’re able to get certain tasks done more quickly than before, we just find a way to fill that time with something else, and it’s not always equally important or meaningful. We microwave our dinners, and then use the time we saved to watch The Food Network.

What About the Time We Save at Work?

This principle applies in the workplace, too, although most marketers aren’t replacing the time they save performing certain work tasks by binge-watching Netflix. Instead, we’re filling that time with more work—and it’s even spilling over into our non-working hours.

Ever try to justify a tech purchase to a CFO by saying, “We’ll save an average of 2.5 hours per person per week.” The response from the fiscally-minded executive is usually, “So how much money will that save us? Does that mean we need fewer people?”

And that’s the great irony. Despite the fact that we have dozens of time-saving tech options at our fingertips, marketers are still struggling with efficiency, productivity, and work-life balance:

The average marketer devotes just 38% of their workday to their primary job duties

Only 34% of enterprise workers strongly agree that they have a good work-life balance

57% say that the modern family dinner has been ruined by employer and client phone calls, texts, and emails

almost 40% have missed important life events such as weddings, anniversaries, and children’s birthdays because of work

Now that we can connect to the office from anywhere that has an Internet connection—from a restaurant to a soccer game to a cross-country flight—how many of us have stopped to ask whether we should be checking in as often as we do? The same tech tools that have increased our efficiency and made it possible for us to get away from the office more seem to have simultaneously chained us to our jobs 24/7.

This “always on” mentality is especially prevalent in the world of media and PR, and unless we approach the problem mindfully, it can quickly lead to employee burnout, resentment, and turnover. What’s a marketing leader to do?

Three Ways to Save Time and Team Sanity

1. Recognize Your Role in the Problem

Workfront’s Work-Life Imbalance Report found that 60% of the 2,016 American adults surveyed said overbearing, demanding, or even mean bosses had the most negative impact on their work-life balance. If you’d like to stand out from the majority of leaders who are viewed poorly by their employees, take the time to understand and respect the demands your team members face outside of work.

When asked what would help their work-life balance the most—and increase their productivity on the job as a result—69% of respondents cited flexible work schedules and 55% pointed to remote working. You’ve got the technology to make it possible, so consider one or both options.

Recent numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that on the days they worked, 35% of those employed in professional and related occupations did some or all of their work from home in 2015. And if the State of Marketing Work Report is at all able to predict the future, most workers will be remote in just a few years—or so say 53% of those surveyed.

2. Work On Your Processes

It’s easy to get so focused on working within our processes that we fail to take a step back and work on our processes. There are countless efficiencies to be gained by streamlining communication, collaboration, workflows, proofing and approvals, resource management, and more—preferably using the fewest possible number of separate software tools, as I wrote about in my last column.

When you streamline your processes, you reduce confusion and chaos, which in turn reduces the urge your employees feel to check in constantly, even during their grandma’s 80th birthday party or their annual trip to the beach. The right work management software gives marketers the confidence to leave work at work—even though most make it easy to check in remotely—so they can relax and enjoy a piece of cake or a pina colada, already. When they can truly unplug and recharge, feeling secure that their work is under control, they’ll be far more ready to return to the office and tackle the challenges of the day.

3. Model Healthy Boundaries

Your tech tools are built to save you time, but that will only happen if you have proper guidelines and boundaries in place. For example, a new communication tool that streamlines collaboration and makes it easy for everyone to keep in constant contact, no matter where in the world they are, is great for keeping everyone on the same page. But it can also backfire if employees feel like they have to respond to every alert within minutes, so they’re afraid to ever step away from the tool to focus on something else. The time that’s saved with more efficient communication ends up being spent on communicating more—even beyond what is necessary to get the job done.

Solve this problem by establishing team-wide protocols for which kinds of things are flagged as urgent. Then set standard response times for run-of-the-mill communications (perhaps 48 hours), with shorter turnaround times for urgent items.

As a marketing leader, model healthy boundaries and behaviors yourself to help them take root within your team. It’s also helpful to establish clear guidelines around when and why you’d expect an employee to act on a communication from you after hours. Make it clear that just because you’re emailing at the most convenient time for you (11:00 p.m.), they don’t have to respond immediately—except in rare cases that would be accompanied by a signal you worked out in advance. The rest of the time, they can wait and reply during regular work hours.

Making the Most of Your Time

It really is unfortunate that we can’t save time up and then mindfully spend it in the way that would be best for our personal productivity—either today or all in one chunk at the end of our lives, as Seinfeld longed for in 1988. But it doesn’t work that way. Time is too slippery and subjective, the target of too many competing priorities.

Yes, software has arisen to automate tasks and processes for us, theoretically freeing us up to take better charge of our time. But that’s only possible if we keep our expectations realistic, onboard the right productivity tools for our particular circumstances, build strong processes and boundaries around those tools, and have leaders who understand how to then maximize and leverage the value of those greater efficiencies.

If you can enact all of these principles in your workplace, you’ll find yourself surrounded by team members who are spending the time they’ve saved by focusing more on their most important priorities—and then going home at a reasonable hour and actually unplugging from the work that’s constantly beckoning. The resulting benefits to marketing leaders include a workforce that’s more satisfied, productive, and willing to stick around over the long term.

This article was first appeared on MarTech Advisor

[rionebuys]

Introducing Daniel... (Chapter 1)

Family: noun A group consisting of two parents and their children living together as a unit.

You get two types of people in this world the lone wolf, and the family man. One who is comforted by the touch and presence of another.

Daniel Bowman was always labeled as a lone wolf, having never been seen with a girl or even labeled married. Being thirty three and not having a partner in life, people started to talk, though that never kept the woman from falling to his feet. Whether it was for the money or the Bowman name, they could care less if he was gay or not. Reason enough why he never dated. He was raised into a big family and he wanted one of his own but not the kind of family who loves the riches and run for the hills once it’s gone. Running multi billion companies, he never thought he had time nor did he think he deserved a family. His time was running out but there was just one problem, he didn’t want any girl. He wanted the one. The right one for him, the one who’s heartbeat matches his, the one who’s his rock and shoulder to cry on. The one who can light up his world with a simple smile. That’s the one, but he would never admit this. Why would he? He has and empire to run and a reputation to up hold. Some say he’s scared other’s say he’s too busy. Truth be told it’s a little of both. Busy he was, scared because of the money, oh yes. Money is the root of all evil and Daniel knew that like the back of his hand. He has experienced it first hand, he could easily be one of those cliche CEO’s, flashing their money and sports cars. But not even all the money in the world could fill the whole in his heart. In a world like this it is impossible finding the right one, but it is in the word itself. Possible.

Daniel was sitting in his office one faithful Sunday evening. Not that it counted as a weekend or restful day. To him it was just another day spent at his usual hang out, seven days a week, twenty four hours a day. His office. The 500x500 square meter space, all white and grey completely described Daniel. A big white desk near the window over looking the beautiful city of Johannesburg, two white chairs in front of his desk. On both the left and right, the walls were covered with tones of books and music plates as well as a gramophone, every inch of that office was more comforting than his childhood home itself.

It was not that he hated home, just seeing his sister Sophie, happy with her husband and son, he’d be lying if he said that he wasn’t feeling envious. What was he to do? He loved his nephew and he loved his entire family, but being successful with riches and work, he wished that he could have been successful when it came to love as well. But his father did leave him with a big chip on his shoulders, the business. Since Alec nor Sophie wanted to be that invested in the business , Daniel took it upon himself to make his father proud and raise the business higher. Working made him feel connected to his father. Somehow he would always wait for his father’s approval that didn’t come any more.

Daniel took it much harder when Conrad Bowman passed away. Conrad was very much like Daniel, hard worker, disappointment just wasn’t an option and they always gave their 110%. Daniel would do his work to the point of perfection and wait for his to come and give him a pat on the shoulder saying ‘Well done my son.’ and 'I am proud.’ and it made his day when it indeed happened. Not anymore. Conrad was gone along with his line of approval. But he was proud, of both his sons and daughter. He was the happiest man when he was alive and died with a smile on his face knowing his beloved and children would be perfectly fine. But were they really? Alec and Sophie continued on a positive note, or as positive as you can get for Alec since he found it comforting in numerous women’s beds. Sophie confided his her husband and son, treasuring every single moment with them. Claire Bowman had been left with riches and a big mansion, every ounce of that place haunting her with the spear image of her late husband. She lost her one true love but for the children’s sake she had to keep her head held high.

As for Daniel, he had struggled putting foot back into his parent’s house. The memories in that house was just too painful and Daniel did the most mundane thing, threw himself into work. But that wasn’t all, he found music. Sweet sweet music, like Bach and Mozart. It was strange for a soul so sad and broken to be listening to something so sweet but it gave him a sense of emotion he craved. One thing that attracted people towards him was no matter how broken and sad he was, he could never be rude or cold towards others. Why should he? To burden them with his problems? No. They had their own to deal with.

Daniel took a break from work sighing, something that never happened. It was always strictly work, but at that moment Daniel was just exhausted. It was already past midnight and the office was dark except for little lamp on his desk, the only light in the office. Taking a sip of water he opened his email seeing his nephew sent him a link to one of his you-tubers as he called it. Matthew always said that Daniel needed to check her out. Apparently she had incredible talent along with passion and beauty. Daniel debated but eventually did it since he loved the 14 year old.

The video started off with the beautiful girl introducing herself as Annabelle Parker. She started talking about a new cover she has been working on and then sat in front of her piano. Daniel immediately recognized the song, it was Prelude and Fugue in C major by Johann Sebastian Bach. One of Daniel’s favorite pieces. And in an instant Daniel’s attention was captured. He loved the way she played. The she moved as the music spoke to her. He just knew one thing. He needed to know her. But how? He could track her down but then he would look like a stalker. No he couldn’t do that. He could however subscribe her video and just keep watching her. No that sounded more ridiculous. He shook his head running a hand through his hair. He was being ridiculous it was just a girl and music. Yes she was like a siren, her music and he could bet her voice would and could just hypnotize every single inch of him. The brunette just clued herself to his thoughts.

Shaking his thoughts away he saw the next email that almost made him shrink. Seeing it was from the Academy of Creative Arts. Daniel owns half of the shares of this college and he was more than willing to invest in it especially because it was the arts. The reason he was conflicted of this email was because of a vivid woman. Mrs. Call. Mrs. Call is the owner of the other shares and she is also more involved as she is headmistress of the school. That annoyed Daniel as he gets constant emails a day from her with no relevant reason towards the school. It was always to accompany her somewhere, sure it doesn’t sound that bad, only once when Daniel did say yes however, he was shocked at the married and very flirtatious woman who tried to seduce him. Daniel made it clear he was not interested. She misunderstood and divorced r husband two weeks later hoping Daniel would take notice in her, unfortunately for her, he never changed his mind. So she got married for the third time six months later. Daniel was much relieved and felt sorry for her current husband as he was too in love to notice her getting around.

He chose to ignore his inner battle and opened the email not knowing that it would change his whole life.

To: Daniel@Bowmandindustries.com From: CharlotteCall@ACA.com Date: 2 November 2016 Time: 22:30pm

Dear Mr. Bowman,

I would like to inform you of our third year students yearly recital this coming week. Inviting all their family and friends to listen and watch their progress and give us feedback on satisfaction etc. This year’s event will take place at our Theatre on the Bay in Camps Bay, Cape Town. We would appreciate it if you could attended seeing as you are our other founder. The event will take place on the 5th November 2016 at 19:00 pm.

Please RSVP as soon as possible. With love

Charlotte Call Headmistress, founder and owner of the Academy of Creative Arts.

Daniel only now saw the email was sent three nights ago, how could he not see the email. Oh right, it was in the spam box. His bad. Since it was technically already the day of the recital he had to reply fast. Lucky for him he lived in Johannesburg, meaning it would be merely a few hours flight from there to Cape Town.

To: CharlotteCall@ACA.com From: Daniel@Bowmandindustries.com Date: 5 November 2016 Time: 00:30am

Greeting Mrs.Call,

I do apologize for the delay. I kindly accept your invitation.

Regards Daniel Bowman Owner, founder and CEO of Bowman industries.

Daniel shut his laptop and decided that it would be wise to head home, being in his office was now starting to suffocate him. Daniel packed his laptop in his suitcase and made his way to his office door. Locking it behind him he walked towards the elevator, pressing the button to the lobby. As he rode the elevator too many things clouded his mind. His father, work and Mrs. Call. He sighed and shook his head, that woman was repulsive he thought. She would leave her husband, the man who worshiped at her feet for a fling with Daniel. That disgusted him. When you marry you make a life long commitment, that person becomes your other half and more. She was reason enough why Daniel was scared. Woman wanted him for the wrong reasons and for that he felt cursed.

The elevator dinged, breaking his train of thoughts, signalling that he had arrived on the ground floor. Daniel stepped out giving a nod in greeting to the janitor. Always treat the janitor with the same respect you receive. His father told him when he was entering the business as a teenager. Exiting the building Daniel greeted his driver/ bodyguard Travis and got into the car. 

“Where to sir?” Travis asked his boss.

 “Home please Travis.” Daniel said rubbing his eyes. Daniel leaned his head back closing is eyes. It was just to relax but instead he fell into a deep slumber.

Copyright © 2015