#and i had so much fun writing this in-world textbook excerpt too

[writingsfromthecactus]

May Writing Challenge: May 5th

Prompts are from @deity-prompts 's May Writing Challenge, original post linked here

~

I got a little carried away with worldbuilding in this prompt, so... enjoy some nice sci-fi linguistics from someone who doesn't know how linguistics works. Sera and Ammie are learning more about the future that Sera found herself in. No spoilers, is canonical!

Content Warnings: Swear words, sexual content mention (for academic purposes only I promise) Neither of these are tagged.

May 5th: Swearing in a foreign language

~

When understanding the Curralian approach to language, we must first see how much effort they went through to write effective jokes within their own language. Known in English as a ‘play-on-words,’ their basis for communicating relies on one’s understanding of each word and any other possible meanings. On top of this, their swear words also double as a ‘play-on-words,’ which is a subject that has fascinated many ever since an effective basis for translation was discovered.

Let’s see an example. The Cullastrin statement would be “Toolga forrha fiershjka” *(Romanization has been done for ease of reading. For an in-depth look at their writing system, please see my other work, Sub-Linguistics: Writing a language made for underwater living). A word-for-word translation of this statement would exclude the true meanings behind each word, and would simply be “It is a nice day in which to meet you.” And while an entire book could detail the relationship between each Cullastrin word* (and there is one available, please see my other work, Play on Play on Words: A Cullastrin Deep-dive) what’s important to know is that the closest equivalent phrase in English would be “It’s grape to meet you!”

Moving onto swear words, the Cullastrin swear word equivalent of ‘fuck’ would be “kadalk,” which is it’s own play on words, as the prefix ‘kad’ can be used to mean ‘sexual activities,’* (Please see my other work, Linguistics is Sexy: How Procreation Affects Language for more on this topic) as well as ‘swimming,’ while the suffix ‘alk’ can be used to mean ‘within,’ as well as ‘beneath water.’ Therefore, the word has a meaning of ‘committing sexual acts while swimming underwater.’ An equivalent English joke that plays into this is “This coffee is awful, it’s like having sex in a canoe. It’s fucking close to water.”

Sera stopped reading, groaned, and set her forehead on the table for just a moment. “Oh my god.”

“Right?” Ammie smiled. “This author writes about the craziest things. It feels less like studying and more like you’re listening to this guy rant about languages in the funniest way possible.”

“I hate puns, so much. But, I mean, the way this guy writes is so engaging. Is it alright if I keep this book?” she asked.

“Absolutely, you can keep any of the books in the library. All of this guy’s books are in that same place I got that one, if you want to see those. I honestly think that the sexy linguistics book is the best one out of his entire bibliography.”

Sera flipped to the front of the book, where the author’s information and list of works were listed in order. “Holy shit, this guy has…” she counted under her breath. “Twenty-five books, and those are just the ones published before this one.” Her eyes strayed to the author’s picture, which was of a Terra-Astrian with lime green skin and bright yellow hair stood, posing with a thumbs-up, above the name of ‘Edward “The Language Guy” Staffen.’ “Does this guy only write and nothing else?”

“Apparently so. He lives on Earth if you ever want to meet him.”

“Oh god, he’d love to study the way I talk, since I talk like I’m from old Earth. Which I am.”

“Right, you know all about those old languages, don’t you. I mean, you knew of Chinese before it was localized, and French, and… I don’t really know a lot of old Earth languages.” She tapped her fingers on the table.

“I know rudimentary Spanish. And also a surprising amount of Latin, since a lot of law stuff is written in old Latin for some reason.”

“Having met him, I think he’d probably kill to get an interview with you. I’ll leave that up to you if you ever want to be asked a trillion questions.”

“I’m good.” Sera chuckled. “Okay. I should probably be going back to actually studying. Not that I care about the history of the…” she sighed, “the hyperlink drive.”

“And I’ll be here if you have any questions,” she replied, the smile staying on her face. “Or if you want another break, I can probably find another book that doesn’t sound like pure torture to read.”

“How about this one,” Sera said, pointing towards one of the books that Staffen had written. “Can’t Tell the Difference Between Blue and Green? This Language Can’t Either: An in-depth look at the so-called ‘colorblind language’ known as Terrastran, which is strange because English, Localized Chinese, and Astran all have words for colors, and why this happened. That’s the whole title?”

“Oh, that one is so cool. We literally have no idea why Terrastran doesn’t have words for colors.” 

Sera sighed. “This whole world is so different. I mean, good different, of course. It’s just crazy to think about all the things that have happened in the last two-hundred and fifty years.”

Ammie nodded. “I can’t imagine how overwhelming it would be, considering this world is all I’ve experienced. But, if you need any support, I’m right here.”

“Thanks, Ammie. I might need it.”

[deathvsthemaiden]

if this isnt too late.. top 5 non-fiction books? 🌷❤️🌺

Def not too late! 🌹🌷💐💜❣️💖

1) I mention this book so much but qgxjshshs I rlly love it so! The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan, I’ve rarely had soooo much fun reading nonfiction! It’s about apples, tulips, marijuana and potatoes and while I don’t particularly love or care abt some of those, I was gripped by the book the whole time + ended up feeling more respect for every plant covered when I was done cheesy as that sounds wgshwhs 😓😳🤭 also it should be noted that this book may not be as objectively thrilling as I may unintentionally be making it out to be, I’m just very into plants and if I had the brain for science and my uni offered it I think I’d have enjoyed studying botany just as much as my current major 🤔🌱

2) What We See When We Read by Peter Mendelsund. Don’t rlly remember the specifics of this book (other than cool graphics + that I rlly enjoyed it!) but the title is self explanatory and I remember thinking the content was illuminating 💡

3) 221B: Studies in Sherlock Holmes, edited by Vincent Starrett (theres a bit of fiction in this too, it’s like a series of writing by various ppl on Holmes and I thought almost all the essays were fascinating! Some wild theories in here (of extremely varied quality + believability) ranging from “Sherlock was part American!” to extremely overconfident and implausible (imo) guesses abt the identities of some of Watson’s alleged several wives. Reading this was a fun time + I liked the variety even if not every individual essay and story 🔎

4) What Editors Do: The Art, Craft, and Business of Book Editing, edited by Peter Ginna. When I decided I not only wanted to eventually work in editing and publishing but that I’d be good at it I found this book, and while I’m sure it’s somewhat outdated considering the speed of tech evolution and how industries race to keep up, I remember it just confirming my desire to pursue this occupation/field even when, if not especially when, it discussed the drawbacks and challenges involved. Like 221B it’s a bunch of essays by different ppl, so you get glimpses into the life of a textbook editor vs a children’s book editor etc etc. 📚

5) Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men by Lundy Bancroft. It’s like the nonfiction equivalent of Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns for me in terms of how seen it made me feel and all the things it affirmed for me when no one and nothing else would. I honestly think everyone should read this or similar studies/literature so that like. Common misconceptions about the nature of abusers and abusive situations eventually become.... less common. I think misunderstanding these issues exacerbates them so much, you know? :/ and it’s so avoidable! Not to mention how many cycles of violence we could nip in the bud if we could sense earlier on what people’s real motivations when they act out are!! Very readable book + lays things out very clearly, there’s good reasons tumblr is/was very in awe of it, imo 📖

Honorable mentions:

I’m looking forward to the release of Crying in H Mart by , the lead singer of Japanese Breakfast! I read some excerpts and what can I say but wowza and this is going to hurt my child-of-immigrant-parents’ ❤️

I also have fond memories of reading parts of Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth in a high school mythology class with one of the nicest teachers I’ve ever had, and later seeking out the audiobook and walking around looking at autumn leaves as I listened to it (the book in both formats is a long interview basically, and it felt very cozy) so the book itself makes me very nostalgic, I only recently came across those criticisms of Campbell for labeling concepts like The Hero’s Journey universal when he really only looked at European myths? (Or smth along those lines idr exactly atm) so I wanna revisit those criticisms and this book+finally read all his other stuff too someday!

[queenlua]

salty hugo nominee 2020 reviews: short stories

under a cut because long, etc

ranked roughly from “shit that made me the most annoyed” to “shit that made me the least annoyed”:

A Catalog of Storms by Fran Wilde

God did this ever not work for me.  It must’ve worked for someone, I guess?  To be nominated?  But, what?

Look, the story was already on thin fucking ice when I was halfway through and I noticed the narrative wasn’t going much of anywhere.  Then the storms started getting names like A Leaving and A Grieving and A Loss That’s Probably Your Fault and I rolled my eyes so far back into my skull that I had to wait a while for them to re-correct themselves so I could finish reading the damn thing.  AN OVERWROUGHT AND NOT-EVEN-THAT-EVOCATIVE METAPHOR IS NOT A STORY, I want to nail on the office door of A Certain Subset Of Acquisitions Editors.

Ten Excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island by Nibedita Sen

Sigh.

Look, I know why everyone wants metafiction to be good.  I’m a sucker for the meta and the contrary and the self-referential and the circuitous.  In college I convinced some poor sucker of a professor to let me submit some horrifying 80-page metafictional thing about Andrew Johnson being a piece of shit, told via (among other things) histograms, MSN Messenger group chats, excerpts from a 2100 reactionary Civil War novel that does not exist, strangely erotically-charged letters between Johnson and various southern governors, excerpts from an anthropology textbook published in 2400 that also does not exist, and so on and so forth.  That shit was delightful to write, so I get it, I do.

But I also don’t ask anyone to read my 80-page metafictional thing (except that poor professor, bless their soul), because when I reread it later, it wasn’t a story.  Parts of it were an excuse to show off my own cleverness.  Parts of it were almost a story—but I either couldn’t be assed to fill the full thing out, or I didn’t quite know how to full the thing out, or I just didn’t have the ballsiness to do so.  Alas.

So, okay.  In waltzes this particular story, a metafictional thingy told via excerpts from various books and websites.

And while this one didn’t enrage me with its mediocrity the way, say, STET did last year (an angry Facebook post that was only barely pretending to be a story), it also just isn’t much of a story.  Weird spooky cannibal shit happens.  Feminists be fightin’ with each other about intersectionality.  Sure.  But I feel like that’s just Tuesday afternoon on my Tumblr feed, not a proper story.

(I would be delighted to read a metafiction-y story that does manage to work for me, by the way.  Hit me up with your best quirky metafiction-y shit.  But this one wasn’t it.)

And Now His Lordship is Laughing by Shiv Ramdas

It’s like, fine.  The prose is good.  The right motions are made, mechanics-wise.  There’s just not that much to the story.

This is actually a problem with most of the stuff I’m reading in SF/F zines these days.  The prose is good, the prose is always reasonably good, and sometimes it’s so good I’d chop off my left pinky to be able to write some of the phrases they do.  But the story part, too often, ends up being a nothingburger with nothingsauce.  It’s obvious from the start that the colonial government is going to be horrid; it’s obvious from the start that Apa’s going to use some trick to get her vengeance; the only question is how.  And the how wasn’t especially evocative or thrilling, to me.

Blood is Another Word for Hunger by Rivers Solomon

Y’know, this one is weird.  You get a lot of points for being weird.  It’s not quite Philip K. Dick levels of weird, and it could’ve benefitted from that level of weird.  Like, if Sully’s gonna give birth to a bunch of previously-dead folks, I’d expect them to do some kinda weird shit, rather than just some amicable homesteading and then some Sully-planned murder, right?

What’s here is reasonably fun but I ache thinking about how much weirder and cooler it could’ve been.

Do Not Look Back, My Lion by Alix. E Harrow

This one was actually pretty solid adventure fantasy.  Actually, it sort of gets me in a mindset of wondering—do I ask too much of SF/F short fiction?  Like, I look at the Hugo nominees each year, and I’m always hoping to have my mind blown, my world rocked, and so on.  But I dunno, the English-speaking SF/F world is only so big, my mind can only be blown so many times, and maybe something can just be a good romp & that’s perfectly deserving of an award on its own.

It does some stuff with gender, sure, and that bit’s pretty fun, but mostly it’s a cool story.  Recommended if you’re into warrior chicks and/or healer chicks and/or those dating each other.

(BCS, as a venue, seems to select for a lot of this sort of thing.  It’s not always revolutionary but it’s also always a story and I appreciate the shit out of that.)

As the Last I May Know by S.L. Huang

So we have a blatant ethics-of-nuclear-war metaphor going on.  Lil’ trite and/or unsexy now that the Cold War’s over, but, well, the horrible threat of nuclear war never really went away, right?  We just decided to ignore it in favor of other looming apocalypses.  So sure, let’s ride.

I liked Tej in this story; I liked Otto Han; I liked how full a sense of their characters was evoked in such a small space.  Something about Nyma didn’t quite land for me, though, and I can’t put a finger on why.  I get why she’s relatively non-agenic, I understand the concerns and fears that drive her, but I just wanted something... more?

I dunno.  Maybe I’m nitpicking.  It was alright; I wanted more than alright.

Also, an ending like this is like when pop songs do that radio-edit lazy-fade-into-silence ending.  C’mon, commit!  The only time you get to do an ~ambiguous~ ending like this is when you’re writing “The Lady or the Tiger” and you want some middle school English class and/or some book club to argue ferociously over it.  But endings are what elevate things from thought experiments to real stories; it’s the moment you gotta say, yeah, this is a thing about the world that I know and believe to be true.

[suburbanmetaldad]

What can I do for you?

Here, friends, is my super power:

I can create an entire book — a good one — quickly, with very little help.

You want a book with your name on it. I can make that happen.

Maybe you typed up a draft, and you’re not sure where to go next.

I can take it from here.

And anything smaller than that will be cheaper and faster.

Get on the schedule while you can.

Following are more details about me and my work.

Follow are links to different things D.X. Ferris makes & does. 

I am D.X. Ferris.

I grew up obsessed with music and reading. I went to school for writing. At the time, I thought I couldn’t create things. I didn’t know it yet, but I was wrong. I tried to quit. Writing wouldn’t let me. It kept pulling me back in. 

Once I figured out how to do what I wanted to do, I made up for lost time. Now I’ve covered a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction for Rolling Stone. I endured a career-ending injury. I’ve been to the Pentagon on business. I’ve written books with & about some of my iconic heroes. Communication is my business, and business is good.

I do a lot of different things. 

I am an award-winning writer, editor, manager, publisher, teacher, speaker, cartoonist, maker, co-author, ghost writer, and overall communications professional. To me, those various & sundry processes are all part of the same sphere — and here’s the common thread: Communication is the art of organizing information. That, friend, is what I do. I can do it for you. And we can make some money together.

I have written/co-written nine books. My personal record is four new books in 16 months.

I cut my teeth as a rock & roll journalist. Then I successfully transitioned to hard news. Lately, I’ve been creating motivational literature and self-help books. I write very effective press releases & promo material. I write & storyboard short videos. I’m writer for a documentary I can’t talk about yet.

I get around. I teach college. My CV includes work for dozens of publications, including Rolling Stone and Alternative Press (America’s two top rock & culture magazines). I’ve also written for leading outlets such as The A.V. Club and Decibel. I write and stage communication seminars. 

I have been to the Pentagon and National Air & Space Museum on business. I have been backstage at the Vans Warped Tour on business. My body of work includes book-length oral histories. 

I have collaborated with certified Grand Masters, civilians, and high-profile musical & Hollywood creative types. I have had Almost Famous moments on the side of the stage at European festivals. I wake up so early it hurts. I make money for my partners.

I am a 33 1/3 author. An Ohio Society of Professional Journalists Reporter of the Year. And a third-degree black belt (in Taekwondo). Also a 32° two-time WM/PM.

Let’s do some good work — and then let’s do some good with what comes from it.

Click the following links for my...

Good Professional Wrestling: Full Contact Life Lessons From the Pinnacle Performance Art The Good Advice From... series is now officially a franchise. Volume II features a foreword by Diamond Dallas Page, motivational icon, founder of health & wellness movement DDP Yoga, and WWE Hall of Famer. Professional wrestling is the toughest business. It is a form of competition built on collaboration and cooperation. Every successful wrestler has a diverse skill set that can help you get over too, no matter what your business or lifestyle. Filled with short chapters and useful advice, this browsable motivational manual features inspirational quotes from dozens of wrestling icons. Each is followed by easy-to-read analysis and actionable tips that can turn a life around.

I collaborated with Darren Paltrowitz on this one-of-a-kind positivity handbook. It breaks down the habits, skills, and strategies that your favorite superstars practice — and you can too, starting today.

Good Advice From Goodfellas: Positive Life Lessons from the Best Mob Movie It’s the last — or maybe first —  motivational manual and self-help guide you’ll ever need. 320 pages, paperback; Kindle ebook also available, cheap. At 145 short chapters, it’s the perfect airport/travel book. This unique meditation & reading finds teachable moments in all your favorite and quotes and scenes from this beloved, seminal movie. If you know what to look for, Goodfellas covers all the same evergreen topics as your favorite business podcasts and startup seminars... but it’s a lot more fun. No, seriously.

Co-author of motivational/how-to Masonic leadership manual

Co-author of parents’ motivational guide to kids’ martial arts

I am the most prominent, prolific non-marquee contributor the music-writing/music journalism textbook How to Write About Music, from the brain trust running Bloomsbury/Continuum’s 33 1/3 series. TECHNICALLY, I AM ON THE SAME LABEL AS NEIL GAIMAN. This is one of two or three books on this topic. Note to self: Write your own.

Wrote the official book with Donnie Iris and the Cruisers For my money, Donnie Iris & the Cruisers are the best-kept secret from 80s rock radio. That had not one, but seven hot 100 hits. The bandleader/songer penned an enduring disco hit. AND he worked with three Rock Hall of Fame artists. The band have a continuous near-40-year run. During this epic tale, they work with a young Trent Reznor, Kiss, Breathless, Cinderella, Sam Kinison, Gamble & Huff, the Jaggerz, Wolfman Jack, and bunch of others. The book is a painstakingly researched oral history that plays like a mix of the four-hour Tom Petty documentary, the movie That Thing You Do!, and the American Hardcore book. Coffee-table book, 464 pages, 102 images, 308 endnotes, 8.5x11″.

Wrote two books about thrash-metal icons Slayer

One is part of 33 1/3, the vanguard series of music-related writing.

One is an exhaustively researched full-length biography featuring 33 images and over 400 endnotes.

Publisher of 6623 Press, home to creator-owned, useful, reasonably priced, unconventional books about popular culture, success, and other cool stuff. People like them.

Full-service, full-contact indie publishing. I write, co-write, ghost-write, edit, and publish books. Quickly.

Do you have book in you? We’ll get it out.

Worked for Rolling Stone, the no. 1 music & culture magazine ever.

I’ve been writing for Alternative Press — America’s no. 2 music magazine — off & on since 2002. More recent pieces are here. Older material is here.

Wrote for alternative newsweekly Cleveland Scene, in various capacities, for 8 years. Won numerous awards for news reporting, business reporting, arts reporting, commentary, feature writing, personality profiling, and sports reporting. Click here for profiles, business features, columns, reviews, and more.

I think this piece about Cleveland’s LeBron James banner won me the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists’ Best Reporter award: Literally the entire city was looking at an iconic, massive piece of public art/advertising — and I was the one person who looked behind the scenes. For alt-weekly Cleveland Scene.

https://www.clevescene.com/64-and-counting/archives/2010/08/05/goodbye-lebron-banner-hello-sunshine-workers-behind-the-banner-speak

For Rolling Stone, I interviewed a band and created unofficial liner notes for a classic album:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/they-might-be-giants-flood-track-by-track-guide-to-the-geek-chic-breakthrough-82345/

This kind of piece is a specialty. For Alternative Press, I interviewed an infamous punk musician about his friendship with the late, great Anthony Bourdain. I supplied many conversation prompts, transcribed it, then edited his answers into one continuous narrative, while I remained invisible in the piece. If it looks like I didn’t do much, then that was the entire point.

https://www.altpress.com/features/anthony-bourdain-harley-flanagan-cro-mags-tribute/

I visit a business, describe the experience, and research how a controversial industry works. For Cleveland Scene.

https://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/game-of-chance/Content?oid=2183398

While the rest of the rock-journalism world were writing SOPA stories (Summarizing Other People’s Articles) about a developing story, I dug deep, excavated some court records, and wrote an informed summary. For Metal Sucks — for my money, the best metal news & views site.

https://www.metalsucks.net/2019/06/11/how-many-more-misfits-reunion-shows-will-there-be-according-to-legal-documents-probably-just-one/

A friendly multi-person Q&A and sidebar, stitched together from three different interviews from different media. For Alt Press.

https://www.altpress.com/features/punk-goes-fearless-records-interview/

Cover story/feature profile of the president of a local university — and how his work has helped shape the city. It’s pretty whitebread and dry, but I can work in that style when I’m not writing about raging hellions. For Cleveland Magazine, the city’s upstanding guide to what’s happening and who’s doing it.

https://clevelandmagazine.com/in-the-cle/the-read/articles/city-mission

News interview with Dan Gilbert, owner of the Cavaliers and Quicken Loans. For Scene.

https://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/enhanced-interrogation-dan-gilbert/Content?oid=1678536

Excerpt from Good Advice From Goodfellas, my self-improvement book that draws positive life lessons from the greatest gangster movie:

https://6623press.tumblr.com/post/181078213342/the-new-self-helpmotivational-manual-good-help

Christmas Sevenfold: Metal Dad, Compendium Two  My second comic-strip compilation collects seven years of Christmas & fall holiday stripes, with new art, a foreword, and an essay about why the kind of guy who wrote two books about Slayer still loves Xmas. 180 pages, oversized 8.5 x 11″ paperback.

Suburban Metal Dad, Compendium One: Raging Bullshit. The first compilation book for my webcomic. It collects Years III and IV of the comic, with 172 strips, 8 previously unreleased demo strips, an updated FAQ, and a true-life, all-text real-life metal dad story (so there’s something to really read). 180 pages, oversized 8.5 x 11″ paperback.

Individual strips of Suburban Metal Dad, an online comic that has run twice weekly since 2010.

I am totally into the Misfits/Danzig/Samhain, and wrote a bunch of stuff about this record-setting continuum of ground-breaking musicians

I wrote things for Metal Sucks

Guest on heavy metal podcasts, and bloggage about it all

Guest on assorted TV and superhero-show podcasts

Guest host on rock podcast Lost Together

Annotated both versions of “Once Bitten, Twice Shy” at Genius

Random bloggage about stuff that isn’t necessarily metal... mostly movies and holiday stuff like a survey of Christmas imagery in True Detective season 1

Tweet too much, but it’s healthier than taking cigarette breaks.

The Pentagrammarian: I take note of writing, grammar, usage, and the business thereof. I am one of very few professional writers who can list the four parts of a well-rounded profile or break down the constituent parts of a sentence, in correct technical grammar terms.

The goat had it comin’. I swear.  

[ofmontys]

“ —  and if you’re just tuning in now, you’ve made it just in time for our ‘ sleep with me ’ segment. nightfall has sufficiently fueled my ego and i’m reared and ready to go, compiling a playlist curated to get one lucky, hand-picked bastard in bed with me. tonight’s submission comes from camila, age 18 2/3, from two towns over. ” rustling paper. a delighted scoff. “ tonight, as per camila’s request, i’ll be attempting to seduce vincent van gogh.  vince, this is acid ghost’s ‘ the artist’s high ’, also known as what i hope i can be for you. ”

or, alternatively :   yo yo, my dudes! the name’s linc (19/est/she&her) and you just witnessed an excerpt from bez holmes’s  radio show quite appropriately named, ‘ fuckin’ hell ! ’  that airs weekdays and sundays from 7pm to 8am! 

i am absolutely stoked out of my mind to write with all of y’all! beneath the read more you’ll find a very unapologetically messy introduction to my strange son, killian beelzebub holmes !

* TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET & CISMALE / / here we’ve got KILLIAN BEELZEBUB HOLMES , the TWENTY-ONE year old LOCAL RADIO HOST. with a reputation for being + SLY, + ANOMALOUS, - OSSIFIED, and - RECKLESS, it’s surprising we haven’t heard more about him. BEZ has been around faulk hollow for TEN YEARS, but they ain’t leaving anytime soon. you hear ME AND MICHAEL by MGMT? that means you’ll see ‘em soon. 

“road work ahead? uh, yeah, i sure hope it does!” ( alternatively: bez holmes, a roadmap. )

so bez is… kind of a nutcase. he’s just… he’s that guy in the bar who seems so desirable. voice like warmed honey, a smile that could kill – but dear lord, don’t get close to him. he’s fucked in the head. and unless you’re prepared for that, friendships/relationships with him can get... pretty darn overwhelming.

he’s a host at the local radio station, so he curates the music and talks through little segments throughout the day. well, i should say night -- because the show he’s known for occurs weekdays and sunday nights from 7pm - 8am. weird hours. weird guy. so it all clicks right into place! people tune in for the music ( a lot of indie eclectic vibes ) but also his personality. bez tends to veer off-script a lot, which both aggravates and amuses his superiors. he’s basically the only reason the tiny radio station is still alive & kickin’, so what are they gonna do to him, huh? fire him and take the whole station down with that bullshit move? not likely. so bez’ll keep doing and saying whatever the hell he wants on air, thank you very much.

can he get... a mfing... cinnamon raisin waffle???  dude’s friggin’ obsessed. don’t mess with his waffles, man. waffles don’t play.

has a knack for stumbling into stupid situations. y’know how there’s two kinds of people in this world? the kinds that act upon the universe and the kinds the universe acts upon? bez is that guy in textbook math probelms who has 42 apples for no apparent reason. he’s the dude in on top of spaghetti all covered with cheese whose poor meatball fuckin’ rolled out the door. things happen to bez holmes no matter how much he might try to convince you otherwise. his whole life is just a string of varied ( and usually nonchalant/unbothered/troublingly chill ) reactions to crazy shit.

case in point:  why did the holmes family move to faulk hollow? well. their old house had like... a freakin’ meltdown. yes, the house. it swallowed their dog. and their mom. casual... house-y things. but when people ask, bez and his father like to say they just wanted to “ see the sights ”. and apparently faulk hollow was one of those.

[ tw: death, murder mentions ]   basically, faulk hollow offered a place for them to disappear, since the disappearance of bez’s mother couldn’t exactly be explained to and/or believed by police. bez’s father is wanted for her murder. so they friggin’ skrrt skrrted out of iowa and plopped down here, under the radar. “holmes” is an adopted last name.

so bez has been here since his 11th birthday! honestly, he probably earned a reputation pretty quick for being that kid who’d, like, “hey buddy!” at all the insects on the playground.  “ do you believe in magic? ” was often his best icebreaker.

so... fun fact. he accidentally inherited his dead dentist’s vintage jukebox. yes, i know how that sounds, and it’s exactly that. but dear lord, that thing has just been infinitely fucking with him since the day it showed up on his doorstep three months ago. more about that later!

an example of a normal occurrence in bez’s life: “hey. so, uh… i know we just met, and maybe this is moving fast? but i saw this keychain in walgreens and it made me think of you. so… yeah. here. tell anyone i did anything nice for you and you’re dead to me tho.”

he seems smart. he seems so cunning, you guys. like, holy shit, he makes these deep ass statements on the air and curates music that makes people feel things. but don’t be fooled. he’ll drive wearing shades at 10pm just to look cool, all while bumping 80′s glam rock from his blue ‘67 impala. he’ll do that cliché head bop at stoplights, encourage other drivers to join in.

don’t call him killian!! killian who?? his parents gave him “beelzebub” as a middle name to be funny and fuck with his mother’s father, who was a pastor. what they didn’t bank on was four-year-old bez insisting on being called by it – you can guess how well that went over with his teachers and his peers. so to appease them, he accepted the nickname “bez” and has gone mainly by that ever since. most people probably don’t know his true first name, since he goes by “bez” on the air. but close friends and trusted individuals might occasionally call him “kill” or something to that effect.

pets are not bez’s thing. every houseplant he’s had has died. succulents wilt in his presence too, and he thinks maybe at this point, it’s a running joke among plantkind because his birth name has the worldkill in it. still, even with his track record, he has a fish named nigel. nigel dislikes affection and bez. they engage in staredowns and silent mental warfare. bez often “forgets” to feed nigel or change the water in his tank, but that fish just will not die. nigel’s probably just truckin’ on to spite him.

aggressively writes the wrong date for like… 8 months following new year’s. so he finally gets it right for the final ¼, and then the cycle begins again. additionally, cannot keep the days of the week straight. he’s started a multi-song alarm campaign in an attempt to rectify this situation. bez’ll report his findings in a week. if he remembers.

one time he got pulled over for speeding back from the radio station at 7 in the morning, and you know what he did? he freakin’ offered the cop some hard shit from his flask and some of his opened bag of funions. so the two of them got tastefully buzzed in bez’s car and talked about the kardashians for two hours. and it was through that very conversation that bez learned he’d been doing a very shit job of keeping up with them.

scared of birds. yes. those things? with the wings? terrified. how dare they occupy space above his head. how dare they swoop and swerve all around. no. his neighbor in iowa had a parakeet. maybe that bird finally went missing one day, while they were on vacation. maybe it escaped. to like, the afterlife. maybe bez helped. maybe.

he’s really bad at like … taking care of himself? funions, candy, and takeout forever.  what do you mean raisin bran crunch isn’t a wholesome, well-rounded meal? you mean you’re not supposed to pour the entire carafe of syrup on your waffles every time? someone… pls fix that.

hella prone to bullshit! like… did you know aliens are real? yeah. really. hey did you check your horoscope today? what zodiac sign are you? he’ll pretend to know what zodiac he is like: hey, uh… listen .. . if your zodiac is asparagus don’t even bother being my friend… i’m a caprisun & it’s just not gonna work out. sorry.

memorizes commercial jingles. will sing them to prove points.

“what the fuck’s a kanye” - bez holmes, 2k18

“a mug shot? i don’t even drink coffee.” ( alternatively: more pointless headcanons because apparently i think this is necessary. )

don’t be fooled by the title of this section. he drinks coffee. a lot of coffee. with a lot of sugar added to it. could probably kill a horse, tbh. he’s not sorry.

his signature half-smirk drives folks mad. he also has a collection of faithful listeners who like to call in and tell him how soothing his voice is.

lowkey writes his own music? lowkey was in a band called ashes when he was 13; it lasted about 6 seconds. lowkey has a few things recorded on his laptop? but he’ll never actually do anything with ‘em.

owns an unironic walkman! enjoys it immensely! i know!

catch him in the local 24 hour diner spending his life savings on cinnamon raisin waffles and dimes for the jukeboxes! because LMAO, he’s not using the old one at his place!!!

convinced said old, stupid, 1947 jukebox in his apartment lays host to goblins. that thing shakes and quakes at odd hours. it’ll play shitty pop music that isn’t even in the dumb catalogue. sometimes it lights up when he trips over his own feet or accidentally burns his microwave popcorn. the fuckin’ thing is possessed and it’s mocking him. so, naturally, what is there to do but appease the tiny beings inside it?? he makes biweekly sacrifices to it – mainly consisting of snack foods, candies, a casual sprinkling of his own blood. y’know. casual.

super into space? honestly would love to grab sushi with an alien sometime?

uh…  he’s convinced everyone he sleeps with kind of mysteriously dies exactly 53 hours after. maybe that was inspired by like... two isolated incidents. but you can see how this is… kind of a problem, for a guy who likes to sleep around from time to time. is he a murderer? uhm, no, not exactly – but he’s grown kind of immune to the guilt at this point. he stalks obituaries a couple days after his one-night-stands, just to check. so far, it hasn’t been a 100% consistent thing, but... he’s worried. he’ll still leave the bar with you tho. ;)

he’s trying out this whole new thing of like… not going all the way? trying to save lives? but it’s really difficult and he’s losing resolve. he also can’t exactly tell his buddies, “ stop introducing me to your hot friends; if i fuck them, they’re dead. ” that probably wouldn’t go over well. he’s got enough crazy on his plate trying to appease the damn goblins.

consistently blindsided by genuinely liking other people? so if he’s into you... he’s gonna look awestruck and baffled like 99% of the time your face is within a 1-mile radius.

he’s always running his hands through his hair, which just adds to his #indiegrungeaesthetic, if i’m honest.

“girl, you’re thicker than a bowl of oatmeal!” (alternatively: wanted plots.)

childhood neighbor / best friend.   i would love to have a person ( or several )  who knew him growing up (from age 11 on), and kind of got to bear witness to how strange he’s become? maybe even be weirdos together? i dunno, let’s talk. we

past relationships.   i imagine he’s had his fair share of flings in the past. he’s made many mistakes for sure. let’s uncover them.

close friends.   #squadgoals. but really, though. i’d love for bez to have a tightknit group of 3-4 people who he just clicks with. they wreak havoc, but it’s all in good fun.

enemies.    i would love to have an enemies plot that’s actually hilarious? like one tiny thing catapulted these two into a mutual, deep, to-the-bones kind of hatred. it’s irrational, but they’re so infuriated by one another’s presence that all they can do is think of stupid quips and glare from afar. i imagine their public interactions bring onlookers a lot of poorly stifled laughs, because it’s just like… they’re so obviously trying so hard to hate one another with absolutely zero grounds.

miscellaneous.  maybe they got his mail and returned it to his door, and it sparked the beginning of a beautiful friendship. maybe they met in the park when this person’s dog peed on bez’s shoe. maybe they’re a frequent listener to bez’s show and they bonded over that? or perhaps they both enjoy engaging in semi-friendly grocery store competitions to see who can get to the ripest apples the quickest? anything’s possible!

chris! is that a weed?!  smoke with him, my dudes!! or like, anything? my guy’s not shy about investing in “life enhancements”.

but yes come message me on here for plots or hmu for my discord! so hype!

[jihoonscafe]

❝ works in progress tag ❞

tagged by two incredibly amazing @joshpup and @choco-seventeen !!! thank u angels !!!!!!!! i hope u enjoy reading my blandness as much i loved reading ur angelic writing !!!!!!

rules: copy a small snippet from your works in progress

note : sakjdhasjkd most of these works r like serious works in progress so like im sorry if ur like ?? bcuz some of these r seriously weird sounding also i was listening to replay on repeat while like completing this tag n it is got me so jammed up i screamed the lyrics (nOONA M Y MVP) off my balcony ,,,, that is unrelevant tbh. askjdhd also it said a sentence or two but i was like ??? sentences ??? so i posted like my fav lil paragraphs from the stories lol/

01 » untitled » youtuber! jihan + reader (n most of svt)» (series) 

“Y’know how Subway sandwiches are right? Like you gotta eat them quick or they lose their appeal man so your girl out here was like on the couch, and Suhyun was already like taking off the paper and taking her first bite. So I was like right, and I took mine out too and began to eat, like I took that delicious first bite.”, you take a stop, taking a breath and acting it out instead, like opening your mouth a bit too much and like enacting the bite.

“Now rule no.2 of eating Subway, is that the first bite has to be big, and I mean not like “I am the ninth princess of Anastasia” big but like “I am a monster sumo wrestler who has been starved for nine days” big, like let it crumble in your mouth and out of it. So me, being me, stuffed it into my face and yeah it was bad, like there was drool and crumbs cascading down my body, there was some seriously furious chewing and both our faces were red from the walk before, so you can imagine when Kim Seokjin walks in, how we and him feel", you describe the scene, wanting it to flash into the viewer’s mind, wanting them to feel your second hand embarrassment while also laughing at the weird metaphors and feeling the laughter tickling up their throats.

02 » untitled » barista! reader + college! soonyoung » one-shot

His eyes seemed to be burning, his body begging for sleep and rest and he was on his third bag of chocolate coffee beans when he noticed that there seemed to be none catching onto his fingers as he dug for them in the comforting brown bag on his lap, his eyes still glued to his textbook, trying their best to actually absorb some of the damn information on the page.

Fuck everything. Fuck college, and fuck exams week.

A continuous chant of these words in his head, as he tore his eyes away from the bland paper of his book to the insides of the bag of coffee beans to find it empty and thus leaving poor old Soonyoung without his means of living, caffeine.

"I am going to the coffeeshop, fucking Einstein can hold his ass for a bit longer."

03 » untitled » soulmate!wonwoo » one-shot

At the tender age of six, child prodigy Jeon Wonwoo heard the first whisper of his soulmate in his thoughts, a confused and frustrated sounding voice of a little girl, probably unintended for his ears but he did hear and for a few seconds, he held the little table on which he sat in his grandfather’s office so tightly that his little knuckles turned white before his mind resurfaced a memory of the idea about soulmates, even if it didn’t happen so early on in life.

The statement spoken itself was a question, an incredibly easy one for him who read almost at middle school level and could do high school maths, a simple “What is a million divided by two", a question which seemed to have been asked of you as you spoke with quite intensity in your brain.

His answer was less intense, a small meek “It is five hundred thousand" to which came a “Oh my god, is there a ghost in my head" and he smiled, oh his soulmate was a cute thing.

04 » break » prince! seungcheol » one-shot

The whole world seemed to spin around him and he knew it, and he wore it on his jewel adorned chest with indescribable pride, that he was the centre of attention, the prince of the most beautiful of kingdoms in the country, the saviour and heartbreaker of the many in his kingdom and beyond.

Until you swooped in, dressed in the disguise of a faithful knight, and broke his own heart into pieces with your quiet smiles in the few moments you would remove your helmet and the fierce scowl you would emit at anything which disrespected the prince.

The fierce scowl you often gave him, when he dueled with the prince, your prince, the ever charming Jisoo, who was soft and elegant, and who Seungcheol knew was the one you would do anything for.

05 » are they finally dating ?» colleague? jungkook ! » one-shot 

(i know with this one excerpt it doesn’t have any guk in it but like ??? he shows up children later ..)

The car door slams shut and you get your way out of Changkyun's way too stuffy car, one you were sure once belonged to his grandma at some point because it smelled excessively like classic old woman perfume. You take a deep breath of the cold air of midtown Los Angeles, choking on the smoke from a nearby barbecue which seemed more like a freaking bonfire at this point, since the smoke was no joke.

Coughing, you ducked back into the car, opening its bottle green door once again, curse words spewing out of your mouth as you also realise that you had forgotten to get the beer which was promised of you for the little party your friend Jimin was holding.

Pushing aside a can of Monster which you shamefully realised was from your last camping trip with Changkyun .. three months ago, you grab one of the cans of beer in the little freezer of the car, one which you never remembered even putting there but was probably one Jooheon, who was one of Changkyun's friends, probably forgot and clearly never bothered to go back to get.

skdlfjkdsfh so y’all this is all “serious works in progress” shit bcuz i have at least 10 more going rn lol but these r the priority ones !! jshkfjhdskjfhd im sorry this was a mess lol ??

im gonna tag some angels : @jungnoir n @theliqht n @myungho n @starshua n @fluffyyeollie !!!  have fun but ofc it is not compulsory !!

[kaleighanderson-blog]

Blog post #10

I found that in a history class, you do not have to look very hard to find literacy, but it is actually something that I already knew. History is all about reading and analyzing document, interpreting them, writing about your analysis and then talking about it with others to hear their point of view. It is impossible to give a blanket statement about how students do with this. Some students read very well, some do not. Some don’t care to stand up in front of the class and present, and some can barely muster the courage to talk to only three other people at their table. Some students are very strong writers (with better grammar than even myself), and others, well I don't think I have seen them spell a word correctly yet. I have found that this makes differentiation difficult at times. How do you accommodate for every student? Every learner? Thinking about Gardner’s different learners, what if you have a student in each learning category?

Most of my students at Berkmar MIddle were into Anime or comic books. Some of my students were die hard anime fans, and some admitted that they only choose to read these books because they have a lot of pictures and are easy to read.

What I love about 6th grade students, is that for the most part they still have the “I want to make the teacher happy” mindset. So they still listen, they still like learning (again, for the most part), while the teacher is talking, some of them wouldn’t dare talk. They still have one foot in elementary school, and one foot into this new responsibility of middle school. I like that they still see the teacher as a role model, whereas I feel like high school sometimes see the teacher as a nuisance. I remember when one of my students was reading The Book Thief, which is my favorite book. And I just mentioned “hey, that is my favorite book in the world”. I kid you not, the next day two little girls were like “Ms.Anderson! Ms.Anderson! Look! I’m reading your favorite book!” They wanted to talk to me about the book, and seemed genuinely excited that they shared that with me.  

I noticed that I am WAY different than my CT when she gives lessons. She very much so buys into the “don’t smile in front of the kids or they will take advantage of that”, and that is quite the opposite of me. I can’t help but smile, because I find teaching to be fun. I have found that it is possible to be happy and still have control of the class. Of course there are some kids that do try to push my buttons, but they do it to her as well, so her “bad cop” routine is not as effective as she thinks it is.

One thing that I want to know is: what Eutopia are these people implementing some of these strategies? Of course there are some no brainers, like text annotation, or turn-and-talks, or even my favorite: foldables! These that I previously mentioned are great strategies to use that can be easily implemented in a middle school setting. Then some of them, the main one being jigsawing, that if you tried to go about it in the exact way it was intended to be used (via the jigsaw classroom website), it would just be a disaster. Atleast for my students, they would be lost, and most of all, they would use the time in a big group to play around rather than to work. A modified version can used a little easier, as my CT taught me.

I found some of these readings to just be… a little repetitive. Maybe it is my A.D.D kicking in, but I just find it so hard to read textbooks, no matter what subject. They are so long and wordy, and they tend to be dry (especially a textbook about how to teach). I find the in class discussions to be so much more helpful, especially when we draw from our own experiences in the field and THEN connect it to the key points that they author was trying to get across. I recently had a professor (actually a sub-professor filling in for my MIA professor) who basically made a list on the board of the key things we would talk about. As they came up, he checked them off the board. I thought that was such an easy thing he did, that helped me stay on track, and guide the lecture.

I also think that it is some sort of classical conditioning (thanks to Dr. Darden for recently reminding me of classical conditioning, as I have been noticing it everywhere), that as soon as I hear “read the textbook” my brain just shuts down. I sit down with the book, and two hours later, I still have not gotten through the first ten pages. This is because I associate it to the horrific times when my 9th grade physical science teacher would just make us read the textbook basically the whole class! I have noticed, that when I am assigned an article (or I have even used just a scanned excerpt of a textbook) and I can read it so much easier! So strange, I know. But it's something I have been thinking  pondering lately.

I thought that Drs. Dikli and Blyle were so helpful! It was interesting to be forced to notice just how difficult the english language can be! I am constantly noticing now how many words can be mixed up. For example, just in class today, I was looking down at the table when Spencer first began and he said “volume”, and the first thing I pictured and thought about was like noise. Then as he kept talking, the context made me realize he meant volume as in quantity. But if someone, like an English Language Learner, does not process as quickly, they might not be able to understand based off of context clues, so they might be wondering what noise has to do with the presentation.

I didn't mind the blog entries so much as I mind the twitter thing. Some of the blog entries were easier to write than others. Some were more fun than others, but at the end of the day, I did not mid them! I fell behind just a little bit at the end, as I missed posts 9 (and obviously) 10. Otherwise, it wasn’t too bad, and it was sort of eye opening to reflect on my experiences. The twitter however, just, yeah… Twitter is not a media that I use, so I never think about twitter. I never remembered to go on to twitter. And if I am being honest, I never once looked at other things people were tweeting. It became more of a chore, like the ones I did do, I would go to twitter, search “education” and retweet the first thing that popped up. I just got way too busy to even try to remember to go on twitter, which is unfortunate because I know that it affects my grade. It did however, make me think about some of the little things (like keeping up with a notebook), that we as teachers sometimes make students do, that are intended to help them, but maybe they don’t actually use them?

[bintaeran]

Catching Up with Dr. Timothy McCall about His Life, His Health, and His New Book

Catching Up with Dr. Timothy McCall about His Life, His Health, and His New Book Nina Zolotow by Nina

Nina: Welcome back to Yoga for Healthy Aging, Timothy! While many of our readers know who you are and realize that you used to write for our blog back in the day (see Farewell, Timothy McCall. And Thank You So Much!), there may be some of our newer readers who don’t know much about you. So why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself? Timothy: Thank you, Nina! It’s good to be back. My background is in medicine. I practiced as a specialist in internal medicine for about 12 years, before devoting myself 20 years ago to the study, practice, and teaching of yoga therapy. I write books, including my 2007 book Yoga as Medicine, which you helped with, in a few different ways, and which featured Baxter as one of the models. I’ve also been the Medical Editor of Yoga Journal since 2002. Besides writing, the thing that keeps me busiest is teaching yoga therapy workshops. Next month I’ll be leading trainings in Australia and New Zealand, which will be my first time in either country. I’m really excited because I’m planning to teach for 3 weeks and take 3 weeks in between workshops to explore and have fun. I don’t take as many vacations as I should, and I’m really looking forward to this trip! Nina: And what have you been up to since you left California and stopped writing for our blog? Timothy: Along with continuing to teach, I spent a couple of years co-editing and contributing to a medical textbook on yoga therapy called The Principles and Practice of Yoga in Health Care. The idea was to collect the scientific research on yoga in one place, and to present that information to health care professionals. Our goal, of course, was to get them to think about incorporating yoga and yoga therapy into the care of their patients. And, as you know, two years ago I got diagnosed with cancer, a stage IVa squamous cell carcinoma on my tonsil that metastasized to three lymph nodes on the opposite side of my neck. So that’s kept me busy…. Nina: We here at Yoga for Healthy Aging, along with most people in your life, had no idea that you were undergoing treatment for cancer until last June when you made an official announcement about both having throat cancer and having written a book about alternative therapies you used to support you through your treatments. Can you tell us something about what motivated you to write your personal story in Saving My Neck, which is a very different kind of book than Yoga as Medicine? Timothy: When I went got diagnosed just before Thanksgiving 2016, I decided to kept it private. I know I would have received a lot of support from my friends in the yoga world, but I just felt like I needed to just get through the treatments. That still feels like the right decision. I initially had no intention of writing about it, but I learned so much along the way, I felt like I had to. To make the decisions I faced at every step, I did a ton of research, and it took me in some surprising directions that affected what I did. I ended up applying many holistic approaches—including yoga and Ayurveda—to complement the chemotherapy and radiation I got. I’m convinced that what I did made a tremendous difference going through chemoradiation. These tools made the cancer treatment easier to bear, sped my return to normal function—and maybe even increased my odds of getting cured. So really the book, the full title of which is Saving My Neck: A Doctor’s East/West Journey Through Cancer, is the story of how someone with a background in both conventional medicine and holistic healing figured out what to do when faced with a life-threatening disease. It was an amazing learning experience for me – and transformational—and I hope it will be an eye-opener for readers, too. 

Nina: Because our blog focuses on yoga, can you tell us some examples of how yoga supported you during your treatments for cancer? Timothy: Yoga supported me not just during my treatment but before, as I prepared, and after, as I tried to recover from the ravages of chemotherapy and radiation. During my treatments, the side effects limited what I could do. Some days just standing and lifting my arms over my head felt like too much. Even my go-to restorative pose, Viparita Karani (Legs Up the Wall pose) with a bolster under my pelvis became impossible after the first couple of weeks. I had so much inflammation in my mouth that after one minute in the pose, phlegm built up in my mouth and I’d start to cough. And coughing by that stage was extremely painful as all the tissues in my mouth and throat had been so badly traumatized. What I found instead was supported prone Bharadvajasana. One of the most feared long-term aftereffects of head and neck radiation is fibrosis, stiffening of the tissues of the mouth and throat. So, this pose—lying my torso over a bolster, with my knees and head turned in the same direction—was not only restorative, but it gave a wonderful stretch to the tissues of my neck. I did it on both sides, and often a few times per day. I’d guess I averaged more than an hour a day in just that one pose! Nina: You’ve been through so much. How does your practice continue to support you today? Timothy: My strength and stamina have returned to what they were before I got sick, so I’m back to doing a stronger asana practice. One thing I did as I was recovering (and continue to do), which made a huge difference, was a very slow pranayama practice. I should caution readers that I’ve had a daily pranayama practice for 18 years, and I’ve worked up to long breath-holding very slowly over the years. What I did is not something that should be attempted without the proper preparation—and guidance from a teacher. That said, my daily practice for the last year has been a very slow Nadi Shodhana, alternate nostril breathing. Specifically, I inhale through one nostril for 16 seconds, hold my breath for 16 seconds, exhale through the opposite nostril for 16 seconds, and hold the breath out for another 16 seconds. Then I do it on the other side and repeat. So that means I’m breathing less than one breath per minute. I do it for about 20 minutes every morning. I’ve had a lifelong twitchiness of my nervous system and a major vata derangement—both likely due to early life trauma, which I describe in Saving My Neck. This practice, I believe, has had a huge impact on both of these. That and everything else I did to fight the cancer and deal with the treatments—and recover from them both—has left me healthier today (as far as I can tell!) and more balanced than I’ve ever been. Nina: How would you say your experience with cancer applies to people who have other life-threatening illnesses? Timothy: One of the central principles of holistic healing is that the treatment is not based on the medical diagnosis per se so much as it’s designed to address whatever imbalances a person has. In yoga therapy, we like to say, we treat people, not conditions. In the therapy work I do, I divide up the territory of mind, body, and spirit into five categories, using an acronym SNAPS. That stands for Structure, Nervous System and Breath, Ayurveda, Psychology, and Spirituality. The way I treated any problem, including the many I faced on this journey through cancer, was to address as many aspects of my being as my time and energy allowed. So, I did yoga practices and bodywork to work on my structure, I chanted and did breath work for my nervous system, I meditated, I worked to balance myself from an Ayurvedic standpoint, and I tried to deal skillfully with the psychological challenges that a cancer diagnosis presents. Once I’d started to recover from treatment, I noticed a growing hunger—more urgency than I’ve felt for years – to do what I feel like I’ve been put on the planet to do. And writing Saving My Neck—which as you mentioned, is a memoir and is very different than anything I’ve written before—was a process of discovery, as I examined every aspect of what I’d been through. This process took me even deeper on the path of yoga. Nina: Is there anything else you’d like to tell our readers? Timothy: I’d just like to thank everyone in the yoga world for all the love and support that I’ve received since I went public with my cancer diagnosis last summer. People have reached out to me to say how much my work has meant to them, in a way I’d never heard before. It all has been incredibly gratifying. And if I could just say one more thing about Saving My Neck: I’ve decided to publish it myself rather than using a mainstream publisher. This one feels more personal than my other books, and I wanted to be able to control every aspect, from who edited it to the quality of the paper it gets printed on. But indie publishing doesn’t have the marketing and publicity clout of conventional publishing, so I’m reaching out to the yoga world. If you read the book and it speaks to you, please help spread the word. Thank you all!

The Kindle version of Timothy’s book Saving My Neck will be released January 1, 2019, and you can pre-order on Amazon now. You can also read an excerpt of the book on the Yoga Journal website. Yoga Journal has an excerpt of the book on their web site.  The hardcover version of the book will not be released until May 2, 2019. If you want updates on its release, check his website DrMcCall.com or sign up for his email newsletter at drmccall.com/subscribe.html.

Timothy McCall, MD is a board-certified physician specializing in internal medicine, and the author of two books, Examining Your Doctor: A Patient's Guide to Avoiding Harmful Medical Care (Citadel Press) and Yoga as Medicine: The Yogic Prescription for Health and Healing (Bantam) in addition to his forthcoming book Saving My Neck. He is co-editor of the first medical textbook on yoga therapy, The Principles and Practice of Yoga in Health Care (Handspring Publishing, 2016). He practiced medicine for more than 10 years in the Boston area before devoting himself full-time to investigating and teaching yoga therapy. Certified as a yoga therapist by the International Association of Yoga Therapists, he is the Founder/Director of Yoga As Medicine Seminars and Teacher Trainings and, until 2016, co-directed a yoga therapy center just outside of New York City.  Subscribe to Yoga for Healthy Aging by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook and Twitter ° To order Yoga for Healthy Aging: A Guide to Lifelong Well-Being, go to Amazon, Shambhala, Indie Bound or your local bookstore.

Catching Up with Dr. Timothy McCall about His Life, His Health, and His New Book https://ift.tt/2PjOflB themostdangerous1 https://ift.tt/2Ruq0mJ via IFTTT

[ad-drew]

The Shaman Society | An Excerpt, Part 9

Back again with yet another excerpt, this time stepping away from Rei’s POV and moving on to a different character: the ever bubbly, always precious Christine, as she tries to handle having her former bully over to study. I almost didn’t share the entire scene, but I thought something would be missing if I cut it halfway through, so this one’s a bit of a long one.

Tagging:@mania-junkie-writes

If you want to be added to my humble tag list, just send me a message and I’ll be happy to do so!

---

“This is your room?” Jessica dropped her bag on the floor and walked forward, turning in circles to look at everything.

Christine held her breath. Instinctive fear gnawed at her stomach, like some kind of rabid parasite eating away her insides. Oh, fudge. Here it came—the mockery, the insults, the belittlement of anything and everything she enjoyed. Okay, okay, okay. Maybe she should have thought farther ahead before providing her biggest bully with a truck load of new ammunition to sling her way.

They stood surrounded by bright pink walls painted with white flowers, not that you could see much of them through the dozens of movie, anime, and video game posters. One in particular featured not-so-subtle art of Red Sonja in all her highly impractical chain mail bikinied glory. An army of scale figures in the form of Christine’s favorite video game and anime characters lined every flat surface in the room, and a floor-to-ceiling bookcase stood ready to burst with her favorite fantasy novels, as well as a carefully catalogued selection of her favorite anime Blu-rays, and every video game she’d ever owned since five years old.

Oh, please don’t let this be awful.

“Uh, yeah,” she said, setting her own book bag atop the neon-pink sheets of her bedspread. “I like pink, if you couldn’t tell. And a lot of other stuff. It’s—I know, it’s stupid…”

Incoming insults in three, two, one…

“Are you kidding? It’s great.” Jessica leaned over the computer desk in the corner, inspecting a large snow globe filled with pink glitter and the figure of a fairy holding a pan flute. With a strangely genuine smile, she took the globe and shook it, billowing a cloud of shimmering specks throughout the watery sphere. “Pretty.”

Christine blinked. Well, what the heck? That didn’t sound like Jessica at all. No sarcasm, no criticism—almost like she was being sincere. But this was still Jessica Palmer, wasn’t it? Rei had reminded her a dozen times before they left school.

“Do you…?” She paused, catching herself. Did she dare ask?

Jessica placed the globe back on the desk. “Do I what?”

“Do you like this sort of stuff? Not that I’m implying you do! You just seem so—I mean, you’re not making fun of it or anything.”

Jessica’s smile faded. She grabbed at one of her arms, gaze shifting towards the corner. “Oh, no I don’t—I mean, I’m not into this stuff or anything. But I guess it’s nice? For you. And all the pink, uh…” Her eyes darted around the room, as though searching for a change in subject. “…goes with your hair?”

Christine absently clutched at a lock of her pink-dyed hair. “Oh, thanks. I think.”

Okay, okay, okay. Not the worst that could have gone. Not the best, either, but she’d take it.

“So,” said Jessica, making a beeline for her book bag, “should get started. Lots of studying to do.”

“Right, yeah, good idea.” Christine unzipped her bag and pulled out her Physics textbook. Sitting on the fluffy shag carpet in the middle of her room, she opened the book to chapter twelve and scanned through the subheadings. “Looks like velocity, force, and motion.”

Jessica flopped to the floor with a pout. “Great, my worst topics.”

Unwittingly, Christine chuckled. “You and me both.”

For three whole hours, they sat there flipping through their textbooks. They read sections aloud, struggled through formulas, and attempted to solve the practice problems at the end of the chapters. For all the good it did. Gosh, Physics was the worst. Even with their combined brain power, they got most of the problems wrong. Cue the frustrated backtracking, wondering what they were missing. Surely, if they stared at the equations for another hour, they’d get it right.

They fell into a steady rhythm of reading, solving, and exclaiming their irritation over the stupid and “unfair” problems. And gosh, Jessica even had a sense of humor! Christine found herself snickering to the point of snorting more than a few times over some dumb Physics joke. Maybe part of the reason they were too distracted to understand the equations, but still. No insults, no animosity—two normal high school girls commiserating over one of their worst subjects.

By the time a knock came on the bedroom door, Christine had fallen onto the carpet with her palms pressed against her forehead, while Jessica sat repeatedly stabbing page 247 with her pencil eraser.

“Pardon the intrusion.” The door opened. A middle aged woman poked her face inside, framed by frazzled strands of blonde hair stained with dried splatters of multi-colored paint. “Thought you gals might like a snack.”

Christine groaned her way upright, as her mother, Delilah, shuffled into the room carrying a tray of cheese and crackers, and two tall glasses of iced tea. Oh, heck yeah, brain food! “Thanks, Mom. Think my head is about to explode.”

Jessica perked up, eyeing the plate of cheese the way a cat might eye a bird outside the window. “Thanks, Mrs. Wilson.”

Delilah grinned, waving off the thanks. “Oh, ain’t no trouble at all. I remember my high school years. Little snacking goes a long way.”

Christine pounced as soon as her mom set the tray on her bedside table, snatching a handful of crackers and cheese slices. “No kidding. I’m starved.”

“Well, should be happy to know dinner is almost ready.” Her mother made her way towards the open doorway, giving a look back over her shoulder. “And Jess, hun, you’re welcome to stay if you like. I reckon I make a killer lasagna.”

Jessica paused, turning a nervous glance towards Christine. “Oh, I…”

Oh, fudge. As far as her mother knew, Jessica wasn’t the source of Christine’s unending torment at school. Or that said unending torment even existed. Because Christine had never told her. She’d always meant to, but—well, why worry her like that? So, couldn’t blame her for unknowingly inviting her daughter’s arch-nemesis to dinner. Still, mega awkward.

“Her lasagna really is great,” said Christine, with a quick smile. Maybe it would be awkward, but why not? Studying had gone well enough so far. “Should give it a try.”

“Alright, yeah.” Jessica’s expression relaxed, although her eyes shifted with a hint of uncertainty. “I’d love to.”

Delilah beamed on her way out the door. “Oh, delightful! I’ll be sure to set an extra plate. Try not to have too much fun now, you two.”

When the door closed, Jessica turned to the snack tray with a distant stare. “Your mom seems nice.”

Christine grabbed one of the glasses of iced tea, as her lips curled into a lazy smile. “Yeah, she’s always been pretty awesome. Worked two jobs since I was five to support us.”

“Seriously? Two jobs?”

“She’s had to. After Dad passed, we struggled for a long time. The bank almost foreclosed on us twice.”

“After your dad…” Jessica paused a cracker halfway to her mouth. “I’m sorry.”

“Eh, it was a long time ago. I barely remember him, if I’m being honest.” Christine sighed into her cup, taking a long sip of iced tea. Just a hint of lemon—her favorite.

“What does she do? For work, I mean.”

“Oh, she’s a home contractor. Not always the most reliable work, but it pays well. And her second job isn’t so much a job as a hobby.” When Jessica’s brow puzzled, Christine explained, “She paints. Canvas, sculptures, bowls, things like that. Sometimes people commission her, sometimes she sells her pieces to whoever’ll buy. Got an Etsy store and everything.”

“Oh! That’s actually pretty neat.”

Christine broadened a grin, and took another sip of iced tea. “Yeah, she’s basically Super Mom. Always supported me, even after I came out.”

As soon as Jessica’s expression sank, Christine choked on a bubble of iced tea. Shoot, shoot, shoot! Shouldn’t have mentioned that. She braced herself for the inevitable insult. When none came, she raised her mouth away from her glass with a curious stare. Jessica was silent, staring into her own iced tea as though it were the most fascinating thing she’d ever seen. Okay, okay, okay. So, no insults today. That was good. Weird, but good.

She continued, “I was afraid for the longest time, thought it would be awkward. But my mom never judged me. Didn’t even seem surprised, to be honest. Just wanted me to be happy, and be myself. Was way more difficult at school anyway, since…”

Christine let the sentiment hang. Okay, probably time to stop. Jessica set her glass back on the tray and wandered towards the center of the room, pacing in circles. Yup, too much.

“Anyway,” she said, with a quick look towards the textbooks spread out on the floor. “Should get back to studying. Still got another ten problems to go through before dinner.”

“I’m sorry.”

Christine froze at the barely audible words. Had she heard that right? She couldn’t have heard that right. With a choked swallow, she said, “You’re what?”

“I’m sorry.” Jessica stressed the words through clenched teeth. She wiped at her eyes, turned around to face Christine. A hiccup racked her chest before she spoke again, sobbing out a few broken sentences. “I’ve been terrible—awful to you. But you—you’re being so nice. And I know it’s only ‘cuz what h-happened, but you still—I’m sorry!”

Christine gawked. Holy fudgesticks. Of all the impossible things—Jessica Palmer, in her bedroom, sobbing out an apology? She’d pinch herself, if not for the frigid prick already stinging her fingers from holding an ice-cold glass too long. But this had to be a dream, didn’t it? She’d never seen Jessica this much of a frantic wreck. Had the whole world gone mad?

“No, Jess, it’s—it’s fine.” Gosh, no, stupid. Of course it wasn’t fine. No amount of apologizing could erase how Jessica had treated her. Oh, how to put this? “Look, it’s high school, and high school kids do stupid things, right? Maybe you can’t take back what you’ve done, but you can still try to be better.”

Jessica’s head bobbed in eagerness. “I—I will be. I’ve been—been terrible, but I don’t—don’t want to be. Not anymore.”

“Well, good. That’s a start.” With a forced chuckle, she added, “Although, I’m not so sure the other popular kids will like that too much.”

Jessica shrugged, offering her own awkward laugh. “So what? They already think I’m crazy. Might as well think I’m a loser too.”

“Hey, being a loser has its perks, you know. You get a whole lunch table to yourself.”

A nervous puff of air rushed out of Jessica’s lungs, as she fell into fits of laughter broken by a steady rhythm of wet hiccups. As if realizing the joke hadn’t been that funny, she clamped a hand over her mouth and fell quiet. The laughter vanished, but still her chest shook with the periodic beat of hiccups. She looked away, a red tint flushing her cheeks.

Christine fought against her own snickering. Gosh, how was this even real? Two days ago she’d have sooner run to hide in the bathroom if she saw Jessica coming down the hall at school, but talking with her? Laughing with her? Maybe she really oughta pinch herself.

“Anyway, where were we?” Lowering cross-legged to the floor, Christine leaned over her textbook and scanned the next passage. “Oh boy. What are the four kinematic equations?”

Jessica plopped onto the carpet, took one look at her own textbook, and let her head fall into her hands with an overdramatic groan. “I hate Physics.”

[codexofaegis-blog]

Monday Chat #1 - Introduction to Monday Chat

It’s been a hot minute since I’ve written anything of real substance on either of the blogs, and I’ve an itch to write more as of recent. Yet, as my free time becomes smaller and smaller and yet my interest in writing more increases, I had to form somewhere a compromise. This is where Monday Chats come in.

The format of Monday Chats are similar to my political posts of late 2014 + 2015, but shorter, across a variety of topics, and once a week. While the tone of these are much more conversational (a tone that I’m terrible with) I will be able to save the real good stuff for more short stories while still retaining a lot of my skill by writing regularly about important topics. It will also help in wrapping my mind around certain things.

So here is the structure: I’ll start off with the discussion of the “topic of the week”, going in depth into what I feel and hopefully making it fun enough to read on your end. I’ll also end it (because I know people like knowing this and I know it helps me stay on track) with what I’ve been doing recently, ie what I’ve been listening to, playing, watching, reading, etc. etc. Something you can expect from a person who actually keeps a log of every movie/book/game they’ve ever consumed (which apparently is not popular at all? What? Potential Monday chat topic??).

So, let’s run a practice round. This post’s topic will be the old conversational pieces I used to do on Astuka’s Blog. What do I think of them now? How have my thoughts changed?

Easily what I’ve written about the most (and subsequently what I’ve been known for the most) is my series of blogs on Gamergate (the hilariously stupid named video game scandal) and the later national debate that came out of that which dealt with radical feminism. Well, the Gamergate crew – which I left pretty early on due to both my own changing focuses and also the incredible stupidity among its ranks – ended up taking new people under its wing, including religious conservatives and white supremacists. As it got bigger it left a huge snail trail of outraged media and unfunny memes, eventually being renamed by the media “The Alt-Right” and following under the footsteps of their new political mastermind, Donald Trump. Then, Trump got elected. So I guess in a really roundabout way I was somewhat deeply responsible for getting Trump into office. Whoops! Won’t happen next time – I promise.

Still, have any of my opinions changed in terms of how I defined equality and feminism? Looking back at old posts (though I admit some of the older ones are pretty cringy to read), not much has changed. I still believe there is a clear distinction between radical feminism (which really is a dangerous ideology) and “actual” (???) feminism. And I still believe that there needs to be better attempts to differentiate between the too – I mean, it’s gotten so bad that we accidentally got a retard elected because of it. I don’t really need to explain this part anymore, do I?

Still, I suppose there is definitely still room for political talk on Monday Chat. I think one of the main pros to blogging like this – at least to me – is that you can make an impact on the world however small based on what’s currently happening right now. Instead of being a spectator to current events, you get to be apart of them – and that’s pretty cool.

Anyway, that’s about all for this first post. Hopefully this does become its own regular thing. I’ll try to keep each entry fairly brief so they’re both easy to read and easy to write. Anyway, let’s end this off with what I’ve been doing:

Currently playing: A lot of stuff. My second attempt to limit the amount of games I have playing at once to one has failed again. Just today I reinstalled Rome Total War for the first time in forever, hoping to go through the games in chronological order til Napoleon (the last one I own). I’m also halfway to completing Shadow of Mordor, and given how easy that game is I’ll probably go for beating it. Guild Wars 2 is also back on the menu, surprisingly – though my concerns involving why I stopped playing in the first place are still there, there’s also plenty of new cool stuff (WvW reward tracks!!!) that have lead me to giving it a second chance. Finally, seeing that the game is shutting down only after a year, I decided to pick up The Tomorrow Children… only to drop it. Yeah, I can see why it’s shutting down. It is kind of sad though – the concept of being a worker in a collective commune all trying to build a town together isn’t bad, it just doesn’t hold attention for long. I’m also not even sure how this game made money in the first place.

Currently reading: Also a lot of stuff. I’m up to the weird part of House of Leaves now, and my feelings for it still are pretty mixed. On one had the writing isn’t bad, and the concept is still interesting… but on the other hand, its filled with a whole lot of nothing. Weird, postmodernist, intentional nothing. I’ve also gotten back into being interested with military history (as evident by me playing Total War again) so I’ve been reading up on some old battles as well – though the book is written in such a way that I’m not sure if it’s made for kids or not? But who makes a kids book about famous military battles? I don’t know, it’s probably just me. Finally, I’ve been reading my textbook for English next year since it has a couple of pretty interesting excerpts in it. Except now I feel kind of scammed since the entire book is filled with these excerpts and I’m pretty sure all of them are free. Shit.

Currently watching: I’ve gotten a bit farther into Black Mirror – now onto Season 2 episode 3. While I still don’t really find myself enjoying it, I’ve found the episodes in this season are much easier to watch in one sitting. Their plots are still pretty uninteresting, but as I’ve begun to appreciate the cinematography and actual storytelling methods more and more I’ve used that to deal with the story itself. I’m hoping that by the time I’m finished I’ll at least be able to say I enjoyed at least some of the episodes. As for currently going TV, Twin Peaks is still kino and Game of Thrones is still a snoozefest (and, based on those leaked episode summaries, it appears that Game of Thrones will continue to be a snoozefest). And in the film department, I’m hoping to see Baby Driver in theaters relatively soon, though I’ve been too busy to find a chance and do it.

Currently listening: XXL freshman cyphers. Because I enjoy suffering and do not long to be in this world.

Well, that’s all for now. Remember to follow Codex of Aegis on Twitter and Facebook for more updates.