#and i have no power and our house is like 40 degrees and dropping

[kdramaxoxo]

Thoughts on hybe that has the majority of sm shares?

I totally don't because I didn't even know that until you said it ;-)

I don't keep track of company stuff generally and even though I LOVE BTS and will stan them till I die, I am never loyal to large companies. Corporations tend to be good until they get big and then turn evil in my experience ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I'll have to look up the SM thing!

Oh I'm sorry anon, that opinion is NOT what you asked for lol!

[sys128]

Midwestern Weather in a nutshell

There is a thing we say up here in town in the midwest: you can not predict 100% what the weather will be like about a week from now. That is usually true; sometimes, the forecasts are just wrong enough to not be accurate to what actually happened that day. Not even winter is safe. The month of December is, a lot of the time, more predictable than the other months, but there have been times when it just goes off the rails. For reference, usually during this month, it goes back and forth between rain and snow, with these intervals lasting about a week or so. But we usually start seeing the snow as early as November. Last year, we had an untimely heat wave, resulting in a 100% green Christmas. That Christmas Eve, it was 60 degrees outside, a lot hotter than we have ever seen at that time of year. Imagine my surprise when I found that it started to snow two days later and was in the 20-degree range. It felt like a final “fuck you” by mother nature after almost an entire month of rain and spring temperatures.

And then there was January 2019, the Great Polar Vortex as I like to call it. That was an agonizing couple of days when the temperatures were so cold, you could be frostbitten in as little as 10 minutes. It was in the best interest of everyone in the midwest to stay inside their houses and pray their water pipes still worked. Here in Wisconsin, we got wind chill ratings as low as -50 degrees Fahrenheit! Northern Illinois also saw some lower -40 wind chill and the same with Indiana. Arguably, two states had it worse than us: North Dakota and Minnesota. They saw the wind chill go as low as -65! Our Canadian neighbors also shared the same pain as us because they were also caught pretty majorly by the polar vortex.

After December, once the snow sticks, it sticks for a WHILE, though it is not so easy telling when it will finally melt, bringing us the spring. There have been years when spring came at a normal time, between late March and early April. But I remember a couple of years where the snow had stuck around for so long that while the east coast was enjoying the sun, we were still chilling with a couple inches of snow, somewhere in May. During this time, we can also see some other really wacky things happening. Last year, we were hit by an EF1 tornado. Thankfully, our house was not hit, but our power was knocked out for a good 7 hours or so. It had been downpouring essentially the whole night otherwise. But since the temperature dropped at just the right time, I woke up to a fresh blanket of December-looking snow.

Even when we finally see the snow melt after so long, because of the length of winter, our spring usually isn’t that long. Say that we get another May snow year. That only lasts over a month before it gets unbelievably hot in the summer. Speaking of hot, we don’t just see freezing up here. We also see melting. We are no strangers to days when it is 102 degrees outside. We are a region of the United States where we are able to adapt to both extremes. But the thing I, personally, am not so much used to is consistency, which is why I tend to get annoyed when the sun is out for more than a week without it raining a drop. At least the clouds in the sky could collect more raindrops or something! Some states can have almost constant hot or cold all year, and I will not know how they go through it just fine. Show me your ways, Australia! It does seem that Texas feels the same way about how we handle the cold because, in February 2021, they got a wave of cold weather, which led to the first snow in a long time in some areas. Since they are more used to hot weather, their cooling system becomes a detriment because they usually have little need for heating. What they had was not enough for them because some 200 people got killed by freezing to death during the cold wave, which is honestly kind of scary.

There is one more example I want to mention, and that would be the number of times I have been given flash flood warnings on my phone. Usually, after the snow has melted and we are experiencing the long summer that is June to September, a week cannot go by without my phone telling me that somewhere in town is probably going to flood!! Thankfully, around parts I have lived, that never happens. But I am willing to bet that it happens somewhere, near some of the creeks, ponds, and rivers. After a while, I stopped paying attention to those warnings.

The weather in the midwest is probably some of the most unpredictable things I can think of. It is like a game of chance whether you are going to be at risk of getting snowed in or melted to death, but it seems we have good enough air conditioning to not die from it in both of those situations. Those are people to thank!

[just-dreaming-marvel]

Out Of Time ~ 109

MASTERLIST

< previous chapter

Word Count: 3,025ish

Summary: Secretary Ross holds a meeting. Steve and Y/N get some news.

Tony sat in the corner of the facility’s conference room, away from everyone else. Secretary Ross stood in the front next to the monitor. Steve, Rhodey, and Natasha were seated at the table on the side closest to Tony. Sam, Vision, and Wanda were seated on the other side. Y/N was sat down at the end of the table, opposite Ross.

“Five years ago, I had a heart attack. I dropped right in the middle of my backswing. Turned out it was the best round of my life, because after 13 hours of surgery and a triple bypass… I found something 40 years in the Army had never taught me: Perspective,” Secretary Ross stated. “The world owes the Avengers an unpayable debt. You have fought for us, protected us, risked your lives… but while a great many people see you as heroes, there are some… who would prefer the word ‘vigilantes’.”

“And what word would you use, Mr. Secretary?” Natasha cut in, snarkily.

“How about ‘dangerous'? What would you call a group of US-based, enhanced individuals who routinely ignore sovereign borders and inflict their will wherever they choose and who, frankly, seem unconcerned about what they leave behind?” Secretary Ross activated the monitor behind him. It started playing news reels from past Avengers and SHIELD matters. “New York.”  A clip of the Chitauri invasion played out. “Washington DC.” When SHIELD fell. 

“Sokovia.” Ultron. “Lagos.” The team’s most recent mission.

“Okay,” Steve said, noticing Wanda’s uncomfortableness. “That’s enough.” 

Ross turned off the screen before continuing. “For the past four years, you've operated with unlimited power and no supervision. That's an arrangement the governments of the world can no longer tolerate. But I think we have a solution.” He threw a thick book on the table. “The Sokovia Accords. Approved by 117 countries… it states that the Avengers shall no longer be a private organization. Instead, they'll operate under the supervision of a United Nations panel, only when and if that panel deems it necessary. The Accords will also require anyone who is enhanced to be put on a registry.”

“Like me and Y/N?” Wanda wondered. Y/N glanced at Tony, who refused to look her way, as Wanda continued. “We’d be put on a list so that you can watch our every move? Maybe even experiment on us?”

“We wouldn’t experiment on anyone.”

“Why?” Y/N questioned. “Is it cause you already are?”

“The Avengers were formed to make the world a safer place,” Steve stated, trying to change the topic. “I feel we’ve done that.”

“Tell me, Captain, do you know where Thor and Banner are right now?” Steve merely looked at Ross, unable to answer the question. For all they knew, Thor was on Asgard and no one had seen or heard from Bruce since Sokovia, a year ago. “If I misplaced a couple of 30 megaton nukes, you can bet there’d be consequences. Compromise. Reassurance. That’s how the world works. Believe me, this is the middle ground.”

“So, there are contingencies,” Rhodey spoke up. 

“Three days from now, the UN meets in Vienna to ratify the Accords.” 

Steve and Tony briefly made eye contact,Tony quickly looking back down. Y/N noticed. That floor must be really interesting, interesting enough for a man who never shuts up to stop talking.  

“Talk it over,” Ross continued.

“And if we come to a decision you don’t like?” Nat asked.

“Then you retire.” Ross answered. Everyone kinda glanced at each other. “Let me know what you guys decide.” And with that, Ross left. 

~~~

They moved to one of the common area’s of the facility. Rhodey and Sam were going at each other about the Accords while Steve flipped through them and everyone else listened.

“Secretary Ross has a Congressional Medal of Honor,” Rhodey argued. “Which is one more than you have.”

“So let's say we agree to this thing,” Sam said. “How long is it gonna be before they LoJack us like a bunch of common criminals?”

“117 countries want to sign this. 117, Sam, and you're just like, ‘No, that's cool. We got it.’”

“How long are you going to play both sides?”

“I have an equation,” Vision stated, interrupting their bickering.

“Oh, this will clear it up.” Sam grumbled sarcastically. 

“In the six years since Mr. Stark announced himself as Iron Man,” Vision started, “the number of known enhanced persons has grown exponentially. And during the same period, the number of potentially world-ending events has risen at a commensurate rate.”

“Are you saying it’s our fault?” Steve questioned, as he looked up from the Accords.

“I’m saying there may be a causality. Our very strength invites challenge. Challenge incites conflict. And conflict… breeds catastrophe. Oversight… Oversight is not an idea that can be dismissed out of hand.”

“Boom,” Rhodey said.

“Tony…” Nat called, causing everyone to look at him. “You’re uncharacteristically non-hyperverbal.” 

Tony, who had been laying down, moved his hand off from over his face and looked at Nat. She was right. He’s always very open about his opinion. Y/N had to keep pushing down the urge to read his mind, let his thoughts in.

“It’s because he’s already made up his mind,” Steve stated.

“Boy, you know me so well,” Tony said sarcastically. Tony stood up and walked into the kitchen, rubbing the back of his head as he went. “Actually, I’m nursing an electromagnetic headache.” He opened a cabinet and grabbed a mug. “That’s what’s going on, Cap. It’s just pain. It’s discomfort.” Tony looked into the sink. “Who’s putting coffee grounds in the disposal? Am I running a bed-and-breakfast for a biker gang?” He tried to causally pull up a holographic image on his phone. 

“Oh, that’s Charles Spencer by the way,” Tony continued. “He’s a great kid. Computer engineering degree. 3.6 GPA. Had a floor-level gig at Intel planned for the fall. But first, he wanted to put a few miles on his soul, before he parked it behind a desk. See the world, maybe be of service. Charlie didn’t want to go to Vegas or Fort Lauderdale, which is what I would do. He didn’t go to Paris or Amsterdam, which sounds fun. He decided to spend his summer, building sustainable housing for the poor. Guess where, Sokovia.” Y/N closed her eyes. “He wanted to make a difference, I suppose. I mean, we won’t know because we dropped a building on him while we were kicking ass.” 

Tony threw some pills in his mouth and took a drink before continuing. “There’s no decision-making process here. We need to be put in check! Whatever form that takes, I’m game. If we can’t accept limitations, we’re boundary less, we’re no better than the bad guys.” 

“Tony, someone dies on your watch, you don’t give up,” Steve stated.

“Who said we’re giving up?” Tony questioned. 

“We are, if we’re not taking responsibility for our actions. This document just shifts the blame.”

“Sorry,” Rhodey interrupted, “Steve, that, that is dangerously arrogant. This is the United Nations we’re talking about. It’s not the World Security Council, it’s not SHIELD, it’s not HYDRA.”

“No, but it’s run by people with agendas and agents change."

“That’s good. That’s why I’m here,” Tony said. “When I realized what my weapons were capable of in the wrong hands, I shut it down and stopped manufacturing them."

“Tony. You chose to do that. If we sign these, we surrender our right to choose. What if this panel sends us somewhere we don’t think we should go? What if there’s somewhere we need to go, and they don’t let us? We may not be perfect, but the safest hands are still our own.” 

“If we don’t do this now, it’s gonna be done to us later. That’s a fact. That won’t be pretty.”

“You’re saying they’ll come for me…” Wanda whispered.

“And me,” Y/N said.

“We would protect you,” Vision promised, looking at Wanda.“Both of you.”

Y/N looked to Tony, trying to see where he was going with all this. But nothing. He just refused to meet her eyes.

“Maybe Tony’s right,” Nat suggested. Tony looked at her, shocked. “If we have one hand on the wheel we can still steer. If we take it off—”

“Aren’t you the same woman who told the government to kiss her ass a few years ago?” Sam cut her off. 

“I’m just raiding the terrain. We’ve made some very public mistakes, we need to win their trust back.”

“Focus up. I’m sorry,” Tony interrupted, the hint of surprise in his voice, “Did I just miss hear you or did you just say that you agree with me?” 

“Oh, I want to take it back—“ Nat quickly shook her head. 

“No no no,” Tony said, as he shook his finger. “You can’t retracted it.” 

Sitting close to him, Y/N could hear Steve’s phone buzz. She watched as he pulled it out to check it and immediately grow sad.

“I have to go,” Steve stated.

He got up quickly, dropped the Accords on the coffee table, and slipped into the stairwell. Concerned, Y/N stood up and followed. She found him a couple of flights down, leaning against the banister with his head hung low.

“Hey,” she gently said, coming up to him. “What’s going on?”

When he lifted his head, his eyes were glassy. “She’s gone,” he struggled to say. “Peggy’s gone.”

“Oh, Steve.” Y/N quickly pulled him into her, tears forming in her own eyes as well. 

“She’s gone.”

~~~

Tony found Y/N in their room later that day. He wanted to talk to her about the Accords. He had no clue where she stood. When he entered, he noticed she was packing.

“Are we going somewhere?” He asked.

“Peggy’s dead…. She’s gone.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Tony came over, allowing Y/N to fall into his arms. “I’m so sorry.”

“She was just one of the few I had left from then.”

“When’s the funeral?”

“In three days, in London.”

They stood in silence for a moment. “The Accords are being signed in Vienna that day.”

Y/N pulled her head away slightly, brows furrowed. “I tell you that my close friend just died, and you are worried about the Accords?”

“That’s not what I meant—“

Y/N pulled away fully, going back to packing. “I can’t believe you.”

“What? I just stated a fact. And you’re going to go sign them, right? Red’s going so you can just go with her.”

“Stop, Tony, just stop.”

“It’s a question. Are you going to sign them?”

Y/N let out a frustrated sigh. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“Yes, Tony, I don’t know.”

“Why? Explain to me why you don’t know.”

Y/N dropped what she was working on so she could face Tony. “Because I see both sides! I see and understand that we need a little more leash than we have. We need to be monitored, as a team. But then I see the other side as well. The Accords are so strict! What if they force us to fight for something we don’t agree with? Or won’t let us fight when we need to? And there’s the fact that those will powers will have to be monitored. But they were never specific on what that entailed.”

“I will protect you.” Tony stepped closer. “Like always.”

“You can’t promise that if you sign the Accords. It’s not up to you.”

“I already signed them.”

“What?”

“I signed them before Ross even brought them to the team.”

“How— why—you should have talked about this to me first. Why didn’t you say anything?!”

“Because I guess I thought that you would sign them too.”

“Out of what? Love? Duty to my boyfriend?”

“Yes! And because I thought you’d understand why we need to have this.”

“I do understand! I just think that the Accords aren’t the answer!”

“Well I do! And if you loved me, you would too!!”

“What?” Y/N’s whisper of the word still gave away her angry tone. “If I loved you? What the hell do the Accords have to do with love?!”

“Because one of the reasons, my biggest reason, for doing this is because I love you! I’m doing this for us! And to make things right!”

“You’re doing this for you, Tony! And no one else! You’re hoping that you’ll be able to sleep better at night after this. That the guilt of everything that’s happened won’t drive you crazy anymore.”

“So what if that’s part of it?! We need to be put in check, Y/N! God! How do you not understand that?!”

“You know what? I understand perfectly.” Y/N threw the rest of the clothes on their bed into her suitcase. Slamming it shut. “It is my decision whether or not to sign the Accords. I need some time to think.” Zipping it up, she grabbed the suitcase. “And I think it needs to be away from here.”

“So, what, you’re leaving here? Running away?”

“Don’t even, Tony! I am not running away. I need to make this decision on my own, without any opinions in the way.”

“But you’re going to London with Cap, right? I’m sure he’ll try to sway you.”

“My friend just died! The person who used to be my best friend! The only person I knew after waking up. So, yes, I am going to London. But that doesn’t mean that I’ll be taking Steve’s side. Or any side.” A portal opened next to Y/N. “Please, let me have some time.”

As Y/N stepped through the portal, Tony called out one last thing, “You have less than 3 days, Y/N. Better make your decision quick.”

~~~

After the portal closed, Y/N hurried to find a nearby trash can, emptying her gut into it. The baby clearly wasn’t a fan of that. Y/N got a hotel room in London. She texted Steve telling him where she was and that she would see him at the funeral. Steve questioned is she was okay, which Y/N just waved off.

She stayed in her hotel room until the funeral. When she arrived at the cathedral, it was already packed with mourners. Y/N quickly found Sam sitting in the front row.

“Hey,” he greeted, bringing her in for a hug.

“I didn’t know you’d be here, Sam.”

“I figured you would both need some support.”

Y/N pulled away. “Thanks, Sam.” 

She tried to discreetly look around. She was hoping that Tony would do the same thing. They hadn’t spoken or texted since that argument. 

“He’s not here,” Sam said, turning her attention to him.

“What?”

“Stark, he’s not here.”

“I wasn’t—“

“Yes you were. Steve may not be immediately again to see it, but I do. You two got in a fight. Was it over the Accords?”

“Yes,” Y/N sighed with a nod. 

“Your stance?”

“I still don’t know. I see both sides… there just has to be a better way.”

“I hope you figure one out. And figure it out fast."

~~~

Steve helped carry the casket down. As he sat down beside Y/N in the front pew, he immediately grabbed her hand, squeezing it. Y/N squeezed back. They listened to the speakers, Y/N staring at the framed photo of Peggy in front.

“And now, I would like to invite Sharon Carter to come up and say a few words,” the Priest stated.

Steve was watching Y/N when Sam leaned over and nudged him. Steve looked up to see Sharon Carter, formally known as Agent 13 from SHIELD and Steve’s neighbor, up at the podium. Y/N knew that Sharon was related to Peggy, but it was clear that Steve did not.

“Margaret Carter was known to most as a founder of SHIELD . . . but I just knew her as Aunt Peggy,” Sharon began. Steve took a surprised breath. "She had a photograph in her office. Aunt Peggy standing next to JFK. As a kid, that was pretty cool. But it was a lot to live up to. Which is why I never told anyone we were related.” Sharon looked directly at Steve. “I asked her once how she managed to master diplomacy and espionage in a time when no one wanted to see a woman succeed at either. And she said, compromise where you can. But where you can't, don't. Even if everyone is telling you that something wrong is something right. Even if the whole world is telling you to move . . . it is your duty to plant yourself like a tree, look them in they eye and say, ‘No, you move’.”

~~~

After the ceremony, Steve and Y/N were the only ones left in the cathedral. Y/N was standing in front of Peggy’s picture while Steve had his head down, leaning against a pew. Natasha walked up the isle to Steve.

“When I came out of the ice, I thought everyone I had known was gone besides Y/N,” Steve said. “Then I found out that she was alive. I was just lucky to have her.”

“She had you back, too,” Nat responded. “The both of you.”

“Who else signed?”

“Tony. Rhodey. Vision.”

“Clint?” Y/N asked, still looking at the photograph.

“Says he's retired.”

“Wanda?” Steve wondered.

“TBD. I'm off to Vienna for the signing of the Accords. There's plenty of room on the jet.” Steve sighed as Y/N turned around to join them. “Just because it's the path of least resistance doesn't mean it's the wrong path. Staying together is more important than how we stay together.”

“What are we giving up to do it?” Nat sighed as Steve shook his head. “I'm sorry, Nat. I can't sign it.” Nat looked at Y/N.

“I don’t know yet, Nat,” Y/N responded. “I see both sides, I’m affecting either way. I just… I don’t know.”

“I know,” Nat responded.

“Then what are you doing here?” Steve asked.

“I didn’t want you two to be alone.”

next chapter >

NOTES: There was going to be more gifs, but I got lazy..... sorry.....

From now on the taglist when be added by a reblog. I will reblog it using my second account, @just-dreaming-marvel-2​. Just so that my main page doesn’t get too cluttered.

If you want to be added to the tag list, please dm me or send in an ask.

[cecilspeaks]

160 - The Weather

No man is an island. Some men are fjords. Most men are oxbows. All men are ravines. Welcome to Night Vale.

The news coming up. But first, let’s go to the weather.

[nature noises, birds cawing]

There’s a cold front moving through Night Vale. Temperature at City Hall is currently 63 degrees and sunny with wind gusts later this afternoon of up to 40 miles per hour. These winds are expected to bring cold air as low as 20 degrees this evening, and possibly dropping to below zero overnight. It’s unknown what’s causing this weather, is a statement I make every day, looking out into the sky. Is it God? P-perhaps it is the government. Perhaps Earth itself is, is it out of boredom that the weather exists? Maybe it is out of care. That would suggest the existence of a God who wishes us well, but it does not explain the fierce destructiveness of a blizzard, or a heat wave, or a tornado, or a tsunami. Is a tsunami weather? That is a question best left to oceanographers, meteorologists, or a Tarot deck. But why would God make a thing, then mar it? What mood change is this? what care can this god have for humanity? Ahhhh. And maybe that’s the point. Ah, that does make me feel better, to think that it all doesn’t matter. It really takes a lot of pressure off, doesn’t it?

Let’s have a look at agriculture. John Peters – you know, the farmer – says his orange crop this year is massive. He says the quantity of product has not deviated, only the quality. “Them oranges are huuuu-uuge!” John said, holding an orange the size of the 2002 iMac computer. “I can’t fit this thing into one of them orange crushers (what that) I make the juice with!” he said, struggling to keep his back straight under the weight of the abnormally sized citrus fruit. But John says he’s excited for his orange grove, which has been doing great ever since he genetically modified his crop to no longer cause teleportation across existential dimensions when consumed. Despite his excitement for orange sales, John says he’s worried about next year’s crop of invisible corn. He said he looked up summer 2020 in his farmer’s almanac and all it said was, “Wellll crap. Good luck.” John plans to diversify his farm investment by raising cattle for slaughter. He’s vegan these days, so he does not want to sell the cattle for meat or dairy. He’ll just raise the cattle until they’re old enough to kill. Best of luck in all your endeavours, John! Hope you finally win that coveted Best Orange at the Citrus Festival this year.

Many of our listeners have written concerned emails about the temperature possibly falling below zero. Bob Sturm of Old Town said: “Zero is the lowest number, Cecil. I’m a big stats guy and I can tell you that you cannot have less than nothing, that’s impossible.” Well listen Bob, I’m a journalist, not a numerologist, so I don’t know what to tell you. Apparently there are many unknown numbers below zero, and as they are discovered, rest assured I will be here to report on them. (Reina Guerrero) from the west side asked if there’s anything we can do to better prepare ourselves for this weather. Well (Reina), here are some tips I just looked up online. One: bundle up. Yeah, your heater can only do so much. Two: bring your pets indoors, and if you have an agent from a Vague, yet Menacing Government Agency outside your home assigned to record your every movement, invite them in as well. You don’t want them freezing alone out there in their black sedan. Three: light a fire, if you have a fireplace. If you do not have a fireplace of pellet stove, try using a refrigerator or sink. Four: if you should lose power at any time, do not panic. Just curl into a ball breathing heavily and repeating: “Oh God no, oh God no, oh God no, oh God no”, through loudly chattering teeth.

Now, we’re not expecting precipitation tonight, but should it snow, I recommend making a snow angel. Yeaaah, that’s always fun. All you have to do is lie flat on your back, arms and legs outstretched, until you are called into celestial service to whatever greater authority rules these beautiful creatures. Thank you for your questions and comments. I’ll do my best to keep our town up to date on the latest weather.

But first, this Saturday is Night Vale’s annual Holiday Fireworks Extravaganza at the Night Vale Harbor and Waterfront Recreation Area. There will be live music by local bands, including  a new band by Dark Owl Records owner Michelle Nguyen and her girlfriend Maureen. [quietly] Ah, my old intern Maureen. Their band is called The Funtastics, and it’s a folk country slash (trans) tribute band performing the acappella covers of Philip Glass scores. According to Michelle’s press release: “Please do not watch our show. I’m very angry you even know about it. I hate that our secret concert at the annual Holiday Fireworks Extravaganza, Night Vale’s most anticipated and attended annual event, was leaked to the press.” Following the concert, there will be a collective prayer to the [gong, echoing] Great! Golden! Hand! And then the fireworks will begin. Event organizers say they have a special fireworks display in store for attendees this year. Traditionally, the biggest explosions are reserved for the end of a half-hour long buildup of lesser explosions, but focus groups have indicated that people are tired of having to wait for the best part. So instead of normal boring fireworks, they will be blowing up old cars using the 18,000 tons of solid fuel they found at an abandoned missile silo on the edge of the Sand Wastes. The Holiday Fireworks Extravaganza would like to thank the Sheriff’s Secret Police for the vehicle donations, which are mostly cars impounded this past week for overdue state inspection stickers. Can’t wait to see everybody this Saturday at the Fireworks Extravaganzaa!

Brrrr! It’s getting pretty bad out there, Night Vale! The temperature has fallen dramatically to 20 degrees outside the radio station. I can hear the creak and groan of our antenna straining under the 40 mile per hour winds. I’ve seen three different minor accidents outside my window as drivers lost control of their vehicles. I’ve got my little space heater under my desk. Huh, but I can still barely feel my feet. [chuckles] I regret choosing today of all days to bike to work. [sighs]

Oh, I’m getting word that power is out in the Barista District, and dozens of leather apron wearing people have been forced to make torches out of Irish cream soaked biscotti stuffed into (-) [0:09:16]. And the only thing available coffee wise right now is cold brew. Gross.

Employees at the Night Vale power plant are working to restore power to that area of town, but they have run into some difficulties. The blustery winds and extreme cold have kept some of the workers from being able to drive to the plant, and the ones already on site re perplexed by how any of this works. “We are not sure if this is a nuclear plant or electric or coal or what,” said Mike Reiner, director of operations for the power plant. “We tried turning the whole thing off and back on like a computer, but the switch didn’t really do anything. Nobody labels anything around here, for crying out loud.” Reiner then began to cry out loud, as dozens of workers rushed to put their arms around the sobbing man. “We’re sorry, boss, we’re sorry,” the frantic workers all repeated. In the chaos of the consoling, a single worker was heard whimpering: “Oh god! Someone do something before he changes back into…” But that voice was quickly and fearfully shushed by the others.

More on the power outage and weather conditions soon.

But let’s get to some good news. Our population is booming, Night Vale! We have more people than houses. But thankfully, the good folks of the private land development industry are helping out. Ah, the altruistic hand of capitalism! A new housing development named The Final Destination is going up in Radon Canyon. New homes start in the 130’s for 2 bedroom semi-detached townhouses, all the way to expensive 10 bedroom estates with beautiful views of the blue..ish mist that settles every morning along the canyon bottom. Representatives from the EPA have warned against building residences in an area known for producing toxic gases, but the developers said they will equip each home with a large exhaust fan and provide a lifetime supply of rebreathers for the first 15 home buyers. The EPA has tried repeatedly to stop this development, stating that excavation of the canyon floor could lead to the release of more gases, which would catastrophically imperil not only the lives of those in the canyon, but the Earth’s atmosphere for hundreds, if not thousands of miles in all directions. “Who knows what’s beneath the shale in that canyon?” one EPA representative said. The representative was wearing a sports coat too large for his frame and comically out of date glasses. He continued: “We have been trying to declare Radon Canyon a Superfund site for years, but Night Vale doesn’t show up in any government database and so it cannot receive its projection. Didn’t you ever see the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, how everybody’s faces melted off, it’d be just like that.” When it was pointed out that the end of that movie was good because it was Nazi faces melting, the EPA representative said: “Yeah yeah you’re right, that was pretty cool but still, get what I’m trying to say right?” Nobody did, because it was a weird thing to bring up a 40-year-old movie about Nazis and museum artefacts. So, now we will have new housing in the heart of Night Vale’s most beautiful scenic attraction, beginning spring next year.

I’m getting word that the power is out now in Old Town Night Vale and at the library, and on the south end. The temperature has dropped to 5 degrees and I think it will continue to plummet throughout the night. People are doing everything they can to prepare. Before the stores close, I recommend driving out and picking up some water as well as canned goods, even some fresh produce and raw meat while it’s still there. I mean, people worked hard to grow that food ten states away and then drive it across the country right here to you and you haven’t bought it yet? Even if your refrigerator’s not working because of the power outages, it’ll be cold enough in your house to keep it all fresh. So get out there and spend your money on food! We have so much of it. Let’s use it, Night Vale.

But above all: stay warm! If you’re alone, visit a neighbor. Body heat and company can help a lot in weather like this. And if you have room in your home, welcome your neighbors in! There’s no reason to be alone at a time likes. Plus it’s the holiday season, why not keep each other warm with stories, with camaraderie, with good fellowship? [shivering noises] Yet, if you can’t be with others tonight, [groans] then I will do my best to keep you company through this brutal cold.

Ah, I’d like to tell you a story of my childhood. It’s a very personal story, one I‘ve never shared on the air before. [shivering noises] I’m a bit nervous to tell it to you all, but if ever there was time for a story to bring us closer together, now is that time. I will tell you that story in a moment, but first, let’s have a look at sports.

[“Suspension of Disbelief” by Victory Soul Orchestra https://victorysoulorchestra.com]

[beeps] Computer: The National Weather Service has issued a severe weather warning for the greater Night Vale area. Temperatures as low as -10 degrees are predicted with high winds gusting up to 16 miles per hour. Wind chills overnight may reach -30 degrees. Residents of Night Vale and the surrounding towns of Pine Cliff, Red Mesa, and Desert Bluffs too should seek shelter. They should band together around fireplaces with heaters at their highest settings. In cases where heat sources are not accessible or operating, residents should huddle in the vacant lot out back of the Ralphs. Come huddle with us. Come huddle with us. There is a barrel here. It is filled with trash and we have lit it on fire. It is so warm, the trash. The trash is mostly paper and cardboard, but it is also something greater than that. It is a symbol of progress of the great tower of industry (and need) [0:19:51], a ruined towel like Babyl, which just toppled down of the weight of its hubris, and in the language of flame it tells us things. It tells us so much, not through words but through visions. 

Here is a list of visions the fire has revealed to us. One: two spools of coaxial cable. Two: a single white bulb atop of an anthill. Three: an empty keg around squat cylinder of frosting, beneath which lies nothing, not even air. A void (cake). “Happy birthday,” echoes the choir from a good distance away. Four: a great black bird whose white wings brush along the castle turret. Five: a snake spiraled and asleep inside a leather boot. Six: a wheelless tractor in a vast wasteland of cracked earth. Seven: your brother. Not a brother you know, but a brother you once had. He looks like you and he repeats your name, but backwards. Eight: smoke clouds shaped like vice grips.   These are the visions of the flames in the barrel in the vacant lot out back of the Ralphs. 

Beneath our gaze and across our minds, beyond our consciousness, these are the remains of the great tower of humanity. Come huddle with us. You without heat. You without home. You without hope. Come huddle with us. 

This severe weather warning is in effect (through) 8 PM tomorrow, when the warm front is expected to move through the region bringing sunny skies and high temperatures in the mid-80’s, and everyone will return to their normal lives, satisfied that they have (-) [0:21:51] death once again, confusing accidental survival with competence and immortality. What doesn’t kill you only makes you more complacent. The National Weather Service knows this is but a night together with you, not a whole life. For what we have in this moment is (truer) than rain, but deeper than thunder. Parting is such sweet sorrow. Blah, blah, blah. I’m not saying the morning will not hurt. I’m only saying the joy of memory is stronger than the prick of any (plate) upon my heart. This has been a severe weather warning from the national weather service. Stay tuned to the station for further updates.

I love you. I have always loved you. And now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

[beeps]

Cecil: And that is what I saw in the mirror that day. And why I do not like to go near mirrors. Ever.

[sighs] I never told that story to anyone before. I hope it has kept you company throughout this treacherous night. I hope it has kept you warm. Just knowing you’re listening somewhere out there in the cold dark has kept me warm. Stay safe, wherever you are. Good night, Night Vale… [shivers] Good night.

Today’s proverb: Who called it Snowpiercer instead of Chris Evans’s Polar Express?

[mimzy-writing-online]

Some Blind Things I (and actual blind person) Have Done

I talk all the time about what’s realistic for a blind person to do and how to write a blind character who isn’t a complete media myth of touching faces and super powers... soooo, part of that is knowing what kind of things an actual blind person (me) fucks up doing because I’m blind.

These moments include: Me sarcastically telling people I cannot see the thing they’re doing. Moments where I have zero manners. Moments where I do have manners. Making people uncomfortable because they’re staring at me. Great phrases like, “I have too much ADHD to count to eight.” and “It’s literally illegal for me to drive.” and “Wait, who are you?” “That’s not how we talk to people Mimzy.” My cats’ growing concern that I can’t see them or tell them apart but continuing to love me. Channeling my inner Toph Bei-Fong. Updates on the ongoing insomnia writing.

There’s no chronological order to them, I’m not sure there’s going to be any order to them at all, but it’s 3 am and I can’t sleep and it’s called the Late Night Writing Advice Blog for a reason.

(I definitely did not have to double check my own blog title while typing that, definitely not)

Note: This list gets a little long, but it’s a funny read and I was up until 4:30 (this note is from a future Mimzy who’s almost finished posting this, after 1.5 hours)

Additional Note: Feel free to send anons with commentary or reblog with commentary because I would love if someone enjoyed this. Like, these are stories of my life, please appreciate them.

The Things!

-My best friend and I hang out mostly at night because of his 9-5 job, and he still lives with his parents who probably don’t like me so when we hang out we’re mostly driving around on random adventures and coffee/tea runs and late night dinners. 

So it’s night, and my night vision is awful and I have to wear sunglasses anyway because what I can see is painfully bright headlights so yeah I see basically nothing.

With my best friend, I have

1. after asking him a question: “Did you nod at me and I just didn’t see it.” “I did nod.” or after waiting long enough for a response he’ll realize what he did on his own and say, “I was shaking my head no, sorry.”

2. Reaching into total darkness to touch his shoulder and touched his armpit instead.

3. Dropped something from my bag onto his messy car floor and asked him to find it for me because it all looks blurry and grey-black down there, even without sunglasses

4. Sensed he was going for a high five and I gave him a perfect high five. Surprised, he wanted to test it again. I completely missed.

5. “We’re passing the oil refinery, so enjoy hearing, touching, smelling, tasting that.” plus 3 other identical jokes on the same drive. “Hey, can you stop making blind jokes, I’m starting to hate them these days.” “When did that happen?” “When one not-great classmate slash sort of friend made them all the time.” “That’s a shame.” “Blind jokes from sighted people are also super repetitive. The only blind jokes I seem to like are from other blind people.”

6. Him: “You’re rolling your eyes behind your sunglasses, I can tell!” 

7. Once we saw snow once our way driving home from Las Vegas. It was March, it was after midnight, and the warmest it had been at any point in that night was 40 degrees Fahrenheit (4.4 degrees Celsius. That’s a real comparison?? That’s a scary number to an American who’s barely ever left California. We were driving through the mountainy area of California where the temp really drops and for three seconds we saw snow in the wind. Well, he saw it. Something moved, it was small and flaky but like... that was actually snow and I couldn’t see it? (this was three, almost four years ago)

8. Last weekend we drove around the rich neighborhoods to look at Christmas decorations because I love Christmas lights because for ones light actually looks pretty instead of painful and I can see it at night without hurting, so it’s nice. I love the pretty visual things. Blindness will not take the pretty visual things from me! And the decorations just make me so happy and I wanted to do that last year but never did, so we did that this year

9. I also told him about the cripple punk tag on Tumblr last weekend and he was delighted to know it exists because he’s got other chronic health issues including downright awful knees.

Other blind things not directly involving my best friend

1. I have paused writing to ask a sighted person if it’s realistic for my sighted characters to see X item from Y distance away. Usually my dad with his stupidly perfect vision.

2. Realizing I’m forgetting what sighted people can see. It’s been four years since I saw like a normal person. And all my sighted memories are literally blurry from age.

3. But I still have dreams where I see normally. And then dreams where everything is too bright like in real life and I cannot see and what is happening???

At home, specifically

1. I have three cats who I can’t tell the difference between. I have a small black and brown tabby cat. A black and orange tortie cat who is slightly heavy but medium build. An all black cat who is huge and has the longest fur I’ve ever touched on a cat. I cannot tell the difference between them until I’m up close. Especially if the lighting bad.

2. Tonight I almost set my laptop on top of Remy, my brown and black tabby, because I didn’t see here a foot away from me, curled up next to my leg, somehow blending in with my orange and blue comforter. Her concerned look I did see and was horrified by my almost fuck up and apologized profusely for.

3. Cannot see Felix, my black cat, half the time if the lighting is bad and have almost sat on him, put my feet in his face, tripped over him, etc. because he blends into the shadows and oh my fucking god I cannot see that.

Note: Remy cuddles with me all the time. Felix adores me but will not be caught dead cuddling anyone because dignity, but if he’s in my room and nobody’s around to see he’s insistent on cuddling. Rio (black and orange tortie) is devoted to my mum, and she knows she makes me nervous when she suddenly jumps on me and I get really shifty and squirmy and not fun to cuddle with, so we’re cool and I give her pets but she doesn’t usually crawl onto me unless she wants to make my mum jealous.

4. Can sneak up on family members and friends because I move so quietly, so at least there’s that. Not a blind thing, but it makes up for some things.

5. Have walked up to someone I thought was a friend, realized I don’t know them, and the first thing out my mouth was “Wait, who are you?” and then a close friend (and the party host) grab me by the shoulders and say, “That’s not how we talk to people,” and just like, where are your manners Mimzy, wtf, but I never saw that stranger again so it’s okay.

Side Note: blindness aside, I do have a habit of just rudely speaking my mind in not-appropriate settings because I just don’t care and don’t have the anxiety to at least act like I care. They’re very satisfying, but usually very rare moments.

6. Please stop moving things around the house!

7. “What do you mean there are cobwebs?” *Shines a flashlight at the dark corners of my room* “oh my god...”

8. Me, to my family members, “Please close those curtains, light hurts. Please turn off that lamp, it’s too bright in here.” *me, later turns off most of the lights in the house* Family members: “Why is it so dark in here? I can’t see.” *Me, channeling my inner Toph Bei-Fong* “Oh no, what a tragedy!”

9. Mum is the only one who vaguely appreciates my light sensitivity because she also has snow vision (a mild case) and has a little light sensitivity, sometimes, on her bad days.

More Not Quite Appropriate Things!

There are so many things that I say only to realize that there is a very nearby stranger who heard that out of context and it sounded so bad.

1. Best Friend (while I’m walking down stairs just fine, by myself, don’t need anyone’s help, I can do it!) “There are eight steps.” “I don’t need your help.” “I know but--” “I’m fine!” “I’m just trying to help.” “I have too much ADHD to count to eight anyway!”

“I have too much ADHD to count to eight anyway,” is exactly what two strangers heard while walking right behind me.

Why would you sneak up on someone who’s so obviously blind??

2. “Sea foam green is an ugly color anyway.” I was in a mall, it was well lit and I was using my cane and managing with my crap vision, but I managed to see that specific color I hate on a dress right next to me, and the woman walking on the other side of the mannequin display heard that and did a double take on my obviously blind self.

Or so I’m told by my mom who could see what happened.

3. Similar to above, I was in the Artist Village in San Diego, which is a huge tourist trap, and I was sort of a tourist too, but it’s freaking outdoors, so I have the cane and sunglasses. And I’m in an Artist Village (very visual thing) with my parents, so out of place. And this random dude was apparently staring at me. Cannot see him, absolutely no idea which direction my mum is pointing towards, everything is blank and weird and not see-able, but I turned my head and by some miracle looked directly at him and he freaked out and looked away.

4. “Oh yeah, make fun of the blind person!” sarcastically, but loudly, somewhere public after a joke a friend had made that I was actually okay with.

5. “Driving and hiking are my two biggest weaknesses,” said out of context to people who didn’t know I was blind.

6. “I forgot you were blind.” “Well I didn’t.” More channeling of Toph, I think.

7. “Why can’t you drive?” *points to cane* *he does not get it* “It’s very illegal for me to drive.” *does not get it* “They’re blind dude,” classmate says. “Very blind.” “You seem to get around just fine,” says the man who only see me indoors with the very best lighting scenario for my vision. “Yeah, but that’s because I have the cane.” “So?” You seem just fine, he seems to think. How dumb are you? I definitely think. “Why do you need the cane?” “Because I would die if I didn’t have it. I have almost died. People would die if I tried to drive.”

8. Later: “Did he think you could just drive and use your cane to feel the road or something?” “I guess.”

9. More questions from other people who don’t know me very well asking why I can’t drive. “Because it’s illegal.” Their confusion is wondering specifically why it’s illegal rather than thinking I’m not actually blind. I explain the laws in the driving handbook, because I have read it (unlike some people I guess. How did you miss the ‘drivers must be able to see at least 20/40 with their best corrected eye” and I haven’t been in that category for two years.

Note: My day blindness came two years before my vision acuity reached visually impaired status. So, like, two years of wishing I had a cane but thinking “I’m not blind enough” and still being terrified in certain situations and risking my life walking around without one or some sighted guide.

Similar Public Things

1. I can see indoors pretty well so I get by on prescription glasses and no cane (I see 20/70 - 20/100 with glasses) but sometimes the mall is crowded and nobody gives me space and I’m just not comfortable getting so close to people, so I bust out my cane (and maybe my sunglasses too) so I look extra blind and people will give me the space to walk without running into someone.

2. Have also done that just because the indoor lights were also too bright and I need my sunglasses.

3. Have stared at my phone in public with cane/sunglasses, or tried taking photos with it, and I get so many weird looks because blind people see nothing I guess, none of us have any vision at all! (read sarcasm)

4. Walking into a coffee shop I’ve been to before and I know they change their teas all the freaking time. Also got the cane. “Hi, can you tell me what iced teas you have right now?” “Oh, they’re all on that sign.” *blank look* Do you not realize I’m blind? I’m thinking. “What kind of black tea do you have? Do you have any tropical black tea?” (because they usually do and I love tropical black tea, and they did that day too, so I ordered that.)

5. I cannot read menus. Those restaurants that have the menus above the register are awful, evil. Cannot read. In the wonderful days of my childhood I didn’t have prescription glasses for my moderately not great but still mostly functional vision (my dad has perfect vision and no concept whatsoever about what it’s like to not be able to see those things!) So imagine my parents dragging me to restaurants like that and I’m 10 years old and supposedly can read perfectly fine but I cannot read that menu and I think it’s some personal character fault of mine that I just don’t know how to read those kinds of menus, so I have to ask my mum to help me choose a food to order and eat, and then that’s the only thing I ever order any time I ever go back. So, I’m quickly getting sick of those places because I only eat one item there and I want to try something new with a restaurant with those nice hand held menus, but those are sit-down restaurants and apparently they cost more money, sooo...

6. That was a rant I went on with my best friend last weekend

Side note: It’s almost 4 am, my mum just woke up, saw the light on in my room from under the crack of my door and said hi. I’m at a point right now where she just expects it and isn’t one to judge (unlike my dad who has zero insomnia because he has hypersomnia and I don’t know how humans do that)

Side Note Ten Minutes Later: My laptop is at 10% but I plugged it in because dammit I am finishing this tonight and it will have all the things.

7. “Hey, where’s the trash can? I can’t find one.” *also mistakes a trashcan and a human being just sitting still. All the time* “Why not just litter then?” best friend asks, knowing exactly how I’ll respond. “I have manners!”

8. I hate traveling even a little by myself. My orientation and mobility skills with my cane aren’t that bad, but they’re not good enough for me to feel comfortable walking around by myself anywhere that isn’t super familiar with routes I already have practiced and memorized (school, close friend’s houses or apartments, the blocks in my neighborhood I’ve walked 500 times coming too and from school or walking dogs with my parents). Anywhere unfamiliar or wide/open or crowded or God Forbid, OUTSIDE is a source of terror and will not let my traveling companions leave me alone for longer than a few minutes and certainly not walk away on my own.

9. Will not go to bars because I present female and I am visibly disabled and that makes me look like an easy target and why would I risk that unnecessarily?

I’m gonna cut it off here. This is a long post, and I need to just finally go to bed. Goodnight. I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to send anons with commentary or reblog with commentary. I’d like to know that someone liked this.

[sea-salted-wolverine]

Okay so last week was a shitkicker and was literally so bad I spent the better part of the week trying to delude myself into thinking it was a good day. Like, we're talking, "the sun is shining and I'm here to see it so today is a good day" and "I'm having a bad day- fuck me I am not haveing a bad day- I'm having a good day- I'm not having a bad day". Denial is a powerful tool for mental health, apply judiciously. I get that everyone on earth is kinda having a shitty year but it feels like things just kinda escalated in my little corner

The 7th had a huge snow storm that brought traffic to a stand still. No one could leave the house and university class was online anyway. Batshit customer demanded to pick up her gear anyway. I drove in because I was the only person with keys to the shop that could get to the building. It took me a solid 2 hours going 15mph on the highway. The snow in the parking lot was up past the fenders of my truck. Crazy lady gets 10 out of 18 of her survival suits back but the other 8 still have holes in them because our only repair tech is also the only one who answers the phone or runs the computer or handles customers or cleans or disinfects anything or stores gear. I'll give you one guess who that person is.

Did you guess me? Good for you. Fun fact this was not the case in October.

Crazy lady swans off through the snowed in parking lot and because she cant find the exit, blasts straight through the ditch and onto the road.

I say fuck it and leave. I've been at work for 2 hours. I have made 24 dollars for my trouble. It takes me another hour to get home.

The 8th is Saturday and I'm supposed to be at work. No one can drive. There was another 10 8nches of snow last night. I say fuck work and go to dig out the plow truck. The canopy over the plow truck collapses as I walk out to clear the snow of it.

I do not scream.

My partner and I get the truck running and go plow people out of their driveways and then go do the shop.

We come back home and the heater doesn't work. We just spent most of last week frantically trying to limp the thing along because no heat at -20°F is in a word fucking unpleasant. At least now its 40 degrees warmer because if the snowstorm. We take it apart again. The house smells like diesel. The house smells like exhaust. The house is not cold because the wood stove can keep up at 20 above zero but it won't keep us through the winter.

There is no saving the oil heater. We need a new one.

Its 730 and neither of us have eaten. I start rice in the pressure cooker so I can throw a tasty bite on top and call it dinner and that dies too. Explosively.

Dinner is half cooked rice and microwaved curry.

Sunday is spent finding a way to stretch our increasingly thin budget to buy a new heater. Between us we actually have 2275$ and we will still cover the mortgage. Somehow. All our Christmas gifts will be hand made this year. The next thing that breaks will stay broken.

Monday, power outages due to snow storm. No wifi, no zoom meetings. Another 8 inches of snow. This is now more snow than my city gets for the full year.

My boss calls sobbing. The dog died. Joey, an 11 year old, 130lb mastiff with a tumor the size of a football on his liver has been her constant companion for at least 8 years. The pandemic has confused the bejesus out of him because while he loves the lock down and going out to play every hour or so he doesnt really like the concept of strangers in masks. Hes a guard dog and doesnt understand that men in masks coming into the shop are not here to kill mom they're wearing masks so they don't kill mom.

Mondays the shop is closed anyway and I spend it installing the new heater. It doesn't quite fit in the space the old heater came out of but its warm.

Tuesday, I go to work, everyone cancels class, I once again gently explain to a regular that eugenics is bad. I would like to curse him out. I cant. He drops a grand on scuba gear and leaves, talking about how great his trip to Mexico will be.

I do not scream.

A friend calls to ask how I'm doing. Not great. Yea, her niether. She asks if I want to go out to the backcountry with her over the weekend. I explain that my leg physically does not move and I'm downing copious amounts of advil to remain upright. The doctor sent me in for an MRI but has not yet called back. Plus I'm supposed to go to Valdez for the weekend and actually go diving. That I can do with limited use of my leg.

She says yikes, take it easy, take care of yourself, I love you.

I say, yikes, I'm tired of taking it easy, I wanna play, I love you too.

Hit me up if your plans open up and we can do something gentle on your leg. She says.

God yes. The cold woods away from people sounds like paradise. I dont even care that it will cause me rending physical pain to get there. I need a break.

Its Wednesday. I go to school. I get pulled over. Miraculously I dont get a ticket. I'm white female and conventionaly attractive, maybe not so miraculous. I rolled through a stop sign but I'm pretty sure I couldn't afford a ticket.

I get a text in class. One of the instructors who works with the dive shop has tested positive for covid. I haven't seen the man in 2 months. I needed a spare instructor but he was nowhere to be found. But hey, evidently that's a good thing.

I go to work. I vacillate between doing the job a 4 people and having nothing to do.

I go to the grocery store because I misjudged my last monthly grocery run and even though I'm increasing my exposure I'm out of cheese and tea damnit.

The store is packed. Pandemic who?

My partner and I haven't had a date nite in a while and this week has been shitty. I want a nice dinner. I pick up a couple boxes of the carton sushi which isnt terrible and is about as nice as I can justify on the new budget. I grab a gallon of milk and a few other things. I forgot my wallet in the truck and the cashier is chill and sets my stuff aside while I grab it.

I pay and take my stuff home and realize I left one of my bags at the store. No cheese or tea for me.

Thursday. 10am my phone goes off with an emergency alert. The govoner has grown a spine in light of recent elections and is instituting a voluntary lock down. My state has 500 new cases a day. That might not sound like a lot but theres only 300,000 people in Alaska and we've got poor medical infrastructure.

Unfortunately Alaska is full of Alaskans and nobody can tell us what to do. Nothing changes. 7pm rolls around and I'm teaching scuba classes in the pool.

I load a few hundred pounds of scuba gear into the back of my truck. In a wet wetsuit. In the snow. In a fabric facemask. 6 feet apart. In the pool.

I dont get paid for pool time.

Over the summer we had 6 dive masters including me, all big burly dudes, much better suited to picking things up. Its November and I'm the only one.

The kids I'm teaching are going to Hawaii. They're 10 and 13 and so wildly excited about breathing underwater its beautiful to watch. And they're traveling to an island. In a pandemic.

Friday.

Unload scuba gear so it doesnt get stolen out of the back of my truck while I'm at class. Were doing a make up lab today. Hey of the five student in my class only one of us has covid so theres that.

My boss calls an let's me know that shes left for Valdez without me. If I'd like to make an 8 hour drive by myself in a snowstorm I'm welcome to follow.

I'm in class till an hour before shop closing. I'm not driving across town so I can run on the open sign for half an hour.

The shop stays closed on Friday.

Saturday.

I explained to everyone we had business with that the shop would be closed over the weekend and Friday. I planned on being in Valdez. Hell I canceled plans to be in Valdez.

I open the shop and immediately field calls about why we werent open. I start to explain about the Valdez trip and logistical difficulties and then I realize that shes not mad about that. The woman was here before I opened early this morning. We have never been open that early. The hours are on the door.

A regular comes in. Hes also confused as to why I'm here.

Sunday finds me curled up in bed, reluctant to leave. Getting out of bed has not played out well for me recently.

A friend comes over to chat with my partner about specialist rifle parts. This isnt that wierd, he works at a gun shop and they've been discussing upgrading my partners current rifle set up.

He is wearing a full Scottish kilt. Red tartan. Looks very lovely.

I make zucchini bread and my proportions are a little off because I have too much zucchini so it's a little over moist but it's good. I'm recovering from an asskicker of a week and next week will be better.

Monday morning:

Baby brother has covid

Dads getting the results of his rapid test tonight.

Mom isnt getting tested because she says she doesnt have symptoms but that's not the fucking point mom.

So, I'm not going home for thanksgiving. I'm not diving in Valdez. I'm not skiing backcountry.

I'm not sick. I'm not flat broke yet. I dont have a ticket. I have a job. I have people who care about me. Im managing my physical and mental health as best I can. Im just fucking exhausted.

[garbage-empress]

if i could date & kiss anyone it would be the Tunguska event was a large explosion that occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Yeniseysk Governorate (now Krasnoyarsk Krai), Russia, on the morning of 30 June 1908 (NS).[1][2] The explosion over the sparsely populated Eastern Siberian Taiga flattened 2,000 square kilometres (770 square miles) of forest, and may have caused up to three human casualties.[3] The explosion is generally attributed to the air burst of a meteoroid. It is classified as an impact event, even though no impact crater has been found; the object is thought to have disintegrated at an altitude of 5 to 10 kilometres (3 to 6 miles) rather than to have hit the surface of the Earth.[4] The Tunguska event is the largest impact event on Earth in recorded history, but there have been larger impacts during prehistoric times. Studies have yielded different estimates of the meteoroid's size, on the order of 50 to 190 metres (160 to 620 feet), depending on whether the body entered with a low or high speed.[5] Since the 1908 event, there have been an estimated 1,000 scholarly papers (most in Russian) published on the Tunguska explosion. In 2013, a team of researchers published analysis results of micro-samples from a peat bog near the center of the affected area showing fragments that may be of meteoritic origin.[6][7] Early estimates of the energy of the air burst ranged from 10–15 megatons of TNT (42–63 petajoules) to 30 megatons of TNT (130 PJ),[8] depending on the exact height of burst estimated when the scaling laws from the effects of nuclear weapons are employed.[8][9] More recent calculations that include the effect of the object's momentum find that more of the energy was focused downward than would be the case from a nuclear explosion and estimate that the airburst had an energy range from 3 to 5 megatons of TNT (13 to 21 PJ).[9] A 2019 paper suggests the explosive power may have been around 20–30 megatons.[10] The 15-megaton (Mt) estimate represents an energy about 1,000 times greater than that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan—roughly equal to that of the United States' Castle Bravo (15.2 Mt) nuclear test in 1954, and about one-third that of the Soviet Union's Tsar Bomba explosion in 1961.[11] It is estimated that the Tunguska explosion knocked down 80 million trees over an area of 2,150 km2 (830 sq mi), and that the shock wave from the blast would have measured 5.0 on the Richter magnitude scale. An explosion of this magnitude would be capable of destroying a large metropolitan area.[12] Eyewitness reports indicate that at least three people may have died in the event.[13][14][15][16][3] The Tunguska event has helped to spark discussion of asteroid impact avoidance. Contents 1 Description 2 Investigations 3 Earth impactor model 4 Geophysical hypotheses 5 Similar events 6 In popular culture 7 See also 8 References 9 External links 1.1 Selected eyewitness reports 3.1 Asteroid air burst 3.2 Blast patterns 3.3 Asteroid or comet 3.4 Lake Cheko Description  Trees knocked over by the Tunguska blast. Photograph from the Soviet Academy of Science 1927 expedition led by Leonid Kulik. On 30 June 1908 (cited in Russia as 17 Jun 1908, Julian Calendar, prior to implementation of the Soviet calendar in 1918), at around 07:17 local time, Evenki natives and Russian settlers in the hills north-west of Lake Baikal observed a column of bluish light, nearly as bright as the Sun, moving across the sky. About ten minutes later, there was a flash and a sound similar to artillery fire. Eyewitnesses closer to the explosion reported that the source of the sound moved from the east to the north of them. The sounds were accompanied by a shock wave that knocked people off their feet and broke windows hundreds of kilometres away. The explosion registered at seismic stations across Eurasia, and air waves from the blast were detected in Germany, Denmark, Croatia, the United Kingdom, and as far away as Batavia and Washington, D.C.[17] It is estimated that, in some places, the resulting shock wave was equivalent to an earthquake measuring 5.0 on the Richter magnitude scale.[18] Over the next few days night skies in Asia and Europe were aglow,[19] with contemporaneous reports of photographs being successfully taken at midnight in Sweden and Scotland.[17] It has been theorized that this effect was due to light passing through high-altitude ice particles that had formed at extremely low temperatures—a phenomenon that many years later was produced by space shuttles.[20][21] In the United States, a Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory program at the Mount Wilson Observatory observed a months-long decrease in atmospheric transparency consistent with an increase in suspended dust particles.[22] Selected eyewitness reports  Topi Tunguski, around the area where it fell. This photo is from the magazine Around the World, 1931. The original photo was taken between 1927 and 1930 (presumably, no later than 14 September 1930). Testimony of S. Semenov, as recorded by Leonid Kulik's expedition in 1930:[23] At breakfast time I was sitting by the house at Vanavara Trading Post [65 kilometres/40 miles south of the explosion], facing north. […] I suddenly saw that directly to the north, over Onkoul's Tunguska Road, the sky split in two and fire appeared high and wide over the forest [as Semenov showed, about 50 degrees up—expedition note]. The split in the sky grew larger, and the entire northern side was covered with fire. At that moment I became so hot that I couldn't bear it as if my shirt was on fire; from the northern side, where the fire was, came strong heat. I wanted to tear off my shirt and throw it down, but then the sky shut closed, and a strong thump sounded, and I was thrown a few metres. I lost my senses for a moment, but then my wife ran out and led me to the house. After that such noise came, as if rocks were falling or cannons were firing, the Earth shook, and when I was on the ground, I pressed my head down, fearing rocks would smash it. When the sky opened up, hot wind raced between the houses, like from cannons, which left traces in the ground like pathways, and it damaged some crops. Later we saw that many windows were shattered, and in the barn, a part of the iron lock snapped. Testimony of Chuchan of Shanyagir tribe, as recorded by I. M. Suslov in 1926:[24] We had a hut by the river with my brother Chekaren. We were sleeping. Suddenly we both woke up at the same time. Somebody shoved us. We heard whistling and felt strong wind. Chekaren said, 'Can you hear all those birds flying overhead?' We were both in the hut, couldn't see what was going on outside. Suddenly, I got shoved again, this time so hard I fell into the fire. I got scared. Chekaren got scared too. We started crying out for father, mother, brother, but no one answered. There was noise beyond the hut, we could hear trees falling down. Chekaren and I got out of our sleeping bags and wanted to run out, but then the thunder struck. This was the first thunder. The Earth began to move and rock, the wind hit our hut and knocked it over. My body was pushed down by sticks, but my head was in the clear. Then I saw a wonder: trees were falling, the branches were on fire, it became mighty bright, how can I say this, as if there was a second sun, my eyes were hurting, I even closed them. It was like what the Russians call lightning. And immediately there was a loud thunderclap. This was the second thunder. The morning was sunny, there were no clouds, our Sun was shining brightly as usual, and suddenly there came a second one! Chekaren and I had some difficulty getting out from under the remains of our hut. Then we saw that above, but in a different place, there was another flash, and loud thunder came. This was the third thunder strike. Wind came again, knocked us off our feet, struck the fallen trees. We looked at the fallen trees, watched the tree tops get snapped off, watched the fires. Suddenly Chekaren yelled "Look up" and pointed with his hand. I looked there and saw another flash, and it made another thunder. But the noise was less than before. This was the fourth strike, like normal thunder. Now I remember well there was also one more thunder strike, but it was small, and somewhere far away, where the Sun goes to sleep. Sibir newspaper, 2 July 1908:[25] On the morning of 17th of June,[26] around 9:00, we observed an unusual natural occurrence. In the north Karelinski village [200 verst (213 km (132 mi)) north of Kirensk] the peasants saw to the northwest, rather high above the horizon, some strangely bright (impossible to look at) bluish-white heavenly body, which for 10 minutes moved downwards. The body appeared as a "pipe", i.e., a cylinder. The sky was cloudless, only a small dark cloud was observed in the general direction of the bright body. It was hot and dry. As the body neared the ground (forest), the bright body seemed to smudge, and then turned into a giant billow of black smoke, and a loud knocking (not thunder) was heard as if large stones were falling, or artillery was fired. All buildings shook. At the same time the cloud began emitting flames of uncertain shapes. All villagers were stricken with panic and took to the streets, women cried, thinking it was the end of the world. The author of these lines was meantime in the forest about 6 versts [6.4 km] north of Kirensk and heard to the north east some kind of artillery barrage, that repeated in intervals of 15 minutes at least 10 times. In Kirensk in a few buildings in the walls facing north-east window glass shook. Siberian Life newspaper, 27 July 1908:[27] When the meteorite fell, strong tremors in the ground were observed, and near the Lovat village of the Kansk uezd two strong explosions were heard, as if from large-calibre artillery. Krasnoyaretz newspaper, 13 July 1908:[28] Kezhemskoe village. On the 17th an unusual atmospheric event was observed. At 7:43 the noise akin to a strong wind was heard. Immediately afterward a horrific thump sounded, followed by an earthquake that literally shook the buildings as if they were hit by a large log or a heavy rock. The first thump was followed by a second, and then a third. Then the interval between the first and the third thumps was accompanied by an unusual underground rattle, similar to a railway upon which dozens of trains are travelling at the same time. Afterward, for 5 to 6 minutes an exact likeness of artillery fire was heard: 50 to 60 salvoes in short, equal intervals, which got progressively weaker. After 1.5–2 minutes after one of the "barrages" six more thumps were heard, like cannon firing, but individual, loud and accompanied by tremors. The sky, at the first sight, appeared to be clear. There was no wind and no clouds. Upon closer inspection to the north, i.e. where most of the thumps were heard, a kind of an ashen cloud was seen near the horizon, which kept getting smaller and more transparent and possibly by around 2–3 p.m. completely disappeared.  Tunguska's trajectory and the locations of five villages projected onto a plane normal to the Earth's surface and passing through the fireball's approach path. The scale is given by an adopted beginning height of 100 km. Three zenith angles ZR of the apparent radiant are assumed and the trajectories plotted by the solid, dashed, and dotted lines, respectively. The parenthesized data are the distances of the locations from the plane of projection: a plus sign indicates the location is south-south west of the plane; a minus sign, north-north east of it. The transliteration of the village names in this figure and the text is consistent with that of Paper I and differs somewhat from the transliteration in the current world atlases. InvestigationsIt was more than a decade after the event before any scientific analysis of the region took place, in part due to the isolation of the area. In 1921, the Russian mineralogist Leonid Kulik led a team to the Podkamennaya Tunguska River basin to conduct a survey for the Soviet Academy of Sciences.[29] Although they never visited the central blast area, the many local accounts of the event led Kulik to believe that the explosion had been caused by a giant meteorite impact. Upon returning, he persuaded the Soviet government to fund an expedition to the suspected impact zone, based on the prospect of salvaging meteoric iron.[30]  Photograph from Kulik's 1929 expedition taken near the Hushmo River Kulik led a scientific expedition to the Tunguska blast site in 1927. He hired local Evenki hunters to guide them to the centre of the blast area, where they expected to find an impact crater. To their surprise, there was no crater to be found at ground zero. Instead they found a zone, roughly 8 kilometres (5.0 miles) across, where the trees were scorched and devoid of branches, but still standing upright.[30] The trees farther away had been partly scorched and knocked down in a direction away from the center. In the 1960s, it was established that the zone of levelled forest occupied an area of 2,150 km2 (830 sq mi), its shape resembling a gigantic spread-eagled butterfly with a "wingspan" of 70 km (43 mi) and a "body length" of 55 km (34 mi).[31] Upon closer examination, Kulik located holes that he erroneously concluded were meteorite holes; he did not have the means at that time to excavate the holes. During the next ten years there were three more expeditions to the area. Kulik found several dozens of little "pothole" bogs, each 10 to 50 metres (33 to 164 feet) in diameter, that he thought might be meteoric craters. After a laborious exercise in draining one of these bogs (the so-called "Suslov's crater", 32 m (105 ft) in diameter), he found an old stump on the bottom, ruling out the possibility that it was a meteoric crater. In 1938, Kulik arranged for an aerial photographic survey of the area[32] covering the central part of the levelled forest (250 square kilometres (97 sq mi)).[33] The negatives of these aerial photographs (1,500 negatives, each 18 by 18 centimetres (7.1 by 7.1 inches)) were burned in 1975 by order of Yevgeny Krinov, then Chairman of the Committee on Meteorites of the USSR Academy of Sciences, as part of an initiative to dispose of hazardous nitrate film.[33] Positive prints were preserved for further study in the Russian city of Tomsk.[34] Expeditions sent to the area in the 1950s and 1960s found microscopic silicate and magnetite spheres in siftings of the soil. Similar spheres were predicted to exist in the felled trees, although they could not be detected by contemporary means. Later expeditions did identify such spheres in the resin of the trees. Chemical analysis showed that the spheres contained high proportions of nickel relative to iron, which is also found in meteorites, leading to the conclusion they were of extraterrestrial origin. The concentration of the spheres in different regions of the soil was also found to be consistent with the expected distribution of debris from a meteoroid air burst.[35] Later studies of the spheres found unusual ratios of numerous other metals relative to the surrounding environment, which was taken as further evidence of their extraterrestrial origin.[36] Chemical analysis of peat bogs from the area also revealed numerous anomalies considered consistent with an impact event. The isotopic signatures of carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen at the layer of the bogs corresponding to 1908 were found to be inconsistent with the isotopic ratios measured in the adjacent layers, and this abnormality was not found in bogs located outside the area. The region of the bogs showing these anomalous signatures also contains an unusually high proportion of iridium, similar to the iridium layer found in the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary. These unusual proportions are believed to result from debris from the falling body that deposited in the bogs. The nitrogen is believed to have been deposited as acid rain, a suspected fallout from the explosion.[36][37][38] Researcher John Anfinogenov has suggested that a boulder found at the event site, known as John's stone, is a remnant of the meteorite,[39] but oxygen isotope analysis of the quartzite suggests that it is of hydrothermal origin, and probably related to Permian-Triassic Siberian Traps magmatism.[40] Earth impactor modelAsteroid air burst  Comparison of possible sizes of Tunguska (TM mark) and Chelyabinsk meteoroids to Eiffel Tower and Empire State Building. The leading scientific explanation for the explosion is the air burst of an asteroid 6–10 km (4–6 mi) above Earth's surface. Meteoroids enter Earth's atmosphere from outer space every day, travelling at a speed of at least 11 km/s (7 mi/s). The heat generated by compression of air in front of the body (ram pressure) as it travels through the atmosphere is immense and most meteoroids burn up or explode before they reach the ground. Since the second half of the 20th century, close monitoring of Earth's atmosphere through infrasound and satellite observation has shown that asteroid air bursts with energies comparable to those of nuclear weapons routinely occur, although Tunguska-sized 5-15 megaton[41] events are much rarer. Eugene Shoemaker estimated that 20 kiloton events occur annually and that Tunguska sized events occur about once every 300 years.[8][42] More recent estimates place Tunguska-sized events at about once every thousand years, with 5 kiloton air bursts averaging about once per year.[43] Most of these air bursts are thought to be caused by asteroid impactors as opposed to mechanically weaker cometary materials based on their typical penetration depths into the Earth's atmosphere.[43] The largest asteroid air burst to be observed with modern instrumentation was the 500-kiloton Chelyabinsk meteor of 2013, which shattered windows and produced meteorites.[41] Blast patternsThe explosion's effect on the trees near the hypocentre of the explosion was similar to the effects of the conventional Operation Blowdown. These effects are caused by the blast wave produced by large airburst explosions. The trees directly below the explosion are stripped as the blast wave moves vertically downward, while trees farther away are knocked over because the blast wave is travelling closer to horizontal when it reaches them. Soviet experiments performed in the mid-1960s, with model forests (made of matches on wire stakes) and small explosive charges slid downward on wires, produced butterfly-shaped blast patterns similar to the pattern found at the Tunguska site. The experiments suggested that the object had approached at an angle of roughly 30 degrees from the ground and 115 degrees from north and had exploded in mid-air.[44] Asteroid or cometIn 1930, the British astronomer F. J. W. Whipple suggested that the Tunguska body was a small comet. A comet is composed of dust and volatiles, such as water ice and frozen gases, and could have been completely vaporised by the impact with Earth's atmosphere, leaving no obvious traces. The comet hypothesis was further supported by the glowing skies (or "skyglows" or "bright nights") observed across Europe for several evenings after the impact, possibly explained by dust and ice that had been dispersed from the comet's tail across the upper atmosphere.[8] The cometary hypothesis gained a general acceptance amongst Soviet Tunguska investigators by the 1960s.[8] In 1978, Slovak astronomer Ľubor Kresák suggested that the body was a fragment of Comet Encke. This is a periodic comet with an extremely short period of 3 years that stays entirely within the orbit of Jupiter. It is also responsible for the Beta Taurids, an annual meteor shower with a maximum activity around 28–29 June. The Tunguska event coincided with the peak activity of that shower,[45] and the approximate trajectory of the Tunguska object is consistent with what would be expected from a fragment of Comet Encke.[8] It is now known that bodies of this kind explode at frequent intervals tens to hundreds of kilometres above the ground. Military satellites have been observing these explosions for decades.[46] During 2019 astronomers searched for hypothesized asteroids ~100 metres in diameter from the Taurid swarm between 5–11 July, and 21 July – 10 August.[47] However, as of December 2019 there have been no reports of discoveries of any such objects. In 1983, astronomer Zdeněk Sekanina published a paper criticising the comet hypothesis. He pointed out that a body composed of cometary material, travelling through the atmosphere along such a shallow trajectory, ought to have disintegrated, whereas the Tunguska body apparently remained intact into the lower atmosphere. Sekanina argued that the evidence pointed to a dense, rocky object, probably of asteroidal origin. This hypothesis was further boosted in 2001, when Farinella, Foschini, et al. released a study calculating the probabilities based on orbital modelling extracted from the atmospheric trajectories of the Tunguska object. They concluded with a probability of 83% that the object moved on an asteroidal path originating from the asteroid belt, rather than on a cometary one (probability of 17%).[1] Proponents of the comet hypothesis have suggested that the object was an extinct comet with a stony mantle that allowed it to penetrate the atmosphere. The chief difficulty in the asteroid hypothesis is that a stony object should have produced a large crater where it struck the ground, but no such crater has been found. It has been hypothesised that the passage of the asteroid through the atmosphere caused pressures and temperatures to build up to a point where the asteroid abruptly disintegrated in a huge explosion. The destruction would have to have been so complete that no remnants of substantial size survived, and the material scattered into the upper atmosphere during the explosion would have caused the skyglows. Models published in 1993 suggested that the stony body would have been about 60 metres (200 ft) across, with physical properties somewhere between an ordinary chondrite and a carbonaceous chondrite.[citation needed] Typical carbonaceous chondrite substance tends to be dissolved with water rather quickly unless it is frozen.[48] Christopher Chyba and others have proposed a process whereby a stony meteorite could have exhibited the behaviour of the Tunguska impactor. Their models show that when the forces opposing a body's descent become greater than the cohesive force holding it together, it blows apart, releasing nearly all its energy at once. The result is no crater, with damage distributed over a fairly wide radius, and all of the damage resulting from the thermal energy released in the blast. Three-dimensional numerical modelling of the Tunguska impact done by Utyuzhnikov and Rudenko in 2008[49] supports the comet hypothesis. According to their results, the comet matter dispersed in the atmosphere, while the destruction of the forest was caused by the shock wave. During the 1990s, Italian researchers, coordinated by the physicist Giuseppe Longo from University of Bologna, extracted resin from the core of the trees in the area of impact to examine trapped particles that were present during the 1908 event. They found high levels of material commonly found in rocky asteroids and rarely found in comets.[50][51] Kelly et al. (2009) contend that the impact was caused by a comet because of the sightings of noctilucent clouds following the impact, a phenomenon caused by massive amounts of water vapor in the upper atmosphere. They compared the noctilucent cloud phenomenon to the exhaust plume from NASA's Endeavour space shuttle.[52][53] In 2013, analysis of fragments from the Tunguska site by a joint US-European team was consistent with an iron meteorite.[54] The February 2013 Chelyabinsk bolide event provided ample data for scientists to create new models for the Tunguska event. Researchers used data from both Tunguska and Chelyabinsk to perform a statistical study of over 50 million combinations of bolide and entry properties that could produce Tunguska-scale damage when breaking apart or exploding at similar altitudes. Some models focused on combinations of properties which created scenarios which similar effects to the tree fall pattern as well as the atmospheric and seismic pressure waves of Tunguska. Four different computer models produced similar results; they concluded that the likeliest candidate for the Tunguska impactor was a stony body between 50 and 80 m (164 and 262 ft) in diameter, entering the atmosphere at roughly 55,000 km/h (34,000 mph), exploding at 10 to 14 km (6 to 9 mi) altitude, and releasing explosive energy equivalent to between 10 and 30 megatons. This is similar to the blast energy equivalent of the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption. The researchers also concluded impactors of this size only hit the Earth at an average interval scale of millennia.[55] Lake ChekoSee also: Lake ChekoIn June 2007, scientists from the University of Bologna identified a lake in the Tunguska region as a possible impact crater from the event. They do not dispute that the Tunguska body exploded in mid-air but believe that a ten-metre fragment survived the explosion and struck the ground. Lake Cheko is a small, bowl-shaped lake approximately 8 km (5.0 mi) north-northwest of the hypocentre.[56] The hypothesis has been disputed by other impact crater specialists.[57] A 1961 investigation had dismissed a modern origin of Lake Cheko, saying that the presence of metres-thick silt deposits at the lake's bed suggests an age of at least 5,000 years,[35] but more recent research suggests that only a metre or so of the sediment layer on the lake bed is "normal lacustrine sedimentation", a depth consistent with an age of about 100 years.[58] Acoustic-echo soundings of the lake floor provide support for the hypothesis that the lake was formed by the Tunguska event. The soundings revealed a conical shape for the lake bed, which is consistent with an impact crater.[59] Magnetic readings indicate a possible metre-sized chunk of rock below the lake's deepest point that may be a fragment of the colliding body.[59] Finally, the lake's long axis points to the hypocentre of the Tunguska explosion, about 7.0 km (4.3 mi) away.[59] Work is still being done at Lake Cheko to determine its origins.[60] The main points of the study are that Cheko, a small lake located in Siberia close to the epicentre of the 1908 Tunguska explosion, might fill a crater left by the impact of a fragment of a cosmic body. Sediment cores from the lake's bottom were studied to support or reject this hypothesis. A 175-centimetre-long (69 in) core, collected near the center of the lake, consists of an upper c. 1-metre-thick (39 in) sequence of lacustrine deposits overlaying coarser chaotic material. 210Pb and 137Cs indicate that the transition from lower to upper sequence occurred close to the time of the Tunguska event. Pollen analysis reveals that remains of aquatic plants are abundant in the top post-1908 sequence but are absent in the lower pre-1908 portion of the core. These results, including organic C, N and δ13C data, suggest that Lake Cheko formed at the time of the Tunguska event.[61] In 2017, new research by Russian scientists pointed to a rejection of the theory. They used soil research to prove that the lake is 280 years old or even much older; in any case clearly older than the Tunguska events.[62][63] Geophysical hypothesesThe scientific consensus is that the explosion was caused by the impact of a small asteroid, but there are some dissenters. Astrophysicist Wolfgang Kundt has proposed that the Tunguska event was caused by the release and subsequent explosion of 10 million tons of natural gas from within Earth's crust.[64][65][66][67][68] The basic idea is that natural gas leaked out of the crust and then rose to its equal-density height in the atmosphere; from there, it drifted downwind, in a sort of wick, which eventually found an ignition source such as lightning. Once the gas was ignited, the fire streaked along the wick, and then down to the source of the leak in the ground, whereupon there was the explosion. The similar verneshot hypothesis has also been proposed as a possible cause of the Tunguska event.[69][70][71] Other research has supported a geophysical mechanism for the event.[72][73][74] Similar eventsSee also: Fireball (meteor) and List of meteor air burstsThe Tunguska event is not the only example of a great unobserved explosion event. For example, the 1930 Curuçá River event in Brazil may have been an explosion of a superbolide that left no clear evidence of an impact crater. Modern developments in infrasound detection by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization and infrared DSP satellite technology have reduced the likelihood of undetected airbursts. A smaller air burst occurred over a populated area in Russia on 15 February 2013, at Chelyabinsk in the Ural district of Russia. The exploding meteoroid was an asteroid that measured about 17 to 20 metres across, with an estimated initial mass of 11,000 tonnes and which exploded with an energy release of approximately 500 kilotons.[55] It inflicted over 1,200 injuries, mainly from broken glass falling from windows shattered by its shock wave.[75] In popular cultureMain article: Tunguska event in popular cultureSee alsoPatomskiy crater, about 830 km (515 mi) to the east-southeast Sikhote-Alin meteorite, 1947 impact Tunguska Nature Reserve, protected area covering a portion of the site; ongoing scientific study of forest recovery Tall el-Hammam, a Middle Bronze Age site that one archaeological team has proposed was destroyed by an airburst

[just-dreaming-marvel]

FORTY THREE - THE ACCORDS

LEGACY: A Tony Stark Daughter Story

MASTERLIST

< previous

Word Count: 2,250ish

Summary: The Team learns about the Accords.

 “Five years ago, I had a heart attack. I dropped right in the middle of my backswing. Turned out it was the best round of my life, because after 13 hours of surgery and a triple bypass… I found something 40 years in the Army had never taught me: Perspective. The world owes the Avengers an unpayable debt. You have fought for us, protected us, risked your lives… but while a great many people see you as heroes, there are some… who would prefer the word ‘vigilantes’.” Secretary Ross stated.

“And what word would you use, Mr. Secretary?” Natasha cut in, snarkily.

“How about ‘dangerous'? What would you call a group of US-based, enhanced individuals who routinely ignore sovereign borders and inflict their will wherever they choose and who, frankly, seem unconcerned about what they leave behind?” Secretary Ross said, activating the screen behind him. It started playing news reels from past Avengers and SHIELD matters. “New York.”  The Chitauri invasion. “Washington DC.” When SHIELD fell. 

“Sokovia.” Ultron, I shuddered. “Lagos.” Their most recent mission. I could tell Wanda wasn’t taking all this well.

“Okay,” Steve said, obviously noticing Wanda reaction as well. “That’s enough.” Ross turned off the screen. 

“For the past four years, you've operated with unlimited power and no supervision. That's an arrangement the governments of the world can no longer tolerate. But I think we have a solution.” Ross said and he threw a thick book on the table. “The Sokovia Accords. Approved by 117 countries… it states that the Avengers shall no longer be a private organization. Instead, they'll operate under the supervision of a United Nations panel, only when and if that panel deems it necessary. The Accords will also require anyone who is enhanced to be put on a registry.” Ross stated.

“Like me?” Wanda wondered, “Like Bailey?” She glanced at Tony, who refused to look at her. “We’d be put on a list so that you can watch our every move? Maybe even experiment on us?”

“No it’s not like that. It’s—“ Ross paused. “Wait a minute. Who the hell is Bailey?” Ross quickly glared at Tony. “Are you hiding enhanced people here?” Tony sat there, staring at the ground, not saying a word. I waited for him to defend me or something. But nothing happened. So Steve quickly chimed in. 

“No. Bailey is someone we were thinking about recruiting. She’s not unofficial member of the team and she’s not enhanced.” Phew, at least Steve has my back. I felt bad that he had to lie though, and I immediately felt that Ross hadn’t fully believed him. He changed the subject quickly. “The Avengers were formed to make the world a safer place. I feel we’ve done that.”

“Tell me, Captain, do you know where Thor and Banner are right now?” Steve merely looked at Ross, unable to answer the question. Thor was probably on Asgard and no one had seen or heard from Bruce since Sokovia, a year ago. “If I misplaced a couple of 30 megaton nukes, you can bet there’d be consequences. Compromise. Reassurance. That’s how the world works. Believe me, this is the middle ground.”

“So, there are contingencies,” Rhodey spoke up. 

“Three days from now, the UN meets in Vienna to ratify the Accords.” I noticed Steve and Tony briefly make eye contact and Tony quickly look back down. That floor must be really interesting, interesting enough for a man who never shuts up to stop talking. 

 “Talk it over,” Ross continued.

“And if we come to a decision you don’t like?” Nat asked.

“Then you retire.” Ross answered. Everyone kinda glanced at each other. “Let me know what you guys decide.” And with that, Ross left. 

I sat in the security room watching, waiting for Tony to speak up. But nothing. He just got up and walked out. I switched the cameras so that I could see where he was going. He went to the main gathering area, took off his jacket and tie and then laid down on the couch. Everyone else slowly followed. Sam and Rhodey were bickering back and forth about the Accords while Steve had grabbed the Accords themselves and was looking through them. They listened to Sam and Rhodey go at it for a while until Vision spoke up.

“I have an equation,” Vision stated.

“Oh, this will clear it up.” Sam grumbled sarcastically. 

“In the six years since Mr. Stark announced himself as Iron Man,” Vision started, “the number of known enhanced persons has grown exponentially. And during the same period, the number of potentially world-ending events has risen at a commensurate rate.”

“Are you saying it’s our fault?” Steve questioned, as he looked up from the Accords.

“I’m saying there may be a causality,” Vision answered. “Our very strength invites challenge. Challenge incites conflict. And conflict… breeds catastrophe. Oversight… Oversight is not an idea that can be dismissed out of hand.”

“Boom,” Rhodey said.

“Tony…” Nat said. “You’re uncharacteristically non-hyperverbal.” Tony moved his hand off from over his face and looked at Nat. She was right. He’s always very open about his opinion. Something was definitely off if he was keeping his mouth shut.

“It’s because he’s already made up his mind.” Steve stated.

“Boy, you know me so well,” Tony said sarcastically. Tony stood up and walked into the kitchen, he rubbed the back of his head as he went. “Actually, I’m nursing an electromagnetic headache.” He opened a cabinet and grabbed a mug. “That’s what’s going on, Cap. It’s just pain. It’s discomfort.” Tony looked into the sink. “Who’s putting coffee grounds in the disposal? Am I running a bed-and-breakfast for a biker gang?” 

Oops, that was me. I quickly mad a mental note that I needed to stop doing that. He tried to causally pull up a holographic image on his phone. 

“Oh, that’s Charles Spencer by the way,” Tony continued. “He’s a great kid. Computer engineering degree. 3.6 GPA. Had a floor-level gig at Intel planned for the fall. But first, he wanted to put a few miles on his soul, before he parked it behind a desk. See the world, maybe be of service. Charlie didn’t want to go to Vegas or Fort Lauderdale, which is what I would do. He didn’t go to Paris or Amsterdam, which sounds fun. He decided to spend his summer, building sustainable housing for the poor. Guess where, Sokovia.” I could feel the emotional shift in the room from where I was. “He wanted to make a difference, I suppose. I mean, we won’t know because we dropped a building on him while we were kicking ass.” Tony threw some pills in his mouth and took a drink before continuing. “There’s no decision-making process here. We need to be put in check! Whatever form that takes, I’m game. If we can’t accept limitations, we’re boundary less, we’re no better than the bad guys.” 

“Tony, someone dies on your watch, you don’t give up,” Steve stated.

“Who said we’re giving up?” Tony questioned. 

“We are, if we’re not taking responsibility for our actions. This document just shifts the blame.”

“Sorry,” Rhodey interrupted, “Steve, that, that is dangerously arrogant. This is the United Nations we’re talking about. It’s not the World Security Council, it’s not SHIELD, it’s not HYDRA.” 

“No, but it’s run by people with agendas and agents change,” Steve stated.

“That’s good. That’s why I’m here. When I realized what my weapons were capable of in the wrong hands, I shut it down and stopped manufacturing them,” Tony said back. 

“Tony. You chose to do that. If we sign these, we surrender our right to choose. What if this panel sends us somewhere we don’t think we should go? What if there’s somewhere we need to go, and they don’t let us? We may not be perfect, but the safest hands are still our own.” 

“If we don’t do this now, it’s gonna be done to us later. That’s a fact. That won’t be pretty.”

“You’re saying they’ll come for me… for Bailey.” Wanda whispered.

“We’ll protect you,” Vision promised, looking at Wanda. I sensed him caring, but in a different way than I had ever felt from the android. A way that shouldn’t have been possible. It was almost… human. “Both of you."

“Do want them to be taken away, Tony?” Steve stood up to face Tony. “Do you want Bailey to be taken away?” I could feel Steve’s emotions acutely as he asked those questions. He was terrified that the government really would take me away and worried that Tony was willing to take that chance. 

“Don’t bring her into this!” Tony slapped the counter top. “She’s different, she’s not a part of this. She’s not an official member of the team and they don’t even know about her.”

“She is apart of this, Tony! She’s trained, gone on missions. She’s enhanced! Do you want them to know what powers she has? If they find out that she has healing abilities, they would run tests on her to create some sort of super drug! And then there’s her super strength and what about her—”

“You don’t think I know that?! I have thought about every possibility! I have…” Tony looked up at Steve, the glimmer of tears in his eyes was obvious. “She is all I think about. She is the reason I am doing this. Bailey is the reason I do anything. She is my kid! And no one here has a say about what happens to her except me!”

I burst into tears as I sat there listening to everything that was being said. I shook my head and ran out of the security room, down the stairs, and out the back doors. I went straight to the facility fence line, collapsing against it as I continued to cry. When Tony first found me, I was being tested on. When my parents and others found out about my abilities, I was sought out for. My parents were paid a lot of money to sell me to, what we now know was, HYDRA. I was 4 years old when I was sold, just 4 years old. Kept in a cage, poked and cut open, blood drawn. Then I was kidnapped. Now, the government could put me on a list and could possibly do the same things that HYDRA had done to me. I agree that the Avengers need to be put in check, but not at the risk of those who are enhanced. 

While I was crying across the compound grounds, things were still heated inside.

“I signed the Accords to protect her,” Tony continued. “To protect all of us.”

“Steve, maybe Tony’s right,” Nat suggested. “If we have one hand on the wheel we can still steer.”

“Aren’t you the same woman who told the government to kiss her ass a few years ago?” Sam asked. 

“I’m just raiding the terrain,” Natasha answered. “We’ve made some very public mistakes, we need to win their trust back.”

“I’m sorry,” Tony interrupted, the hint of surprise in his voice, “Did I just miss hear you or did you just say that you agree with me?” 

“Oh, I want to take it back—“ Nat quickly shook her head. 

“No no no,” Tony said, as he shook his finger. “You can’t retracted it.” 

Natasha looked at everyone around the room. They were all tense. She knew that continuing this conversation would get them no where. Especially with Tony and Steve going at each other about me. It frustrated her that Tony didn’t know what was going on between Steve and I. But she understood that it needed to be kept a secret from Tony for now.

“I think we need to take a break and rethink things. We can talk about this once we all have cool heads,” Nat suggested.

Tony marched out, immediately in search of me since he hadn’t seen me in weeks. Steve sat down and put his face in his hands. Nat went over and put her hand on his back. She glanced at everyone else in the room. They all got the hint and then left. 

“You can’t be serious about this Nat,” Steve said, once everyone else was gone. 

 “They’re going to put them on a list. They’re going to put her on a list. I can’t—“ He took in a harsh breath. “I can’t let that happen. She’s already been through so much, too much. I have to do what I can to prevent more from happening to her.”

“I know you love her Steve, but you have no say in the matter. Tony’s her father and you’re her secret boyfriend. Until it’s out in the open, you’re just going to have to deal with having no say.”

“I know,” he sighed.

“He’s just trying his best.”

“I know.”

“We need to ride this out, see what happens. But you should go talk to her. We both know she heard the whole thing.”

“I can’t be the one to talk to her first. Tony needs to… I’ll just have to pick up the pieces of that conversation.”

next >

[gsquaredweddings]

Gray Bridge Event Venue is one of those locations that feels like it’s on another planet and yet right in town all at the same time.

As you approach the venue, the road is lined with trees that create a natural tunnel. Obviously, I visited in June, but I can just imagine how incredible this must look in the fall when the leaves turn color.

Then, as you walk through the geometric tunnel onto the main part of the grounds, you realize that “hidden gem” is truly what this venue is. From stunning  private ponds complete with fountains (yes plural) – one of which is powered by a natural spring – a ceremony space with amphitheater and dock, and a modern romantically lit reception space that the owners have created specifically with ambiance in mind, this venue has it all. Their getting ready spaces are also designed well, with the bridal suite even set for in-suite boudoir sessions.  There is a trail through the backwoods behind the ceremony pond that they’ve recently re-done with a wooden walkway. The landscaping is impeccable.  When I visited, the iconic bridge was under construction, but should be finished in just a few days.

I definitely plan on visiting again soon and will update this post with photos from that trip, as these were just a few that I took during an engagement session on the property.  Keep an eye out for that update!

Bottom line – if you’re venue hunting in Snohomish County or the Seattle area, add this one to your list.

  FIND GRAY BRIDGE EVENT VENUE ONLINE Website Facebook Instagram Pinterest YouTube WeddingWire

  From Gray Bridge: “Imagine your wedding at the edge of a pond–with a fountain and gray bridge behind you. The forest rises up behind your guests while the Cascade foothills rise up behind you and your partner. You are about to officially begin your lives together in the most beautiful, sophisticated, private, and uniquely-you location you can imagine. Welcome to Gray Bridge.

We want to be a part of the story of your lives together. A little bit of story-book fantasy, a bit of glamour, a lot of nature, and a focus and reflection of you and how special this day is–that is what we are at Gray Bridge. Our venue is unique–like you are–and we strive to Gray Bridge into a space that is unlike any other where your unique specialness and the importance of your commitment together is reflected in a space that is also special and important. Come celebrate with us!

Castle Island In the late 70’s, the Baldridge family purchased 40 acres in Sultan and started building their dream house. The site was pristine: private, full of natural beauty, an ideal setting to raise a family and build a dream. Dick Baldridge was a visionary in how he created his homesite. He located the house so that it is essentially surrounded by a moat. Behind the house is the toe of a hill with the dense forest rising high above, a wetland and stream at the base of the hill lines the rear of the house with water. In front of the homesite, he carved out ponds from some existing depressions, he built a driveway between the ponds and between the ponds and the wetland an island was made. Architect Michael Gemza designed the house for Dick, Lola and their girls Pam and Sue.

Dick Baldridge had a vision and heavy equipment. After he carved out the ponds, he tapped a natural spring about 250 feet up the forested hillside. He built a weir, buried a culvert and collected water bubbling out of the mountainside and sent it into the west pond. The fountain in the west pond is coming from that culvert about 250’ up the hill. The drop pushes the water through the pipe at a continuous rate year round. The water in the ponds is crystal clear because it is continually being circulated from the spring into the west pond, overflows into the east pond, and then into the wetland behind the house. The ponds are about 55 degrees and full of breeding trout, otter, muskrat, seasonal waterfowl, and feeding birds.

We’ve named locations on the property for their original design. The “pool deck” had a huge, deep, and frog-filled swimming pool when we bought the property. The paved area under the tent is “the helipad” where, according to the real estate listing, the property is only 15 minutes by helicopter to Seattle! The area above the amphitheater is the “putting green”. The Baldridge property had a 3 hole golf course where our horse pastures are now located.

We bought the property, now 15 acres, in 2017. It had been sold a few times since the original owner and had been neglected for a number of years. We gutted, cleaned, pruned, planted and painted. We built a barn, filled in the pool, repaired the ponds, patched the driveway, and fell in love with this place. We feel like caretakers of the most beautiful space in the world.

As a wedding venue, we get to share the uniqueness and beauty of our gorgeous setting with wedding couples as they begin their married life together! We want to share our space with others who love the mountain views, the sound of running water, the shade of the forest, and the magnificent architecture and backdrop that makes up the Gray Bridge Venue! Do you want to get married in a place that is sophisticated while full of natural beauty? Do you want a wedding venue that is unique and as special as you are? Are you looking to marry at a place that says “my wedding is important”? Gray Bridge is the place where those memories are made. Please join us!”

  FIND GRAY BRIDGE EVENT VENUE ONLINE Website Facebook Instagram Pinterest YouTube WeddingWire

Venue Review | Gray Bridge Event Venue | Sultan WA Gray Bridge Event Venue is one of those locations that feels like it's on another planet and yet right in town all at the same time.

[mojoflower]

This is the guy that’s been whispering in my brother’s ear for the past 3 years:

[And he wrote all these things in emails to ME, an American woman who’s been a non-working at-home mom for 18 years, apparently entirely unwitting of the irony....  I found these various quotes by searching for the words ‘princess’ and ‘yoga’, lol.]

Feminism, Globalization, picking up the scraps after a stampede of baby boomers...so hard for a guy to make the "American dream" happen. Wall street hijacking Feminism and "equal opportunity" and replacing it with the false promise of absolute equality on all things and narcissism. If everyone thinks they are a buddhist yoga princess, independent and sexually liberated entitled to a degree in art or mass communication, it sells more toasters, cars, and condos on a credit card that returns 12% interest... they get you coming and going.

I am ready to march with a pitchfork, but a big part of me feels like this particular battle [healthcare] is best fought by women. They are the ones with the most to lose;  people need to put down their yoga mat and get rowdy.

I am sure you will enjoy San Francisco if you visit. You might get a sense of the people there that annoy the hell out of me. It's where your spoiled little sister goes to spend her million dollar trust fund. As a man, I just grew so disgusted with women there especially. Millions of men go to make their fortune in IT; and millions of women go to have one of these men take care of her inner child. They are too selfish to have kids of their own early on; a man is supposed to want to pay 100k for in vitro fertilization when they are 40 and are "ready to settle down."  There are the homemakers in the world, the go getters that want to be CEOs and work, and there is this middle 30% that just wants me to send them to Yoga, spas, retreats, trips to Maui, so they can find endless inner bliss. The Koch brothers are waging war on the middle class, globalization is hurting all our standards of living, the women who are working and staying single are making home and rent inflation worse, and still these brats think that somehow I should just have money for this golden life.

The feminism and inflation connection: I just think feminism got hijacked into "independence" instead of the right to choose your husband, job, pregnancy. I think Wall Street and retailers saw an enormous opportunity with the "women's movement." They could sponsor shows like "friends" to drop that seed of "permanent adolescence." They could put the icing on the cake with "Sex and the City" where independent women stay free until they are 40, then marry "Mr. Big."  It's just an impossible dream that women can "have it all." Be free, date yoga teachers, then a billionaire gets puppy love over you at 40. For Wall street, this means, they get to sell two condos, two toasters/microwaves/cars. They ran out of consumers and broke up the family unit to create new customers. So I have to share my job market with the 30% that want to work, but I also have to deal with a shortage of housing from everyone being on their own causing prices to skyrocket for the last two decades. Half the women still expect me to just pay for everything in life, but the other half either want my job or want to live in narcissistic bliss off of someone be it government, sugardaddy, or just me. It is impossible for a white guy anymore, sandwiched between all this. This is why Donald Trump can create a movement. Globalization and exploitation by the richest 1% made life hard enough, but add this derailed feminism turned independence and men just feel sunk. If you are a carpenter, add 20MIL illegal immigrants to the equation. Men feel one reality, and Wall street is marketing a carefree one to women. Lulelemon is a publicly traded company. Women have enormous amounts of student debt, credit card debt, single into their 30s and 40s in California. Basically men are funding the women's movement one way or another, and getting bashed the whole way. For me personally, I'm am trying to save for retirement, health care, homes, kids, while the bar for that middle-class life just runs away from me at three times the speed. And I think, the major culprit for my socio economic class is this permanent adolescence with so many modern women. It is just sucking our resources dry, making things expensive, with nothing returning to society in general. Now, Sheryl Sandberg thinks companies should freeze eggs for young women, pay for invitro later. That's about a 200k investment to make women "equal." Society can't afford it. It's an abomination in the first place, but will double our healthcare costs and suck even more from my buying power . I'm sure she and Zuckerberg own a 20% stake in the biotechs offereing these services, the latest group of startups. The world cannot survive if people are independent. It is clear that God gave us penises and vaginas to pair up and share resources in a family unit. Not even the USA can handle this new demand for resources from this independence, and preaching this message to the other 90% of the world would just be catastrophic.  I pick on women, because among all these forces making life harder, they were supposed to be the group making it better. I feel betrayed by the whole movement.

This is what lead my brother to tell me (me, an American at-home mother) that “American women need to give up the white picket fence dream and realize that they can’t get a free ride anymore and just sit home eating bonbons;  they need to work.”  And then kick his wife of 17 years out of his house and try to keep her from “taking him to the cleaners” by asking for half of the marital assets.

[blueeyesspitfire]

The Tug Hill Challenge

The dogs and I had a hell of a weekend out in the forest! We attended the PSDC’s Tug Hill Challenge race, which is held about 20 minutes north in the Winona State Forest. Here’s the play by play, from what I can remember.

Friday

I took off work to give myself ample time to prepare our gear and the house for the weekend. My sister, Brianna, and her fiancé, Seth made their way up from New Jersey to help me out at the race, so that also meant picking up some groceries and making sure the guest room was tidy. There was also about 3” of snow on the driveway to clear, laundry to wash, and other weekend chores I wouldn’t have time for. Everything got done and we were ready for an anxious night of sleep around midnight. 

Saturday

On day one, conditions were basically perfect for a race. I believe the truck temperature gauge read about -2°F as we made our way to CCC Camp, where the race was being held. I had prepared a giant thermos full of coffee, which I poured out into one of my Best Made camp mugs. Within a few minutes it was frozen solid, so that was a short-lived plan. Thankfully my gear did its job and I stayed mostly warm.

First up was the 8 AM driver’s meeting, where the club went over rules and what to expect out on the trail. I peaked around the room and saw lots of familiar faces, which is really one of the main reasons to attend these races. There aren’t many people doing this weird hobby, especially in the northeast, so it’s invigorating to have others around who are as passionate about the sport as I am. I’m especially grateful for the group of women mushers I’ve found, the support they give one another, and the caliber of care they provide their dogs. Truly an inspiring bunch and I’m honored to call them friends.

After the driver’s meeting, I collected my bib. We were number 30, first out the chute in the 6-dog class. My class (along with 8-dog and skijor) would run a 6.4 mile course each day of the race, the longest trail out of all the classes, but still considered a sprint distance. The class itself was broken up into three other classes: registered breed (purebred dogs with papers), all breed, and sportsman/woman (lower entry fee/no prize money). Five out of my six (Denali, Willow, Blitz, Hubble, and Laika) are registered purebred Siberian Huskies, but Knox is a rescue with no papers, so we ran in all breed. This has pros and cons—we’re up against the super speedy Eurohound mixes, which we really have no chance of beating. However, in this race, there were only three teams in the all breed, so we were guaranteed placement. In total, there were 15 entries between the three classes within 6-dog. A really awesome turnout!

Our chute time was 10:45 AM and it was in the teens, which tends to be my dogs’ favorite temperature. My “handlers” (Brianna and Seth), along with other mushers and spectating friends made sure we got to the starting chute right on time. First out meant we weren’t chasing anybody, but the dogs could definitely smell the previous class and were amped regardless. 

The trail was hard and fast, and the dogs exploded out the chute. I had a professional team of hounds starting a minute behind me, and my first goal was to get the dogs through the first leg of trail (which culminates in a downhill into a sharp turn—right where spectators can see the action) before the other team caught us. It took longer than I anticipated for the hounds to reach us, and when they did, my gang handled the pass very well. The only thing they could’ve improved was moving to the right of the trail a bit more, but they all had good manners as the other dogs made their way by. After the pass, we chased the speedy team a bit, which definitely contributed to the dogs’ speed for the day. I looked down at our speedometer and the dogs were clocking 14-16 MPH for the first four or five miles, which is spectacular for them. 

We got passed by another speedy team, and the dogs were fairly amped up until the last mile or so. We hit a wide trail that was exposed to the sun, and I could tell they were getting warm. Laika got her neckline wrapped around her leg, so I stopped to untangle her, which the team seemed to appreciate and took the opportunity to eat snow. I let them go slow, knowing the last bit of trail had some uphills that they’d need energy for.

By the last half mile, Knox was definitely running out of steam and Denali was trotting, which caused Laika to tangle in her tugline. I let the dogs pause in a shady spot and soaked up the moment with them, knowing in a few minutes they’d be running towards a crowded finish line.

Our first day finish wasn’t the cleanest, as Laika got spooked by the crowd. In her defense, there were kids spilling into the trail that shouldn’t have been there, which caused her to go over the center line and shove Knox over. Despite her shyness, we made it through, into the crowd, and back to the truck without any problems.

We completed the 6.4 mile trail in 27 minutes, 55 seconds on day one. This put us in 7th out of 15 teams, a very respectable run for the gang.

The rest of the day was a blur of helping other mushers, talking to friends who came to spectate, shoveling a hot dog into my face, and tending to the dogs. Later, we met up with a wonderful crew at the Ponderosa for dinner, and reveled in our successful runs.

Sunday

Stepping outside the morning of day two was like stepping into an entirely different season. Temperatures were already nearing 30 degrees before dawn, which would mean softer trail and slower dogs. My main concern was Knox. If he was sore from day one, or if temperatures were too warm for him to enjoy himself, I was prepared to drop him. Luckily, the day remained overcast and snowy, which kept things feeling fairly cold. Our chute time was 40 minutes earlier than the previous day, which helped us get out while things were still below freezing. 

Knox seemed excited and didn’t show any signs of soreness, so he stayed on the team for day two. The only change I made was to swap Laika and Denali, since Laika is faster and could use the experience leading in a race. She’s also unlikely to tangle in lead with Willow. My only concern was whether she’d be confident enough to run through the crowded finish line.

We were the seventh team out this time, since our starting order was the order we placed on day one. The speedy hounds were down the trail long before us, and we were nestled among other mostly Siberian teams from what I could tell. My strategy for day two was to keep the dogs at a slower pace, not wanting them to get too warm or to expel all their energy too early. They still went fast—my speedometer read about 12-14 MPH—but I didn’t let them go all out. We caught up to the team ahead of us a few miles in, and I decided not to try and overtake them. We’d have to maintain a faster speed to stay ahead of them, and I figured the dogs would benefit from a team to chase.

Midway through the race, another team came up and passed us, which the dogs handled perfectly. Laika kept the team pinned to the right of the trail, which gave the other team plenty of room to get by us. We watched the two teams ahead leap frog each other a few times, but we didn’t get close enough to pass them at any point. They also appeared to get in a small tangle, so we kept a healthy distance to avoid adding to the problem. 

The last leg of the trail went similarly to the previous day. The snow was softer and the uphills were tough, but Laika and Willow kept us moving forward. Again, I paused a few times to take in our surroundings and to thank the dogs for being perfect. Knox and Denali, despite turning nine later this year, kept up with the youngsters. Blitz and Willow were flawless. Laika, though nervous, shines in harness. Hubble, who I worried about being reactive with other dogs, watched three teams pass, and even stop alongside us briefly, without batting an eye. They did exactly what they were supposed to do and I couldn’t be happier with their performance.

Little Laika powered through her shyness and brought us into the finish line with Willow, 31 minutes and 27 seconds after we started. In total, we ran 12.8 miles in 59 minutes, 22 seconds and placed 8th out of 15 teams. We received third in all breed and even a bit of prize money (basically earning back our entry fee). But it’s not about money or the ranking, it’s about putting my trust in these dogs, their heritage, and our training. 

My goal this weekend was to give the dogs race experience, both on the trail and at the truck. I hoped for clean runs and finishing each day in under 40 minutes, which we managed to smash. Compared to other teams comprised of purebred Siberians, we held our own. I can’t wait to see what next season brings and what we’ll be accomplishing a year from now. 

[shlrzy09]

A Letter To My Mother

To my mother,

As it was said in class, fear is an identification that I am at risk. Ma, what I am about to tell you is something I have never shared with you. When Donald Trump was running for president, I did not think that his bigoted self would win. I really had hope for this country. Coincidentally, that was around the same time that I was very involved here in the university and I put in a lot of work to make changes organizing with student leaders and my community. When the news channels said he won the election, I remember being in the student center here at Rutgers University and the shock that went through my body caused me to drop my stuff on the floor. I immediately went back to my off-campus housing and I cried the whole night. I thought about myself and the people who similarly identified as me- queer bisexual scholar, artist, activist woman of color. I thought about you, Frankie (my sister), and Alex (my step dad). I thought about my community and the closer communities we work with. I panicked, I did not know what to do so I went home the next day. You thought I visited to taste your home cooked meal but in my head, it was hell’s kitchen. I needed to know that you were safe because fear took over me and somehow, I imagined what life would be like after these four years and what it would be like for us. I coped through writing and came up with this poem: 

 “Before listening to me,

Remember that what you hear,

And how you’re listening 

Is a projecting force from within.

 So, bear with me. 

Take this to your deepest core.

 If you ask me why I am the way I am,

I want you to know that

I am the way I am.

 But 

if I had one chance to pray,

I would pray this,

Please bless me, bless me, bless me because-

 Here I am, pouring sweat on my body,

But it hurts every time it touches me. 

It burns like acid-looking/wax-burning on a candlelight, lit with fire 

as if I was made from one. 

As if I carry the ocean waves of tears 

Of my ancestors crying for 

Not another day where 

They had to give little pieces of themselves,

Willingly being robbed or their tongues,

Bear,

To ride the bandwagon of such a white blanket. 

Spaces.

 No.

 My tears speak for how heavy my heart feels. 

its weight pushing down my organs 

trying to find the right ways to escape a body so whole, 

yet so hollow.

As if I stand a chance.

I can feel my ancestors’ footsteps marching,

Running, crawling, 

a smoke of sand blowing everywhere,

Stumbling back home.

 No.

 Rooted from my veins, my blood-

My blood always find the right points of temperature enough just to boil immediately 

as if it was a default setting, 

regularly bound to happen. 

Like my body is not mine to keep

Every single time someone who does not

Look like me speak. 

My blood boils 

Ooh 

My blood boils. 

 As if my body was wrapped up, 

bonded by the pacific ring of fire. 

My blood boils.

 No.

 On schedule, there was no structure as to how I scrape the walls of my bones 

And no, it doesn’t hurt,

And no. 

(I mean) 

yes, 

red alert,

red alert, 

red alert,

But not 

to then revert 

the forbidden tending motion

Of the protection I had 

From this 

Red 

White

Blue 

Land of the 

Red white blue

Land of the 

Free?

Free?

Free?

 United Snakes of America, 

Land of the free,

Applies to you,

And you,

And you,

But not for me.

One nation

Under God,

Indivisible,

With liberty,

And justice for all

 - except if you’re not white.

 I knew all along.

Somebody like me will never really be 

My skin so brown

My eyes so wide 

My hair so black. 

My teeth so bright. 

I can’t quite find the silver lining.

 How could I have been so foolish?

I want to feel the privilege of 

Sleeping peacefully 

Knowing that racism,

Misogyny,

And 

Intolerance will not affect me.

 But

I am young

And foolish 

Full of ambition 

 But 

I am young

And foolish 

Full of ambition

In this country.

 Need I say more?

I’m not mad. I just want you to feel what it feels like.”

Ma, we got here ten years ago and it still feel like I do not belong here. There is this concept we talked about in class about humanitas vs anthropos and I could not help to think that I am the other (anthropos). The white folks (humanitas) have done their job again making me feel like I am under them instead of next to them. What it means to me now is that my work is not just for me. This degree is not just for me. This is for you and the family, everyone after me, my brothers and sisters, and everyone who needs love in this country. And then I ask, are we inside the border of something we did not expect to be in or we were just really blind to the reality that this country was not meant to be for us? I believe in the power of visibility. This is our struggle and what I am about to tell you is theirs. 

James Baldwin’s “I am Not Your Negro,” and Ta-nehisi Coates’ “Between The World and Me,” covered the stories of black bodies here in America. Let me tell you, the subjects of their books were not so different than us. Baldwin and Coates were phenomenal writers who exposed so much about their truths. They wrote about their communities with respect and power. I will never turn my back against any writers who talk about the concepts of their communities’ realities because I aspire to be like one of those writers.

Vulgar racism was one of the concepts that were mentioned in their books. Vulgar can mean rude, distasteful, overdone, or in our language- “bastos.” I do not need to explain to you what racism is. You know what it is. Ma, do you know that the Black communities face this vulgar racism the most? I thought that my middle school bullies were the worst, but no. This is beyond calling me chink and making fun of how I say “detention.” This is beyond the point where I hold my tears all day, run to our bathroom, cry, and cause harm to my body because this country was a huge adjustment for me so I had to learn how to assimilate the hard way. 

Ma, in Baldwin’s book, he shared his despair about the time that they had heroes who fought many battles for them but with this concept of vulgar racism, their heroes were only able to fight for a limited amount of time. I pray my respect to Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Medgar Evans. 

There was also another incident when Dorothy Counts, a powerful black student, was taunted and disrespected by white folks for attending an all-white, non-integrated school. That could have been me, ma. I think back about middle school and how nice and cruel the folks were but never this much. Ma, this bigoted white community willingly hurt these humble people for the color of their skin and their desire to mobilize. All they wanted was love and to be treated equally. 

And then in Coates’ book, he shared many examples of police brutality. Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, and many more. You’ve watched the news. You’ve seen how they drop dead like flies. Ma, I learned that it is important to say their names, to remember them, and to know how they died. This is all out of respect. They are constrained in their black bodies. I see chains tied up all around them to the point where it is questionable how they even breathe. They operate through the concept of fear, ma. There are many African-American families and other intersectional identities in the Black communities that live through fear. 

This similar fear, I empathize when Donald Trump became president. When my stuff dropped on the floor of the student center, I felt their pain on top of my fear for the future of this country. I am a permanent resident trying to naturalize myself into a citizen of this country I am supposed to love and die for but this is how they treat their people. Tell me how to maneuver around that, please. You always know what is best for me.

Other concepts are the causes and effects of racism. I have mentioned a little about what happens after racism exposes itself in the air but for the Black community ma, again, they have it worse.

In Baldwin’s book, he mentioned a statement that struck me with multiple reflections about how the black community have been treated since the centuries of slavery back in the day. He said, “Blacks are not human, or as human as they are,” (pg 40). This automatically sets a divide between their community and the rest of us. But I understand that it is not their fault. This institutional racism played a huge role that made their lives play out like this. 

In Coates’ book, he mentioned one of the young honorable children who died through police brutality. Ma, he was the same age as RJ (my cousin) the year this happened. The black body is not going to be truly safe in this country unless they know the ins and outs of the streets or even in stuff like higher education. The cause of racism is their black bodies. The effects other than death equals fear throughout their lives. A black child cannot grow up the same way a white child would. The black child, to me, has to grow up faster in different routes. 

Because I know it is not about me, selfishly, what this means to me is that I am not alone. I am not the only one who struggles with some type of institutional system set up against me and people like me. Positively, I know that I will be able to determine who can help me understand the struggle and how to get out of it. I know you are thinking that this does not affect you but to think about it, the foundation of the oppression we face roots from the hatred this country has against people of color, especially the Black communities. 

Ma, I know my tattoos do not mean much to you and in fact, I remember you resenting me for them. I have a safety pin to symbolize a safe haven within my body for people to see that they are safe with me. I have “Love Yourself First” to remind me to healthily love others. I have arrows moving forward to remind me that I am a force that gets set back in order to build momentum for the push forward. My narrative, along with the Black communities only scream unity within adversity. Our narratives need to be heard and I believe that visibility matters. I am your daughter and this is the reality I live in my head. All you know is that I am a college student working for a degree so then I can have better opportunities in the future so then I can buy you a house in the Philippines that you always wanted, and to get us out of Irvington. What you do not know is that Irvington raised me along with you. My friends from middle school are the foundation of my knowledge through the streets and they helped me improve my English. My high school friends taught me about love and relationships with people. And my college friends, I know I am going to cherish for the rest of my life. The people I met, the teachers who believed in me, and the experiences I have seen and heard of all helped shape who I am today. I made the decision to dedicate the rest of my life to my community. Do not worry. You did not raise a quitter. Ma, there are some good in the bad after all. It is just that people like us need to look for the good using different routes and we have to work three times harder. That’s all. Thank you for giving birth to me because I believe in healthy, gradual change and I will be responsible for some of it.

Para sa iyo,

Ang anak mo’ng si Patricia.

[deniscollins]

Who Killed the Knapp Family?

The stock market is near record highs, but working-class Americans (often defined as those without college degrees) continue to struggle. If you’re only a high school graduate, or worse, a dropout, work no longer pays. If the federal minimum wage in 1968 had kept up with inflation and productivity, it would now be $22 an hour. Instead, it’s $7.25. In some ways, the situation is worsening, because families have imploded under the pressure of drug and alcohol abuse, and children are growing up in desperate circumstances. It would be easy but too simplistic to blame just automation and lost jobs: The problems are also rooted in disastrous policy choices over 50 years. If you owned a business, what, if anything, could you do to address this situation?

Chaos reigned daily on the No. 6 school bus, with working-class boys and girls flirting and gossiping and dreaming, brimming with mischief, bravado and optimism. Nick rode it every day in the 1970s with neighbors here in rural Oregon, neighbors like Farlan, Zealan, Rogena, Nathan and Keylan Knapp.

They were bright, rambunctious, upwardly mobile youngsters whose father had a good job installing pipes. The Knapps were thrilled to have just bought their own home, and everyone oohed and aahed when Farlan received a Ford Mustang for his 16th birthday.

Yet today about one-quarter of the children on that No. 6 bus are dead, mostly from drugs, suicide, alcohol or reckless accidents. Of the five Knapp kids who had once been so cheery, Farlan died of liver failure from drink and drugs, Zealan burned to death in a house fire while passed out drunk, Rogena died from hepatitis linked to drug use and Nathan blew himself up cooking meth. Keylan survived partly because he spent 13 years in a state penitentiary.

Among other kids on the bus, Mike died from suicide, Steve from the aftermath of a motorcycle accident, Cindy from depression and a heart attack, Jeff from a daredevil car crash, Billy from diabetes in prison, Kevin from obesity-related ailments, Tim from a construction accident, Sue from undetermined causes. And then there’s Chris, who is presumed dead after years of alcoholism and homelessness. At least one more is in prison, and another is homeless.

We Americans are locked in political combat and focused on President Trump, but there is a cancer gnawing at the nation that predates Trump and is larger than him. Suicides are at their highest rate since World War II; one child in seven is living with a parent suffering from substance abuse; a baby is born every 15 minutes after prenatal exposure to opioids; America is slipping as a great power.

We have deep structural problems that have been a half century in the making, under both political parties, and that are often transmitted from generation to generation. Only in America has life expectancy now fallen three years in a row, for the first time in a century, because of “deaths of despair.”

“The meaningfulness of the working-class life seems to have evaporated,” Angus Deaton, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, told us. “The economy just seems to have stopped delivering for these people.” Deaton and the economist Anne Case, who is also his wife, coined the term “deaths of despair” to describe the surge of mortality from alcohol, drugs and suicide.

The kids on the No. 6 bus rode into a cataclysm as working-class communities disintegrated across America because of lost jobs, broken families, gloom — and failed policies. The suffering was invisible to affluent Americans, but the consequences are now evident to all: The survivors mostly voted for Trump, some in hopes that he would rescue them, but under him the number of children without health insurance has risen by more than 400,000.

The stock market is near record highs, but working-class Americans (often defined as those without college degrees) continue to struggle. If you’re only a high school graduate, or worse, a dropout, work no longer pays. If the federal minimum wage in 1968 had kept up with inflation and productivity, it would now be $22 an hour. Instead, it’s $7.25.

We were foreign correspondents together for many years, periodically covering humanitarian crises in distant countries. Then we would return to the Kristof family farm in Yamhill and see a humanitarian crisis unfolding in a community we loved — and a similar unraveling was happening in towns across the country. This was not one town’s problem, but a crisis in the American system.

“I’m a capitalist, and even I think capitalism is broken,” says Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater, the world’s largest hedge fund.

Even in this presidential campaign, the unraveling of working-class communities receives little attention. There is talk about the middle class, but very little about the working class; we discuss college access but not the one in seven children who don’t graduate from high school. America is like a boat that is half-capsized, but those partying above water seem oblivious.

“We have to stop being obsessed over impeachment and start actually digging in and solving the problems that got Donald Trump elected in the first place,” Andrew Yang argued in the last Democratic presidential debate. Whatever you think of Yang as a candidate, on this he is dead right: We have to treat America’s cancer.

In some ways, the situation is worsening, because families have imploded under the pressure of drug and alcohol abuse, and children are growing up in desperate circumstances. One of our dearest friends in Yamhill, Clayton Green, a brilliant mechanic who was three years behind Nick in school, died last January, leaving five grandchildren — and all have been removed from their parents by the state for their protection. A local school official sighs that some children are “feral.”

Farlan, the oldest of the Knapp children, was in Nick’s grade. A talented woodworker, he dreamed of opening a business called “Farlan’s Far Out Fantastic Freaky Furniture.” But Farlan ended up dropping out of school after the ninth grade.

Although he never took high school chemistry, Farlan became a first-rate chemist: He was one of the first people in the Yamhill area to cook meth. For a time he was a successful entrepreneur known for his high quality merchandise. “This is what I was made for,” he once announced with quiet pride. But he abused his own drugs and by his 40s was gaunt and frail.

In some ways, he was a great dad, for he loved his two daughters, Amber and Andrea, and they idolized him. But theirs was not an optimal upbringing: In one of Amber’s baby pictures, there’s a plate of cocaine in the background.

Farlan died of liver failure in 2009, just after his 51st birthday, and his death devastated both daughters. Andrea, who was smart, talented, gorgeous and entrepreneurial, ran her own real estate business but accelerated her drinking after her dad died. “She drank herself to death,” her uncle Keylan told us. She was buried in 2013 at the age of 29.

In the 1970s and ’80s it was common to hear derogatory suggestions that the forces ripping apart African-American communities were rooted in “black culture.” The idea was that “deadbeat dads,” self-destructive drug abuse and family breakdown were the fundamental causes, and that all people needed to do was show “personal responsibility.”

A Harvard sociologist, William Julius Wilson, countered that the true underlying problem was lost jobs, and he turned out to be right. When good jobs left white towns like Yamhill a couple of decades later because of globalization and automation, the same pathologies unfolded there. Men in particular felt the loss not only of income but also of dignity that accompanied a good job. Lonely and troubled, they self-medicated with alcohol or drugs, and they accumulated criminal records that left them less employable and less marriageable. Family structure collapsed.

It would be easy but too simplistic to blame just automation and lost jobs: The problems are also rooted in disastrous policy choices over 50 years. The United States wrested power from labor and gave it to business, and it suppressed wages and cut taxes rather than invest in human capital, as our peer countries did. As other countries embraced universal health care, we did not; several counties in the United States have life expectancies shorter than those in Cambodia or Bangladesh.

One consequence is that the bottom end of America’s labor force is not very productive, in ways that reduce our country’s competitiveness. A low-end worker may not have a high school diploma and is often barely literate or numerate while also struggling with a dependency; more than seven million Americans also have suspended driver’s licenses for failing to pay child support or court-related debt, meaning that they may not reliably show up at work.

Americans also bought into a misconceived “personal responsibility” narrative that blamed people for being poor. It’s true, of course, that personal responsibility matters: People we spoke to often acknowledged engaging in self-destructive behaviors. But when you can predict wretched outcomes based on the ZIP code where a child is born, the problem is not bad choices the infant is making. If we’re going to obsess about personal responsibility, let’s also have a conversation about social responsibility.

Why did deaths of despair claim Farlan, Zealan, Nathan, Rogena and so many others? We see three important factors.

First, well-paying jobs disappeared, partly because of technology and globalization but also because of political pressure on unions and a general redistribution of power toward the wealthy and corporations.

Second, there was an explosion of drugs — oxycodone, meth, heroin, crack cocaine and fentanyl — aggravated by the reckless marketing of prescription painkillers by pharmaceutical companies.

Third, the war on drugs sent fathers and mothers to jail, shattering families.

There’s plenty of blame to go around. Both political parties embraced mass incarceration and the war on drugs, which was particularly devastating for black Americans, and ignored an education system that often consigned the poor — especially children of color — to failing schools. Since 1988, American schools have become increasingly segregated by race, and kids in poor districts perform on average four grade levels behind those in rich districts.

Farlan’s daughter Amber seemed to be the member of the Knapp family most poised for success. She was the first Knapp ever to graduate from high school, and then she took a job at a telecommunications company, managing databases and training staff members to use computer systems. We were struck by her intellect and interpersonal skills; it was easy to imagine her as a lawyer or a business executive.

“PowerPoint presentations and Excel and pivot charts and matrix analytics, that’s what I like to do,” she told us. She married and had three children, and for a time was thriving.

Then in grief after her father and sister died, she imploded. A doctor had prescribed medications like Xanax, and she became dependent on them. After running out of them, she began smoking meth for the first time when she was 32.

“I was dead set against it my whole life,” she remembered. “I hated it. I’d seen what it did to everybody. My dad was a junkie who cooked meth and lost everything. You would think that was enough.” It wasn’t. She bounced in and out of jail and lost her kids.

Amber knew she had blown it, but she was determined to recover her life and her children. We had hoped that Amber would claw her way back, proof that it is possible to escape the messiness of the Knapp family story and build a successful life. We texted Amber a few times to arrange to get photos of Farlan, and then she stopped replying to our texts. Finally, her daughter responded: Amber was back in jail.

Yet it’s not hopeless. America is polarized with ferocious arguments about social issues, but we should be able to agree on what doesn’t work: neglect and underinvestment in children. Here’s what does work.

Job training and retraining give people dignity as well as an economic lifeline. Such jobs programs are common in other countries.

For instance, autoworkers were laid off during the 2008-9 economic crisis both in Detroit and across the Canadian border in nearby Windsor, Ontario. As the scholar Victor Tan Chen has showed, the two countries responded differently. The United States focused on money, providing extended unemployment benefits. Canada emphasized job retraining, rapidly steering workers into new jobs in fields like health care, and Canadian workers also did not have to worry about losing health insurance.

Canada’s approach succeeded. The focus on job placement meant that Canadian workers were ushered more quickly back into workaday society and thus today seem less entangled in drugs and family breakdown.

Another successful strategy is investing not just in prisons but also in human capital to keep people out of prisons. The highest-return investments available in America may be in early education for disadvantaged children, but there are also valuable interventions available for adolescents and adults. We attended a thrilling graduation in Tulsa, Okla., for 17 women completing an impressive local drug treatment program called Women in Recovery.

The graduates had an average of 15 years of addiction each, and all were on probation after committing crimes. Yet they had quit drugs and started jobs, and 300 people in the audience — including police officers who had arrested them and judges who had sentenced them — gave the women a standing ovation. The state attorney general served as the commencement speaker and called them “heroes,” drawing tearful smiles from women more accustomed to being called “junkies” or “whores.”

“I thought we’d be planning a funeral instead,” said one audience member whose younger sister had started using meth at age 12 and was now graduating at 35. Women in Recovery has a recidivism rate after three years of only 4 percent, and consequently has saved Oklahoma $70 million in prison spending, according to the George Kaiser Family Foundation.

Bravo for philanthropy, but the United States would never build interstate highways through volunteers and donations, and we can’t build a national preschool program or a national drug recovery program with private money. We need the government to step up and jump-start nationwide programs in early childhood education, job retraining, drug treatment and more.

For individuals trying to break an addiction, a first step is to face up to the problem — and that’s what America should do as well. Our own reporting in the past focused on foreigners, affording us an emotional distance, while this time we spoke with old friends and had no armor. It has been wrenching to see them struggle. But ultimately we saw pathways forward that leave us hopeful.

One of our dear friends in Yamhill was Rick (Ricochet) Goff, who was part Indian and never had a chance: His mom died when he was 5 and his dad was, as he put it, “a professional drunk” who abandoned the family. Ricochet was a whiz at solving puzzles and so dependable a friend that he would lend pals money even when he couldn’t afford medicine for himself. We deeply felt Ricochet’s loss when he died four years ago, and we also worried about his adult son, Drew, who is smart and charismatic but had been messing with drugs since he was 12.

Drew’s son, Ashtyn, was born with drugs in his system, and we feared that the cycle of distress was now being passed on to the next generation. We exchanged letters with Drew while he was in prison but lost touch.

Then, when we were visiting a drug-treatment program in Oregon called Provoking Hope, a young man bounded over to us. “It’s me, Drew,” he said.

We have been close with Drew since, and he fills us with optimism. With the help of Provoking Hope, Drew will soon celebrate two years free of drugs, and he holds a responsible job at the front desk of a hotel. He has custody of Ashtyn and is now an outstanding dad, constantly speaking to him and playing with him. Drew still has a tempestuous side, and occasionally he has some rash impulse — but then he thinks of Ashtyn and reins himself in.

“I’m a work in progress,” he told us. “The old me wants to act out, and I won’t allow that.”

Drew keeps moving forward, and we believe he’s going to thrive along with Ashtyn, breaking the cycle that had enmeshed his family for generations. With support and balance, this can be done — if we as a society are willing to offer help, not just handcuffs.

“It’s a tightrope I’m walking on,” Drew said. “And sometimes it seems to be made of fishing line.”

[wrongfullythinking]

And then there were five...

The numbers say 20.  Or maybe 21.  It’s hard to tell.  But in reality, I think we’re down to five.  Five’s a good number, the same amount you can fit on a basketball floor and really know who is out there.  Let’s face it, nobody but the most die-hard fan knows who bats 8th and plays left.  Five?  Five’s a number we can deal with.  And looking at the state of things, we’re down to five realistic candidates.  Maybe some of the other 15 or 16 will get a nice mike-drop moment, and maybe they’ll get a chance to advocate for a cause they believe in.  But if your party is so oddly out that you need to use the presidential nomination as a way to get your ideas across... well, it worked for the Bern, but rarely do imitators have the same success as the original.

In this piece, I’m going to give brief thoughts on the five candidates, and then assign my own completely arbitrary “chance-of-winning-the-nomination” percentages.

The Frontrunner: Biden (50%) At this point, [5/2/2019], preliminary voters are presented with a choice: Joe Biden, or somebody else?  It is very much Biden vs. the Pack, and if Biden is the nominee, he’ll make it very clear that it is actually TheObamaLegacy vs. EverythingNotObama.  Without an Obama endorsement, that’s a tough one to pull off.  Frankly, I don’t think Joe Biden is the strongest candidate, and I don’t think he will make a great president.  But he’s also not going to go away until the very end of this, and if he loses, it will be because everybody else decides to unite behind another candidate.

There’s this fiction that Biden is the most “electable” candidate.  He’s not, he’s the third-most electable.  The second-most electable is Michelle Obama.  She is a sure-fire nominee and general election winner, pulling southern states, the female vote, Florida and Michigan away from Republicans and guaranteeing there is no red path to 270.  Does Biden do any of that?  Probably not.  He’s not Bill Clinton, with charisma to go with midwestern history.  He’s not Obama himself, with a genuine melancholy and a realist outlook.  He’s a meme more than a politician since 2008.

But let’s get straight what matters about Biden and what doesn’t.  Nobody really cares about what he said to Anita Hill or his tough-on-crimes stance in the 90s.  The media will keep dredging up these issues, and the fact that they’re having to dig this deep to find some pretty thin soil tells you a lot about Biden.  He’s pretty hard to object to, and Trump is very easy to object to.  There is no doubt that Biden will garner the vote of everybody who hates Trump.  But can you win an election with just “Not-Trump?”  Apparently not, if I remember the 2016 final tally.  [But let’s not get started into how Democrats can bungle this thing, if they don’t learn from their “ignore the whites and the heartland, whine incessantly about the other guy, and then say that we should thank them for raising taxes” plan from 2016, they’re hopeless anyways.]

How can Biden win the nomination? The longer everybody else stays in, the more likely Biden wins.  Let’s be clear: Biden is going to be the “least objectionable” candidate in both the Primary and the General.  Biden’s chances also go up every time somebody else goes low, but his years of experience as Washington and his long, long list of friends, combined with strong association with Obama, make him the most resilient and easily-forgiven of the candidates.

How does Biden lose the nomination? The rest of the field unites behind one or two other candidates who pound Biden with policy expertise, passionate speeches, and a presidential air.  Or, frankly, Biden himself disengages.  The more time Biden has to prepare (and hire the best speech-writers), the more Biden is likely to be president.  The more time the media spends showing his off-the-cuff gaffes (and there will be plenty), and we could see a Howard Dean scenario emerge, provided there is another strong candidate.  The other danger to Biden is that the young vote deserts him in favor of another candidate, and the older generation stays apathetic for the days of Obama.

What to expect from a Biden presidency: First, a lot less headlines.  Wouldn’t it be nice to open CNN on any day and see that the webpage’s headline was not about the President?  That’s not a ringing endorsement of Biden, nor will it excite the often-raving-horde of young politicos.  But let’s be honest... young politicos have always been a bit of a raving horde, and this generation really isn’t different.  They just tweet instead of march and browse webpages instead of newspapers. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Biden establish a legacy as the “infrastructure President.”  And that’d be fine with most Americans.  I certainly would love to see some high-speed rails, because **** the airline companies.  They’re terrible.  The American Highway System is a wonder of the modern world, and improving it with a series of electrical refueling stations and solar-powered rest stops couldn’t hurt.  Infrastructure is an easy win, and Biden’s going to take easy wins.  As he should.

The Rabble Rouser: Bernie Sanders, 15% The Bern seems to be a better candidate on paper than he actually is; right now, he’s benefitting from the same early-momentum wave that carried Hillary to the Chair of the Anointed One at the Democratic Convention.  Bernie’s always had bad timing though, and I’m not convinced this is any different.  Had Biden stayed out of the race, I’d put Bernie’s chances at 30 or 40%.  But with Biden in, I’m not sure there are enough Obama-era democrats who actually prefer the Bern.  Sure, the young/gay/urban/unemployed/coastal [pick two] crowd who wants to reshape the country into a Scandinavian one loves him.  But how many of us want to weigh our trash and be charged 6$ for each pound of it the garbage guy has to pick up?  How many of us want to be told by a bank that they can’t offer us a loan, because we didn’t attend a prestigious enough university [coastal degrees only for investment bankers]?  Let’s not even start on 55% tax rates for the middle class or subsidizing a 29-year-old’s NYC apartment as he trucks through a medieval literature degree one-course-at-a-time.  This is obvious hyperbole, but “democratic socialism” starts with “democratic,” and that means “the beliefs of the people” are synonyms with “the will of the people.”  Could some of the Bern’s policies work in America.  Sure.  But there’s no evidence that he can convince any except his already die-hard advocates that they all can, and a policy doesn’t make a system.  I’m not convinced Americans, be they blue or red or the purple-murky-middle, are really excited about this sort of sea change.

How to Sanders win/lose the nomination? If the “woke” wing of the party fails to find a demographic-win in Harris or Buttigieg, and decides to yell loud enough to keep the Obama-era democrats from crowning Biden, or if Biden drops out as well as Harris/Buttigieg, Sanders could end up engaged in a rhetorical battle with Warren that neither of them want, but the country might need.  At that point, it’s a coin-flip and a nasty convention, and lines in the sand may become tracks on the ground, separating the haves-and-have-nots in the Democratic party.  Still, Sanders could emerge in such a scenario with a win, though I’d tip my hand towards Warren.

What to expect from a Sanders presidency: There’s a small chance we get a lot of everything, and a large chance we get absolutely nothing, depending on how Congress plays out.  It is always amusing to me to watch candidates at this stage talk policy, because, you know... the President doesn’t write policy.  Okay, he [or soon-to-be “she”] does, but not really.  You’ve got to go back to the 70s/80s to find Presidents who were really able to institutionalize their policies in statute, and unless Sanders picks up a majority in both Houses, and even then, it is tough to see most of his ideas actually making it into law.  I’ve critiqued Obama before as being “the Toothless President,” because his “signature accomplishment” of the AHCA is already mostly dust-in-the-wind, and it wasn’t even much of a victory to start with [he didn’t even get a government-based option!].  Sanders’ ideas are likely too big for any political reality, and remember, he’s been in the Senate for a LONG time.  How much of his work do you see in your daily life?

The Best: Elizabeth Warren, 30% One of the strangest (and most chilling) realities of this election cycle is how dismal Warren is polling.  What we’re seeing here is what I call “The Hillary Effect,” where an unlikable-older-white-woman is conjuring up all our memories of nasty assistant principals and that mean piano teacher who kept whacking our fingers.  Warren is neither of those things, but her image is not, at this point, helping her.  Warren needs the rest of the electorate to come to Warren-land, where what matters is your policy chops, and it remains to be seen if the Democratic party (no racism, no slander, no ableism!) allows itself to move past her white-and-rich appearance.

So, let’s have that experiment.  Let’s get past the appearance and the fact that she listed herself as 25% Native American in order to get a law school scholarship.  What do you have left?  What you have left is a woman who can be President.  She’s been a far more successful politician than either Sanders or Biden, and she’s the candidate with the best touch to the realities of the parties from coast-to-coast.  Warren’s policies, although a bit left-of-center, are clearly centered around the groups she wants to elevate: small businesses, Americans with children, and all of us who are willing to work for a living but want to be able to live like we want if we do.  Warren’s the president who believes in exchange: you put in your time with her, and you feel like she’ll give you something back.  That’s a big difference from the Hillary Clinton campaign.  Look at the Clinton slogan: “I’m with her.”  Compare that to Trump’s slogan (Make America Great Again), and we know which one won.  On a slogan level, the second one SHOULD win.  You want a president who is about making the country great.  Warren’s the politician who gets that, and understands how Trump is appealing to people’s needs, rather than setting out for a list of “the world should be like this.”  The fact that her policies are so well-defined and solidly based in the needs of Americans is what sets her so far apart from the rest of the crowd.  I have no qualms in saying that of the current pack, I would much rather have Warren as my president than any other candidate, and it isn’t close.

How does Warren win/lose the nomination? Warren’s path to victory starts by convincing Obama-era democrats that she is more Obama than Biden is.  That’s a tough sell, because she looks more like Hillary... who, let’s not forget, lost a nomination to Obama before she lost to Trump.  Warren needs to separate herself from Hillary and align herself with Obama.  Frankly, an Obama endorsement might be the thing that lands the race in her lap.  Warren also needs the conversation to revolve around policy.  She’s the best at that, and she needs to convince people that she can get her policies not just in front of Congress, but through it.  The less talk is about policy, and the more it is about nebulous ideas or demographics or social media or broad philosophical stances, the worse Warren will do.

What to expect from a Warren presidency. We might get some high-speed rails, but we’ll likely see taxes go up on the rich, stay stagnant on the middle class, and see some supplement for popular welfare-type programs (college aid, family aid, etc.).  I’m not convinced Warren can make a difference in healthcare, and I’m fine if she doesn’t; we’ve wasted 12 years on the topic now and it just may not be the window.  But there are so many other issues that Warren can tackle that would make a difference to Americans.  I’d love a tax credit for putting solar power on a roof, and Warren’s the one I see making that happen, not Sanders.  I’d like to see university students get some more support federally [good job on Summer Pell!] and that is most likely to come from Warren.  Generally, I think we’ll see the “B” versions of her stump-speech policies become realities.  The middle-50% of Americans will pay 20-30% in taxes, not 15, and the highest-1% will pay 40%, not 50 or 70.  Small businesses will get their health care burden for employees subsidized, but won’t be able to write off all debts for a decade.  Farmers may again be able to make a profit off a cow, though we may all pay an extra 25c per gallon for milk and an extra 30c per pound of beef.

((My wish list for Warren: rein in credit card companies and payday loans.  Nobody but a bank should be able to give you a credit card, let’s stop all this “Sears Card, Best Buy Card, Kohls Card” nonsense that keeps American families in debt from their late-teens to retirement.  And banks need transparent policies about awarding credit cards and loans, and be forced to stick with them, not making nebulous decisions about eligibility based on who-the-lending-officer-is and the skin color of their applicant.  /rant end))

Bernie 2.0 or Trump 2.0???: Buttigieg, 3% Buttigieg may have the most energy, but the primary process may be the most damaging to him.  I mean, it let him get into the race in first place, and he does look a bit like a Kennedy, doesn’t he?  And his charisma is first-rate, his qualifications trump Trump’s at this point in the last election cycle [low bar, right?] and he’s just non-white enough [because he has sex with men, so that counts] to keep some of the Democrat’s own bloodhounds off his back.  The weaknesses are also glaring: he doesn’t have the policy of Warren, the political capital of Biden, or the funds and the rabid fans of Bernie.  But he is from a Midwestern state, and the Democrats could do worse than considering that.  The trouble here is that no one really sees the energy lasting for another year.  But hey, it worked for Trump, right?

The trouble is that Buttigieg needs a Trump-like groundswell of support to carry him to the nomination, and right now, that base is going Sanders, and may squash any non-Sanders candidate who should appeal to them simply by virtue of them already having Sanders bumper stickers.  To get it, Buttigeig may have to be the one who starts to go low, and he’s shown a reticience to do so.  At some point, Buttigieg will need to argue that he’s the Midwestern candidate, and the Democrats need the Midwest.  How he makes that argument, who he convinces, and if anybody can be convinced, will all dictate how long Buttigieg stays relevant.

How does Buttigieg win/lose the nomination? Frankly, I don’t see this happening without Sanders dropping out the race, and that likely means a Sanders health problem.  That’s not an exciting prospect for anybody, but if Sanders drops out and then endorses Buttigieg, we could see a late-term surge for him past the other remaining candidates.  He has to raise enough money to be in it for that long, and he’s got to continue to have great town halls and debates, which are two areas where he shines.  I think Buttigieg is going to be a player in the democratic party for years to come, but I don’t think this is his race.

The Californian: Harris, 10% Harris is not likable.  She wants to be Michelle, and she’s not.  Oh yeah, earlier, when I said that Michelle Obama was the second-most electable person in America?  That’s because she’s behind Beyonce.  And let’s be clear, Harris is NOT Beyonce.  That’s not a dig against either of them, it is a reality of the situation: there are a number of high-powered black women easily in the public eye (in addition to the above two, let’s not forget Oprah, Whoopi, and Stacy Abrams), and Harris is less-likeable than all of them.  She comes across brusque, aggressive, and well... a little bit like Trump.  That’s not what we want, right?  Right?  The point is, the Democratic party vilifies unlikeable women, and if Warren is struggling with this, Harris is absolutely going to drown in it.  We can talk about feminism and compare waves all we want, but people are going to pay lip-service to that in public, and in private, quietly mark ballots for Biden.  That’s always a concern of the Democratic party, and I’m not sure Harris is the one that cures it.  I am sure that Harris does not carry the female vote away from Biden, Sanders, or Warren.  She’s not a woman’s candidate.

What’s really difficult for Harris is that she’s not anyone’s candidate.  California?  Sure, why not, but any democrat carries California against Trump.  Who cares?  The black vote?  Last I checked, it was what, roughly 8% of America and not enough to carry Pennsylvania or Michigan?  Nor any of the Deep South (that Obama won) against a Trump campaign.  The nice part of this is that Harris has the potential to make in-roads with a lot of groups.  She’s a professional, she has a presidential air, and she has a prosecutor’s wit.  She’s unashamedly intelligent and not afraid of a big moment, like we saw with the 13,500-to-teachers announcement or the recent Barr hearings.  She’s less good in-the-moment, where she comes across as a lawyer and not a politician, appealing to the paper rather than the audience.  And there’s not a good sound-byte here yet.  But Harris could be all those things.  Maybe.

How does Harris win/lose the nomination? Harris gets 10% here because she may be the one with the most obvious route past Biden, if Sanders and Warren get out of her way.  She needs to improve her on-stage performances (that Town Hall was dismal) and she needs to make sure her focus is where it needs to be, and not get caught talking about things like medical care or Yang’s tech-policies that are clearly not her wheelhouse.  It is a matter of sticking to her lane, and then including as many people as possible in her car.  She wants to pull people towards her, and the better she can do that, and avoid her lawyer’s instinct of defining boundaries of “Yes” and “No,” the better she’ll do.  Harris has the real potential to use this race to grow up from prosecutor to politician, and if she does that, she could be a force.  I don’t see her as a serious challenge to Warren or Sanders if it comes down to them as the final two, but I do see her challenging Biden if it ends up with the two of them.  Harris needs to stay in the race, keep practicing her presence, and start avoiding troublesome questions like a politician, while maintaining a few key clear policies that people can tie to her name.  The bump-for-teachers was a great start, and if she could become “the education candidate,” we might really have something here.

The Rest: 2% I feel like the rest of the field isn’t trying to be President, they’re trying to use the nomination process to make money/crusade-a-cause or just stir up feelings.  I’m disappointed this is happening to democrats, because it keeps the five real potential candidates from offering powerful distinctions.  Does the party want to move towards Bernie-socialism?  Can we believe in Farmers?  Do Democrats actually value the MIdwest (according to Hillary, no... does Biden change that narrative)?  What is the role of the US internationally, specifically with regards to China and a post-Brexit UK?  Was is the reasonable path towards renewable energy, and how does it help me lower my energy bill next January?  Will I be able to claim Social Security, and if the system is poor, how do we fix it [or incentivize workers and companies to start doing a better job with retirement plans]?  What does a rising interest mean for American home-buyers, and do we want Americans to buy homes?  There are so many questions that the candidates differ on, and I worry that we won’t be able to hear from the important candidates on them, because we’ll be hearing somebody’s own hot take on Putin or how Universal Basic Income is something we should pretend to care about for the next 12 minutes.  That’s a disservice to the party and the voters, and I hope the debate moderators, pundits, and press over the next 12 months give us a clear view of where the candidates stand and the differences between then.

The afterthought: AOC. Well, we’ve got to talk about her, right?  The thing is, we don’t.  She’s not a political force, she’s a social one.  So, let’s get the obvious out of the way: she’s not eligible to run for President now, though she might be in four years (I’m actually not clear on where her birthday lines up with inauguration day, and I don’t think she’s important enough to check).  The very real flaw here is that AOC is not representative.  No person is.  Yes, I get that she’s non-white and female.  Guess what, our country is about 50% male and somewhere around 50% white.  So by virtue of being not, it is impossible to argue that someone is.  However, the real problem with “representative” is that AOC is coastal and urban, and her perspectives are entirely based on those realities.  This is a shame, because for all that people can tout her LatinX heritage, she is very much out-of-tune with high-LatinX states like New Mexico, Texas, and even the non-coastal parts of California.  Does that matter in an electoral college world?  Maybe not... no Democrat is expected to carry Texas, and no Democrat will fail to carry California.  But she’s not a candidate (like Harris, or Obama) who can expect to pull a huge amount of votes simply based on her demographic information.  That math has never worked out as well as pundits want it to... remember the Palin experiment?  That certainly didn’t persuade the female vote to go Red.  And this is one place where I think the American electorate is sadly underestimated; it is assumed we vote for people who look like us, and I find American voters quite a bit more savvy than that.  AOC doesn’t pull the LatinX vote as a block, and she certainly doesn’t carry Texas.  Alongside the coastal-based policies and city-only mentality she carries, there is no reason to nominate AOC in four years.

[nerdywrites]

The Summer Soldier (part 7)

Pairing: Eventual Peter Parker x Stark!reader, Tony Stark x daughter!reader

Summary: When the Secretary of State tells them about the Sokovia Accords, (Y/n) has to decide between family and beliefs. 

Warnings: Mild language

A/N: Sorry I don't have time to answer your messages or post as fast, I am on vacation right now!

Masterlist   Series Masterlist

Tony barely talked when he got home to the tower. He had been out giving a grant to college students at MIT, but (Y/n) suspected something else happened based on his attitude. 

He couldn’t get the conversation he had just had with the woman near the elevator about her son.

“His name was Charlie Spencer. You murdered him, in Sokovia. Not that that matters in the least to you. You think you fight for us? You just fight for yourself. Who’s going to avenge my son, Stark? He’s dead, and I blame you. You have a daughter, right? Imagine she died, and no one noticed, no one cared, but you.”

Tony continued to stay silent on the way over to the facility where they were meeting the rest of the team, and the Secretary of State, for reasons (Y/n) didn’t know. But it couldn’t be good.

--

“Five years ago, I had a heart attack. Dropped right in the middle of my backswing.” he acted as though he was swinging a golf club “Turned out it was the best round of my life, because after 13 hours of surgery and a triple bypass, I found something 40 years in the army had never taught me. Perspective.”

The Avengers watched him intently, all wondering where he was going with his story.

“The world owes the Avengers an unpayable debt. You have fought for us, protected us, risked your lives. But while a great many people see you as heroes, there are some who would prefer the word ‘vigilantes’.”

“And what word what you use, Mr. Secretary?” Natasha’s voice held annoyance, but it seemed no one else could tell.

“How about ‘dangerous’? What would you call a group of US-based, enhanced individuals, who routinely ignore sovereign borders, and inflict their will wherever they choose, and who, frankly, seem unconcerned about what they leave behind?”

Still, no one spoke. Their expressions gave away what they were thinking, but (Y/n) didn’t have time to figure it out before the Secretary pulled up a map with many little green dots scattered throughout.

Every time he said a city name, the dot became larger and showed footage of the avengers battles, always where the most wreckage was.

“New York, Washington D.C., Sokovia...”

Every time he switched to another city, someone on the team looked down at their lap, not wanting to see what he was showing. For (Y/n), it was Sokovia, the first time she had ever fought as an Avenger.

“Lagos”

(Y/n) put a reassuring hand on Wanda’s arm as the girl looked away, her eyes filled with guilt and sorrow. 

She desperately wanted to yell at the man to shut up and turn the stupid thing off, but she knew the consequences would most likely effect the whole team and not just herself.

“Okay, that’s enough” Steve said, also noticing Wanda’s reaction.

“For the past four years” he continued after turning off the screen “You’ve operated with unlimited power and no supervision. That’s an arrangement the governments of the world can no longer tolerate. But I think we have a solution” 

He was handed a thick booklet that was passed around the table. “The Sokovia Accords. Approved by 117 countries, it states that the Avengers shall no longer be a private organization. Instead, they’ll operate under the supervision of a United Nations panel, only when and if that panel deems it necessary.”

The booklet was passed to (Y/n), and the only thing she knew as she was holding it in her hands, was that she would never under any circumstances agree or support what they were planning. 

“The Avengers were formed to make the world a safer place. I feel we’ve done that.” Steve spoke, and (Y/n) silently cheered him on.

“Tell me, Captain, do you know where Thor and Banner are right now?” Steve only looked at him “If I misplaced a group of 30 megaton nukes, you can bet there’d be consequences. Compromise. Reassurance. That’s how the world works. Believe me, this is the middle ground.”

Rhodes put his hand on the book “So, there are contingencies.”

The Secretary nodded “Three days from now the UN meets in Vienna to ratify the Accords.”

Steve turned to look at Tony, who had his head down, as the Secretary told them to “Talk it over.”

As he was leaving, Natasha asked him one final question “And if we come to a decision you don’t like?”

“Then you retire.”

--

Everyone was arguing over what they were going to do.

Rhodes was yelling at Sam about how Secretary Ross had a Congressional Medal of Honor, Steve was reading the Accords, and Tony was laying down with his hand over his face.

(Y/n) had a suspension he was going to sign it, she hoped she was wrong.

“So let’s say we agree to this thing.” Sam yelled “How long before they LoJack us like a bunch of common criminals?”

“117 countries want to sign this” Rhodes pointed out “117, Sam, and you’re just like ‘No, that’s cool. We got it.’”

Sam responded by asking “How long are you going to play both sides?”

Before he could say anything else, Vision spoke “I have an equation.”

“Oh this will clear it up” Sam said, sarcasm dripping in his voice.

Vision ignored him “In the eight years since Mr. Stark announced himself as Iron Man the number of known enhanced persons has grown exponentially. During the same period the number of potentially world-ending events has risen at a commensurate rate.”

“Are you saying it’s our fault?” Steve was getting defensive.

“I’m saying there may be a causality. Our very strength invites challenge. Challenge incites conflict. And conflict breeds catastrophe. Oversight...oversight is not an idea that can be dismissed out of hand.”

“Boom” Rhodes looked at Sam.

“Tony” Natasha pointed the attention at him. “You’re being uncharacteristically non-hyperverbal.”

(Y/n) hoped with every ounce of her being that he was about to say something against the Accords.

”That’s cause he’s already made up his mind” Steve concluded her worst fear.

“Boy, you know me so well.” he sat up “Actually I’m nursing an electromagnetic headache. That’s what’s going on, Cap, it’s just pain. It’s discomfort.” he was getting a cup of coffee “Who’s putting coffee grounds in the disposal? Am I running a bed and breakfast for a biker gang?”

He got something out of his pocket, set it on the counter, and pressed the screen, causing a holographic picture of a teenage boy to show up. “Oh, that’s Charles Spencer, by the way. He’s a great kid. Computer engineering degree, 3.6 GPA, had a floor-level gig at Intel planned for the fall. But first, he wanted to put a few miles on his soul before he parked it behind a desk. See the world. Maybe be of service. Charlie didn’t want to go to Vegas or Fort Lauderdale, which is what I would do. He didn’t go to Paris or Amsterdam, which sounds fun. He decided to spend his summer building sustainable housing for the poor. Guess where. Sokovia.”

Everyone glanced down, knowing how the story ended, guilt covering each of their faces. 

“He wanted to make a difference, I suppose. We wouldn’t know because we dropped a building on him while we were kicking ass.” he took a sip of his coffee. “There’s no decision-making process here. We need to be put in check! Whatever form that takes, (Y/n) and I are game.”

She looked up, guilt pooling in her eyes and an ‘I’m sorry’ look written on her face. “I’m not”

I was quiet, but everyone heard it. There was silence as they all turned to her.

“Not everyone can be saved. That’s what we all tell each other when we feel guilty over something that’s happened. Now you think you can somehow reverse that just because you take away our freedom to do what the Avengers were started to do? We’ve always done more good than harm, otherwise we wouldn’t do what we do. These Accords will ruin us. So I’m sorry, but no, I won’t be supporting it”

“If we can’t accept limitations, if we’re boundary-less, we’re no better than the bad guys.” he tried to convince her. Tony only cared what she thought. He knew Steve would go the other way, Sam and some others to, but he never imagined what it would feel like if his daughter followed them.

“Tony” Steve looked at him “If someone dies on your watch, you don’t give up.”

“Who said we’re giving up?”

“We are if we aren’t taking responsibility for our actions. This document just shifts the blame.”

“I’m sorry, Steve. That is dangerously arrogant.”

(Y/n) looked at Rhodes in surprise, Steve Rogers was anything but arrogant.

He continued “This is the United Nations we’re talking about. It’s not the World Security Council, it’s not S.H.I.E.L.D., it’s not HYDRA-”

Steve cut him off “No, but it’s run by people with agendas, and agendas change.”

“That’s good” Tony joined in “That’s why I’m here. When I realized what my weapons were capable of in the wrong hands I shut it down and stopped manufacturing.” 

He was standing dangerously close to where Cap was sitting, and he turned to face him, “Tony, you chose to do that. If we sign this we surrender our right to choose. What if this panel sends us somewhere we don’t think we should go? What if there is somewhere we need to go and they don’t let us? We may not be perfect, but the safest hands are still our own.”

Tony shook his head “If we don’t do this now, it’s gonna be done to us later. That’s the fact. That won’t be pretty.”

Wanda was silent until this point “You’re saying they’ll come for me?”

“We would protect you” Vision promised.

“Maybe Tony’s right” Natasha shocked even the Stark himself “If we have one hand on the wheel, we can still steer. If we take it off-”

“Aren’t you the same woman who told the government to kiss her ass a few years ago?” Sam asked.

“I’m just reading the terrain. We have made some very public mistakes. We need to win their trust back.”

Tony leaned on the couch “Focus up. I’m sorry. Did I just mishear you, or did you agree with me?”

“I want to take it back now” (Y/n) almost laughed.

“No, you can’t retract it. Thank you. Unprecedented. Okay, case closed. I win.”

(Y/n) saw Steve look at his phone before excusing himself from the meeting and hurrying out quickly. She was worried, seeing the expression on his face just before he left.

She soon found out it was because Peggy had died, but she wasn’t quite sure who Peggy was.

--

It was at the end of the funeral that Steve got the chance to ask Natasha who else had signed the Accords.

“Tony, Rhodey, Vision.”

“Clint?”

“Says he’s retired.”

“(Y/n)?”

“Made the point that contracts signed by minors aren’t legally binding. I think she just wanted to lighten the blow for Tony. He’s hurting a lot more than he shows.”

Steve nodded “Wanda?”

“TBD. I’m off to Vienna for the signing of the Accords, there’s plenty of room on the jet.” Steve sighed “Just because it’s the path of least resistance doesn’t mean it’s the wrong path. Staying together is more important than how we stay together.”

“What are we giving up to do it? I’m sorry, Nat. I can’t sign it.”

“I know.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

“I didn’t want you to be alone. Come here.”

The two hugged one last time before everything went wrong.

--

Tag List:

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[windchimchim-blog]

100 reasons to love kang younghyun

i was inspired by this really good hanbin post i read.

(lot of win, man in a movie, pocket live and fancam references)

*with the widest grin on my face, i will proceed to type this.*

1. His love and appreciation for each member’s talent and genuine appreciation for them, especially on radio shows(hongkira)

2. His unfailing ability to describe loneliness and solitude perfectly with his lyrics.

3. That one pre-debut cover of gd’s butterfly

4. his dimples

5. “NOT Brian. Who is BRIAN?!”

6. grey hair, i’ll say no more

7. “MURUGESO BABAY!”

8. That one radio-cam of him jamming to Baek-ah-yeon’s song. with her. in the studio. 

9. “BOOM!!”

10. Him getting all flustered on ASC when Dreamcatcher sang im serious(”my favourite group”)

11. “She called me to her hotel room”

12. “Yess, good morningg”

13. every single time younghyun has ever rapped hunt while treating a HEAD BAND as if it were a BLINDFOLD.

14. his dimples.

15. “wh-wh-whAt is in your bAg?”

16. him imitating dowoon on a vlive while watching a jaesix vlog

17. while we’re on dowoon, his genuine adoration for the maknae like you can SEE it in his eyes it’s beautiful

18. that one fanmeet photo of him in the harry potter merch really buttered my beer

19. The broccoli hair yes in this house, we apprec8 that

20. while we’re on that,the HEYJUDE COVER.

21. His ability to take on a million ranges vocally, take incredible falsettos, and also sing from the gut fascinates me

22. jaehyungparkian.

23. “i’ll try harder to be like young k”

24. “i wish i nEver knEW you bABy”(the english rap it ended me.)

25. “knock you with my punchlines” WIN era younghyun, best younghyun

26. “TORONNO, KANADA”

27. that one fantaken photo of him with the sipper and multi-coloured hair and a denim jacket and a guitar on his back.

28. the be lazy pocket live but hold up, the behind the scenes of that where he’s sweating(ah the struggle to be sexy)

29. the “what can i do” pocket live. i think about that a lot.

30. everytime he’s ever done the nose scrunch.

31. that one gif of him rolling up his sleeves to reveal !!! his biceps !!! boi!!!

32. Blood rap translation. bye

33. mathletes dance compilation.

34. him dancing to gashina and literally  pelvic thrusting in everyone’s faces

35. oh oh that fancam of him dancing to “all that i have” and doing that back thing. you know what im talking about 

36. “JOUUA”

37. BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAMBAMBAMBAM. (what can i do live bass vocals by one and only kang younghyun!!)

38. wooyoung exposing drunk k “why do you fucking do this to me, hyung” i love him

39. “why am i alone?” every time i hear him sing that line, i get chills. pure art.

40. “yg get an attitude”(he dropped it like it’s hot)

41. youngfeel.

42. while we’re on youngfeel, him replying to a tumblr ask saying “love wonpil” is a goal for 2018.

43. hungry k(”best part of songwriting is breakfast, lunch and dinner”)

44. that one video of jae and young k using the jyp card and young k squealing-”it’s not our money, it’s not our money eehehe!!!!!!!”

45. his rap in congratulations. i c o n i c

46. him mouthing “sarangeul haetdaa” when hongki played love scenario. im an ikonic and  a my day and this was just the most satisfying thing ever

47. every. single. part  he has in man in a movie. it’s all us young k stans ever think about.

48. his relationship with terry. terry we love you.

49. pre-debut video of young k falling off the stage while performing. rip his ego

50. his rings. p l e a s i n g 

51. that one baby pink shirt he wore on hongkira while promoting I loved you

52. a fancam of him doing the whole “yess, good morning” thing, and the mic falls down

53. the video of day6 performing man in a movie on nct’s night radio and johnny looking at young k in complete and utter amazement.  same, johnny, same.

54. him describing the percentage of alcohol in their drink on a rooftop live and the giggling about it and yelling “we gon’ get craaazyy”

55. HIS COVER OF BAD DAY. NOBODY DID IT BETTER.

56. the arirang avatar thing where he wore a hanbok and the headgear too. ded.

57. his appreciation for good music. he’s really out there listening to neon trees, arctic monkeys, lauv and daniel powter

58. the beginning of a day6 moments video where  he’s singing i like you but effortlessly and it should be funny but yet again, im just very impressed none of those notes are falsettos

59. when he danced to knock knock and then got all shy. my boy knew ALL the steps :‘)

60. when he forgets lyrics while busking and makes shit up. priceless.

61. on his solo live, when he made that song about soy sauce and dipping meat in it and it being delicious to the tune of what can i do. istg younghyun what can you not do

62. his business administration windbreaker

63. in general, his love for business administration lmao i love him

64. his efficacy and will to get good grades even while touring

65. his dubsmashes and that baby sound one in particular

66. “I GOT TACOS”

67. his vibratos in songs. they’re like a separate entity altogether. we’ve got young k’s beautiful versatile voice, then we’ve got his vibratos. right there, on a pedestal.

68. that one fantaken picture of him at the recent thailand concert where he’s wearing a blue shirt and hugging himself(?) idk it’s cute his cheeks are full , he looks happy :’)

69. when he loses his shit during “sing me” in concerts and just vibes with the crowd. best.

70. kang younghyun’s DayDreaming. pre debut. go listen to it if you haven’t. rightnow.

71. the thumbnail of the last third degree video. young k with terry. it’s the look on his face. the innocence. i melt

72. his relationship with people around him and friends. it’s so cool and he literally leaves no stone unturned while thanking his friends :’) (KMESS4LYFE i c u)

73. i don’t say this enough but the lyrics of all alone. younghyun’s part. “i wish someone would hug me and tell me i’ve worked hard when i came home”. come here bby i’ll hug you you’ve worked so hard.

74. kang younghyun’s eyes.

75. him in a black cap and earrings and a white tee.a look.

76. “someone pls teach me how to tweet” 

77. him forgetting his own collab song with jimin on a live broadcast of ASC

78. him admitting in a concert that he’s felt like running away at times and he’s here only bc of the fans’ love for day6. im not crying u r

79. this one tumblr post of him growing up thru the years it’s like an ‘evolution of his smile’ post it brings me to tears

80. his habit of repeating something someone says if he finds it amusing

81. him opening a bottle of beer for dowoon

82. the look on his face when my days are singing man in a movie from start to finish without any percussion or bgm. an in a movie. a song he wrote. a b-side track.

83. the way he says bye to the camera swaying from side to side

84. when he was a total sport and jammed to b.i spitting freestyle rap in his face(WIN)

85. “noo. nooo he’s lying. i beat him i hit himm”

86. “YOU ARE MY DAY!”

87. the aaa falsetto at the end of that part^^

88. his verse at the beginning of “i would”. i think that’s what he’d sound like in the morning.

89. he’s just so humble. he literally writes the lyrics we all love so much but never misses an opportunity to commend everyone’s talent “i get the most ideas but jae has the best ideas”

90. “young k has maximum experience when it comes to girls. he knows what warms a woman’s heart”. lmao i agree

91. him singing “oh wonpil you play the piano so well” at the end of a pocket live

92. the fact that he was dating in canada without his parents’ knowledge and that’s where he gets the inspiration to write songs from. idk it’s adorable

93. his borderline jazz version of pouring in a pocket live. i hear you jazzy rhythmic finger snaps

94. his smirk when he does the “aah” part in “what can i do”

95. his awe and admiration for his dongsaengs like he’s genuinely in love with how talented the the stray kids boys are

96. “i ask people to call me young k bc as young k, i can make up for the inadequacies of brian. brian is weak.” this is why i often stick to young k now. yeah it’s fun to joke around but maybe he dOES feel more emotionally and mentally adequate as young k. maybe he feels more empowered or stronger and i don’t want to invalidate that. it takes courage to say what he said in front of a crowd.

97. just the stuff he’s gone through and how strong he is. he’s overcome so much. brave and powerful.

98. the fact that he doesn’t ever fake it with his lyrics, he remains true to his music and so does the rest of day6. stan day6.

99. he’s so interactive with fans and always wants to see us happy. you could say your fav idol does that too but this really IS why i love younghyun

100. the final reason is just because he lives. he lives despite all the obstacles that were probably thrown at him, and i respect and adore that. the way he makes us feel a little less lonely with words that he’s penned out of his own sorrow. the selflessness. i am lucky to listen to songs he has written and day6 has sung. he’s a beautiful human who deserves all ALL the love :’)

thank you for reading, my dudes