#and working on some stuff for a pathology conference

[mkstrigidae]

APWH preview snippet!

Since I'm actively trying to work on getting the next few chapters out, I thought I'd share a little future scene with some hints of Jonsa with all you lovely people! This bit is from like, a few chapters in the future bc it's the in-between that's giving me fits right now :) (Fair warning: this is unedited and subject to change! That being said, it's such a fun scene that I can't imagine ever nixing it :D)

“Does he even know that they have to avoid the press?”

“For the last time-“ Sam sighed, sounding completely exasperated, “Dickon knows what they can and can’t do- he’s got enough practice not being photographed from when our dad was the secretary. Not to mention spending time around you when that exposé on your crazy grandfather came out two years ago.”

“I just-“ Jon sighed, blowing a stray curl out of his face. “You didn’t see how freaked out she was when the press caught us at that performance in White Harbor. I thought she was going to have a full-blown panic attack.”

He was immediately derailed by Gilly plopping little Sam down in his lap and shoving a bottle into his hands.

“What’s this all about?” he raised a brow, adjusting the baby on his lap, allowing him to latch onto the cuff of his flannel shirt and start gnawing at the fabric. “You going somewhere?”

Gilly shot him a withering look, but he saw the amusement in her eyes.

“I-“ she gestured, imperiously, “Have not had time by myself to shower all week-“

“Sorry, love.” Sam winced, looking up from his pile of paperwork. “I can take a break from these-“

“Not your fault, Sam.” she waved him off. “You warned me about this conference at the beginning of the summer.” a grin played at the corners of her mouth. “Besides, it works out well- Jon needs a distraction right now from the fact that Sansa’s on a date with your extremely hot and conventionally attractive brother.”

“Hey!” Sam looked wounded, and Gilly rolled her eyes, pressing a kiss to his forehead.

“You know you’re my favorite Tarly.” she wrinkled her nose. “How long have you been working on this presentation? You smell like the baby spit up on you.”

“Guess I’m next in line for showers.” Sam said, mournfully. “Unless-“

“Nope- I need my own time right now, Samwell. Did you even hear what I said about why Jon’s bent out of shape?”

Jon had known Gilly since Sam and she had met up north while the two of them were in college. Sometimes, it was hard to reconcile the timid, scared girl she had been with the woman who was currently devoting all of her remaining energy to busting his balls.

“Don’t tell me you’re worried about Sansa with my brother.” Sam snorted, shotgunning another cup of coffee next to him the way Jon was used to seeing undergrads do with jaeger shots. “I mean, this is Dickon we’re talking about. Used to bring wounded animals home to take care of them Dickon? The same guy who cried when we had movie night and Gilly and Rhae wanted to go see ‘Love, Simon’?” He shook his head. “Look, as far as guys she could be out on a date with right now go, Dickon’s kind of the best case scenario. She’ll have a nice time, and he’ll be a perfect gentleman.”

Jon blinked at him, silently turning to look up at Gilly, who rolled her eyes and sighed.

“You’re hopeless, sweetie.” she kissed him on the forehead again, wrinkling her nose. “He’s not worried that things will go wrong- he’s worried they’ll go a little too well.”

“You’ve been spending way too much time around my sister.” Jon muttered, narrowly avoiding little Sam’s grasping reach for his glasses, managing to get the baby to latch onto the bottle before he destroyed any more of Jon’s eyewear. “You even sounded like her just then.”

Sam blinked for a second, his head whipping between Jon and Gilly.“You’re jealous?” He asked, incredulously. “Of Dickon? Wait- you like Sansa?”

“Got there in the end.” Gilly sighed, affectionately patting him on the shoulder before going to shower, leaving Jon and Sam behind with four cups of coffee, one baby, and approximately five brain cells total between the two of them.

“You like her.” Sam repeated, like it was a giant revelation.

“What are we- in middle school?” Jon hissed, immediately turning his head down to smile and make faces at little Sam while he fed him, before glaring up at big Sam again. “I don’t- I mean-“

Sam was just shaking his head.“Of course you do.” he laughed. “Should have guessed- red hair and a damsel in distress? You were doomed from the outset.”

“Shut up.” Jon muttered, flushing. “It’s not like that.”

“Then why are you worrying about Dickon for fu-“ Sam glanced nervously at the baby, “-god’s sake? When Gill was meeting my family for the first time, I remember you told her not to worry- that my brother was ‘one of the best guys you know’ and ‘practically a golden retriever’.”

Jon could tell that Sam, who could not raise one eyebrow without the other, was desperately trying to do just that.

“I don’t know.” He muttered, moving little Sam to his shoulder to start burping him. “Look- I’m attracted to her, alright? It’s a fu- er, a giant disaster that I’m gonna ignore for the rest of my life.”

“Seriously?”

“Stop trying to do that with your eyebrows.” Jon complained. “It’s giving me motion sickness. And yes, seriously. I’m not even going to consider that- it’s just a stupid crush. Besides,” he sighed, rubbing little Sam’s back comfortingly, “Robb’s already dealing with enough right now with this whole Sansa situation- can’t imagine telling him I think his sister’s attractive while he’s being forced to suddenly confront all of his guilt and self loathing every time he looks at her.”

“That whole bro code thing of never dating your friend’s sisters never really made sense to me.” Sam shook his head, gulping down more coffee. “I mean, I’d be thrilled if you decided to date Talla, because I know you’d be good to her.”

“Yeah, don't think she'd quite go for that, mate.” Jon snorted, standing to bounce little Sam around gently. He was just grateful Sam hadn’t said anything else about Robb.

“Eh, wouldn’t count you out completely.” Sam shrugged, smirking. “With that hair, you’re pretty enough to be a girl- maybe that’d be enough for her.”

“You are so lucky i’m holding the baby.” Jon muttered, still bouncing little Sam, who picked that moment to spit up spectacularly down Jon’s back.

“Well, that’s three of us who’re gonna need showers now.” Sam grinned, looking thrilled as all get out that it hadn’t been him. “Wow- his aim is getting better.”

“I’m going to remind him of this when he’s a sulky teenager.” Jon grumbled, wiping spit-up off his shoulder as best he could. “Look- no gossiping with Rhae about this, please. She thinks she’s such a good clandestine agent that she doesn’t always realize that Robb is better at sniffing out her plots than she thinks.”

“Alright-“ Sam sighed, looking back down at the massive stack of paperwork in front of him. “I make no promises for Gill, though.”

“Gilly could give some of my Uncle’s colleagues at the WIA a run for their money when it comes to withstanding interrogation.” Jon snorted.

“Probably true.”

“Where did your brother take Sansa?” Still holding onto a now much happier baby with one hand, he reached down the other to take a gulp of his own coffee.

“He said something about going out towards the Tyrell Estate.” Sam shrugged. “They probably drove out there to see the gardens- he’s said it’s a good road to take his bike out on.”

Jon promptly spat out his entire sip of coffee, staining the front of his shirt as well as the back, and frightening little Sam enough that he started to cry.

“He took her on his motorcycle?”

Gilly picked that moment to reappear, completely clean and with wet hair, blinking at the scene in front of her.

Sam, who couldn’t seem to stop laughing, was desperately trying to calm down the baby, who had started wailing, while Jon’s entire front was covered in coffee and his entire back was covered in baby vomit. Not that he seemed to notice, as his face was white and he was making a series of angry looking hand gestures at her husband.

“I really can’t leave you three alone for five minutes, can I?” she sighed. “Do I even want to know?”

[rambling-at-midnight]

Guide Me Home

Pairing: Jason Todd x Reader

Summary: While walking downtown, you inhale fear toxin. It's up to the Bats to find you before your heart gives out.

Word count: 3.1k

Warnings: Scarecrow attack, (kind of) graphic hallucinations (only a small allude to blood though)

Fun fact: As I wrote this, 'quiet' started to not look like a word anymore.

You rub at your eye, muttering below your breath. Wind has been whipping through the Gotham streets all day, drying out your contacts to the point of discomfort.

The next time you blink, one flips up. Cursing, you cup a hand over the affected eye and blink until the stupid contact rights itself. Digging around your purse, you find your suspicions to be true: after the last time you needed to use your emergency backup contacts, you forgot to replace them. The small bottle of contact solution is missing, lost to the abyss of the purse or somewhere else. All you know is that it’s not here.

The only alternative is your glasses, and those are always a last resort. With an outdated prescription, uncomfortably heavy bridge, and scratched lenses, they’re far from ideal.

It’s fine. You’ll splash some water on your face when you get to the cafe and blink a lot. They’re fine.

Your friend is already sitting by the time you get there, but hasn’t ordered their drink yet. You haven’t seen them for several months, though you used to see each other every day during undergrad. They’re only here for a work conference. They live in Metropolis now, and are wearing an ‘I SURVIVED MY VISIT TO METROPOLIS’ shirt to show it. A couple Gothamites around them are actively laughing into their hands at the sight of it. After all, compared to this city, really nothing is worse.

After the usual greeting, hug, and exclamations over how long it’s been, you say, “Sorry, but my contact’s actually killing me right now. I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll watch your stuff,” they say cheerfully.

The bathroom’s about as good as someone could hope for in Gotham. The remains of scrubbed-away graffiti lingers on the wall around the mirror, and a paper towel with a suspicious red stain hangs over the edge of the trash can. Not quite the vibe this place is going for, judging by the painted ivy around the walls and the hanging plants, but oh well.

You blink, squeeze your eyes shut, rub them, and open them again. Much better.

There’s a drink in front of your friend by the time you make it back to the table they found, pushed in the back corner where things are a little quieter. “They have seasonal syrups,” they say, sipping the drink. “Though a lot of them are named after supervillains.”

You scoff and shrug off your coat. “Please. Clayface is hardly a supervillain. He’s just a washed-up actor.”

“That must be nice,” your friend says wistfully. “Did I tell you I had to replace my car last month?”

“No!”

“Yeah! Some alien dictator had beef with Superman. A lot of cars were thrown in that fight.”

“Ugh,” you say wistfully. “We had some good memories in that car.” They’d had it since undergrad.

“Gone but never forgotten,” they say, holding their cup up for cheers, and you both remember that you haven’t ordered anything yet.

Even though you’re on a bit of a caffeine ban—boyfriend’s orders—you order a coffee. One a day won’t hurt you, not when you were averaging at least four during the recent busy season. The pathology lab you work at always has a huge rush of biopsies ordered between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. Now that it’s a little into January, you’re not scrambling quite so much.

With your drink in hand, you head back to the table to keep catching up. Your friend started a new job with a much better boss than their old one. They’re thinking about proposing to their partner of five years. Their dog got into their family’s big holiday meal and they had to order last-minute Chinese takeout instead. And they can’t decide whether to cut their hair or keep growing it out.

Then it’s your turn. You’re four years into your job at the lab, kind of feeling like you want a change, but the generous Christmas bonus is making you think twice. Your apartment is okay but not nice. Your cat is healthy and happy and extremely spoiled. Your family lives across the country, all with separate plans, so you stayed in Gotham for the (surprisingly uneventful) winter.

“What did you do for the holidays, then?” your friend asks, their drink long since finished. Judging by their eyes drifting back to the counter as you speak, they want another.

“My boyfriend’s family celebrates Hanukkah and Christmas,” you say. “Nothing too fancy, of course, none of us are terribly religious. But it was nice to see each other on a regular basis for a week straight.” Jason would disagree, but only out of principle. “We’re all busy people.”

“And your boyfriend? Jason, right? How is he? What does he do for work, again?”

Here comes the hard part. No matter what happens in your personal life, you can’t talk to anyone about it unless they’re in the know. Keeping Gotham safe requires a fairly large system; you and several other scientists or similar professionals are able to contact the Bats through Leslie Thompkins, Lucius Fox, and Commissioner Gordon, but of that number, only a fraction know their identities.

Working overtime at the lab as a new hire, you were the only one Leslie could reach at midnight when Black Bat came in contact with a mysterious substance through an open wound. From midnight to eight a.m., you collected blood and skin samples with hands that shook under the scrutiny of Batman’s white-lensed gaze. Your treatment was a gamble but a success, and after that, the Bats started to come to you more and more. So many of their rogues use biowarfare, after all. Still, it took over a year for Black Bat and Spoiler to take off their masks around you. At that point, you’d only seen Red Hood once, when he brought Robin in and ordered you to never tell Batman that he’d done so. Months after that, he took off his helmet around you, but only because of a nasty cut on his neck, and the domino mask beneath it stayed on. You’d known each other for a year and a half before he spoke more than five curt words to you at a time. Analyzing a new street drug was the first time you two ever worked together, and it was fun. After that, he just kept coming back.

It took so long to gain their trust, and you won’t risk it. But there are so many secrets. How can you explain to anyone else that not only is your boyfriend related to Bruce Wayne—yes, the Bruce Wayne of Gotham, billionaire, CEO, activist, and philanthropist—but he is, in fact, the man’s very publicly dead son?

So you can tell people about your boyfriend named Jason. You can’t introduce him to anyone from outside Gotham; the jagged scar on his cheek and glowing green eyes tend to raise more questions than answers. You can mention that he has a large family. You can’t tell them who his family is. You can tell them that Jason works flexible hours, usually at night, so the two of you see each other often despite your busy schedules. You can’t tell them what Jason actually does for work.

“He runs a not-for-profit community service organization,” you lie, the words familiar and tasteless from how often you’ve had to say them. And he sort of does, but with a lot more violence and criminal cavorting than most other not-for-profits. “He’s really passionate about helping Gotham’s kids that come from low-income households.” The foster system reform laws passed last year were lobbied by Wayne Enterprises, but it was the Red Hood showing up in politician’s houses in the dead of night that really sped up the process.

“I talked to Avery the other day,” your friend says. “They’re convinced you’re making him up.”

You sigh. Avery is another friend from college. You two were in the same friend group for years, but were never particularly close outside of it. “We don’t like to take pictures together, okay?”

Your friend eyes you with a faint air of dissatisfaction. “Well, if you say so. I was actually hoping to meet him while I’m here.”

You try not to let it show how your heart leaps into your throat at the thought. Around the lump, you say, “I’m sure he’d love to, but he’ll be stuck all day at the office.” Lie. He’s at home right now, baking muffins and wearing an apron with the words ‘Kiss the Cook.’ Damian and Tim scribbled over the two ‘S’s with Sharpie to make it ‘KiLL the Cook,’ but the sentiment is still there.

“Right,” they say slowly.

The meetup doesn’t last long after that. At the end of it, you hug and promise to meet up more often, even though it’s unlikely. With a wave, they head off for their conference, and you’re almost out the door when you blink wrong and—

Half the world goes blurry.

You feel the contact fall down your cheek and onto the ground.

“Goddamnit,” you hiss under your breath.

Glasses it is.

You’ve been wearing contacts for so long that you can take out the other one without breaking stride. The wind hasn’t let up in the slightest, and it makes your nose run.

Sniffling slightly, shoulders hunched against the chill, you don’t see the pumpkin until it’s too late.

They’re after you.

It’s not safe, not for you, not for anyone, they want you, they’re grabbing you, hands on your shoulder, people screaming—screaming at you—for you to stop—no—for—for something to stop?

Something is wrong. Dimly, in the back of your mind, you know something is wrong, but your hands are shaking and your bag is ripping, someone is clawing at you, screaming, desperate, they want you to fall back so they’re safe (from what?) and someone else shoves you and you go spinning out, bag in one direction and you in the other and—

They’re changing, the person clawing at you, turning into a monster, and you scream.

They’re after you

(who is after you)

They want to hurt you

(why)

(what is going on)

And you can’t see, something is wrong, you hear glass crunch and then the whole world goes out of focus.

You can’t see.

They’ll get you if you can’t see, and now you can see them, the dark shapes rising from the shadows, claws out and maws gaping, hungry, hungry, hungry for you and your marrow and your heart and they’re going to get you—

You run.

You trip over something (or someone; something like a bone crunches) and your heel slides and your hands catch you but not really, chin clipping the ground so hard your teeth click, and your hands burn, and your chin aches, but they’re still behind you, behind and getting closer—

You run.

You run and they get closer and you see the corner of something dark and blurry, and maybe it’s another monster or maybe it’s a building, and you skid to a stop and throw yourself behind it.

It’s not a monster. It smells awful—a dumpster—and the ground is wet, you hope from rain, but maybe it’s blood

(you’re sitting in a pool of it)

(you’ll be covered)

(the monsters will smell the blood and come running and they’ll hear you shuffling, they’ll hear you panting, they’ll hear your heart pounding, pounding, pounding—)

You scramble to the farthest corner between the brick building’s corner and the dumpster—maybe their clawed arms will be too short to reach you—and hide your face in your hands—you need to stop breathing so loudly—you need to be quiet, quiet, quiet—

People continue to scream. The city, the city Jason and his family try so hard to protect, everyone is dying and you’re going to die and maybe they’ll die, too, or maybe they’ll survive, and maybe they’ll find your dead body and that would ruin Jason, or maybe they won’t and you’ll rot behind the dumpster, smelling just as bad as the trash inside it—

Quiet quiet quiet.

You can’t stop shaking, your teeth won’t stop rattling, and you have to be quiet quiet quiet.

But your heart keeps pounding, faster and faster. It hasn’t slowed down since the monsters came, it’s only getting louder and faster.

Dimly you think you might be having a heart attack.

Everything gets a thousand times worse when one of the monsters shouts your name.

How do they know your name?

Footsteps on the pavement and people have stopped screaming.

Dead, you think. And you’ll be next if you’re not quiet quiet quiet.

The monster shouts your name again. It’s louder—they’re closer. You curl into a tighter ball. They can’t find you.

Deep breaths. Deep breaths. Your chest hurts; your heart wants to jump out of it.

Jason, you think wildly. Jason will save you. If Jason finds you, he’ll keep you safe. Your hands fish at your side, but find empty air: your purse is gone. There’s no way to reach him, and he can’t even track your location through your phone.

The monster shouts your name again. It has a deep voice.

Another voice joins it, deeper, pitched lower. You can’t quite make out the words.

“They’re around here,” the first monster insists. “B, we don’t have long, this strain is strong—”

“They’re strong,” says the second monster. “Their heart can handle it.”

Something thumps and a third monster says, “Everyone else is clear. Signal had to take two people to the hospital, but they’ll be fine, don’t look so upset, B.”

“You have the antitoxin?” the first monster demands.

“Relax, Hood,” drawls the third monster. “‘Course I do. So you tracked them here?”

“Yeah, I just—” Again it shouts your name. It sounds almost upset. “Please, it’s me, I can help you. Come on. You’re safe. You inhaled fear toxin, I know you’re terrified, but it’s me. You know me.”

It’s trying to lure you in. You won’t fall for it.

You squeeze your eyes shut and hold your breath. Let them move on. Let them search somewhere—

“There you are.”

A hulking figure is blocking the light.

The monsters found you.

“Stop it!” you yell, trying to sound brave. “Leave me alone or—or you’ll regret it!”

“Please,” it wheedles, “I’m just trying to help you. Don’t you recognize me?” It reaches out with clawed hands and you kick frantically, but there’s nowhere else for you to go.

“Hey, aren’t these their glasses?” asks the third monster. “What happened to their contacts?”

“Don’t come any closer! The Red Hood will get you, I know him, if you hurt me he’ll kill you! Stop it!”

“I’m really sorry about this, honey,” the monster says, and its clawed hand latches around your ankle and you howl. The sharp points dig deep through skin into muscle and sinew, and it hurts and you’re going to die—

“Jason!” you shriek. “Jason, help me!”

“I’m right here,” the monster lies. “Please, I’m right here, look at me—”

You won’t. You won’t do it. You can’t watch while it kills you. “Jason, please!” you bawl again, but it’s too late. The monsters have you, you’re surrounded, he’ll never forgive himself but what could he even do against them—

Sharp teeth dig into your neck.

You’re dead.

“There we go, darling,” the monster says. Strong arms wrap around you—it wants to crush you to death—and you struggle, but there’s no use.

Except—

You can hear now, kind of, the rush of blood in your ears is receding a bit, and something heavy lands on your nose. This time, when you blink your eyes open, the world’s edges have sharpened. And the monster in front of you—

Well, you recognize the dark hair with a shock of white, and the brilliantly green eyes would be visible if not for the white-lensed domino mask, and the jagged scar on his cheek.

“Jay?” you murmur, hand coming up to touch it. He doesn’t flinch away. It took so long for him to stop flinching when you touch his face. Over his shoulder, you see Batman and Spoiler watching with satisfaction and slight worry. “What happened?”

“Scarecrow,” he says grimly. “He gassed the street, but only about twenty people were affected. I was patrolling nearby, and when I saw your purse on the ground—” He grimaces, then fixes you with a hard look. His two hands can span most of your head, and he takes it to press a firm kiss to your forehead. When he pulls back slightly, without looking away, “I want their heart checked.”

“The antitoxin—” Batman starts.

“I don’t care,” Jason snarls.

Your hands loosely hold his forearms, still shaking a little. “How’d you find me?”

“I tracked you,” he says softly.

“But my phone—”

“Honey,” he says gently, “of course that’s not the only one.”

Well. You should have guessed that, honestly.

“I’ll go check on the victims,” Batman says suddenly. “Come on, Spoiler.”

“Glad to see you’re okay,” Spoiler says to you, then dashes after Batman. In a whirl of capes, they’re gone.

“I’m so sorry,” Jason says in a rush.

“Jay—”

“I should have protected you,” he grits out, white lenses turning to slits as he squeezes his eyes shut. “This should never have happened—”

“You couldn’t have known,” you say softly, letting go of his arms and wiggling beneath them to wrap yours around his torso. Your nose wedges against his chest kind of uncomfortably, but now you can smell him, the familiar gunpowder and a little bit of sour sweat, and the faint tremble in his bones that mirrors the one in your hands. He clutches you close, head buried in the crook of your neck.

He croaks, “I’m so sorry, so sorry, so—”

“You saved me,” you mumble into his armor. “I knew you would.”

“I almost didn’t.”

“Jay.” You pull back to look at him seriously. “Even when I couldn’t think straight, I knew you would come. I’ll always know that, no matter what toxin’s messing with my head.”

Judging by the twist of his mouth, he doesn’t quite believe that. He’ll beat himself up internally for days, you know.

But you also know that while Bruce runs his tests in the Cave to make sure there’s no more toxin in your system, he’ll hold your hand the whole time. You know he’ll hold you tight in the bed you share tonight. You know, as long as Jason lives and breathes, he’ll always protect you.

“I love you,” he says thickly. “So much.”

“I love you too.”

“Let’s get you checked out.” He helps you up and holds you close and you know that you’ll be okay.

Jason’s here, so you’ll be okay.

DC Taglist

@evalynanne @mismatchsposts @cliosunshine @fictionalwhor3 @bellathecatastrophe

Let me know if there's anything you want to see from me. Inspiration strikes at odd intervals, and I get lonely.

[moon-light-jukebox]

Learning Styles - [Reid x Reader]

Summary: Reader has worked hard to get to the FBI, but a misunderstanding has her feeling insecure. 

Pairing: Spencer Reid / Fem!Reader

Word Count: 2.5k

Genre: Fluff

Rating: PG

Content Warning: Mention of normal criminal minds stuff briefly. 

A/n: I got these two requests and they were so similar I decided to combine them. I hope that’s okay, but I feel like the stories would have been almost identical. 

Requests:  - I have a fic suggestion. Reader pretends to be dumb but is actually really smart. I’m thinking of that quote about marilyn ”you have to be really smart to pretend to be dumb”. One day spencer realizes that reader is smarter than she lets people know.

- Hi! Can I request a spencer reid x reader fic where reader isn't great with numbers but brilliant with behaviour and humanities (i.e. literature, history, sociology, up to you)? Maybe a dash of insecurity to spice things up?

-- Learning Styles -- 

My favorite professor in college told me that everyone learns differently; what works for one person won’t work in the same way for another. We are all different human beings that are shaped in different ways.

I had always been oddly insecure about my intelligence level. One of my earliest memories was my mother yelling at me while I sat at the kitchen table when I was in first grade. I was the only kid in my class who still hadn’t learned how to read. I just didn’t understand. All of my friends were progressing so much quicker than me and my mother was losing patience.

It wasn’t until my grandmother stepped in that everything changed. My elementary school teacher was training children to read by memorizing sight words, a concept I didn’t understand. When my grandmother sat down and taught me phonics. I distinctly remember everything snapping into place.

I was in 1st grade and reading at a 7th-grade level by Christmas. Once I finally understood my learning style, I really began to thrive.

But no matter what I did, I could still hear my mother yelling at me, telling me I was stupid.

In my line of work, I see just how much the throw away comments that parents make can shape a child’s development. Luckily, those comments just made me a bit insecure, not a murderer.

Up until I was 22, I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do beyond this desire I had to help people. SSA David Rossi had come to guest lecture in one of my abnormal psych classes during undergrad. After I heard him speak, I was done. I couldn’t have done anything else with my life. I had obtained my master’s in psychology before I joined the FBI.

It took some time, but I was finally assigned to the Behavioral Analysis Unit at Quantico. I was so excited on my first day that I remember my hands physically shaking.

Until they weren’t.

I can still remember my first day so clearly. SSA Hotchner had introduced me to the team, saving the “best” for last.

“And this is Dr. Spencer Reid,” he had said. “He’s our expert on…well, everything.”

Reid was my age and he had his Ph.D. I remember feeling awed by him.

Until I didn’t.

"I hold 3 Ph.D.'s in Chemistry, Engineering, and Mathematics. I also have BAs in psychology and sociology."

I remember my jaw almost hitting the floor. While I was impressed by him, I wasn’t insecure about my place on the team.

Until I was.

My grandmother may have helped me master reading, which opened the door to me mastering anything else I put my mind to…except math.

I was fine at statistics, luckily. You couldn’t get a psych degree without a ton of statistics work. But statistics was different, I could see the practical use of statistics. I just couldn’t wrap my head around calculus or algebra.

On my first case with the team, Reid had calculated some insane mathematical equations on the whiteboard, running down the probabilities and applying a mathematical formula to the unsub’s behavior.

It wasn't until later, after the case was solved when I was standing in front of the whiteboard that my confidence was hit. Reid had come into the room and saw me looking at his work.

“Don’t bother trying to understand it,” he had said. “You’d have to be a genius to understand what I do.”

I didn’t have a word to describe the feeling that settled in my stomach at his words, I wasn’t sure such a word existed. The feeling was cold and heavy, but also made my body burn with shame.

I had just offered him a tight smile before I left the room.

On the plane home I had made a decision. I was no match for Dr. Reid, I doubt anyone was. So, I would take myself out of the competition. I couldn’t get hurt if I wasn’t playing the game.

And that is how the next year of my life went. I allowed Dr. Reid to explain things to me that I was an expert in, never saying a word. I acted like I didn't understand concepts that I had written papers on. The only thing I didn't dumb down was my profiling skills. Those were necessary for my job and for saving lives.

I don’t think anyone realized what I was doing.

Until they did.

--

The team had been called to Colorado to assist in capturing a serial rapist.

All of our cases bothered me, every last one…but something about ones with this vile element really struck me.

We had the unsub’s name, Tyler Childress. He had spent time in prison for sexual assault and burglary. It seems while he was in prison, he spent time perfecting his methods; it was only by pure luck that we found his fingerprint inside the victim’s house, making him the main suspect.

When we paid Mr. Childress a visit, he had managed to get the drop on Prentiss and Morgan, allowing them to escape. Morgan was furious.

All of us were sitting around a conference table in the local prescient while we let Dr. Reid talk.

I was trying to be calm, I was, but my nails were digging into my palm so deeply I was worried I was about to draw blood.

“Guys,” the expert on everything said. “He has to have some sort of accomplice.”

Rossi just sighed. “But the profile doesn’t point to him being the sort to do well with others; he’s a narcissist.”

Reid wouldn’t budge. “I know that, but he isn’t intelligent enough to pull this off alone. He’s just not. He had an IQ test done when he was 20. He scored in the mentally handicapped range. I’m telling you he has to have help.”

“Are you sure, Reid?” Hotch asked.

“Positive. I have his results right here.”

“IQ tests aren’t a good measure of intelligence on their own.”

I was so startled that someone had contradicted Dr. Reid that it took me a second to realize it was me who had contradicted him.

He turned to face me; his brown eyes wide. “What?”

Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. “IQ tests aren’t a good measure of intelligence.”

Dr. Reid laughed. He laughed at me like my comment was funny. “I don’t know where you heard that,” he began.

But I interrupted him. "IQ tests are classist and oftentimes racist. The man who invented the IQ test never intended for it to be used as a complete measure of intelligence. He regretted making the test.”

Reid sputtered. “You…it’s not racist!”

“Yes. It. Is.” I ground out. “If it wasn’t it wouldn’t be illegal to administer an IQ test to a black child in the state of California.”

"Wait, it's illegal to do that?" JJ asked, her brows drawn together.

"Yes. There was a court case in the 1970s over it. Teachers were using tests to separate white children from black children. The black children were put into special education classes they didn’t need to be in. Just because the teachers didn’t want those children in their classrooms.”

I should have stopped, but I was on a role. “They’re also inherently classist. How can you expect a child to answer a question about Romeo and Juliet if they haven’t heard of it?”

That had Dr. Reid scoffing. “Everyone has heard of it.”

I shot to my feet, unable to hold back anymore. “No, they haven’t. Children in underfunded schools that don’t have access to resources might not have heard about the most famous play in history because their school wasn’t able to provide the materials to teach them about it. There was a study done in a remote part of Russia right after the IQ test was invented. Every. Single. Person. Scored in the mentally handicapped range. Because they didn’t understand.”

I knew my voice was rising but I couldn’t stop myself. “Once the researcher took the questions and applied them to things they understood, they all scored as above average. They didn’t understand math as an abstract concept, but they understood it when it was applied to their businesses, to something they actually knew about.”

I cleared my throat. “The test isn’t fair, it’s not equal. Tyler Childress didn’t go to a good school and he didn’t have a stable home life. You can’t use one measure to calculate his intelligence. He’s gotten away with 7 assaults so far that we know of. He’s not stupid.”

The entire room was silent once I had stopped speaking. I couldn’t bring myself to regret it though. What kind of person was I if I played dumb because I was afraid of being mocked when a monster was out there attacking women? No, those women deserved to have me at my best.

And I’ll be damned if I wouldn’t give it to them.

Rossi spoke first, his eyes twinkling when he looked at me. “Took you long enough,” he said. “But y/n is right. We trust the profile; we don’t let personal bias cloud the way. That’s how we catch this bastard.”

--

Later that day, we were cleaning up the conference room while the local police processed Tyler Childress.

Pathological narcissism is a complex disorder, but we followed the profile and Rossi was right. Hotch set up a press conference in which JJ and Prentiss took center stage. They tore Childress’s ego to shreds on live television.

His narcissism wouldn’t allow that to slide. He got angry, he made a mistake, and we got him before anyone else got hurt.  

While the cat was out of the bag about my intelligence and that made me nervous, I couldn't regret any of it. I got to be the one to tell our last victim that we got him. I got to hug her while she cried because now that he was locked up, she felt like her healing could begin. I wasn’t sure if my rant about structural racism and the classism of IQ tests actually helped anything, but that didn’t really matter. There was one less monster in the shadows.

Today was a good day.

I was alone in the conference room, untacking photos from the evidence board when I heard someone clear their throat from behind me. I turned my head to meet the wide, honey brown eyes of Dr. Spencer Reid.

Oh boy, I thought. “What’s up, Reid?”

He shifted from foot to foot, his hands twisting in front of him before he crossed his arms over his chest. “I asked Garcia to look into you.”

My eyebrows drew together. “I’m pretty sure any nefarious things I had done would have popped up on my initial background check.”

“Right, I didn’t mean like that,” he mumbled, the apples of his cheeks turning pink. “I asked her to look into you academically.”

Shit.

He went on. “You double majored in psychology and sociology before you got a master’s in cultural psychology. She pulled your thesis. I just read it.”

“I see.” I turned my attention back to the board.

“You also guest lecture on cross-cultural psychology at Georgetown several times a year. And you’ve co-authored two papers since I’ve known you.”

Meh, it’s three. But that doesn’t matter. “Did you read those too?”

I took his silence as confirmation.

He was so quiet I almost thought he had left, but the crackle of energy I felt in the air told me he hadn’t. “Do you need something, Dr. Reid?”

"Why didn't you get your Ph.D.?"

I had answered that question many, many times. “I didn’t need a doctorate to do what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to waste time. Once I figured out what I wanted, I charged at it.” Which was a far more honest answer than most people got about that from me.

“W-why did you pretend to be dumb?” he rasped out, causing me to look back at him. “32 days ago, you let me explain the long-term effects of gerrymandering and the complex causes of poverty.”

“Of course, I did,” I said, frowning. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“One of the papers you authored was about generational poverty.”

“Just because I know a lot about something doesn’t mean I can stop listening to information. That sort of thinking breeds ignorance.” I smiled, unable to not tease him just a little bit.

Reid took a step closer to me. “You didn’t answer my question.”

I just shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t have a good answer.”

In all the months I had known him, Spencer Reid had never touched me, not even so much as a finger brushing against mine when he handed me something. That fact is why I was so startled when I felt his hand on my upper arm, turning me towards him.

He licked his lips, his eyes darting around. “Did everyone else know?”

I shook my head, my teasing mood long gone. "No. I mean, clearly, Rossi suspected but…No, I didn't tell anyone else."

“I just don’t understand. You’re brilliant.”

I scoffed. “No, I’m not. I’m decent a psychology, sociology, stuff like that. I can’t apply math to behavior to find patterns. I can’t even calculate how much something is gonna cost when it’s on sale without a calculator half the time.”

‘What do you…” Reid trailed off. “Wait. The very first case. You were looking at the evidence board.”

Goddamn eidetic memory.

The boy wonder was on a roll now. “I told you that you’d have to…is that why you didn’t tell me?”

What else could I do? I just nodded.

Those brown eyes closed, and he let out a groan. “I said that because I thought you were going to…I was worried…” He huffed out a breath and opened his eyes. “I wanted you to like me. I didn’t want you to think I was just a nerd.”  

Now I was confused. “Why?”

Spencer Reid’s blush went all the way down his neck. “Well…I just…Morgan said I should just talk to you. But I’m not…I’m not good at that. I panic, then I start to ramble. Like I’m doing now…”

“Reid,” I interrupted. “I’m not playing dumb now. I really have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I like you,” he blurted out right before he smacked both of his hands over his face. “Oh my god. I sound like a child.” I thought I heard him mutter idiot under his breath. “Emily says that my IQ gets slashed to 60 whenever I see a pretty girl.”

Much like that moment all those years ago when I was a child, I felt everything click into place. Oh.

I couldn't suppress my smile any longer. I rose up on my tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "Well, we've already gone over how IQ tests aren't a good measure of overall intelligence."  

With that, I quickly stepped away and hurried out of the conference room, leaving a stunned genius in my wake. When I turned back to look at him, I saw his fingers brushing over the place where my lips had just been.  

--

Permeant Taglist : @rachelxwayne​ @pinkdiamond1016​ @sickeninglyshoujo​ @justagirllookingforherplace​ @nanocoool​ @andiebeaword​ @imjusthereformggcontent​ @rainsong01​ @violentvulgarvolatile​ @mys2425​ @al3xmnd​ @imfalling-inlove​ @cielo1984​ @shadyladyperfection​ @kissingvalentino​

comment/message to be added 😊

[cacoetheswriting]

if we made it - spencer reid

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!Reader Warnings: blood/gore, mentions of injuries etc., explosion, (usual cm stuff tbh), other than that just fluff Word Count: 1.5k Request By: anonymous: “can you do a spencer reid x fic where one or the other gets severely hurt??”

-

The sound of wailing sirens in the distance caused you to slowly open your eyes. Agonising pain coursed through your aching body. The damage you sustained in the explosion was quite severe. Left arm was definitely broken, a deep laceration spread across your torso oozing blood, blood also gushed down your forehead and cheeks. Your right hand moved to your face in a desperate attempt to identify the wound but the sudden movement only caused you to wince in misery.  

“Sp-pencer...” You managed to croak. “Spencer.” Gently you tilted your head from side to side analysing your surroundings. It was hard to see through all the heavy smoke, not to mention the throbbing sting from your head wound. You called out his name again a little louder but there was no response. 

Carefully you managed to sit up. That’s when you spotted the young doctor; laying motionless about ten feet away from you. “Spencer. No, no.” Panic overcame you. Despite the ache of your injuries you tried to stand. From experience you knew you were losing too much blood yet you ignored your better judgement and limped your way towards him.

“Spencer.” His name rolled off your tongue once again as a mere whisper. There were now tears in your eyes. You sat beside him, your whole body shaking. He didn't seem to have any major visible injuries apart from a few cuts and bruises here and there yet he was still unconscious. 

“Help! HELP!” The screams were tiring you out.

You fumbled through the pockets of his FBI jacket in search of his phone, since yours was in the car when it exploded, whispering ‘It’s gonna be okay Spencer’ over and over again. Luckily the device seemed to be working just fine and you managed to dial for help before dizziness completely overcame you and everything went black.

ABOUT SIX HOURS AGO

“So let me get this straight.” Emily stated curiously. “We’re now thinking this was arson? That we’re dealing with an arsonist?” She glanced between the team and sighed. “Couldn't this guy still be a pyromaniac like we profiled?” She enquired further.

It was Spencer who spoke next. “Pyromania is an impulse control disorder characterised by the pathological setting of fires. Interestingly enough most acts of arson are not committed by pyromaniacs.” “Of course they’re not.” Emily muttered under her breath and leaned back in her chair. This made Rossi snicker under his nose. 

Spencer continued: “A person with pyromania doesn't set fires for gain, ideological reasons, to express anger or for vengeance.” “By that definition they certainly don’t set fires to cover up another criminal act which we’ve now learned is what happened in this instance.” JJ chimed in. Spencer nodded.

“We have to relook at the whole profile.” Hotch stated. He proceeded to divide the team and assigning them various tasks. As usual you were paired with Spencer - not that was ever a reason to complain. 

As the rest of the BAU members scattered, Spencer got to his feet and walked up to the bulletin board. He turned back around to look at you. “Are you okay? I know arson cases are hard on you.” You tilted your head up to meet his gaze and smiled softly. “I’m okay Spencer.” He nodded and turned his attention to the map, your eyes still glued to the back of his head.

The rest of the afternoon flew by in a blink of an eye. Before you realised the sun outside had set and the sky now glistened with a million little stars. A small yawn escaped your mouth, The faint moan caught Spencer’s ear and he turned his attention from the map to you. “Coffee?” He raised an eyebrow. “Bed.” You replied with a soft giggle. Spencer smiled and looked at his watch. “Well we have been up for almost eighteen hours.” 

You looked back at the scattered papers on the table in front of you. It was no use to continue this tired. “On second thought, coffee does sound good.” You got up from the table and headed for the door. “Would you like one?” “Please, with creamer and suga-” “Sugar, I remember.” Spencer smiled and watched you walk out of conference room. 

The young doctor followed you with his gaze. He couldn't help but notice how incredible you looked lately. If he was being honest you were always beautiful, but lately it was as of he paid attention to it more. He did not realise until now how when you smiled your whole face lit up, how your eyes glistened. How your hair perfectly fell around your face complimenting your jawline. 

Maybe one of these days he'd have the courage to ask you for coffee outside of work, on a date. “One of these days.”, he thought to himself and looked back at the map. 

You waltzed back in shortly with two coffees in hand. “I’m just off the phone with Hotch.” You began whilst handing Spencer his drink. “Everyone is heading back to the hotel, we’re gonna pick up tomorrow morning.” “Would you like to go too?” He enquired. “If the hot chocolate instead of coffee in your cup isn't clue enough.” You joked, hoping he'd laugh. He did. 

Spencer got behind the wheel, like he always did with you. He waited for you to get settled in before starting the car. Click. “Did you hear that?” “No.” You looked around for the source of the noise and decided it was just your mind playing tricks. 

About ten minutes into the drive back to the hotel - click. “Okay you must have heard it this time?” You furrowed your eyebrows confused. Click. Click. That’s when you knew what was coming. 

You locked eyes with the young doctor. Panic. 

Before either of you could react there was an enormous explosion. A rift of orange flame engulfed the vehicle. Windows shattered. Smoke and fire rushed in. You blacked out. 

The ringing in your ears brought you back to reality. White. All you could see was white. You blinked a couple of times; until the hospital room came into a clear view. Someone grabbed your hand.

“You’re awake.” The voice you knew all too well. “Spencer...” His name rolled off your tongue with such ease it made your heart skip a beat. “Spencer you’re okay.” Your hands travelled to his face, surprisingly he did not flinch. Instead he shifted in his spot closer to you. 

“How? How are you sitting here right now? You were unconscious and yo-ou were-n’t-t breathing and-d-” There were now tears in your eyes. Your chin began to tremble. 

Spencer squeezed your hand tighter. “The doctors checked me out and I’m all good, just some bruises.” He reassured, his voice soothing. He wiped the tears from your cheeks with his thumb. 

There was a brief moment of silence in which the two of you simply looked into each others eyes. The young doctor cleared his throat. You bit your bottom lip, your heart now in your throat. 

“You should rest.” Spencer consoled. “I’ll be right outside in the waiting room getting some work done.” “You can work from here.” You said almost too quickly. “I mean-” “I’ll stay.” A smile spread on your face from cheek to cheek. It made Spencer smile. 

The young doctor watched as you leaned back in your pillow. His mind was racing at this point and he couldn't pinpoint one thought, which was something he didn't experience often. What he did know however was that the two of you were lucky to be alive. “It was a gas explosion.” You wanted to interrupt but he continued. “As gas explodes, it produces a powerful shockwave that surges away from the ignition point. This blast, and the heat radiated from the combusting gas, are extremely dangerous.” 

“I’m not sure where you're going with this Spencer.” “In most gas explosions, the heat of the blast is hard to escape, because it radiates in all directions.” He took a deep breath. “We survived and it doesn't make sense to me.” “Spencer, not everything in the world has to make sense.” “This should.” 

You wish you knew what to say - you usually did. Instead you reached for the folder on your lap and began going through the file. Work. Work always helped him. He of course knew what you were doing and in that moment it brought everything into perspective.

“Y/N?” “Yes?” “Would you like to have coffee sometime?” “We have coffee all the time at work.” You joked. “Well then would you like to have coffee sometime outside of work. I would like to take you on a date.” Your eyes darted from the papers in your lap. “A date?” “A date.” 

There was nothing to think about. No hesitation. “I would love to have coffee with you sometime Spencer.” The young doctor beamed at you. “Only took us almost dying for you to ask me.” You teased. “Better be some really good coffee.” “The best coffee you’ve ever had.” Spencer replied. Gently, he lifted your hand to his lips and kissed it softly. 

-

masterlist

[cranberrysaucebauce]

Hello tumblr user djcranberry what was your conference for

The company I work for tends to have conferences throughout the year for different diagnostic departments (I work in pathology but people form parasitology, avian/exotic med, stuff like that meet too) and we go over stuff like notable cases we’ve had, challenges in each department, blah blah blah stuff like that. I got picked to go represent our lab for this one.

Typically we would have these at one of the Canadian labs but with travel being what it is we decided to move it to Maine and just have zoom sessions with the Canadian and some of the European and Asians locations (s Korea, Germany and England only as of now). But it goes towards my continuing education requirements so I can keep my license to practice lol and my lab sent me with the company card so hey I get to eat as many cafe sandwiches/brunches and tea as I want so I can’t complain too much. And I’m still able to go run outside even though it’s cold since they’re actually equipped here to deal with snow and ice on the roads and sidewalks unlike Georgia where we all just fall over and scream

[tripleatranscription]

A Beginner’s Guide to the Medical Transcription Types

All through the medical sector, the practitioners utilize medical transcripts for a wide range of purposes. The chief requirements in the medical transcription generally involves rapid delivery of the medical transcription records, precisely transcribed medical jargon, competitive prices, and guaranteed data security as well as confidentiality.

Most of the hospitals and private clinics employ qualified, experienced, proficient, and reliable medical transcriptionists on a daily basis. They address different types of stuff, but, let’s start with something simple.

Report Dictation

According to the experts offering medical transcription Australia, the most well-known or prevalent type of medical transcription is called report dictation.

Everyone knows the story, right? You visit a doctor. The doctor conducts a physical diagnosis and suggests a treatment. Just before you leave, you see him/her recording everything discussed.

This dictation is sent to a professional transcriptionist, who then makes the report that you may keep with yourself, take it during the next visit, or pass it on to any other specialist as a referral.

Medical dictations include the following:

·         Patient letters

·         Referral letters

·         Reports

·         Summaries of medical evaluations

 Symposium & Conference

The medical practitioners are generally invited to international symposiums and conferences to explore as well as discuss brand-new technologies, developments, and innovations around their areas of specialization.

These symposiums and conferences have talented transcriptionists who make a text document of whatever the keynote speakers address. These transcriptionists need profound knowledge. They should also be capable of doing extensive research since it ensures correct information.

Interview

The professionals working in the medical sector has to carry out discussions and interviews on a weekly or monthly basis.  The interviews usually encompass around the developments that happened in the pharmaceuticals, regulation modifications initiated by the policymakers, charity updates, clinical ideas, and welfare of the patients as well as the workers.

The experts providing services of medical transcription Australia said the interviews are usually recorded on a mobile phone, Dictaphone, or any other basic device. For the best reports, the sound quality of the recording needs to be cent per cent perfect. Well the best medical transcriptionists do have software to clean up background noise, but, still a good recording goes a long way.

Some of the medical interview transcription services are as follows:

·         Pharmaceutical research

·         Employee and staff interview

·         Student interview

·         Telephonic interview

·         Medical focus group discussion

Medical transcriptionists can also make medical history reports, consultation reports, radiology reports, physical reports, pathology reports, laboratory reports, and discharge reports as directed by the physicians, nurses, or other associated professionals.

As evident from the aforementioned discussion, the practitioners utilize reports across a wide range of areas of specializations within the medical sector. Get in touch with a company that assures competitive prices, rapid turnaround times, and optimal outcomes under all circumstances.

[hondacivictrucknuts]

Matt Taibbi continues to deliver in his role as the sole left-wing anti-Trump journalist who does not have his head completely up his ass.

To wit:

American politics has become an interminable clash of off-putting pathologies. Call it the hydroxychloroquine effect. Trump one day in a press conference mutters that a drug has “tremendous promise” as a treatment of coronavirus. Within ten seconds a consensus forms that hydroxycholoroquine is snake oil, and the New York Times is running stories denouncing Trump’s “brazen willingness to distort and outright defy expert opinion and scientific evidence when it does not suit his agenda.”

Then you read the story and find out doctors have been prescribing the drug, that “early reports from doctors in China and France have said that [it] seemed to help patients,” and moreover that the actual quote about it being a “game changer” from Trump included the lines, “Maybe not” and “What do I know? I’m not a doctor.” In response to another Trump quote on the subject, “What do you have to lose?” journalists piled on again, quoting the president of the American Medical Association to remind audiences “you could lose your life” — as if Trump had recommended that people run outside and mainline the stuff.

Trump being Trump, he responded to this criticism by doubling down over and over, eventually re-tweeting a video boosting the drug by a doctor named Stella Immanuel. She reportedly turned out to believe that alien DNA had been used in medical treatments, atheist doctors were working on a religion vaccine, and uterine endometriosis is caused by demon sperm. Asked about this “misinformation,” Trump somehow managed to include both a xenophobic putdown about the Nigerian doctor and a lie about his enthusiasm for her, saying, “I don’t know what country she comes from… I know nothing about her.”

All of which is insane, but so is rooting for a drug to not work in the middle of a historic pandemic, the clear subtext of nearly every news story on this topic dating back to March. Rule #1 of the Trump era is that everything Trump touches quickly becomes as infamous as he is, maybe not the biggest deal when talking about an obscure anti-malarial drug, but problematic when the subject is America itself.

This is the only account by an anti-Trumper of the HCQ story I've seen that acknowledges the way the media converged upon denouncing the drug primarily on the basis of the president having promoted it.

Since Taibbi proves here that one can abhor Donald Trump and support the Democrats in 2020 without sacrificing touch with reality, why is this so rare?

Taibbi has a theory, which is similar to what Scott Adams said in 2015, that Trump comes from a different world than most journalists and traditional politicians. It's a world where language has a different purpose: roughly, language is a means, not an end. In Trump's world, there is no prize for words being correct, factually or politically; all that matters is their effect on people. This is how a great many people use language, including an increasingly vocal minority of the educated left, and it's a register with its own standards of evidence, logic, and honesty which all work fine once you know how to apply them. It's also something you'd think more people would have learned to price in by now, but after four years the NYT still can't report on any presidential utterance without inserting some inane fact check. As with HCQ, these qualifications are often no more factual than whatever Trump said, but the NYT still purports to care about facts!

[douchebagbrainwaves]

LIFE IS A CHANGING WORLD

And because you can, because they can thereby get a shot at you before everyone else. Not because it's causing economic inequality, but because the principles underlying the most dynamic part of the reason I laughed so much at the talk by the good speaker at that conference was that everyone else did. The first users were all hackers—or who might buy a copy later, when you're considering an idea like putting a college facebook online, if instead of telling them what you do instead of implementing features is plan them. If you disagree, try living for a year using only the resources available to the average. Any investor who spent significant time deciding probably came close to saying yes.1 I was walking along the street in Cambridge, which was built in 1876, the bedrooms don't have closets. This isn't quite true. Inexperience there doesn't make you unattractive. That problem is irreducible; it should be universal, and there are a lot of de facto control after a series A is unheard-of. And that should be unlimited, if the upside looks good enough.

But more than half done. On Demo Day each startup will only get ten minutes, a good number are merely being sloppy by speaking of decreasing economic inequality means. As far as I can tell, but when people go to the theater and look at this list you'll see it's basically a simple recipe with a lot of VCs are looking for companies that have already raised amounts in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. When a man runs off with his secretary, is it always partly his wife's fault? Preferably with other students. Back when he was looking at the floor.2 And it applies to startups too. When I talk to people who've managed to make themselves rich.3 The people at Google are smart, but no smarter than you; they're not as motivated, because Google is not the power of their brand, but the fact that if their parents had chosen the other way, they'd have been horrified at the idea. And since that's the default opinion of any investor about any startup, they've essentially just told you nothing.4 After thinking about it gives me a jolt of adrenaline, years later. Empirically it seems to consume all your attention.

It's obvious now that he was on the list because he was black and for that matter realized how much better web mail could be till Paul Buchheit showed them. The best thing software can be is easy, but it's worth trying. One place this happens is in startups. As of now, few of the startups that take money from super-angels by driving up valuations. You'd also have a very boring life. The average startup probably doesn't have much to show for itself after ten weeks. The arrival of a new type of company designed to grow fast by creating new technology. Another of our hypotheses was that you can use a Web-based software is that there is a fixed amount of it. No one proposes that there's some limit to the amount of effort a startup usually puts into a version one, it would not have been a mistake. Even if something was going to die till I was about 19. When you release only one new version a year, in January and June.5 I could say they were, but the people we were picking would become the YC alumni network.

There are no meetings or, God forbid, corporate retreats or team-building exercises. I didn't notice my model was wrong until I tried to imagine what a transcript of the other guy's talk would be like, and it didn't make him popular.6 Not intelligence—determination.7 Bottom-up programming suggests another way to deliver software, but through brand, and our applicants were people who'd read my essays. Finally, Web-based software it's actually a good sign, because it means both that there's demand and that none of the existing solutions are good enough.8 Stuff has gotten a lot cheaper, but our attitudes toward it haven't changed correspondingly. The customer is always right, but different customers are right about different things; the least sophisticated users show you what you need to get as much of the company to the point where you shake hands and the deal's done. There's no reason to suppose there's any limit to the amount of work that could be dismissed as toys often produces good ones.

Among other things, incubators usually make you work in their office—that's where the word incubator comes from.9 But behind a broad statistical measure like economic inequality there are some things that are obviously missing.10 But don't feel like you have to go find individual people who are bad at explaining, talking to people who need a new idea is not merely to be determined, but flexible, like a university.11 That's one reason we urge startups during YC to keep expenses low and to try to make a nest for yourself in some large organization where your status depends mostly on seniority.12 Which is why it's good to have the upper hand over investors.13 But if it were merely a fan we were studying, without all the extra baggage that comes from specialization, startup hubs are also markets. The toolmakers would have users, but also as a match for his skills. The great fortunes of that time still derived more from what we would now call corruption than from commerce.14 They're the ones that matter anyway. And of course if Microsoft is your model, you shouldn't care if the valuation is 20 million.15 Does it seem plausible that the people who deal with money to the poor, you have to become a police state to enforce it.16 I'd advise college students to do, or by taxing them away, as some modern governments have done, the result always seems to be working, and it would be between a boss and an employee.

Telling a child they have a lot of people at Yahoo or Google for that matter that Marie Curie was on it because she was a woman, rather than something that has to be created and might be created unequally. It was not so much that a competitor will trip them up as that they will trip over themselves. Not well, perhaps, but well enough.17 Of course, server-based. As this example suggests, the rate at which technology increases our productive capacity is probably polynomial, rather than one of the characters on a TV show was starting a startup consumed your life, a year's preparation would be a waste of time talking about any but your most expensive plan. The people who really care will find what they want by themselves. Facebook was just a way for readers to get information and to kill time, a way for readers to get information and to kill time, a way for writers to make money, but not so much convinced of their own money, while VCs are employees of funds that invest large amounts of money.18

Notes

Founders rightly dislike the sort of community.

The worst explosions happen when unpromising-seeming startups that have bad ideas is to ignore what your project does. Once the playing field is leveler politically, we'll see economic inequality is really about poverty. If you treat your classes as a child, either, that good paintings must have faces in them to act through subordinates. Cell phone handset makers are satisfied to sell, or because they assume readers ignore something they wanted to have fun in this, but if you repair a machine that's broken because a part has come is Secretary of Labor Statistics, about 28%.

I used to place orders.

In fairness, I mean type I. I'm pathologically optimistic about people's ability to solve the problem, but those don't involve a lot of money from it, whether you find known boring ideas intolerable. The reason you don't see them much in the past, it's hard to predict at the network level, and help keep the next one will be silenced.

Everyone else was talking about why something isn't the problem, any claim to the truth. Many more than you expect. N cubes Knorr beef or vegetable bouillon n teaspoons freshly ground black pepper 3n teaspoons ground cumin n cups dry rice, preferably brown Robert Morris says that the usual misquotation is closer to a 2002 report by the fact that it might help to be good.

But startups are now.

Its retail price is about 220,000 legitimate emails.

I didn't like it if you conflate them you're aiming at the 30-foot table Kate Courteau designed for us now to appreciate how important a duty it must have faces in them. It requires the kind that prevents you from starving. When I use the name of a running back doesn't translate to soccer. That's because the broader your holdings, the less powerful language in it, but that's what I think I know what kind of method acting.

Though in a wide variety of situations. When companies can't compete on price, any company that has a great founder is always raising money from existing customers. Maybe it would be just as he or she would be to say for sure whether, e.

If they agreed among themselves never to do it.

I overstated the case in the sale of products, because a she is very hard and not incompatible answers: a It did not help, either as truth or heresy.

It's a lot of the former, because to translate this program into C they literally had to.

It seemed better to make more money. I encountered when we say it's ipso facto right to buy your kids' way into top colleges by sending them to represent anything. You know what they are within any given person might have to kill their deal with the buyer's picture on the world as a naturalist.

You know what they too were feeling in 1914.

We didn't swing for the next round. Apparently someone believed you have two choices, choose the harder. Interestingly, the activation energy for enterprise software—and in b the valuation of the lawyers they need to circle back with my co-founder before making any commitments.

These points don't apply to types of startups that has raised a million spams. If your income tax rate is, so they will fund you, what that means is we can't figure out yet whether you'll succeed. I still shiver to recall.

Hint: the editor in Lisp. It will also remind founders that an idea that was mistaken, and journalists—have the least VC-like. However bad your classes as a single cause. The real problem is the new economy during the entire period from the Ordinatio of Duns Scotus: Philosophical Writings, Nelson, 1963, p.

When Google adopted Don't be fooled. The hackers within Microsoft must know in the mid 20th century. And if you hadn't written it?

[bookofmirth]

Ok, so I’m studying Linguistics (3rd semester) and if I’m being honest, i have no idea what i want to do next, I’m kinda interested in forensic linguistics, but my favourite lectures are actually Phonology/Phonetics and everything related to it. Do you maybe have any recommendations? Or just other ideas of what i could do?

I was going to make this post super long and involved, but since my main experience is with ESL, I decided to make a list instead. I just don’t wanna start talking about stuff I don’t actually have experience with. So this is people I know who studied linguistics and what they went into, and then a few suggestions based on your interest in phonology/phonetics:

Teaching (at the university and grade-school level) a foreign or second language

Research (with a side of teaching if you do it at a university)

Some secret government project my professor would casually allude to that I’m assuming had something to do with discourse analysis

Law

Speech pathology/therapy

Curriculum development

Corpus linguistics (the applications for this are really wide-spread)

Linguistic anthropology

Also follow @allthingslinguistic because they post a lot of great stuff. There is this list with jobs, and I think that your interest in phonology could fit many of those options.

Also check out professional organizations like the American Association of Applied Linguistics or Canadian Association of Applied Linguistics. Looking at their conference schedules can tell you what areas of research are of current interest. Those are also really good places to network and see what people are up to!

You should also talk to your professors about what options are out there. The only problem is that they will be academia-focused, but they might know people who work outside of it. I know at my uni, they routinely have talks on “what to do with your degree if you don’t want to be a researcher/professor”, but those are a relatively new thing.

In a way, linguistics is one of those fields where you wonder “ok but what do I actually do with this”, but in this case I think it’s because there are SO. MANY. possibilities that it’s really difficult to narrow down.

[drferox]

i have a question in the vein of pet nutrition but not necessarily ABOUT nutrition. i’ve been told be several vets/vet students that veterinarians aren’t taught too much about pet nutrition aside from essentially a course on hills brand stuff. how much training does a typical vet (not specialized in nutrition) get in pet nutrition? or do you know if it’s different in australia than here (in america)?

This comes up a lot, and I can’t speak for any vet degree I haven’t done, but the first paragraph of my dog and cat nutrition notes basically says “Lots of people will accuse you of being uneducated in nutrition and a cronies for big pet food companies, but remember that just because Hills bought you a pizza that time you haven’t abdicated your ability to critically evaluate data, nor your responsibility to provide unbiased advice.”

Shortly followed by a section listing different points of view for us to read at our leisure in the interest of balance, but we wouldn’t be tested on those opinions.

We didn’t have a single subject called ‘nutrition’. Our nutrition education was integrated with other things. Nutrition for normal dogs and cats was taught under Animal Health, Management and Welfare subjects, nutritional diseases were taught under pathology and nutrition for diseases was taught with the relevant organ systems and medicine.

These lectures weren’t presented by a pet food company, but the majority of vets who have extensive training in nutrition have been employed by a pet food company at some point, simply because they are the main employers for people with that kind of qualification. Most were given by faculty members alongside their relevant topics.

We did also have ‘lunch and learn’ sessions, which were sponsored by one food company or other, but these were optional and extra and we were under no obligation to go to them. Usually half the class or less would show up, and basically exclusively for the free pizza because uni students are poor.

Now, after graduation, the food companies that are often accused of bribing vets somehow will come into vet clinics to tell us about new diets, how they work, what they’re for, etc. Consequently we keep pretty up to date with diets made by those companies.

For those of us that do buy pet food, most of us do so through our vet wholesalers because it’s cheaper for us. We tend not to go down to the pet store a whole lot, so it’s harder to keep up to date with what’s on the shelf down there, and those companies rarely if ever come into the vet clinic to tell us about their products.

So it’s really, really easy to recommend a brand of food I know about, instead of comment on whatever is new at the pet store down the road because I have not found the extra time to go down to the store and read up on it.

If a pet food brand really thought its nutrition was up to scratch, and bothered to come talk to us about it, it would be so much easier to be able to recommend their product. It would be even easier if we could stock their product through out suppliers. As it is, brands that would rather bad-mouth vets don’t do this, but Hills and Royal Canin do which is why so many clinics sell their food.

Unless a manufacturer wants to come out to clinics, or have a stand at a conference, it’s difficult for a typical vet in practice to come across new food products.

[recalibr8]

What do YOU want to be when you grow up?

I always ask my tiddly patients about their dream job. This is to help them find a focus for school. But mostly because their ideas are brilliant. This week I’ve met the next generation of gamers, premiership footballers, underwater engineers and a 7 year old who wants to develop a home security system that detects the heart beat of invaders then knocks them out with a laser and calls the police. And an otter. I like her thinking.

But how do you know what you want to be? I’ve heard:

1. Chose the sort of patients you want to be looking after for 30 years or

2. Choose the thing you’re left with after you’ve rejected everything you don’t like or

3. Look at the people doing the job you like and decide if you want to share an office with them for 30 years.

I really really wanted to be a paediatric neurologist. But I’m not. That ‘failure’ sometimes tugs at my sleeve like hungry children. I liked kids, I liked brains and spent a happy year in Australia taking one apart for medical students so I figured it was ideal. I also liked and still like paediatric neurologists who are urbane, funny, kind, sarcastic and brilliant. Also The specialty is filled with words like Opsoclonus Myoclonus, subacute sclerosing panenephalitis and Levetiracetam which you have to be able to say in order to finish your training. They check.

So when I began, I jumped in as a trainee rep for everything, published and presented. My face was everywhere. But over the years I developed a creeping feeling that something wasn’t quite right. Then suddenly, I ground to a halt. Don’t get me wrong, I was still working hard (small hiatus in extra clinic attendance when falling in love and simultaneously doing an evidence based Paeds MSc which was noted, I’m sorry, I was crap). In fact I was working HARDER. I introduced a solo ITU round to troubleshoot which had mixed results but was great learning. I went to every conference. I mentored junior trainees I’m still in touch with. But something was missing and I couldn’t work out why. Working harder didn’t fix it. I have theories that I enjoyed the patient narrative more than the fascinating pathology but I’m not sure. But within 6 months of subspecialty completion I stopped my training. I diverted into neurorehab where I hunkered down for 10 irreplaceable years, got my Paeds liscence and made babies. I was happy but my dad was so upset with my decision he didn’t talk to me for 2 months and came back with a relationship with adult half sister I didn’t know I had. I take from this that everything, even familial disappointment can lead to unexpected reconciliations.

But now I’m doing brains, pharmacology and narrative paediatrics with the fascinating neurodevelopment/behaviour and despite the odd reflection on that decision, I couldn’t be happier. I still hang out with Paeds neurologists from time to time and they are still hilarious and have great hair. Seriously, sit at the back of a neurology lecture and look down. I think it’s a neuroectodermal thing: all that cerebral activity feeding the follicles.

Anyway, I’m signing off a magnificent trainee this week. Watching her career decision making process is a thing of beauty. But she can change her mind. Anyone can. If you’re feeling a creeping sense you’re in the wrong speciality you might be. Or it might be your colleagues or you might just need a holiday. I use lots of neurology as a bedrock to my assessments (although, woah am I out of date) so despite my career redirection, nothing is ever wasted. Talk to a friendly mentor type and I can bet you they’ve been through a horrible career self doubt at some stage. Maybe the switched direction. Maybe they had some biscuits and that fixed it. But there’s no shame. There are lots of famous job changers (Charles Darwin, Graham’s Chapman, Harry Hill etc). I’ve reconciled that I’m not going to have a condition named after me or frankly publish anything any more. But that’s ok. I do other stuff. And medicine is made up by a zillion different things that people do that influence other people that are all equally important even if they don’t look grand. We’re one big spider’s web. And if you’re not going to be a hot subspecialty influencer, tertiary clever clogs or author, that’s totally fine.

This isn’t failure, it’s personal evolution. And the up side is that if you’re really really good at evolution, you might find yourself becoming furry, fierce and cute whilst eating fish....neurologist OR otter then.

[urdearestmom]

Airport Ballrooms | A Delayed Flight

so I don’t think I ever posted this there, and it reminded me that I need to post the rest of the chapters of LSS. but for those of you who haven’t come here from my ao3, here’s a little something I wrote back in January.

Summary: What happens when you hear a piano at 3 am?

ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13332432

She hears it before she sees anything. Right as she exits the washroom, a song’s beginning is heard from a piano. As it proceeds, she finds that it’s vaguely familiar.

Coming into the open area where she’s been sitting and trying to nap for the past three hours, she sees that the formerly vacant piano is now occupied by a man whose fingers are gliding across the keys, his dark hair slipping over his brow. He looks like he might be about her age, although she’s not sure.

He’s very concentrated on his playing, so he doesn’t notice when she stands off to his left, watching. He ends the piece softly and when he looks up, he sees her and jumps, putting a hand to his chest.

“Jesus Christ! …almost gave me a heart attack there,” he laughs.

She smiles. “Sorry. That was really nice,” she says, gesturing to the keys. “What was it?”

He shrugs. “Just some good old Chopin.”

She nods. “Sounds familiar.”

“Did you recognize it?” He asks. “It’s one of his most famous pieces.”

“Yeah, kinda sounded like a lullaby or something.” She scrunches her nose. “Never mind.”

He hums. “No, I get what you mean, it has that quality to it,” he says, getting up and pushing the bench in. “What’s your name?”

For some reason, it’s at that moment that she notices he has freckles, although not many. “Jane Hopper, but I go by El. I like your freckles,” she unashamedly comments, then cringes. Fuck.

They start moving toward the seats where she left her luggage, and she sees that there are a few more bags nearby that must be his.

“Really?” He answers. “I used to have a lot more when I was younger, it’s kind of a side effect of aging that you lose freckles.”

“They’re cute.” She looks at her feet. Again? Seriously?

“Alright,” he chuckles. “If you say so, El.”

It’s then she remembers she hasn’t asked his name.

“Michael Wheeler, but no one except my parents call me Michael. Mike’s easier,” he says, tilting his head. “Were you on that flight to Indianapolis? I think it’s the only one that got delayed this late.”

She sits back where she’s been this entire time, and he sits next to her. They’ve just met, but it’s nice not to have to sit in an empty airport terminal at three in the morning by herself, chasing sleep she knows she’s not going to find. “Yeah, I’m going home. I was in Vegas at a speech pathology conference."

Mike grins. “Vegas, huh? What’s it like, hit up any casinos?”

El lays her head back. “I was there for work, so no. I guess I could have, some of my coworkers did, but casinos aren’t really my scene. Too loud,” she responds. “My friend Dustin definitely did, he’s still there,” she adds with a smile.

“He sounds like fun.”

“Definitely is, though sometimes he can be a bit of a handful,” she laughs. “How about you? Going home too?”

Mike nods. “Yup. I was in LA visiting my cousin, but also working. I’m a piano teacher,” he says, wiggling his fingers. “And there’s been a new initiative here in the States, to get some sort of standardized way of teaching, like the Royal Conservatory in Canada. So there’s been collaboration happening, stuff might be in the works.”

She turns to look at him, taking in the excited way he says this. “You seem really happy about that,” she remarks.

He nods again excitedly, his mop of hair flopping over his eyes. “Absolutely! It would make things easier if every teacher across the country had a certain level of things to teach students. Be easier for students too, especially if they ever have to switch teachers.” Suddenly he blows air upwards. “I need to cut this shit,” Mike says, gesturing to the dark locks surrounding his face.

El contemplates him for a second, taking in how he looks. “Nah, it looks good with your face.” GOD, EL! Stop being so forward, you just met him! “I think so, at least, if my opinion counts for anything,” she says, suddenly shy.

It’s weird, she thinks, that she just met this guy less than ten minutes ago and they’re already talking so easily.

He smiles. “It does,” he says, taking out his phone. He shows her what’s clearly a selfie, but it looks like there’s two of him. “That’s my cousin.” Mike points at the one who’s wearing a Guns N’ Roses shirt. “And this is me.” He’s wearing a simple striped t-shirt.

She looks more closely at the picture, trying to find some difference between them. “You guys look like twins!” She exclaims.

“We could be, if he wasn’t five years younger. We get that a lot though,” he answers. “I think you’re going to agree with me on this.” He continues. “He says he’s more attractive, but I say we look the same and therefore have the same appeal. What do you think? As an outside party.”

El looks at it again, and finds that she disagrees with Mike. “I think you’re cuter. Something about you,” she replies.

She looks up to find that a lovely pink blush is spreading across his cheeks. “Something I said?” She winks. Oh my god you fucking idiot. She suddenly feels crushed by the weight of her mortification.

He makes a strangled noise, and the hour and her tired brain must be getting to her, because somehow she finds it the funniest sound she’s ever heard. It’s also a little comforting that he doesn’t seem completely put off.

“Damn, that was smooth!” He says, starting to laugh too. “I gotta tell him you said that.”

“Isn’t he sleeping by now?”

He shakes his head. “No, he says sleep is for the weak. And it’s only two in Cali, and it’s the weekend.”

She reads over his shoulder as he types.

Cute girl said I’m cuter than you LOL

Suck on THAT tozier

“You think I’m cute?”

Mike blushes again. “Yeah, pretty. Really pretty,” he says softly. He gets a text almost instantly.

I dont believe u wheelie

U probably paid her or smth

Also, suck on what ;)

Actually nvm thats incest its just my reflex response

Mike looks at her. “Is it okay if we make a video and send it to him so he believes me?”

She shrugs. “We’ve still got at least four hours to kill, so why not?”

He pulls up the camera and starts recording. “Fine, you don’t believe me, here she is herself,” he says, turning the camera on her.

She waves awkwardly. “Hey… um, what’s his name?” Cringe.

“Richie.”

“Hey, Richie, just a little video to say that in my opinion your cousin’s cuter than you. And no, he didn’t pay me to say that,” she states, glancing off camera with a small smile.

Mike turns the camera back to him. “There you go, asshole. Video proof.”

He sends it, and they wait a minute in anticipatory silence before Mike’s phone vibrates with another text.

Lmao that doesnt convince me

She is cute tho ill give u that

Mike heaves an over-exaggerated sigh, shaking his head. You’re a dick, he types, go to sleep I’ll text when I get home.

SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK, MICHAEL.

GO THE FUCK TO SLEEP, RICHARD. YOU HAVE WORK TOMORROW.

FUCK WORK

Mike stares at his phone for a second before turning it off. “If I keep talking to him then he’ll never actually go to sleep.”

El smiles at him. “He seems like a fun person.”

“Oh, he’s an absolute dick. But I love him,” Mike says, shaking his head again. “We weren’t really close as kids but then he moved nearby and we talked more, except then I went to college. He’s closer with my little sister.”

She nods. “Do you have any siblings?” He asks.

“Nope. Just me and my dad.”

“That’s nice. Sometimes I wish there had been less people in my house, would’ve meant less embarrassment in certain situations,” he says. “I have two sisters, one older, one younger.”

“I wish I’d had a sister growing up, would’ve made things easier sometimes,” she answers. “Can you even imagine how awkward my dad was the first time I got my period?”

He doesn’t say anything for a second, and she thinks maybe she shouldn’t have said that. OH MY FUCK.

“Sorry, that was awkward,” she laughs. WHAT THE EVERLOVING FUCK.

“No, it’s fine, just unexpected is all,” he says. “I mean, we’ve only known each other for like fifteen minutes.”

They look at each other, the same thought going through their minds. “This is weird,” they say together, and then they start giggling.

“I just-” He takes a breath. “Do you feel like you know me from somewhere? Because I feel like I know you but I don’t think I’ve ever met you before.”

It’s what she’s been thinking. She feels a sort of familiarity with him, something she’s never felt so quickly with anyone else. It’s like she’s known him for a long time, or maybe in another life or universe.

She grins. “Isn’t there a multiverse theory?”

After spending an hour discussing parallel universes and the physics involved in understanding any of it (which they both have enough of a basic grasp on because of watching too much History Channel), Mike is sitting at the piano again, El having asked him to play something else. She doesn’t recognize the beginning, but as it progresses she realizes she does know it. It gets her moving, and she doesn’t really know what she’s doing, but she’s circling the piano and the man playing it in a way that somehow fits with the music. She even sings along with the main melody and the trills.

She feels like he’s transforming the place into a gigantic ballroom with his music, and she’s the princess dancing with her prince (except there’s no prince to dance with, because he’s too busy making the music). It’s a stupid thing to think, but she never had dolls or was allowed to watch princess movies or read fairytales when she was a kid, and she feels like she missed out. Hopper let her watch movies and read, but it wasn’t the same as a teen as it would’ve been as a kid. And maybe it’s just a dumb fantasy, a creation of her mind because she’s tired and suddenly thinking about her horrifying childhood, but she thinks the imaginary ballroom that only has her and Mike in it is a wonderful place to be.

He ends the piece with a theatrical flourish, throwing his hands up off the keys as soon as the last notes are played. “How was that? You were dancing!”

A laugh escapes her lips as she claps. “It was amazing! I knew that one, it’s from the Nutcracker, right?”

Mike nods vigorously. “Gotta love me some Tchaikovsky.”

“Is that why it’s so dancey? Because it’s for a ballet?” She asks, curious.

“No, it’s because it’s a waltz,” he answers, stretching his arms up above his head. His sweater rides up to reveal a sliver of pale skin, and she finds herself staring without being able to tear her eyes away. “Waltzes are inherently dancey, I think. At least that’s what I always tell my students who play them, it helps them really hear the tempo and accents if they try to see the dancers.”

She averts her gaze, and he’s still talking. “You know, ‘cause waltzes have the accent on count one, so it goes one-two-three, and sometimes when you’re caught up in playing you forget about it so it’s good to try and envision the dancing. The music was written for dancing after all,” he finishes. “El? Sorry, was I rambling, because I have a tendency to-”

“No,” she breathes. “You’re just really attractive. The piano suits you.” She almost face palms. WHY am I like this????

That shuts him up, a redness spreading across his face once again (but this time along with a wide grin). He might just combust if he looks at her, so he looks at his hands instead.

“Sorry,” she says, worried she’s crossed a line she wasn’t supposed to yet.

Mike’s head whips up. “Sorry? What are you sorry for?”

“I’m too forward. It almost always ruins things with guys.” She deflates almost imperceptibly, and she wonders if he noticed.

Apparently he did, because El feels herself pulled into a sideways hug, tugged down to sit on the bench next to him. “Hey,” he says softly. “You’re just saying what you think is true, which is a great quality to have. You saved me from my own rambling, so thanks.” He gives her a squeeze and adds, “It hasn’t ruined things with me.”

Suddenly the air is charged and she thinks that if they weren’t in an airport she might have kissed him then. Sadly, they are in an airport. Instead, she requests that he play something more contemporary than Chopin or Tchaikovsky, and he starts up with a rendition of Halo by Beyoncé.

They spend another hour around the piano, him playing more and she observing. El thinks he plays with a lot of grace, his fingers moving deftly across the keys almost as though he’s stroking the instrument. He looks like he belongs in front of a piano, making beautiful music for all the world to hear. In this case the world is a strange woman in an airport at the asscrack of dawn.

It’s five in the morning when the pair crashes back onto the seats next to their bags, and they lean their heads on each other and fall asleep. However, it seems things are only in increments of one hour on this night, because it’s six when El awakes with a start, knocking Mike’s head off of hers.

“Attention passengers: flight 337 to Indianapolis International is now scheduled for take-off at eight thirty. Boarding will begin at gate twenty-three one hour in advance.”

“Hey,” she says, seeing Mike next to her looking disoriented. “Flight’s at eight thirty but we gotta be there at seven thirty, do you wanna get some breakfast?”

Looking around, she sees that the open area that was so empty during the night now has other people milling through it, and it shatters the warm space she’d felt she and Mike were in. It’s time to go back to the real world, away from the fantasies of ballrooms and princes and dancing. The magic of the night has been erased by the movement of the morning and she hopes what she thinks she felt between them hasn’t been erased too.

He yawns. “I’ll take that as a yes,” she says, getting up to stretch and grabbing her bags.

They walk around the slowly filling terminal, looking for a place to eat, and light upon a cute coffee place in the food court. They order and eat in silence, avoiding looking at each other, until he speaks.

“Does last night… feel like it was a dream, to you?” Mike asks.

I thought that was just me. She takes a sip of her black coffee. “It kind of does, yeah. This entire encounter has been weird.”

He looks down at his croissant, crinkling his nose, then peeks back at her through his lashes. “I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for.”

He says nothing else, and neither does she, so they head off to gate twenty three, and she thinks something’s wrong because he wasn’t this quiet or awkward last night. The tension is palpable, but she’s never been very good at social interactions and she doesn’t know what to say. He probably realized how dumb I am. She thinks she may have come across as very brazen (which she is, but she hates it for how it ruins everything all the time). Mike hadn’t seemed bothered by her earlier, and she had hoped that something good might have come out of their chance meeting.

It seems it was not to be, however, because the only thing he does as they board the plane is wave and give a little half smile when he finds his seat. El sighs and settles in for the hour and a half flight. She’s decided she’s going to try to catch up on the sleep she missed instead of sitting in abject misery, and it works because she’s blinking confusedly when a flight attendant wakes her to say that they will be landing in approximately forty minutes.

She’s excited to be back home, to work, her patients, her dad and Max. But she’s also the teeniest bit sad because she wants to explore that special connection she feels with Mike, to see what it means and what it’s about and she believes she’s ruined her chances (okay, so maybe she’s more than a teeny bit sad). She’s convinced herself that nothing was ever going to happen, she had imagined the unexplainable thing she felt between them.

She makes it through baggage claim and isn’t sent to customs, so El’s on her way out of the terminal to catch a taxi because both Max and Hopper are working today when something does happen. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a person running out of the passenger exit, and she thinks that they must have seen a loved one they missed.

That is, until she hears the shout. “El!”

It’s Mike of course, and he comes to a skidding halt in front of her, breathless. “I just- ran- all the way here- because- I’m a dumbass-”

“Whoa, hey, breathe,” she says, “I don’t need you dying on me in the middle of the airport.”

He nods and waits until his breathing levels out before straightening up. “I wanted to apologize for being so stupid and awkward this morning, I don’t know what got into me.” He swallows before looking at her directly. “I really want to see you again, so… do you wanna go out sometime?”

WHAT! She doesn’t respond for a few moments, shocked. But then she grins and says, “Are you asking me on a date?”

He sucks in a breath, about to shake his head, she can tell, but then he stops. “You know what, fuck it. Yes, I am.”

“Well, I’d certainly like that.”

El leaves the airport with Mike’s number in her phone, and she’s only been in the taxi for a few minutes when it pings with a text.

Can you do tonight at 7?

He’s eager, and she likes that she’s not the only one. It assures her she’s not being some creepy, obsessive, stalker.

Someone’s eager lol

But yes

Where?

I was supposed to go to a “friend’s” party tonight but I never actually said yes and I really don’t want to haha

Kinda cheesy but I was thinking a roller rink if you want to go

There’s one near my place and it has an arcade too!!

Growing up in the 90s, El remembers being fond of arcades. She and Max used to hang out in them all the time. Another thing in common!

Aaaaaa the arcade I miss those

Sounds good, pick me up or meet you there?

I can pick you up lol I don’t mind

She sends him her address, and he sends back a GIF of a penguin dancing.

See you later :D

(part 2)

[orbemnews]

Seeking answers, Cerro Gordo family unravels web of autopsy fraud allegations The Ochoa family was still reeling from the Christmastime loss of its patriarch when members found themselves entangled in a scandal involving the man they trusted to tell them why Mario Ochoa Sr. had died. In early December 2018, Mario Ochoa Sr. was hospitalized with an infection. Four days into his stay, Mario’s health took a fatal turn. The 68-year-old husband to Jean and father to Mario Jr., Andrea, Jessica, and Erica died on Dec. 19. The Ochoa siblings hold a photo album containing pictures of their family and late father Mario Ochoa Sr. Lisa Grouette The family hired a private company to conduct an autopsy. But when communication with the examiner hired to perform Mario’s autopsy fell off, the Ochoa siblings turned to the internet for help. “I started emailing him and never got a (reply), never got returned phone calls, I left messages,” Mario’s daughter Jessica Read said. “We just kind of got ghosted,” daughter Erica Ochoa added. “That’s when Erica kind of took over and started doing some investigating on her own,” Jessica said. The family quickly discovered the examiner, “Professor Lynn” Shawn Lynn Parcells with National Autopsy Services out of Kansas, wasn’t who he said he was. The more the Ochoas dug, the more stories they uncovered. Through their research, they were connected with Illinois attorney Craig Sandberg, who took on the family’s case. Alongside the Ochoas’ suit, Sandberg is handling lawsuits against Parcells and National Autopsy Services for five other families in California, Tennessee, and Michigan. The sheer number of other complaints against “Professor Lynn” left the family wondering: How could this man get away with allegedly defrauding so many people without being caught? WORST-CASE SCENARIO On Dec. 2, 2018, Mario Ochoa Sr. was admitted to MercyOne North Iowa Medical Center for treatment of an infection for which antibiotics didn’t seem to be working. Later that week, a MercyOne employee gave Mario an injection of the medication Haldol Decanoate. The drug, which was prescribed to Mario for its sedative properties, was ordered to be given by intravenous drip, as an injection into the muscular tissue can produce blood clots and life-threatening side effects. Within hours of receiving the injection, Mario began to show stroke-like symptoms, slumping to one side and unable to follow commands. His condition deteriorated to the point that he was moved to the intensive care unit and placed on a ventilator. Mario’s condition never improved, leaving the family with the difficult task of seeking end-of-life care for him at MercyOne Hospice. Six days before Christmas, Mario Ochoa died. The family has since named MercyOne in a malpractice lawsuit filed by Iowa-based attorney Brian Galligan. A spokesperson for MercyOne said the organization had no comment on the matter. A jury trial is not slated to begin until March of 2023. Following Mario’s death, the family said they immediately requested an autopsy. Unable to have an examination completed at the hospital, they reached out to an attorney who recommended they contact Kansas-based private examiner “Professor Lynn,” who operated National Autopsy Services. Lynn collected a fee of $3,300 from the Ochoas and traveled to Clear Lake to perform an exam on Mario’s body, promising the family delivery of a completed report within 90 to 120 days. When the deadline passed and the Ochoas were unable to reach Lynn or anyone with National Autopsy Services, Erica began digging into Professor Lynn’s history. One of the first things she found was that there was no real “Professor Lynn.” Rather, the moniker belonged to a man named Shawn Lynn Parcells, who is not a professor, but who’d simply given himself that title. Erica and Jessica both said the first they’d heard the name Shawn Parcells was after Erica began looking into the autopsy service. Along with the professional pseudonym, Erica also found a host of complaints against Parcells and his company. Parcells, who is not a licensed medical practitioner, is able to legally perform exams and tissue extractions in many states, including Iowa, but is required by most states to be under the direct supervision of a licensed pathologist. According to the Ochoas’ lawsuit, Parcells sidestepped the state’s requirement and completed the examination and tissue extraction on Mario’s body on his own at a local funeral home. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. featured_button_text ON THE RADAR The employment of private pathology services is not uncommon. Such services can be used in criminal investigations, as well as by families who are seeking a neutral opinion after a loved one dies under questionable circumstances. Private pathologists are also contracted by state and local governments that may not have access to timely autopsy services due to budget cuts or staff shortages. Shawn Parcells discusses the results of the independent autopsy of Michael Brown during a 2014 press conference at Greater St. Mark’s Family Church in Ferguson. Cristina Fletes-Boutte, St. Louis Post-Dispatch Parcells’ work had been in the viewfinder of skeptical peers for some time. In a 2013 article, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch revealed a number of accounts in which Parcells is said to have engaged in fraudulent practices, including forging a doctor’s signature on a medical report that was to have been used in one court case, and misrepresenting a doctor’s participation in an exam, forcing prosecutors to drop charges against a murder suspect. In 2014, Parcells vaulted into public view nationwide when he assisted in the autopsy of Michael Brown, a Black man whose killing by police in Ferguson, Missouri, incited a period of heavy protesting and social unrest. A few months later, CNN reported a number of inaccuracies in Parcells’ purported background and gave the account of a widow who claimed to have been scammed after paying for autopsy services for her husband. According to research of court records done by the Globe Gazette, Parcells’ career dates back to 1996, when he began a seven-year stint as assistant in the Jackson County Medical Examiner’s office in Missouri. He started his own pathology company in 2009, and worked until spring of 2019 when the evidence uncovered in an investigation into Parcells’ business prompted the Kansas Attorney General to issue an order immediately the halting company’s operations. An investigation in 2017 conducted by the Kansas AG’s Consumer Protection Division links Parcells to over a dozen fraudulent acts, including collecting over $16,000 in fees from Wabaunsee County for services he didn’t have the authority to provide. Additional criminal charges filed against Parcells by the state of Kansas include felony theft and felony desecration of a body. NOW A FEDERAL CASE Neither the Kansas attorney general nor the FBI, to whom the Kansas AG referred the Globe Gazette for questions, would answer questions about how Parcells came under federal scrutiny. But in November 2020, he was indicted on federal charges. Prosecutors say Parcells defrauded 350 victims from all over the United States who paid him for unfulfilled, incomplete, or illegally performed autopsies between 2016 and 2019, all while collecting over $1 million in fees. Shawn Parcells describes his organ-logging process at his morgue in Topeka, Kansas, in this undated photo. Susan Weich St. Louis Post-Dispatch News media has highlighted Parcells’ unorthodox handling of autopsies. A Kansas City television station video from 2019, in which Parcells invited a reporter to tour his lab, shows a cluttered workspace with clusters of plastic containers apparently containing human remains sitting out, unrefrigerated. In the video, the cameraperson was asked not to film an unrefrigerated, uncovered body that was pushed off to one side of the lab. CNN reported in 2014 that after a widow implied in a lawsuit that Parcells had lost or destroyed the brain of her husband, Parcells brought a bucket containing an organ to a deposition and showed it to the woman’s attorney as proof the brain was still in his possession. With licensure requirements and protocols varying by state, the world of forensics and pathology goes largely unregulated. While there is accreditation available through the National Association of Medical Examiners and the American Board of Pathology, neither organization provides consumer-protecting oversight. Rather, they serve most generally as resources for licensed individuals, who must adhere to a set of ethics and standards in order to maintain their status with the respective institutes. According to the Iowa State Medical Examiner’s Office, the practice of performing an autopsy in Iowa is not regulated by any state-sanctioned governing body. A Centers for Disease Control Public Health Law publication lists the state of Kansas as having no designated medical examiner at all, resigning its individual counties to establish their own offices, or to rely on private practices like Parcells’ to handle autopsies and related services. Parcells is slated to next appear in federal court for a case status update in June. Though the criminal and civil charges have piled up against Parcells, many affected families are still left with no idea where the tissues and organs of their loved ones are, nor answers as to what caused their deaths. The Ochoas are still grieving the loss of Mario, and are still shaken by their experience with Parcells. “Finding out the stuff that I did (about Parcells), I had trouble with that,” Erica said. “It left me with stuff that I can’t talk about. “My mom — this is very, very difficult for her — she can’t even think about it,” Erica said. “It brings up the feeling of when she lost her husband,” Jessica added. “That’s kind of why Erica has kind of taken charge; she knows our mother is not going to. [Erica’s] definitely put in the work, and we all appreciate that, because — it’s a lot.” Lisa Grouette is a Photographer and Reporter for the Globe Gazette. You can reach her at 641-421-0525 or lisa.grouette@globegazette.com. Follow Lisa on Twitter @LisaGrouette Get local news delivered to your inbox! Source link Orbem News #allegations #answers #autopsy #Cerro #Family #Fraud #full-longform #Gordo #marioochoa #ochoa #parcells #professorlynn #seeking #Shawn #shawnparcells #unravels #web

[lily-callaway]

101 things in 1001 Days

December 7, 2020 to September 4, 2023

1. Create this list

Life

2. Have baby

3. Go to speech pathology and correct my tongue thrust

4. Get Invisalign on my upper teeth to correct my bite

5. Take family photos after year 1 of baby

6. Throw baby his first birthday party

7. Keep my baby alive and don’t leave him anywhere (at least in the first year)

8. Continue to attend my preventative eye check ups to make sure I have healthy retinas

9. Meditate everyday for a month

10. Find a support group for moms

Fitness/Nutrition

11. Do a pull up

12. Go skating

13. Find a work out I can commit to 3-5 times a week

14. Feel like I have peace with food

15. Run a 10K

16. Get into the habit of getting 10K steps a day average in a month

17. Lose the baby weight

18. Do a push up correctly

Get my crap together

19. Organize my files on my computer

20. Organize my emails

21. Organize my papers

22. Home Edit my house

23. Create a photo stream for family and baby

24. Buy some real art for my house

25. Reduce my phone time down to 2 hours or less a days for a week

26. Set up my television

27. Re-upholster a chair in my house

28. Fix my leather couch with the cat’s claw marks

29. Organize my kitchen

30. Label everything in my closets

31. Make space for my husband’s clothes in my closet

32. Create a beautiful workspace for myself

33. Figure out what information about myself is on the internet

34. Unsubscribe myself from all the billions of newsletters I’m on

35. Buy a new phone

36. Organize all my digital photos on my phone

37. Edit my wardrobe down to things I love

38. Repaint and repurpose our media console in our house

39. Frame and hang up the pictures in our house

40. Plant some flowers in my backyard

Money

41. Max out Roth IRA (2020,2021, 2022)

42. Open a 529 for baby

43. Pay off my car

44. Consolidate all my retirement accounts into one bank (12/17/20: 2 of 3 accounts done)

45. Change banks for checking

46. Create a 2nd stream of income for myself

47. Hit my emergency fund savings goal

48. Consolidate my phone bill with Ben’s

49. Get a will done

50. Re-assess my YNAB once a year to make sure my budget fits my goals

51. Save up enough points for one of my dream vacations to be fully paid

Don’t be a jerk and do nice stuff for others

52. Write a check for charity that is so generous it makes me nervous to spend that much money

53. Run a fundraising campaign for people in Bangladesh

54. Invest in a woman owned business

55. Give away 1000 items (42/1000)

56. Learn to compost

57. Make a list of 10 things on how to reduce my carbon footprint and actually do it

58. Publish 10 letters in the media advocating for anti poverty initiatives

59. Vote in midterm elections in 2022

60. Donate blood

Career

61. Have 65 coffee chats (2/65)

62. Create a regular comedic social media presence with comedy and advocacy

63. Go to graduate school

64. Finish applying for the 2021 round of graduate schools

65. Turn in two comedy packets to the Late Night Writer’s Workshop (2022 and 2023)

66. Start a blog

67. Regularly read public health journals

68. Read 10 books that feel intimidating but will further my personal growth

69. Write 100 jokes a week for a month

70. Do season 2 of my podcast

71. Read 10 business books

72. Go to 3 conferences to improve my skills

Fun

73. Go to Africa and see the giraffes

74. Invest in the handbag of my dreams

75. Read 100 books

76. Improve Bengali

77. Learn Farsi

78. Learn to master a cake recipe I can use as the birthday cake for everyone in the family

79. Gets plants for my house

80. Hike through the entire Laurel Highlands trail

81. Watch 10 documentaries

82. Watch all of the marvel movies (Completed all but Spider-Man!)

83. Create new family traditions

84. Go camping

85. Go to the park with the baby at least once a month

86. Find some new music

87. Buy a mirror for my house so I can document my outfits

88. Have a FaceTime cookie decorating party

89. Spend a weekend in Montreal (when I can travel again of course)

90. Visit Canada

91. Visit Mexico

92. Visit Iceland

93. Go to the beach on the east coast

94. Visit West Virginia

95. Visit upstate New York

96. Take a road trip to Boston to visit my brother

97. Visit my sister in North Carolina and see my new niece

98. Get photos done for baby’s first year

99. Get a rug for the bedroom

100.Get a lobster roll from the best lobster roll place in Boston

101. Bake some copycat Levain Bakery cookies

[compo67]

un poco loco

hihihihihihi! it’s been a while! let’s get to it. i have the soundtrack from Coco on. this is my favorite song from it (that doesn’t make me ugly cry). 

oh jeez where to start.

i had an appointment with the hepatology division of a major medical place in the city. like, the mayo clinic of chicago. it took forever to get there. -_-

but! the doctor and nurse i saw were exceptional and incredibly nice.

but the news is less than great. sigh. 

i’m still walking around with these tumors on my liver and some of them are quite big. big enough that something needs to happen but we’re not sure exactly what. stopping estrogen was a good step, but that’s not going to make them go away. 

it’s pretty much “when these tumors turn cancerous,” not “if.” 

of course, this happens during the year i’m 5 years cancer free. i feel like it’s looming over me. 

this is, of course, being treated as A Big Deal. the doctor is going to get everything from Mayo, then present my case at a conference. once all that’s done, i’ll be monitored under a multidisciplinary tumor and cancer division of the hospital. idk what “monitored” means, but i have a feeling there are more ultrasounds and CTs in my future.

so. not cancer... yet. 

i had a procedure last week to make sure GI-related things are okay. so far, everything looks fine. i get pathology results tomorrow at my follow up.

early january, i had a CT scan of my neck, which revealed some sinus disease (disease!), which warranted a round of antibiotics and prednisone, my old friend. 

so for the past week, i’ve been super cranky and hungry. thanks, prednisone. and my face is all red and splotchy. 

i’ll need to have an allergy test and probably switch to shots. sigh.

so like, my health issues are like a hydra. cut off one, three more grow in its place. 

humira is doing a lot to help me manage pain, so at least that’s been working out. however, one of the major side effects is liver cancer. 

head desk.

okay, aside from that. 

i won a guitar back in december! it’s from the blue water highway band!

it’s this beautiful blue epiphone guitar.

i guess i’d better learn how to play it. XD

i’m going to go see them in concert later this month when they swing by chicago. i like the venue they’ll be playing at. 

i scored $10 tickets to a mozart requiem playing out in the suburbs. :D

i applied for fieldwork in the fall! 

placements are so competitive, it’s super important to get in early. i think i got my stuff in pretty early. the coordinator is still working on summer placements. 

though i did forget to ask not to be placed in a hospital because you know, compromised immune system.

but i’m hopeful they will have lots of other options.

i’m waiting with bated breath for financial aid information. like. please. please give me money. at least half a full ride. 

i applied to a gap scholarship as well, and we’ll see if i make it past the first round. i hope i do. i should know mid-february. 

so grad school stuff is going great. i have my student email, ID, etc all set up. :D :D :D

i hear that everyone who graduates from this program goes onto do really well for themselves. i’m just excited to be a student again.

work has been going well. i’m still getting used to being back full time.

and i’m switching to working two day shifts during the week so i actually have evenings to do things with friends and jamie. 

which brings me to jamie. XD

/dreamy sigh/

he’s wonderful. he treats me with so much kindness and adoration, i swear he reminds me of jensen from photo op. 

i’ve spent the past two saturday nights over at his place. today, we woke up late and he made me pancakes. swoon.

then we spent the day making out, watching disney movies, and he read our tarot cards. 

like... i’m falling for this wonderful person.

we are super mushy and i miss him when he’s not around and i have to wait until wednesday to see him again. 

but omg i get to have sundays like this as long as i want.

/more dreamy sighs/

between being with jamie, running to and from treatments or appointments or procedures, working full time, working two side jobs, and trying to spend time with my friends and family... 

i don’t have a lot of time to write.

but i miss it.

i finished my patreon fic last night and that felt amazing.

i wanted to try and write a chapter of something tonight, but i had dinner with the gals. 

i did outline the next patreon fic, so at least i was a bit productive.

tomorrow, i have a GI follow up, a dentist appointment (fucking TMJ is acting up again), a 10 minute trigger point massage, and therapy. 

so hopefully, in between all of those things, i can write

jamie wants me to focus on Model. i told him the overall story and how frustrated i am that i can’t seem to write anymore. 

i think i’ve just needed a long break from writing/updating. and now i’m getting itchy to get back into it. but then i’m like omg anxiety.

i’m turning 30 this year!

i want to go to New Orleans.

but also $$$.

but 30.

okay, i’m sleepy af. hopefully i’m less of a ghost on here and AO3. i answered a few comments. please continue to be patient. <3

i appreciate y’all. you and my small corner of fandom keep me coming back here. the support i feel is invaluable. <3

[sometimesrosy]

im also going through that growing phase the anon was talking about and for the longest time I thought something was wrong, that maybe I was dissociating with myself and losing my way but maybe I'm just changing. I dont know how to find myself again but I guess I need to give it time. How do I tell if I'm changing or dissociating? And thank you endlessly. Not just for your input on fandom and all that entails but because we can come to you with personal problems and you will still help. xoxo.

okay. This is a big question, and I have to add a warning here. I am not a psychiatrist or psychologist. I’ve had training in counseling in HS (as a peer counselor) college (as a resident advisor) and grad school (as a teacher.) I’ve done a lot of self study and am familiar with psychology and self help and other ways of understanding our minds and behaviors. I’ve lead workshops, talked people through things, attended intense conferences but only taken one psych class. I might be able to to tell when someone needs to go see a real psychiatrist, but I am not one. I mostly use my knowledge of psychology to help myself, to write realistic characters and to analyze fiction. 

So when I got your question, the first thing I did was google. I got a lot of science/academic hits, but because of my training I could decode it enough to find the sites that were most helpful to me. My first question? What is dissociation and when does it become a problem? Because disorders start with behavior that is normal, but veers into a dysfunction that harms the person.

Q: What Is Dissociation?Dissociation is a disconnection between a person’s thoughts, memories, feelings, actions, or sense of who he or she is. This is a normal process that everyone has experienced. Examples of mild, common dissociation include daydreaming, highway hypnosis, or “getting lost” in a book or movie, all of which involve “losing touch” with awareness of one’s immediate surroundings.

Q: When Is Dissociation Helpful?During a traumatic experience such as an accident, disaster, or crime victimization, dissociation can help a person tolerate what might otherwise be too difficult to bear. In situations like these, a person may dissociate the memory of the place, circumstances, or feelings about of the overwhelming event, mentally escaping from the fear, pain, and horror. This may make it difficult to later remember the details of the experience, as reported by many disaster and accident survivors.

Q: What is a Dissociative Disorder?Tragically, ongoing traumatic conditions such as abuse, community violence, war, or painful medical procedures are not one-time events.  For people repeatedly exposed to these experiences, especially in childhood, dissociation is an extremely effective coping “skill.” However, it can become a double-edged sword. It can protect them from awareness of the pain in the short-run, but a person who dissociates often may find in the long-run his or her sense of personal history and identity is affected. For some people, dissociation is so frequent it results in serious pathology, relationship difficulties, and inability to function, especially when under stress. [X lots of info here on dissociative disorders but too much for this post.]

So you see here that dissociation has a large range, from completely harmless, like getting lost in tv show (The 100 anyone?) to developing multiple “personalities.” It doesn’t become a disorder until the long term effects make you dysfunctional in your life. 

It sounds to me like what we’re talking about here is a dissociation somewhere between the normal everyday stuff, and something dysfunctional. I’m not 100% sure, but I’d guess duration of the symptoms might tell us if it counts as a mild disorder. When I researched PTSD, (back during 9/11) I learned that it doesn’t count as a disorder until the symptoms continue on for six months after the trauma. So technically, all the characters on the 100 were NOT suffering from ptsd, but from a NORMAL reaction to traumatic events. Who knew? (well I did, but the narrative conventions had us talking about it as a disorder. it’s an important discussion.)

So, it took a while to get here, but I wanted to make sure we understood what we’re talking about. I think this is what we’re looking at. 

Something in your life has stopped working, or disappeared, or isn’t making you happy. It might be something that you have hung your identity on. “This is who I am.” Or something you’ve built your habits around. “This is how I fill my days.” Or something you’ve created as the center of your motivation. “This is what is important in life.”

And then it’s gone. 

So you’ve lost an essential part of your identity, your daily routine, and your purpose in life. Now what?

Now you feel disconnected (because you are. You were disconnected from something that made meaning in your life.) Now you feel aimless (because you lost your purpose.) Now life seems meaningless (because what’s important no longer is.) The more of these changes that happen at once, the harder it is to find your footing. 

Can you see that your feelings of dissociation are normal now? 

You’re dealing with a profound change in your life and self. What once made sense is divorced from you. 

In this case, I’d focus on the things that fell out of whack. 

Identity: Who Am I? 

Take time to remember who you were before you lost touch with yourself. Old favorites, music, movies, habits, hobbies, interests. Think back on your successes and failures too, what you’ve overcome. 

Purpose: Why Am I Here?  

Reconnect with the things you used to think were important. Remember what you believed in. You may have to question some of it and discard old ideas that no longer work for you. When you figure out what you DON’T believe, it is often easier to understand what you DO believe. “Not this– but this !!!” (Add a subheading here of  “What Do I Want?” or maybe it’s its own heading. idk.)

Function: How Do I Create My Life?

 Create new habits. Make appointments. Sign up for classes. Get a new job. Join challenges. Keep a to do list. Get your life moving so that you can engage in it again and choose which habits work for you.

It turns out, my friends, that I could actually talk about this all day long. 

This is the subject of my work that I’ve been doing for the last 20 years or more. I call it Art and Transformation, and I use creativity and reflection to help us understand ourselves, work through change, and create a life that is meaningful and empowering. Answering this ask has helped me focus on some of my own Identity, Purpose and Function questions, as rebuilding this work has been part of my process in facing the extreme changes I’ve gone through in the last few years. I should just cut and paste this whole ask into my scrivener file. It might get its own file.