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Peak hEDS with comorbid POTS moment: clenching your butt as a counter-manoeuvre to help your pre-syncope, and clenching so hard you crack something back into place in your back with a loud pop. This condition truely is the gift that keeps on giving 🙃
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clonerightsagenda · 7 years ago
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So the tuesjade folks announced that today’s theme is hairdye, and although I mostly play spectator for this stuff (esp. since the prompts are more suited for art) I figured that was a sign from the heavens telling me to dust this thing off, even if she only thinks about dying her hair and so I won’t bother dropping it in the tag.
I promise this is the last time you’re going to get whacked by any ‘kat writes fic’ monstrosities for a while (besides, you know, the inescapable AU comic). I’m just cleaning out a bunch of stuff that’s been sitting around for ages.
The concept for this came from wondering if grimdark/grimbark mode left behind physical traces, which I could have taken in an angst direction, but I didn’t. A personal first? Incredible.
Sharing a bathroom with a crowded household is never easy, especially when some people take their time. Dirk is the worst – he once spent over an hour fixing his hair until Roxy pounded on the door and yelled “I gotta PISS, Strider!!” so loudly Jaspers tried to squeeze himself under your bed. Jade’s usually in and out – a quick hairbrushing makes up the bulk of her regimen – so when she shuts herself up in the bathroom for a while, you check on her.
There’s no lock on the door – everyone decided that was for the best – so you knock and then walk in when she doesn’t tell you not to. (You would even if she did, except then you might have hurried.)
“Hi, Rose,” she says, not looking away from the mirror. You’re still getting used to the way she knows who’s entered a room by their scent or the feel of how space bends around them. It’s the kind of power you would use to annoy or unsettle people, but she’s matter-of-fact about it. “I’m trying to check something out, but I can’t see well. Will you look at my hair for me?”
Jade’s hair hasn’t grown back yet from the haircut Jack started and you finished. With the weight of its length gone, it has sprung into a looser version of the curls Jane no longer relaxes. You walk up behind her, wondering if she wants you to say she needs a trim. But when you’re closer, looking down on the top of her head as she leans against the counter, you see it.
“I think the color’s going-” she starts, and you finish.
“Gray.”
Jade blows a breath out from puffed cheeks, clouding the mirror. “Is that bad?”
“It happened to me.”
She straightens up, almost clipping you in the chin. “Really?”
“Not all over, just here and there. It wore off eventually, although I think I have a bit left.” You catch some of your hair and roll the strands between your fingers, looking for a gleam of silver. “It wasn’t as visible as it is for you.”
Jade gingerly touches the top of her head, where some of her roots are growing in pale. “Because of what happened to you with the horrorterrors?”            You nod. “Channeling powers we weren’t prepared to on our own, I think, overstretching ourselves. It stayed even though I wasn’t in the same body anymore. I wouldn’t be surprised if Jane had some too.”
“Poor Jane.” Jade shakes her head. “At least I didn’t have a robot in my brain.”
“I wasn’t like either of you,” you say. “Nothing made me do anything wrong. But the power… they did give me that.” Everything seems so simple with power at your command. The distance between a problem and the solution is a straight line. You catch yourself that way still sometimes, your mind a straightedge, powering off in one direction as soon as you even think you’ve caught sight of your destination. When it had come time to rewrite the universe, you’d been tempted to make it your idea of perfect. The Light part of you wants to see reality labeled and pinned to a card, but it can’t live then. “You can get carried away.”
“Or get even.” Jade shrugs when you look at her. “That’s what it was for me. I’m not pretending it wasn’t.”
“The cliché is power corrupts. Do you think any of us would be able to resist the One Ring?”
Jade purses her lips. “In the story, the hobbits did best. Who’s shortest?”
“You think moral superiority lies within those closer to the ground?”
“Do you have a better theory?”
Someone knocks on the door, and both of you jump. “There’s more than one bathroom in the house, you know,” you call.
“This one’s closest,” John complains from the other side of the door. “Besides, I was checking to make sure everyone was still alive in there.”
Jade rolls her eyes. After six years, the two of them have finally learned to stop being so careful and talk to each other like normal siblings. Now, you think they enjoy their squabbles. “You’re too late. We’re dead.”
“Let me know if you need any help with that,” he says, and you hear him amble off.
“You could dye the gray parts,” you say, returning to the subject at hand – or at head. “Most of mine grew out in a few months. Or you could make it part of your “look”. Call it silver instead of gray – that sounds more Romantic, the kind with a capital R. Black and silver, night and starlight, that sort of thing.”
“Oh Rose,” she teases, “that’s almost poetic.”
“I try.”
“Have you ever thought about dying yours?” she asks. “It’s so light, it should take color well.”
“I thought about it a few times,” you admit, “but if I had my mother would’ve gotten me a junior beautician’s set before it dried. That’s what happened with the lipstick.” You’d worn black to shock her, but she’d taken it as an opportunity to try to bond and unloaded most of a Sephora counter on you, which you’d used to make a self-portrait entitled Masque of the Beauty Industry – Female Socialization into Self-Objectification. The juvenile games you played with your mother are embarrassing now. She’d been trying to make up for her excesses with more, and you responded to imagined slights by lashing out. You’d both acted like children, even if you thought you were so mature. “Do you think I’d look good with purple hair?”
Jade claps her hands together. “Let’s find out!”
 #
A packet of Kool-Aid later, you’re dripping whorls of purple into the bathtub. Jade examines her fingers, where the dye has left her dark skin looking corpse gray. “Gross hands and zebra hair,” she says with a laugh. “I can be the bride of Frankenstein.”
“Frankenstein’s monster,” you correct, because it’s expected.
“All in all, I’d prefer to be the scientist.”
The dye has to sit overnight, so you seclude yourselves in Jade’s room. She guards the door from any unauthorized entry, shooing Kanaya away by telling her you’re preparing a surprise and whacking anyone who tries to phase through the wall with a pillow. Dave restrains himself to sending you 27 texts in a row before you turn your phone off. The two of you eat gummy worms by the fistful and look up silly animal videos. Jade has to drag you away from an argument in the Youtube comments section. She shows you pictures of dresses she likes, and you argue over which model is prettier. You feel like the child you could have been, if you’d ever dared to bring a friend home to spend the day or sleep over, if you’d ever let yourself relax into your youth instead of chasing your mother’s missing adulthood.
It’s nice.
The two of you fall asleep on the floor despite your sugar intake, and you wake up to see that you’ve left a purple stain on the carpet. “It’ll wash out,” Jade assures you. “We need to rinse your hair now.”
It looks terrible - a streaky mess of light and dark purple – but Jade guides you away from brooding in the mirror and shoves you into the shower. Then the color evens out. It’s a little darker than the lavender you would’ve preferred, but Kool-Aid dyes fade fast. You run your hands over it long enough that she asks, “Do you not like it?”
“What do you think everyone else will say?”
“That you look pretty.” That’s Jade, delivering all her assurances with conviction. Even though you know now some of them were feigned, she sounds sincere. “They’ll love it.”
“Have you decided what you’re going to do about yours?”
She touches her roots, where the gray is just starting to show. “I think I’ll leave it. I’ve covered up enough. Hopefully Jake won’t think I’m his grandma.”
“You’re a few wrinkles short.”
“Memory is funny sometimes. The littlest things throw me. He coughs just like my grandpa used to. I hear it and always have to turn around.” She tugs out one strand that’s gone completely gray, wraps it a few times around her finger, and ties it off. “A reminder,” she says. “Even if I don’t need them anymore.”
 #
Jade has to coax you downstairs, but eventually you both walk down to the kitchen. Terezi, who against all prior behavior has chosen today to get up before noon, sniffs. “Does anyone smell anything different?” You make a slashing motion across your throat, (she sticks her tongue out), but the damage is done. Karkat nudges Dave, who looks up at you and chokes on his coffee. Kanaya’s eyebrows rise, and words line up on your tongue. It’s childish. A joke. It’ll wash right out.
“I think it suits you,” she says.
“Forget Rose,” Roxy says. “Who’ll turn my hair pink for me?”
“My hands are already ruined,” Jade says, holding them up.
Roxy high-fives her, to her surprise. “Perfect. But I want a turn at the exclusive sleepover times. Except with 100% more science. I’m talking bubbly rainbow shit in beakers, the whole shebang.”
“Am I on the ban list for this round?” you ask. If there’s one thing you can count on Roxy for, it’s lightening the mood. “I may not be part of the scientific community, but I can be present to scoff at mankind’s fumbling attempts to comprehend the mysteries of the universe.”
“That’s why you have to leave those kinds of probing questions into the fabric of reality to womankind. You can stay if…” Roxy pauses for dramatic effect. “You let me do your nails.”
“Roxy, do you know how to do anyone’s nails?” Jane demands from across the table.
“I’m a fast learner. Or… you could hold a workshop.” She waggles her unmanicured fingers at her. “Wanna volunteer?”
“I’d love to see how it’s done,” Calliope chimes in.
Kanaya raises her hand. “I’d like to be included in this, whatever it is.”
“Massive all-girls sleepover, that’s what it is. Or what it’s turning into. You can’t come,” Roxy adds to Dirk, who looks like he’s trying to decide whether to be disappointed or not.
The table dissolves into chatter, and you shake your head. “The last time I even heard the word sleepover, I must have been eleven. It always seemed like kid stuff.”
“I know,” Roxy says, and raises her hand to high-five you too. You meet her hand with a decisive clap. “Isn’t it great?”
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you-me-and-jermaine · 6 years ago
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Crisp and His Girls
Harare was amazing! We landed Wednesday, got picked up by Trey, and made our way to their incredible house. It’s a tropical climate in Zimbabwe, so their yard grows the most amazing flowers and fruits! Trey and Kasey have the 2 cutest daughters, Molly and Naomi, and we hung out with them in the pool for a bit before heading to trivia. We scored respectability in trivia, ate some good curry, and called it a night before the next big day.
Thursday we woke up at an uncomfortable 4am to drive 2 hours to Imire, the rhino sanctuary. Oh my goodness, what am incredible day. The black and white rhinos are going extinct and are highly sought after by poachers. Their horns go anywhere from $250,000-$400,000 each, and are typically sold in Asian countries for bullshit medicinal or religious purposes. So the rhinos in the sanctuary have 24/7 guards, who carry guns with them to shoot poachers. During the day hours, the rhinos wander free with guards following them from a distance. At night they sleep in an enclosure together while someone keeps guard. In 2007, poachers got into the sanctuary, threw acid in one guards face, beat the other and tied him up, and then killed the 3 breeding female rhinos they had. Only a baby was left, and it was devastating for the sanctuary. They moved the baby rhino into peoples homes, and that’s where it grew up, so they could always protect it from poachers. It took 10 years for the baby to grow up and be able to have a baby of its own and start the breeding cycle again. Sadly, that baby rhino, along with 126 other animals on the sanctuary, died 4 years ago when they experienced a terrible drought. The drought left all their food sources lacking in vitamin E, which didn’t affect the older animals or babies that were nursing, but the growing teenage animals need that and died because of it. Luckily the rhino was able to breed before it died, and they currently have 3 black rhinos and 5 white rhinos in the park. That morning, we had a private tour in which we “walked with the rhinos”, meaning we walked with their guards through the bush as the rhinos went about eating breakfast and meandering about. It was incredible to observe them up close, and be able to ask their guards all the questions we wanted.
Some fun rhino facts-
Black rhinos are smaller, and have terrible eyesight. Because of this, when they hear a noise, they charge right at it, and figure out what it is later. They’ve accidentally charged their guards before, and the guards have to run and escape up a tree. Black rhinos always keep their babies behind them, and can run up to 35km/hr.
White rhinos are much larger, and typically run away when they hears noise, don’t charge. They keep their babies in front of them as they run away from danger, to keep an eye on them.
Both kinds of rhinos can live up to 45 years, eat 100 kilos of food a day, and can’t swim. They have a 15 month gestation period, and nurse their babies for 2-3 years, so the breeding process is timely. Since January, 5 rhinos have already been poached in the area. It’s incredible hard to stop poaching because Africa is so damn big, and only Botswana has a “kill poachers on sight” policy. Zimbabwe and South Africa have an arrest on sight policy, but as the guards explained, these poachers are rolling in with giant weapons to bring down a rhino. The guards stand no chance against them, and are unable to arrest them as they usually get taken out in the process. It’s a sad situation, that unfortunately will lead to extinction for our most beloved animals. It is predicted that by 2035, the elephant and giraffe will also be extinct. The elephant being poached for its ivory, and the giraffes natural resources being wiped out. Lots of sad facts on this trip. Feeling grateful we got to see so many of these animals in the wild, before they’re gone.
After the walking with rhinos experience, we were fed a delicious breakfast, and then had a game ride, in which we piled into a giant safari Jeep with a bunch of old people, and saw so many animals. Our guide brought feed with him, and was able to lure different animals closer so we could take a better look. The zebra came right on up, andddddd so did the giraffe!!!! It was incredible! They were so close, and chill, and funny looking, and it was incredible. We saw sable, the most aggressive antelope, who look like they’re wearing Anonymous masks, and eland, giant antelope who can jump 12 feet straight up. The tour was made better by a couple behind us, who 20 years ago had moved to Zimbabwe from Indiana to start an orphanage, and who had been to Imire 18 times. They were very knowledgeable about all the animals, shared stories of their experiences, and gave us an interesting insight to life in Zimbabwe. We were served one of the most amazing lunches in a rock garden aptly named the Hard Rock Cafe, and met Mzou, an elephant who came to the sanctuary as a baby. She was the only elephant for 48 years, and spent all her time with the water buffalo, so she actually thinks she’s a buffalo. She does not socialize with the other elephants they now have, as they scare her, and she rules over all the buffalo as the matriarch. Her name means “elephant” as a way to remind her that she’s actually an elephant. We got to feed her before heading back to end the day. That night we had a great dinner with Trey’s family at beautiful restaurant with a big outdoor area, twinkly lights, and lots of good food options.
Friday we got up early and headed into downtown Harare for a free walking tour. We met our guide Eliseus, and he started telling us the history of Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe was conquered by the British back in the day, turned into Rhodesia in the 50s, and finally became Zimbabwe in 1980. Eliseus took us to the National Gallery of Art, which is one of the best art galleries I’ve ever been to. It was small enough that you didn’t get sick of looking at art, and all of the art was so honest. It lacked the pretentious undertones that art can have. They were running several contests at the time, and we got look at a lot of different art, all with the artists explanation of their work. Many themes were prevalent, and it was interesting to see how in Zimbabwe, they are facing many of the cultural and societal challenges we are facing in America. The loss of the family structure, the influence of technology, the changing role of women, and the search for peace and understanding in this rapidly changing world. Eliseus explained many traditional beliefs to us, like the importance of totems. People have family totems, which can be an animal or object, and you just respect that totem and follow what it does. For example, Eliseus’s totem is the heart, so he cannot eat animal hearts because that is going against his totem. His mother’s totem is a lion, so it is important she eats meat, because lions only eat meat, to honor it. Other people’s totems might be a chicken, so they cannot eat chicken, but will eat grains as a chicken does. He also taught us about mhepo yedzinza, which is your families spirit. This spirit, good or bad, follows your family lineage forever. So if your uncle got a spirit that says he can never drive, no one in the family for any generation to come will ever drive. Crazy stuff.
We also got to teach Eliseus some fun facts. Zimbabwe is 89% Christian, and he had never heard of the concepts of atheism or agnostic before. He was also new to the ideas of vegetarianism, veganism, and reincarnation. He meets a lot of people on these tours, and is very open minded, but because he comes from a homogenous society, these concepts are so wild and out of the ordinary, he had a lot of questions that were fun to answer.
The tour continued around the city, where we learned the tallest building in the city is 28 floors, Michael Jackson has stayed at their nicest hotel, and Zimbabwe used to be the breadbasket of Africa before terrible leadership threw it into the worst economic depression its ever known. The city is incredibly green, with giant parks, and some of the most beautiful trees and flowers. The tour ended by eating a bunch of great food- sadza is the staple food of the country (like rice, bread, etc) and made from maize corn. It’s white, and sort of like grits, and accompanies most meals. We also ate madubu, which is intestines, madura, which is caterpillar, chicken stew, and pork trollies. All was delicious. We said goodbye to Eliseus shortly after and headed to our car, where we found it ticketed and booted for not paying $5 in parking. That was pretty nuts. We freaked out for a second, then found the parking lady, who told us we must pay the ticket off before we got the boot removed. Chris then went on a half hour journey with police officers to pay the ticket. He did not lose a limb, and whilst being a crazy journey (you can hear the story from him in person), the ticket wound up only being $20 and we made it home before dark.
That night we went to a local bar with Trey to meet some of his friends, then people came back to the house to hangout for the night.
We had planned to spend the night in the mountains that’s weekend, but a cyclone hit! Wtf! Harare is usually perfect weather, in the 70s and sunny, but the cyclone brought rain, wind, and excuses to snuggle up and stay home. Saturday morning we checked out the local farmers market, which was awesome despite many of the vendors staying home because of the rain. There was a new Asian grocery store that had just opened, and that had some crazy products in it. We purchased cucumber flavor Pringle’s, and an unidentifiable but delicious drink. The rest of Saturday was spent bumming around, a day we greatly needed after this crazy trip, and we spent the day playing games and napping. Saturday night we got a butt ton of Ethiopian food, and fell asleep full and happy.
Yesterday, the rain lightened up a bit, so we head out with Trey to see the Balancing Rocks. They’re a field of these big ass rocks that are precariously balancing on each other and no one knows how they got there. We had a blast climbing around on them, and getting some great views of the city. We headed to an Irish pub next to celebrate St Paddy’s Day, and enjoyed a delicious lunch and a Guinness :) We went to Domoshava next, which is a giant rock you can climb up and explore. There are ancient cave paintings there, depicting people and animals. There isn’t much info on the paintings, so we don’t know how legit they are, but they were still cool to see. The top of the rock gave us beautiful views of the city and surrounding countryside. Zimbabwe looks a lot like central Oregon, rolling green hills. We grabbed Greek for dinner, then headed home to hangout for our last night.
We had a morning flight back to Joburg today, so we said goodbye to Trey, Kasey, and the girls, and got on our 6th flight of the trip. We’re currently in Joburg, where we’ll be spending the night, and then heading back to America tomorrow night. I cannot believe how fast these last 3 weeks have gone, how much adventure we’ve had, and how beautiful this whole experience has been. This was more incredible than I ever could have imagined, and I’m already looking for excuses to come back to Africa.
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