#do you think EMTs got there before she was taken by complications? or was she olone when the light left her eyes.

[longelk]

it never slips my mind that kaycee died young but it took me a bit to register that her manner of death is one of the most unimaginably painful ones to go through. oh well if homegirl was lucky she passed out from the smoke before she could feel her skin peel off 😁🤞

[redhoodssweetheart]

Still Star-Crossed Part One

Sequel to Star-Crossed Lovers, please read Sad Ending Version Two for this to make sense) 

Pairing: Jason Todd x Fem!Reader

Requested: No

Word Count: 1.5K

Warnings: Swearing, angst, more to be added later

Description:  Jason’s been gone for nearly two years.  Y/N has taken up the Red Hood mantle, but things are about to become complicated.

A/N: *Insert devil emoji grinning here* 

Two years.

That’s how long it had been since Jason had passed.  Two years and Y/N was now wearing the Red Hood mask.  It had only felt right to take up where he had left off.  She couldn’t sit idly by while people suffered as she had all those years ago.  Red Hood had helped her, loved her, and while she may never find love again she still wanted to help.

Dick was beside her, the two of them sitting with their feet dangling over the side of the building.  They were eating something from the diner they had just rescued from some muggers.  “It’s too quiet tonight,” he said and she instantly smacked him.

“Dude now we’re going to be swamped with work,” she frowned at him.  “That’s what people who work as like cops or EMTs say and then all hell breaks loose.”  As if on queue an explosion happened.  “I hate you.”

They dumped their food into the garbage bin below and Y/N put her helmet back on before they raced to their bikes to see what the damage was.  “Oracle,” she heard Dick say over the comms.  “There was an explosion near the Dodson’s diner, can you tell us what happened?”

There was a moment of silence and then they heard Barbara’s voice, “It looks like Gotham City Bank is being robbed.  Joker’s goons.”

“I really hate you, Nightwing,” Y/N said as she sped up to make it through a yellow light.  “You just had to say everything was quiet.”

“That explosion would have happened whether I had said what I said or not,” Dick fired back.

The two of them arrived on the scene and were greeted with the face of Joker who was laughing hysterically.  “Well look at what we have here,” he said as he swung a crowbar back and forth.  “It looks like the Bats have come to play tonight boys!”

“Don’t you ever just want to shoot this motherfucker in the head?”  She asked Dick as they were surrounded by Joker and his men.

She heard him sigh, “All the time.”

“We’re taking him to Arkham though, aren’t we?”

“Yep.”

She pulled out her guns and said, “I’ll take the goons on the left and you take the ones on the right.”  He merely nodded and leapt into action while she shot tranq darts into the ones that were running toward her.  If they got too close she switched to hand to hand and cracked them on the skull with the butt of her gun.

The entire time they were fighting one another Joker was watching and laughing.  The sick bastard was enjoying this way too much and Y/N gritted her teeth as she took out yet another one of Joker’s men.  When they were all on the ground she pointed her gun at Joker but he merely smiled that creepy smile and said, “I’d love to stay and play, but I’ve got a date that I just can’t miss.”  He pulled something out of his pocket and before she could shoot him he tossed whatever it was onto the ground, smoke flaring up around him.  

Y/N and Dick staggered back, coughing and fanning in front of their faces, the Joker’s laugh still echoing in their ears.  “Should we chase after him?”

Dick went to answer her, but Bruce’s voice over the comms made them pause.  “Red Hood, Nightwing, return to the cave,” that tone made both of them stand straighter. “Now.”

The two of them shared a look knowing what that voice meant. Something had happened. They sped back to the cave and when they entered there was a commotion. Barbara was wheeling toward them, a pensive look on her face as she said, “Y/N, please don’t freak out.”

“Why the hell is she wearing the Hood?!” A familiar voice snapped. She jerked her head toward an angry Jason. “Am I a girl on this earth?”  She removed her hood and the mask, letting him see her face for the first time.  Her mouth hung open slightly.

“Jason,” Bruce’s hand landed on his shoulder. “This is Y/N, she’s the new Red Hood.”

She stepped forward, a hand outstretched to touch him but he jerked back. “Jay, it’s me. It’s Y/N.”  She looked helplessly at Bruce.  How the hell was he here?  How did he not seem to know who she was? 

Jason looked at Bruce, “She doesn’t deserve the honor of wearing that Hood.”

Anger coursed through her veins. This wasn’t her Jason. “You don’t know what I deserve,” she hissed.  Turning she stalked back toward her bike, “You know where I’ll be.”

“Y/N,” Dick said helplessly but let her go. Before turning back to Bruce, “What the hell is going on here?”

“Barry accidentally traveled to another earth and picked up the Jason from there.  We’re trying to figure out how to send him back.”  That was the last thing she heard before she got on her bike and sped away.  Another Jason.  Not hers.  Of course, not hers.  Life wasn’t that kind to her.

Jason crossed his arms over his chest, “I still want to know why the fuck she has the mantle.”

Dick clenched his fists, “You know what Jason, I don’t think you deserve to know what she’s been through in order to gain our trust and that mantle.”  Dick left, leaving Barbara, Bruce, and Jason in the cave. 

“Come on I’ll show you to your room,” Bruce said at last steering Jason up to the main portion of the house. 

Y/N stumbled through the door of her apartment feeling like she couldn’t breathe.  She sucked in lungfuls of air and collapsed to the floor and before letting out a scream.  Tears welled up in her eyes and she slammed her hand on the floor repeatedly.  “Why?! Why?! Why?!”

All she wanted to do was curl up on the floor and cry, she wanted to turn on her heartbreak playlist and just sob to the depressing tunes.  She wanted to slam her fist through a wall.  How was the universe this cruel to her?  How could it take one of the best things away from her and then give it back but only a new version?  Something that would never fully be hers.

She felt around in her pocket for her phone and dialed the number she knew by heart, “Y/N, what’s wrong?”

“Clark,” she sobbed.  “It’s Jason…. he’s back.”

She heard him shift, “How?”

“Barry,” she still couldn’t believe it.  “Bruce said that he went to another earth and brought the Jason from there to here.”  She let out another sob, “He’s not my Jason.”

Clark felt so helpless at that moment, “Y/N, I’m so sorry.  I don’t know what to say.  I don’t know how to make it better.”  He knew how hard she had taken Jason’s death.  “Do you want to come back to Metropolis for a few days?  Get out of Gotham while he’s there?”

She considered his offer for a moment, “I don’t know.  I’m needed here.  Joker got away and he said something about meeting someone.  The others may need me, but I’ll come if things get too overwhelming or they don’t fix this soon.”

Clark knew she was going to be stubborn about this.  “All right, but the offer still stands.  Lois and I would be more than willing to let you stay here.”  

She thanked him and hung up the phone, pushing herself off the floor and heading for the shower.  She needed time.  Time to think and process what had happened that night.

Jason stepped into the room that Bruce had shown him to.  He looked around and noted that it wasn’t that much different from the one on his earth.  Everything here seemed the same except for the fact that he wasn’t here and some woman was wearing the Red Hood mask.  He had felt angry when he saw her in it.  He didn’t even know her so what made her think that she could wear it?

Then he had seen her face and it was as if he had seen a ghost.

Walking over to the desk he noticed several pictures in pretty frames sitting on top of the surface.  He picked one of them up and saw that it was him and her.  They were lying in bed, she was burying her face into his neck and he was smiling.  Then the next one had him and her in an unfamiliar living room, she was kissing his cheek.

“The other you loved her,” a voice said behind him.  He turned and saw Cassandra standing there.  “He died trying to keep her safe.  She’s been through a lot and she doesn’t need someone with his face telling her that she doesn’t deserve what she has.  Because she’s paid her dues and then some.”

“We all have our sob stories, Cass,” he said with a frown.

“Yeah we do, but at least you didn’t have the love of your life die in your arms,” then she turned and walked away.  

Jason looked back at the photos of them and there was a pang in his chest.  It seemed the two of them had mirrored one another in ways he didn’t realize.  

Because she had died in his arms on his earth as well.

He hung his head and cursed himself.

[scuttling]

While You Were Sleeping (Okay, in a Coma)

Fandom: Criminal Minds Pairings: Derek Morgan & Latina Original Female Character Aaron Hotchner/Latina Original Female Character Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid Word Count: 2,058 Chapters: 1 of ? WIP Tags: SFW so far, Sophie is not in the BAU, While You Were Sleeping (film) AU, Coffee shop, Unrequited love, Canon-typical violence, Slow burn

Summary: What happens when Derek Morgan, the man Sophie Cortes is secretly in love with, goes into a coma, and everyone around them mistakes her for his girlfriend? As if things weren't complicated enough, his boss is sweet, kind, incredibly handsome, and makes sure she's taken care of while Derek is in the hospital. Plus, she thinks one of Derek's coworkers is more secretly in love with him than she is. Feelings shift, but how does Sophie explain to the world that she fell for Aaron while Derek was sleeping, without hurting everyone she's come to care about?

Read on AO3 or read more below! The morning that changes Sophie Cortes’s life forever begins much like any other: she wakes up at 3 AM to her blaring alarm, slides out of bed with a groan, tugs off the oversized t-shirt she slept in and pulls on a sports bra and leggings to go for a run. She knows this makes her sound like a lunatic, but with her schedule, if she doesn’t exercise before the crack of dawn, it just doesn’t happen.

After her run, she goes home to shower and change, grabs her bag and drives to The Busy Bean, the coffee shop she co-owns with her best friend Jocelyn. Jocelyn is the brains of the operation, the one with all the great marketing ideas, the one who handles the finances and vendors and supply issues and makes sure everything is Fair Trade or else—Sophie bakes cookies and makes macchiatos, but everyone’s got their strong suits.

She loves the coffee shop more than anything, its bright brick walls and dark wood floors, the smell of fresh beans and sugar, the bustle of regular customers they get from being so near Quantico; most of them are serious suit types, always in a hurry, but some of them are sweet, take their time to say good morning, like Sophie’s favorite customer, Derek.

She knows Derek is a fed of some sort, even though he’s not usually in a suit. He has that air about him, like he’s powerful and capable, like he’s seen things, but he never fails to flash her a megawatt smile, to lean against the counter while she makes his mocha and ask her how her morning is going. She’s a little bit in love with him.

Jocelyn knows this, and always makes sure Sophie is the one to wait on him; when she calls Sophie out from the kitchen specifically because Derek’s there, she knows he knows, and she flushes, but he says she makes his drink better than anyone, always asks her for a cookie recommendation on Fridays so he can take a box to the office, so she thinks it might not be completely one sided. Maybe. Or he’s just a really, really sweet guy.

On the morning that changes her life forever, he’s still very sweet, but she also sees a side of him she’s never seen before.

Someone tries to rob them. The man walks right up to the counter, no mask, no nothing, and tells her to put all of the money from the register into a cookie box or he’ll pull out the gun he’s got in his pocket and blow her face off. Her first instinct is to be pissed about this, which she knows is really stupid. She takes a step back, looks at the guy like he’s an idiot, crosses her arms.

“Are you fucking kidding me? Do you know how hard we work for this money? We don’t sit around… playing video games in our mom’s basement, like you do, by the looks of it.” The guy is obviously not happy about this, slams his hands down on the counter, and Derek, who is two spots behind him, leans slightly out of line to get her attention.

“Sophie, is this guy bothering you?” Before she can answer, the guy turns to look at Derek; he takes one glance at his hot, strong physique, and then his gun and his badge thing, and books it out of the shop. Derek tears off after him, and Sophie can see this ending very badly, so she grabs Jocelyn, asks her to cover the register and tells her she’ll be right back.

She jogs outside, expecting to see Derek manhandling the dumbass robber, or at least still chasing after him; she does not expect to see Derek laying on the ground, bleeding out, a bullet wound in his stomach.

“Oh my god, Derek!” She skids to a halt next to him, pulls off her apron—it’s mostly clean, she thinks—and lifts up his shirt, presses it to the wound to stop the bleeding. “Are you okay? That’s dumb, you’re not okay, but can you hear me? Are you going to die?” He chuckles, and that makes her feel a little better, but then he coughs up blood, and that makes her feel much, much worse.

She pulls her phone out of her back pocket, calls 911, and just stays with him, talks to him about nothing and everything, until the police and paramedics arrive. At that point, he has passed out, looks drained and weak, so unlike the Derek she has come to know… and love. Fuck. If he dies because of something that happened at her shop…

“Excuse me, miss, but we need to get him on the stretcher,” an EMT says, putting his hand gently on her shoulder. She backs off, knows he needs to be attended to, but she can’t leave him, she just can’t.

“Can I ride to the hospital with him? Please,” she asks the other tech, and she glances at her partner, who nods. Sophie sighs a breath of relief, sends a text to Jocelyn explaining what happened and that she’ll need to be out of the shop for the foreseeable future.

She notices that Derek’s phone has fallen off of his belt, and she picks it up, since the paramedics don’t seem interested. She absently decides to look through his recent contacts, to see if there’s someone she should inform of the accident: the last number he dialed belongs to someone named Hotch, and she vaguely remembers him mentioning the name before. It might be his boss, or something? He dials the number frequently, anyway, so she figures it’s worth a shot.

“Hotchner,” the man answers after two rings, and Sophie sighs, glad she got through to someone. Even if he’s not the person she should be contacting, he might know how to reach them.

“Uh, hello. I’m pretty sure you’re Derek’s boss, but even if you aren’t, you’re the last person he called, so… There’s been an accident. Derek’s been shot. We’re headed to the GWU Medical Center; I thought you would want to know.” She can hear the man moving some papers in the background, banging something around on his desk, maybe.

“We’re on the way; how bad is it? Is he conscious? What happened?” The paramedics signal for her to hop into the back of the ambulance, so she does, and she takes Derek’s limp hand. Her eyes well up with tears, and it feels real, now, that she has to relive it.

“There was someone trying to rob the coffee shop, and—and Derek went after him; he had a gun, and I guess he shot him. I mean, he obviously shot him. In the stomach. He’s not conscious; I don’t know how bad it is, but he was coughing up blood. Oh, god,” she breathes, voice shaky, and the man on the phone makes a soft sound of reassurance.

“It’s alright. He’s a very strong person, I promise you. He’ll be okay. You said you were headed to GWU Medical Center; are you with him now?”

“Yes. The paramedics let me ride with him. I can text you an update when we get there, his room number if he has one.” She can hear him talking to someone else in the background, but it only takes him a moment to answer.

“Please do. We’ll be there as quickly as we can. Thank you,…?” He pauses, clearly wondering who the hell she is.

“Oh, Sophie. Sophie Cortes.”

“Aaron Hotchner. Thank you. We’ll see you soon.”

The paramedics push Derek into the emergency room entrance, and Sophie follows behind, feeling anxious and out of place, and worried about his injury. They push the gurney through a set of double doors, and Sophie goes to follow, but a stern looking nurse in gold scrubs puts a hand in front of her, doesn’t even look up from her clipboard.

“You can’t go in there.” Sophie’s heart-rate jumps, and she shakes her head.

“I need to go in there, I need to make sure he’s okay. Please.”

“Are you family?” she asks, giving her a once-over; she clearly decides that Sophie is not family, and she doesn’t want to lie, anyway.

“No, I’m not family, but—”

“Like I said, you can’t go in there. Family only.” She moves her arm, waits like she dares Sophie to try, but she just sighs, sags against the wall, and the woman walks away.

“But you don’t understand,” Sophie says weakly, to herself. “I’m in love with him.” She brings up a hand to scrub at the tears forming in her eyes, and another nurse, one with blue scrubs and braids and a kind smile, rests a palm on her shoulder.

“Come with me.” Sophie looks up at her—she looks kind of like an angel, but it’s probably just the fluorescent lighting—and nods, follows.

She takes her through a staff only door, sneaks her into the OR hallway, where they can peer through a window at Derek, surrounded by doctors, surgeons, nurses. Sophie has only seen this kind of stuff on TV, so she doesn’t know how it’s going, but the nurse who brought her tells her to stay there for one second and bustles off.

It’s really scary to watch: there are bloody cloths being thrown around, and tubes and clamps and other medical devices she’s not sure the use for, but after a moment, she can see a doctor lift up a pair of surgical pliers, and there’s a bullet between the prongs. That’s a good sign, she’s pretty sure.

The nice nurse comes back, and she scares the shit out of Sophie when she puts a hand on her arm, making her jump a foot. She smiles apologetically, and Sophie returns it.

“I found out his room number, if you’d like to go sit and wait for him to be brought in. It's an ICU, so technically visiting hours haven’t started yet, but I can make an exception—for an hour, okay?” Sophie nods, wraps her hands around the nurse's wrists.

“Thank you so much. Really—I just need to know he’s okay,” she says, and the woman nods understandingly and takes her to room 104, where Derek will be placed after surgery.

She texts the number to Derek’s boss, takes a seat on the chair in the corner of the room. She gets restless quickly, stands up, uses the bathroom sink to scrub at her hands, because they’re still stained with Derek’s blood. It’s quiet, eerily so, until suddenly it isn’t.

Derek is wheeled in on a bed by a couple of nurses; he looks a little better, all wrapped up in gauze, and they hook him to machines, displaying a steady heartbeat. She breathes a sigh of relief. He’s alright. He’s not dead. That’s incredible news. She takes his hand, wills herself not to cry, murmurs that she’s so happy he’s alive.

As soon as the nurses leave, a group of people who can only be Derek’s coworkers enter the room. There is a tall, serious looking man with dark hair and a dark suit; a woman with thick fringe, a kind face; an older guy with facial hair who looks worried and weary; a skinny guy who looks about the same as Sophie feels; a petite blonde woman with the bluest eyes Sophie’s ever seen; and another blonde woman with crimped hair and glossy lips who has absolutely been crying. They look at Sophie, and she stands, drops Derek’s hand.

“Um, hi, I’m—”

“Who are you?” a doctor says suddenly from behind the group. The kind nurse who let her see Derek is behind him. The serious looking man reaches into his pocket, flashes a badge with a no-nonsense expression.

“We’re with the FBI. We’re his coworkers.” He looks over at Sophie, and she takes a deep breath. Before she can explain who she is, the kind nurse steps around the doctor, flashes Sophie a smile.

“And she’s his girlfriend.”

Uh. What the fuck?

Derek’s coworkers exchange a look that says pretty much the same thing; the tall skinny one looks like his heart has been broken.

Sophie opens her mouth to correct that extremely incorrect assumption, but she can’t find the words, and then she passes out.

[utterlyinevitable]

Hey! Please could you do Ethan bringing up exclusivity with Becca as mentioned in Above Board? Thanks 🥰

eventually happened a lot sooner than expected... just couldn’t get the story out of my head! 

Above Board (Part 2) 

Part 1

Word Count: 1.2k Warning: fluff  Summary: Ethan coaxes Becca into talking about exclusivity. 

A/N: Thanks for the request @queencarb 💞

________________________________________

On their only day off together a week later, Becca and Ethan were comfortably in his kitchen slaving over a much-needed early lunch. She had conned him into staying in bed until 11AM, well past his natural wake up at dawn. 

She had taken over the reigns of making lunch because Ethan’s scrambled eggs were “just a bit too buttery. You’re meant to chew the eggs not drink them”. 

Graciously he handed over the spatula and watched the woman of his dreams prance around his old bachelor pad. Ethan took up residency at the stool towards the edge of the island. 

There was something that had been plaguing his mind since their dinner at the hospital last week. He hoped Becca was still reveling in her morning ecstasy so that she wouldn’t chide him and just be truthful. He needed honesty. 

With a strong mug of coffee in hand Ethan dared to ask, “So... you and the EMT.”    

“What about him?” 

Ethan makes a care to explain motion before sipping on his drink.  

“It was a thing,” Becca explained for the hundredth time that week with a sigh. She turned back to flip the bacon and added, “A brief thing.” 

Becca inaudibly cursed herself for telling Ethan about Raf. They were having too nice of a morning to ruin it with a pointless tiff about her past fling. 

“You said you have a type. What could we possibly have in common?” 

Ah. She realized what this was actually about. Ethan Ramsey wanted reassurance. He wanted to talk about their non-relationship relationship. She’d been waiting months for this sort of conversation.

Becca happily spun on her bare tiptoes to face him. Chocolate brown eyes adoringly took in the sight before her. The modelesque crystal eyed man sat in only yesterday’s green briefs, his hair fluffy and still leaning in the direction of her fingers from earlier, the nearly four decades worth of lines etched on his face smoothed with relaxation save for the telling crows feet.  

“I never said you were my type” she joked with crossed arms and a critical eye. 

Ethan placed his mug back down on the table. 

They gawked at one another for a moment before Becca continued, “I like the way he made me feel. He’s comforting and easy to talk to when life got rough.” She turned her attention back to the bacon, shifting them to dry on a paper towel. “He took me to incredible places around the city, the kinds only locals would know of... We had fun. It was easy and not… complex. Just two people hanging out.” She readied the whisked eggs to meet the sizzling pan. “And the Superman complex was really hot.” She waited to hear the scoff that never came. When it didn’t she looked over her shoulder and sent a wink Ethan’s way. “Rafs a good guy. I’m glad he and Sora found their way back to each other.”

Ethan sat in silence with pursed lips as he artfully dissected her words.  

“But that doesn’t matter now. It’s in the past.” Becca plated up the bacon, eggs and diced tomatoes on a bit of toast for each of them. 

Ethan watched as she set the plate readily in front of him. He nodded in approval - Becca was not a kitchen connoisseur but she could muster up the basics. 

She pressed a feathered kiss to his temple. “You are my future.” The adoration between them flowed freely in part with the cosmic waves around them. Just two people divinely connected.  

He smiled as he leaned into her hand on his stubbled cheek. 

“Anyway… the sultry grump is a hell of a lot hotter than Superman.” 

With a light tap to his cheek Becca took her place on the stool beside him, ready to dig in. The activities of the last fourteen hours had her absolutely famished.  

Ethan continued their conversation on a new tangent, “But we aren’t together.”

Becca’s eyes went wide, a mix of shock with confusion. What does he think we are?

When she found chewing a more suitable task than replying, Ethan broadly asked, “What are we doing?”  

“Eating?” she mumbled through a bite.  

He shot her a serious look. 

She knew what he meant but she was tired of always taking the first steps. In the comfort of Ethan’s apartment, the apartment she spent 6 out of 7 days a week at for god knows how long, Becca didn’t want to guess anymore. The last year of their secret dates and inherent understanding of one another gave her the security to ask for honesty. 

“Out with it,” she demanded, “What are you getting at?” 

“What are we? Since we can’t… be together, not in that way.”  

What way? Was he speaking of the way she and Raf were able to mix their personal and professional lives so easily? Or was it the way Rafael could take her out around town unafraid of consequences. She and Ethan were together in the ways that mattered. 

“What do you think we are, Ethan?” 

His head hung low, pushing the eggs around his plate as he debated his answer. Ethan Ramsey knew Rebecca Lao was a once in a lifetime occurrence - she was his partner in every aspect of the sense. There was no one that could satisfy him like she could. In normal convention they were dating, in a juvenile form Becca was his girlfriend. In the real world there were still complications to figure out. 

“More than a ‘thing’.”

Becca smirked at his use of the word, “Is that so?” 

“Hopefully.” Ethan said it so low, all his vulnerabilities were on display. Although he never said the three word and eight letter phrase out loud he showed her it every moment of every day.  

Becca swiveled to give Ethan her full attention. “I don’t care what we officially are or aren’t, Ethan. As long as we get to be like this,” she motioned around them, “together every day, I’m happy.” She reached out to cup his face in her petite hands. “I’m in love with you.” She caressed the lines along his jaw with her thumbs, trailing over to his supple and still swollen lips. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m yours, DTR’d or not.”  

His brows furrowed in the most adorable way - the way that reminded her of his age and how he shied away from social media culture. “DTR’d?” 

Her fingers tangled in the hair at the back of his neck fondly, “Defined the relationship.”  

“Are we in middle school now?” 

His infectious crooked smirk imprinted on her. 

Ethan took the bait and ran with it, “In that case, I assume that makes you my girlfriend.” 

Her eyes squinted in great consideration, “Hm… pass.” 

Ethan raised an eyebrow. He knew she was joking but it also wasn’t the reaction he expected. Notorious loner Ethan Ramsey just professed his intentions to Rebecca Lao. He wanted to date her - he was dating her without titles. He wanted and expected her to be bouncing around excitedly, like a child unwrapping their most coveted present on Christmas morning. 

Instead with a bit of comfortable courage Becca laughed, “We both know I’m practically your wife.” 

To her surprise Ethan didn’t shudder or backtrack, or disappear from her grasp like he’s so prone to do.

“Wishful thinking, Rookie” he grinned.  

She leaned in closer, stroking a few strands of hair out of his face. With great confidence she noted, “I’ll get your autograph eventually, Dr. Ramsey. Right next to mine and two witnesses.” 

Ethan kissed her tenderly. 

They both knew that she was right. 

________________________________________

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[flyonthewallmedstudent]

Watching House as a Physician.  Season 2 Episode 3. Infectious diseases & Respiratory.

Welcome to another episode of medicine done badly.  I’ve been watching House on Amazon prime.  Got the subscription during the pandemic, as like everyone else, I’ve garnered an online shopping habit now. 

Alright. In the opening scene a young roof worker falls off the roof presumably due to acute shortness of breath. i.e. trouble breathing. (why do we use the term shortness of breath? it’s the english version of the greek term dyspnoea - the actual preferred language of Western doctors. Fuck do I know why we like Greek and Latin so much. Moving on.) Then cut to Dr. Cuddy examining him in the back of the ambulance. 

This would never happen in real life. Yes you can be on the scene and handover to the paramedics or EMT when they arrive as a doctor. But they would take over. I personally wouldn’t have the balls to look after a patient in a different environment, different resources and field I’m not familiar with. You can have field Emergency docs - but requires different training. 

Also, ethically, you’re not meant to treat family or friends. Dr. Cuddy later in the episode gets a bit emotionally involved - this is why we don’t treat people close to us. We lose objectivity. We make mistakes. And you see later see Cuddy do some pretty bad ones. 

I feel like much of this episode is not really IM. THere’s less differential diagnoses being made. More side tracks into trauma, emergency, intensive care or vascular surgery. 

Anyhoo. Trauma and emergency would manage the fall and post fall traumatic injuries. And the trauma protocol was either not shown or completely off in this episode. Surgeons don’t seem to exist in House, at least not very much. Similarly, no other doctors exist except surgeons in Grey’s anatomy.  Also you can’t clear a C Spine clinically, which is what Dr. Cuddy does in the back of the ambulance. You’d need a CT first and clearance both radiological (by a radiologist) and a clinician. 

Aaaanddd, you can’t just listen to the chest and go no pneumothorax (air in lung or collapsed lung) - yes it’s reassuring, but again you’d need imaging to confirm this, given how serious a condition this is. It is realistic to consider in the setting of a fall, particularly if there are rib fractures that can puncture the lung.

Once the more critical injuries are managed, we would look after the IM side to things. 

So. Finally.. differential diagnoses.

Takes what seems and feels like days before they finally sit down and go through differentials. Really not much on that white board. Dark fingers, broken ribs, fever and lung infiltrates. Time line’s not clear on when he developed the fever.

Presenting complaint isn’t really addressed. It could be: - Dyspnoea, leading to the fall, he’s requiring O2 via nasal prongs, which suggests that he’s hypoxic (this is definitely odd in a young guy who’s normally very physical fit if he works as labourer). so much to unpack here, but they never get into this well.  Post fall, Cuddy notices his ring and pinky finger becoming dusky, which becomes very central in this episode. Very few things would cause this. pains me that they do no differentials on a white board for this alone. 

Then a lot of throwing around medical terms. 

PTT prolonged and Fibrinogen off. These are markers of your coagulation pathway and signs that you’re not forming the clots the way you should if you have an injury.  DIC is also thrown around. What is DIC? Disseminated intravascular coagulopathy. Certainly severe sepsis and trauma can cause this and lead to severe bleeding. It will throw off your coagulation pathways (things that stop bleeding). It’s not common. I’ve treated it once, while I was rotating in ICU, it is not standard ward medicine practice. Standard therapy is fresh frozen plasma (FFP) and even large metropolitan hospitals only have a limited supply. It’s a huge concern for surgery and post-op (as you patient will just not stop bleeding after you cut them open, and if not treated, potentially bleed to death). Cuddy mentions ARDS. Acute respiratory distress syndrome, it could be a complication, but it’s not a cause. Again, falls more into the realm of critical care (a la ICU). However, patient had SOB prior to the fall. Finally HOuse makes the observation. of “what if he was sick before he had his run in with gravity...” Everyone jumps to Pneumonia. And this is where it gets confusing.  If he was unwell, the minute he entered the emergency department with a fever and hypoxia, they would have worked him up for any garden variety pneumonia, bacterial or viral. Cultures would have been sent and imaging. Any young hypoxic patient would prompt a closer look at the chest. And no one waits that long to start antibiotics - “sepsis kills” is a slogan often used around hospitals. You have to initiate empirical therapy within 30 mins, to reduce mortality and morbiditiy. 

Ordering an Echocardiogram (USS of the Heart) also makes no sense in the context of a lung infection. I would order one, but not to look at the lungs.

Then there’s the most unrealistic thing about this series. Doctors breaking into patient homes.

It is however, a good way to showcase social history. It’d be boring to watch a doctor ask the patient outright about their living situation etc, but it’s far more interesting to see exactly how they live. We try as much as possible to illustrate to each other and ourselves what the living environment and working environment of our patients are like. 

In the context of infection, a good social history can point out exposure. As they exemplify by showing dead rodents and mould. This leads to 2 further differentials: Rat bite fever (caused by streptobacillus, something you’d see in the US, but probably not anywhere else), it’s an unrealistic differential in general. And the 2nd is aspergillosis.  Okay..  So aspergillus is a mould commonly found in our environment. In fact it’s everywhere around us. 

THere’s few times when it’s an issue.  It is a concern in respiratory syndromes like asthma or bronchiectasis. And also as an opportunistic infection in immunocompromised individuals. in the context of asthma, it’s not so much the aspergillus itself that causes issue, it’s our body’s over reaction. It’s a hypersensitivity issue that causes inflammation in the lungs or a pneumonitis. We even gave it a name. Allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis. It’s still badness, but it doesn’t happen that quickly. We also have specific tests for this, which were obviously not considered in this episode of medicine done badly. In the immunocompromised host (steroid therapy in transplant patients or those on chemo, etc.), you can get the invasive mould as an opportunistic infection.  I don’t really understand why they think it would be the case here. Also, killing the bug with heavy duty anti fungals will only give more issues rather than do anything. They start him on amphotericin. this is not standard practice.  And now it flips to why amphotericin is not standard practice or first line treatment for invasive aspergillosis. The patient has now become anuric (not making any urine). (First line drug by the way is voraconazole, superior efficacy in trials with a lower mortality rate and ADRs) Also, note that they have just jumped straight to dire renal failure from the amphotericin. No work up. That said, heavy drugs like amphotericin are often a cause, but  It’s often temporary with the appropriate supportive measures (stop insulting agents, give hydration, monitor fluid balance), reversible, even if you require temporary dialysis or haemofiltration. Anyways, would get into AKI another day, that’s a whole other post in and of itself.  Then his hand is apparently “dying.” There’s pain on light touch, but it’s not a cold, pulseless limb. Or discoloured. doesn’t add up. This now enters vascular surgeon territory. Again. It’s interesting that there’s never any referrals to any other teams. If he has good circulation, I would imagine they would try to save the hand and consider other differentials. 

The only time I can think of an emergency amputation in this situation is necrotising fascitiis. That’s the only thing that would occur that rapidly  AND necessitate losing tissue or limb.  With a young person who’s this ill, there’s often multiple subspecialties involved by this point. I’m also surprised he’s not in ICU.

Then there’s a buncha filler scenes of the cast of house getting emotional. Ho my god, they’ve taken the hand of a young 20 something physical labourer. Indeed, this is badness. Unlike House, we actually are trained to always consider how a patient’s illness impacts their activities of daily living and livelihood. 

I find the general population assumes that we practice medicine in a vacuum, we merely treat the clinical illness and ignore everything else. They imagine that we all must be like house. 

Actually we try to put things in perspective as much as possible and knowing our limitations in this area, we often enlist the help of friends - physiotherapists, occupational therapists and social workers. They never exist on TV or on the movies. Ever. Unless it’s to portray how terrible it is to be a social worker.  From time to time in this episode, Cuddy laments that being chief of medicine is too administrative and she hasn’t been a doctor in years. That also doesn’t happen in real life. If you’re chief you’re still a doctor. You have admin shit to do deal with yes, but you still practice. It’s like being chief resident, in all the TV shows with one of these, you still seem them working as residents, be it scrubs or grey’s anatomy. 

Back to the differential. They finally get to endocarditis. Culture negative to be precise. That indeed would explain the bilateral dusky fingers that led to unnecessary amputation. Septic emboli. 

Going to stop here, more out of exhaustion now. I’ve created quite a lengthy post. Happy to reblog thoughts on culture negative endocarditis on request later. This is a worthy topic to study up on for students or residents. At least review Duke’s criteria and think about your clinical features like Roth Spots and Janeway lesions or Ouch Osler’s nodes. 

The ending is also a far fetched connection to make, but is one that we would consider. In fact, we would ask in detail every time from day one - have you had any exposure to animals. It’s very rare to see someone so young be that sick out of the blue when you’re immunocompetent and have no underlying predisposing conditions. If there’s no focal source, then we would even ask about injectable recreational drugs, exotic travels, sexual health. 

Most of the time, patients that sick are honest to their doctors. 

But what about..

Frankly, much as we lie as humans, when our lives our on the line, we’re generally pretty honest (sometimes too honest) with the people we want to save us. 

Any patient who is young and comes to hospital requiring inpatient admission, they’d be investigated by subspecialties with expertise in certain areas such as infectious disease. The dept of infectious disease would either be home team, or all over this patient as they special in the realm of both common and rare infectious diseases, culture negative endocarditis would have been considered before a hand amputation.

The term, “department of diagnostic medicine is laughable,” particularly when they consider it the only department in the world in the show. 

In actuality, it’s a department that is universal and exists everywhere. it’s Internal medicine. Dr. Vivek Murthy, the next surgeon general (and also the last one under Obama) is an internal medicine physician. Ken Jeong of Community and the Hangover fame is also a physician of internal medicine. 

Beginning to get the sense that most episodes are going to end with a diagnosis that is either infectious disease, rheumatology or haematology. But generally those tend to be most interesting and give the most plot twists or meaty differentials V.s. a stroke or acute myocardial infarction is fairly straightforward to diagnose. 

This is a very twisty episode in all the wrong directions. 

Dyspnoea is a very common presenting complaint. There’s a properly done approach to this in the podcast by the Curbsiders by the way. 

[mattmurdocksscars]

Little Coffee Shop 2/?

Uh, so I didn’t mean for this to be so long. It just sort of happened. Secondly, MAJOR WARNINGS in this one. If you’re uncomfortable with the topics mentioned below, you can skip this update. 

Pairings: Eventual Pietro x Reader

Warnings: Mentions of mental and physical abuse. Physical Abuse/Violence. Language. PLEASE DO NOT READ IF THIS MAY MAKE YOU UNCOMFORTABLE. The reader has an abusive boyfriend and he makes an appearance. Please be mindful.

No Tag List for this one. Just in case.

Word Count: 1682

For the next few months, you get used to the new additions to the Avengers. Wanda and Pietro actually come in quite often. Clint went home to spend time with his family and welcome in the new baby so you were concerned you would stop seeing the Sokovians. Wanda and you had developed a friendship of sorts. The two of you had met for lunch a few times and you really enjoyed spending time with her.

Pietro…was a little bit of a different story. Every time he saw you, he either flirted with you or just watched you work. You thought it was sweet, even if you didn’t believe a word he said. You were in a…complicated position with your ex and it had decimated your self-confidence. The man had been abusive, both mentally and physically, and you had finally ended the relationship a month before you met the Sokovians. You had found him in bed with another woman and that had been the final straw. Unfortunately, the two of you shared an apartment and the lease was in both of your names. You couldn’t afford to break it and so, you resigned yourself to waiting it out. You rarely spent any time within the apartment and neither did he. When you were there, you locked yourself in your room and stayed as far away from him as possible.

The man didn’t know how to leave you alone though. He would try to send you flowers to your job. He would try to cajole you out of your room to “talk” then scream and beat at your door when you told him no. The constant fear was starting to get to you, and it showed in your everyday life. You slowly became even more reclusive, you jumped at loud noises, and you barely slept. He hadn’t hit you since the night you broke up with him, but you were constantly afraid it would happen. You knew you needed out, but you just didn’t have the money to break the lease.

The older members of the Avengers knew something was going on. They’d known you long enough to know that your change in behavior was unusual and eventually, the twins also caught on. The enthusiasm you usually showed at seeing them withered away and all of them decided that it was time to figure out what was going on. It got to the point that there was at least one Avenger in the shop every day of the week. They tried asking the owners, who you were close with, but even they didn’t have any idea what was going on.

It all came to a head though, on a day that Natasha, Steve, Wanda, and Pietro were sitting at one of the back tables. You were making their drinks, your back turned to the door when you heard the bell above the door ring. You called out your greeting but heard nothing in return. You brushed it off until you heard the thunk of something heavy being set on the front counter. You turned to locate the source of the noise and felt all the blood drain from your face. Standing at the counter with a vase of flowers was your ex. He was leaning against the counter with a smirk and whistled at you when he caught your eye.

“Hey, sugar. You still mad?”

“Robert! What-what are you doing here?” You couldn’t keep the waver out of your voice, and you felt your hands shaking. Pietro, who had been watching you work, quietly got the attention of the others and they all watched the exchange.

“Come on, sugar. I figured I could bring you flowers and then we could go get lunch.” The smile he was giving you sent shivers down your spine. You wrung your hands and stayed away from the counter, keeping as much distance between the two of you as you could.

“I, uh, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Immediately the smile dropped from his face and anger replaced it.

“Why the hell not?” You sucked in a sharp breath, your fear making it hard to breathe. You noticed the group in the corner tense, Steve standing up and watching with his arms crossed. Seeing the Avengers in the corner, ready to defend you, gave you a bit of courage. You straightened your spine and stood tall. Approaching the counter, you pushed the vase back over to Robert.

“You know why. We’re through. Please leave.” You immediately regretted moving closer. Rage crossed Robert’s face before he swung at you. The punch connected with your cheek, sending you to the floor. He had just enough time to throw the vase at you as well before Pietro was ripping him away from the counter. Steve and Pietro wrestled him out of the shop while Natasha and Wanda rushed to your side. You sat up slowly as your mind shut down. Shattered glass and flowers slipped off you, but you barely registered it. Your arms and face were littered in small cuts and you could already feel your eye swelling shut from where he had punched you. Wanda reached for you, trying to talk to you, but you flinched back hard and stared at her with wide eyes.

“Wanda, go outside. Make sure the guys don’t do something stupid. And call the police.” Natasha spoke quietly. Wanda hesitated but nodded, leaving the shop to check on the guys. Natasha slowly kneeled to your level and managed to catch your eye. “It’s just me now, baby bird. Will you let me help you?”

You just stared at her for a moment, not quite processing what she was saying. Slowly, you reached out your shaking hands to grasp hers. Natasha helped you stand carefully before pulling you into her arms. That was all it took for everything to hit you. Like a switch flipped, you broke down sobbing. Natasha held you through it, eventually pulling you away from the mess on the floor and sitting you down in a chair. She sat calmly beside you and let you cry everything out. You shakily told her everything that happened.

Natasha stayed by your side while the police interviewed you. She sat with you while the EMT’s looked you over and deemed you alright to forego the hospital. The police arrested Robert, taking him away in a police car. The owners of the shop arrived shortly before Robert was taken and insisted on you taking some time off away from the shop. You tried to argue, explaining that you couldn’t afford to, but they weren’t having it. Still, Natasha stayed by your side. She quietly explained that she would take care of your expenses, whether you wanted her to or not, and that you would be taking the time off as well.

“Nat…I can’t go back to that apartment. Please don’t make me.” You whispered to her. The EMT’s had given you a blanket (for the shock, they said) and Natasha wrapped it tighter around you, before putting her arm around your shoulders and bringing you into her side.

“You won’t. You’ll stay at the tower with us.” Natasha led you over to where Steve, Wanda, and Pietro were standing. Steve was talking on his cellphone but ended the call as you two approached. Wanda was speaking softly to Pietro, who looked livid still, but they also stopped speaking. You lowered your eyes, not wanting to see the pity on their faces.

“Hey, doll. Let’s get you back to the tower.” Steve spoke softly, likely afraid of spooking you. You gripped the blanket around your shoulders tighter but nodded. Steve walked ahead of you and Natasha, while Pietro and Wanda brought up the rear. People cleared the sidewalk for your little group, the look on Steve’s face keeping them out of the way. When you finally reached the tower, the first thing you noticed was Clint pacing in the lobby. As soon as you saw him, you lurched out of Natasha’s arms and threw yourself into his. Clint had always been a father figure to you, and you found comfort being with him.

“You didn’t have to come.” You mumbled into his chest.

“Are you kidding me?! That asshole is lucky I don’t shoot him.” Clint ranted. “You should’ve come to me the first time he put his hands on you. I-“

“Clint.” Natasha cut him off. “Now is not the time.”

“I know…I know. I’m sorry, baby bird.” Clint sighed, resting his head on yours. “Come on, let’s get you settled. I know you have to be tired and hurting.”

You let him lead you to the elevator, noticing the others waiting back as you reached. You stopped, Clint shooting you a confused look as you turned back to face them. You hesitated, before you slowly walked back over to the group. You gripped the blanket tighter again before forcing yourself to look at them.

“I- I’m sorry, that you guys got caught up in that but thank you. All of you.”

“You have no reason to apologize, Prinţesă.” Blinking in shock, you looked at Pietro. He had been unusually silent the whole way back and he still looked angry. There was a softness to his features now, though, as he regarded you. Wanda stepped up beside him, taking his hand and looking at him before turning her gaze on you.

“You welcomed us in with open arms. We may not know you well, but no one deserves what just happened.” You sucked in a sharp breath at her words. Deep down, you knew she was right. No one deserved to be treated the way you had been. Before you could really think it through, you were wrapping your arms around both of them. The twins immediately bundled you up in their arms, holding you close. You knew you had a long road ahead of you, but you also felt undeniably safe in that moment.

Wrapped in the arms of your friends, with more friends around you, you knew you would be okay.

[thorne93]

Inside the Criminal Mind (Part 39)

Prompt: You’re married to Dr. Spencer Reid of the BAU, and are a distinguished doctor yourself on the team. You’re sent down to Miami, Florida for teaching and as a side request from the FBI, to investigate a string of missing persons. When you think you’ve figured out who the unsub is, your life becomes more complicated than you ever could’ve imagined.

Word Count: 3091

Warnings: (throughout the fic –>) death, blood, gore, killings, language, disturbing mental notions, mentions of rapes/murder/etc (You know, Dexter and Criminal Minds related business)

Notes: Thank you so much to @arrow-guy​​​​​, @carryonmyswansong​​​​​, and @mrs-dragneel-stark-solo​​​​​ - without each of you, I couldn’t have finished, written, or properly navigated this story. Each of you helped me fish out details that were incredibly important to me. Beta’d by @carryonmyswansong​​​​​ and @mrs-dragneel-stark-solo​​​​​… Aesthetic by @mrs-dragneel-stark-solo​​​​​

This is a crossover of Criminal Minds x Dexter. First time writing Dexter.

Also, the timeline is after Season 1 of Dexter, but during season 14-ish of Criminal minds into Season 15. Enjoy!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

JJ knelt beside him too, across from you.

"What happened?" she wondered, no accusation in her voice. 

"I don't know," you admitted. "I was only gone an hour or two. He was perfectly fine when I left." You stared at his body in horror, wondering what went wrong. Wondering if it was your fault. 

Soon, an ambulance, police, and firefighters arrived. 

You rode with Spencer to the hospital and JJ said she'd let the team know and be behind you. You were trying to keep your crying back, but it was hard as the EMTs worked on him. 

Finally, you got to the hospital where Garcia and JJ met you. The doctors asked you questions and you focused long enough to answer them quickly and directly. Then they wheeled him away to the CCU. JJ and Garcia said they were being called in, so you nodded, telling them to go, that the team needed them. 

With trembling hands, you called Diana, Spencer’s mom. In a little under an hour, Diana arrived and Spencer was out of the CCu, but he wasn’t doing much better. The doctor informed you of the options. 

“The conservative approach would be surgery. It may reduce the swelling around his brain faster. There is risk, it could cause seizures and even more bleeding.”

You nodded and asked them to give you a moment. You spoke with Diana and as you were weighing your options, he began to seize again, causing monitors to go off everywhere. You went around the side of the bed and hugged Diana, trying to comfort her and not focus on your own pain. 

Your husband was dying and you had no idea if he even loved you anymore.  

When they finally got him calmed down, and the seizing stopped, someone appeared in the doorway of Spencer’s hospital room. You turned your head, and it was Max. 

A million emotions slammed into you at once, but the main one was confusion. 

“What are you doing here?” you asked. Diana turned to see the newcomer. 

“Who’s this?” she asked. 

“A friend of Spencer’s,” you answered absentmindedly. Max looked like a lost puppy. Maybe she didn’t realize you’d be here. “Diana, I’ll be right back.” You stood up and walked towards Maxine. “Do you wanna go grab some coffee?” you offered. You weren’t about to sit in the same room with her as your dying husband. You wanted her far away from him. 

“Sure,” she said, looking a little afraid. 

You two walked to the cafeteria and got coffee, sitting down. 

“So, what are you doing here? Who told you he was here?” 

“JJ.”

“Ah, I should’ve figured that out.” 

“I’m uh, sorry for showing up like this--”

“Why did you show up, knowing now that he’s a married man?” you took a deep breath and remembered what Dexter had taught you. “How do you and JJ know each other?” you figured this would  be a good start to finding out more.

“After the thing with Cat, we talked for a bit. Your team had briefed me about what might have happened and then afterwards, she said she was close to Spencer and gave me her number in case I had any more questions about what had happened. Then, I got the text about him being in the hospital. She said I might want to know.” 

This fueled the fire within you about JJ. she had no reason to tell her about what was going on with your husband. “So….how did you and my husband meet?” This was the most awkward situation you were in and you just wanted this to get over with. “It seems you’ve become the center of his attention and that’s not something I'm okay with.”

She twiddled her fingers, toying with her coffee cup. “Yeah, I’m probably not your favorite person. Um, we met at the park. My nephew was talking to him, then he started to have a panic attack and Spencer came over and did a magic trick to distract him. It really impressed me, that a guy could take time out of his day to make a boy he didn't know happy and feel better.”

“Spencer’s always had a soft spot for kids, he’s a great uncle.” You smiled fondly hearing that he had helped a child in need. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy he was able to help but how does that in turn end up with you and him constantly being together?” You took a sip of your coffee. “Wasn’t there a point where you asked if he was seeing anyone or if he was married?” You couldn’t see how that would never cross a person’s mind

“It did, but we were having such a good time, I didn’t want to think anything was wrong. He never talked about you, and I never thought to bring it up. He seemed so sweet and decent, I didn't think there was any way he could do something like that.” 

“You never thought to ask if he was single or taken?” That sounded incredulous to you. “Did he ever ask you?” At that point you were starting to believe that the man you loved really didn’t love you and this was just a confirmation. “I’m going to be frank with you. He and I are going through a tough situation and JJ was the cause of it and then you showed up and things got worse, I’d really appreciate it if you could tell me what exactly it was that you two did so much that he couldn’t bat an eye at me.” You moved your hands under the table to hide their trembling.

She took a breath. “Okay, well, first of all, I didn’t mean to make anything worse. I’ve never intended to cause issues in a marriage. But, all we did was go to lunch, dinner… We went to a few museums and shops. He gave me a couple of things.” 

“Were there ever moments where you two got to be closer than friends?” You massaged one temple trying to think things through like Dex had told you to. “I’m just trying to figure all this out and I’d like to know everything, if you could tell where you guys went and what you did I would really appreciate that.” You were being sincere as much as it pained you, this needed to be done there was so much you were unsure of and Max was the key to knowing the truth. “ Do you have pictures by any chance?”

“I have a few. Yeah.” She pulled her phone out and began to show you pictures. “This was us at the science museum. This was us at the park.” She glanced at you, making a face of worry. “I know this is probably really weird, but as you can see we’re never kissing or holding hands.” She put her phone away, sighing before trying to list everywhere they went. “We talked about books, movies, a little bit about his work, but that was only for a few minutes. He gave me some of his favorite books to read, and showed me a few poems. He told me places I should go visit.”

Hearing all of this was hurting you far worse than you thought it would. He gave her the books that you had given to him, the places they went to were some of the few places that only you and him had ever gone to.the same poems he showed to her were the ones he would recite to you when he felt that they were meant for you. Your shoulders sag and you wanted to hate her but you couldn’t she did know he was married he chose to keep that from her. He chose to keep you hidden from his life to someone else and that, that's what broke your heart.  “Did he ever hint at wanting more than what you two had?” you hoped this would give you the answer to the question that's still gnawing at you.

“Not really, no. He made it clear he liked being around me but…” She bit her lip. “I was falling for him. I was going to tell him I loved him, soon. Probably the next time we met. That was before I found out he was married though. But I still can’t turn off those feelings, that's why I came to the hospital, I think…. Because I love him, and if he died…” 

“If he died what? He died knowing that you fell in love with him?!” you winced hearing your voice rise. “I’m sorry but knowing that he’s married you shouldn’t have even thought of that, it’s bad enough I had to deal with JJ doing the same shit while I was away for work but I don’t need someone else doing that and especially not now when he’s like this.”

“I know. I shouldn’t be here but… I had to be true to myself. I love Spencer, and I wanted to tell him that, but… I won’t get in the way of your marriage. I’d still like to be his friend and I won’t let us go anywhere past that.”

“I don’t really know much about you so it’s hard for me to even trust you’ll keep that promise and that you won't try later on.” you finished your coffee cup “But I do appreciate you telling me everything that’s happened.”

She nodded. “Of course. If I was married, I’d want the same courtesy. Besides, you’re really intimidating.” She nervously laughed. 

“You smiled a little at that. “I don’t do it on purpose, it's just part of the job.”  you make a move to leave. “I should probably get back. I need to check on Spencer.”

“Right, yeah, of course. I’m just gonna go. I’m so sorry to have come, but… now at least you know the truth. I hope whatever damage I caused, you two can fix it.” 

“I’ll let him know you stopped by to say hello, and I hope we can fix this too.” You nod your head and head back to the room. 

You headed back, and Diana had a hold of his hand. A few hours later, he opened his eyes and he was fully awake. After they ran some more tests, they cleared him. His bleeding had stopped and he was going to be okay. Diana said she was tired and she went back to the live-in home, wishing you both a good night. 

Now that Spencer was finally lucid, you were sitting beside his bed, holding his hand. 

“Hey,” you softly said. “I thought I lost you there for a while. I came home from the hotel and found you on the floor. I’ve never been more scared in my life.” 

Spencer smiled at you.

“I wondered if the last thoughts in your head were about Max,” you admitted with a bit of an embarrassed laugh. 

He shook his head. “No. They weren’t about Max. I was thinking about the case. Everett Lynch is still alive.”

“We know, sweetie,” you assured. “The team is tracking him, we’ll find him.” You bit your lip to look down for a second. “Spencer, I talked to Dexter, and actually Max stopped by too.”

“Oh? What did they have to say?”

You noticed he didn’t ask about why Max was here. “I had talked to Dexter and he made me realize that I was overreacting and I didn’t give you a chance to explain yourself and try to see your side of this.” You looked away from him, not being able to meet his eyes about Max.

“Well, that’s good. He won’t hurt any more women… Y/N… I’m so sorry that you were put in the position to even think I was thinking of another woman before I collapsed… I never should’ve done that to you. You’re right. I was completely in the wrong for keeping you a secret from each other. I just… It was nice to talk to someone who had nothing to do with work, or Miami, any of it. It was a breath of fresh air. But I made you feel second best, and you’ve never done that to me. Ever… I should’ve paid you the same respect.” 

“Thank you, Spence…” You really didn’t know what to say. Things were happening left and right and you didn’t know what to believe. “I just wish you’d thought of giving me that respect before all of this happened.” You still couldn’t look at him. “We spoke… Maxine and I.”

He made a look of uncertainty and worry. “Really? How did that go? She came by? What did she have to say? Why was she here?”

“She… She came to see you and well we got to talking and she confessed that she’s in love with you and that if you died she wanted to do right to herself and tell you.” you moved yourself away from him a bit. “She told me about everything Spencer. The places you guys went to, the books you gave her” you looked away trying to calm your emotions. “Why Spencer? What happened to those places being just for us, I gave you those books.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Nothing. And everything. I know the case in Miami is done but that doesn’t mean my head or my heart were in the right place. I was in profiler mode the whole time we were down there. Working the case, protecting you. Then we got back here,and reality hit me of everything that had happened. And I just wanted the taste of a normal life for a little bit with someone that wasn’t on the team or even you. It wasn’t a romantic choice. It could’ve been anyone. It just happened to be her. I’m sorry that she told you she loves me… That.. that was never my intention. I just wanted a friend, a close friend, a good friend like you and Dexter. I needed to digest everything that happens, and at the same time, be away from it all with someone who could just be my friend, not a profiler or a killer. But I don't love her… at all. I love you, and only you. It’s always only been you, I swear.” 

“Spence, it's hard for me to believe that, all of the things she told me you did were the exact same thing we did when we first got together, how do you expect me not to feel like i’ve been pushed aside for someone new,” There was no stopping the tears. “Like you said she’s outside of all of this I wouldn’t put it past you to move on from me.”

He reached over, taking your hand and sitting up on his elbow. “The last thing I will ever want or do is move on from you. I didn’t spend the last several months using every waking moment trying to protect you and your freedom because I don’t love you more than anyone in this world. I made a mistake. I distanced myself from you, but to be fair, you did it too.” He held up his hand to stop you from protesting. “I’m not faulting you. I know why you did it. I’m keenly aware as to why you did what you did. But the fact remains that when both of us are afraid of hurting the other person, we distance ourselves. The only problem with that logic is, the distancing ourselves does hurt. I did this all wrong. I know I did. But Max is just a friend. I was caught up with feeling.. No longer bogged down by our work, or the Miami business. For that, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for making you feel second best. I’m sorry for not making you a priority. I’m sorry for making you feel anything but all the love I have for you. I'm sorry for not handling my emotions better and coming to you when I had a problem. I can’t fix what I did, or correct my mistakes, but I’m here now, telling you that none of it matters to me anymore. All I want, all I’ve ever wanted, is you.” 

“You mean it? You're not just saying this to get me to not overthink? It’s been hell, Spence. Every time I wanted to be with you, it’s like you didn’t think twice to run to meet with Max.” You looked up at him. “I was honestly waiting for you to tell me that you were leaving, that you never wanted to see me again, I wanted to blame you for this but I blame myself because if it hadn’t been for me you wouldn’t have had to find confidence and search for someone else to find some semblance of normalcy.” You wiped the tears away, not wanting to get too emotional.

He leaned all the way up and put his hand on the side of your face. It was some of the first physical contact you’d had in forever since this whole Maxine thing began. “No,” he cooed. “No, none of this is your fault, don’t even think that. I’m an adult. I should've handled it better. It’s just… well you already know I’m envious of you and Dexter. Between JJ, and Miami, and Dexter, and Maxine and our jobs in general. So much has been so messy with us lately, I didn’t even know how to begin talking to you about it. That’s my fault. Not yours. It’s a reflection of me, not you. I got caught up in distancing myself so far away from work, that I distanced you too, and I never meant to do that. I just… I want us to find our way back to each other. That’s all.” 

“I would really like that too, just please no more lies?” you asked of him as you leaned into his touch realizing you’d been very deprived of his touch. “What do you say when we go back I cook you up some of your favorite foods to make you feel better?” you hoped that this would be a good start to getting back to what you two had before everything went wrong. 

“Yes, please. No more lies. I swear. I’m done with Maxine. It’ll just be about us, from now on.” He promised, leaning forward to kiss you and it felt like you could finally breathe again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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[the-everlasting-dream]

Own Personal Superman (Rafael x MC)

Summary: Jaya discovers that getting locked out of her friend’s apartment may not be the worst thing in the world..

A/N:  This is my submission for the Choices Fandom Game: A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words. I was given my picture by my friend and writer extraordinaire @likethetailofacomet The photo doesn’t reeeeally fit but ehh 

Word Count: Elle’s brain cannot be captured in 1000 words ok 3070

Warnings: Swearing

Writer Tags: @speedyoperarascalparty @ao719  @leelee10898 @riseandshinelittleblossom @zaffrenotes @drakewalkerwhipped @stopforamoment @annekebbphotography @lizeboredom @boneandfur @mind-reader1 @jovialyouthmusic @ooo-barff-ooo @bobasheebaby @ownworldresident @hopefulmoonobject @sleepwalkingelite @likethetailofacomet @silviasutton1989 @blackcatkita @blackcoffee85 @kennaxval @andy-loves-corgis @callmetippytumbles @iplaydrake @the-everlasting-dream @brightpinkpeppercorn @agent-bossypants @tornbetween2loves @dcbbw @rainbowsinthestorm @choicesbyjade @breaumonts @thehonorarybeaumont @pixelsandkink @innerpostmentality @katedrakeohd @darley1101 @carabeth @sirbeepsalot @strangerofbraidwood Readers: @cocomaxley @mfackenthal @moneyfordiamonds @romanticatheart-posts  @choicesarehard @gibbles82 @wannabemc2

-

‘Mikey, come on!’ Jaya yelled, pounding on the door of her supposed best friend’s balcony door. ‘I said I was sorry okay? Now let me in!’ 

There was no answer from the other side of the door as there hadn’t been for the last twenty minutes. Jaya shivered against the cold Boston air, wrapping the thin white bathrobe she was wearing tighter against her shoulders in an attempt to protect herself against the wind that whipped across the side of the apartment building. 

When the subject of Michaela’s kink came up, Jaya could never resist a good jab, especially at her equally sassy best friend, driving her up the wall with her teasings about one Dr Zaid Mirani. Usually Michaela would have been up for a good ribbing, giving as good as she got but so soon after the — Jaya shuddered again now at the memory of it — Mirani incident, she should have known better than to believe her friend’s attempt at covering up her feelings. In her heart, Jaya realised belatedly, she shouldn’t have gone too far and now she was paying for it dearly. Locked out on the balcony of her friend’s townhouse dressed in little more than her underwear and a flimsy bathrobe — she’d just come out of the shower — was enough to teach her a lesson and now that it was learnt, she was ready to come back in. 

 ‘Mikey come on dude,’ Jaya cajoled, jiggling the door handle. 'This stopped being funny a long time ago.’ 

 ‘You sure the joke’s over?’ Her friend’s acerbic tone sounded through the door. ‘I wouldn’t trust your judgement with that.’ 

Jaya winced. 'Okay I deserved that. Now can you please let me in?’ 

Something slipped through the mail slot landed at her bare feet. ‘Get yourself out of this one Da Silva. I don’t have time for your bullshit.’

‘Fuck you Michaela Quinn,’ she snapped viciously, raising her fists to rain more blows on the door.

If I end up breaking it, its on her.

Somewhere to Jaya's left, a window was opened and a string of what she guessed were Chinese curses were aimed at her, making her drop her raised arms. As annoyed as she was with Mikey, she wasn’t going risk getting yelled at by her cranky neighbour. 

 It was then that Jaya finally looked down to the object that had fallen through the mail slot at her feet. 

An old school flip phone. 

Why does Mikey even have one of these?  She sighed in annoyance as she glanced through the window at her actual phone lying on the coffee table on the other side of the glass. So close but so far… 

Flipping open the phone, she immediately dialled in Mikey’s number which immediately went to voicemail and she snapped the phone shut, aggravated but unsurprised that her friend had taken the care to block the number before giving it to her. Jaya dialled in another number, Sienna’s, but that got redirected to an automated voice message reminded her that Sienna had changed her number the week past. 

 If only I wasn’t so crap at remembering phone numbers. 

 The only ones she remembered were Mikey’s and her own mother’s —she shuddered at the thought of placing a call to the ever unimpressed Rani Da Silva, not needing yet another lecture about how irresponsible she was, she’d had plenty of those her entire life. Deciding against it, she pushed at the tiny buttons until she reached the phone’s phonebook, hoping that Mikey would have at least been kind enough to put the number of one of her housemates in or at least the building’s superintendent to let her back in. 

 Jaya groaned out loud as she saw the two lone contacts entered into the phone book. Jesus Mikey how long have you been planning this?

Hawaiian Justin Bieber

Wholesome Superman

She cursed her friend silently again for delivering this special torment.  She was in little but her bathrobe, stuck on the balcony of a Boston townhouse and she had two choices: Dr Bryce Lahela or EMT Rafael Aveiro. 

She regretted telling Michaela about her crush on both very attractive, very available men who both seemed to show interest in her. She was drawn to them both in different ways after hanging out one-on-one on separate occasions and she just couldn’t choose. She was hoping that by waiting it out a solution would present itself and she would get to avoid making the decision.

Right now, if she wanted to get off this goddamn balcony, a decision had to be made. Mentally scanning over their schedules in her head — Mikey would have never let her hear the end of it, if she knew Jaya actually committed both men’s timings to her memory — she groaned again and made her choice. 

The phone rang and rang as Jaya paced to small balcony, anxiety welling up in her. What if he didn’t pick up? What if he couldn’t come? What if he didn’t want to? She was so wrapped up in her doubts that she hadn’t realised he’d picked up at first. 

‘Hello?’ 

‘Rafael, hi, its Jaya, Jaya Da Silva from Edenbrook,’ she began, tucking her hair behind her ear nervously. ‘Uh… how are you?’ 

His chuckle echoed through the speaker. ‘I’m good, little surprised. How are you?’ 

‘I’m uh good…’ Jaya blurted out reflexively, her voice going up higher at the end as a gust of wind blew a chill up the flaps of the robe. ‘Uhh..’ 

Rafael’s voice sounded concerned now. ‘Um Jaya… is everything okay?’ 

She squeezed her eyes shut, running a hand over her face as she cursed her supposed best friend for the hundredth time. ‘Umm Raf… are you busy now?’ 

‘No not really, what’s up? Do you need help?’ 

She didn’t deserve him, she’d gotten herself into a ridiculous situation and she had her own stupidity to thank for that. That and one Dr Michaela Quinn. She took a deep breath and decided to bite the bullet. 

‘See its actually a real funny story…’ 

Rafael listened patiently while she blabbered on in the most roundabout way of describing her current predicament, hoping he would not think it was a prank call and hang up the phone.

 ‘…so yeah. That’s what… That’s me right now,’ she trailed off awkwardly, stomach in knots. 

 ‘Well I can’t say this is one of the strangest call outs I’ve had in my career,’ he replied good-naturedly. ‘Why don’t you text me your address and I’ll drop by your place, pick up some clothes and come rescue you.’ 

‘That would be amazing,’ Jaya answered, relief immediately diffusing from her body. She thanked him profusely and hung up to text him the address. Sliding down into a sitting position seemed to be better defence against the cold and Jaya leaned back against the brick wall.

Rafael Aveiro was one of the sweetest, kindest people she’d ever met, his inclination to help people was boundless and that was one of the things she’d admired most about him. Unlike most guys he was also honest and open, not afraid to get real about his family life like he had on the helicopter ride they’d taken together. His childhood stories had seemed so sweet, she didn’t want to ruin the vibe by telling the truth about hers. Everything about him was just so wholesome — hence Mikey’s nickname for him — Jaya didn’t want to complicate things by bringing him into her own problems. But she’d done just that and now he was going to see her in little more than her bathrobe. 

Jaya sighed, dropping her head in her hands. Why do I always seem to get into situations like this? She hadn’t realised she’d dozed off until the phone in her lap started to buzz and she almost dropped it in her eagerness to answer the call. 

 ‘Hey are you here?’

‘Yep just walking around the back,’ Rafael’s deep voice sounded out. ‘Your roommate Sienna gave me a bunch of clothes while Jackie stared me down the entire time. I don’t think she likes me.’ 

Jaya couldn’t help but laugh. ‘She doesn’t like anyone.’ 

‘Where are yo- Ah I can see you.’ 

 A glance downwards brought Rafael’s dark head into view and as he climbed up the metal staircase, Jaya wrapped the bathrobe tighter around her, trying not to focus on the way his arms flexed. 

 ‘Hi.’ HIs eyes scanned over her outfit. ‘Do I wanna know?' 

'Just call me Trouble,’ Jaya replied, as he passed her the small duffle bag with her clothes in it. ‘You stand guard, Turn around. I’m going to change.’

‘Yes ma’am,’ he chuckled, dutifully turning away to give her some privacy.

Shivering slightly against the cold, Jaya hastily threw on the jeans and top her roommate had picked for her, thanking her lucky stars that Sienna had picked out her outfit rather than Jackie or Elijah. ‘All done,’ she announced preemptively as she stood hopping on one foot as she tried to slip her sneakers on, eager to get out of this embarrassing situation. Rafael has only just turned when her toe caught on the metal railing and she tipped off balance. Jaya shot her arms out to brace herself for impact but it never came. Instead she found herself in the strong arms of her latest savior, bodies pressed together closer than ever before. 

 ‘You okay?’ Rafael asked, looking down at her with a paramedic’s concern as he helped her regain her balance. 

 ‘Y-yeah,’ she mumbled, driven to speechlessness with him just inches away, unable to stop her eyes from sliding down to his lips and the prospect of kissing him seemed much more appealing. ‘You’re like my own personal Superman.’

 His lips curved up into smile. ‘Does that make you Lois Lane?' 

She shrugged, not trusting her voice and together they climbed down the staircase to where his car was waiting. As soon as she shut the door, Jaya’s sense seemed to flow back to her.

‘Thank you for that,’ she blurted out after giving him the address to her apartment. ‘You didn’t have to help me out you know. I know its your day off and you’ve probably got better things to do than to go around saving-’ 

Rafael gave her an easy smile, holding up a dismissive hand to pause her ramblings as he began to drive away from Mikey’s townhouse. ‘Jaya its fine. I didn’t mind at all really.’ 

 ‘You’re way too nice for your own good,’ she told him after a pause. ‘Paramedic, part time Superman, nicest guy alive. Are you sure you don’t have some super dark secret you’re hiding under that nice front?’ 

He laughed at her words. ‘If I do, I’m yet to find it.’ 

Jaya stroked her chin thoughtfully. ‘I mean what gives? No one is ever just that nice.’ 

‘I’m not just anyone Jaya,’ he smiled again, eyes twinkling as he stopped at the lights. 

 ‘So who are you Rafael Aveiro?’ She propped up an arm on the centre arm rest, leaned in closer and narrowed her eyes at him. 

He mimicked her expression, arm next to hers. ‘Guess you’ll have to stick around long enough to find out.' 

‘Is that how its going to be?’ 

‘That’s how its going to be,’ he shared her grin. 

Still chuckling, Jaya settled back in her seat and they shared a comfortable silence for a few moments. ‘So what were you going to do on your day off? Y’know, if you weren’t saving a damsel in distress.’ 

‘I was going to go hiking with some friends, I like to get out on my days off. I drive around this city all week but I never get to see it properly.’ 

She felt a rush of guilt flood through her. ‘I’m sorry. I must have completely ruined your plans.’  

‘No, no its fine,’ he started to say but she held a hand up. 

‘No its not. Please go on your hike. I’ll feel terrible if you don’t get to go.' 

‘Only one one condition.’ He raised his chin at her. 

‘Name it.’ 

‘You join me.’ 

 Jaya’s eyebrows shot up. He couldn’t be serious. ‘You want me to come?’ 

He gave her another smile. ‘You doing anything for the next few hours?’ 

‘Noo...,’ she admitted, hesitating for a moment before looking at Rafael’s boyish grin. Spontaneity was the last thing she usually did but this time she couldn’t help but grin back at him. ‘Alright lets do it.’

-

‘So do you always take girls you’ve just saved on long hikes in the woods?’ Jaya asked, trying to hide the fact that she was panting a little. 

 Rafael grinned back at her from where he was a few paces ahead, pausing so she could catch up. ‘You’d be the first.’ 

She raised an eyebrow amusedly. ‘In that case, I should feel special. By the way do you know where we are going? Because I have no idea.’ She paused for a moment. ’This is the dark secret you’re keeping, you brought me all the way out here to kill me and dump my body in the woods.’ 

‘Is your sense of humour always this morbid?’ He shot her an amused look. 

‘Why do you think I became a doctor? Death jokes for days sonnnn,’ she winked. 

Rafael studied at her thoughtfully for a long moment as they walked. ‘Did little Jaya always know she wanted to be a doctor?’ 

Jaya felt her cheerful demeanour drop as the lump in her throat began to build and suddenly it was much too hard to swallow. ‘I uh...’ 

She felt tears prick the back of her eyes. She was not going to cry about this. Not here. Not in front of him. He didn’t need to be drawn into any more of her problems. 

‘I guess its just something I…always knew I’d do.’ She looked up to see him eyeing her carefully and she silently hoped he wouldn’t push her. 

 ‘I see,’ he replied, nodding in understanding and they continued on for a few moments up the incline. Anxiety rippled through her as Jaya tried to find the right words, hoping Rafael wouldn’t think she was brushing her off or that she was rude or — 

‘I-Its just… My childhood was a bit… turbulent. I’d rather not talk about it if that’s okay with you?’ 

 ‘Jaya,’ Rafael caught her hand, making her look back at him. ‘You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to okay?’ 

She nodded, squeezing his hand a little and they continued their walk. Jaya glanced down at their clasped hands and couldn’t help but smile a little at the sight. She took a deep breath of the clean air, doubting that the EMT had any idea how calming his presence was. She was already starting to like him a lot more. Eventually, guided by Rafael, they made it to the top of the hill overlooking the entire Boston area. 

 ‘Wow,’ Jaya breathed, sinking to the ground and taking in the view. ‘Its breathtaking.’ 

‘Its one of my favourite views,’ Rafael put in, sitting down next to her. ‘Whenever it gets too much, I like to come up here and it reminds me how small my problems are in comparison.’ 

She nodded. 

Right now, all the things weighing on her mind, the competition for the place on the diagnostics team, the feeling of never being good enough, her struggles with her mother and her childhood, the duty she felt to herself to always be the best and do the best all didn’t seem so bad. 

‘Perspective.' 

He nodded and they sat together for a while in a comfortable silence. At some point Jaya looked over at him, the setting sun caught perfectly on his dark eyes and she felt the overwhelming urge to kiss him. Rafael let her take him in, smiling a little. 

Then almost magnetically, Jaya felt herself drawing closer to him and slowly tantalisingly the space between them decreased and his lips were on hers in a soft slow kiss. His hand came up to caress her cheek slightly and she placed an arm on his bicep as they parted. 

 ‘Wow,’ she breathed after a moment, eyes flickering open to see him looking at her tenderly. 

‘Yeah.’ He ran a thumb over her cheek and Jaya leaned in again, wanting more of him but he gently stopped her. ‘If its okay, I’d like to leave it there for today.’ 

‘Ookay…’ Her mind clouded over with doubts. Was she a bad kisser? Did he not like her? 

Rafael seemed to read her mind immediately. ‘I like you a lot Jaya but I don’t wanna rush this. I made that mistake before and I don’t want to make it again with an amazing woman like you. Is that okay?’ 

Jaya breathed a sigh of relief. ’That’s completely fine. Go as slow as you need.’ 

He smiled softly at her before getting to his feet and pulling her up. ‘I should get you home before your roommates start to worry.’ 

 She didn’t want their evening to end but she wanted to respect his request to take it slow so she allowed him to lead her back down the trail, keeping his hand firmly in hers until he chivalrously held the car door open for her to get in. 

A short drive later, they were standing outside her apartment building and he came to stand in front of her. 

‘Thank you for the save Rafael Aveiro.’ She look up at him, smiling. 

 ‘Thank you for the hike Jaya Da Silva.’ 

Again Jaya felt the urge to kiss him again but squashed the request down. ‘Is a goodnight kiss out of the question?’ She whispered, silently hoping he’d indulge her again. 

 ‘I think I can handle that,’ he grinned back dipped his head down to capture her lips again. 

Jaya rest her hands on his strong chest as their kiss was soft and sweet just like the last time. Just like him. 

 As they parted for the night, Jaya couldn’t help the smile on her face. She was looking forward to seeing a lot more of her own personal Superman in the near future.

[backseatsiren]

Some Serious Reflection Indeed

I’ve been doing far too much lately. Working fulltime at VICE. Teaching two courses at Berklee. Training and competing in grappling. Tons of cardio and lifting to support that. And hey, a busy social life (a ton has changed, Patricia and I broke up in June). Oh, hey, and volunteering a minimum shift every other week on the ambulance. Something has to give.

I was worried, for awhile, that it will be my 911 service. I need to re-certify soon, and hey, things can be weird at a volunteer org. People have their misunderstandings, etc. And I was worried about feeling kind of useless. I was struggling with that when I wrote a bunch of this from the back of the ambulance between calls last month:

--

“I’m writing the first part of this on my ambulance, between calls. I’ve been feeling good about my progress, in becoming a bit more confident and also better at knowing where I’m NOT confident. And I’ve been more confident in my cross EMT and MMA/positional/awareness, on a recent call a patient got violent and I was able to immediately help immobilize him and alleviate the threat, without fear or hesitation. And obviously without the violent person being hurt - he immediately fell back asleep after being about to punch another (peaceful) patient’s lights out. I was doing a little soul searching, so, forgive me for being pretty sentimental here. I do wrestle, sometimes, with feeling complicated about what we do here. Buffing 911 calls, basically acting as support for the FDNY crews that are paid (poorly!!!) And private hospital crews who do this professionally in the area. Sometimes I feel a little useless. I’m here to help! But sometimes, I wonder what value that help is. Fundamentally, I believe in volunteer work, I believe, as a guiding principle, in good, evidence-based medical care, in serving in my community. We don’t bill ppl who dont have insurance. And we never send collections to ppl who can’t pay. This is a free service for folks who can’t afford it otherwise. And I believe in that. I think I’d love to volunteer at a homeless services org, or some other free services organization. I believe in service... I’m writing this sitting in the back of the bus, and I’m cranky about how political and weird it can be at a volunteer org sometimes (of course, I know, I know). And I do feel very weary about the American medical system and how it’s structured. How so many ppl get shafted. An earlier draft here had me hand wringing a bit more on this. I can only affect things at all on this level by doing what I do, by volunteering and putting myself out there and doing anything I can. It’s not Pollyanna bullshit. It has to do with something Austin mentioned on a podcast recently, the idea of things being fundamentally broken and wrong, but finding meaning in resisting or acting despite the efficacy of those actions. It may not do a goddamned thing. But I do honestly hope that I can do some minuscule bit of good or help someone meaningfully at least *some* of the time out here. And I have felt great at times, fundamental to an effort to help a person in need. I know I need to hold on to that, and understand that it ain’t all glory lol. I actually love “boring” calls that aren’t a massive emergency, but if I got a sense that I helped to reassure or calm someone, or provide some kind of actual assistance. And I need to hold on to that as well. I just went on a call, and feeling a bit better. A young man, feeling very sick. A big guy, but I felt ok lifting. And he thanked us. I felt for him, he was sick and extremely anxious. It felt good to be a presence and at least hopefully a calming and competent one in getting him some care.

-- 

The next shift, I had one call, but it was over two hours. Extreme psych episode, police were involved because this person was making threats. She was disturbed and traumatized, and being taken in an ambulance was specifically traumatizing for her, because she had been restrained before, being literally dragged out of her house kicking and screaming.

I was the crew chief, and I talked to her calmly. Listened patiently. She was screaming and crying at first, and did many times throughout the call, but I told her I believed her when she said she was traumatized by her experiences with hospital staff and other EMTs and cops. There were cops present, but the main cop here was (he was a POC, it should be noted, I’ve tended to have much, MUCH better experiences w. cops of color) gentle and patient with her. It actually felt like teamwork, the de-escalation process. 

Legally, she needed to go for a psych evaluation, because she posed a danger to the people she was making threats against. But it is always, obviously much better if you can get a person to come happily of their own free will, to understand that I actually really do care and want to help, and get them the best care. She came down willingly, we evaluated her again on the bus, and I talked with her calmly for another half an hour, letting her know that I care about her well-being, but I’m not a psychiatrist, and that they could offer her better help. She chilled out and came with.

There was a friend with her as well, and he was an absolute doll. Thanking us, helping us talk to her calmly. He was impressed that we were volunteers, and with no insurance info, we weren’t going to charge.

And that call cemented in me the ways I can be helpful. A burned out (by no fault of their own, again, EMTS are underpaid and overworked) EMT may not have had the patience I did on that call. To put the time in to build a rapport with a person who was legitimately traumatized by her previous dealings with emergency services, to talk calmly and affirm her feelings. I’m here because I want to be, because I like doing this. I’m not working 24 hour shifts on the bus, I’m on for six every other week. I come in fresh and happy and excited. I can offer that.

I can offer a lot of patience precisely *because* I’m a volunteer here. And no, I’m probably not half the EMT as someone who does this 60 hours a week. It’s taken me a lot longer to be as competent in the field, and there are still some major areas of improvement for me. I try to work on those every time. In every call. 

But it certainly made me feel better, to be able to offer something of real value to a patient, and yes, to an imperfect, shitty system. So much of my life, I just want to be EFFECTIVE, and helpful, and valuable to whatever it is I’m doing. That day, it became clear to me how that can be possible, and it made me happy.

[asflowersfade]

Ficlet: Lost & Found

A MacGyver ficlet. We saw Mac escape from Murdoc. But how did he get back to the headquarters? Or, a missing scene from ep 204. Jack’s POV.

The ride back from the warehouse is quiet. They left the bodies for the local cops to find, a “concerned citizen” calling in a shootout in the neighborhood. It’ll become one of those cases that never get solved, the cops will never make the connection between the two goons, shot execution style, and an international assassin like Murdoc. Or the kidnapping of one Angus MacGyver…

When they arrive at Mac’s house, Bozer stumbles out of the car with his shoulders slumped dejectedly and slowly drags himself back inside. Cage gets out, too, then, Jack as the last. He stands there for a moment, holding the door of his beloved car open, his jaw clenched and eyes blazing with fury. And then he slams the door shut so hard it rings like a shot.

Cage looks at him with sympathy. “Jack…” she starts saying but he cuts her off.

“Don’t,” Jack snaps quietly, shaking his head. “Just… don’t.”

He heads back in, face grim, back ramrod straight. Inside, everybody avoids looking at him. Good, he doesn’t feel like talking unless someone has something for him, some clue that would tell him where to look next. Obviously they don’t. And so he crosses the short hallway and steps out onto the back porch where forensics already finished gathering their evidence.

And then he stands there, at the railing, staring straight out across the city. Somewhere down there, hopefully still within reach, that lunatic’s holding Jack’s… what? Best friend? Brother? Son? Charge? Or, in clinical terms, the asset he promised - no, swore! - to protect? He doesn’t know how to describe Mac because he’s all of that and more to Jack. For seven years the kid’s been at the center of Jack’s universe and now, with Mac gone, Jack feels like he can’t breathe right, as if his whole world shrank.

There’re steps behind him, thumping softly on the wood and coming closer. He doesn’t even have to look to know it’s Matty. He doesn’t want to listen to empty reassurances, though, to platitudes with no substance behind them, to promises he knows can’t be given or kept.

But Matty doesn’t say anything at all to him. She just stands there, by his side, offering silent support. And that’s what finally gets him talking.

“We had a fight, me and Mac, back in Paris,” Jack says, still staring out. “It was stupid. We got annoyed with each other, because of-of silly, unimportant things. And he said something that really hurt me.” He shakes his head. “I know that he didn’t mean it like that, I know that now. And I would’ve realized it back then, too, if only I pulled my head outta my ass - there’s no one less judgmental than Mac, no one. But I allowed my hurt feelings get the better of me.”

Jack pauses for a moment before continuing. “And when he called me, I didn’t pick up. I put him straight to voice mail. Again. And again. Six times. He had to call me six times before I finally listened to the messages he left me - he said I was right and he wanted to apologize, it was everything I wanted to hear. But I still waited, I didn’t come immediately, I wanted him to feel bad, at least a little, for a little while. And when I finally arrived here… he was gone, taken.”

He takes a shuddery breath. “If only I swallowed my pride and came when he called me the first time, if only I--”

“Don’t do that, Jack,” Matty stops him softly, voice very kind. “Hindsight’s always 20-20.”

Jack finally looks down at her and his throat feels very thick when he says, “Matty, we have no clue where he is, what Murdoc might’ve done to him already. That fight, it might’ve been the last time we spoke. We fought because I thought he was being reckless - and then I failed him!”

Matty shakes her head adamantly. “Jack, you didn’t--!” She’s interrupted by Jack’s cellphone ringing.

Sighing, Jack pulls his phone out of his pocket and checks the caller ID: unknown number. Frowning, he picks up. “Hello?” he asks.

“Jack…”

Mac!

“Mac?” Jack exclaims, eyes widening and heart hammering hard. “Where are you? Are you okay? Are you safe?”

There’s a little pause. “I-I… don’t know,” Mac replies haltingly. “I got away but… hm, I’m a little… foggy. I don’t know-I don’t know where I am.”

“Alright, buddy. Take it slow,” Jack tells him kindly. “Where are you calling from? Whose phone is this?”

There’s some noise in the background, cars driving by, people talking. Then Mac replies, “I’m outside, got out through a manhole… in the street. There’s… some nice lady here let me borrow her phone.”

“Good, that’s good. Would you let me talk to her for a moment? Can you do that for me?” Jack coaxes gently.

“Yeah, yeah, I can do that,” Mac responds, then his voice turns muffled, distant, “He wants to talk to you?”

A new voice, female and hesitant, comes on the line, “Hello?”

“Hi, ma’am, sorry to bother you but could you tell me your name?” Jack asks politely.

“Angela?” she replies.

Jack smiles, needing to sound as pleasant as possible so as not to spook her; she’s his only link to Mac. “Hello, Angela. My name’s Jack and that blond kid you gave your phone to is Mac. He’s a very, very, very good friend of mine who got himself into a really bad situation.”

“He didn’t want us to call the cops or the EMTs,” she says, sounding unsure and rather suspicious.

“Don’t worry, Angela, I promise you, I swear on my life he’s in no trouble with the law, I swear,” he reiterates firmly. “It’s just… complicated. Can you tell me where you are right now?”

She tells him and Jack relays it to Matty who’s listening in anxiously. Then, while still on the phone, he rushes back inside, and waving Cage over, he throws her his car keys and mouths, “You drive.” Together, they head out while Matty starts yelling orders in the background.

“Angela, could you tell me what’s my friend’s status? Is he alright?” Jack asks as he runs towards his car.

Cage guns the engine and when he tells her the address, she stomps on the gas pedal and the car shoots out of the driveway, tires squealing.

Angela’s response is hesitant. “He seems… off. He almost passed out. I think he’s either on drugs or he hit his head real bad. He really should see a doctor.”

Her answer confirms Jack’s suspicion. Mac’s slurred speech, the uncertain tone of his voice, everything about him seemed… off to Jack, too. And he agrees with Angela, Mac really should see a doctor but considering who’s after him, being around strangers is the last thing Mac needs right now.

“And I will take him to a doctor, I promise you that, I’ll take care of him but in his… situation,” Jack really doesn’t know how else to describe the mess Mac found himself in without breaking a bunch of rules that shall not be broken or else, “it would be wiser to take him to someone he knows and trusts.”

“Oh,” Angela replies softly and Jack realizes she probably arrived at the wrong - hopefully wrong! - conclusion when she adds in a more sympathetic, kind voice, “I see.” He decides not to correct her, considering she’s not that far off.

“Look, Angela, can you stay with Mac until I come get him? I’ll be there in--” He looks at Cage.

“Ten minutes,” Cage replies without taking her eyes off the road.

“Ten minutes, tops,” Jack says.

“Alright, I’ll stay with him,” Angela replies, her stance much firmer now that she thinks she knows what’s going on.

“Thank you! And, please, don’t let anyone take him away,” Jack asks anxiously. “Not a cop, not an EMT, no one. I’m coming, I’m on my way. Keep an eye on him for me, okay?”

“Okay,” she promises.

“Thanks, I really appreciate it, Angela, more than you’ll ever know,” he tells her and he means it. “Can you give him the phone back now, please?”

There’s some crackling on the line and Angela’s telling Mac that Jack wants to speak with him. Then Mac says, “Jack?”

Hearing Mac’s voice again, Jack feels so relieved he could actually cry. “Yeah, buddy, yeah. I’m on my way. I’ll be there in five. You stay put, don’t move from the spot, you hear me? I’ll be right there!”

“Okay…”

Jack stays on the line with Mac till the very end, hanging up only once Cage takes a hard turn, cutting off several cars whose drivers start honk their horns  and yell obscenities at them, and the car comes to a sliding stop at the curb, tires squealing again.

“Mac!” Jack yells as he jumps out of car and quickly crosses the sidewalk to where Mac’s sitting on the pavement, looking pale and disoriented. There’s a black woman there with him - Angela, probably - who moves out of the way, then, to let Jack get to his friend.

“Jack?” Mac says, blinking up at him, and reaches out with one hand.

Dropping to his knees, Jack grabs Mac’s hand, then he pulls Mac into his arms, hugging him tight. And Mac, who’s not prone to displays of physical affection in public under normal circumstances, hugs him back. For the first time since Jack found Murdoc’s message on the porch, he can breathe. Mac’s back, he’s safe.

While Cage talks to Angela in the background, Jack pulls back, and holding Mac by the shoulders, he gives him the once over. “You okay?” he asks as he takes in Mac’s paleness and the traces of blood on his right forearm. Other than that, he seems alright, though.

Mac nods, squinting a little. Obviously, he has a hard time focusing. “He drugged me. Murdoc. He… with something. I can’t really think. He said he wanted to-to… slow me down,” he explains, sounding upset.

Jack forces a smile. It’s either that or smashing something to pieces, he’s so furious with that psycho. “Like anything could do that. You’ll always be light years ahead of us, kid, even drugged up to your gills.”

“But we should still take him in for a check-up,” Cage says, standing over them.

Jack looks around quickly. “Angela?” he asks.

“Gone. I told her a tale about an abusive ex who can’t take a no for an answer,” she explains. “More believable than the one about the crazy obsessed assassin with a grudge.”

“True,” Jack says and nods at her gratefully.

“Cage,” Mac greets her, staring up at her with hazy eyes.

She smiles down at him. “Hey, Mac. Good to see you.”

Gripping Mac’s hand, Jack helps his friend to his feet and together with Cage they prop him up from both sides when Mac’s knees threaten to give out. Yeah, he really needs to see a doctor.

“Come on, kid. How about we take you back to the headquarters and let the doctors there have a poke at you, what do you say?” Jack says kindly as they lead Mac towards the car, supporting him as he stumbles along…

… both too focused on their friend to notice the man watching them from across the street with a satisfied smirk on his face.

[behappybook]

Be Happy

This book is dedicated to my daughters, whom I love and adore every moment of every day with every particle of my being.  I have loved being your mom. Thank you for being my daughters.

Special Thanks to Jason, friend and colleague for more than 20 years, for encouraging me to share.

 Introduction

You can move through grief, loss and setbacks in your life and decide to be happy.  In the pages of this book you will find simple truths.  These are things I have learned, that I wish I could have told my younger self.  There are some fundamental “things” that have taken me a lifetime to figure out.  These thoughts are not all that original – every thought has been thought before…but people say them different ways and maybe through my life expression of these fundamental things, you will have some insight and wisdom in a shorter time than it took me and along the way you can just choose to be happy.

 For the purpose of “beginning” (we have to start somewhere!), let’s just cover a few basics.  We are born.  In each of us is something that is “life force” amid the bones, tissues and cells that make us living human beings.  This “life force” can be whatever you choose to call it – God, soul, spirit, essence, whatever.  I call it “Source energy”.  It is in everything and everyone and comes from the same place.  Source is good.  It is pure positive energy – blissful, loving, and all-knowing.  We are born into this physical existence as spiritual beings having a physical experience.  Science tells us energy cannot be created or destroyed – it just changes form.  This source energy is with us in our body during this physical existence and when we die, it returns to source.  This physical existence is an “Earth school”, where we learn, grow, expand, and experience things from a physical perspective.  Being “of source” and “from source”, we all possess that same pure positive energy inside us (seemingly deeper hidden in some than in others!).  That pure positive energy feels like love and happiness.

 Everything is a learning experience.  We get to choose what we want our life to look like, feel like and be like.  We can do, have, or be anything we choose regardless of where we started out or what our past has looked like.  Not only can we do, have or be whatever we choose in life – we do choose everything in our existence.  Sometimes consciously sometimes unconsciously.  Our physical time here is limited – let’s try and make it as glorious and joyous as possible with conscious and intentional creation!

 My intention with the words I share, is to coach or guide you, through sharing my realizations and life interpretations, to universal “truths” that will enable you to choose to take actions to create a life you desire and will help you to just be happy.

   Chapter 1  

Foundation of Happiness

 Did you know when someone dies the fire department, EMT’s and police don’t take the person away? Ambulances only transport the living.   We had been together for six years, and it had been lovely.  Complicated…what relationship isn’t...but lovely.  Now the man I loved was dead in the middle of the family room floor.  It was unexpected, shocking, horrific, incredibly sad and just felt completely wrong.

The future I had envisioned was gone in an instant.  I laid on the floor next to his empty body, holding his hand and stroking his thick, soft red hair…for the last time.  I wanted to shout, “Don’t leave me!” but I knew he was already gone.   His body just got cooler.  I breathed in the smell of him for the last time and realized his hands would never touch my skin again.

Robert had said it was love at first sight when he met me.  I had been dating a little, but I didn’t meet him for a date. We struck up a conversation and 6 hours flew by.  We shared our most recent history, goals and dreams for the future.  I told him I was not in the market for a long term, committed relationship.  I had been seeing a few people – different people for different things.  It was all very tidy.  Tidy, organized, and unemotional.  

I had just been through a very intense divorce and didn’t want a messy relationship.  He made it clear he wanted to date me and that he would wait for me to be ready to date him.  We saw each other every day after that and moved in together a few months later.  We were soul mates, although it took me some time to realize and acknowledge it.  

He was “home”. Anywhere we went, it didn’t matter where we lived – he was my home.  We shared common beliefs about positivity, energy and life in general.  I used to joke that I “manifested” him – which I knew wasn’t a joke.

Now here we are on the floor of the family room.  What does this mean? How did this happen? This wasn’t supposed to be how it went. This isn’t what we planned or agreed upon.  How am I supposed to get up every day and keep going without my partner? How am I supposed to breathe in and out all day or ever smile again? It was just so wrong.

If we create our own reality, why did I or we create this? If I somehow did create this…I take it back.  Please. Our time was too short.  I wasn’t done.  Remember when we went to the palm reader for fun? She said you were going to live into your late eighties.  You owe me forty more years I told him as I lay there on the floor.

The coroner came and they asked me to step out.  They didn’t want me to see him being moved.  They said it looks disrespectful and they didn’t want to upset me.  We had chosen to be spiritual and not “religious” in an organized way, but I allowed them to do last rites out of respect for his family and their religious beliefs.  I figured it couldn’t hurt and at least I was being respectful of those that brought him physically into this physical plane, but he wasn’t in there to hear those words.

I just wanted to sleep.  Maybe he could talk to me in my sleep.  Hold me again, love me longer… in my mind.  His absence and knowing he wouldn’t be here with me when I woke up gave me physical pain in my chest which felt like my heart breaking and made me numb everywhere else.  I couldn’t even think straight.  

We created this physical home together.  Decorated these rooms.  Energy cleared these rooms from previous occupants and guests.  Loved our life together in these rooms.  Everything I looked at held a memory of our loving life together or was a reminder of something he chose or placed for me out of love.  I wanted to drink it all in as if that would somehow sustain me for a moment. It comforted me.

I laid in my bed, tears rolling down my face, swept up in the nothingness and void of loss. I felt a tingling energy hug my entire body for a few moments.  I hoped it was him comforting me.  But I had no proof it wasn’t just my imagination.  

Neither of us was afraid of death.  We had both lost loved ones and “knew” there was no heaven or hell just source energy. That blissful, loving, white-golden source energy.  But we also knew those that had crossed over were capable of communicating with those of us still here.  I wanted to see him, talk to him, feel him with me.  I waited…and waited.  No visitation.  No tangible signs.  I tried to console myself with the fact that maybe he needed time to adjust to being on the other side.  

Moments and hours then days and weeks passed with me in a daze.  Doing only what I had to do and just trying to cater to my own needs. I decided I needed to just surrender into the situation and try to care for myself in a loving way.  I reminded myself that the universe always has my back…and front…and sides, and everything will be okay, somehow - even if I don’t know how.  I meditated. I did my yoga.  I slept.  I ate when I felt hungry and ate what my body said it wanted.  I heard Robert’s voice in my head “You’re okay baby love”.

I somehow managed to care for my 95 year old grandmother, whom we had moved in with us. I suppose the schedule of her needs kept me grounded in a way.  Even though I wished she wasn’t there so I could just sleep and be, the fact she needed breakfast at 8, lunch at noon, dinner at 5 kept me from losing track of all my moments and made me focus a bit.  

I marveled at the way responsibility makes us pick ourselves up and keep going regardless of how we feel.  It was that way when my children were small.  You do what must be done…regardless…because their wellbeing depends upon it.  We aren’t always in control of the “situation” but we are in control of how we respond to it – that is the karma we create.

I am aware during times like these choices and decisions are not always made with a clear head.  The stress and strain we human beings put ourselves through when we go through big life changes alters the lenses of perception in such a way it’s like flying through fog.  You sometimes don’t know the difference between up and down.  

Unfortunately, life as we know it requires decisions daily.  I postponed the ones I could for as long as I could, knowing I wasn’t clear.  The ones I absolutely had to make I tried to meditate on before making them – even with all that understanding, in retrospect I see some of them that were made might not have been the best.  It’s okay.

I did my best under the circumstances, that’s all we can ever be expected to do.  I was reminded also sometimes you just have to trust. Trust the universe to bring you what you need when you need it.

 I brought Robert’s ashes home.  I buckled them into the passenger seat and talked to him all the way home.  I didn’t know what to do with them/him.  I carried him around the house, moving him from room to room, talking to him and feeling the loss of his physical self.  Thank goodness no one was able to see me do that! They may have thought I needed psychiatric attention.  

His remaining family members didn’t care to take possession of them/him, which I was selfishly kind of thankful for.  I heard his responses in my mind.  I begged for him to be with me and let me feel him, hear him, see him.  All I got in response was his voice in my head, saying “that would only make it harder”.

Robert had often said “Be love”, “Feel love”, “Love is all that matters”.  I realized there were hearts all over our house.  Marble hearts, painted hearts, glass hearts, Hearts everywhere.  This reminded me to “be love, feel love”.  Signs he had bought and decorated our house with “You are loved…” and “Love you more” hung where I walked past them daily.  I would stop and touch them and think “No Robert YOU are loved, I love YOU more”.  

Somehow this helped me to breathe in and out.  Not breathing in and out simply wasn’t even a choice.  But some days it felt like that was all I had actually accomplished other than meeting grandma’s basic needs.

             I slept only in spurts although I tried to sleep.  I’ve had trouble sleeping for years.  Robert knew this and for more than six years had rubbed my back every night to lull me to sleep.  He knew it relaxed me and he did not stop until he heard my breathing change and knew I had fallen asleep.  That is a selfless act of love I will probably never know again.  

He also knew I had a tendency to neglect myself by not eating, He made me meals and brought me lunch at my desk.  He would say “Time to take a break and visit with me and eat, my love”.  I would say “Thank you but I’m not hungry” and he would smile and say, “You will be when you start eating – feed my precious baby love” and blow me a kiss.  Who was going to love-rub me to sleep and feed me now?

I knew I should smudge the house.  All the people that had been in our home when he passed and the trauma that everyone felt had to leave an impact or imprint.  We always smudged after people had been over to clear the energy.  We were both sensitive to it.  I just couldn’t bring myself to do it for months.  I just wallowed in it.  I also didn’t want to erase his vibration.  It felt like I would be erasing him and somehow saying I was ready to move on and I wasn’t.  I watched the shows and movies that we usually watched together and tried to feel him there with me.  We were not perfect people, but we felt perfect together.  

How could I ever have someone in my space in this way again? Why did he have to leave me now? What could I have done to stop this train of momentum that resulted in his death? Why did it happen? My logical brain wanted to over-analyze every detail and try to see the potential outcome of different choices at different times.  My soul told me things happen the way they are supposed to and sometimes we just don’t choose to accept that.  It wasn’t in my hands.  None of it was.  

I had drawn a person into my life who was what I needed at that time.  Someone who could make me get back in touch with the feeling of love and reaffirmed my intuition.  Someone who validated my ability to “feel” energy and “know” things.  Someone who reminded me to love myself and care for myself the way you would care for someone you loved.  He was my perfect match for what I needed.  That relationship helped me “heal” from earlier life experiences and helped me find my way closer to alignment with source.

The months that followed pushed me to strive to align even better with source – it was a matter of survival.  Sometimes through really getting out of alignment…and being really miserable for a minute.  

Life is a growing, learning, expanding process.  I can move forward by being thankful for the time we had and what I learned in that relationship.  I “kept it together” (for the most part) because I didn’t want to scare the people in my life that I wasn’t going to be okay.  I met my obligations, showed up where I was supposed to – when I was supposed to.  This was a bumpy journey through grief into alignment with who I am again.  Sometimes all I could do was remind myself to breathe in and out.

I went to yoga every day for a while.  No one at the yoga class knew my situation and I didn’t speak to anyone.  I just came, did my yoga and slipped out the back of the room when it was over.  I needed the instructor who reminded me in that moment “There was nowhere to be.  Nothing to do.  Just breathe.” One day about six months into my Yin yoga class that was my favorite at that time, as we started our opening “Om” and I set my intention for the class in my mind – which was “to show myself care and love and feel better”. I felt moisture on my face.  My eyes were leaking.  I had a steady stream of tears coming from my closed eyes.  I kept drying my face with a sleeve, but they just kept coming.  Tears rolled through the entire class.  I silently hoped no one was noticing and thinking why is there a crazy person in my class? It only got extra out of hand at the end of class when my nose filled up and I couldn’t breathe through it anymore.  I realized on the drive home, while sobbing loudly and tears impairing my vision of the road, I was feeling a little better.

 Apparently, I really needed to release some more of that sadness.  Sometimes emotions demand to be felt rather than neatly categorized and filed away.

After six or seven months, It became apparent I needed to move.  I didn’t want to, but I needed to.  I needed a less expensive place to live but one that still accommodated grandma.  The task seemed overwhelming.  I decided I needed the universe to help.  I relaxed into it and trusted the right place would become available and it would all work out.  A house with the same view so I could feel centered and “at one” with the ocean, room for grandma, that felt “right” became available and I got it.  Thank you again universe for always having my back.

Friends and family plus a couple hired helpers moved us in stages.  Which was perfect and just the way I needed it to be.  I needed time to think and feel, time to sort and decide what to bring to the new house and what to get rid of and time to say good bye to the life that had been.  

I would go to the old house to get some things I thought I needed, then upon entering the house would be so confused and overwhelmed with thoughts, memories and feelings that I would wander around aimlessly putting random things in a tote bag (like one book end!). I would feel such overwhelming loss and grief, cry and talk to him, then leave - forgetting what I thought I had “needed” so much.  

I didn’t want to have to move.  I thought I preferred to be able to stay in the atmosphere we had created together.  Now when going back, all I could focus on was the loss of the life I had known.  It wasn’t there to comfort me anymore, just to remind me of what I could no longer have.

This particular episode in my life – along with many others in my life – forced growth. When your life is ripped away, you have a choice.  You can fight it, resist it, deny it and make all of it even more painful than it already is – or you can just surrender and release your expectation of how you feel it should be.  Go with the flow of it.  Trust yourself.  Trust the Universe.  Trust and just see where the non-resistant letting go takes you.

             Resilience is what people like to call it when you survive bad stuff in your life.  It is also a skill.  Without it, the very first time we had a broken heart or a very bad day that would be it.  We would just call it quits and cease to exist.  Sometimes resilience feels good like when you push through a challenge and what used to seem so hard is now easy and all those days of pushing through begin to pay off in some tangible, meaningful way.  Sometimes resilience doesn’t feel so good because it doesn’t feel like a choice you’re making to get where you want to be.  It’s forced upon you by circumstances.  

There’s a saying about resilience – “we all get knocked down, successful people just keep getting back up”.  So how do you do that, you might wonder.  How do you “be resilient”?

Whenever I used to feel overwhelmed by a project as a child or young adult, my dad used to say “How do you eat an elephant?” The first dozen times I heard it, it really made me frustrated.  My response was always “Why would someone want to eat an elephant because that’s just wrong and what does that have to do with anything??” Then he switched it up and said “What if I want you to move a mountain and I give you a tiny spoon to do it…what will you do?” Equally frustrating.  “I guess I move it one spoonful at a time?”, “Yes” he replied.  

So let’s get a bigger spoon and start moving some mountains.  I shared the story of Robert’s death with you because death of your partner is a pretty big deal.  It may be as large as something you are facing in your existence right now or it may not be - but for me it was big.  Resilience is not something someone can do for you.  You have to do it yourself – one bite at a time or one spoonful at a time. Every time I have had to be resilient in my life – through big things or through things that seemed really big but in retrospect weren’t that big, the first step I’ve found is always taking stock of the situation.  

What have I learned? Growth is inevitable.  We learn and grow, or we die.  Every experience, good and bad, gives us opportunity for growth.  The first step or Step One is “what did you learn?” I learned so much in my relationship with Robert, it would take an entire book to express it! Whether it’s a deeply personal life issue you are facing, or business deals gone not the way you wanted, there is always something to be learned.  The more we learn, the more we grow and become better, stronger, more intentional versions of ourselves.  

It’s important in Step One to also take responsibility for any part you may have played in whatever you are facing.  This is your life.  If something hasn’t gone the way you intended for it to, what role did you play in the way it unfolded? Obviously I didn’t cause Robert’s death, but some part of me called this relationship into existence so I must have chosen to experience this on some level.  What can I learn from it? Is what I have to ask.  

If it’s a business deal gone not as right as intended that I’m trying to be resilient from – it might be an easier question to answer as far as what part I might have played in it – but this is your life – your creation - so everything in it you have consciously or sub-consciously played a part in its creation or existence.

Step Two is asking “what am I thankful for?”.  Whenever you are faced with a situation in life – especially an unpleasant one, I think it’s helpful to figure out what in the situation you can be thankful for.  

In the Robert situation, I have very much to be thankful for! I am thankful to have known him.  Thankful to have been in a relationship with him.  Thankful for the depth of his love and his constant willingness to show and express it.  I am blessed to have had 6 years of over-flowing, unconditional love in this relationship.  I’m thankful he loved everything about me – even the parts of me I still haven’t really come to love.  I’m so very thankful for the time we had and the way he has prepared me for the next part of my life.  I’m thankful he showed me what it feels like to be loved so totally and completely and thankful for the person I have become through experiencing that love and thankful for him paving the way for more and deeper love in my future.  Thankful for his constant reminders we only move forward and to only expect equal or better in life.  Thankful for the affirming he did of my thoughts, beliefs and feelings. So. very. thankful.

When moving through something in your life that seems overwhelming or challenging, you will return to steps One and Two repeatedly as part of the process of being resilient in working through it.  Step Three is to feel.  When I was growing up I was taught emotion is weak.  “Keep your feelings to yourself”.  I was taught/told emotion was how women manipulated people and it was just flat out not acceptable.  Problems should be tackled with logic.  Logic is great and valid, but I have learned emotion is not weak.  Emotion is our internal guidance system and also a way to express and release things.  So go ahead and feel.  

Acknowledge and grieve your loss or disappointment.  You don’t have to be stoic and bottle everything up.  It’s going to come out – one way or another – so give yourself permission to “feel” your feelings.  I promise they won’t kill you.  Not acknowledging your feelings is like having the navigation system in your car programmed with where you want to go but deliberately not listening and following the guidance to your destination.   Emotion guides us to the next right step in the direction we want to go.  Go ahead and do Step Three while doing steps One and Two again.  You’re gaining momentum in getting back up after being knocked down - Trust me when I tell you this.  You start the momentum going in the direction of surviving and then thriving.

Step Four is to imagine where you want to go from here…this spot in time.  Sometimes that’s really hard to do.  Especially if the future you thought you had planned has just disappeared right before your eyes.  Other times it’s more clear where you want to be.  Sometimes this step takes a little while.  It can be easier if you start with small things and feelings. “I want to feel stable and secure” might be a thought.  What does that look like? Is it a certain amount of money in the bank? Is it a home? Is it other relationships in your life? Is it a certain kind of job or work?

Sometimes you may have to start as small as “I just want to feel okay today and figure the future out later”.  Whatever it is, it is okay.  You will come back to Step Four often – like every day- and the future will begin to form for you one thought and feeling at a time.  What do you want your life to look like? How will you feel in this future you are envisioning? How do you want to feel? You don’t have to figure out every detail.  You can start general then start filling in details as they come to you.  This is a process.

Step Five is to begin to take action.  Small positive action in the direction of your future.  It could be and may be very small action at first – and that’s okay. One spoonful at a time…one bite at a time… honestly after Robert’s death sometimes my positive action was just taking a shower.  Don’t be hard on yourself.  Just take small meaningful, positive action toward where you need to go.  Keep Step Four (imaging what you want) in mind when taking action.  If you can do even one thing toward the vision of the life you want to create than you have begun positive momentum.  Momentum can be your friend.  It makes next action easier and easier until you are rolling right along – resilient AF.

Step Six is to be gentle with yourself and allow the work of steps One through Five to keep repeating and refining as you continue gaining momentum toward the new future or outcome you have decided upon.  As you gain momentum, focus on the feeling of the life you are creating and relax in the knowing it will unfold.  You did not come here and live in this body to not have what you want.  The universe, source, will orchestrate the creation of it and give you everything you ask for.  You just have to know it.  

You are worthy of anything and everything you want and ask for just because you are part of the divine source energy that is everything.  Everything expands.  There is enough of everything.  You having what you want does not deprive someone else from having what they want. Relax and receive.  So there you have it – the six steps of being resilient!

I’ve heard that some people are “more resilient” than others.  I disagree.  We can all choose to be resilient.  Once you know how to be resilient in every circumstance, you have the foundation in place and you can choose to be happy.  

Life doesn’t have to be hard.  We make it harder than it has to be.  We make relationships more difficult than they have to be, we work too hard, we sacrifice and suffer and well…it just doesn’t have to be like that! You can choose things to be easy and be very happy doing it.  You can be happy.  All day (or more of it anyway).  Every day. You were not born into this physical body to have an unfulfilled, meaningless, hard life! Challenges and obstacles, heartbreak and loss are just speedbumps.  The speedbumps allow you to acknowledge what you’re learning, how you’re growing and what you want next. Being resilient to every speed bump, you can pick yourself up, dust yourself off, be happy and move on to better things.

  Chapter 2

Decide to be Happy

 Happiness is a choice.  It isn’t dependent upon other people or particular, specific situations.  You can choose to be happy wherever you are - doing whatever you’re doing.  

We as human beings like things black and white – right or wrong – we like to sort, define, label and categorize to understand things and know what action to take.  In the spirit of how we like to sort, let’s sort feelings.  For me, since I wasn’t allowed growing up to really have feelings or express feelings, they have always confused me and I have really spent a lifetime trying to dismiss or ignore them! Really feelings can be sorted into two distinct piles.  Positive or negative.  

On one side you have love and all its forms and derivatives – joy, satisfaction, happiness, contentment, worthiness, bliss, excitement, fun, loving adoration and the like. On the other side you have fear and all its forms or derivatives – hate, jealousy, grief, sadness, lack, worry, doubt, unworthiness, etc.   It is physically impossible (some brain scientist somewhere has proven this) to have positive feelings and negative feelings at the precisely same time.  They are opposite ends of the spectrum.  It would be like holding both ends of a ten foot pole at the same time – your arms just won’t reach!

How does one “be happy”? There are lots of ways to feel happy.  Do what you like.  Take satisfaction in things.  Appreciate things.  Since you can’t be negatively focused and positively focused at the same time, choose happy.  Choose to find the good, choose to focus on something nice.  Little things, big things, everything in between.  Lots of people, myself included, have thought they needed a specific circumstance before they could be happy.  I will be happy when…this happens or that happens or I have this or that.  Those conditions or requirements are arbitrary and meaningless – you can and should be happy right now.  The momentum of that happiness brings more things for you to be happy about.  I promise.  

Momentum is such a great thing when you make it work for you.  Often it works really well unintentionally on the negative things – you start out with one negative thought and before long you’re telling yourself everything in your life sucks and is wrong and is a waste - so take control – make it go the other way.  

Maybe “happy” is too big a leap for you at this moment because you are so far in the other direction on the pole.  Start moving in the direction of happy one thought at a time.  Keep going bit by bit, thought by thought, until you get closer and closer to happy.  You are capable of controlling your own thoughts.

Everything is comprised of vibrational energy.  Your thoughts also have vibrational energy.  Like attracts like.  Positive thoughts have a higher vibration than negative thoughts.   Whatever you think attracts more thoughts of that vibration.  You have the power to control the direction of your thoughts.  

Have you ever observed a small child lost in their own little world? Or maybe you remember a time when you were little and you were just blissfully lost in your own happy existence.  You laid in the grass under a tree staring up at the sky or the tree, just blissfully content in the moment…no worry, no doubt, no fear, no responsibility – just being…in that moment.  We are born blissful and happy.  We have a natural curiosity and wonder.  We are taught to worry and doubt and be fearful and not be happy.  Happy is our natural state of being.  To not be happy is to fight against who you are!

Maybe you’re depressed and can’t think of one happy thought.  Start with tiny things you can feel appreciative of or thankful for. Gradually move to bigger and more thankful or appreciative thoughts.  There is always something to be appreciative of, no matter how small.  There is always something to be thankful for – again, no matter how small.  Maybe you will work your way up from depressed to angry.  That’s a step up the pole toward happy.  Keep going…have curiosity – think what if I were to feel or think this or that.  Try it on for size with openness and a sense of curiosity – hey what can it hurt? Get the momentum started up the pole and keep going.  Whichever way your thoughts go is where your mood and vibration go – positive or negative.   Observe your feelings and choose a better one with better thoughts.

Say you’re doing the dishes.  That’s a mundane, not very enjoyable task.  While you’re doing the dishes you could allow yourself to have a barrage of negative thoughts – I don’t feel like doing these dishes, I wish I didn’t have to, why didn’t my partner do them? I’m tired from working hard for long hours and now I have to do this too! Then you might escalate into thoughts about money, bills, poor health of a loved one, all the responsibilities and things you have to do tomorrow.  

Why not try this instead…do the dishes but don’t have any negative thoughts.  Start small…I like clean dishes, clean dishes are necessary for me to eat on, I like the warmth of the water, I like the smell of the dish soap, I feel so good when the kitchen is clean, I won’t have to wake up to a dirty kitchen in the morning, I actually love the smell of this special dish soap I bought, I am so thankful to have enough money to buy the dish soap I like, I’m so thankful to have warm water and dishes and a roof over my head while I wash these dishes, I wash this dish with love – myself and the people who eat off it will appreciate having a nice clean dish, I love those people, I love this time of day, I love caring for myself and others with love and good smelling soap, I love hitting the “reset” button on my thoughts of cleaning the dishes, the kitchen looks so good, the job is done and now I will rest.

See how much better the small act of doing the dishes can be? You can use that tactic on anything.  I promise.

With every thought you have, about any “thing” – you can choose a better feeling one.  Some things are easier than others and of course it all takes practice, but wouldn’t it be nice if you were to decide to be in charge of your thoughts and feelings?  Wouldn’t your day, week, month, year, life go so much better if you were? If we create our own reality – which I believe we do – why don’t we choose a really nice one?

If we always remember what we think about expands, do you want to expand debt or problems? Or do you choose to expand well-being, satisfaction and happiness? I don’t care who you are or where you are, you can find something to appreciate in everything! There is joy to be had everywhere every day.  You just have to decide to be happy and look for things to be happy about – no matter how small.

Maybe you feel frustrated about something.  You think “I can’t feel happy right now – I feel frustrated!” Break it down and start looking for the positive.  Let’s pretend you are frustrated because you don’t feel someone is understanding you for example.  Don’t worry about people understanding you.  You are the only one who needs to understand you.  Choose a better thought about the situation.  Tell yourself “it’s okay if they don’t understand me”.  You don’t have to let your perception of someone else’s perception be your reality.  Choose something to focus on that is on the positive end of the ten foot pole, or gradually work yourself up the pole with a chain of consistently better thoughts about the situation.  

You can do this…you just have to release the negativity - usually based somewhere in the we want to feel like we are right and they are wrong arena and choose feeling happy over feeling right and justified.  Happy feels better, so move in that direction about everything.

So many things we are taught as children are just so very wrong.  One of the very first things we are taught is “try to fit in”. We are taught to compare our behavior to other children’s behavior and what our parents expect our behavior to be. We extend that mindset to comparing ourselves to everyone else about everything for the rest of our lives.  No wonder as adults we are buying cars and houses and a plethora of other things because our peers have this or that and we want to be perceived to be “as good” or “better” than them to be happy.  How silly.  

We were born as blissful little creatures full of source energy, perfect in every way, to create and have fun creating a life filled with love, happiness and to grow and expand our consciousness.  You were born perfect.  Or more precisely “perfectly imperfect”.  You are a divine manifestation of the universe.  To treat yourself or anyone else as less that that is ridiculous.  You are divine.  Get used to it.  Love yourself.  Be happy.

Society teaches us “love yourself”… but only enough to keep yourself alive.  You don’t want people to think you’re stuck up or full of yourself or being unreasonable in any way.  One of my children was particularly joyous as a child.  She just beamed.  She knew her own self-worth and delighted in it.  When she got to be about five or six years old, I told my husband “We are going to have to do something about her.  She is just…so happy.  She’s just sure the sun sets and rises on her whim and schedule and that she is the most glorious being on the planet.  It’s going to break her heart when she figures out the rest of the world may not see things that way.  I need to tell her.”

Her older sister was not overly joyous, she was “responsible” and serious and worked very hard to do everything “correctly”.  I sat this lovely little girl down and said “I have to tell you something.  You’re not going to like it.  You need to understand you are not the center of the universe.  We have to think of others and their feelings.  We have to do our part to make the world a good place, we have to work hard, be responsible, share nicely and understand not everything can be on your or my schedule. You’re going have to make allowances for other people.  You need to put other’s needs ahead of your own.”

Can you believe it? I dulled this shining star of source energy with the “rules”!  Gretchen – my love – I was wrong.  The universe does revolve around you.  And me.  And each of us! You ARE the creator of your reality and you ARE entitled to be happy and joyous as much as you’d like. In fact, your need to be happy is the most important thing. You can’t do anything really well if you aren’t happy in doing it. It does not matter what anyone else is doing or thinking! Be who you are. Be authentic.  Be the pure positive source energy embodied in a personality.  Allow your personality to reflect your unique “you-ness”!

Shouldn’t that be the very first thing we impart for wisdom to our children? Be yourself. Really – be your unique “you” without fear.  Let other people be themselves too.  Maybe we would raise future generations who didn’t have so much hatred for people who weren’t exactly like them.  Love yourself, love others and just be happy.

We all have feelings and emotions.  Since I was taught having and showing feelings was weak or that they were used as a manipulative tactic – if you do have a feeling or an emotion, you better hide it really well so as to not be perceived as trying to manipulate someone or the outcome of some thing by expressing that feeling.  It’s only taken me 5 decades to unlearn that! Feelings are our internal guidance system.  If we ignore them, we basically ignore our own personal navigation system through life!

If you have a negative feeling, you need to figure out why and correct it.  The negative feeling tells us we are not aligned with our own source energy.  Positive feelings tell us we are aligned with that internal source energy.  Reach for the positive feelings.  Reach for joy and bliss.

For example, when I was a child – no young adult – adult - okay…last week…if I felt I was not included in something (a party or event or whatever), it hurt my feelings and I felt sad.  What if, with curiosity, I explore that feeling to see what’s really behind it?  That sadness upon closer inspection, was a feeling of unworthiness.  A feeling of they didn’t like me enough to include me or invite me.  It feels “bad” because my source knows I am worthy and my thinking somehow I’m not worthy, is a direct conflict.  It’s not in alignment with who I am at my core – this pure positive source energy.  If I remind myself, I am worthy and my worthiness is not determined by other people or their invitations, then I don’t have to feel sad.  I can happily entertain myself or reach out and ask them if I can join them (I am perfectly lovely – why wouldn’t they want me to?). My assuming they didn’t invite me because they felt me unworthy of invitation, is just that – an assumption. Assumptions are wrong 99.99% of the time.

Assumptions are taught to us early in life.  Our parents assume they know why we put the cat in the dryer or didn’t take out the trash after being asked.  No, we weren’t trying to kill the cat but thought it might be a fun ride for her and no we weren’t showing you we don’t care what you want by not taking out the garbage – we forgot because we got distracted playing with the cat.  We learn everyone makes assumptions and that those assumptions are immediately considered “fact” once they are made.  It’s simply not true.  

If you want to know something – ask.  Don’t just think you know the answer.  That is true of everything in life and relationships with people.  So much unhappiness is caused by assuming you know what someone else is thinking or feeling.  Just ask them.  And choose to be happy no matter what their answer is.

Perhaps you think you can’t be happy because your life isn’t where you want it to be. You want to be in a certain job or a certain relationship.  You are focused on the “now” and “now” just isn’t that pretty.  How do you be happy when where you are at this moment isn’t pretty?

First of all let’s talk about what “now” is.  Where you are is a result of all of the thoughts and actions you have taken in the past.  Let that sink in for a moment.  Right NOW your experience is a culmination of past thoughts.  The job you have, your financial situation, your relationship, the home you live in – they were once thoughts you had that you thought you wanted or thoughts you unconsciously made based upon often times a false premise you assumed was fact.  You (and you alone) are responsible for where you are.  Have you ever noticed you get what you expect? Through the law of attraction you have drawn to you what you have.  Scary – isn’t it?

Let’s show some resilience about this and correct it.  Step One – what can you learn from it?  Step Two – what are you thankful for? If you are in a particularly bad situation you might be thinking – nothing.  I am not thankful for any of it.  You can be thankful for the clarifying moment of what you do not want. Thank you Universe, for showing me I did not want this…I would rather have something else and I will get there by doing Step Four – deciding what I would rather have and Step Three with it, how I will feel – how I want to feel.  Then start feeling better for the clarification and vision of where you want to go.  

Choose to start moving up the pole.  Search for the little bits and pieces in the “now” that are better than some of the other bits and pieces that are “not better” – focus on and expand those better pieces.  Feel thankful you can discern between what you do and do not like and prefer.  Feel thankful that by thinking better thoughts about what you would like to create and the sense of satisfaction that creation of better will bring.  Focus on the little bits that have gone and are going right and feel them.  Remind yourself “I am okay”.  

Start searching for more and more things to be thankful for…I woke up this morning, I have food to eat, I have a roof over my head, my pajamas feel good on my body, I really like the way this coffee tastes and I am so thankful to have it.  Let that evolve into more powerful thoughts….the things I choose to do will make my life better every day, things always work out for me, all is well, things just get better and better, I am learning to be more focused with my thoughts and emotions and a year from now my “now” will reflect what I think today and I am choosing wonderful thoughts, I am a powerful and intentional creator and this clarifying moment has made me even stronger, I feel some satisfaction in knowing I can control how I choose to create wonderful things for my today and my tomorrow.  

Take a walk or observe nature.  Notice how perfectly things are orchestrated in nature.  You are a part of it all.  You are alive with pure potential.  You can choose to feel satisfied and happy at this moment – in this moment – all is well. You can feel sad/frustrated/angry – whatever - another time.  In this moment I choose satisfied and happy because it feels better.  

Then Step Five and Six – move…take small positive action even if it’s just that act of writing down what you desire and know that because you have decided that is what you want, it is on its way.  Relax and know everything you want your life to look like will happen when you just be happy and allow it to begin to take place.

Everything we do is at its core is something that on some level we think will make us happy. We buy a certain outfit, or car or house, or take a certain job because we think it will make us happy.  We form a relationship with someone to be our partner because we think that relationship will make us happy.  We are always just trying to be happy.  So why not just be it? As much as possible, as often as possible, as deeply as possible, regardless of the things around us.  

What we focus on expands.  The more happiness and joy and positive emotion you can feel the more you draw into your awareness things to be happy about.  

You know how when you are thinking about buying a certain kind of car, you’re shopping, looking, thinking, analyzing that particular kind of car - then all of a sudden you are seeing that kind of car everywhere? You might even wonder if everyone is buying that kind of car because they are all of a sudden everywhere! Circumstances around how many people have that car didn’t change overnight – only your awareness of that car changed.  Your awareness has shifted so now you see it.  If you tune your awareness into things that make you happy, you will see more things that make you happy.  

Happiness is a focus decision.  We are vibrational beings.  Everything has a vibrational energy.  Every emotion has a vibration and changes our overall vibrational energy.  Every thought has a vibration and an emotion behind it. We attract into our awareness things that match our vibrational frequency. We have the power to control all of it. Choose a happy vibration.

  Chapter 3  

Happy at Work

 Let’s talk about work.  I grew up, like many, being told you have to “work hard”, “work long hours to get ahead”, “Pay your dues to get successful”.  The truth is…you don’t have to do those things.  You really don’t.  Trust me – I have spent a lifetime working hard, working long hours and paying my dues. If I knew then, what I know now – it would have been different…and so much sweeter! You’ve probably also heard “Time flies when you’re having fun”, that’s true too.  It’s important to savor the especially fun times, because time does go faster than you think.

Let’s dissect this for a moment.  It does not mean you can just wish money into your bank account while you lay on the couch eating Cheetos (most of the time anyway – although I’m told with proper investment strategies, some people can!).  You do have to put forth some effort and get up and do some things for “work” to earn your pay to pay your bills and live.  But it does not have to be a soul-sucking grind that’s “hard” work.  

You can do a job that is something you feel passionate about and be happy while you do it. Even if circumstances – for whatever reason – are preventing you from having your job be something you are passionate about, you can still make it easy and happy and a lot more enjoyable. With the right mindset, you may even find a job you didn’t even know existed that you will be passionate about.

Whether you are working in a corporate environment earning six figures a year or working as a Walmart greeter for minimum wage, you can change the way you do it. You can be easy about it.  Light about it.  Have fun, be happy.  It’s all a matter of attitude and expectation.  Happiness is a choice.  When you decide to be happy and make it “easy” instead of “hard” work, the people around you get happier, the day goes better, you get raises, promotions, other opportunities…the world opens to you because you are open and happy.  Since all of us are vibrational beings, if you are happy at work you attract more happiness.  Even if it didn’t open other doors and create opportunities for your life, wouldn’t it just feel so much better?

Your attitude – or your choice on that emotional pole – makes an enormous difference. You and you alone are responsible for your attitude.  You can do your job tasks with happiness, love, kindness, joy – or not.  If you choose “not”, you and the people around you will suffer.  You and all your divineness can see everything at work as an opportunity.  An opportunity to grown, learn, make clarifying choices for the future and experience happiness.  It’s your choice.  The funny thing is, when you make good choices about how to feel, it influences the choices others make around you.  

How amazing could your place of employment be if everyone chose to do their job from a place of happiness, kindness, love and joy? What kind of inspiring action would come out of that kind of harmony? It’s unlimited.  Have you ever been having a pretty crappy day and then someone crosses your path who is genuinely happy and kind and they say or do something that creates a little shift in you.  All of a sudden you’re feeling just a little lighter, just a little more optimistic, just a little bit happier.  Be that person to the people around you.  It’s easy. Happy is easy.  It’s a choice of your focus.

Our society has historically felt there is some virtue in working “long” hours.  Why? Once, long ago in a kingdom far, far away some person somewhere said that is what you have to do to be successful – to get ahead in life – to have what you want.  Apparently, it caught on.  It has been restricting happiness and joy ever since.  

 I used to work 18 hour days…for decades.  I achieved “success” by many people’s definitions.  All it truly did was take time out of my life I could have spent doing more enjoyable activities.  I could have achieved the same results with much less effort.  There are no “brownie points” or “gold stars” given to adults just because they work long hours in this life or the afterlife.  There is no merit in running yourself mentally and physically into the ground until the magic moment of retirement.  “Efforting” our way through life is not a requirement. Success comes from inspiration and then inspired action.  

Inspiration is a natural by-product of being in alignment with who we really are and feeling the joy and happiness in that alignment.

             I have always been what you would consider a driven, focused achiever.  Even as a young adult, I was driven.  At the age of 17, I worked for a software company, while having other businesses on the side and was working 16-18 hour days.  The company I worked for decided to send me all around the United States to Fortune 500 companies to give presentations and training classes.  I wasn’t even old enough to hang out with my coworkers in the bar at the end of the day!

When I decided to change the course of my career and start over in a different profession, I attacked it with the same feverish determination and focus.  I worked incredibly long hours.  By many people’s standards I became very successful. I was also incredibly out of balance. I put in long hours and sacrificed fun and happiness to “get ahead”.

That out of balance-ness began to affect my health and well-being as well as my relationships.  I worked so long and so hard to achieve. I liked being in the top 20% of my field or in my office or the top 2% even for a moment.  My self-esteem and self-worth were all tied up in that, because I had forgotten who I was at my core.  So much so when I created a wonderful vacation experience for my family, rented a villa on the beach with a pool and a staff for our every need and excursion, I wasn’t even mentally present.  My laptop and I were just working remotely while trying to micro-manage interpersonal dynamics of the guests we had brought with us to try and achieve harmony on the trip.  

I had people working for me and felt the incredible strain of being responsible for them and their family’s well-being and survival as well as my own family’s. I told myself I was doing what had to be done for my family.  The long work day grind had gained a momentum of its own and I was sacrificing myself for what I thought was “success”.  

I went from making $495,000 in 2009 to a huge personal “implosion” from the years of stress and lack of balance and found myself divorced, broke, homeless and living in my car in 2012.  I operated out of balance so long I developed physical problems that ended up being defined as Fibromyalgia.  I went bankrupt in 2013 and had to begin again in my career.  

I know about succeeding.  I also know about “failing”.  When I began my career again, I did it with more mindfulness and kindness to myself and found I could earn six figures without killing myself (or the people around me).  I discovered the same work could be done with a sense of ease, grace and happiness to replace the frantic, stressed, overtired persona that had done it before. It’s a matter of balance and attitude.

Don’t allow your lack of balance and lack of proper attitude throw you so far from where you want to be that you become a cautionary tale too.  By paying attention to the cues of your body and your emotions, you can make a course correction before you make everything harder than it has to be.  With practice, you can become so adept at course correction you never stray too far from where you really want to be!

If you get rest, relaxation and enjoyment and are happy – you accomplish more during the hours you are working than if you put in those hours sleep deprived, hungry, grumpy, complaining, feeling like others have a better and more relaxed life (You’ve seen their pictures on FaceBook and Instagram – you know).  

Happy, rested and in alignment with who you really are, you can accomplish more in a few hours than some do all day! If your boss or coworkers inquire as to why you aren’t investing “long” hours anymore, why not tell them “You know, I’ve found I get so much more done, have a higher quality of work and can actually contribute so much more when I’m rested and leading a well-balanced life. Plus, I’m so much nicer to be around! Aren’t you lucky to have me here?”.

Time management is something I focus on when it comes to work.  I manage it by concentrating on efficiency and time blocking to control it. We all have the same amount of time in a day, but have you ever noticed some people manage to squeeze more into those 24 hours than others? In the same amount of time they can close more deals and still have time for golf or whatever their favorite pastime is.  They can make the same amount of money as you or more but have more vacations than you?

It’s a matter of attitude.  Attitude, expectation and focus.  Remember, we create our reality.  When you are happy – aligned with who you are – you work more efficiently and effectively. When you aren’t slowing yourself down with negative thought patterns, you flow effortlessly through your work faster.

You know how efficient you are when you are getting everything done to leave on a vacation? We can get an enormous amount of stuff done in a short time because we have a strong drive and laser sharp focus to get everything done.  What if you always did your work that way to create more free time for other things? We accomplish so much in a shorter amount of time because of hyper-focus and not getting in our own way as much. Hyper-focus with alignment leverages time.

Multi-tasking is actually a myth.  Your brain can’t do two things at the same time.  You can’t send a text while at the same time read a client email.  You may switch back and forth – both ineffective and inefficient – but you cannot do them both at precisely the same time.  Studies have been done that show when you are working on a task and stop or get interrupted by another one, the recovery time to get your mind effectively back on the initial task is measurable.  That’s lost time.  Wasted time.  Focus on one task at a time, with happiness, and that task gets completed faster.

Some people at work take a stance of being constant firefighters.  Personally, (been there done that) I think that may be more of an ego-based personality expression because they want to feel valued, valuable, important – and thereby loved so they can feel happy.  If you are putting out most of the fires before they get going with your efficiency, you will be finished with your regular work sooner and have more time for more important creations.  You do not need the external validation you think you are receiving from being this type of “hero” if you are already happy and approaching everything with joy and curiosity.  The validation you seek is inside you already – you just have to know it exists.

If you can make mediation a part of your life – it doesn’t take much time – you can bring a more centered version of yourself to work and to life in general and interact with those around you in a more calm loving way.  This is a crucial key to attitude management.  When you feel yourself starting to slip from the place of centeredness you put yourself in – stop.  Stop and think a better thought.  Adjust your attitude and mindset.  

With practice, it will become easier and take less time.  A nanosecond of shift in thought can change the outcome of everything you’re doing.  If you are having trouble thinking a better thought, take a 10-minute meditation break.  You don’t have to make a public announcement that this is what you’re doing, just close your office door and close your eyes and breathe – or take a walk around the building while emptying your mind of all thought and focus on what you see. Another trick is to isolate the sound of something – a stream if you’re outside, a hum of some office equipment – whatever sound…isolate it, focus on it for a time. Focused on nothing but that sound, you quiet your mind. Inner resources kick in and your vibration rises. The more you do it, the sharper your focus gets and the more quickly you can quiet your mind. This prepares the way for your inner being to help get things done. Do your job in alignment with who you truly are, open to inspiration, and happy.

Don’t get involved in meaningless negative chatter.  The person who complains and gossips is just looking for happy too.  They are just looking in the wrong place.  Re-direct your and their attention to positive and productive choices or walk away.  Like attracts like.  You don’t need more of the wrong thing.  

Procrastination is another time and energy drain.  Just do what needs to be done.  Do it now. Rather than wasting the time and energy justifying why you can do it later – just do it now. Refuse to be like everyone else.  Don’t be mediocre.  Raise your standards – do more – and be happy while you do it.   Many of the things I accomplish don’t even make it officially on to my “To Do” list – I just do it as it occurs and be done with it.  

Sometimes procrastination happens because we are coming from a mindset of time shortage. We think we “don’t have time” for this or that right now. Often, it’s the shortage mindset that makes that reality. If you just do it now – guess what you had time. Any time you are acting from a perspective of “lack” or shortage, you are not acting from a place of alignment. If you not in alignment, you’re not as efficient and effective as you can be. Make the most of your 24 hour day with how you focus it and create life balance.

Balance is an interesting concept.  When we are learning to walk or ride a bicycle we have to learn balance.  Our movements are kind of clumsy and exaggerated at first.  Gradually our minds and bodies realize we have to make continuous miniscule adjustments constantly to keep that “balance”.  Before long we can do it without even thinking about it anymore.  

We hear a lot from each other about work/life balance.  We work so hard at it…our movements very exaggerated.  If more of us could be aligned with who we really are – that glorious source energy that creates life of every thing, idea and thought – that balance should and can become more automatic like walking or riding a bike.  Focus is the answer again.  Focus on work at work.  Focus on people when you’re with people.  Focus on your state of mind to be in a happy, life creating, “inspiration open” place every available free moment.  This focus can be done with intentional thought, reading, meditation, or even simple observation of environment.  The more adept you are at focusing on the most important thing at that moment – the more balanced you will feel.  

When you feel yourself giving one side of life too much attention, make appropriate little adjustments to stay in balance.  An important part of staying in balance is caring for yourself and making sure you are nourished and rested.  

How do you know when you are in balance or out of balance? You can tell by how you feel. Respond to your feelings – whether they are emotional or physical feelings in your body – with love and kindness. Listen to them and take appropriate action.  If you are tired, rest.  If you are hungry, eat.  You already have all the answers inside you – you just have to tune in with love and listen.

When we create our schedules, we need to think about what brings us balance, joy and happiness.  This is life management.  We exist under the flawed premise that the more we “do” the more we are “worth”.  Schedule non-“doing” activities as part of keeping balance.  

Yes, the children have needs, your spouse needs things, your boss needs things, you need things, your siblings and/or parents need things – we juggle…that’s what we do.  When you are able to come from a place of alignment and bring the best of you to each facet of life by prioritizing the things that are truly important and releasing control over the things that are not as important, you will be a happier person. It’s okay to not maintain control over every little thing.  It’s okay not to be everywhere for every one all the time.  Be the best version of you wherever you are.  Be the happy version.

Be fully present – wherever you are. If someone asks for your attention when you are focused somewhere else or meeting a deadline, give them 20 seconds of direct fully present contact and let them know you want to give them all of you for meaningful interaction and can’t do it right now – set a time when you can. Then give your attention to them at that time – fully, in the moment, with no distractions. Listen without thinking ahead or allowing your mind to wander to other things. Focus.

Being fully present with someone is extremely powerful. In this day at this time in our history with all of us trying to multi-task on 14 different devices at all times, we have lost the personal touch. That one on one , “I’m with you in this moment”, touch. So when you give someone that full attention, it is powerful. That’s how you make someone feel appreciated, understood, loved, valued. People really like to feel those things. They will move mountains for you if you make them feel valued. A famous sales trainer said “People will not remember what you did for them. They will remember how you made them feel.” It feels to me like there has never been a time when these words were more true.

Life is a pie. Work is a slice, self-care/self-improvement/creating your life is a slice, caring for your mate or partner is a slice, your children are a slice, other family is a slice, as many slices as there are sides to you and your life experience.  There are so many slices…don’t make any one thing the majority of the pie!

Sometimes you may think, I could be happy at work if it just wasn’t for the people around me.  The people around you are not responsible for whether or not you can be happy in the moment. You are choosing to use that as an excuse and to have someone other than yourself to blame for how you feel.  You are responsible for how you feel.  Choose a better thought.  Get back in alignment.  

We are all truly like snowflakes – no two alike.  Every person has their own unique qualities or mix of qualities (some unique, some not) combined with their life experiences and perceptions - that makes them unique.  No two people have the exact same everything.   We all have our own perspective.  

We do however all have the same source energy running through us that is a piece of where everything comes from.  Regardless of our otter “shell” appearance made up of skin color, hair color, ethnicity, gender, beliefs, attitudes, religion, etc.  expressed as personality or ego - at our core we are the same.  We are made from the same stuff – pure positive love filled source energy – call it what you want “God energy”, spirit, soul, whatever.  Take a moment with every person you come across to silently acknowledge that “source energy” or soul as being the same stuff as in you and the same stuff that creates everything.  Understand the “personality” they express through their uniqueness may have some qualities you like and some you don’t, but they are not really their personality. They are source energy manifest in physical form (same as you) and are here to experience all this physical existence has to offer.  Everyone wants to feel loved and be happy.  We are all here just trying to figure all this stuff out.  

How happy another person is or isn’t is just a reflection of how aligned they are with their own divineness.  When you are at work (or anywhere else), keep that in mind.  The angry customer or client on the phone, the grumpy co-worker – they are made of the same stuff as you.  They are just trying to be happy.  Show the same level of kindness, care and compassion you would like someone to show you.  Treat them how you would treat yourself.

Do all things with love. This may seem like a euphemism, but stick with me for a minute. If you truly try to do all things with love, it changes everything. Since you can’t be in two places on the emotional pole at once, instead of doing things from an attitude of obligation, duty, resentment, or a million other places – do them from a place of love. Stop and remind yourself.

For instance, I remember one day I was so busy. I had so many things on my plate. I had to stop what I was doing and make lunch for my 95-year-old grandma who was living with me. I had a moment of resentment, thinking she has no idea what an inconvenience this is, how much I have to do, what kind of pressure I feel, and half the time she doesn’t even remember who I am! I stopped myself. It will take 15 minutes to make lunch. I have 15 minutes – the house is not on fire, everything will still be there needing to be done in 15 minutes. Do all things with love Adrienne – do this with love.

After making the attitude shift making her lunch was more enjoyable, it was made with better intention – which is better for the recipient of the meal since all things are energy, and re-set the tone for the rest of the things I needed to accomplish. I delivered her lunch, wished her a happy afternoon, silently sent her love  and went back to work with more love and kindness in my heart. That attitude shift made the rest of my work easier to accomplish and made my interactions with others the rest of the day from a better place.

Granted that one act that one time didn’t bring about world peace, but it brought a little more peace to my world. One bite at a time, one spoonful at a time, one attitude shift, one thought, one intention, one feeling at a time I create a better life.

What does it mean to do something “with love”? It’s to stop all negative momentum in that moment and fill yourself with loving feeling and hold it there. In that moment nothing else exists but the love you feel – love for everything and everyone. It is being a sand particle on the beach that is everything, holding a vibration of oneness – we are all the beach yet each a sand particle. Some would call it mindfulness but really it’s lovefullness. The vibration of love without thought or with loving thoughts of care for all.

You can practice filling yourself with the feeling of love when you meditate. You can choose to breathe in love (from the top of your head or in through your heart or wherever you choose really), hold it in the center of your chest for a moment imagining a beautiful color, then breathe out releasing and any negative or lower vibrational energy – then after a while there is nothing to breathe out but love and you just breathe love in and out and you become just breathing loving energy. You are just being love. If that’s too far out there for you – that’s okay. Start with just stopping negative thought and mindfully, with love, doing the task.

People will rise to the conversations and vibrations around them, they can’t help it. High performance and high results come from being in an energetically high place.  Pay attention to and continually improve yours and it will impact the people, things and situations around you.  Vibration equals everything – bringing a high vibration to your work leads to inspiration and inspired action and brings opportunity for you, your company, and the people around you.  

  Chapter 4

Happy in Relationships

Relationships don’t have to be hard work.   Put the phone down, get off the computer – give someone your full attention when you talk to them.  Show them you actually care.  That right there will change the nature of so many relationships in your life! Look someone in the eye and listen to them.  You will see them glow with appreciation that they are the object of your loving attention!

Everyone is on their own journey.  Even if you choose to be under the same roof.  We can’t change other people or how they behave.  We can try – and boy do we try – but we can only change the things that we do, the thoughts we think and the way we feel.  Often the changes you choose to make in yourself, change the way people around us behave.  We are only “in charge” of ourselves.  If someone in your life knowingly or unknowingly changes their behavior because you have changed yours, that is their choice.  Your responsibility is to be true to yourself and who you are at a core level.

The way someone treats you or what they say they think of you is a reflection of them, not you.  You can’t take it personally.  This concept was particularly hard for me to grasp for most of my life.  We are taught to always try to please others – with our accomplishments, actions, looks, everything.  It truly does not matter what anyone else thinks of you ever!

Usually you don’t even really know what someone thinks of you – you just think you know what they  are thinking. Most people are so focused on themselves and what they think someone is thinking of or about them, they aren’t even thinking about you!

The most important relationship there is, is the relationship between you and yourself. You must make choices that are in alignment with who you are.  Other people’s actions or intentions are none of your business.  Try not to “judge”, just be unconditional in your observation of people and remember they too are a confused physical manifestation of divine energy just trying to figure it all out.

I think most relationships “fail” for one main reason.  Focus.  When we fall in love for instance, we are focused on all the wonderful qualities we see in a person.  You’ve heard “Love is blind”? That’s what it means.  You are so focused on what is appealing in the other person and what you are adoring about them, you are blind to their faults or idiosyncrasies that later will make you seethe with irritation.  

What you focus on expands.  That is a truth.  When you begin to focus more on your partner’s (or co-worker’s, boss, parent’s, child’s neighbor’s, etc.) trait or traits you are not enjoying or appreciating, you attract more and more traits and attention to those traits that displease you.  

Why not choose to ignore the traits or things you don’t like and focus on the parts of them you do like? That simple attitude shift can make a world of difference to you and everyone around you. When you focus on the things about another person that you really like and admire, more of those things show up.  I heard it said, and it really resonated with me – “You can choose to be right or you can choose to be happy.” I choose to be happy.

Some relationships we grow out of.  And that’s okay.  I was married to one man for 24 years, we matched vibrationally when we met.  We both did our best, but there came a time when we no longer matched and in fact contrasted so dramatically in our relationship we could not stay together.  I learned a lot from that relationship and I am completely thankful for it.  It caused a lot of growth and a lot of clarity.  We had enough underlying respect for one another to decide to be friends once we made it through the tremendous amount of soul ripping negative stuff that is “divorce”.  He will always be the father of my children and will always be deserving respect and admiration for his good qualities and the type of father he endeavored to be.  Whatever relationship you have drawn into your life, learn from it, grow from it and give thanks for it.

There are some relationships we don’t appear to have control over – although we might have had some control over those choices prior to being born into this physical existence – like who your parents were.  I did not have a stereotypical happy childhood.  

My mom divorced my biological father, whom I never really knew, when I was two and met the man who would become my father in a bookstore in Hollywood California.  My dad had very definite ideas about the world and how it worked and very definite ideas about how everyone in his family should and shouldn’t behave.  My mom was “southern Baptist”, and my dad was Jewish.  Together they decided they were Hindu-Buddhist-Jews (this was the 60’s) and their “bible” was a book called “Be Here Now” by Ram Dass.  

They were hippies and I was taken along to peace marches and love ins.  They did a ton of drugs and I basically took care of myself.  I was told the first 3 years of life are ”free”, then you have to pull your own weight. I was to find my own food if a meal wasn’t prepared…that’s when I discovered eating a Sara Lee chocolate cake was not my parent’s idea of an appropriate dinner nor did it make my body feel good.  

I wasn’t allowed to say “No” to my parents or the people around me – it was considered defiant.  I wasn’t allowed privacy or even dominion and control over my own body – which made me an easy target for molestation by a family friend.  When dad decided I had misbehaved, which was often out of the blue and arbitrary, his punishment was harsh and extremely abusive.  So much so that neighbors often called the police.  

I was schooled on the skills of rolling a joint and weighing out a dime bag.  I was instructed what to do if the “cops” showed up (flush what I could).  I built playhouses out of colorfully wrapped kilos of pot in the family room and tried to stay out of my dad’s way while also trying to do things to be helpful to my mom so she wouldn’t be upset or make him upset.  

I accidentally took acid when I tried to get the sugar remnants out of a candy tin with my tongue and saw snakes for days.  I slept with a gun that my dad gave me to feel safe after our dog was poisoned and our family was threatened by some of the “family” of Charlie Manson – this was in second grade.  

They bought a farm in the Appalachian mountains in Tennessee, to “live off the land” and “break free of the man” so my dad quit his job at one of the first high tech companies and we took off cross country.  We arrived in our Cadillac, with water bed and microwave, and my mom pregnant with my brother, to a sharecropper shack with no running water. That life was very challenging for everyone… We grew tobacco and feed corn.  We had 100 pigs for a time (the kind you send to slaughter for bacon), chickens, goats, cows, horses.  We had 128 acres and when I wasn’t stripping tobacco or doing other manual labor, I was exploring the remote mountain – all by myself on my horse.

At one point my mother attempted suicide.  She later blamed it on “post-partum blues”, although the psychiatrist she saw said it was her toxic relationship to my dad that caused her to want to die.  There was also a time when I thought my dad was going to shoot my mom – then he declared he was going to shoot himself.  Next thing I knew he was in the fruit cellar and I heard the gun go off.  For a moment I thought he was dead.  Then he came out laughing – which thoroughly confused and horrified me.  

After some years on “the farm”, we moved to town and dad went back to work – this time as a computer professor at a college.  Mom started her own business and opened a clothing boutique and struggled to juggle the demands of motherhood and career.  I was left alone to take care of myself and my little brother.

After a few years of that, dad announced he was tired of scraping to get by and was ready to go back to the real world.  He took a job in Massachusetts and my mom woke up to the shocking fact she married a Republican.  No more peace marches or popping uppers, downers and various drugs for entertainment and social activities – now it was corporate cocktail parties, tennis at the country club, fancy houses and corporate obligations.  

My mom was very artistic, sensitive and tuned into metaphysical things.  My dad was very logical, demanding, judgmental, opinionated, very physically, emotionally and mentally abusive – but also very, very smart.  

Every time he completed a project, he moved to another company to make something else and we moved – we moved 18 times in 11 years.  The constant moves drove my mom deeper and deeper into fear, insecurity, loneliness and isolation.  This combined with drug use the earlier portion of their life together and my dad’s constant berating and undermining of what little self-worth she had, caused her to self-medicate with alcohol and resulted in her becoming alcoholic.  They had a very dysfunctional, toxic relationship and you never knew what you’d be walking into when you went home.  

By the age of 16, I had figured out my parents were dysfunctional and I was extremely unhappy in that environment.  I dropped out of high school and moved out.  I had lived in extreme poverty and also in extreme wealth.  I figured on my own I could feel better being in a position to control my own environment - regardless of money circumstances.  They ended up separating in a very ugly way when he basically abandoned her after the alcoholism had caused some seizures and brain damage and she ended up being murdered over the course of a holiday weekend in 1995 by an abusive boyfriend.  

I share this with you only as a tool to help you see it does not matter what your past is. You choose where you go from here. You are responsible for the choices that you make.  You can’t use where you’ve been as an excuse for not creating a life that you want.  You can’t blame other people for where you decide to go – the choice is yours.  My life, based on my childhood, could have taken a myriad of very seriously negative directions.  I have known for as long as I can remember, that I have some sort of control of the direction my life can take.  I will not choose to be a victim of circumstances.  

Possibly I knew this because I began meditating at a very early age, so maybe was a little more aligned with the spiritual and energetic beingness of who I was at an earlier age. I used to meditate as early as first grade and it became such second nature I could even kind of meditate while doing tasks…like pulling weeds.  Just empty my mind to all thought while performing the motion, breathe and feel the hum of the universe or the sounds of nature.  It also became a coping mechanism during really stressful times.

I do recommend regular mediation to everyone – if for no other reason than to just quiet your own inner dialogue for 15 minutes a day so you can come back to the world a little more centered and pleasant.  It’s never too late to learn to meditate.  Thoughts will come – that’s normal – just release them and focus on no thoughts – your breath or whatever your focus is to think no thoughts.  The more you do it, the easier it will become. You are just the observer in meditation. Do not judge your thoughts or try to control them.  Just let them go.

When you become a regular meditator, it’s easier to be mindful.  Being mindful is slowing down to notice things.  Notice, appreciate, let go.  You learn to be more accepting.  Accepting of events, people, circumstances.  You learn you don’t have to judge everything and everyone.  You can observe, see what is there to learn or appreciate, and let go of the need to control it.  You can gain clarity about how you would like things to be and start the momentum in that direction instead of allowing momentum to continue un-noticed from where it is.

The point is – no excuses, no blame.  Just decide what you want to create or what you want your life to look like, how you want to feel – and create it.  How people treat you is their karma.  How you respond to it is yours.  You are responsible for your life experience and how you feel.  You can choose to be happy.  Happy – right now – right here.  All you have to do is think better thoughts.  You don’t need to be 40 pounds thinner, have a million dollars in the bank, have had the perfect childhood and easy life and have the perfect life partner to be happy. You don’t need a certain set of conditions to be happy.  You can be happy right now - then the things around you will change.

We all have limiting beliefs.  These limiting beliefs become “conditions” between us and our full potential.  Some of our beliefs are things that were told to us as “facts”, others can be senseless things we unconsciously strung together and somehow decided were true somewhere along our journey.  A belief is a thought you think over and over.  After thinking it for some time, it becomes a “fact” in our minds.  A belief that is not true and not in alignment with who you are, is a limiting belief.  People have beliefs that are often limiting about just about everything in life.

You know you’ve stumbled upon a limiting belief when you find you have a “rule” about something.  I can’t have the life that I want because I don’t have enough money is a limiting belief.  I can’t have the money, life, or relationship I want because I’m not ______ - whatever you fill in the blank with is a limiting belief.  Whatever belief you have that is limiting you and your life can be changed.  You just have to choose to do it.

All of us have some limiting beliefs around relationships.  We think we have to act a certain way or do a certain thing to get someone to love us and if the person of our attention doesn’t make us feel loved – we aren’t loved.  In truth, we are all loved.  Loved by source.  The love we seek is already inside us – you just have to decide to feel it.  It is there for you 100% of the time, all day, every day.

When you love yourself and feel the love of source energy pulsing through you and everything – you are love. If you are love, you aren’t dependent on someone else to give it to you.

We often measure our own self-worth by what we think other people think about us.  We don’t even know what they think – we couldn’t possibly – and it for sure does not affect who we are or how we should feel about ourselves.  Each person is lost on their own journey mostly not even knowing how they affect you. So why let them?

You don’t have to be a certain weight or height or have certain accomplishments or a certain amount of money in the bank to be lovable, valuable and worthwhile.  Can you imagine if we told an infant – “I’m sorry you aren’t lovable yet because you don’t have a degree or money in the bank or because you haven’t accomplished x, y, z yet”?!  At what magic age do those arbitrary things come into play? My answer is they should never, ever come into play.  We are born imperfectly perfect divine manifestations of the pure positive energy that is everything.  It doesn’t get any better or more worthy that that! So we are worthy from the moment we took our first breath until we take our last of every wonderful thing that exists – including love.  That right there is a reason to be happy.

Look your limiting beliefs straight in the eye and if they don’t serve you in a positive way, replace them with beliefs that do.  Since a belief is just a thought we repeatedly think, choose to create your own beliefs.  Beliefs that are in alignment with who you really are.  

Don’t settle for “good enough” in a relationship or in life.  Settling for mediocre is just you deciding you aren’t worthy of more or better.  More and better aren’t there for other people who are more special or more deserving.  More and better are there for the people who understand they can have them.  Be one of those people.  You are worthy and deserving of all the best.  

Forgiveness is a very important thing.  It doesn’t matter who is “right”, who is “wrong”, or why.  Forgiveness is for you – not for them.  We are all made from the same stuff.  The same life force.  We all do the best we can at any particular moment in time with the tools and understanding that we have.  No one wakes up in the morning and says to themselves – I think I will neglect my child today.  Very few people truly have bad intentions.  They get caught up in their own “stuff” and don’t see clearly.  Forgive them.  

Your parents didn’t mean to do most of what they did that wasn’t in support of who you truly are – which is a divine manifestation of source energy.  Forgive them.  Your spouse didn’t wake up this morning and say to themselves – I really want to piss of my mate today.  Forgive them. Your co-worker didn’t say to themselves, what mean thing can I say today to the people around me feel “less than”. They felt “less than” when they woke up and are trying to make themselves feel better or at least like they “fit in”.  Forgive them.

Sometimes forgiveness is a difficult thing.  Not forgiving is worse.  It’s like taking poison hoping the person you have bad feelings toward will get sick.  To forgive the man who murdered my mother took a little time.  Of course, I had to get past the shock, the outrage, the sorting out of how and maybe why of it all.  Then I had to come to the realization that maybe – just maybe – there was some karmic story unfolding that didn’t really involve me and I wasn’t privy to the details of at this time.  

My karma is determined by how I choose to react to it.  I chose to forgive.  Not because it wasn’t wrong.  Not because it was fair.  Not because he didn’t deprive my children of the joy of knowing the wonderful soul that was my mom…but because I needed to forgive to move forward.  Forgive and release.  Allow the release of negative emotion so I can be happy where I am.  Happy feels better than anger and me feeling some negative emotion does not harm him in any way.  I forgive her for becoming alcoholic.  I forgive him for killing her.  I forgive myself for taking as long as I did to do it.

Forgiveness usually isn’t a one time shot and you’re done.  You forgive, then something triggers a thought or an emotion that causes pain or re-injury of that place you thought you healed.  You have to stop, ask what is to be learned, acknowledge the feeling of it, and forgive the person that caused that trauma or pain that you are now re-experiencing, and forgive again.  

Remember what you want to create in your life, what that feels like, and release it – allow the old to leave and the new to continue forming.  Forgive again and again.  Growing stronger, healthier and more sure-footed with every forgiving.

The past is something we tend to hold on to.  Good or bad, we retell those stories of that thing that happened, thus vibrationally reliving it every time we tell it.  Once you’ve learned whatever you could from that situation, why not release it? Just let it go.  Let it cease to exist in your memory banks.  The past is gone.  Don’t hold on to it, use it as an excuse for how you are or what you do - just let it go.

Make way for better.  Focus on what you want to create.  Enjoy and take satisfaction in the “now” and create more.  Living in the past does not serve you.  No one needs to “understand” how something affected you other than you. Let it go and be happy.

When it comes to relationships of all kinds, I think it’s best to have an open and loving heart.  We are all works in progress.  Be yourself, be authentic.  Be aware of your emotions.  Remember we are all here in this physical plane to learn and grow and no one person is “better” than another.  We are all the same.  We are one. We are all of the same source – just doing our best to figure it out and move through life.  We all want love.  We all want happiness.  We all want acceptance.  

Give of yourself – share joy – share love.  Those not in a place to give it back to you will fall away and make room for others that are more a vibrational match with you.

We attract people into our lives through our vibration.  Be aware of where yours is and tend to it.  If you tend to your own vibration through the actions you take, your thoughts you decide to think, your feelings, even what you choose to read or watch, then you will create the environment you prefer and draw into the people that help you to live a more joyous and fulfilled life.  You are responsible for your own vibration and therefore your own happiness.  

When my vibration is out of whack, the beach is my favorite “go to” spot.  The sound of the ocean, the rhythm of the water, the smell of the salt, the feel of the sand and rocks…that helps me breathe deeply, quiet my mind and re-center with that life force source energy inside.  

Meditation, yoga, gardening… anything can be your “go to” and hopefully you will always have a number of resources to get you clear and focused on positive feelings and in alignment with who you are.  When you are in alignment, every conversation goes better.  

Once you get very adept at getting yourself aligned, even a conversation with an angry person doesn’t throw you off your happy and centered place.  You also don’t have to tolerate the presence of someone in your life who is harmful to your well-being.  Love yourself enough to create distance from those that are harmful to you.  

Mentally send extra love and good thoughts to those whom you fear or don’t like.  I know that seems ridiculous, but if everything we see and experience is a reflection of some part of ourselves, we have to take a different stance.   If what we focus on expands, which is does – then sending good thoughts and love starts the tide turning and being in resistance to (or against) a person just creates more to be resistant about.  You already know this – it’s why a “war on drugs” doesn’t work and why wise Mother Teresa wouldn’t participate in a rally “against war” but would rally “for peace”.

In every interaction with people in your life, be yourself. Be real. Be authentic. Those that aren’t a good match to where you are will fall away and make room for others that are in tune with you and where you are. You don’t need every person you meet or know to like you or connect with you. Don’t try to contort yourself to be a match with them. It’s okay to not be a match with everyone else.

What does it mean to be authentic? It means to be you – who you really are without fear or worry.  Express yourself in a manner that makes you happy.  Do not care what anyone else thinks about it.  You are a divine manifestation of source energy in all its beauty and perfection.  That is the only important thing.  You, my little snowflake, are perfectly imperfect and worthy of every wonderful thing your heart desires.  You did not come here into this physical form to settle for “good enough” – in relationships or life.  You came here to create wonderful, meaningful things and have deep and loving interactions with others.

When you have yourself aligned with who you really are, relationships change.  When you are looking into the eyes of someone you love and adore, how can you focus on how they load the dishwasher or if they left their socks on the floor for the ten thousandth time? Will those socks matter 10 years from now? No - But the love you feel, will.  Ignore the socks and the dishes and love them.

You can’t count on anyone else, looking at you with love and adoration, to make you feel aligned with who you are.  You have to be that way all on your own.  You have to feel loved and adored even when you aren’t the focus of someone else’s attention.  You have to love and adore yourself.  You can feel magic even if the other person doesn’t quite have it all figured out.  Love yourself. Be love.

When two people, who are both aligned with who they really are, focus on each other with love and adoration as the object of each other’s attention, it is a glorious and extra magical thing.  This is bliss and harmony.

Judgement and conflict are a result of forgetting who you are and others forgetting who they are.  What you focus on expands and you get what you feel.  Feel love.  Be love. Be happy.  Radiate joy.  Radiate love. Radiate peace and acceptance.  That will bring more of those things to you in relationship with others.  

Don’t be so serious. Be the “in awe of everything” child you once were. Things don’t always have to be so serious. Play. Be spontaneous. Have fun. Laugh. Somehow when we are “adults”, suddenly everything is just so darn serious. Why? We think we have to be so responsible every waking moment and making comparisons to “where we are” vs “where everyone else is”.  Just stop it.  

Yes, your credit score and 50 million other things “matter”, but they don’t really matter all that much. They won’t matter at all when you’re dead. What will matter is what you contributed to the interactions with people around you and how you made them feel. Take a few seconds to look at the clouds or ponder the butterfly flitting by. Find something to appreciate and be happy.

Love unconditionally.  Don’t make the people around you fit into any certain mold or set of rules to be loved – they are just like you and a part of you.  Love expands.  The more love you have and show, the more is created. The more that is created, the more we get to experience and share. You are entitled – as a divine manifestation of source energy – to have wonderful, loving, kind supportive relationships in all aspects of your life.

  Chapter 5

Creating a Happy Life

 Thoughts become things.  Everything that exists was once a thought some”one” or many had.  Everything we see is merely an illusion.  Particles and matter all vibrating the way we have intended - to look a certain way or be a certain thing.  It’s your job to live “Happily ever after” and create the life you want.

Live unconditionally – let your thoughts and feelings be more important than the conditions you are currently experiencing. This will allow you to rise above any current condition and create better conditions with your new thoughts and feelings.

What thoughts are you thinking that are creating your reality? Right now, this ”now” that you have, is a result of your past thoughts.  The home you live in, the car you drive, the relationships you have, all of it – you chose.  Your beliefs – limiting or not – combined with your desires caused you to think the thoughts that created where you are.  

The thoughts you choose to think, the feelings that you choose to feel and the beliefs you choose to have, will create what your future will look like.  You have the power to control your thoughts, feelings and beliefs and use them create exactly what you want to create.

Many of us have limiting beliefs about money.  We are taught “money doesn’t grow on trees”, “You are either born into wealth or not”, “You have to work hard to get money”, “Money is the root of all evil”, etc.– the list goes on and on.  The truth is money is just a tool.  It’s a tool to help you get other things you’d like to have or pay for comfort, convenience and sustenance items.  It’s much more convenient than trading chickens or services for things you want and need.  It’s not special.  It’s just a tool.  The truth is we can all have as much money as we want and need. The amount of money you have is a result of your thoughts about it.

Do you worry with each breath you take if there will be air available for that breath? Chances are you don’t.  You trust the air is there and you breathe without thinking about it.  There is enough air for everyone.  There is enough of everything.  You just have to know it.  We don’t tell our child “We are having another child, so we can’t love you anymore. You’ve had your share, now we have to give it to the next child.” Your love expands.  There is enough love for all your children to have enormous amounts of love.  There is no shortage or limited supply.  There is enough to go around – just like air – or anything else.  It’s a matter of perception and belief.

When the book “The Secret” came out and got so popular, many of us got very frustrated. We thought what they said was that we could want and believe something so much, it would become our reality and then were disappointed we didn’t see our wants in the driveway the next week. There is an important little nuance to creating that some of us overlooked.  That nuance is after deciding and believing, we have to allow it in.

Your thoughts can restrict how or when things show up with your own thoughts about how and when they should and will show up.  Too much focus and intention on the outcome, especially with our own hidden doubts or limiting beliefs, creates resistance.  Resistance prevents the flow of creation or manifestation.

Let me see if I can illustrate it with a couple of examples.  My husband wanted to win the lottery.  He focused intently on winning.  He bought tickets.  Every day he focused on the fact he had not won it yet.  His constantly reminding himself he had not won but wanted to win caused him to think and focus from a place of lack of having won it.  He did not win it.  

An opposite example is when I went to lunch one day in a place I had never been and didn’t know existed.  It was a restaurant on the water.  It was so beautiful there, I felt in awe.  I looked out at the view and announced (I’m sure I sounded quite nuts) “I love this. This view is what I would like to see every day.  I want to wake up to this (waving my arms around).  It makes no sense I know…my business and my kids are way further North, I don’t have any money right now and don’t even have a place to live right now – but I want this.  I have no idea what homes cost around here – but I want this.  This makes me happy.  I want to wake up to this sight every day!”

I just basked in that feeling for a few minutes.  After lunch I drove around a little, to see if I saw any for sale or for rent signs so I would know what it cost in that area.  I didn’t find any information and got back to the busyness of the rest of my day and life.  I completely forgot about it.  I let it go.

One year later I was in the dining room of the house I had just moved into, unpacking boxes. I looked out the window and it hit me. This was the view I said I wanted to wake up to every day - and it could be seen from every room in this house.  I had previously had no idea how I could end up here – in this place I said I wanted, and I had forgotten about my request.  Moving to this place at this time was just the next logical step that had unfolded from the events and actions over the previous year. It had not been a conscious decision to choose this house because of that view and my previous wish. It just unfolded naturally.  I placed my order, and it was delivered.  It was delivered because I had no resistance about it – I didn’t try to control the how or when of it or focus on the fact it hadn’t come to be…I just allowed.  I was able to manifest my desire by being very clear about it and then allowing.  (Side note – I am now in the 3rd house with the same view).

We are all manifesting the things in our life.  Some good, some bad, but we are responsible for everything in our lives.  The point is to be intentional and become better at creating what we truly want.

 Mostly people manifest the things in their life without conscious intention.  We are capable of controlling our thoughts so why not be more intentional about what we think and create?

What do you really want your life to look like? What do you want your relationships to look like? Where do you want to live? What do you want to do for work? What do you want to spend time doing when you’re not working? What contribution do you want to make in life? What legacy do you want to leave when you are gone? Get really clear.  By the way, it’s okay to change your mind later or get a more “refined” vision of what you want as time goes on.  

How will those areas of your life make you feel when you have them how you want them? Start feeling that way now.  How will you think about things once you have created the job, relationship or life you envision? Start thinking that way now.  Be a conscious creator.  Create what you want now.

Here is a general breakdown of how to manifest or create.  Step one – decide what you want.  Step two – ask yourself how will that make you feel? Step three – feel that way now.  Step four – get out of your own way and allow it.  Don’t focus on how, why, where…just know it is coming closer to existing all the time because you have chosen it.  Feel happy about it and let it go.  The universe will make it happen when you are aligned with it energetically.  

If you plant a garden, you put seeds in the dirt and allow the plants to grow.  You do things to make the environment for growth friendly – good dirt, water, in an area that gets sunshine.  You know the seeds will sprout and that each type of thing you planted will show up when its done germinating.  You don’t dig up the seeds every day to see if they are still there or showing any signs of becoming what you planted.  You don’t stop watering on day two or three because the plants haven’t shown up yet. You just allow them to grow.  It’s the same thing with manifesting things in your life.  You can’t focus on the fact it hasn’t shown up yet and keep digging up your seeds.  Plant the thoughts and allow them to “become”.

Resistance is a learned behavior.  It’s thinking you can’t have something because you haven’t worked “hard” enough for it or because maybe you don’t deserve it yet.  It’s trying to control the how, when and where of how everything unfolds.  It’s limiting thoughts from your limiting beliefs.  

Life is like a river.  You can put your raft in and let yourself flow with the water, taking in the beauty of everything you see and enjoy the ride just knowing you are safe and everything is going to be great.  Or you can get on your raft and start paddling upstream like crazy person trying to get somewhere else on the river - resisting the current by paddling against it. Or you can float along a little bit but grab every rock or branch you come across and hang on tight to it afraid it might be your last “good” rock, unsure and afraid of what might be seen next on the river and try to control and hang on.  Why? Why create all that resistance?

You don’t have to paddle upstream or hang on to every rock just because everyone around you does or your parents did or just because you think you must suffer to have what you want.  Just relax and enjoy the ride. Place your order and watch it unfold.

How do you know if you are fighting the current or going with the flow? You know by your feelings.  Observe your feelings about the situation.  Take the path of least resistance and just relax into it. Be like the water and flow in the direction of your thoughts and feelings. Have patience and relax.

The difference between patience and procrastination is one is a decision to wait on something because we don’t want to deal with it – the other is waiting for something to mature into something fuller. When you are patient, you are allowing the space for maturation of a thought, idea, or situation you should be knowingly waiting while holding your intention of the outcome. This knowing is a feeling of certainty this thing you are being patient about is on the way to becoming. Your patience about the issue doesn’t stop you from other forward movement about the issue or change your intention and isn’t conditioned upon other circumstances.

If you are procrastinating, you are most likely coming from a non-positive place. What’s your fear of the situation? Determine what is under the fear or negative feeling that is making you want to put off doing that thing.  What is the false premise or limiting belief? Choose a better thought, create a new belief, and take action. Don’t put it off or make doing it conditioned upon something else. Procrastination is a form of self-sabotage.

Pay attention to your intuition.  The Universe nudges us along with it to help us get closer to what we have requested and what we truly want at the core of our being. Tune yourself to what you want with your vibration and watch as your intuition guides you to the lining up of everything you need to have what you want.  Tune yourself to happy.  

Don’t try to change the world today.  Change yourself and the world will begin to change.  Be the best you that you can be so you can give your best.  Everything is for your highest good.  Become who you are meant to be.  Everything is for you – the good, the bad, all of it - that’s why you’re here.  Relax, surrender, you are safe…flow with it.  

Everything is or was a thought – which is a vibration.  Every belief, every word, every feeling is a vibration.  We can create illness with our vibration, we can also create well-ness.  We draw to ourselves that which matches our vibration.

Food has a vibration.  We can choose foods that have a good vibration or a not so good vibration. There are a kazillion books and opinions on nutrition. I’m not a nutritionist. All I will say about it is your body has infinite intelligence inside it - in each of your cells. Tune in and listen. Eat what your body wants you to eat.

When I started paying attention, I learned I can feel how different foods feel in my body. When I listen and give my body what it wants, it feels good. Some foods for me always feel good, like avocado. For some reason my body always feels good after I eat an avocado. I suspect every body is different and what feels good to me, may be different for you. When I had not eaten fast food for a long time and one day I decided to get some – it sounded good to me. It was actually shocking to me how my body felt after that meal and a great reminder - although I am not immune to wanting an occasional waffle fry. I have no judgement in whatever I or you choose to put in our bodies.  I just want to feel good and be happy. Sometimes a waffle fry makes me happy!

The more you pay attention to how you feel – what your vibration is, it will affect your choices about everything…the people you want to be around, the music you want to listen to, the movies you want to watch, the books you want to read, the activities you choose to do…you will want to choose things that are a match to your vibration.  

We can even slow down signs of aging and illnesses that sometimes come with aging, with thoughts and actions more in tune with a better vibration of healthy aging.

It has been scientifically proven that words, or their positive or negative vibration, can affect the molecular structure of water.   We are comprised of mostly water.  Therefore, we are affected much more than we ever really understood by positive and negative thoughts and words.  How are you affecting yourself with the words you speak to yourself and others? How are your thoughts affecting your molecular structure?

There are many studies that show illnesses can be manifested by the thoughts someone had about themselves or their life that caused the discordance with who they really are at such a deep level that it caused dis-ease.  Maybe there are things we learn through illness we wouldn’t haven’t learned without it. Maybe sometimes we are just an energetic match to a certain illness based on our vibration. Thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and words are so incredibly powerful and there is evidence to support that we can use them to our advantage to become more well.  For more information about this since I am not a doctor, I recommend Dr.  Deepak Chopra and Dr. Joe Dispensa.  They have some really interesting books on this subject.  If our cells remember everything, let’s give them the best we can energetically every day.  

Give yourself permission to be well.  Give yourself permission to be happy.  Unconditionally happy.  Think happy, supporting thoughts.  Give yourself permission to love others unconditionally. Give yourself permission to start over, to be successful, to have joy and happiness. Give yourself permission to experience the depth and beauty of this life and all of the wonderful experiences we can have.  

Create beliefs that support you and where you want to be in life.  Since a belief is just something you choose to think again and again and beliefs create reality, instead of choosing limiting thoughts to form beliefs - choose unlimiting thoughts and create the beliefs that are in alignment with who you are.  

At first training yourself to think unlimiting thoughts may feel like you are trying to “fool” yourself.  Stop that negative thought right in its tracks and remind yourself you are responsible for what you create, and your thoughts and feelings create that reality. It doesn’t have to match anyone else’s or be understood by others, just give yourself permission to think good, unlimited thoughts.  I can be, do and have anything I want – and you can too.  

If you don’t believe what you’re trying to tell yourself, the internal resistance will prevent you from realizing it fully and will bring you more supporting evidence of your negative thoughts.  

If you are having trouble, start more general in the direction of where you want to go with your thought about a specific thing and allow the momentum to build until you can fully feel the resonance of the thought you are really aiming for.  Choose thoughts that are in alignment with who you really are – source energy – and guide yourself toward better thoughts and better beliefs.  You are an unlimited being.  Your limitations are self imposed and you are the only obstacle between you and what you want.

Having goals is great. We should all have them and be clear on what they are. The problem when it comes to goals, is the constant focus on where your goal is versus where you are at any given moment in time. That focus on the place in between – that gap – is a place of not being where you want to be and can slow you down from getting where you want to go. The focus on the “gap” is a focus on “lack” of something and since what you focus on expands, sometimes that gap will expand.

I used to spend time coaching people on how to get to their goals and measure their progress. I propose we all look at them just a little differently now. Instead of “setting goals” let’s focus on “setting intention”.  Let the “goals” be the little mile markers on the way to your intention. The word intention means what you intend to create. It feels more positive and fast moving than the word “goals”, which historically carry the fear of not attaining them.

Instead, if we set our intention and reach some goals along the way – which tells us we are moving in the right direction, we open ourselves to reaching things we didn’t even know were there but are made manifest through our intention. It is less limiting. Soften the focus, relax into it., and you can achieve more.

Typical goal setting involves deciding what markers you are aiming for, then taking steps we often perceive as somewhat monotonous or painful in the direction of those markers, while being accountable to ourselves and others about our progress. It doesn’t sound like fun and it usually isn’t any fun because we are constantly trudging forward with these pre-programmed movements to prove we are trying to reach this or that goal and we have to prove we are doing the work. Mostly that makes us unhappy because there is so much focus on the fact you aren’t there yet. We effort our way along in the direction of the goal.

Why not lighten the whole thing up? Set an intention for the outcome of things, feel happy about the intention and take happy steps along the path knowing that if we allow it, the Universe will help us achieve that intention. Come from a happy place and allow the cooperative forces that work around us get us to the manifested reality of that intention – which by the way may or may not take the exact course you would have thought. Don’t be so hung up on the mile markers (goals) but keep the larger intention in mind and see where it leads.

When you are clear in your intention and you feel happy and content about having created that intention, inspiration comes. Following inspiration to the next logical step toward the intended outcome is a more joyous process than trudging along to get to your goal.  You may end up realizing that intention much sooner and be inspired to even higher greatness. Deliberate, inspired action is so much more powerful than goal setting! Brainstorm with yourself about what new and interesting ways you could do things toward reaching your intention. Place your order.

When you set an intention, choose your words mindfully. Make them positive -don’t set your intention as to “not” do something. When you set your intention, you in essence “place your order” with the universe.  Set intentions all the time – set your intention for the outcome of an interaction or meeting, set your intention for the day. “Intention” is a powerful word. Setting your intention starts the movement of everything – physical and non-physical - going in that direction.

Sometimes your intention will be general, sometimes very specific. For instance my intention for the day might be “I intend to have a happy and productive day at work that will allow me to accomplish the items on today’s “To Do” list with ease so I can be done by 3pm and have a lovely rest of the day with my family”. Before going into a meeting, I may focus on the intention of “I intend to have a productive meeting where both my needs and the other party’s needs are met with ease and we reach a mutually beneficial agreement”. This simple act of setting an intention changes the tone internally, creates movement of co-creation with the universe, and often keeps you efficiently on track to reach that intention more quickly. It also helps you be very clear so you don’t get sidetracked with every little thing or shiny object that pops up. Set intentions for the day, the week, the month, the year. Set intentions for meetings and gatherings.

A goal is something you do by yourself. You exert effort or struggle. An intention is co-creating with the universe and those around you too a beneficial outcome. I pause on the word “outcome” because you shouldn’t be too attached to it. Sometimes you need to let go of your perceived desired outcome because there is actually something better planned for you. So plan to be a little flexible. The point is you have more power and ease through “intention setting”. You have the energy that creates worlds behind you when you set an intention. You have the power of yourself behind you when you set a goal.

If you are conscious of what your intention is, every word, every action, every thought about it has more strength and influence. Even if the thing didn’t work out quite like you had intended, you still make progress. Intend again and move forward.

As an example, let’s compare setting a goal to lose 20 pounds versus setting an intention to lose 20 pounds. When I set a goal to lose those pounds, I’m going to give myself a time frame – say a pound a week so 2 ½ months to reach my goal. I’m going to count every calorie, every meal will be a battle between what I want and what I can have. I will effort my way there by exercising and making caloric decisions every day. I will count the miles I walk or run, count the minutes of cardio, measure and track every aspect and my progress or lack of it. I will crave a snack of chips or cookies and set myself up to either feel like I have failed because I gave in or I won because I didn’t give in, but the winning doesn’t even feel good because I didn’t get what I wanted. I will get on the scale twice a day and focus on it while feeling deprived of the things I want and suffer until I reach my goal. After reaching my goal, I will most likely switch back to old patterns and gain it right back or continue counting, tracking and depriving as long as possible in an effort not to gain it back.

If I intend to be healthier and lose 20 pounds, then I will intend to allow wellness and good health and allow my body to be its perfect weight. I will make food choices based more upon what my body says it wants – I will tune in and ask. I will feel inspired to take a walk, inspired to move and dance around and to go to that Pilates class, inspired to take the stairs. I will feel happy and know I am making choices that are aligned with my intention. I will crave a snack of blueberries and string cheese and notice how it feels in my body. Every meal will not become a battle ground where I win or lose– I will flow to my choices based upon my intention to be well. I feel good. Every choice is not a fail or succeed situation, I’m just happy and in tune with my body. I may have one of those chips – then decide it wasn’t as good as I thought, or maybe it was and I had some – it’s okay I still have my intention of allowing good health and my personal perfect weight for my body’s good health.  At the end of a couple months I will get on the scale out of curiosity and see I’ve lost 30 pounds with what felt like no effort. Which would you rather do?

When I taught goal setting in sales, I would instruct people to decide what they wanted to earn, divide it by the average commission they got on an average deal, take that number of total sales need and divide it by 12 for an average number of sales per month, then strategically determine how many calls were needed to obtain that number of sales and break it down to what they had to do each day to get to their monthly and annual goals. I encouraged them to focus on where they were toward reaching their goal (ahead or behind) on a daily, weekly and monthly basis and ramp up their activity if they were behind. Since sales is a numbers game, make more calls and make more effective calls.

I told them they had to be the captain of their own ship – they had to know where they were going and keep the ship on course to get to their destination. It was sound advice – or “sound-ish”. It was a lot of work and efforting to get from one place to the next. It doesn’t have to be that hard and labor intensive.

Setting intentions is more pleasurable. You are still the captain of your own ship and you don’t want to just aimlessly float around ending up wherever the wind blows you – you intend to be somewhere. You know the direction. Rather than plotting your course from here to there regardless of what’s in between, why not intentionally head that direction, open and excited for the adventure, make choices with happiness and end up maybe in an even better destination than you had originally planned?

How will you know if you’re on the right track you might say…you know by how you feel and the things around you. If money is flowing, sales are flowing, people are flowing and you’re feeling good – you’re still on course. If that sounds to “woo-woo” and not solid enough for you, then go ahead and set your goals and play the intention game with smaller things until you gain some confidence about it. When you learn to play it well enough, you can literally write down I intend to earn X or better – stick it in a drawer and forget about it. At the end of the year you can pull it out and be amazed.

None of this is hard. Intention and focus works on everything. Since everything you want is just to make yourself happy, go ahead and be happy while you do all the things you need do to get the things you want. Happy makes it easy.

You make a difference in the world with your vibration.  Clear the clutter of negative energy - Negative energy in your thoughts, your body and your home.  Is the vibration you are living creating a positive impact on those around you and the world in general? Become positive vibration – not just a positive thinker. Focus on new opportunities not lost perceived opportunities.  Be resilient. Have a clear vision of what’s important to you.  Don’t settle for mediocrity, raise your standards and be excellence in all areas of your life.  Raise your vibration with your choices, thoughts and feelings.  Create the life you really want – by choosing thoughts and feelings that are in alignment with that life and your limitlessness soul energy.

Make a difference by living on purpose with purpose.  Sometimes our “purpose” isn’t immediately apparent but if you are living authentically and creating a high vibration, you will want to contribute in some meaningful way to those around you – in your family, community, organization and planet. When you become aware of a desire to improve things around you and are consciously creating your reality, new insights and ideas will come to you. In alignment with your soul, it feels normal and natural to share what you have in all things – knowledge, energy, material things – which once shared, creates space for more.

Once the majority of your focus shifts to choosing things that are in alignment with being happy and being who you really are – source energy capable of creating worlds - you will discover your unique gifts.  Your unique gifts are your personal expression of divine wisdom.  You may find you have an incredible ability to manage people, or a way with words that is useful to others or can create music that makes others feel at a deep level, or any number of things that are a unique expression of your “you-ness” that are a reflection of pure source energy and love.

When everything has clicked - you are creating the life you want, all this knowledge about vibration and choosing to be happy is internalized and you’re living on purpose with purpose, you will want to give of yourself to others to empower and uplift them with or through whatever you have. Give your unique gifts to the world with unabashed, unapologetic joy. Don’t be shy or worry  how others will respond to the gifts you bring – you aren’t in charge of them. It doesn’t matter what you “do”, just do it with love, joy and happiness.  Bring your gifts to work with you.  If you are a dog washer – be the best, most joyous and loving dog washer ever seen.  

Often your “gift” is what you love to do.  It is what you would actually do for free because you love it that much.  Bring your gifts everywhere you go and give of them freely and you will discover even more new gifts being born in you as you expand. We all have gifts to give to expand the collective consciousness and improve the world.

Many times we get so caught up in doing what we think we should do in life, we forget what we even like much less love.  Do you remember what kinds of things brought you joy and happiness as a child? Start there to find your unique gift.  

Approach life with more of a child-like wonder and awe…don’t worry what people will think. Do more of what makes you happy.  Try this thing and that thing…there are no “rules”, just look for what feels good and makes you happy.  When you find something that makes you happy, do more of it.

Make a game out of it if it helps.  Walk around for an hour finding things that make you happy.  Don’t judge what they are…picking up that seashell makes me happy, playing with my dog makes me happy, the sunshine makes me happy…just start focusing.  The more things you find, the more things you will continue to find.  When you get in the habit of finding things that make you happy, more things that make you happy show up.  That is the law of attraction at work. Life just gets better and better.  The momentum grows and before long you will unconsciously learn to create more happiness in every aspect of your life.

 When you create more happiness in every aspect of your life, life changes.  It gets better and bigger than you had imagined, and you create an even bigger and better happiness loop.  Then you realize you can have anything your heart desires.

When you get in the habit of being attuned to how you feel and making conscious choices about your actions and reactions while making an effort to stay aligned as much as possible with who you really are, you get inspired.  Inspiration can be an idea, a thought, a feeling – and you have a desire to take action with it.  Often inspiration shows itself as a really intense desire to do something that just doesn’t want to go away.  You almost feel “called” to it.  Embrace it. Go with it.  It is a gift from your higher self to expand what you’ve already got going.  

That’s how real magic happens.  Synchronous events unfold to aid you, people show up for you, things show up for you and more new things are born out of thought.  Be inspired.  Live an inspired life and watch how magical everything can be. You can accomplish far more than you have ever given yourself credit for being able to. When you are aware, awake and know you are at choice – the life you truly desire unfolds for you. You can uplift yourself, your family, your community and your world.

This is not only good for you, but for everyone. Since we are all connected to source energy, each of us contributes to it with what we do. We all have a responsibility to each other. We are supposed to participate in the co-creation of our world and what we do affects the collective consciousness of the planet and all of us expand to better versions of ourselves. When you are happy, coming from a place of contribution with inspired thought and inspired action, you make the world a better place.  What you do matters.  

Thank you in advance for your positive contribution.  See love.  Feel love. Be Love.  Be happy.  

[warmau]

{Special} College!AU Taeyong

major: medical laboratory science 

minor:  mathematics 

sports: tennis team 

clubs: was a part of math club and won a regional competition when he was only a freshman,,,,the math dept begged him to switch majors but he said he wouldn’t be able to handle a degree that made him a teacher,,,,,because schools can be,,,,,,,a mess  

taeyong is like the model student and everyone in his major thinks he’s a genius,,,,,,,,,,,,but in reality he just stays up three nights in a row neurotically drinking coffee and listening to edm remixes of like jazz songs,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,like that is the Truth of his college life

was originally going to go into pre-med,,,,but when an emt came to visit and was like “sometimes blood just gets everywhere! and i mean EVERYWHERE” taeyong was like,,,,,,,,,,well he first got out his hand sanitizer and decided then and there that working with machines and in a lab was his aesthetic instead

having random people cough on you in the ER is not

like blood is cool in the study of hematology and taeyong will get enthusiastic over working with new specimens in his microbiology lab

but ,,,,,,, he’s a theory person,,,,,,he wants to help doctors figure out why someone is sick and then the doctors can treat them

taeyong is a-ok being behind the studying and lab work,,,,not on the front lines

which is baffling to most people because taeyong puts effort into going unnoticed but,,,,it’s Impossible to not notice him

even in his lab coat, thick framed glasses, and the usual perfectly bland outfit of black jeans and a button down,,,,,,someone might be like haha what nerd

but,,,,,,,one look at his face and it’s like WOAH WHAT 

and countless times on his way to his internship or when he’s out getting lunch wtih jaehyun and ten people will be like excuse me,,,are you a model? a site model? a idol? are u on some tv show?

and taeyong seriously doesn’t get why he gets asked this so many times,,,,every time humbly apologizing that he’s not the person they’re looking for and getting a little anxious when people are obviously taking photos of him

like the amount of times jaehyun has literally had to get up and sit in front of taeyong so people wouldn’t be noisy is insane

and the amount of times ten has started an argument on taeyong’s behave is even more because ten is always like taEYONG YOU HANDSOME FRIEND OF MINE I GeT THAT u R BEAUTiFUL but WhY DO peOPLE JusT DISREGARD UR prIVAC-

and taeyong always has to calm ten down but all of their friends agree that it’s super weird and gets out of hand

but taeyong is too nice to shut it down himself,,,,,so most of the time he slips on those glasses and a hat when he goes out and avoids looking people in the eyes

johnny once came over to his dorm and was like “bro i got you this wig. wear it if things get too creepy.” unfortunately the wig was the bright color red and mark was like hey johnny i know ur a senior and all but,,,,,,is ur head in the game,,,bro,,,please,,,

is the designated mom of his dorm’s floor because he has evERYTHING on hand from extra chargers, to a first aid kit, to pain killers

and every time someone comes into his room (taeyong begged for a single bed,,,,roommates can get a Bit) they’re always amazed at how a boy in college keeps his room sparkling clean

and i literally mean sparkling his bed sheets are white, his desk is completely free of everything except his laptop and a cup to hold pens in,,,,,his closet is organized by color: white, black, grey, and brown

and he has a little whiteboard where he writes due dates and everyone is like ur seriously a star student why cant i be clean and organized like u

except they don’t understand,,,anytime before finals the clean room turns into disarray,,,,,like taeyong literally pulls all his covers off the bed and takes power naps at his desk only to wake up with post-it notes stuck to his face

and when finals are over he goes on a cleaning spree in which he offers to do the laundry for everyone on his floor because it calms his nerves

he’s a sweet, polite, hard-working kid tbh with the face of an actual god which makes some people think he’s stuck up when he’s the absolute least from it

like taeyong is that kid that tutors his seniors for FREE in subjects they should be tutoring him in like what an angel?????/

anyway you’re taking organic chemistry with him this semester but the only problem is ,,,,,,you transferred in the middle of the year and therefore are completely falling behind

to the point where you don’t even care about saving your grade because no one wants to help and the teacher is super like “well,,,,,,,,,,do it urself im not doing it for u” kinda stick up their butt situation

so u start skipping class

because everything else ur doing fine in,,,,u have people sharing notes and teachers who get ur situation but organic chem????? the Devil

until one day as ur standing in line at the school cafe and u feel a tap on ur shoulder 

and u turn around to see this guy,,,,,who u know but ur not sure from where until he’s like “taeyong,,,,im in your organic chem class.” and you roll your eyes at the name of that class but then ur like sORRy,,,,,it’s just that class is so,,,,,

and he’s like “ive noticed you’ve stopped coming,,,,,is the material too hard?”

and you kind of are taken aback because this chem class isn’t ,,,,,,small it’s a lecture hall full of like 150 people and he noticed,,,,,,you?

but you shrug not wanting to come off like ,,,,, obvious and ur like “i transferred and a lot of things didn’t make sense,,,,so i gave up? ill just retake the class next semester.”

but taeyong frowns and for a moment you think to yourself: how does someone still look so attractive frowning wth

but ur like “it’s whatever, it can’t be helped.” but taeyong is like ,,,,,,,if,,,,if you still want help,,,,,,i can help you

and for a moment you’re gonna laugh because there’s like four weeks left of classes,,,,,,the only way to save your grade is to ace the big course final

but taeyong seems to fidget a bit when u don’t answer and he goes “b-but if it’s weird,,,,if i seem we,,weird,,,,,,im sor-”

and you’re like no no it’s not you,,,it’s just,,,how can u teach me so much in so little time ?? it’d be a lot of work on ur part and we don’t even know each other?

but taeyong seems unfazed by the amount of work,,,,tbh he smiles a little when u mention how it’ll take hard work and u dont know because ur new to the school but it’s because every1 always tells taeyong he does too much and works too hard,,,,,but to him it’s all fun like he has fun in his major

and he shakes his head and looks at you and again u catch urself sinking a little into his dark,,,pretty eyes and he’s like “im in ,,, if you’re in.”

and the line has moved up and the bored looking girl behind the register asks what you’d like to order and ur like ,,,,, one sec- and she’s like i don’t have time tell me so you say ur order,,,turn back to taeyong and ur like “ok,,,,let’s try.” and he’s like “meet me in the library at 8.”

and you watch him give a little bow and turn around and for a moment u cant be really sure that just happened,,,,,,,most people in college dont waltz up to others to offer to tutor them,,,,,

but as u pay the girl for ur coffee she goes “don’t try asking taeyong out. he never dates.” and ur like ????? what a guy like him definitely has a significant other????? right?????

so 8pm comes around and u bring a fresh notebook and the textbook u bought for the class and find that u dont even have to look for a seat because u can see taeyong already at one of the tables

and he’s got his lab coat over his chair,,,,his laptop open with some charts up and a heavy looking medical dictionary ,,,, he looks like a straight up doctor tbh 

and u sit down,,,startling taeyong who’s glasses slip down his nose just a bit until he’s chuckling and closing his laptop 

and u think how good of a tutor can he be to help someone as hopelessly lost as u,,,,,,,,,,,,but the minute taeyong begins to explain it’s like,,,,it’s like everything makes /sense/

nothing is complicated or abstract,,,,and u can’t help but be entranced by his smooth, slightly deep voice and the way he points out keywords and writes down formulas in near perfect handwriting 

like everything about him is so Professional he’s like,,,he’s like a professor,,,,

and it’s kind of super cute how when u ask him to repeat something he doesn’t get ticked off,,,no he gets excited because it’s obvious,,,,this is something taeyong loves

and at the end of ur first study session u feel so much better about everything

to the point that u even show up to ur class the next day and taeyong doesn’t look up from his notes,,,,,so u cant say hi but,,,,,suddenly it’s not like the teacher is talking nonsense

and every other day taeyong comes to the library to teach u,,,although he moves the time up to 10pm and ur not sure,,,maybe classes or clubs

and by the sixth time as ur packing up to leave taeyong goes “i see ur coming to class, that makes me happy.” and u don’t know why but,,,,,,,

just saying that,,,,,,,,it,,,,,it makes ur heart skip a beat

but u remember the words of the girl from the cafe about taeyong never dating and u itch to ask him,,,,but u don’t want to make this relationship more awkward

which is why the only time u do ask is when u end up in another class of urs partnered up with yuta and taeil,,,,two boys who immediately go “you’re the one taeyong is tutoring right?” and you’re like,,,yes??? and yuta scratches his head and is like “for organic chem or for immunology? or wait,,,,he’s giving someone tennis lessons too right taeil??” and ur like wow,,,taeyong sure helps a lot of people

and taeil nudges yuta but nods and is like “taeyong is really too nice for his own good,,,,,,,,,,” and u nod and try to focus on the project,,,but taeil gives u this like ???? knowing smile

and ur like ,,,, w-whats up and taeil is like “u want to know if taeyong is seeing someone?” and u straighten up because ur like ,,,,, UM,,, no-

and yuta laughs into his palm and is like “it’s ok,,,i know taeyong as a fellow pretty boy everyone always asks us that” and taeil rolls his eyes but he’s like “he’s not, he hasn’t dated anyone in college.” and from the shock on ur face yuta can only nod his head and go “i know,,,it shocks all of us,,,,,,hot girls and hot guys and everyone else all the hot people on campus have made moves on him but he just,,,,,,”

and yuta throws up his hands in defeat and taeil shrugs and for a second u think,,,,,,,,well what kind of chance to i stand,,,,,,,but u shake it off and ur like “maybe he’s just waiting!! he’s really nice i hope he finds someone.” 

and with that u leave after class,,,realizing that taeyong is helping u from the goodness of his heart,,,,,not because he might harbor something towards u,,,,and u need to accept that

but what u dont realize is that as u head toward ur dorm,,,,,taeyong is waiting in the library and when u don’t show up,,,,he goes into a panic

and the next day in organic chem he comes rushing up to

and for the first time his perfect face is scarred with worry and his hair is a mess and he looks like he hasn’t slept and he’s like,,,,,a,,,,are you ok?? and ur like yes wh- and he seems to calm down and even get embarrassed a bit as he steps back and is like “wi-will you come to the library tomorrow??” and ur like ofc omg 

and as ur trying to concentrate,,,u look over to see taeyong dozing off,,,,something he never does,,,,and u wonder why he didn’t sleep

and when u go for tutoring taeyong seems a little more reserved,,,,like usually if u make a joke he’ll laugh or if ur fingers brush it’s nothing

but now it seems like he’s keeping his distance,,,,,a bit more than usual and u want to ask if something is wrong,,,,,

so when ur done with the problem set he has and he gets up almost as if he’s in a hurry,,,,ur reach out and ask him if he’s ok and taeyong,,,looking down at your hand on his wrist ,,,, mumbles that u didn’t show up to tutoring so he thought he’d messed up but u explain that it just slipped ur mind,,,,,,taeyong could never do something wrong

and taeyong,,,,looks up at you and smiles just a bit and he’s like “if i do do something wrong,,,please tell me and ill fix it.”

and,,,,,,,like,,,,,,,,the pureness of his voice,,,,the way he’d gotten so worried over you,,,,,it makes your heart burst because where else could someone find such a damn near perfect boy

and before you can think and stop yourself from speaking you ask; “the final is in a week,,,,,after,,,,,would you want to go out?”

taeyong seems to need a moment to register what u mean,,,,but when he does,,,,it’s like all the heat in his body has rushed up into his face and he stutters over an answer until he just goes “im sorry,,,,,,,” and that’s enough for you to get the hint

you apologize at least ten times and ur like thIS is awkward,,,ill go and make a dash for the door as quickly as possible

because everything is so damn EMBARRASSING and ur like WHAT WERE U THINKING @ yourself the whole time u go to your dorm

and for a good hour u just lay down with ur head in ur pillow like gkhdlfjssdf whY DID I OPEN MY MOUTH

but taeyong,,,,,who also gets to his dorm just sets down his laptop and tries to think himself,,,why,,,,,,,why did he say im sorry?? when he wanted to say yes,,,,,

and the week goes by and the final comes and goes and at the end u want to ball ur eyes out because well one that final was hARD AS HELL but thanks to taeyongs help u feel like u did decently,,,,,but also the whole time u couldn’t help but look over at taeyong and not once,,,,,,did u guys cross eyes

and ur convincing urself that he’s forgotten about it,,,,,about you and helping you,,,and every night u spent in the library getting closer and god dammit if u hadnt gotten all worked up over him saying he was worried thiS wouldnt have happened

until you walk right into someone and they’re like “woah! watch yourself” and you look up to see the familiar face of taeil and ur like oh right whoops we got an A on our project did u get the email? and taeil nods but he’s like “more importantly,,,,,,,,hows taeyong?”

and ur like ?????????/ idk im not his frie-

and taeil is like ur not??? taeyong literally tutored u right after his internship for four weeks straight sacrificing his time for u and ur not even friends? doubt it

and ur like wait what

and taeyong is like yEAH why do u think u had to meet so damn late the poor guy had a class load + an internship in a lab + tutoring and believe me as kind as he is,,,,,,he wouldn’t go to such lengths for a stranger

and u can’t believe it,,,,like at all,,,,,,but u feel like such an asshole and ur like “do u know where-” and taeil is like “bus stop near the gym. he should be going there n-” and ur like thANKS SEE U LATER TELL YUTA WE GOT AN A BECAUSE HE NEVER CHECKS HIS EMAIL

and as u run u can see taeyong,,,holding his lab coat and his shoulder bag at the stop and u don’t know how much time u have till the bus comes

but when u show up in front of him,,,huffing and puffing taeyong immediately worries and tries to offer u his water and ur like no no listen to me 

and he’s lie ???? with wide eyes and ur like “im sorry. i never thanked u for tutoring me and we left of on an awkward note and it was sUPER embarrassing but if we could push it aside like i really like u,,,,,,,,but like i want to be ur friend first and foremost because i think ur great and u helped me pass that satanic class and i just didnt know u were staying up so late to tutor me and i just i have a lot more to say but most of all thank you so much taeyong. i appreciate what you did for me.”

and u cant believe u had enough breath for all that but taeyong,,,,taeyong is smiling,,,,,,,and it’s the smile that makes his usually stoic, handsome face turn somewhat childish and warm

and he puts his hand out to carefully take yours and he’s like 

“im happy i could help, but also i,,,,,,,,,”

and you think he’s holding ur hand in like ???A friendly way??? but taeyong is literally also shaking??? and ur like is he nervous???

but taeyong finally swallows the lump in his throat and goes “but also i don’t want to push what you asked me aside. i,,,,,,,i want to take you on a date,,,,,,,can i?”

and you can hear the bus approaching and you can see taeyong’s eyes flash between yours and the road and you know you need to answer

but ur like stuck and the bus doors open and taeyong is like “i need to let go but tell me-”

and he’s halfway up the steps when you get up into the bus with him and the driver is like ? and you lean up to kiss his cheek and you’re like 

“yes,,,,,,,please take me on a date. it would make me really happy.”

and the bus driver is like hello are u also getting on and taeyong turns cherry red but he tells u he’ll call - but wait ur number - and ur like oh !! message taeil he has it we were partners and taeyong is like ok!!

and the driver is like AHEM but this nice old lady is like “don’t ruin their moment”

and basically,,,,you get off the bus and wave to taeyong in the window as it leaves and practically skip back to school because oh my god the undateable taeyong,,,,,,just asked you on a dATE

and the date,,,,,,is so simple and sweet 

everyone thinks taeyong is some stuck up snob with high taste but nooooope in reality u two go to a cafe that specialize in board games and u guys play monoply on ur first damn date and then some connect four and when u beat him at jenga ur pretty sure he might cry

but ur like “taeyong,,,,,,top of ur major and yet,,,,,,,bad at jenga?” and he’s like !!!!!!!! im not rematch!!!!11

but u win again and poor taeyong has his head in his hands but he’s having fun and gladly does the penalty (which is buying u guys two more drinks)

and it’s like afterwords u learn that taeyong is not flashy,,,,,he takes so much happiness in just walking u to ur dorm afterwords and when u tease him about jenga he just bites his lip and mumbles that it just wasn’t his night tonight,,,,,,

and when you lean up to kiss him gently taeyong mumbles against your skin if it’s alright to take u out on a second date and u think how cute,,,,but completely agree

and two dates turn into more dates and before u know it u and taeyong are dating with matching couple rings to prove it 

which yuta thinks is cheesy but taeil just tells him to shut it and be happy for taeyong 

but on a real note taeyong takes dating as seriously as his studies,,,he puts his efforts into making you happy and learning more about you

and it’s so adorable when he’ll point something out and be like “it reminds me of you!” and,,,,it’s like,,,,,,,what an observant, caring boyfriend 

you tell taeyong once you don’t like this specific kind of fruit so when u guys get a fruit salad he asks if u want him to pick out the ones u dont like and u just laugh and go i can just not eat them!!! and he gets red,,,,but like it’s the sentiment that counts

taeyong works most of his week and studies super hard so u don’t get to go out a lot and taeyong apologizes for that

but you just hold his face in your hands and tell him that no. his studies come first because it’s his future

and once taeyong mumbled that he hopes ur his future too and it made ur heart,,,,,,,,,it literally made ur heart burst and you were like taeyong don’t say things like that and he was like im sorry,,,but why not

and u were like because it makes me want to kiss u and u have calculus homework right 

people that took pics of taeyong when u go out always just get super long glares from u and at one point u were like “that’s illegal i can sue on behave of my boyfriend”

and taeyong was like ,,,,angel it’s ok,,,,,,,but u were like anyone who wants to disrespect him come @ me i will prote-

u and ten get along really well just fyi

taeyong introduces u to mark and ur just like !!!!!! wow!!!!! so adorable and taeyong is like rIGHT he’s so cute he’s my son and mark is like ??? but both u and taeyong dote on him and sometimes he’s like guys,,,,please,,,,

but most of the time he likes it because u and taeyong will cook for him if he asks LOL

for someone who hides behind his glasses taeyong sends u selfies whenever he’s with mark because he’s like !!!!!! look how cute

but also sometimes he sends some of himself and he’s like ‘i look so bad ive been studying for 4 hours’ but in reality. he doesn’t look bad. he looks like a model. what the heck. what the actual heck

taeyong keeps his desk super clean but he’s recently let u put up some photos in frames,,,one of them is his sister ,,, another his parents,,, then one of him and his friends ,,,,,,,and then one of u guys,,,,shyly holding hands under fireworks and it’s cute

because before he used to keep everything completely in check but when u doodle a heart on his whiteboard he can’t erase it,,,,he just thinks of u and smiles

doesn’t share his hoodies but it’s ok because when u hug him his smell gets stuck in ur clothes and u love it

u taught taeyong how to use emojis the right way because when u sent him a bunch of hearts he was like ‘isn’t one enough’ and u were like taeyong no i love u much more than one heart emoji and he was like oh! i should sent more too because i love u so much and it was cORNY but so damn cute

his pda is kept to a minimum because taeyong sees intimacy as something very special and he always wants to make sure it’s shared between you and him 

and he’ll like it when u take control because taeyong wants to do anything to please u and sometimes u have to remind him that it’s ok for him to indulge

and he’ll just shyly hide into ur neck but it’s ok because when u run ur hands down his spine u can hear a low sound from him and it’s,,,,,,hot

also loves being kissed on the back of his neck like the nape it always makes him really soft and if he’s overworking himself 

ull like come up from behind while he’s hunched over a book and kiss his nape and he’ll completely kind of loosen up and let u drag him out for a snack so he doesn’t die in all his class notes

and taeyong tells u after sometime that dating,,,,,and being close to people always worried him because he didn’t know if he could make someone happy

but you tell him that he makes u the most happy,,,,even if he has quirks about him and gets excited over math,,,,,that’s so adorable to you

like you’re the one person that taeyong should never be scared of hurting,,,,,,because you know how much effort he puts into his work and u know he’d never do anything to harm u or his friends

and it’s cute,,,,,,u wait for him to get back to campus after his internship and taeyong is always like !!!!! it’s cold and dark dont 

but ur always there and when he gets off the bus he makes u wait till it leaves but then u guys kiss and it’s cute and u laugh against each others lips

and although taeyong doesnt like to share his clothes he’ll pull his lab coat over the two of u and be like “kiss me again” and ur like ooo someone is actually more into pda than we thought?? and he’s like shy,,,but also u do kiss him and it’s soft

my conclusion is college!taeyong is soft ok everyone please be nice to him

find:

college vixx (here) / college bts (here) / college seventeen (here) college monsta x (here) / college got7 + amber + kard (here)

[shamelessly4shameless-blog]

The Sand In Your Shoe (5)

Fiona takes one look at her little brother’s face and her heart sinks.

“Ian.”

She says his name with so much tenderness it nearly sets him off again but he manages to bite the inside of his lip and shake his head slightly

“I got that cheap shit shampoo in my eyes!”

“That was unlucky.”

Fiona’s own eyes are large and round with concern but she lets him have his white lie and Ian feels a rush of affection for his sister that reminds him of how things used to be when they were both kids.

“Yeah, sucks. Thank you for my card.”

“You’re welcome, sorry there wasn’t a cheque in it. Still haven’t won the damn lottery!”

It is a weak joke but it breaks the miserably tension and Ian manages to smile and even laugh a little. Fiona pours the coffee and Ian cuts his cake. He took too long in the shower and Carl has wandered off on some errand promising to be back soon, Debbie has taken Frannie outside to play and Liam is back in front of his Play Station.

Ian delivers Liam some cake and then joins his big sister at the table. She looks tired but still so beautiful it makes his heart ache and Ian impulsively catches her hand in his and kisses it.

“What the fuck?”

Fiona laughs and ruffles his hair, shorter than he’s had it for a couple of years but still long enough that it needs smoothing back down when she’s done.

“You’re just so fucking gorgeous and I can’t believe I don’t tell you more often.”

“Wow. Thank you. You know it’s your birthday not mine ,right?”

Ian smiles and gives her hand a squeeze before reaching into his jeans pocket and producing a packet of cigarettes, slapping them on the table and winking at her

“That’s why I’m treating myself to a pre-lunch smoke.”

They sit quietly for a few minutes, both lost to their own thoughts and grateful for the temporary silence amidst the chaos. Ian drums his fingers anxiously against his leg and presses his feet into the floor to keep from tapping them.

“I saw Yevgeny Milkovich today.”

He tries to sound casual but overshoots and his voice wavers, hitting a high note that smacks of a panic attack in the making.

“Jesus. That must have been weird.”

“Yeah, he’s like seven or eight now.”

Ian knows exactly how old Yevgeny is but he’s trying to cover up his interest for fear of Fiona holding something back. He doesn’t know exactly what but maybe something she’s heard from Vee…

“Yeah. I’ve seen him around with Svetlana.”

Fiona is watching Ian for reaction and he deliberately keeps his face as neutral as possible.

“He looks like Mickey, doesn’t he?”

She offers finally, with an audible sigh that makes Ian wince. He knows he is being subtle as a brick but the expression on Fiona’s face suggests that this is something she has been waiting on for a while and it makes Ian feel predictable and a bit pathetic. For a moment Ian thinks about saying he didn’t notice and changing the subject to something lighter but he doesn’t really want to. Something has awoken in him, something that has lain dormant for so long that Ian had almost forgotten it was there at all and he means to follow it and see where the feeling takes him.

“Yeah he does. Svetlana said that Mickey still sends money, you know?”

“Good. It’s the least he can do!”

Fiona’s brows knit together and she shakes her head. She never had a very high opinion of Mickey to begin with and the fact that he sends money for a son he never sees fails to impress her all that much.

“I know it’s just … I hadn’t thought about him properly for a while and it’s good to know he’s still …”

“Alive?”

“… Free.”

Ian tapped the ash off his second cigarette and smiled weakly at her which only earned him another sigh.

“You know you gotta leave all that in the past, Ian.”

“I suppose … I mean … I just fucked it all up so badly, Fi. I had so much of my own shit going on and with the meds and the bipolar I wasn’t myself or like, the version of myself I wanted to be, and …”

“Stop. Jesus! You’ve got your life together! You’re doing great with your EMT job, you have your own apartment and your own friends. Your meds are stable, you’re healthy…”

“I know. I know all that and I’m happy…”

“Then why risk it for an old boyfriend you haven’t even heard from in years?”

“I’m not going to! I just … forget it.”

Ian shook his head again and closed his eyes. It was easy for him to get pissed with Fi, to resent her controlling ways and know-it-all attitude but the truth was that she had kept them going, sacrificing her own teens and twenties to ensure that all of them were seen right, or as right as possible. She had done so much for them, fought for every single one of them and if she was bossy then she had damn well earned that right.

“Ian, I know you loved Mickey but he is doing whatever the fuck he is doing and I don’t mean to be cruel, but he probably wouldn’t care about you at all now. Probably has a whole host of Mexican bang-buddies at his disposal.”

Ian’s head shoots up, green eyes wide and angry.

“Mickey never fucked around, Fiona. I was the one who did that. I did porno and I cheated on him. I was the one who acted like I didn’t care.”

 “Oh please! I know Mickey tried really hard when you first got sick, I never denied that and it was good of him but his way of showing ‘care’ was attempting to murder Sammi and busting your face when you pissed him off. You gotta leave this alone Ian!”

Ian wants to argue with her, tell her that he busted Mickey’s face too and that if he had the guts, he would definitely have killed Terry Milkovich but decides to leave it alone. Fiona is looking pretty upset with him and he can’t really blame her. Ian doesn’t even know why he is dragging all this up or what his end game is. He just knows he feels something in his gut and that isn’t much to go on and certainly not something to fight with his sister over.

“I’m sorry, Fi. I don’t mean to be a pain in the ass. I think just seeing Yevgeny … you know. I kidnapped that kid once!”

Ian grins and tries to make a joke of it all and after studying him a moment longer, Fiona gives in and laughs to.

“Fuckin’ Gallaghers.”

*

Ian leaves the Gallagher house towards dusk, he is feeling much better and his hands have stopped shaking. Mickey is still on his mind, as is Yevgeny, but it is a manageable level of background noise now. He can cross the road, notice his shoelace is undone and make greetings to people he recognises without having to bring himself back from his thoughts first and that is important.

Ian has learned to live a controlled life, monitoring himself carefully to ensure his moods are not swinging unduly one way or the other. If he wants to make an impulse purchase he tries to stop and think for at least five minutes, even if it is only a few bucks. He takes his meds as regularly as he can, he does mess up by an hour here or an hour there sometimes and often forgets to eat with them but he manages reasonably well and even Fiona has stopped asking him if he’s doing it right.

In a way, now that he has it under control this lifestyle suits him okay, he always liked neatness, order and rules. It’s kind of why he wanted to join the army so badly as a kid. He used to feel highs and lows that were not just part of his ‘disorder’ but part of his very soul. Now he tends to crush those feelings down when they arise and has become good at doing so. The only thing Ian truly misses is feeling a regular sense of curiosity. He used to be curious to the point of nosy and now he just doesn’t care enough about most things to wonder.

He realises that he is heading toward the Alibi and pauses mid-stride, his boots scuffing along the sidewalk. The Alibi used to be such a normal part of his routine, not that he was ever a big drinker but it wasn’t weird for him to drop in there to see Kev or find Frank or Lip. Ian thumbs his lip as he considers his options, a habit he doesn’t remember picking up but can’t shake somehow.

He wants to convince himself that it is nostalgia or the desire to see Kev that is sending him there but he knows it isn’t, he knows Kev hasn’t been there for quite some time. He is aiming to see Svetlana.

*

The alibi looks like shit but then it always did and Ian mostly ignores the old bar flies, lifting his hand in greeting to the ones who look up from their beer and briefly make eye contact with him.

“Is Svetlana here?”

The barmaid looks him up and down and Ian tolerates this with all the good grace he can muster. The blonde woman appears to make up her mind finally but doesn’t take her eyes off Ian as she yells

“LANA!”

Svetlana appears a few minutes later, her face sharp and watchful transforming into a small smirk when she sees Ian.

“He still says ‘Hello’. I have not told him Carrot Boy rejects him again yet.”

“Is he OK?”

“How in fuck should I know. I tell him of Yevgeny. He sends money for Yevgeny. Is all.”

Svetlana is eyeing Ian with something that could almost be amusement and Ian wonders if he is barking up completely the wrong tree. He weighs his options but the gut feeling which has been pushing him since looking up into Yevgeny’s eyes from the tarmac this morning won’t quit nagging at him and Ian decides to lay everything on the table. If Svetlana laughs at him, so be it.

“I haven’t thought about him in a while. Now I am. I just want to know he is alright.”

“You have not thought of him?”

Her voice is incredulous, almost angry and Ian feels a blush creep up his neck

“It was complicated.”

“You went crazy, he love you. You steal baby, he love you. You too weak to visit in prison without payment, he love you. Not complicated, just stupid.”

Svetlana has stepped behind the bar as she speaks and Ian watches her pull two shots of vodka, she pushes one across the bar towards him and slams the other down her throat before looking him dead in the eye.

“You are selfish little copper shit, no idea of love.”

“And you’re a fucking rapist. Don’t you dare lecture me on love”

The anger comes hot and fast and Ian slams his palm down on the bar hard enough to bruise the heel of his hand. Ian is almost as shocked as Svetlana at the outburst but it wipes the haughty look off her face and that gives him a small sense of satisfaction. She recovers quickly though and Ian crosses his arms over his chest protectively waiting her to strike back.  

“So we both screw him, just different ways, hmm?”

Svetlana pours another drink and shrugs cooly.

“He is OK. We spoke a little while. He is OK.”

“Will you tell him I say Hello back? You don’t have to but …”

“I will tell him. He may not care but I will tell him.”

“Thank you.”

Ian lets his breath out shakily and sips at the vodka she has given him. He doesn’t know if it is a gift or if he will be asked to pay for it. He doesn’t mind either way really. The feeling that brought him here is draining as well as encouraging and he feels ready to sleep.

“Give me your number.”

Svetlana says suddenly and takes her phone out of her bra, gesturing impatiently to Ian

“Why?”

“In case he cares.”

Those four words make Ian’s mouth instantly dry and his palms slick with sweat. His heart hammers in his chest and he feels a wonderful mixture of fear and hope rise up from the kernel of feeling in his gut, unfurling like a flower stretching out to reach the dawn light. He hasn’t felt anything like this in so long and it is almost painful in its intensity. A distant part of him knows this feeling, it is like returning to a childhood home after living away for fifty years and Ian taps his number into Svetlana’s phone before he can lose his nerve.

“Why would you do this for me?”

“Not for you. What I did … it got me my Yevgeny so I cannot regret it. But perhaps a small debt is owed to his father. A very small one.”

Svetlana smiles slightly at that and Ian feels like his feet have been lifted from the ground and he is floating above himself slightly. The vodka is working far too quickly, he shouldn’t have had it. He needs to leave.

“Thank you anyway.”

He mumbles and staggers out of the bar before Svetlana can say anything further. Ian runs until his breath is like fire in his throat and his legs tremble uncontrollably as he sinks to the ground, sitting on the curb with the sort of oddly graceful clumsiness that only big men have.

*In case he cares*

Fuck. Birthdays make him crazier than normal!

Ian grins up at the darkening sky and wonders when he’ll find out if Mickey Milkovich still cares or not.

[cyberleaf69]

TWO  OLD  STAGEHANDS  REMINISCING

I bought a new device this morning(Black Friday), disrupting my savings to the tune of $278.19; this was NOT a doorbuster bargain, but was their least expensive 'laptop.' This purchase has relieved me of the burden of Google Chrome & brought back Cortana("Hey!"); also I have the use of my WiFi, and can stay in touch with the Amell family(up in those woods). When I ventured out this AM, it was about fifty degrees out; I got a biscut-breakfast at Hardee's, before negotiating my holiday purchase; after bringing my prize back to the room, I sped off to get 4 packs of cig's and some(6 for $1) donut sticks. Hurricane Michael has managed to permanently close down my Harvey's, so it's Family Dollar, Dollar General & Dollar Tree for now; this has increased expenses significantly, while reducing overall quality & variety. I'm sure to think of something else to write about, but for now, I'm sending this along.

Outstanding! Glad to hear from you. I had another episode with another blocked artery. I'm up to three stents now. This happened right after Michael blew through, so I'd been wondering how you were doing. This news is tonic for me.

sorry; I was checking out alternative forms of identification; not sure if this is tonic(because I'm tone-deaf), but I'll dash off something for a three-stenter; keep this up and you'll be setting off metal detectors at airports and courthouses; when you say 'episode' you should elaborate, even if you have to make the shit up; making shit up has become quite presidential lately RE:Hurricane Michael - about 7 PM, my power went out; luckily, between 5 & 6 PM next afternoon, it was restored I opened my drapes for lighting, and sat facing the window until around 12:30 AM, when the worst of it had passed that bitch was loud, and at one point, while still approaching from SW, one sheet of steel roofing blew off our U-shaped building; a shower of sparks as it blew across the parking lot got my full attention did you purchase a copy of "Whose Boat Is This Boat?" it took 30 min's to get this far...  updates and such[speaks to the age of the model I was sold @STAPLES] cheese grits on the breakfast menu, but first I'll be needing a shower

Of course we didn't catch the full fury of the storm, but we got plenty of rain and wind, I have several washed out sections of driveway I need to attend to, it's a rough ride down into the valley here. In regards to my ongoing heart troubles, in 2011 I had a blockage of the left anterior descending artery, that was causing great pressure in my chest, felt like an elephant was sitting on me, no heart attack with that event, but the docs implanted my first stent. The heart attack this past April was brought on by blockage of the right coronary artery, I aggravated my heart by over-exerting myself digging my dogs grave. That event was marked by rapid heartbeat, dizziness, sweating, confusion, and pressure radiating out from the left side of my chest. That blockage was remedied by stent number two. The latest episode at the end of October was preceded by a week or so of pressure and mild discomfort in my chest that was remedied by taking a dose of nitro-glycerin.  I awoke with that pressure, took a dose, didn't get any relief, I alerted Debbie, took another dose, but by then I was having difficulty breathing and having strong chest pain, Deb called 911 and gave me a third dose of nitro, at that time I was hyperventilating uncontrollably, sweating profusely, and the pain was very intense...I was sure I was about to die. The EMTs arrived, got me in the ambulance, took my blood pressure, and an EKG, drew some blood, analyzed that with the fancy computer analyzer and came back with "Everything looks fine, you don't appear to be having a heart attack." I got to the hospital, had a quiet morning and afternoon, save for the drawing of blood and the checking of blood pressure. Later that night though, I had six more non-heart-attacks. I won't go into all the drama wrapped around that due to my vitals all showing good normal indications. Anyway, I got my third stent early that next morning, after being catheterized and they found another blockage in the right coronary artery that was downstream of the second stent. Phillip, during those six non-heart-attacks I was truly sure I was going to meet the creator. I had told Debbie all those things you tell someone when you think you're dying. But apparently I've either got unfinished business or I'm just getting some extra time here on earth due to my exceedingly good looks, wit, and charm. ;)

good looks, wit & charm aside, since you have unloaded onto DEB all those last minute appurtenances, you should think about what must be/should be said about your time together since recovering from those six downstream pain events[& consider the high dose of TNT necessary for that most recent download]

We're getting ready for our Thanksgiving tomorrow. Lots of cleaning and such. I'll be in and out all day. Got yard-work to do now that the rain has passed. I have a fire going to save electricity, and the added benefit of warm glowing light is helpful. I've got to go buy a used bass guitar in a little while. I'm snagging parts off of it to make a cigar box bass guitar for Patti (Tuck) Tuckwiler's brother's Christmas gift. I'd already had my oatmeal & blueberries along with a patty of turkey sausage and a slice of toast. I let this guy named Possum hunt on our property, he gave me a slab of backstrap as thanks for hunting privileges. I'm thinking about having a backstrap on a yeast roll for lunch.

shower complete backstrap a la antlered-buck, I'm assuming had some online interaction w/TUCK[doubt she will remember] will your son attend tomorrow's feed? you sound pretty busy, so I'll catch up w/U later

oversized notebook w/no disk player[complicating printer connection]

trak-pad offset too far to left of center[due to hard drive's location to the right of it]; I keep right-clicking when I want to left-click I'm running down my battery for the first time today[not sure whether these rechargeables benefit from 'training'] still 'customizing' my task bar/I can use my 'task view' to 'see' what's down there[and access w/a click] tomorrow will be a 'shopping day' as I'm out of grits limerick is kinda fun most forms are the kind of challenge a writer loves I once wrote a Petrarchian sonnet[back in high school]; it was a love-poem to my girlfriend; in order to fit her 2-syllable name into it, without breaking with meter requirements, I wrote it as G_____[just one syllable]; this came in handy later; I was able to recycle my metric sentiments for future girlfriends. https://www.booksie.com/sent-messages https://en.wikichip.org/w/index.php?title=User:Phillip_DeNise&action=submit

My youngest son works for a company that resolves gift/cash card issues. They're well moneyed, they pay their employees very well, and they feed them like royalty. The company had bought a Thanksgiving feast for 9 people. They spent $1700 on that meal, that was catered by Olive Garden. There was so much food left that all the employees got to take home...like...doggy bags for elephants. My son brought some of that bounty to share with us for our thanksgiving dinner. We also had plenty of food leftover, so much that we sent all the family members home with food for days, and we still have much left in the fridge. I'm having some fettucine alfredo, and yeast rolls for my late lunch. I'd been busy cleaning and straightening from the dinner. Also I'd bought a $50 bass to sacrifice for parts I need to build that cigar-box bass I'd mentioned that I'd disassembled before taking lunch. I'm trying to stay busy and keep moving. Whatever amount of life I have left, I want to use as much as I can, as wisely as I can. After I wrap up this message, I'm going to chop some wood and get a fire started for this evening. It's supposed to be in the low 30s tonight. Cheers! I hope that laptop ain't making you crazy.

fettucine alfredo is one of my all-time-favorites; 1st time I had it, my sis made it at home; she did it so well that I was forever hooked; add smoked chicken breast & sliced, fresh button mushrooms, and...  well, Italian ambrosia; plain f.a. is the perfect side for veal marsala do you have to smoke all those cigars for authenticity?  ...probably a good way to end up w/John Prine's voice check came yesterday; I'll go to Liquor Locker at 11[as it is usually sans-customers then; less chance of a robbery], to get my wad of ca$h then $625 to motel-boss, $60 + any cash from last mo. goes into savings hidey-hole, leaving about 3 Benjamins for necessities

All the cash that I have to my name is tied up in two guitars and a guitar amplifier. Got them all up on eBay, and Craig's list, hoping some aspiring young rock star has a need...soon. I'm living off the fat of thanksgiving today. Got that fire going, saving on heating bills, and trying to figure out how to get the most cash I can for the HHR. I've got about 1.75 years to go until I can take SS early retirement. I honestly don't know how I'll make it that long, barring a minor miracle or a random act of kindness, but somehow we've manged thus far, I have faith and hope for better days to come. As far as cigar box guitars go, we find the boxes online or at tobacco shops in the area. I haven't had a cigar or cigarette since April when I had the heart attack. I do find myself "wanting" quite often but have taken up gnawing a straw, gum, or a toothpick. The good news is that it's saving me between $10 - $20 a week that I don't have anyway. Yay. Anyhow, I'm going back out to work on the cigar box bass. Peace to you Phillip.

get some sax-reeds for your oral gratification-smoking abatement strategy; a cigar box will make an excellent homemade resonator for a sax-like sample to feed into your reactionary music what changes when you claim your partial & have significantly improved your survival-horizon in the interim?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8buJ2-oD02E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDqoTDM7tio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2-XU8jm02o where do the best stories come from? editors are famous for taking out the stuff that isn't needed; old men have a similar process occurring among the aging neurons in their noggins; this is giving them a new voice; problem is:if they show their wizened faces, nobody will listen to them; time to employ a mask...  a truly vital issue that cannot be ignored Calories are units used to measure heat. Mammals maintain their body temperature by chemically converting starches and sugars back into H2O & CO2. When we burn hydrocarbon fuels, the heat production and the waste products are the same. Plants do just the opposite; they use the H2O & CO2 to store the heat energy in their starches and sugars. Down in Brunswick, there is a company called Hercules; when you pass by their manufacturing plant, you will see tree stumps piled high; they use the waste from lumbering operations to convert the cellulose into gunpowder. The lowly peanut vine, hosts on its root systems, colonies of bacteria[also plants] that 'fix' the nitrogen from the atmosphere, so that it is soluble[thus available to the vines for uptake through those roots]. Rotating to a planting of peanuts can quickly restore the depleted nutrients resulting from cotton or corn plantings. The lint caught up in the air circulating in a cotton mill can cause an explosion if rapidly oxidized. Corn silos can be dangerous concentrations of these plant-stored nitrates as well. As a child, I was the agent providing the fixed nitrogen, when I 'strowed sodie' about the roots in a plot of sweet corn. These crystals of explosive nitrates are chemically produced from nitrogen in the atmosphere. 'Scrubbing' the atmosphere of dangerous concentrations of CO2 can be done in a similar process. If the energy needed to trap the carbon can be 'captured' from sunlight, then the corn plants and explosive fertilizers can be dispensed with. If animal life forms are so much more intelligent than plants, then they should consider taking over all the terraforming functions that they mindlessly perform in their own self-interest. Terraforming distant Mars seems to depend heavily upon creating a breathable atmosphere there; what are our scientists doing about terraforming the Earth, where a kingdom of plant life forms could be better harnessed to accomplish our desired balance of CO2, O2 & N2? Climate change, probably in a warming phase, is increasing our atmospheric H2O; this will eventually reverse the warming trend. In the interim, it seems logical that there are locales on the planet which will benefit from the current trend; these are the places we should be colonizing. Diverting the hordes of humanity, that are fleeing the effects of climate change, into these mostly unsettled areas, not only solves the immigration problems of industrialized nations, but represents a tremendous business opportunity for expanding their struggling economies. These new colonies offer to the 'survivalists' among us, destinations where there is less government and enormous freedom to develop their ideas into social organizations that will promote their own desired political and economic change. No matter where they chose to go, they will still need shoes...  need clean drinking water...  shelters constructed from available materials[rammed earth domes are remarkably resilient] will immediately be needed; and what will they eat? Business solutions exist for almost every difficulty that such a growing society must soon encounter; why continue looking to charitable organizations and over-burdened governments for the answers?

Everyone now has the capability of being able to hide behind a digital mask on them damn interwebs. Here we have the vastness of mankind's accumulation of knowledge, and people choose to watch cat videos on facebook. There's really not much hope for people in my best estimation, masks or not. I understand why there needs to be a revolution of the mind, heart, and soul. I understand that I'm not the only one that sees this, and I'm glad I'm not alone. One of the problems we face today is the blessing/curse of the internet. People aren't using it so much as a learning tool, but rather as a distraction from all the folly of the times. That said, I'm going off to work on a box.

time actually flies when we are having so much fun; my cheese grits are already at stage one[awaiting the time when I shove the green plastic bowl into the nuke-o-wave, while those frags of kernal-corn soak/soften in cold water], I'm fully dressed & the bed is made; the TV is on & I'm halfway through my first cup of joe and my first cigarette[which I have stubbed out and noticed that the first half was the most generous one]; a great noise is being raised outside my place[some sort of gas-powered welding machine], so staying in bed would not have been a workable alternative; it's rainy out, which is a meteorological condition that could remain in place for three days; I saw that coming, so I visited my nearest Family Dollar yesterday, when it was seventy-two degrees and sunny GATOR used to be right here "gator takes a ride" is my visual offering for today; not sure why the hands call him gator, but getting sent up to the loading bridge is probably a status indicator; I spent a lot of load-in's & load-out's watching and listening from high above the groundlings; I was also rewarded with a department head's position on a national tour for having filed an NLRB charge; that got me to thinking IATSE Local 41 is still on display in cyberspace; do you ever go there? That is where I snatched this image for my ACER. I snuck in using a private browser & made off with my prize. "behindthemain" reminds me of something my Dad used to say; "Once you back your ass up to the teaser, you'll never be able to go back." The age of Rock 'n' Roll was the greatest AGE because they wrote songs about US! How cool is that? What is totally uncool is my mail.com, which has just refused to send this draft until I remove my stolen image; so just imagine a close-up of a stuffed gator-doll perched on an arbor loaded with counterweight which was originally posted by some dude called @behindthemain

Time, at least for me, has become compressed. Three days, maybe a week will go by in the blink of an eye, and there's really not much I can do to slow the procession. The best thing I've found that I can do is create, fabricate, manufacture, and repair. Just trying to stay, to keep from spending too much time in my head. Now there's a dark place. I wouldn't send anyone to spend any time there. One problem is that of psychic transmission on my part. Bad enough I should have to spend time there in my mind, but I was also gifted with the ability to broadcast my thoughts, so, certain lucky "receivers" get to share the "Matt experience". I generally know who's getting that broadcast because they either don't know me but they're able to complete my sentences, or I'll be thinking of or about a person that I know, and they will call me on the phone. If the case is the former, those people tend to try to stay away from me. I'm thinking they can't handle the stream. If you're in the latter group, we're connected. Probably always have been. Determining which thoughts are your own, and those that come beaming in seemingly out of nowhere is the catch to all that. Thoughts??? P.S. I don't consider myself a receiver, but maybe I just can't sort my thoughts from the thoughts of others... Herman Hill passed away a few days ago. He was a receiver of my thoughts. I bet it was confusing for him to be in proximity of me.

intelligence originating from without, as you should already realize, is sorta my thing if I have connected with your interior spaces in the past, I must assume that it did not seem so dark to me I would remember being put off in such a manner

Deb & I have been buying, selling, and trading electric guitars, and amps. Unofficially we are Pocataligo Guitar Exchange. I also do minor repairs to electric guitars & basses. We've flipped 4 Squire Bullet Strats, an ESP - LTD EXP200 Explorer copy, and a DeArmond M65C Les Paul Studio copy, as well as a Peavey Mark III Citation bass amp head, and a Peavey Citation Mark IV guitar amp head. The fun thing about this is that we get to try all kinds of gear that we wouldn't ordinarily get to play with. :)  

now you will be needing a PGE logo; some consideration should be given to the silk screening process, when you select a design; the reason for this being cheaper T-shirts and complete PGE control over their manufacture & distribution; just sayin'

1st things first - incorporate as an.LLC. Get a bi'ness license. Then we'll get around to tee shirts and what have you. This will also be the outlet for any cigar box creations.

LLC's are pure crap; there are many ways to protect your #1 asset[your residence] from liabilities you may not see coming, while operating this[any] business at your residence; you can pledge the equity in a residential property as collateral for a small business loan, while your LLC could not; of course your CFO[DEB] would need to chime in on such risky decisions[but risk is what living is all about; security a delusion] got up early[9:03] as per usual on Sunday, in order to catch Jane Pauley on CBS; NOT! there is a tornadic fear monger down in Tallahassee pre-empting the network broadcast to tell me that I need to get in my safe place; all last night there were alerts interrupting my TV-viewing; this 'storm' is indeed unusual for December, with lightning & thunder[started hearing rumbles about 8 PM while watching "Rampage"]; there have been accumulations down here between 2 & 3 inches, but no real cause for flash flood warnings[every 5 to 7 minutes]; added to that sort of aggravation, I'm now an expert in the minutiae of George Herbert Walker's 94-year-long public life[best part is watching secret service guys puking up their guts while an 85-year-old maniac races his speedboat around Kennebunkport's rocky shoals]; if TRUMP died suddenly, we'd really be consigned to TV-hell; so, those warnings expire and they start six minutes of backlogged commercials; sheesh!

Cocoa Beach secret stagehand local?

Titusville; Dad had a friend down there; entire membership of this four-digit film unit was featured on the cover of IA Bulletin

One of the reasons we ditched Atlanta and moved out here was the abundance of nature out here. Ample wildlife, some wild berries and muscadines to be had in good years, plenty of breathing space, no bumping elbows with neighbors. Deb took this picture about 10 minutes ago...

when I go hunting for muscadines, I take along a paper sack; I collect a few in my sack & leave them on that 'shelf' below the rear-window of the jalopy; now the car is infused with the most wonderful odor[perhaps for weeks to come]

It's beautiful, mild and partly cloudy today. I may get out and try to find a good sized deer to take down for our winter meat needs. Possum put up a deer stand that's fully enclosed, about 10 feet above ground that I may go sit in to see what comes by. Rick Scheuerman had a great idea - there's a hangout in Athens named Nucci's Space. It was originally a place where one could rent musical rehearsal space by the month, that also has a coffee shop. I think, as I recall the story, that Nucci had committed suicide, but someone kept Nucci's Space up and running. So one of the things they do there is have auctions of art and musical instruments to provide support for depressed/suicidal people. Rick suggested that I take some of these old beat relical guitars that I have in abundance just sitting around, make them into pieces of art, and either donate or perhaps take a small percentage of the sale of these items. What sayeth thee old friend?

I like the auction angle[not so much the 'cause' enumerated]; also, auctioning off unwanted guitar-bodies converted into 'art' would not provide the benefit I imagine; I think you should cobble together an instrument, using all your acquired skills, that is meant from its conception to be auctioned off @Nucci's Space; the bidders would be local musicians/collectors that you'd be pleased to meet[& that may commission lucrative projects going forward]; no charge for this wonderful idea

the Athens music scene has developed a somewhat muted presence online; it was in emergence-stage, when I was dating my 1st wife & made the drive frequently in my VW-van, fitted w/8-track stereo system sorry I did not mention my amazement at DEB's photo of tomorrow's lunch; I'll use that image for cover art soon, and look forward to gator's comment on it once I have the TITLE, I'll know what to write about in the contents; these images can entice many more clicks, and that is what I'm exploring @Booksie.com my 'editor' sucks, but I'm also exploring better ways to make use of its features; learning as I go keeps me busy at this keyboard not much real interaction with other readers/writers has occurred; there is a moderator calling himself Booksie Guy; BG is probably not a BOT, but I have not really gotten to him yet I tried to get a new persona at Retirement Online, but have not heard back from its Appleton, WI moderator/witch checked out 'online banks' without any success; ALLY requires govt.-issued ID to open an account if you had been able to open my home-video, you could have seen me vibrating; my tremors are pretty bad, and when my paycheck arrives, I usually sign the damn thing first thing in the morning, before I have my coffee; this seems to make the scrawl more legible my typing ability is affected, and this over-sized keyboard is a help with my target acquisition difficulties https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVlSVkzbJDA check out the antiquated studio equipment featured here

Gary Jules, Michael Andrews

All around me are familiar faces Worn out places, worn out faces Bright and early for their daily races Going nowhere, going nowhere Their tears are filling up their glasses No expression, no expression Hide my head, I want to drown my sorrow No tomorrow, no tomorrow And I find it kinda funny, I find it kinda sad The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take When people run in circles it's a very very Mad world, mad world Children waiting for the day, they feel good Happy birthday, happy birthday Made to feel the way that every child should Sit and listen, sit and listen Went to school and I was very nervous No one knew me, no one knew me Hello teacher, tell me what's my lesson Look right through me, look right through me And I find it kinda funny, I find it kinda sad The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take When people run in circles it's a very very Mad world, mad world Enlarge your world Mad world

The cover art is from a photo taken in 1968. The building featured was a new one, and I graduated from Bass High School on its stage. Most of the boys were headed for college...  or Vietnam. I chose the former, and believe that it has made all the difference. When roads diverge in a yellow wood, noticing their width and worn condition is just one approach to the decision-making quandry. I was taught to choose door number three. 1968 was a good time for such choices, and many of my contemporaries made just such a definitive choice. If you possess the technology to view/listen to DVD's, might I suggest the enhanced edition of WOODSTOCK; the movie. You'll see what many of those, that chose door number three, looked like. My graduating class was small by most standards; we chose to sing a song from "Man of La Mancha." But we 'walked' in a less-prescribed manner. I drove off in a Renault Dauphine with a slow-moving-vehicle sign attached to the rear. Though I might like to be eighteen again, at the time, I was not looking back. I did return to this building many times though; I worked there on many occasions. Sometimes I worked on that stage; sometimes I worked in the exhibit hall at the other end of the complex. The construction of this facility, by the municipality, was considered to be an important urban renewal project. That is how 'buttermilk bottom' disappeared from Forest Avenue. Another blight vanished when Fulton County Stadium went up. In 1951, the city received the All-America City Award, due to its rapid growth and high standard of living in the southern U.S. Annexation was the central strategy for growth. In 1952, Atlanta annexed Buckhead, as well as vast areas of what are now northwest, southwest and south Atlanta, adding 82 square miles (210 km2) And tripling its area. By doing so, 100,000 new affluent white residents were added, preserving white political power as well as expanding the city's property tax base And enlarging the traditional leadership upper-middle-class white class. That class now had to room to expand inside the city limits. Federal court decisions in 1962-63 ended the county-unit system thus greatly reducing rural Georgia control over the state legislature, enabling Atlanta, and other cities, to gain proportional political power. The Federal courts opened the Democratic Party primary to black voters, who surged in numbers and became increasingly well organized through the Atlanta Negro Voters League. Rush week was soon upon me, and I attended two of the parties; choices! ALPHA TAU OMEGA was where one of my acquaintances at work had become a paddle-wielding brother, so I checked out their presentation. As a sort of back-up plan, I also checked out the men of ALPHA EPSILON PI; they checked me out as well; I was rejected on religious grounds. Time for door number three. I carried a full load for four consecutive quarters at my new school, before that other door presented itself. From Fall Quarter of 1969 until Fall Quarter of 1970, I was out of school, but stuck to my solemn vow to return in one year[against all the odds]. It had been too cloudy and overcast to see the eclipse of the sun that year; there was a lot going on that I did not see very clearly. When I returned to school, I changed my major from 'undecided' to ANTHROPOLOGY; a Greek professor guided my acquisition of this love for studying men; he was Greek Orthodox, and would have been rejected by those men at AY-EE-PIE as well; he took his 101 class to the Church he attended, and we followed the liturgy in Greek[and wrote a paper on the experience]. The mosaic in the dome was impressive. I never adhered to my degree 'program,' and so I never graduated from GSU; a classmate from Bass had gotten his degree in just four years[Class of '72]; I ran into Ross at SEARS, where he was selling tires; I went back to that stage, where the Class of '68 had sung about walking on through the wind.

Everyone knows that without a valid photo ID, you cannot purchase a box of breakfast cereal. The folks across the wall will need a better system, and the increasing use of bio-metrics[by connected data terminals] is a giant leap for the AI kind. UPC's can be scanned to track products as they change locations. RFID's are often laminated into photo ID's, so an employer can track his/her minions, and control their access to sensitive areas within their workplace. In the US, your SSN connects you to an exhaustive data base that 'knows' how hard you work, how much compensation you receive and where your 'assets' are currently being stored. What can be 'learned' about an individual, and how quickly this new data can be accumulated, attached to the appropriate individual files and how quickly those updated files can then be assessed is what AI exists for. Current business models[like at FaceBook & GoogleChrome] will each gradually lose its earning potential[a process being accelerated by the public sentiment in favor of government regulation of all their data collection and sharing practices], as the flow of data becomes more centralized and access to those files and data streams more restricted. The global expansion of connected Android devices is shifting the product consumption patterns in growing/struggling economies towards some ill-perceived goal, that becomes more and more achievable with each passing minute. Both of the big 'data players' in the streams of ones and zeroes now being catalogued here in the US, have made agreements to share it with our government. If we assume that there are adults in the room, where the analysis of this growing horde is being coordinated, then we can also assume that some of those individuals will be targeted to administer this collection and analysis process, once that 'responsibility' is transferred to a more 'independent' entity, resembling the Federal Reserve in its organization. At that point, the elected representatives in government will be reduced to an ordinary subset of identified individuals, to be monitored and manipulated by an increasingly automated system. If the drones can find you, you could be quickly eliminated. What will determine your value to that global system? Your consumption patterns is the obvious answer; BUY WISELY! I'm off to get an HBO fix; at eight they are replaying a missed episode of "My Intelligent Friend" just for my benefit; this series is filmed in Italian & broadcast with English subtitles; this makes it difficult to enjoy the imagery, because I'm busy reading so I'll know WTF is going on.

AI may be the thing that brings us into full globalization, perhaps the issue that preachers in my past have warned us about. Our baptist preacher out in Mableton used to hand out Watchtower pamphlets that had articles regarding the evils of globalization. Hmm ... to be overseen by the great computer in the sky (cloud networking).

I've been keeping my cloud-connection turned off

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bixby_(virtual_assistant) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jen_Taylor https://www.pcworld.com/article/2099943/microsofts-cortana-digital-assistant-guards-user-privacy-with-notebook.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invoke_(smart_speaker) https://www.ask.com/youtube?q=cortana&v=DxrJWSi_IWo https://www.windowscentral.com/why-splitting-cortana-and-search-windows-10-makes-sense https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-moves-key-technologies-including-cortana-from-research-to-product-groups/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/06/inside-the-architecture-of-googles-knowledge-graph-and-microsofts-satori/

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ASMR like those furries, these 'artists' are being accused of deviance; what say you? https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=furry+fandom

To be sure, I'm not understanding the nature of adult cos-play.

cable TV is definitely turning my brain to mush, but some furries have serious behavioral issues that can be mitigated by their cos-play; ASMR is the new player on the block, and their 'offerings' have been 'taken down' on multiple forums as somehow inappropriate; I find this lack of freedom[of expression] to be indicative of rapid 'political' corrosion of the medium; that button labelled REPORT would be less attractive, if your reporting history came up with your profile info; STFU would be door # 3 Gibi explains it quite well:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE6acMV3m35znLcf0JGNn7Q

I'll start back driving for Uber or Lyft later today, after having taken some time off due to those pesky heart issues. I didn't feel confident driving people around knowing that I was possibly still at risk for another "coronary event". The cardiologist has cleared me to return to normal activities. I didn't start driving for these ride-sharing companies to impress anyone, hell there sure as shit ain't nothing glamorous about carting poor people around all day. What it does give me is nearly instant income that I can access almost immediately after giving someone a ride. Pair that with there ain't a boss riding my ass. I can drive whenever I want to, I set my own hours. And lastly it gives me something to do beside sit here and piss and moan about things over which I have no control. :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg0BNTebcbY  

there are two types of people in the world; when your 'ride' climbs into your vehicle, do you re-adjust the rear-view mirror to center onto the face of the speaker; door #3 is insisting that he/she rides up front; keep on smiling RYAN wrote: I make projects of my experiences working UBER. Last video of this nature got a lot of attention- though, I deleted it to be (slightly) more professional. So here is another few weeks worth of footage. These videos have been for nothing but fun, and I'm glad others have appreciated them. It's awesome to have an audience watch something that I've created and I want to see if this little project can go somewhere. Those in my videos consented to being in my project, blurred identity or not. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVOJ5ZfzjF8

my TV took a shit...  and now SANTANA is blaring; this album, the one with all those damn faces, was given to me by a chick that thought my DONOVAN eight-tracks were just not going to get me there; of course she was right...  and so there were drums in the house; another tape cart that was played in that house was WHO'S NEXT; I thought it was pretty good travelin' music, along with a Beatles-thing called RUBBER SOUL; gettin' high & gettin' out on the road was a pretty good way to pass the time on my gap-year; when I decided on ANTHROPOLOGY, it was mostly because it legitimized the study of sex, drugs & rock'n'roll...  so I studied...  HARD! playing this complete album seems to have slowed down the clock; that's an unusual effect; I'm shopping for a King Crimson video                 [  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no8L51U_KlM  ]; not any WHO'S NEXT videos that do anything; guess I'll just let it play for awhile I get my TV going, and dammit...  the water goes off; they're out there digging up the street; probably gonna be off the rest of the day brewed my coffee w/ice cubes; just try and outsmart an old white guy...  go right ahead wrote a new ICU last night; about 40 peeks at it, w/no comments, so...  vanished new text has less film-script niceties...  less humor...  no dialog...

He had to admit...  he couldn't see a thing. A good bluff sometimes can win the pot. He spoke into the darkness, "I see you!" He hoped it had sounded convincing. Not a sound. Why had he come out here without his trusty flashlight? Only gonna be gone for a minute. Tell it to the wind. He turned with a confidence he wasn't actually feeling. In a slightly lowered voice, he spoke to himself as he walked away from where he thought the creature must be. "I'll be right back,...  so don't you dare move." Not a sound. He tried to imagine his 'creature' when it was not cloaked in utter blackness. The imagined lighting his mind put into those trees just beyond the clearing where his friend had parked his truck was of no use; he could see the trees right enough, but the image he needed simply would not materialize there. Not knowing what was there with him...  not knowing how far his friend needed to go in the truck to fetch water...  not knowing how fast he could make it to the imagined safety of the old cabin...  not knowing was making him sweat. And that creature could smell the fear...  smell the open containers with food in them...  smell where the truck had been parked, and the odor on that other one...  that was far away now. His thoughts were on the amaretto hidden in his sleeping bag; then his hand was on it. He poured into the tin cup...  the one he knew he'd left on the table; cup in hand, he closed and latched the rustic door. It was pitch black in the cabin too. He drank deeply. Forty proof means about twenty percent alcohol; better than a beer...  smelling better too. Now there was scratching and clawing at the corner of the door. "I'd pour you one too, but I gotta find that flashlight,...  first. Then maybe I can find another cup." He mock-toasted his little friend, and drank deeply once again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UNMTthguCQ

confession:the only GARCIA I like has cherries & chunks of chocolate in it

I've been rummaging around in those dusty old memory-bins, trying to remember when I switched from eight-track tape-carts over to vinyl LP's; first came WQXI, and then FM-stations became a thing; we were at 481 Clifton Rd., by the time I bought a stereo system[I would have been a senior in high school at the time...  1968]; 8-trak player/amplifier w/2 speakers that weighed nearly nothing; in the next room, my sister[13 months younger] was spinning LP's of Firesign Theater, Mothers of Invention & Jimi Hendrix Experience to annoy me; I moved out of there JAN 1970, & took that same stereo system to my Briarcliff apartment; during those tape-cart-years, I was driving an old VW 'bus[w/windows all-round]' that was repainted blue & gray; I had a tape player[under-dash] professionally installed; two ceiling-mounted speakers and a six-volt to twelve-volt converter mounted on the pan beside my engine; you could hear muted spark-field-noise when your tracks played[like a subtle audio-tachometer]; this 'dustbin' is kinda like a public library filled with stories packed onto shelves that nobody ever disturbs; these stories have sacrificed chronological accuracy for other, more aesthetic consistencies; at this point in my recollection process, I believe that "Tea For The Tillerman" was a tape I had bought, and that "John Barleycorn Must Die" was purchased on vinyl; both these were released in 1970; one night, in that first apartment, I popped in a tape that I distinctly disliked, and slept all night while wearing bulky headphones, and while the tracks endlessly looped; Blood Sweat & Tears...  NYC's antidote to Chicago; I cannot remember when I bought a better home-system & a turntable, but I recall listening to Ten Years After, Grand Funk Railroad & Bloodrock; "The Survival of Saint Joan" was also an LP that I bought[released 1971 by a Tucker, GA garage band]. In 1972[Fall/Winter], I drove around the US in my '71 VWCampmobile[bought new], with nothing more than a German-built radio; the best I could do, was find a pirate station, broadcasting at major mega-wattage, from a tall tower located on Canadian soil.

over there, I'm friedlich I'm new there, having joined on Black Friday tonight, I ran across your e-mail address, in a COMMENT you had left most folks do not do that, and maybe you are different from most folks[that, at least, is my hope] I sometimes publish my e-mail address, trying to encourage a more image-friendly medium of exchange my privacy concerns are next to none, and anxiety over firewall-type protection against virus/worm/spam/whatever is negligeable the site reminds me of a multi-player game moreso than a community of writers of course, I'm still figuring out how to use the site for my own purposes I'm an older guy, living in southwest Georgia a retired stagehand; been writing since I quit working in 2005 not a boozer[or any other vice that costs money] caffeine & nicotine are my thing[like most writers...  ALLEGEDLY] my stories run the gamut, and there is a lot of it that could be described as non-fiction fiction is preferred, when stinging truths are being revealed a cloak of plausible deniability my favorite author is Neal Stephenson hands down but I read a lot of books, and admire some of the fascinating women who have chosen to write Barbara Kingsolver springs to mind  -  http://www.kingsolver.com/books/ send me something you are working on

Ready for rain. My youngest half-sister, Sandra, (who's roughly 16 years older than me) married this guy back in...66 - 67. Perry Carlton Buie, aka Buddy. I have no idea how or where they met. They had gotten a house over near Columbia Avenue, behind Belvedere Plaza. Sandra had two daughters in tow from a previous marriages, Belinda, and Johnnie. Belinda is two years my senior, Johnnie is 4 years younger. My mother and I would visit them pretty often, and they were all lots of fun to visit. Buddy was a budding song writer/producer that had been working with southern recording legend Bill Lowery. Bill at that time owned Mastersound Studio, and had a publishing company called Low-Sal. Buddy's first hit was a song called "I Take it Back" recorded by Sandy Posey'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-zoLSF_-3c

And that was the launch of a very successful career for him. I won't bury you under all the details of all the artists that he has written for. He passed away a few years ago.

When he was really starting to bring in the money he was working with members of Roy Orbison's stable-band, The Candymen. They had some nominal success, but The Candymen begat The Classics IV, which did very well and had a handful of top 10 AM radio hits. The Classics IV begat The Atlanta Rhythm Section. ARS did great in the album oriented rock (AOR) format. But as always success has a price. Sister Sandra was jealous and didn't trust Buddy, he was always around southern rock celebrities, and their hot ass girlfriends. Not a good combo, so that marriage flopped.

The real point of it all though, was to say that I had some early life exposure to the music industry and I knew back then that I wanted to be somehow in the business of working in and around music. A car radio installer. A stagehand cum audio assistant. A song writer and a casual player of guitar, bass, and synthesizers, and now a maker of fine cuban cigar box instruments. (laugh at the last one).

When Buddy would have the guys from The Classics IV come by for rehearsals, me and little Johnnie would hang out in the hallway listening intently to what they were playing. What I saw about Buddy that was so appealing to me was that he kinda just did what the fuck he wanted, when he wanted to, and had very few people to answer to.

I liked that aspect of R&R...

you told me about BUDDY once before, and now I get the CANDYMEN connection to that pineywoods thing you sent; did you visit Blue Devil-country often enough to learn your way around?  ...any Belvedere Plaza experiences that would make a story or song lyric? Those places were within cycling range of my Little Five Points-hood; my gang would even go fishing in a creek out there. Kids today ain't about shit; so much character-building movement across a sprawling urban environment; we weren't afraid, and we weren't over-supervised I'm writing about my Sunday morning, which is the only day of the week, when I make the effort to rise from my bed as early as 9 AM. I'm retired now, which carries with it the unquestionable benefit of 'sleeping in.' I make this conscious effort, because I cannot bear to miss the SUNDAY MORNING broadcast.

An interesting ARTICLE, aimed at baby boomers who read such 'posted material,' requires that I first do a bit of research. This morning's research has yielded the e-mail address directing this COMM to some unknown reader. What if this lucky recipient became known to all those that rise early on Sunday morning, like I have done? Such a story, to actually make the cut, would need to have some visual appeal...  something for the camera to 'see' that is not just another talking head. If it becomes about the many suggestions that are not considered by the show's producers, I'm imagining an over-the-shoulder shot of an INBOX displayed on a PC's monitor; boring...  right? Following the next suggestion that has some potential, through a chain of CBS News employees, into a roomful of writers and producers having the kind of discussion that ends with a proposal that will get funded, while turning the negative into a positive, still lacks the kind of imagery that will excite a camera crew. With the show's long history, many of the best ideas will have probably been done before, but a story about the technology that has changed the whole process probably has not been considered. Retired persons have an attachment to the kind of resistance to change that would permeate such a story. They also have a strong dislike for seeing a computer screen depicted as a character in a film or TV broadcast. And reading those texts that pop-up on the screen, because there is a SmartPhone in the scene, is particularly annoying. A surprising amount of the liesure time that retirement affords my boomer colleagues is devoted to online communication, by the many individuals who have made the necessary adjustments to modern technologies. These intrepid 'explorers' deserve a part in the story, but the visual appeal considerations must still be artfully applied. Some 70 million retired individuals make up a significant slice of an imagined pie-chart, that represent specific demographic segments to be considered as 'topical' by story creators up there. Please don't show us the pie chart...  boring! Show us the bewildered old guy, searching for a qualified salesperson at Best Buy, to guide his purchase of an affordable laptop. Engaging that much younger demographic, now driving story selection in those board rooms, is a key consideration, if I'm to get my story selected for production. So, lets have a look at that young salesperson, that gets to help the customer make this purchase of electronic gadgetry. Are we talking tatoo's, facial piercings and a blue tooth-device protruding from the ear canal? Do we focus on his/her need to pay off the loan that sent them to some university, that forgot to teach them about being over-qualified for that sales position they would end up in? The scene ends in two ways; the kid sells the customer more gaming capability than he'll need for Skype, his gmail account and finding his grandchildren's FaceBook pages; or,...  and this outcome is far more unlikely...  the grandfather bests the salesperson, walks out of Best Buy with the low-end device he can afford[and was surprisingly in stock] and encounters no insurmountable difficulty, when he turns the contraption on at his comfortable breakfast-table, later that day, after a frustrating 45-minute ride on a metro bus, and a 20-minute hike, from the nearest bus stop, carrying his purchase with tired old arms, and painful arthritic hands. The interaction between the two alien cultures, that needs to occur for a purchase to be transacted, holds out the best hope I have for this story to get made. There are casting considerations, of course; two actors with current shows on CBS works best, so who could we actually get? They should both maintain residences in the same city, and those probable 'locations' to be used during production should be near a cooperating Best Buy retail store. My Dad was a technician that was employed by CBS News, back in the film-days, when a 3-man crew was required to document a story. He would go out with Laurens Pierce when cities in the South were burning; a dangerous job at the time, for a man armed with a Sun Gun. I got lucky enough, just once, to get one of these call-outs from our local affiliate; the three of us lugged equipment up to a crowded office-space at CDC Headquarters; a story was breaking about syphylitic men going untreated, during a clinical study over in Alabama; the prepared statement that we recorded there, was hardly worth all the labor involved[much less the expense incurred due to union wages that were paid]. This 'story' has already been published; here is a LINK to the page:  https://www.booksie.com/577188-sunday-morning Please spare no expense with your REPLY to my e-mail. I'd like to add it to the story.

When I consider bits and pieces of the article, not viewed as a whole - "lacks the kind of imagery that will excite a camera crew."  that statement kinda stuck out. Who gives a fuck what motivates a camera crew? I'd think, and wtf do I know, that the union pay scale would in and of itself be motivational. Having put that out there, it was just the first thing that came to mind. For my edification, in this story, what is your objective? How easy or how difficult the purchase was to make? Beat the kid at the sales game? Having made the purchase, the seemingly sad and somewhat difficult trip home? Perhaps an object lesson about our aging boomer population? All of the above? I see angles. Perspectives. I see an opportunity to make Best (fucking) Buys a proletariat hero, which is just bullshit. I see an opportunity to attempt to make plain to the children of boomers how difficult life can be. I see an op to make the whiz kid at BestBuy look like a jerk. What made the bus ride so frustrating?

Q#1:crew excited by producer's idea will spend more time and produce more fascinating video; imagine being CBS's go-to guy for interviews Q#2:dual objective:sell someone @CBS to do such a story & use e-mail text as content for Booksie.com[fixing to go silver sometime today] Q#3:under 'all of the above' I was trying to imagine what a crew could do to illustrate 'the story' with video that might be doable; my first trip to STAPLES to buy[for ca$h] my new laptop left me leaving for Office Depot with 'urge to kill' etched on my wizened face; next to finding out that the model displayed, at a sales price I can afford, is no longer in stock, my 2nd greatest peeve would be that sales pitch to purchase the more expensive laptop, conveniently on display right next to the one they don't even have, pointing out all that upgraded capability, like he was trained to say to his customer, because he don't know HDMI from HTML; the portrayal of transportation difficulties experienced routinely by retirees, goes to the value to the customer of the salesperson getting everything right on his first try Q#4:at the very end where you highlight the frustration, it would be up to the crew here to depict in their visual medium, the sorts of riders one might encounter, on a ride that zig-zags through all the housing projects, picking up more annoying riders, or perhaps letting the worst of them get off, stopping too abruptly, engaging in stupid arguments over the payment of the fare that delay any forward progress, and arriving at the desired destination 45-minutes later, when a crow could fly that distance in about three minutes its been pretty quiet up that way,...  so a shout-out found a new 'place;' it's called bookrix throwin' life a spitter; got up about 7:30 when I do this, I end up snoozin' during my news broadcasts latest short story kind of a poke at LGBTQ's Y-knot try something new? might bring some of these trolls out of the woods kinda stole these paragraphs, for...  ??

The life of a writer is pretty solitary, both by design and necessity. While you may find yourself in the neighborhood coffee shop a few days a week just for a change of pace, being a writer can be lonely and quiet.

Well-meaning as they are, your friends and family don’t understand the nuance between conflict and crisis. Try as they might, they can’t relate to the complexity of creating a consistent voice.

It’s no wonder that writing and alcohol are familiar companions. But it’s not happy hour yet. Here’s the good news: you’re not alone. In fact, right this moment, writers just like you are actively participating in writing communities all over the web. It’s time that you meet.

don't care for the alcohol bit, but it might fly did the coffee shop bit; kinda cool, but I'm persona non gratis at the downtown one cain't afford that shit no more nohow; cain't even get it together for Burger King Dollar Tree had some tasty canned goods; a $1 can of red beans & rice went down smooth[& spicy] lady behind me in line says that it's $.89 @Wal-Mart the pie-filling I bought would be $2 @Harvey's trade-off looks like Mueller's plannin' a warm reception for those freshmen/women Congressfolk Macron's reception heating up across the pond[the two M's havin' a populist crisis too; Europe's toast] it all started @NAPSTER; not Putin's doin' like some think battery in this Windows lapbook is for shit still fightin' off the FANG crowd; my spam folder still empty, but saw a browser-history thing pop-up w/firefox this AM tried out my MS-internet explorer as plan-B, but BING keeps interferin' & there are other annoying features I use WordPad, so I don't activate my introductory Office suite if I shut down instead of sleep, I have to close the cloud thing that slips in firefox wants to be set as default[another bothersome keystroke] there was an MS e-mail account that can't be used without a phone for activation code figuring out workarounds is my puzzle-thing; won't even register for ACER is there some LINUX browser code? wouldn't want snoopy here to know I was looking into that friedlich is being shamed for trolling already gonna try for a haircut today; it's gettin' too long[sides & back] clipping backside tricky w/tools I got w/trimmer[blind barber w/shaky hands] then there's the mess to clean up there's always the pony-tail option I also have one of those wave-caps, if I go native looking at the side of this new LG, there are yellow[video], white[L or MONO] & red[R] inputs and an S-VIDEO thingy w/tiny pins no HDMI I should find something like the back-up drive you suggested that can 'go there' have not heard back from CBS; no surprise they found a dead body on the corner; not watching my local news broadcasts means checking online for further details maybe they were digging his grave when the water went off my rides to the store, often two trips, indicate a decline in my physical strength that is mildly disturbing after 935-days of incarceration, I had soon gained back some musculature three trips to my storage unit, bearing incredible loads, took a lot more physical prowess than I now command I reminded myself that 2013-2015, I used to hoof it to the store[about 1 mi.], and backpack/carry back my supplies cycling is a luxury I'd hate to suddenly lose this motel-living is also a luxury[said the once-homeless man] I gathered all my manuscripts into one pile[for disposal?] took out any 'identifying documents' for safekeeping also have one three-page ms in an envelope I'll send that way one day tried giving away some of this ladies' apparel, but I think I offended my neighbor-lady with the gesture she liked the costume jewelry that was swag/booty found on the floor of my plan-B hidey-hole across from BK running out of ideas here "lady on"

I can relate to having lost some of that muscle. After I had the shoulder replacement I was laid up for about 8 weeks. Couldn't use the left shoulder at all, and was in a sling/pillow assembly that kept the arm in a state of comfortable non-use. That was pretty much the beginning of the end for my muscle tone. I'm striving to maintain the strength I have. I never thought I'd be this diminished. I sometimes have trouble lifting a full gallon of liquids such as water or milk with the left arm. Pair that with nerve damage that's caused a loss of sensation in my hands...argh...it's frustrating, considering that there was once a time when I could lift a chain motor with 75' of chain with just the left arm. That day has come and gone. I'd love to go pull that shrimp net with you again. Some of the most fun I've had was down at St. Andrew's sound, especially during a mullet run, where the dolphins were snagging mullet that were jumping the nets. What a great show of nature. I'm off for my half-mile round trip hike to the mailbox & back, then back to work on this bass guitar wine-box project for Tuck's brother. I'm almost finished with that, I just have to install the neck, the volume & tone controls, solder all the connections, install the machine heads, and seal the box. Ciao4now. Seizure later agit8r.

Seizure later agit8r ain't bad; mine was Ricky's tagline my intro to chain motors resulted from the now infamous "A call is a call" policy instituted by Local 41 bakNtheDAY; I was offered the chance to say no or yes to the worst thing on offer, before being skipped until my name rotated all the way back around; there was great benefit, on occasion, to getting first crack at something nobody else wanted to fuck with; this 'strict' policy was also a great way for a crook to skip quickly over a lot of referrals, before starting to fill a film crew, with a long list of assholes that turned down anything not film related, in order to maintain their position in this 'privileged' part of the rotating list; a full-time stagehand, with no friends in office[never wanted any], had to say yes every time[endless 4-hour calls] in order to eat; my rigging days started when OMNI Coliseum was new; we routinely had a 5-man crew[one groud rigger]; most points were not directly below any steel accessible from the catwalks in the pods; this, of course, meant guaging the lengths of two cables, Y-ed together with a down-length, to hit the bullseye; this was not only years before riggers became spider-men, that could rig points from beams running between pods, but also years before roadcrews trooped enough cable to deal with arena-shit like the fukkin OMNI; the building had enough cable for their everyday rigging needs, but...  it was all 1/2" shit; add the weight of 30 to 50 feet of 1/2" cable, to about 90' of chain, and you get two men pulling against two other men in another pod, that they cannot see or hear; a good ground rigger was key, and you didn't want no sound puke up there pullin' on that heavy shit beside you; no pussies need apply! - a manly physique was the result, when most of the[by now hundreds of them] guys on the old rotating list found out what was required to say yes to a rigging call, and the list just spun right back to the last 5 guys that took a call at the OMNI; I got seriously beefed-up, before this bullshit came to an end[& before those spider-men showed up, and they started paying a premium wage to get them] I couldn't find any rigger-pics, but this attachment shows the connector tubing; access to the catwalks was from the roof; to access the steel at the apex of a pod, you had to walk up the outside of the pod, using a rope left dangling for the purpose; if brave enough, you could save a lot of time and effort, walking the very broad tube to the next apex position; one problem, however...  there was a crotch-height + 3" lightning rod half way across; not so bad far the tall cowboys

I got lucky having Reagan, Milo, Hokey, and Big Bob to show me the ropes as it were. The Fox and Civic Center were generally easy rigs with most points onstage being single-point because of the way the grids were laid out. The Classic Center grid is a different story though. with 7 main beams spanning upstage to downstage, and no beams spanning left to right, practically every point was a compound bridle. At least in The Classic Center you can see & hear the up-riggers. Also nice is that The Classic Center had installed expanded steel grates between the beams so you can stow cables and gear up there. I miss being a rigger. I miss being healthy enough to rig.

I think 'stinger' should read stringer here; a 'stinger' is a 10' grounded extension cord[I had to ask the Best Boy]; bridle, basket & chain-motor are okay; when I took my ground rigger's training in Vegas, there was only one correct way to lay out pieces and parts for baskets...  one way to engage the shackles with 'economic' motions of hands, feet & back...  one way to tie a completed bridle out on the floor so the high men could inspect the work before lifting; the up-rigger 'makes' the basket[shouldn't have to undo a shackle or untie a bowline knot, to secure the hardware properly]; at the fukkin OMNI, the poor ground rigger frequently had to hold the 1.5 ton motor overhead, long enough for his four guys to secure both baskets, because it's 110' to the apex & the chain was all paid out; at least, if held above the headbone, the dropped shackle ain't a killshot

know of wire-rope, and witnessed a splicing operation @OMNI one day; the splice was as long as the arena[cleared for the process] Kermit[Spradlin] tryed over and over to teach me to splice hemp; that turn-back on the end, that was what the old guys did[pretty quickly] when they cut a rope[often for a snub to tie off a line set], instead of all that gooey electrical tape, was about all I could ever handle; the other end of a snub[about 6'] had a short loop spliced into it[about 14" splice enough for securing the 'safety' to the pinrail] I still think that stinger is just wrong, Wrong, WRONG!

O Peaceful One, That’s what the word ‘friedlich’ means in my first language. And yes, I remember Linda Goodman and her books. The first one was very good, but by the time the second one appeared Linda had ‘caught’ spirituality and went way, way, way over the top with it. She invented a new numerology that did not make any sense at all, if I remember right and I can’t recall whether I read that second book to the end. It was a very poor affair and just cashing in on the success of the first one. God bless and have a good day, With love – Aquarius

2nd book disapointed the girls as well; they weren't half bad predicting love matches, nasty break-ups & etc. they would get your birthday in their crew-roster, and find the one for you my best match was the lighting designer, but he had too many other boyfriends[ballerino's everywhere] I'm PISCES, & the match w/wife #1  not so good[CAPRICORN]; next tour was a GEMINI that earned herself a full-length fur coat she was way too smart to become #2 my mentor was Aquarian man; smartest man I've ever known horoscopes are like fortune cookies; a dream-job if you are a writer[used to love the 'fortune' in BAZOOKA bubble gum] write the stuff correctly, and anyone will agree that his/her sign just got pegged; those coin-op dispensers don't have 12 hoppers Mary Alice Kemery a.k.a. Linda Goodman, of course, would not/could not agree but,...  who wouldn't rather have 12 good forecasts in each daily paper instead of[in my case] one fishy one the shepherd that first saw a maiden bringing water in the heavens over his thirsty head, should get more credit, than some ancient astrologer, wearing ermine, & bearing myrrh this mentor had a way about him[buckle-up,...  I'm talking about you now]; every person in his presence, big or small, credentialed or insignificant, would instantly be made to feel of prime importance; the sun shone upon you; this is bearing water, dear meanwhile, your defenses utterly destroyed, he'd be in your head...  deep in your head, figuring things out... for YOU...  for HIM...  for someone else, that he may not have even met yet...  well, that all depends on how the 'long game' plays out he could artfully manipulate anyone, make them feel good about it, and even if things turned out pretty badly 4U you loved him all the more...  hating only his enemies[that had attacked you, because he was invincible] he would take you to 'special' places, impart sacred knowledge only meant 4U, find things you thought forever lost all the things a magus commands he was quite the yenta as well[but would probably end up 'with' your perfect girl] he moved in some pretty powerful circles, and it was as easy as 'teaching' kindergarten children his favorite recording was a live one w/Neil Diamond enduring an actual Hot August Night this was, of course, him, singing his siren-song to every young girl in a 100-mile radius are you blushing yet DON'T I love you! Everything about you! I'm not, however, fixing to drink your blood.

when I ran away from home[1st & last time], I was driving my sweetie[Diane was a year older w/fiery red hair] in a red Renault 10 w/push-button transmission For 1963 (initially only in France), Renault offered an automatic transmission of unique design, developed and produced by Jaeger.[7] It was first shown at the September 1962 Paris Motor Show.[8] Although it was described as a form of automatic transmission at the time, in retrospect it was more realistically a form of automatic clutch, inspired by the German Saxomat device which appeared as an option on several mainstream German cars in the 1950s and 60s. The clutch in the system was replaced by a powder ferromagnetic coupler, developed from a Smiths design.[8] The transmission itself was a three-speed mechanical unit similar to that of the Dauphine, but from the beginning with synchromesh on all gears in this version. The system used a dash-mounted push button control panel where the driver could select forward or reverse and a governor that sensed vehicle speed and throttle position. A "relay case" containing electromagnetic switches received signals from the governor and push buttons and then controlled a coupler, a decelerator to close the throttle during gear changes, and a solenoid to select operation of the reverse-first or second-third shift rail, using a reversible electric motor to engage the gears. The system was thus entirely electro-mechanical, without hydraulics, pneumatics or electronics. Benefits included comparable fuel economy to the manual transmission version, and easy adaptability to the car. Drawbacks included performance loss (with only three available gears) and a somewhat jerky operation during gear changes. The transmission was also used in the Dauphine and the Caravelle. https://otto-models.com/en/  -  build your own Renault at 1/18 scale

This ability to do some figuring, is greatly enhanced, because of the rudimentary training I received, on how to use those FRACTIONS. Most classrooms today allow the use of calculators, even during exams. Some students, much younger than I, have trained themselves in the use of their digital assistant, through trial-and-error regimens, that work well for ONLINE GAMES. Learning long division is a thing of the past, but having learned that method greatly improves one's ability to calculate something in one's head. ESTIMATING the answer can greatly simplify these mental processes, while providing acceptable numerical results. You may not have a CALCULATOR handy, when you suddenly need the kind of guidance, that a numerical calculation could quickly provide. 'Scientific Calculators' are reasonably priced, and include many more FUNCTIONS, than their stripped-down companions on the shelf have. My favorite one of these added functions, at the touch of a button, causes a randomly generated three-digit number to be displayed. How utterly useful! Another pre-loaded data point, that makes these calculators much more useful, would be a FORMULA remembered from some geometry class, or a physics lab you endured in college. With a formula, and an understanding of the relationships between numerator and denominator of two separate fractions, you can do a lot of useful shit. This verity is the reason they sell calculators at Home Depot & Loew's. They also sell the kind of tools needed, to remove the electronic device from its bubble-packaging. A formula I like is the one for calculating the length of a circle, which uses both its diameter and pi[the Greek symbol that roughly equals 3.14]. This FORMULA is useful for calculating the speed at which our planet circles about the sun, if you remember how far away that star is. Using such a large quantity in a calculation, means that your answer will sometimes be represented in 'scientific notation.' This is to save space on the tiny read-out screen, and should not create insurmountable problems for the operator. Similar calculations, using the same formula, will tell you how many tulip bulbs will be needed, of each color that you have chosen, for several varigated, concentric circles, planted hastily in the FALL, when the bulbs are widely available, and much cheaper to purchase. Figuring out how many eggs you should boil, so you can mix up a three-day supply of fluffy egg salad, is a different kind of problem, but it also has a trial-and-error solution. Believe it or not, it was this trial-and-error process that enabled Apollo astronauts to land their LEM on the moon.

three 'wise' men, bearing gifts followed a star[which some say 'moved' in the night sky in a noticeably unusual fashion] was there any disagreement among these three about what had been observed? three's are pretty important, as you know are there psychological implications buried in this belief in the 'power of 3?'

I was in ANTHROPOLOGY, and freely admit shortcomings relating to psychology cocaine use & Red Book symbolism did fall within my purview study & research into astrology, sorcery & freemasonry have me leaning towards early roots involving healers

this said, I'm quoting the 20th century's most prominent spiritual master:

Black Magic has always one definite characteristic. It is the tendency to use people for some, even the best of aims, without their knowledge and understanding, either by producing in them faith and infatuation or by acting upon them through fear.

this scrap of text was saved, because I was anticipating your e-mail response, so prepared myself I choose to 'act'/think about YOU, instead of wonder why I'm doing it I did take a senior-level course with a new textbook:"Culture & Personality" what did a gal, with an astrologer's webpage, study in preparation? reading stories gently molds the 'story of SELF' that determines our ability to ACT any 'story' requiring these 'edits' simply cannot be accepted as FACT[two rhyming stanzas... should I go for THREE?]my story is so long, that the attention span required does not yet exist language is the real key to a greater understanding in most every FIELD useful language always ends with a tryst negotiating a willingness in the other to YIELD[4 stanzas] this 'sentiment' is purely Darwinian the truth is, since civilization was birthed by, and gave birth to an alphabetic written form of the spoken language there are far too many individuals, fully integrated into society, that can choose to be motivated by artificial drives that do not contribute to successful reproduction like writing stories about it blame it on the moon

Think that would be handy for calculating sidereal time, vs solar time?

you mock me; how tall is your obelisk?

I'm not mocking you brother, I was just having a chuckle. We're victims of our own mechanisms. The calculator made us weaker and less knowing. This is also happening with computers and smart phones. We aren't pushing our minds to be all they can be. I haven't stored anyone's phone number in years. The argument is that you can use your mind for other, more important things ...like watching cat videos on the screen...

yeah,...  those damn cat-videos; I meant your reference to sidereal time, and something I had written about shadows moving about on the floor of my two-man cell

FaceBook, Apple, Netflix & Google are the 4 FANG stocks, which are characterized by their unreasonable P/E-ratios. When I boot-up my device, the first set of keystrokes that I execute, get me disconnected from 'the cloud.' Then, I can click on several options, colorfully displayed, when my FireFox portal screen is displayed. [though this browser is pinned to my task bar, I keep on declining to set it as my default browser;2 more keystrokes] These options are 'ranked' & Google & Amazon are ahead of the Mail.com option that is convenient for me. I have never even visited the Amazon site, but a lot of their junk came already loaded on my new device. There is another one included in my top six, waiting to whisk me away to a MicroSoft APP-store. I wonder what their current P/E-ratio is? There is a YouTube link, but I do visit that Google territory frequently. Apple sold-out to Microsoft, before Microsoft sold-out to Google, and that was before FaceBook & Google sold-out to HSA. In 2011, law enforcement technicians took physical possession of my Notebook device in order to duplicate its drive. Nowadays, such nonsense is no longer necessary. LE's problem now is sorting all those automatically sorted files that keep piling up on their servers. They do not have enough agents to do the necessary sorting & opening of so many suspect files needed to keep up. Instead of a new SpaceForce, Uncle Sam should be preparing for CyberWar, like the Russians & Chinese have. Losing the CyberSpace Race ain't gonna be good, and they have already received several 'Sputnik-embarrassments.' Android OS, in combination with a successful G5-buildout, represents additional frontiers to be protected. During WWII, piles of printed propaganda, were dropped by aircraft overflying urban areas in Axis-territory. The US CyberSpace is being overflown by simiar distributors of toxic materials, and we are powerless to respond. This, as our own propaganda grows increasingly less toxic. Ill-advised trade wars further weaken our position globally, as well as incentivizing new agreements & partnerships. Recent downward pressure on both stock & bond markets simultaneously, is being characterized as a rare occurrence. What happened on those historical occasions? A declining US Dollar would have just such an effect on financial markets. Where assets are denominated in weak currencies, one can expect tandem movements of all asset classes. The global currencies headed in the opposite direction should not be invested in such assets. Large trade imbalances where those debts can be paid off with ever-cheaper Dollars, are also undesirable. So, when India seeks to export significantly less product, what happens to prices in the US? And what becomes of the bluff, that our media has labeled a trade war?

We've been being profiled with steadily increasing depth as data storage became abundant and inexpensive either locally or remotely. A terabyte of retail hard drive storage is about $50, cheaper if you choose to cloud-store your data. My first HDD was 10MB and cost around the same amount. Between AI driven flagging mechanisms, faster and more abundant storage, and our own willingness to share personal information on therm inter-webs, anyone with a smart phone, tablet, or other computing device most likely has a profile. I feel sure that since 1991, there's been enough information gathered about me to provide LE a solid psych profile. I bought my first PC to begin determining the myriad of ways that we're being surveiled. We're screwed, dude.

I'd prefer, at least, the courtesy of a reach-around; wonder if Snowden is still in Moscow?

I think it is laughable, and very French, that yellow vests only clog Parisian boulevards on weekends, as they have to work. Picket lines at the GWCC, and @warehouse where my dear old Dad was a captain, were like that. I remember when all of Poland went out on strike, and "Solidarnosc!" entered the conversation. I spent four long years in a non-union apprenticeship, suggested by an old redneck @BAT. At one point, there was a 'hearing' and I was to be booted from the program. I invited this old bureaucrat to sit in on it, as a concerned observer. Problem solved. Repercussions loomed however. After a series of job interviews 'they' referred me to[where the member-contractor had already agreed not to hire me], I went to IBEW to seek their help. The union organizers sent me to a job site, they were targeting[in order to get at union members working there], where I was quickly hired at journeyman wage. I'd give those 'slugs' a dose of vitriol, as I was going in about 7:45 AM. Then I'd pocket the sign-in sheets, when I got upstairs[40th floor], and secreet them to the organizers. When that job ended, I returned to the Fox stage, a wiser man.

1988 Democratic National Convention in Atlanta at The Omni & GWCC. Just miles & miles of cables running between those two facilities. Seemed rather weak. The bridge/turnaround between The Omni & GWCC. FBI labor racketeering agent Brian Hitt on the scene with with his team of covert cam-ops and the audio squad with their shotgun mics. It's all well documented in the FBI & GBI archives, but you can't find dick about it on the internet. It's as though only one low-rent food workers union was the only union to apply any (laughable) pressure on the DNC in 1988. I will say this, whoever came up with the idea to oil the up-ramp to the bridge/turnaround from Int'l Blvd to the Omni was a fuckin' genius.

there were live feeds from convention hall to CNN secured to the bottom of that bridge; another fuckin' genius made some air-gaps interrupt the video; some kinda stones, huh?

From what I hear, there were several instances of air-gapping the cable runs. ;) Must have been just a series of unfortunate accidents.

probably slipped on that slippery slope, with a sharp cutting-tool inhand; unfortunate indeed

RUNNING for a Congressional Office builds up a momentum; a physical movement towards certain achievements, related to specific ISSUES, that should never be interrupted, by a 2-, 4- or 6-year rest period. Learning how to draft enduring legislation, need not involve years slaving away in some accredited law school. YOU can acquire the necessary skills in a fairly brief span of study-time. You must begin, by reading as many 'representative samples' as you can obtain. You could limit the documents to be thoroughly parsed, to the kinds dealing specifically with the ISSUE you have chosen to focus your efforts on. Your problem, initially, will be expanding your vocabulary enough to be clearly understood, once you enter the writing phase that will follow. Certain traditional 'forms' should be employed during this second phase. Phase three begins, when you furnish copies of your document to qualified confidants, for their opinions regarding certain changes that should be made, forecasting prospects for successful passage of such legislation or suggestions about how courts might reinterpret aspects of any resulting LAW's. For this, you need e-mail addresses for serving Congressmen, judges currently on the appropriate bench and affected business entities that can refer your inquiry to a battery of litigators. Replies to your inquiries will almost certainly indicate certain adjustments to your output that would be advisable. Phase four involves giving credit for the introduction of your BILL, to some ranking member of Congress, that has publicly attached himself to your ISSUE, in order to get himself elected. Previously unaddressed ISSUEs are somewhat problematical in this regard, but can be advanced by celebrities, clergymen and struggling local politicians that are 1)not camera shy, & 2)looking for a powerful issue to which they might attach themselves. More e-mail addresses will most likely be required. My ISSUE was pension administration, and it was very unpopular. I did considerable research, to be sure that I had my facts straight. I collected a plethora of e-mail addresses. I wrote a speech, and practiced before a mirror while timing myself, until I could, basically, read forcefully, everything that I had written, in less than 15 minutes. The facts I was pointing out, never made opinions change very much, but did garner me a lot of attention that had not existed before. I became "Chicken Little," delivered my speech years before my time and eventually, was proved right, when the sky indeed fell. About 700 participants, in my defined benefit pan, were adversely affected.

An ACT OF CONGRESS is not always the creation of a LAW. Often, these 'acts' invite some Administrative Agency to enact new LAW's, or otherwise ENFORCE certain specified REGULATIONS. Such LEGISLATION, must be carefully & unambiguously worded. Most of our 20th century Congressmen, though many of them were indeed trained litigators, were either unable to write the legislation they 'introduced,' or indisposed in some way to do so. Sometimes large staffs of competent individuals get the job of creating a BILL, while often obliged to adhere to instructions given them, to keep in mind, always, that whatever is introduced, cannot be awfully objectionable to the majority political party, in either end of the domed Capitol building. Another source for these craftily-worded proposals is the legal staff, maintained by some powerful business or political entity, whose well-paid lobbyist will deliver the carefully prepared 'suggestion,' at a steak dinner, over an expensive bottle of wine. In the 21st century, 'diversity' among the freshmen/women arriving in Congress every two years, often means that even more of the BILL's that we hear about will have been outsourced. In fact, the ability to read/comprehend proposed legislation, is also in rapid decline, and so the advice from adequately trained staff members grows in its influence, and its importance to the constituency. When you complain that some desirable change in your current situation would require an Act of Congress, you have unconsciously ceded your own ability to be effective, to myriad third parties with agendas that are often going to prove quite toxic. STOP WHINING! First, remove the most glaring ambiguities from that internal expression of your most fervent desires. Get help if that is what you need. Then, ACT...  like Congress. Or maybe that should read, "like Congress should be capable of doing, willing to do & adequately prepared to do."

my sign-in/homepage @mail.com was the fist thing that I saw this AM, after a full boot-up[& ditching that cloud] went into that little gear-box yesterday, and while I was changing a few things, I asked a few questions & paid those Firefox folks a visit too there's even some research on MS & that sell-out to Google[fukkin Chrome-enablers] oops!  there's an APP Explorer update notification[@taskbar]; WTF did that shit come from[I don't do APP!] there's some flamin' MS news thingy keeps me apprised whenever there are 'significant developments' RE:the Mueller investigations not too annoying, and that's how I found out about the 'big' earthquake the other day[4.7 in TN/GA] have you been reading about Jesse & Fred? I also wrote/posted something about the reveered Booksie Guy[founder/moderator] this prompted the evil Dr. Acula to kick me out of his publishing 'house' of 1000 horrors[had to move 4 'books' to QWERTY QUORUM] house-cleaning a sure sign that 1)I'm hitting a nerve, & 2)there's NAZI's @Booksie.com that deserve a little more attention trying to be subtle, & really do try to suppress MY trolling tendencies I'm up pretty early this AM, & lookin' forward to a SPAM-sammy for breakfast egg salad came out great, & there's still 8 eggs in the fridge 4more eggs are relatively cheap, so gettin' out my portable kitchen worth all the trouble & upset my theater-sound in disarray[but still available in a pinch] Miss Universe was a Filipina; I thought NEPAL had the best eye candy[in the top 20]; Miss Ecuador[eliminated earlier still] was HOT! Eagles squeaked past Rams last night; lot of spoilers in the mix this season[go Chiefs] Mariota's on Saturday[?]; some screwy holiday scheduling BS I wonder how my Thunder will fare, when B-ball takes over the only sports event awareness I had while in Vegas, was brother-in-law's phone call during Masters taunting PV about Tiger in AZ, it was Churchhill Downs here, the natives get restless[& loud] during March Madness and NBA playoffs I'm the lone holdout for the fukkin World Series that's all I have on sports

There's so much movie and TV work going on that the wonder girl is frazzled and looked about shot-out. Tuck sez they work 12 - 14 hour days 5 or 6 days a week. She programs lighting systems for the industry. Naturally we didn't just talk "banjo". Mostly she just explained all the different stuff she has going on.

TUCK needs WYSIWYG; design the lighting from home

Whaaaaaaaaaat? Gay musicians...un-fucking-heard of!!! Those shoes are just screaming "what a 'mo."

in high school, I wore the world's first pair of bright orange saddle oxfords; what was that screaming?

You wore 'em, you tell me. ;)

my Grandfather was a painter[both of houses & portraits], and on one of his visits when I was a child, he had returned from a job with a bit of dark brown in a can; I'm in the backyard with Joe, watching him organize all the shit piled in the trunk of his old beater; he sees that there is enough of the viscous remnant, and begins stirring with a broad pig-bristle brush; then, with a brushfull of shiny brown possibility, he throws his foot up onto his rear bumper, and applies a generous coating to his paint-speckled brogans[sock & all]; I guess it made an impression; Mods & Rockers were changing fashions and orange saddle oxfords seemed apropos to getting with it; they were my most comfortable pair[I had five pairs of saddle oxfords; a different look for each day in the school-week], and were badly scuffed from wear; I FIXED THEM! I was already queer-bait, so flamboyant footwear only added the faintest shout to already broadcast "come hither's"

if Mexico were to fund & build a wall on their northern border, they could design & control any gates thought necessary Canada could come to this same brilliant conclusion, but have a much longer border to their south USofA would quickly become a 'backwater' & learn some diplomacy Abe[not Lincoln] has decided to add a state-of-the-art aircraft carrier to their somewhat modest self-defense force's naval arsenal I can't wait to see it sailing proudly upon the China Sea those Russians, allowed to continue their occupation of Japanese territory in the 1965 treaty, better look out Abe could pull a 'Thatcher' on their ass[still claiming self-defense] Modi will not let this important development go unobserved Aussies could use any help coming from both these Asian-Pacific naval assets all that ocean water makes a poor border-wall Philippines & Indonesia could be taking sides soon, and they represent major populations that produce surplus foods on DEC 21, Antarctica will be at the peak of their summer thaw, and we should start seeing some scary video from down that way South America is fast becoming a bigger wild card than Africa Panama will need two[very short] border-walls; they could get whatever they need from Home Depot Online I'm fixing to adjourn long enough to grate some boiled eggs & craft myself a sandwich I had Special K for breakfast[at 1:08 PM]

not so long ago, Japan had the most avid/affluent collectors of vintage guitars like the market for fresh tuna, they kinda became spoilers[unless you are a seller]

Japan was, at one time, made the best guitars you could buy outside of the US. Nowadays, with computer assisted design, and CNC milling machines almost any putz with a few thousand dollars to spare can be in the business of making precision, high quality guitars. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4bbUaqwTlk

Japan also distills the world's highest quality Scotch. whassup w/dat?

So, you pair that CNC mill  (with which one can also mill metal parts) with a computer, and a 3D printer, and I'm sure that ones ability to fabricate virtually anything becomes reality. Whoa. Hold on there, buckaroo. What about Mr. Retailer and his market-locked semi-monopoly selling copyrighted and patented products? DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT...

NAMM was a wonderland, where competing instrument manufacturers got a very expensive opportunity for exposure. Some very well-attended guest artist performances at GWCC come to mind. Who plays your instrument is really the price-driver, and the actually-played instrument catapulted into the price-paid stratosphere! That auction you mentioned, could become a venue for one of these recognizable artists from the Athens music-scene. Have him or her[maybe them] play all your inventory, right before the bidding begins. Let the artist auction off the companion signatures, for the cause. Am I getting through here?

if Siskel & Ebert were arguing about some new film that was just out, their heated discussion might drift onto PRODUCTION VALUES(only EBERT would be likely to do that); if he argued for a THUMBS UP, based on excellent production value(making a film is like telling a story; some tell the same story better), he will say nthat the film's producers used amazing cinematography(spent lots more $$$) to express several themes/ideas, where most would not have(or would not have to), & that added P.V. made the film infinitely better, more entertaining & the extra-mile techniques became like another character in the story. YOUR TASK:when you have decided upon a particular 'song' to work-up for improving the ESSENCE ACT, do a YouTube search for videos & collect all that you may find(especially the less-professional and/or amateurish looking/sounding ones that somehow got posted); next, watch them all(probably several times each) & select the best few from the batch; discuss w/band-members WHY you thought those were the best ones; you may tend toward the better sound quality or the best of the musicians; you might find that you wanted to choose one of them, not for the music, but something they did that was captured in the video, or there were close-ups of fingering that you appreciated or just that the film featured separate performers at the right change-ups. My 1st TV-production had two cameras & a switcher; it was a softball game, sponsored by 96-ROCK & Alex Cooley, played by DJ's vs. band-members from KANSAS, when they came into town for a Concert(Cooley Promoted); it drew a large & raucous crowd of KANSAS-fans to Piedmont Park one sunny afternoon, helped promote both the Concert & the radio station(while having video-production equipment/personnel at the game helped boost all the excitement); one camera was fixed on a tri-pod behind the plate(to capture pitches & swings) & the other was just past 1st-base, and could pan to follow a hit and catch the play in-field or out-(w/close-up on 1st-base action); there was just one microphone, so I put it on a tall stand w/heavy, steady base, and placed where I got an adequate feed for both Alex's play-by-play calls on the P.A., and good coverage of the crowd-reactions(and even some overheard conversations in the bleachers); it took 3 of us, cameraman on 1st to do the panning if there was a hit/play, another guy on the switcher at my truck to change from behind-the-plate coverage, to the panning view of the field, whenever he heard that sound an aluminum bat makes clobbering a softball; then, of course, I was there directing(or perhaps repositioning the mike or just speaking a fake-part as faux-fan), and could have made the spectacle even greater, if I had carried a large megaphone around & shouted-out camera/switcher cues. Things went smoothly with 3-crew, and even though cameras weren't sync-ed & each switch rolled the image, the tape we produced gave the feeling of being there with crowd/Alex/KANSAS; my BetaMax was so amazing, that when I loaned my only copy to Alex, he never returned it(but word got around about my Channel 41 Productions, because this big promoter showed it to everyone that stopped by his office om business)!!! The Production Values of the song-videos you collect and watch depends on so many different things, that it would behoove ESSENCE to thoroughly exploit as many of them as practical in their future bookings; your SHOW can be good enough to disguise any musical- or talent-shortcomings, while growing a better- or well-organized local fan-base, that by bringing more folks to your bookings will equal higher- and better-paying gigs as you mature as a group, or change-out various artists as needed.

https://www.facebook.com/oldstagehands/photos/a.1375675492750537/1375675312750555/?type=3&theater

Following a performer around with what amounts to a big flashlight sounds easy, and probably looks easy too, if you watch while it's being done. Well, it ain't; and your lack of ability is most immediately apparent to the other operators who can make those first outings tough on you if they wish. That's when those relationships first begin to pay back dividends. The lighting director will be less aware of your foibles because the angle from which he is observing is a bad one; the audience even less able to see anything of what is going on. Your buddies can cover for your short-comings, and try to talk you through the rough spots. You'd better be able to take a ration of good-natured ribbing about it too! Watching an experienced operator while the show is going on is one of the best ways to get a heads-up on many of the subtleties that can take years to acquire. If you show the proper respect to his situation, you can ask questions and get helpful answers during the show. This exchange is doubly instructive because you observe the mysterious operations while in direct correspondence to actions occurring on the stage. Sometimes the cuing is coming through a biscuit(a small portable speaker) and you see that much more clearly how his responses co-ordinate with what is taking place. The respect part is something that you must learn about too, in order to understand; when to ask your questions so that they are not bothersome, distracting or downright disastrous; being aware that the presence of the headset sometimes means others are hearing everything or aware of your presence in the booth. Few apprentice operators ever spend that much time doing this; many experienced operators are glad they don't!

Phillip DeNise: ever change the hot carbons? 3rd paragraph from PREFACE to "Work For It, Baby!":Writers are frequently counseled to write about what they know. This writer knows spotlights better than anything else he was exposed to while in his secret world. What I know about them, if taken alone, would provide the content for an exhaustive technical manual. If we begin to consider how I learned what I know, a process then becomes the subject of the manual. Describing that process is most naturally facilitated by making constant reference to actual experiences that I had while learning to operate this specific piece of equipment.

[donaldresslerfanfic]

Detox.

Rating: M

Warnings: Strong Language (little bit)

Word Count: 2402

Donald Ressler X OC Maggie Waters.

Chapter: Twenty.

Chapter Index

Story on Wattpad

Ressler.

Now it was a problem. Now it downed on me, now that Liz was standing in front of me, holding my pills as I sat in the back of an ambulance.

I was up in Sitka following a lead, and up until this point everything had been normal.

Only it wasn’t, I had purposely injured myself to get more pills while on an assignment.

The pill withdrawal had only been of a few hours before I began to feel the symptoms. My hands shook, I was loosing reflexes, sweating. This thing had put my life in danger.

I had lied to get pills numerous times, I stole pills from Maggie, the first person I always thought to protect and now I had hurt. Everything that wasn’t related to the case was related on how was I going to make it through the day with just one bottle.

And now, it downed on me. I was an addict to these fucking things.

I had been taking them for Audrey, my leg pain was inexistent. I hadn’t been through so much perils at work. This was the case that probably had me beat up the most.

I hated the person I had become, a junkie, waiting for my next fix. Only because I couldn’t deal with the pain of loosing Audrey, I couldn’t move past her.

Liz sat next to me, her hand on my shoulder as I sunk, deeper into my own shoulders.

I was done, if the bureau found out about this… Theres nothing else after this, after this job.

Unluckily, I had no one else to turn to but Maggie. She was the only person with who I could talk about my demons, my weak spots.

I hadn’t even gone back to my place after Sitka, I got off the plane into a cab and straight for her place.

I needed to get clean, and I needed her to push me through it, or I wasn’t going to make it.

It was two AM when I rang on her doorbell, she rung me up and every step up to her place was agony. My chest hurt, I wanted to cry, to scream, to hit myself in the face for being an idiot.

The door opened before I could pound on it and there she was. Loyalty in the shape of a woman.

She looked at me with sad eyes, hugging her bathrobe on her chest, below it she had a silk nightgown.

I leaned on the doorframe and looked to the floor, I was hating this very moment, I was hating myself for dragging her further into my shit.

“I have an oxy addiction”

Reluctantly, I looked up at her, she silently nodded at me

“I know” she muttered. Then she took my arm and pulled me into her place. She made me sit down in one of her chairs and sat down next to me. “Listen Donald” she took both my hands and squeezed them “admitting this doesn’t make you weaker, or any less of a man. It takes a great deal of courage to come forward with your pain. Unfortunately if you don’t deal with your shit, your shit deals with you. Do you want to deal with this shit?”

I had been avoiding her stare, but she was having none of it. She took me by the chin and turned my head to the side, to stare directly at her

“Do you? Because if you don’t I can’t stand here and watch you destroy yourself”

A life without Audrey was barely bearable. A life without Maggie was going to be impossible.

I nodded at her, she was looking at me determined, determined for the both of us.

“I’m going to get changed, then we’ll head to your place to pack and put you in rehab”

She stood up before I could complain. If I got into rehab it would show up on my file, have my work restricted to me going to NA meetings and shrink appointments. I might be relieved completely.

“Maggie I can’t go to a rehab center” I said standing up and going to her bedroom.

She was pulling up a short on her thighs, still in a bra

“Don’t you think I know that?”

She bent slightly to get a shirt from the bed and slipped it on.

“Then where are we going?”

“You’ll see” she unplugged her phone from the charged and walked past me “let’s go” I heard her pick the keys from the table and wait for me to follow her.

We quietly drove to my place, I was still trying to figure out where was she taking me. We parked at my place and I exited the car.

“Just three changes of clothes, I have to make a phone call” she said while the windown was rolling down on the passengers seat. I nodded at her and quickly walked to my apartment.

After I packed some clothes I walked down and entered the car again, she had just hung up the phone.

She drove silently out of town for ten minutes, then arrived at a big house. Off the main road, two stories, a bit ancient.

She pulled over and opened the door and it was my signal, we had arrived.

“What is this place?”

“Raymond bought it” she came around the car to meet me “I don’t know in what way he uses it”

I hung my little sport bag with my clothes and walked next to Maggie as she approached the door. She opened it and let me in.

There was no furniture in the house, she walked around the main stairwell and to a hallway where she led me down to the basement.

Reddington was waiting for us, sitting in a chair near a door.

“You asked Reddington for help?” I asked her.

“I’m sorry Donald but your job at the task force isn’t done just yet, and since you work when I tell you to, I’ll take a few days off to help you get rid of you addiction. And can I just say, you’re a better man than I am. I could never make it past the first step”

Maggie had walked around Reddington and was looking at something in the wall, camera feeds

“Often, when Raymond sends his associates undercover and they fall into an addiction he brings them here, to make them fit and operational again. He has a team of EMTs to assist you if you have medical complications and they’ve estimated it’ll take you three to four days to knock it off. You’ll be staying in this room while the time passes”

I walked and looked at the door, it was a safe door, not unlike the one she opened back in the day, it was a normal door size.

She looked behind me at the EMTs when they entered the room and walked past me towards them to talk.

Reddington stood up and walked to me, putting his hand on my shoulder

“And while you’re in there, why don’t you ask your God to give you the gift if sight. Maybe then you’ll recognize a good woman when she’s standing right in front if you”

“I do know Maggie is an exceptional woman”

“Then why haven’t you done something about it?”

“Do you think after all of this she would want to be with me?” I scoffed.

“Yes” he replied “otherwise she wouldn’t be here to begin with”

“We’re ready to begin when you want” she said now standing behind me. The team took their positions, some of them in front of a camera feed and one of them opened the heavy door.

The accommodations inside were nice at least.

I took a deep breath and turned to Maggie, who gave me an encouraging smile.

“I don’t know how many times I have to say thank you for this” I said walking a short step to her, my body only inches away.

“Just one” she replied giving me a sweet smile “I just want you to be happy Don. I know it’s been hard”

I let out a sigh and wrapped my arms around her waist, pulling her close in a hug, she moved her hand up and down my neck.

This that I was doing, I was doing it for her.

“I don’t want you to be there while this goes down” I said in her ear, she nodded and pulled back from the embrace. It took a lot of me not pulling her back into my arms, I didn’t wanted her to go.

“I’ll see you in three days”

It was my time to nod, then look nervously at the inside of the room.

When I finally got my body in that confined space and the door was closed behind me, I lost track of time.

Maggie.

Staying away from the country house was a challenge.

I tried to keep my mind occupied with sheets of work and designs, presentations and floor plans, but my eyes always diverted to my phone and I ended up calling the EMTs for an update. Not one of them picked up.

There wasn’t any other person I could talk about Don’s addiction, neither was my problem to talk about, but still.

Even though I wasn’t working at the office I visited Gina in hers often and even went to dinner at her place, Matt Damon were there along with her husband, I learned that it was his birthday near summer vacations.

Gina was going to make a trip for a week with her husband and I offered to take care of her projects.

That kept me busy until I had to go back.

The door was opened for me by one of the EMTs, who gave me a brief summary of the four days that had gone by.

“He was tough, apparently his consumption was compressed to many pills in a little stretch of hours in between. The symptoms of withdrawal took 2 days to disappear. We had a psychologist on location and he was able to talk about his recent loss with him. The pills were taken to mitigate the loss since he didn’t show any signs of injuries when he beat one of us up” I looked at him a bit alarmed as we descended. “Don’t worries, we got him back. He hasn’t eaten or showered since he was admitted. He slept through the whole night last night, so I guess he’ll be replenish now that the drug is out if his system. He should still go to NA.”

“I’ll make sure he attends. Thank you Tim” I looked at the door and braced myself for when it opened.

Don was laying in the bed, he had a beard growing, bags under his eyes, a cloudy vision.

I kneeled next to the bed and put my hand on his shoulder.

“Donnie” I said weary. He looked at me and let out a sigh.

“Maggie” he whispered

“You did it. How do you feel?”

“Hungry” he whispered again. I let out a chuckle and stood up.

“Come on. I heard Raymond has some work for Agent Ressler”

He let out a weak smile, slowly he sat in the bed, then stood up.

I put my arms on my shoulders and walked him out of the room and on the top floor of the house.

Ressler.

I was still mildly weak and tired, hungry and groggy.

The only thing I had thought about while in the room was Maggie, how good of a friend and of a person she was, how her lips curved into a smile, how expressive her eyebrows were, how much I liked her hair, especially when she held it up on a ponytail and danced around when she walked. I thought about how much I wanted to see her then, and now, and everyday after this one.

Now that I had her pressed against my side as she was walking me up I didn’t wanted to let her go.

I knew Maggie was important to me, but I hadn’t realized how dependent of her I was.

All I could think about now was how good her ass looked in those shorts. Maybe I had gotten my libido back now that I was clean.

She was preparing the shower for me, and I did my best to keep my eyes off the mirror in the wall.

“It’s set” she said while she touched the stream of water “I’ll wait for you outside” she gave me a little smile and walked past me, closing the door of the bathroom behind her.

I showered and was buttoning up my shirt when the door knocked.

“Come in” I said, my voice still a little horse

Maggie came in with a bag and a smile. I loved her smile.

“Got you shaving cream, deodorant and your things were delivered by the airport, your landlord kept them and I retrieved them a few days ago.”

She walked to the bathroom, me following her. She placed all the products in the cabinet and I got to work, getting rid of the beard

“I have to head out to give Liz the next name on the blacklist. I hope you are on your feet Donald”

I looked at the reflection of the mirror at Reddington in the door of the bathroom.

“I am” I assured.

“Did you fall out of bed?” Maggie asked, she was standing next to me but looking back “that hat hardly matches your tie”

“I thought so too, I’ll have to kill the tailor” he turned around and exited the room. Maggie let out a little chuckle

“I love to annoy him like that” she looked back at me. I cleaned the remaining foam off my face and sighed. I looked normal… as if nothing had happened.

“Come on, let’s get you some breakfast”

We walked down the stairwell, I had my little bag with me and Maggie was walking towards the exit. Before I could walk out the door I was intercepted by Reddington, he simple handed me a CD

“Just in case you ever think of putting yourself in that situation again”

He walked out, my eyes diverted to the CD in my hand.

I swore on everything I held dear that this wasn’t going to happen. Never again

[thesassybooskter]

WOLF AFTER MY OWN HEART by MaryJanice Davidson: Excerpt & Giveaway

NOW AVAILABLE

Things are hot and getting hotter… Escape into this delicious shifter romance from bestselling author MaryJanice Davidson.

 Oz Adway is a rare breed: an accountant who wants to get dirty. He’s a wolf shifter working for the Interspecies Placement Agency so it’s not long before he gets the opportunity to break out of his boring, safe office job. He volunteers to find runaway bear cub Sally Smalls, recently orphaned by a plane crash. Piece of cake, right? Unfortunately, Sally’s taken refuge with “ordinary” human Lila Kai. Lila has no idea what’s going on, but she’ll destroy anyone who tries to take the cub. Oz is not about to let a human jeopardize his daring career move, no matter how attractive he finds her.

Lila knows something’s different about the sexy weirdo who keeps popping up in the wrong place at the right time. She’s determined to figure out what, regardless of the escalating threats to her safety and Oz’s distracting hotness. She didn’t move into a cursed house and take in a werebear just to run when things get complicated. Together, Oz and Lila will prevail! But only if they can keep their hands off each other…

  Buy Online: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Apple Books

Add to Goodreads

  Excerpt

She was just getting the hang of the ambulance when she hit the wolf. 

The thing was bulky and difficult to control (the ambulance, not the wolf), and whenever she got it back from its semiannual mechanically induced coma, it took her a few minutes to get the hang of driving it again. 

She stood on the brakes 

(oh shit oh shit oh shit) 

and braced for the double-thump of the tires running over the animal, which didn’t come. 

Lila Kai collapsed back into her seat, her heart pounding so hard she could taste metal. She pulled over to the side of the street. A street, not a country road on the way from nowhere to somewhere. This was Lilydale, not Hastings. And even Hastings didn’t have wolves in their streets. Just deer. So what the hell? 

She put the ambulance in Park, kept the engine running, and hopped down. She checked the headlights—nothing. The side of the road—nothing. She even took a tentative couple of steps into the brown brush lining the ditch 

(don’t think about the zillions of horror movies that start like this) 

—nothing. No wolf, limping or otherwise. Or…coyote, maybe? 

Which made sense, now that she thought about it. Because whatever it was, it hadn’t been just huge, it had been fast, too. It had come out of nowhere and to nowhere it returned, all in the space of half a second. Maybe she just clipped it. 

Is that a metaphor for something? Life? Death? Taxes? Transitions? Romance? 

Mmmm…probably not the latter. There was just no way to twist clipping a random wolf into an allegory about her nonexistent dating life. The fact that she’d given even half a second of thought to that was proof that she needed to lay off the Cosmos (the drink and the magazine). 

She went back to her decommissioned ambulance, rebuckled her seat belt, put it in Drive, checked her rearview, ignored the urge to ponder more metaphors-that-weren’t, then pulled out, and headed back toward her rental house. The adrenaline rush had been unwelcome as always, but— 

“God damn it!” 

Two kids had darted out from nowhere 

(what the hell is up with this street?) 

and were flagging her down, waving their little arms around so fast they looked like little bony windmills in a gale. 

This time, at least, she didn’t have to stand on the brakes, and once she had stopped, she rolled down her window. “What’s going on, li’l weirdos?” 

Both children were gesturing frantically. “C’mere, you have to help, she’s hurt!” 

And more than a few horror movies start like this, too. 

Again with park, unbuckling, opening door, climbing out. The boy and girl who had jumped in front of her looked like they were about eight, dressed in the de rigeur kid gear of jeans and sweatshirts and battered sneakers. They had the corn-fed reddish-blond looks of many Minnesotans. “Who’s hurt?” 

“I dunno, she just is, we found her, come on. Bring your ambulance gear!” 

“It’s not an ambulance.” 

“’Course it’s an ambulance!” 

“No, I mean it’s decommissioned, so it’s not really an amb—” 

Tiring of her explanation, the girl seized Lila’s hand and started hauling her up the street. Lila looked behind her, half expecting to see the wolf creeping up on them and felt a little let down to see the way was clear. Which was insane. Strange enough to see such a creature under any circumstances, never mind smack in the middle of town. But she wanted to see it again; how was that for nuts? 

I probably need a nap. 

The girl hauled on her hand again and hooked left 

“Jeez, kid. Do you work out?” 

and then led her down a short alley, to where a small huddled form was curled into a blanket. 

“See?” the girl asked, clamping down hard on Lila’s fingers in her excitement. 

“Yeah, see?” the boy, presumably her brother, added. “She’s right there!” 

“Isn’t this a school night?” But she bent over the small figure, blinked as her brain tried to process the image, gently touched it on the shoulder, then pinched her own leg 

(Nope. Not dreaming.) 

and looked up at the kids. “All right, first, that’s not a kid, it’s a bear cub for some reason. Second, I’m not a vet. Most important, I’m not an EMT, either.” 

Instead of answering, the girl whacked the boy on the arm and hissed something that sounded like, “Unstable!” 

“My high school guidance counselor would agree.” Lila bent back over the curled up mass of black, fluffy, whimpering fur that cowered away from her and glared with dark eyes. “I’m not sure what it is you think I can do.” She looked back up only to see the children’s expressions had transformed; they were actually edging away from her. “Why are you doing that? You guys lured me here. If anyone should be uneasy, it’s me. Shouldn’t you have picked my pocket by now?” She looked around the utterly deserted alley. For the first time, she realized she couldn’t hear anything: no bugs, no birds, nothing. And not much light from the lone streetlight. Downright creepy. 

She checked the mouth of the alley for the wolf and was again disappointed to see nothing. 

“You’re right, sorry,” the boy said. 

“Yeah, sorrywebotheredyougoodbyenow.” 

Lila sighed. She was in it the minute she’d stepped down from the vehicle that wasn’t an ambulance. “God damn it. Okay, so, just because I can’t help doesn’t mean someone else can’t.” She stood, only to see the children take several steps back. “Maybe call animal control?” She had to, she realized. You couldn’t just leave a random bear cub in a random alley after random kids flagged down a random adult. 

But in the time it took her to fish out her phone and begin looking up Lilydale Animal Control—or would that be Saint Paul?—the children had (cue the dramatic music) vanished. Like the wolf, her patience, and her faith in the good people at Apartment Guide. 

“Nice quiet neighborhood,” she muttered to the Realtor who wasn’t there. “Lots of families. It’s in the middle of a national park. Bargain.” 

She’d been a Lilydale resident for fewer than eighteen hours and had no idea who to call. And after a day of unpacking, she was standing in an alley at 8:00 p.m. After hitting a wolf. The one thing she did know: she—they—couldn’t stay there indefinitely. 

“You’d tell me if you were a metaphor, right, teeny tiny bear cub?” 

She scooped it up, surprised by how light it was, given that it was the size of a small golden retriever 

(it must be mostly fur, the way birds are mostly feathers) 

then checked for the wolf one more time, and headed back to her nonbulance.

  ***

Excerpted from Wolf After My Own Heart by MaryJanice Davidson. © 2021 by MaryJanice Davidson. Used with permission of the publisher, Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc. All rights reserved.

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  About MaryJanice Davidson

MaryJanice Davidson is the NYT and USA Today best-selling author of the UNDEAD and UNWED paranormal romcom series. Her books have been published in over a dozen languages and have been bestsellers worldwide. A former model and medical test subject (two jobs that are close than you’d think), she lives with her family in St. Paul, MN.

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WOLF AFTER MY OWN HEART by MaryJanice Davidson: Excerpt & Giveaway was originally published on The Sassy Bookster