#it’s literally midnight.30 & i told myself i’d be in bed an hour ago

[bibleofficial]

i hate not being able to unpack like i NEED to get into a mf let agreement ASAP 😭😭

[prorevenge]

Neighbours refused to be quiet, so I played the long game and made them move out

A few years ago I got hired at a job in a big city with expensive rent. I slept on my brother's couch for a few months while I struggled to find a place, but eventually found someone in an old building who wanted to get out of their rental agreement. The apartment was pretty close to work and in a nice area, so I took it, almost too good to be true...

It didn't take long for me to realize I made a big mistake. The building was old, and the walls were made of plaster. Any sound reverberated like crazy, I could hear people cough and sneeze like they were standing in my place. What's worse, I shared one of these thin walls with my neighbours, who were absolutely fucking insane. They just would not shut up. I would hear a man and woman argue constantly, often until 2 or 3 in the morning. And by arguing I mean literally screaming and shouting and throwing things against the wall. When they weren't arguing they were always just LOUD, shouting and whining at each other like little kids constantly. Pretty much the quintessential toxic, obnoxious couple. And the shit they would argue about was so stupid! I remember hearing an argument about who's turn it was to steal shampoo from the drug store. One time the boyfriend decided to yell "THE BIBLE SAYS WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS" over and over again for some reason. Almost every day it would be something different and uniquely annoying.

The first real incident happened when I was woken up by screaming and banging against my wall at 1am. I did what I usually did (blasted Kenny G through my speakers at the wall until they shut up), but this time it didn't work. The banging got louder so I stopped the music, but then it got worse and sounded like a fight. It was hard to describe, but it sounded like the woman was getting beaten up. At this point I was more concerned than mad so I called my superintendent, who told me to call the police (not the US). The police came, the neighbours told them everything was fine, the police left, it was quiet, I went back to bed.

Literally the next night I am woken up again at 1am by my neighbours having another argument. This time I heard a BOOM, then the woman say "oh my god" in an weird voice, and then banging and what sounds like someone being strangled. The noises were freaky and way more concerning than even last time so I called the police again. The police came, the neighbours told them everything was fine again, the police left again, and it was quiet again, but this time the police called me back and basically told me I was an idiot for wasting their time. They said there was no evidence of any fight and both neighbours denied anything even happened. Even the superintendent said that no one else on the floor complained and intimated that I was starting to become a nuisance. I decided from this point forward I was going to go full Spielberg with video evidence.

The noise was bad for the next 6 months, and I would get woken up at least once a week after midnight by yelling and screaming. I made a few written complaints, a few videos as evidence, and sent them to the property manager. There was enough to serve them an eviction notice and go to the landlord/tenant board, but somehow the property manager fucked up the date for the hearing and it never actually took place. Thankfully the noise stopped anyway (for now...), so I assumed the neighbours finally got the message and would be quiet from now on. I didn't fight for another hearing because the eviction notice gave the neighbours an opportunity to be quiet, which they sort of did.

As an aside, the video evidence I gathered during this time was BEAUTIFUL. I was pleasantly surprised that my phone was very good at picking up their voices. It got to the point where I would get excited when I was woken up in the middle of the night, because I would run out into the hallway and film their door and room number as the noise blasted out and echoed down the hall. I gathered some damning, unambiguous evidence, pure gold, and it was all timestamped at around midnight or 1am. But because the hearing got cancelled I didn't get to present my evidence (at least not yet...)

For a few months, everything was reasonably ok. They were still loud as fuck during the day. and there were a few times after 11pm on weeknights where I went to their door and asked them to keep it down, but other than that things were mostly better, and I was starting to be able to relax in my place for once. Yet again it was too good to be true...

One day around 2:30 in the afternoon I start hearing this weird, high-pitched screeching coming from my neighbours place. And it doesn't stop for hours. I'm sitting on my couch trying to figure out what it is. It sounds like a giant fucking tropical bird moved in next door.

Well it turns out, after all the shit we went through a year ago with the noise complaints and eviction notice, my neighbours decided it would be a good idea to get a dog.

And of course these obnoxious assholes couldn't just get a quiet, normal, well-behaved dog. They had to get a completely untrained, 4 month old, tiny, yappy Pomeranian that was INCAPABLE of being quiet. This thing would yap and screech and bark over and over and over EVERY DAY for HOURS.

While I'm still coming to terms with how miserable my life is about to become, I get a note under my door. On it, my neighbour writes that she just got the dog as an emotional support animal for her mental health, and asks the whole hallway to please try to tolerate the noise.

Fuck that shit. I'd already been living next to and listening to these neighbours scream at each other for over a year. They were confirmed fucking morons; two insane, toxic assholes in a mutually abusive relationship. I knew with CERTAINTY that they weren't capable of taking care of this dog properly and the noise situation would go to complete shit.

And regarding the mental health, I was going through my own troubles during this time (in part due to lack of sleep) and was seeing a therapist. The last year of complaints should have made it clear to anyone that noise was a problem for me, especially getting woken up at night. Of all the things this neighbour could have chosen to help their mental health, they chose the most obnoxious thing possible. They knew getting a loud dog was going to be a problem and they did it anyway. It was time for WAR.

I realized if I wanted this noise to stop, or to be even taken seriously, I needed a mountain of evidence against my neighbours. I researched the evictions process and everything that was required. I checked the forms my superintendent would have to send out for an eviction notice. I read threads on reddit about slumlords and neighbour disputes. It became clear to me the only way to win was to be religiously disciplined both in gathering evidence and refusing to retaliate (no more Kenny G). I became a noise-complaint monk, taking a vow of disciplined log taking, and relying on mantras like "shut the fuck up... shut the fuck up...."

Once I submitted my first written complaint, things got bad. My neighbours flipped out when they realized I was complaining again. I heard stuff like "OF ALL THE APARTMENTS IN --- WE HAVE TO LIVE NEXT TO THIS FUCKING GUY?!" for a few days. Then the loud arguments in the middle of the night started all over again. And one of the neighbours got into the new habit of SLAMMING their chest of drawers against my wall at 2am.

The barking also got much worse. The emotional-support-animal letter said that the barking would get better once the dog was trained, but from what I could hear my neighbours methods of training began and ended with screaming at the dog just like they screamed at each other each day. "NO! BAD DOG!", "BE QUIET!", "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" came through my wall in new and varied combinations every day. And every time an argument started between my neighbours the dog would always join in, even in the middle of the night. The constant level of noise was insane.

For over a year, l logged every instance of yelling, shouting, and barking coming from my neighbours apartment. It didn't matter if it was after 11pm or not at this point, I was trying to demonstrate how I can't get peace at any time of day. And when I say every instance, I mean I had minute-to-minute logs of every loud noise and every word I heard from my neighbours wall. If I was woken up in the middle of the night it went in the log. If I heard the dog bark from 12pm-1pm on February 2nd it went in the log. If I heard someone yell "YOU PEED ON THE FLOOR AGAIN, FUCK!" at the dog it went in the log. Honestly it sucked and made me almost lose my fucking mind, but by the time I was done I had pages and pages of notes

Obviously written logs wouldn't be enough. I already had a decently fat stack of video evidence to demonstrate the true character of my neighbours, but I needed current evidence if there was going to be another hearing. Fuck Spielberg, now I was Coppola in the heart of darkness. I got more videos of screaming and shouting coming out of their door. I got videos of banging and barking against my shared wall. I got videos of screaming, shouting, banging, and barking all at the same time, or in any combination. I had amassed a war-chest of video evidence to be deployed at the next available hearing, but I was getting war-weary

At this point I was like 6 or 8 months into the complaints process and I could barely take it anymore. I was getting woken up like 2 nights a week and would be a zombie at work (I complained about my neighbours at work often). I was finding it harder and harder to keep myself from blasting music, or banging on their wall, or kicking their fucking door down. But I managed to stay strong, and I followed the eviction process like it was my religion. I sent in a second written complaint, then a third which resulted in an eviction notice, which gave the neighbours an opportunity to be quiet. This time they didn't give a fuck, if anything they were louder than ever before. I was looking for other places to move into when I finally get good news from the property manager: there's a hearing date!

There was light at the end of the tunnel, but once the neighbours heard about the hearing date they did everything they could to fuck me up. There were no attempts to stop the barking anymore, it was constant. The screaming matches were back in full force, and when they started yelling and screaming the dog would go nuts! It was just an insane amount of noise.

And the drawers were ridiculous! Honestly I never expected the slamming drawers to be that bad but they easily eclipsed the barking and the shouting. They would SLAM and SLAM and SLAM the drawers over and over again against my wall. And because of the plaster it would BOOM BOOM BOOM and echo through my whole place. These assholes were definitely doing it on purpose.

3 days before the hearing date I go to bed at 9:45pm. At 10pm I'm still not asleep but I'm startled by BOOM BOOM of the drawers, I log it and go back to bed. At 11:30pm I wake up to BOOM BOOM BOOM again, and I'm pissed off. It takes me half an hour but I fall asleep again. Then at 12:45am BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM there it is again! I call my superintendent, tell her what's going on, the super calls them and tells them to stop. I fall back asleep. Then at 1:30am BOOM BOOM BOOM I wake up super fucking angry, it's obvious they're doing this on purpose to piss me off before the hearing and get a reaction out of me. I call the super again, and go back to sleep again. Then at 2:45am BOOM BOOM BOOM I can't take it anymore. I scream "DO IT AGAIN!!!! DO IT AGAIN!!!" I lost it, I couldn't help myself. My discipline broke. My superintendent calls me and tells me my neighbours just said I yelled a death threat through the wall (what the fuck?) and that they're calling the police (WHAT THE FUCK?). Everything just feels fucked now, I can't sleep so I just wait until morning. No police show up and I go to work. I realized I couldn't even stay at my place anymore until this hearing was over, so I went back to my brothers couch for the next 3 days.

Finally the big day arrives. I gather my evidence: Over a year of meticulously logged noise complaints, 6 instances of video evidence (I cherry picked the gold out of 20 good ones), the previous eviction notice the neighbours received, 4 written noise complaints (including the 2 from the previous eviction notice), a letter from my co-worker about poor work performance due to lack of sleep, and even a letter from my therapist about how my neighbours' excessive noise was affecting my mental health.

I got there and met the property manager and superintendent, who were there with the owner of the property management company and a slick looking lawyer. I handed the lawyer all my evidence. I gave him a usb stick with the videos. I even handed over my big bluetooth speaker to make sure the videos were loud enough to hear (laptop speakers suck).

I look over to my neighbours and they are wide-eyed. They look scared! Finally!

We all go into the landlord/tenant board room with everybody. The adjudicator first asks if anyone wants to mediate instead of going through with the hearing. My neighbour's hand immediately shoots up. I say in front of everybody "I don't want to mediate!" but apparently it's not up to me and the lawyer takes me aside.

The lawyer tells me if it goes to mediation, the neighbours and the property management create an agreement (e.g. no more noise at x o'clock), and if that agreement is broken once it results in an immediate eviction. He explains if we go in front of the board instead it's a 50/50 chance they either get evicted or get off completely. Obviously mediation is the better way to go, I know these idiots are already incapable of keeping quiet, so I agree with the lawyer. We go out to find the neighbours and they're nowhere to be found. Turns out they opted for the free legal counsel ( I wonder why) and won't be available until the afternoon.

While waiting I explain to the property manager, owner, and lawyer what happened a few days ago with the slamming drawers all night long. When I made my complaints before no one really took them seriously, but today everyone is very interested in everything I have to say.

The afternoon comes, and I'm excluded from the mediation meeting because it's between the neighbours, the lawyer, and the owner. I can't hear what they're saying but I can hear my neighbours yelling and shouting from inside the room so I know it's not going well for them.

Everyone leaves the room and the lawyer comes up to me. He tells me the mediation failed, the neighbours refuse to change their behaviour and won't accept any terms. The lawyer says they have to go in front of the adjudicator again but by now it's almost the end of the day.

I wait another hour or two and everyone comes out. I see my neighbours leave as the lawyer comes by again and explains. Apparently, after the mediation failed, the property management owner offered my neighbours 2 months rent FREE if they agreed to move out in 2 months. The neighbours agreed, but when they all went in front of the adjudicator the neighbours changed their minds and said no! And apparently a second offer was made, which they said yes to, and then no again, all in front of the adjudicator! They ended up running out of time and the adjudicator cut the hearing short and said it would have to be resolved in a second hearing. I was disappointed, but the lawyer assured me that because of how capricious and insane my neighbours behaved in during the hearing, they would almost certainly be evicted during a second hearing. I was dismayed that it wasn't over, but hopeful the end was coming soon. I also felt vindicated, it was finally clear to everyone that my neighbours were actually insane and I wasn't just making this up.

The next two months weren't as bad as before. I continued my long steady march of logs and videos. But the noise definitely let up, especially the drawers. One day near the end of the second month I started to hear insane barking, it would not stop. It went on for hours and hours and hours. I called the superintendent to complain when they told me it was probably because the neighbours were moving out today. YES! HAHAHA! FINALLY! Apparently she couldn't tell me earlier because of privacy reasons. As they were moving out I blasted 'Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye' on loop, put in some earplugs, and took a 2 hour bath.

My apartment is quiet now and I can finally sleep. It wasn't exactly the satisfying crushing blow I wanted but my discipline paid off and now I can live in peace.

(source) story by (/u/ZapoiBoi)

[starchildwannabe]

Landing in New York

Genre: fluff

Pairing: bang chan x reader; side minlix

Word count: 5.3k

Warnings: this fic is mostly just fluff but they also drink

Author’s notes: I wrote this based on a prompt generator to try to finish a full story. It’s unedited but I hope it’s not too bad! Also it’s short but I hope you like it :)

Summary: you meet Chan in New York on New Year’s Eve

2:58pm. I rub my eyes as the fatigue of 3 o’clock starts to slip in. How ironic (or cruel really) that New Years Eve was on a Thursday this year and that the deadline for this month’s project was today instead of next week. I let a slightly exhausted sigh escape from my lips as I finally look up from the computer screen.

“3 o’clock already,” a familiar voice on my left says prompting me to swivel my chair in their direction. A smile slips onto my face.

“You know what that means,” I say, holding out my hand to my lovely desk mate and exceptional best friend, Felix, who takes it without even slight hesitation.

It’d been a while since the honeymoon phase of working in a new place passed and both Felix and I started crashing around 3pm on workdays. It hadn’t been long, though, since we decided that the 3 o’clock fatigue meant stretching our legs and walking across the street to our favorite (by default) coffee shop to get a little pick me up. Today, however, I was more looking forward to the after work festivities rather than the assured line out the door of the Tom N Toms just for 3pm coffee. On December 31st in New York, everywhere was crowded no matter what time of day, and especially in Times Square from about rush hour on. So today was not a day you wanted to be stuck in the office after 5, let alone at all, but sacrifices had to be made for the dream of working and living so close to where the ball would drop at midnight.

When I step outside, already pulling my scarf tighter around my neck to escape the brisk wind and soft snow flurries, I’m surprised to see that the line hasn’t made it out the door yet and take that as a queue to get across the street as fast as possible.

“I’ll race you,” I say, giving Felix a mischievous look and a wiggly eyebrow.

“What are we, five?” He says giggling.

“No, six.” I say and take off across the crosswalk before the blinking green man changes to red. I glance over my shoulder when I get to the door of the Tom N Toms to make sure Felix actually made it across the street, and when I see him behind me, open it to reveal the warm air trapped inside the shop.

After waiting in the incredibly slow line for 10 minutes, we make it to the counter and give our order.

“You think Mr. Kim will be mad if we take a little longer than the usual 15?” I ask Felix and check my watch again as we walk toward the pick up counter to wait. Names are being called in the background, surely for other customers to get their orders, but I don’t really pay close attention because it’s too soon to be ours. I look up when Felix starts to reply, but I miss what he says because my attention is fully on a guy less than a few inches away from me holding an iced coffee in the hand closest to me and brace for impact because it’s too late to sidestep him. In less than a second I can feel coffee running down my shirt and thank God that it’s just cold and not scalding my chest instead.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry,” a panicked voice is saying as I awkwardly hold my shirt away from my body, “I didn’t even see you I don’t even know how that happened I’m really really sorry,” he says in a somehow even more panicked tone. I give an extremely awkward smile to try to lighten the situation and that’s when I actually take a second to look at the person frantically apologizing and all I can think is holy shit, is he beautiful.

“Ah, um, it’s okay,” is all I can manage to say because he’s shoving napkins at me. Then one of the staff with a mop is at the area where the coffee spilled and Felix is pulling me towards him and the boy is being pushed by the crowd the other way and the conversation ends before I can even ask him his name.

“Are you okay?” I hear Felix ask behind me and then the boy is gone because I turn my head to look at Felix instead.

“Yeah, I’m just a little uncomfortable, and coffee stained is all,” I make a mental note that I would probably be more upset if the person behind why I was covered in coffee was less attractive and then mentally kick myself for being shallow. “I’m gonna go to the bathroom to try to get this off, can you handle getting the drinks?”

“Yeah, dude, of course,” Felix says, and gives me a little push towards the bathrooms.

Fortunately, the rest of the hour and a half in the office passes without much problem. Unfortunately, I have to spend the rest of the afternoon and commute home with a horribly stained white button down. Fortunately, I have a coat to cover it when I go outside. Unfortunately, Felix hasn’t stopped talking about the boy that caused said stain since we made it back to the office, and as we’re walking out again at 5.

“But do you think you’ll see him again?” He’s saying for the 2nd time since I made it back from the bathroom in the Tom N Toms, “I think he was interested in you, and he was hot,” he adds and I sigh.

“I know,” I say in a pouty voice, “but like I said last time, I probably won’t. I’ve never seen him before today anyway, he could be a tourist for all we know. I mean, he did have an accent that was clearly Australian.” I look at Felix when I say the last part.

“Well I’m Australian and I live here,” he says, and adds, “I’m just saying,” when I give him a side eye.

“Well all I’m saying, is that it’s not likely.”

The conversation dwindles and then moves onto plans for that night and after about 10 minutes of walking and brainstorming the best way to get even remotely in Times Square without having to stand outside for the rest of the night the conversation somehow goes back to the coffee shop boy.

“You know, if he’s a tourist, he’s probably here for the ball drop,” Felix states. “And if he’s here for the ball drop, that means he’ll be somewhere in Times Square at midnight.”

“Who?” I ask even though I already know who he’s talking about.

“The boy.” He glances over at me and slits his eyes. “From Tom N Toms.” He deadpans.

“Felix, there’s going to be literally a million people in Times Square, maybe even more than that, we’re never going to run into him.” I sigh at the realization that we’ve been talking about someone, that I’m probably never going to see again, for the better half of the afternoon. “If we see him again, I’ll be convinced that he’s my soulmate.”

***

“I think if we leave now we’ll be able to be in the very very back,” Felix says from behind me. “And I’m sure if we squint, we’ll actually be able to see the ball drop.” I stop searching through my closet for a second to glance at Felix who’s casually sitting on my bed.

“Look it’s not my fault someone spilled coffee on my shirt.” I say and turn back to my clothes. From the other side of the wall, I could hear a slight pulsing from music that’s turned up too loud. “You’d think the owner would tell them to be careful about getting noise complaints.”

“Well it’s not like it’s illegal to rent out your place as an Airbnb anymore.”

“I mean I guess,” I glance down at my watch, “why are they even here still? If they don’t leave soon, they won’t be able to get anywhere near Times Square.”

“You’re telling me.” Felix says. I quickly grab a shirt and pull my coffee stained one over my head. Once I have the fresh one on, Felix stands and walks to the door.

“Wait,” I say and he turns his head in my direction. “Does this look okay together?”

“Yes, but I don’t see why it matters so much, your coat’s gonna be over it the whole time.” I turn my head towards my closet one last time. “Let’s just go.” Felix adds with a slight urgency in his voice.

“Okay, you’re right it doesn’t really matter.”

As I’m turning my key into the handle, I have a sudden urge to knock on the door next to mine and tell them to turn the music down, but I let it go because we’re leaving anyway and it’s their fault if they have to watch the ball drop from the very back of Times Square. I turn away from the door and give my watch one more glance as I head toward the stairs. 5:24pm. When I get the the stairs, Felix is already at the bottom of the first flight.

“We should get to the entry on 6th in less than 5 minutes, we don’t have to rush that much.” I say to his clearly urgent body language. He pauses for a second before replying and I lift my eyebrow.

“I, uh,” Felix hesitates, “kind of told someone we’d meet them at 6th at 5:30, but I didn’t think I’d mention it until we got there because I didn’t think it’d take this long to leave.” He lets the end drift off.

“Oh.” I say, “that’s fine, but like I wish you would’ve told me before. I would’ve spent less time changing.” An awkward laugh escapes, but I feel a genuine smile on my lips.

“Sorry,” he says and his hand comes up to rub the back of his head.

“Do I know them?” I ask to try to ease the tension.

“Oh, uh, yeah actually I think you’ve met one time.” Felix says and then adds, “but I don’t think you know his name.”

“And his name is—“ I say drawing out the last word.

“Minho,” I nod confirmation as he says it. “You were there, when we met.” I look at him with a confused expression. “It was a couple weeks ago at the bar,” when my expression doesn’t change he adds, “come on, you know, kinda tall, brown hair, cute nose, great laugh. I gave him my number?”

“And I was there?”

“Yes, you were there! You were literally sitting right next to me when this happened.”

“Wow, how drunk was I, jeez.” I shake my head a little and then say, “Well as long as he’s nice and doesn’t make things awkward for me, I don’t really care if I know him or not.” I chuckle and then look at Felix with pouty eyes, “but who am I supposed to kiss at midnight now?”

“Well it wouldn’t’ve been me anyway, so I guess that’s a personal problem,” he says and then gives a nice genuine laugh.

“I guess I’ll just have to go another year without a New Years kiss.” I feign despair and over exaggerate my sigh.

At exactly 5:32pm we make it to the entrance at 6th. We look around for a bit and then Felix jogs off toward someone that he recognizes. I stand awkwardly by myself as I witness their encounter, and confirm that Felix was right, he does have a cute nose. After maybe a minute, Felix turns around and walks back to me with Minho close behind.

“So this is Minho,” he says to me and I give a smile and wave to the boy standing behind him, and then he turns to Minho and adds, “she couldn’t remember you from the bar, can you believe that?” His laugh is light and fluttery, and I make a mental note to ask him about this later.

“You stole my midnight kiss,” I comment and wink at Minho and both boys’ cheeks flush pink.

“I, uh,” Minho’s voice is frantic and his eyes search Felix’s face for help.

“I’m just kidding,” I say and then laugh and pat Minho on the shoulder. I check my watch again. “I’d say we have like 20 minutes before they stop letting people in, so let’s make a quick bathroom stop and meet back here.” I say and then point toward a nearby building that I’m sure will let us in.

***

By the time the last hour of the year comes and is almost gone, and the sun has been gone for over 6 hours, the only thing that’s keeping me alive and not freezing to death in the brisk wind, is the sheer amount of people that are in Times Square (and also the alcohol that’s in my system from the very kind and very sneaky people standing next to us). Of course, Felix and I had forgotten to hide any booze in our coats before we left since we were rushed and now that I’m a little bit more than slightly intoxicated, I’m glad that we didn’t. I’m overly grateful for the people next to us, because they made the time pass while Felix was busy flirting with Minho next to him. Around 10 minutes before midnight, I could hear some commotion going on somewhere in the crowd in front of me, and then saw a small group of people making their way to the back of the crowd. As they passed by us, the people next to me said something like, “you know you can’t get out now, when it’s so close to midnight.” But they didn’t stop walking, just pointed vaguely behind us which seemed to be good enough for everyone. After that, the crowd shifted enough that Felix, Minho, and I got pushed away from the people next to us and into a new area of the crowd. I frown at the thought of not being by people I know anymore and push my coat back so I can look at my watch. 3 minutes to go. I look up at the ball on top of One Times Square and excitement floods my body. It’s almost to the bottom already.

I lean closer to Felix and Minho and ask, “Any last words before our lives change forever?”

Felix slightly rolls his eyes and then leans into Minho’s ear.

“She does this every year,” and then looks back at me and smiles and adds, “All I’m going to say is that I hope there isn’t an alien spaceship waiting for the last 3 seconds before midnight to blast us all off the earth.” Minho scrunches his eyebrows.

“He says that every year,” I say leaning toward Minho. Felix shrugs.

“It’s true though.”

“Minho?” I ask.

“Um,” he glances at Felix, “I hope that next year is at least as good as this year was.”

“Aw, wait that’s really nice, and a million times better than Felix’s” I say and clasp my hands by my chest. “I think for me, I hope that in—“ I glance at my watch again, “45 seconds I can get a New Years kiss.”

“Those are you last words of the year? Really?” Felix deadpans next to me.

“I don’t see the problem,” Minho says and shrugs.

I can hear someone around me yell “30 seconds,” and then the noise level of the crowd goes up from excitement and everyone’s eyes are glued to the ball ahead.

20 seconds. 15 seconds. 12 seconds.

At 10 seconds everyone starts to count.

9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4... 3... 2... 1...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Everyone in the crowd is shouting happy new year to the people around them and before I can even blink I’m being pulled closer to someone in front of me and they’re whispering in my ear with an extremely familiar accent, “can I kiss you,” and I’m whispering back “yes” and before I can comprehend what I’m doing, a kiss is being pressed to my lips. All I can think in the moment is what chapstick do they use? because their lips are so pillowy and smooth. When I finally open my eyes and reorient myself with my surroundings I see none other than the boy from the coffee shop standing in front of me.

“It’s you!” I blurt out before I can catch myself.

He laughs a honey sweet laugh and then says, “Chan or Chris, either is okay.” And then he smiles so wide his eyes almost disappear entirely.

“Okay, Chan or Chris, why? How? What? I’m so confused.” I say.

“Clearly,” the honey sweet laugh comes again. “Just call me Chan,” he says and glances at Felix and Minho giving them a little nod. I look at Felix when he does this and notice that his mouth is hanging open and let out a chuckle at the sight.

He grabs my arm and pulls me towards him and then says loud enough for only me to hear, “so you meet again, it must be fate.” I roll my eyes and then he lets my arm go and holds his hand out in front of Chan and says, “I’m Felix, we met earlier but you were in a bit of a rush, I’m assuming.”

“Ah, yeah sorry about that,” Chan says, he grabs Felix’s hand and lets his sunny smile cross his expression once more. “I’m glad we met again,” he turns to me when he says this, “it was really getting under my skin that I didn’t get to apologize to you properly.” An awkward chuckle escapes his lips.

“Oh, no, no it’s no big deal at all,” I say more rushed than I intend, “I’m sure you were busy, with it being New Year’s Eve and all,” I give him a little wink and his smile grows even bigger. “Plus I can kind of tell that you’re not from here,” he looks at me with a confused expression, “I mean your accent is obviously not American.” I say with a laugh.

“Looks like you caught me,” he laughs and puts his hands up by his shoulders. Before he can say anything else, though, one of his friends is leaning into his ear and whispering something to him. I try to catch what they’re saying but it’s too loud around me to hear. At this point the crowd has dispersed into a much less dense one and there’s enough room around to move freely. I glance over at Felix and at the same time feel a slight brush at my hand before it’s grasped by someone else’s. I look up and Chan’s attention has fully returned to me.

“We’re gonna head back to our Airbnb now, but I’m wondering if you want to come?” He asks with a smile plastered to his face.

I look back at Felix to see his reaction and then say, “I want to, but I would feel better if my friends could come too?” Felix is nodding behind me and Chan slips a quick glance to them before turning back to me and smiling again.

“Yeah, of course, the more the merrier!” He says. The friend that whispered into his ear before taps his arm and gives a little jerk of his head when Chan looks over. He starts to lead us through the still thinning crowd to the entrance, and I notice that Chan hasn’t let go of my hand since he first grabbed it. When he looks back at me when we make it back to the entrance, I can feel my cheeks heating up and hope that it’s too dark to see them change color.

“So,” he starts to say, “if it’s so obvious that I’m not from around here, what’s your guess?”

“My guess?”

“Yeah,” he says, “where do you think I’m from?”

“Oh,” I pause for a moment, “well your accent is pretty similar to Felix’s, so I’m guessing Australia?”

“You’re pretty clever,” he says in return, “I don’t think I could ever get used to it being cold in December though.”

“Really? Then why come to New York during the coldest time of the year?”

“Well, it’s on everyone’s bucket list isn’t it?” He says and then adds, “to come to New York for New Year’s Eve.”

“Yeah I guess so, but I don’t really see the big deal. You can’t even go to the bathroom once you’re in the barricades.”

“Yeah I know,” Chan says with a sort of defeated tone in his voice, “I wish someone would’ve told me that before we got inside.” He trails the end with a laugh.

As we round the next corner, snow starts to lightly fall from the sky. Chan’s friends in front of us start to murmur to each other like kids seeing snow for the first time and I let out a small giggle at that. After about a minute or so the road goes back to the calmer atmosphere it had before, and I realize that we’re walking directly toward my apartment. I give Felix a quick glance to see if he’s noticed it too, and when our eyes meet he lifts his eyebrow at me.  I shrug as if to say what’re the odds and then turn back to Chan who’s telling me that if he were in Australia today, he’d be wearing shorts and flip flops with a zero percent chance of snow in the forecast. Then he’s telling me about how he would probably be swimming too and I can’t help but wish I was somewhere warm while we’re walking down a freshly snow covered street.

“You know, I live really close to here,” I say at a break in the conversation.

“What? Really?” Surprise crosses Chan’s face.

“Yeah, actually it’s only like a minute away.” I say and then hear someone ahead of me say  “We’re almost there!” in a bright tone. I lift my eyebrows when we head toward my apartment building instead of turning down the street. I point ahead and then add, “that’s my apartment building.”

“No way,” Chan says as we inch closer and closer to it. “I think that’s where we’re staying.”

“Very funny,” I say.

“No, I’m serious,” I search his face to see if he’s lying, but we reach the stairs and it’s enough to know that he’s telling the truth. “What floor are you on?” He asks as we climb the first flight.

“3.” He’s silent for a moment too long so I add, “you guys aren’t on 3 also, are you?”

“Actually,” he pauses, “I think it’s 304.”

Then tension sits in the air for a moment before I say, “you should really think about playing music will less bass.” Chan gives me a confused look, “I’m in 305,” I let a smile fill my lips when I say so.

“Wow, what a coincidence.” He thinks for a second, “wait, that’s actually pretty convenient.”

“Why?”

“Because you can go home whenever you want.” We reach the 3rd floor then and the door to apartment 304 is already being opened by one of Chan’s friends. When we get into the main room, it looks the same as mine except the furniture has a vintage 70s vibe and the couch in the center of the room is an ugly green color. There are two more rooms splitting off from the main one, and after counting the number of Chan’s friends I’m assuming they’re bedrooms with more than one bed in each of them. The only light other than the dimmed overhead light is coming from different colored hexagon tiles that are hanging on the wall. Before long, there’s music bumping through the speakers on the entertainment center. Chan has to lean into my ear before saying, “pretty cool isn’t it?” because the volume is up pretty loud. After he leans away, he holds up a beer in front of me and tilts his head. I grab it from him and give a soft smile.

“Thanks,” I say and then add, “it looks nothing like mine, apart from the layout.” Chan leads me over to the couch, we sit, and cheers glasses before both taking big swings from our bottles.

2 and a half beers and 3 shots of soju in he asks, “Do you like living in New York?”

I think for a while and then say, “Yeah, I didn’t grow up here, but I always liked the idea of moving to a big city so I applied to college here and when I moved for my freshman year I just kind of never left.” I shrug and take another drink from the bottle I’m holding.

“Aw wow, it’s cool that you got to reach your goal.” I give him a slightly skeptical look.

“I wouldn’t say it was really a goal, more like an idea that I liked.”

“Yeah but it’s still cool,” he pauses, “I’m thinking about moving from Australia, but I’m not sure where I would go,” he pauses again, “just an idea I like, I guess.” He shrugs this time and I clink my almost empty bottle to his. “You know what else would be cool,” he eyes me and leans a little closer than he probably would if he was completely sober, “if you showed me your apartment.”

I let out a genuine belly laugh, “that’s what cool is to you?”

“You bet,” he pops up from the couch and throws his hand out to me.

“Alright, if you want.” I take his hand, finish the last of my beer, and place the empty bottle on the coffee table in front of me before standing up. As we walk across the room, I catch Felix’s gaze and throw up a peace sign with my free hand. He pushes himself off of the wall he’s leaning on and walks over to me.

“Heading out?” He says into my ear.

“We’re just going next door,” I chuckle, “So, yes and no.” He glances back at Minho, who gives him a bright smile when their eyes meet.

“Well if you’re gonna ditch, I think we’re gonna head out too.” Minho nods from behind him and then inches close enough to rest his head on Felix’s shoulder. I lift an eyebrow at him and he raises both of his back at me two times in quick succession.

“Text me when you get home,” I say and smile.

“Wouldn’t think not to.”

When I turn back to Chan, he’s talking to one of his friends. After 10 seconds or so he looks at me with a grin on his face and says, “ready to go?” I nod and we head to the entrance.

It takes less than a minute for us to get fully inside and situated in the apartment next door.  I flip on the lights and watch as Chan starts to wander into the living room.

“You’re right,” he says after a couple of moments of silence.

“I’m right?” I question from across the room.

“Yeah,” he turns to me, “that apartments nothing like yours.” He turns towards the doors the opposite wall. “But it feels like home.” I let out a muffled giggle and I can see his ears turning red before he whips around and adds in a rushed tone, “A home, a home, not my home, not my home at all, just a home,” my giggles escalates into a full laugh at his rambling. “Not that I don’t want it to be my home, just, uh, I’m trying to not be weird.”

“Aw really?” I say when I’ve composed myself, “I was hoping you’d move in.” I fake an exaggerated sigh and then continue laughing with Chan joining in. “You’re really cute when you’re flustered,” I say.

“Oh yeah, well,” he pauses for a moment and then says, “well, you’re just really cute.” He turns away from me and faces the doors again. “I’m gonna guess that the left one is yours.”

“Hmm, well, you would guess wrong.” I say and walk over to the door on the right side of the room. Chan gives a pouty expression and lets out a little “hmph”

“Does anyone live there?” He says pointing to the left.

“Yeah, but she’s out for the week on vacation for New Year’s Eve.” I glance over at her door and let out a little sigh. “Must be nice to have a job that lets you have the whole week off.” I push my door open and then lean on the door frame. “I do want to say, though,” Chan looks at me with a look of concern, “I don’t usually bring guys home with me the first day we meet, so—“ I let the end drop off.

“Oh, I wasn’t expecting— I didn’t think we’d— uh,” Chan gives a cheeky grin, “yeah no worries.”

I walk into my bedroom and lay my keys on my dresser before sitting on the bed. Chan follows suit but spends quite a lot more time making his way to the bed because he’s preoccupied with looking around the room. When he’s finally satisfied he stops in front of my nightstand and bends halfway over to inspect the tiny cactus and succulent trio that’s in a small pot.

“These are cute,” he glances over at me and then back at the plants, “do they have names?” He asks in a genuinely curious tone.

“Oh, actually,” I pause for a moment to think, “no they don’t.”

My face falls slightly and I only notice because Chan is saying “oh no don’t worry it’s okay,” and turning his attention fully onto me and away from the succulents. We stare into each other’s eyes for a moment and then he peels his eyes away and I can see his cheeks dusting pink. “How about we name them together?” He asks.

“Okay,” I say and smile. Chan plops down on the bed and then let’s out a low hmmm.

“How about, Chan,” he says.

“Oh my gosh, no.” I say laughing.

“Okay, okay, how about we name this one,” a second slips by, “Tom.”

“What? Why Tom?” I ask.

“Because that’s where we first met each other.” He says with a contagiously sunny smile.

“Oh that’s right,” I say, “it feels like that was 2 weeks ago, but it was literally,” I check my watch, 3am, “12 hours ago.”

“Wow can you believe that?” He kicks his feet up, resting his legs on my thighs, and lays down on the pillows with his arms crossed behind his head. “What if we didn’t meet again?” He lifts his head slightly to look at me.

“I don’t know,” I say and then lift Chan’s legs up and move onto the bed to lay next to him. He turns his body to face me.

“Well I’m really glad we did,” he says, his tone soft and sweet.

“Me too.” He inches a little closer to me and rests his forehead on mine.

“Can I kiss you?” I nod in response and lean into his pillowy lips for the second time that night. The kiss is soft and innocent and it feels like something out of a dream.

“I don’t want to leave,” Chan lets out an exasperated sigh.

“Then don’t,” I say and connect our lips again but this time the kiss is much more rushed and wanting, full of unspoken desire. I can feel my cheeks heating up and at the same time Chan is rolling us over so he’s embracing me. Our kiss deepens into something even more raw and I have to pull away before I can’t help myself. He peppers tiny kisses all over my face and I can’t help but giggle.

“This might be a weird question, but can I sleep here?” He asks.

“I would love that,” I say and place one more quick kiss onto his lips before pulling out of his embrace. “But if you’re going to stay I’m going to change into some pajamas.”

[themiddlelayer]

Didn’t see this coming

MM messaged me yesterday to talk business stuff with the car and his upcoming move, then he asked if he could call me. He was as delicate about things as he could be in asking if Tampa and I had opened our relationship. We haven’t. And he proceeded to tell me that a chick he was seeing was “liked” by Tampa on OkCupid on Monday. He sent me screen shots. The chick even went so far as to message him and ask if we’d broken up because his profile says “single.” I’m still not sure how she recognized Tampa as my boyfriend, but I’m assuming MM might have talked about us. Either way... what the actual fuck!?! 

I left work early and went to Cookie’s place to try and wrap my head around it all. Tampa replied to the chick on OkCupid saying that he’s very happy with me but he gets on there with his old profile to “see who’s out there.” MM sent me another screenshot. 

When I did come home he greeted me with the usual “Hey Baby!” but quickly turned to, “What did I do?” when he saw my face. We talked and his excuse was that he was having a bad week at work and just wanted to disconnect... and the internet was too bad for him to play games on his phone, so he re-activated his account and started reading profiles. And he just “liked” them because he knows it feels good to be liked. He said that he didn’t think anything of it because he had no intentions of even communicating with anyone at all...that he wasn’t trying to cheat on me or get involved with anyone else... and he only replied to the one chick because she mentioned me by name. 

When he told me that he deleted and deactivated his profiles back in August it was a really big deal. How could he not realize what a big deal it was to get back on there in any capacity?!? And the thing is that if he had told me about it and about his reasons I would have just let it go. I’ve had no reason to distrust him until now. But instead MM had to be the one to tell me about it. Nope. 

The rest of the night was tense, but it felt like we might work through it. I fell asleep early and woke up around midnight unable to stop crying. I couldn’t stop thinking about every other time when I’d reminded myself that I was no longer in those other relationships and that I had no reason to feel anything other than safe, loved and appreciated with Tampa. 

And I did something incredibly stupid. I got up, unplugged his phone and opened it. He’d told me that he showed me his phone when he deleted OkCupid, but I had no memory of it at all. I was blaming it on my own fucked up memory, but it didn’t feel right. I truly just wanted to be sure it was gone so I could put my mind at ease and move on. But messenger caught my attention and what I saw... The Sub had messaged him on Monday. It said something to the effect of ‘I wish you were here to hold me’ and I opened the chat. I didn’t go back far and was mostly focusing on the dates, but I saw her call him “Daddy” there. 

The Sub was an issue because she was doing things like sending him pictures of her vibrator and calling him Daddy, despite him telling her to stop. She was the one who literally drove across the country to find him...stalk him.. whatever. He told me that he blocked her. I didn’t tell him to, or even ask him to. I just told him that I wasn’t comfortable with how she was behaving. HE made that choice. 

But not long ago, I glanced at his screen and saw her on FB messenger. I asked him about it because it had been weeks since he’d told me he had cut communication with her. His excuse was that he didn’t use messenger much so old stuff was still on the top. Why I bought it then is beyond me. It was a flat out LIE! 

I woke him up right away and owned what I’d done. And he turned on me about how badly I broke his trust and that he would have to lock all the electronic devices in the house and could no longer leave his phone lying around. He said that I was looking for an out and I found it. I told him that ‘an out’ was the last thing I wanted. He brought up MM reading my blog as the out he used... then he said that I was letting MM control the situation. It got ugly with him telling me that I had used “unfair tactics” by waking him up like I did and then he just asked what I was going to do over and over. 

I asked him what he wanted... I really needed him to say that he wanted me to stay, to work through things, but all he said was that I’m a grown woman and he can’t tell me what to do... that I’m going to do whatever I’m going to do. He tried to tell me to go sleep in the other room but I wasn’t about to go sleep on the couch. He eventually got up and watched TV for awhile. When he came back to bed around 4:30 am he seemed to curl up to me then told me to get on my side of the bed. 

I got up and came to the office until after 7 am when I quietly came in to take a shower and get properly dressed. From there I went to Cookie’s for coffee. She cleaned out her office to make room for me, and she’s going to meet me at an apartment in a bit so we can look at it. My plan is to sleep at Cookie’s until I can get out of here and to only be here during my work hours. 

I’d made Tampa a breakfast burrito around 5am, because that’s what I do... and I sent him a text telling him that it was in the fridge with his lunch if he was going to make it to work. All I got were one word replies via messenger before he finally got up and left for work around 11am. 

It’s just insult to injury at this point. I can’t see a way that this could be made right, and I don’t see him doing anything to give me a reason to try. I’m utterly fucking heartbroken. And now I’ve got to get the logistics handled. Ugh!

[shittyfandomimagines]

Appendicitis

Word count: 2,109

Angstsy with a little fluff.

(GIF creds to owner)

“You denied my FaceTime call.” I could basically hear the pout in Luke’s voice. “Yeah, I just don’t look good right now.” Well, it wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth. “Pft, you can look amazing in a trash bag for all I care.” Luke sounded slightly annoyed but mostly joking.

I didn’t want him to see what room I was in because it definitely wasn’t our house, the last thing I need is for Luke to ask a thousand different questions.

Two days ago, I had a huge ass pain in my side. Turns out I have a chronic appendix that I never knew was chronic, so the pain hit me like a 2-ton truck and basically, I passed out. Then, I got a concussion from passing out and now I’m waiting for my head to get better before they can do the surgery. I have bruises all over my face and arms from hitting the floor and the last thing Luke needs to see before a show is his girlfriend filled with bruises and in a hospital bed.

“You’ve been acting weird for the past 2 days, is there something I should be worried about?” He asks and I could tell he was overly worried. “Nope, just been getting shit-faced drunk every night and out partying.” I joke and I hear him scoff. “Yeah, really funny.” He says and I scrunch up my face a little. “It was a joke, it’s not like that’s not what you guys do every night after a show. What would be any different if I was doing it?” I ask and I really didn’t mean for a joke to go this far.

“Well, you hardly drink and I can imagine that getting drunk would elude that something is wrong. Are you mad at something or someone?” He asks like he’s searching for an answer. “Luke, I said that I’m not even getting drunk. I literally don’t understand how you can’t take a joke.” I sigh and brush my fingers through my hair.

“Y/n, I can take a joke and on most days I know that you’re joking. You’re just acting really fucking weird. Is it okay for me to be concerned for you? Or is that asking for too much?” He snaps and I roll my eyes. “Yeah, it’s a lot to ask for since you never cared beforehand. You hardly call me Luke, so it’s not that big of a deal now that you’re actually on the phone.” I fumed and I heard him sigh on the other side.

“Are you sure that you’re okay?” He asks and I groan. “Yes Luke, I’m fine,” I say and he starts moving around on the other end of the line. “We play Atlanta in an hour and then we have a few days break before Nashville, so I’ll probably not come home.” He says, I finally realized that was what he wanted to avoid and tried to make a scene over it. Luckily for me, I didn’t have to let him know I was in a hospital.

“Goodbye, Luke,” I mumble after a short and quiet period. “Bye, I love you.” He says and I tried to smile. “I love you too.” I end the call and put my phone down beside me on the bed.

“Miss Y/L/N, it’s time for your pain medicine.” The nurse that I actually like says as she knocks quietly. “Thank god, my head is pounding,” I admit and her face contorted, she looked worried now. “Not from my concussion but from a personal life thing, I’m not gonna die. Promise.” I add and I see relief flood her.

“You seem lonely in here.” She says cautiously, putting something on my IV hook. “Yeah, but I’m used to being alone at home so this is no different,“ I mumble as I twirl the engagement ring on my finger. I loved the ring, but sometimes I felt like it took up too much space on my finger.

“No family around?” She asks and I nod. “My parents live very far away and my fiancé travels a lot, it’s usually just me and Petunia, our dog,” I explain and she gives me a sympathetic smile. “But there is one girl who visits every day at the same time, isn’t there?” She asks and I nod.

“That’s Louisa, she is my friend who took me to the hospital, she gets off work and comes to see me. I was lucky enough that I woke up and called her, if not I’d probably be dead on my floor.” I admit and she just nods. I honestly had to beg Louisa not to call Luke, I didn’t want him to drop tour and fly to be with me. I couldn’t do that to the fans.

“Well, on a higher note; the doctor reviewed your case this afternoon and thinks it’s time for your appendix to come out. It’s only going to get worse and since your head is getting better, we need to get the appendix out.” She says and I nod. “So, when do I have to stop eating?” I ask and she looks at her watch.

“It’s 6:30, so you have till 12. Do you want me to get you any snacks from the nurses' station?” She asks and I shake my head. “I’ll text my friend and ask her to pick me up some food,” I say and she nods. “Okay, I’ll leave you alone now. Bye girl.” She says and closes the door on the way out.

I quickly text my friend and then situate myself on the uncomfortable bed. I watch some reruns of I Love Lucy and eat some of the ice chips they put in my cup. “Knock knock.” Louisa’s voice catches my attention and I wave her in.

“It looked pretty lonely in here, I brought some balloons to cheer it up.” She said and put the balloons on the bedside table by the phone.

“Thanks, I’m sorry you had to stop and get some food. They say I’m having my appendix out tomorrow and I won’t be able to eat past midnight.” I explain and she nods, sitting beside me. “Well, it’s no problem. You’re in a hospital bed with a concussion and a fucked up appendix, the least I could do is stop by Subway.” She jokes and puts the sandwich in front of me.

“Well, I appreciate it,” I mumble and she tilts her head slightly. “You seem upset, I mean you have all the reasons to be, but you seem really down.” She voices and I nod my head. “Luke and we’re bickering, they have a couple days off after the show tonight and said he wouldn’t be coming home. I know I’ve asked you not to tell and I haven’t said anything, but it hurts to know he isn’t coming home regardless if I was sick. I know it’ll be a waste of a trip and it’ll make him unbelievably anxious over it, but I guess I still feel upset.” I twirl the ring so more and then I take it off.

“Woah, put the ring that costs more than my entire life back on your finger.” She warns and I laugh a little. “I’m not going to break up with Luke, I just want you to take it so they won’t lose it tomorrow during surgery.” I chuckle and she takes it like a child afraid of being scolded.

“Put it on your finger or something, I’ll get it back from you tomorrow night,” I say as she continued to be really cautious. “Holy fuck, this weights like thirty pounds.” She examines her finger and I was almost empty without it on me.

“It doesn’t weigh 30 pounds.” I laugh and she pulls her phone out of her pocket. “Oh god, the babysitter is calling. I’ve most likely got to be at home, so I love you so much. I’ll see you tomorrow night and if you need me to call off work, I’m here. I will not lose this gorgeous ring.” She kisses my cheek softly and sprints out the door, phone clutched by her ear.

I eat the rest of my sandwich and push the table away from me, I turn off the light above me and turn on my side. I started to look at my empty finger and my heart hurt (worse than my appendix), I really miss Luke and I wished that we never got into an argument about us so I could ask him to be here with me.

—

I hear sniffles and it wakes me up, well that and the pain in my stomach. I look down to see Luke’s curls sprawled across my arms, he was literally grasping my hand so tight.

“Luke?” I shove him a little and his head shoots up, his eyes were bloodshot. “You’re awake, I’m sorry. I know you need your sleep.” He wipes his eyes harshly and I just reach out for his hand.

“What are you doing here?” I ask and he gives me a look. “Well, let's start with the obvious fact that you’re laid across a hospital bed.” He sasses and I roll my eyes. “Let’s try this again, how did you find out?” I ask and honestly, I expected like a fan to have seen me come in and they posted it all over Instagram. “Louisa called me around 7:30 but it went to voicemail and then I got her text that said I needed to listen to the voicemail.” He explains with some more sniffles and I nod slowly. I knew she would pull this.

“What did her voicemail say?” I ask and he sighs deeply. “Y/n is in the hospital and has been for days, she has a bad concussion and will be going into surgery tomorrow to get her appendix out. Sorry, we both lied to you, thanks bye.” He repeats it and my eyes widen.

“I listened to it the whole plane ride here and it’s burned in my mind. I honestly thought you were like unresponsive- type of bad concussion. I was so fucking worried and then I thought of our small fight this afternoon and I felt worse because you were fighting to get better and I was literally making it worse. I’m such an asshole.” He groans and turns his head so I can’t see him cry. Even though he was profusely crying, I was happy to see him in person.

“Look at all of these bruises on you, maybe if I would have called you more often then you could’ve told me how your stomach had been feeling. Or that you decided to stop wearing the ring and that you probably hate the fact that I’m here right now.” He continues on and I didn’t even have the chance to reply by the time more words flowed out of his mouth.

“I honestly haven’t been a good fiancé and I’m so sorry.” He was sobbing by this point and wasn’t making any eye contact. “Luke.” I tug his arm and he keeps his head low. “Please, if you want me to go, I will.” He sniffles and I tug his arm again.

“C’mon, get up here you big dork. I want you to hold me.” I demand and he looks up quickly. “Really?” He sounded so hopeful and I nod, scooting over to make enough room for the giant. “Luke, the last thing I thought about when I fell asleep was that I wish you here and that we never argued. I’m sorry that I left you in the dust, but I knew you’d give up a lot of tour dates to be here. I didn’t want you to let the fans down.” I admit and he starts to make himself comfortable, he pushed a few hairs out of my eyes.

He was running his calloused thumb across my hand. “I gave my ring to Louisa because I didn’t want a nurse to lose it when I was in surgery. I promise that I still love you and I will put it back on the minute I’m out of surgery.” I tell him and he grins. “I’m sorry.” He says again and I shake my head.

“Hey, we’re both done with apologies now. Let’s just sleep because I need it and so do you.” I wrap my fingers around the ringlet curls in front of his eyes.

“I love you so much,” I whisper and kiss his cheek. “I love you more.”

[leaveharmony]

It’s so hard to type on the tablet so I did only the briefest of summaries at the time.  An account of random Tana encounters in NYC over supercard weekend, cut for length.

Anyway - I’d promised @lone-gunwoman-of-the-week a new york postcard, which with one thing and another I had forgotten entirely about until Saturday, when we passed a big rack of them outside a touristy place down the street and I stopped dead and pointed, “POSTCARD!”

We were on a trek to Macy’s at the time, looking to get mum an emergency replacement purse because hers had blown out its zipper with all the stuff she was carrying in it - the last straw was after Wrestlecon when she couldn’t find her Metrocard, and then it just gave up the ghost.

(Macy’s was way too expensive as an aside - we ended up going to K mart lol.  Those all closed here like two decades ago!)

So we got the postcard, and then a stamp at the other gift shop in the hotel...only I was in pretty rough shape so we decided to go back up to the room so I could actually write the postcard & address and such.  So we went back down to mail it, conveniently at the letterbox at the other end of the lobby.

Like I say, @joshi-hashi by total coincidence booked us at the same hotel where the whole roster was staying, so over the course of three days I ran into / saw, including but probably not limited to: Kazu, Ishii, Sho & Yoh, Yano, Tacos, Goto, Shingo, Naito, EVIL, Will, Shibata & his lions, Juice, Zack (we kept riding the elevator with him lol), Jay, Tama, Haku, Yujiro, Gedo, Jado, Taguchi, Rocky, Ren, Shota, Red Shoes, Sato, Marty, MiSu, Taka, Kota, Kagatsu & a few of the other Stardom girls, Sumie...

Again, I was in rough shape and mum was faring no better, so in the window of time between waking up and the show, we could have gone and done more tourist stuff but after the subway disaster on Friday, we elected just to stay around home base, Saturday.  And I needed to sit down, so we picked a spot on one of the long padded couches in the lobby to recoup a little.  Not a minute later, Tacos, Goto & Yano rounded the bend from the elevator - we’d somehow managed to time it so that we were sitting there as literally everybody was making their way across to MSG for the show.  Hand on heart, total coincidence...I just wanted to mail a postcard lol.  As obviously times when you can just sit there comfortably and watch the whole NJPW roster walk past are fairly limited in number, we elected to stay a while.  Kazu actually came from the direction of the doors but he did have a suitcase, so I have no idea where he’d been - he grinned at us when we waved though.  Shota smiled too, Kota managed somehow to smile, wave and bow without even slowing down because that’s just the kinda guy he is.  MiSu looked at us like we were nuts every time we waved lol but we kept doing it anyway.  Most didn’t notice - I always feel like being to forward is rude so we just kept to our seat & waved rather than trying to get selfies or start a conversation - everybody was obviously all over everywhere and busy.

I couldn’t help myself on a very specific occasion, though.  “We’ll wait til 3:30,” I said casually, fooling no one.  We had the end bench right by the little dividing wall that obscures the elevators; he emerged nearly right next to me and I sprang up like a jack in the box.  My hair was pigtailed and I had my hat on rather than the feathered headband & ponytail, and I was dressed like a normal human being rather than wrestling Cinderella, but he remembered me ^_^  I didn’t want to detain him or anything so we just clasped hands again & I wished him luck - though I guess it didn’t help much.  But I was so happy just to see him again, for what I figured would be the last (probably only) time casually.  Two really sweet Japanese ladies also spotted him on the way out and physically chased him down the lobby to say hi lol.  The pillars were a little in the way but we could see him beaming while they gushed over him, and then they took a selfie.  I guess they must have complimented his hair (which looked fucking amazing) because he told them getting it done for the show cost $300 lol.  It absolutely looked it.  We were still sitting there when they came back and of course they noticed my Tana shirt - they both had his shirts on too (I think he might have signed them on the spot cos they were both proudly showing me the autographs).  So we had a really lovely chat in what they could manage in english (much much better than my broken Japanese).  Rachel appeared not long after, summoned by my mention of Kota going past, and so we all talked a while.  I just.  I love wrestling lol and the kinship of wrestling fans.

Later, after Supercard (which was on whole at least live very good, apart from some really, really stupid decisions on ROH’s part) it was past midnight when we got back to the room; our airport shuttle was due to arrive at 3:05 last we’d heard, but mum had a text message waiting RE: a slight bump up to 3:15, something schedule or logistics related I guess.  So we figured that there was no point going to bed as we’d maybe get two hours’ sleep before the wake up call and it’d be better to use the time packing and getting everything arranged.  When more or less everything was, I went up to floor 12 to sit up at the common table with Elle & Rachel (admittedly I broke into a bit of a sprint when Elle texted to say Tana’d gone past lol).  By another total coincidence as we were sitting there loudly discussing the show, an absolutely lovely gentleman who works in what sounded like a v. important position with NJPW World happened to walk past and overhear.  He’s obviously got a vested interest, so he u-turned as I was saying “If someone had only just casually seen this as a first introduction they’d probably come away concluding New Japan is amazing and ROH is terrible.”

“New japan is amazing?” he echoed, to a chorus of Yes’s.  So we had a chat for about twenty minutes giving him general feedback, telling him how we all met cos of NJPW, how we first heard about it, watch every show live, showed him all our costumes for the show, etc.  He got a handle on Elle and Rachel’s names but kept calling me “Hiroshi” because he’d seen me the day before at Wrestlecon in my Tana dress lmao.   He was a real sweetheart - a fan turned employee, living the dream.  He thanked us for paying his salary, essentially lol.  I should have thought to ask him about putting out an english subtitled version of Shinsuke’s Wonderland interview XD

But I had to run not long after he left, cos I’d cut it a bit fine with 20 minutes or so before the shuttle was scheduled.  We weren’t sure if the driver would come looking or if we had to be outside, so mum checked the keycards while I ran to see if I could ask the doorman, figuring he/they would keep a better watch and know what to look for, or just know which way it would be.  That early in the morning there wasn’t a doorman, though.  So to play it safe we stayed by the doors just inside, keeping watch, figuring at about five min before the appointed time we’d go outside.  “The lobby seems so empty without all the wrestlers in it,” mum remarked.  I figured that late, everyone must have gone to bed already.

Not long after though, TAKA came in with uh...let’s just say ‘some lady friends’ and hope they were fully informed lady friends.  “There, happy?” I said to mum, looking back towards the door in time to see Kota heading for it with a few of the accompanying entourage I figure must have been staff, translators and officials - they were everywhere too, this weekend.  I thought for a split second, ‘Oh good, I’ll be able to congratulate him!’ before he faded to a gentle haze in the background, as the sun himself said something on the way past and walked on by the door, towards Macy’s.  I don’t even think I said anything to mum but she probably understood when I took off at a dead sprint, not even bothering to drop my suitcase handle, just towing it behind me like a little red wagon.  I blew past Kota without even looking at him (I’m so sorry dude!!!!) and went as fast as my poor abused knee could carry me the way he’d gone - he hadn’t gotten far, just tucked around a little corner by the entrance - I think he was gonna do another selfie or panoramic lol. 

Again, the man is fucking unflappable, as he didn’t even raise an eyebrow when confronted with a disheveled, panting nutcase in a trenchcoat and newsboy cap being smacked in the back of her legs w/ her own suitcase at the abrupt stop.  “We’re just waiting for our airport shuttle!” I blurted.  “So I get to say goodbye!”

He actually managed to look happy to see me, bless his heart lol.  He thanked me for the third time, for the doll I made him, and I just said thank you for everything.  Again - I don’t like to be too forward, I don’t even think I could bring myself to ask for a hug, I’m too shy & too much of a headcase wrt fear of being a burden or an annoyance.  But he came at me first, and when the Ace has his arms open to you, there is but one possible course, and that course is to throw yourself into them lol.  He is a wonderful hugger :’)  It’s like being wrapped in the embrace of everything that is good and pure in this world & that’s not even hyperbole, that was really how it felt.

I’m so glad I got to say goodbye.  I mean...it would’t have broken my heart, you know?  There’s always that “Oh maybe I’ll see him again at random” thought in the back of the mind but it’s utterly without expectation.  But I was blessed enough to have the chance to speak to him twice, by chance. 

It really was like a lil fairytale; my lil wrestling Cinderella dream come true in a way I never would have actually believed.

[areadersjoy]

Girlfriend

Summary: *requested* Tom Holland Imagine where he is doing a talk show and they pull up a photo of y/n and Tom cuddling up on their hotel balacony early in the morning and he admits they are dating and starts gushing about how much of an amazing girlfriend she is and a great mom to Tess

Pairing: Tom Holland x Reader

Word Count: 1.3k

Warnings: C U T E

Note: it’s been a minute, huh? this was a request we’ve had in our drafts since before we went inactive on you guys, which i apologize for. life can be a jerk sometimes. anyway--here’s a little something i started last night! i had so much fun writing, and i hope you all have just as much fun reading! x - K

Posted: 08/30/2018

“So, Tom,” Ellen Degeneres says, leaning forward in attempts to make it seem that she was way more interested than she was just seconds prior.

“So, Ellen,” Tom replies in his best imitation, folding his hands in his lap and having a stare-down with the host for no more than ten seconds, until the audience broke into a fit of laughter, making the two who were having the stare down laugh, themselves.

“So, Tom, I can call you Tom, right?”

“Yes, it’s my name, I’d prefer it,” he chirps back in the most polite matter, which somehow made the audience laugh.

“Alright, TOM... you’re here today to talk about the newest Avengers Movie, Avengers: Infinity Wa—!” Before she could finish, the crowd erupted into screams of joy and excitement. 

Running his fingers through his hair, Tom maintained the smile over his face.

“I am, yes. And I’m here all by myself—I can hardly believe they’re letting me do one of these by myself again,” the young boy goes on, gaining a few laughs from the audience. 

“So you’re saying you don’t have anything to tell us today?”

“No, no!” Tom let’s out abruptly, sitting up. “And even if I did, I couldn’t.”

“Really?” Ellen asks, a devious grin going across her lips.

“Yes, really,” Tom replies, once again getting into a stare down with Ellen. However this time Tom found his heart beginning to race.

“So,” Ellen finally breaks eye contact as she looks to one of her producers, now motioning to the screen behind the both of them.

“You have nothing to say about this picture you posted?” 

Oh no. Tom knew exactly what the picture was before looking. Slowly taking a glance, his eyes widened a bit at the sight of (Y/N) and Tom almost quite literally spooning on a chair meant for one person. Tom had prayed that this picture would never see the light of day, though it was his own fault it was now being seen. Instead of pressing the save button a week or two on Instagram... he had hit post, instead, giving life to more rumors that had been flying around for the past few months.

Tom was known for spoiling things. However, when it came to you, he liked to have it just between the both of you. While rumors were swarming about whether he was with Zendaya, (Y/N), or sometimes even Harrison... all roads lead back to you. You two had been dating since before the first Spider-Man movie came out, and were notoriously private about what was going on between you guys. Nothing other than a oh, they’re one of my greatest friends was shared.

So for Ellen to bring this up was a literal punch in the gut, his absolute nightmare had become a reality. He brought his hand up to cover his face, feeling his heart now stop, if that was even possible. While having his own internal mini-meltdown, Tom hadn’t even noticed all the oohs, ahhs and whistles coming from the audience.

Soon enough, the male uncovers his face, and put on his best smile, hoping that he was ready to answer what was to come.

“You know what, based off of that reaction, you totally have nothing to say about the picture,” Ellen retorts, a knowing look over her face, that sent the audience into another fit of laughter.

“Well,” he begins, feeling his face heat up—watching Ellen’s grin grow. “That’s a photo of my friend (Y/N) and I from a few weeks ago,” he explained rather calmly, leaving the host of the show unsatisfied.

“Okay, so you’re telling me that you and the girl in this picture are just friends?” She asks, looking back to the picture, then back at Tom, and then back to the picture.

“Because I don’t believe you.”

As the audience laughs, Tom does as well—finding himself a bit overwhelmed at this point. Honestly, as much as he enjoyed keeping things private, he would love to tell everyone about you guys. He wanted to scream out to the world about the love he had for you. But... if something’s not broken, why fix it?

“Yeah, I don’t believe me either,” the male lets out softly, a hand wiping over his forehead, going on to let out another laugh, once again feeling his heart begin to race.

“Okay... so if you aren’t friends, then what are you? I mean, you have to at least be friends to be that close to someone in a picture. I wouldn’t want to be that close to someone I didn’t like,” Ellen rambles on, which somehow made Tom feel better.

Letting out a huff of air, he smiles her way, and shakes his head. “(Y/N) is... phenomenal, really. I’ve known her for a while now, and she’s really one of my greatest friends,” he pauses, a wave of relief going throughout him, as he was truly just genuinely happy to be talking about you. “I’m very lucky to have her in my life. I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

With that, Tom wipes his hands along the pants he wore, and averts his eyes to the ground. The once giggly and rambunctious audience was now filled with so much love, and some resentment for the girl that made Tom feel so happy.

“So she’s your girlfriend?” Ellen chirps, waiting for Tom to look back her way.

“I didn’t say that,” he says back, desperately fighting back a smile that wanted to shine through.

“Alright, yeah. She’s your girlfriend.”

~

It was just nearing midnight when Tom was getting ready for bed, delighted that his day wasn’t an absolute train wreck. He had done press all day, most with someone by his side, and other sessions by himself. It wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be.

As he lay on his back for the first time since early that morning, a sigh of relief passed his lips, a smile creeping up seconds later. It was kind of fun teasing everyone about what was going on in his relationship. But most of all, it was nice to tell the world how important you were to him.

As he finally began to doze off, his phone began to ring. Tom didn’t check the caller ID, as he knew that ring tone by heart at this point—the BatMan Theme Song. He always insisted that it made no sense as his character and BatMan will probably never cross paths in the Marvel Universe, and you would always say that’s why it makes perfect sense.

“Hello?” He lets out as he answers the phone, a smile in his voice.

“You are in TROUBLE!” You shout in a playful tone, which makes your boyfriend laugh.

“Why am I in trouble?”

“You told Ellen that we’re dating, I thought we were keeping it a secret.”

“Come on darling, you know I can’t keep secrets,” he teases, knowing very well that you would be rolling your eyes at his remark.

You two spend up to a half an hour chatting, when you decide to cut things off.

“As much as I would love to talk to you all day, I have to head off to work soon, and I think you need to go to bed,” you tell him smoothly, just happy to have heard his voice to start out your day.

Right, time zones. That’s why they were talking on the phone and not in the same room. 

“Alright, I’ll talk to you tonight, love,” Tom says sweetly, though he felt part of him aching over the fact that they were so far away.

“Goodnight, I love you.”

“I love you, too. Have a good day and give Tessa some kisses for me.”

You laugh, which is pure music to his ears. 

“Will do, babe.” 

Click.

[drybonesawaken]

A group of people wanted to share a journal together. So this week, I've been journaling (almost) every day, and tomorrow I'm gonna be passing it onto the next person.

It was kinda fun. Bit scary to put my thoughts out there - but not that bad tbh. I figured since I am not gonna keep the journal I should transcribe my thoughts somewhere, so here they are.

Yes, the math bits were included in the journal when I wrote. Just something fun I did. You can try to figure out if it means anything if you want :)

-

Maple 3.27.21

I don't like journaling .-. mah handwriting sucks, and pen ink takes too long to dry. Apologies If any of this page is smudged as a result ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ And no, Maple does not use anything but pen. When mistakes are made, and trust they will definitely be made, you see a lot of bleh <- that. I also missed like three words in the previous sentence, but it's messy to try to go back and put them in :( this is the consequence of writing when brain is running at negative mph... This may be two paragraphs of nothing, but honestly that's how my day goes, usually. Right now I'm listening to this audiobook to fill up my brain and stop it from thinking. It's quite interesting. I read the book back in middle school, and it's taking me on a trip down memory lane. I was listening to this earlier while playing tetris, too. I'm joining a tetris tournament tomorrow, so I've been grinding this week. Hopefully it goes well! It's funny how I spend so much time playing this game which means so little - but somehow, I find fulfillment in the emptiness that it brings me. Breaking personal records is such a meaningless ordeal, but somehow it's something I strive so hard to do. These days, PBs come once every couple of months. It's not worth it.

-

Maple 3.28.21

Today felt like I did everything and nothing all at the same time. I found out I don't like tetris tournaments. I hung out with some friends. I ate a big dinner. I made some choices I highkey regretted, yet couldn't stop myself from making in the moment. I spent some time sulking over said mistakes by cuddling with roommate. Very thankful for him - I definitely make him so uncomfortable LOL but he puts up with it because he knows touch is my love language. I was debating for awhile today over what I should eat for dinner (or breakfast or lunch or whatever you want to call it :') ) and I realized what I wanted to eat most was my own cooking. Unfortunately, I wasn't feeling like cooking, so I had to settle for something else, but this was kind of a wake up call: when's the last time I cooked for myself? hmmm... It's also at the same time pretty cool because less than a year ago, I was still at a place where I strongly disliked my cooking and only ate it because I had to. Crazy how things can change in just a year - my culinary skills must have improved a lot over last summer... I really need to get my car tires fixed tomorrow. I have time tomorrow. I had better go. If I don't, my car is gonna break.

How does one stop beating themselves up for their mistakes? I don't struggle with forgiveness, but oh how I struggle with forgiving myself...

1 + 2 = 4 = 2

-

Maple 3.30.21

Yesterday, we had to record something for Easter that took forever. It was not fun. I kept messing up. And my perfectionist self kept blabbering about wanting to redo certain things. Everyone was tired - it went so long - some people had exams; I can only imagine how annoying it must have been to hear me complaining about doing things again, and yet - and I hate myself for this - I couldn't help but keep bringing it up. Of course, being unsatisfied with the way I played, I volunteered to patch things up in post production. *sigh*, what a mistake that ended up being. Afterwards, I was tired and wanted to go home. Yet, because someone asked, and I guess I was a bit hungry, I decided to go get food with Junshik and Bryan. My ulterior motive was to talk to Bryan about buying cars, so I guess that worked out. But yikes, I only got 7 hours of sleep last night. - Today sucked. I'm realizing more and more that part of depression is the complete dependence on sleep. When I get not enough sleep, I'm not just fatigued: my life is just hell. I straight up no-showed to a meeting and apologized for it 8 hours after the fact (my excuse was that I feel asleep. Wow, something so embarrassing most people would find an excuse for it has now become my go to excuse. Rip). Went to a meetup because I didn't want to cancel - again - so that was fun (sorry if you're reading this. I lied when I said that I was ok :/). Life group was great I wanted to die but I was leading worship so I couldn't just leave. And oh yeah I just spent the last 4 hours after life group mixing that audio clip because stupid ol' me volunteered to do it asap yesterday. Tomorrow will be fun. I have 7 meetings/meetups from 9am to 8pm. I wonder how many I'll cancel last minute, or straight up skip...? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I hate ______.

-

Maple 3.31.21

9am to 8pm today was rough. It's kinda crazy - when I wake up, I knew it wasn't gonna be a good day...but I really needed it to be at least an okay day. And I think I somehow willed that into existence :O I need to try this again sometime. Didn't cancel or skip a single thing today! (Praise God!!!) After my meetings all ended, I had to tutor for another 3 hours until 11:30, too. That was draining. I also pranked a friend today - told her I was dating right after midnight. Oh I love April Fools. She's the only one I can consistently troll year after year. I also spent a considerable amount of time after midnight trying to figure out how to script Audacity in Python. Useless, sure, but it could save us sound people a couple of minutes every Sunday if I figure it out. This is what my degree is for :') Sleep is going to feel so good tonight.

5 + 4 - 7 = 2 + 1 11 + 1 + 1 - 1 = 6 4 + 2 = 3 5 = 2 + 2 - 3 5 = 4 - 1 - 2

-

Maple 4.2.21

I think my handwriting is getting better with this almost-daily practice =) This whole week has been busy-ness from when I wake up to when I go to bed. Hung out with people yesterday for the first time this week, and it was pretty tiring. I can't say I regret it though; I had a lot of fun and learned a lot about certain people. Recently, I've been noticing that people can tell when I'm tired a lot more obviously - someone on worship team who I only interact with on Sundays literally called me out for it. I'm finding that it just sort of slips onto my face, in such a way that I don't notice and can't even recognize it: I'm shocked every time it happens. Maybe it's because I've lost the will to live, so the lack of will to hide it came alongside as well. I accidentally let it slip that I've been brain empty to worship team today, and now there are even more people worried for me, some of whom I barely know. I'm such a burden :( Brain empty is honestly such a mood though. I have too many problems and not enough will to confront them. Better to just avoid. Yeah yeah yeah this is not healthy I know. I'll save doing things the healthy way for tomorrow :')

1 + 1 = 4 + 3 + 2 + 1 8 = 7 6 - 5 = 10 + 1 1 + 2 = 1 - 1

-

Maple 4.3.21

Today was supposed to be a more chill day, but it really wasn't... Forced myself to get out of bed for a meetup rather than cancel it. I think if I had cancelled it, everything else I had to do today would have followed suit shortly after.... It ended up being a 2-hour meetup, straight into 2.5 hours of tutoring. As much as they might have been pretty ok tbh, I can't say I enjoyed it. I was so dead afterwards. I wanted to cancel my dinner meetup so bad. But I had already gone shopping earlier today (during the first meetup) so that I could cook for him. And I knew if I cancelled it'd be another week before I'd have a chance. The food would have gone bad. So following 2 tilt-inducing matches of tetris which were supposed to be stress relieving (they were not), commenced 2 hours of cooking, followed by a 3.5 hr meetup. It was... haha... Did I enjoy it? Yup. Did I have a hella-thick mask on the whole time? Also yup. I'm so ready for a long hot shower and an early bedtime. Tomorrow is Easter. I'm not feeling very victorious...

1 + 2 = 4 - 1 1 + 1 - 1 + 1 = 1 1 + 2 + 3 - 4 = 4 - 1 - 2 + 1

[alainas-adventures]

Tokyo, Volume II

Homer and I are seriously considering making an annual visit to Tokyo. From April 12-15, we enjoyed our second trip to this beautiful city and to the Tokyo Disneyland Resort. This time, we did our trip in reverse order: city first, then Disney. And since we only had four days, we skipped Disneyland and just opted for DisneySea. 

Thursday, April 12

We headed to the airport around 6:00 AM. Knowing we’d have just the late afternoon and evening in the city, we didn’t plan to do too much. We checked into a lovely AirBnb just a few metro stops away from Shinjuku, grabbed some fast food (which in Japan means rice and meat), and started to explore.

The view from our AirBnb (which could have been an IKEA showroom, tbh).

If you go to Tokyo and don’t take a street style pic, did you even go to Tokyo??

The first item on our checklist was the Harry the Hedgehog cafe in Harajuku. This is literally a place where you pay to play with tiny hedgehogs. We got there near closing time, so we only got 20 of the 30 minutes we normally would have had, but it was SO WORTH IT. These little creatures are too adorable!!

This one may have pooped while we were holding it. There’s a reason you wear gloves.

After that, we had some time to kill before seeing Roppongi Kaguwa – a cross between Airband, a geisha performance, and a drag show. I really don’t know how to explain it. Picture a stage comprised of small black platforms which rise and fall in order to create various illusions. Now add in two dozen performers, who dance, act, and undergo a slew of quick changes. The surrounding environment is a cross between a theatre and a nightclub. It was bizarre to be sure, but I was fully engaged. 

Friday, April 13

We checked out of our AirBnb around 11am (and by checked out, I mean dropped the keys back in their mailbox) and headed to Shinjuku. The previous day, we had found a luggage delivery service there that was able to send our suitcases to Disneyland for about $25 USD per piece. This really helped us out. It prevented us from having to come back to Shinjuku later in the day to retrieve our luggage from a storage locker, and from having to carry it on the metro all the way to Disneyland (which is about 40 minutes outside of the city). If you’re interested in doing this, check out the Tourist Information Center in Shinjuku. There are other locations and companies that do this throughout Tokyo as well. You should give them at least one day’s notice if you’re sending bags to Disneyland, as the delivery truck leaves at 11:30 AM.

After shedding our baggage, we headed back into the colorful Harajuku for some more exploring. 

First up was the “Owl Forest,” a walkthrough experience that allows you to come face-to-face with these majestic birds of prey. 

Homer took this and I seriously think he should send it in to National Geographic.

Staring contest with this big guy. I can’t say for sure that I lost. He turned his head 180 degrees to avoid blinking at me. Pretty sure that’s cheating.

When it was time for lunch, we ducked into a place that had some of the best fried dumplings I’ve ever eaten.

The rest of the day was spent shopping, basically. We joked that we would visit ever Disney Store in Tokyo. But when the day was done, we actually had hit four of them: Odaiba, Shinjuku, Harajuku, and Shibuya. 

This is the Shibuya location, which is a winding tower that takes you through various Disney scenes. The top floor features decor from the Darlings’ Nursery (Peter Pan) and Geppetto’s workshop (Pinocchio). 

Next up (as I started to doze off on every train ride because of my lack of sleep), we headed for Odaiba. This is a large shopping mall and tourist destination, featuring a massive ferris wheel, a water park, and a 65-foot robot named GUNDAM. (Guess whose pick this destination was?)

GUNDAM's horn actually transforms every two hours and his lights change as he does so. From 7:30 to 9:30 PM, there is also a projection show every 30 minutes. 

After dinner, we took a quick walk (quick because it was cold and very windy by the harbor) to Odaiba’s replica of the Statue of Liberty. Seeing as I’ve never been to the real one, it was pretty cool, I guess.

Finally, it was the moment I’d been waiting for ever since I saw photos on Instagram a year ago... it was time to transfer to the Tokyo Disneyland Hotel. I booked the Beauty and the Beast character room as an early birthday present to myself, and it was SO WORTH IT. Homer was a champ at enduring all of my ridiculous photo requests.

Belle was the first princess who made me believe that this dream could be possible for me, so I have a special connection to her story. Staying in a room that was made to look like part of the Beast’s castle was the icing on the cake of an already incredible trip!

We took a little more time to explore the hotel lobby and gift shop, and to make breakfast reservations for the next morning. It was going to be a busy day, so we tried to go to bed as early as we could (so, midnight. Fail).

Saturday, April 14

Everybody here knows when I go to Disney, I go hard. However, we had been to Tokyo DisneySea before, so I wasn’t as concerned about trying to do EVERYTHING. Instead, we picked the handful of things we liked best from our first trip and focused on those, allowing for more buffer time than in our last trip. Still, since we only had one day (and it was a Saturday), I did want to get an early start. The hotel provided us with special passes that allowed us to enter the inner gates of the park 15 minutes before everyone else (at 7:45 AM). We didn’t quite make it for that, but by 8:15, we were there.

I will say, that extra 30 minutes does make a big difference. Whereas on our first trip (when we waited at the entrance gate from about 7:30 AM, if memory serves) we were able to walk right onto Journey to the Center of the Earth and Indiana Jones, this time we ran into 30-50 minute waits for both. We stood in line to ride the former (mostly to wake ourselves up) and decided to return later for the latter. We then dashed over to the American Waterfront to grab FastPasses for Tower of Terror (success) and try our hand at the lottery for Big Band Beat (we lost). (I’ll explain this more later.)

Now, I do need to address the weather. Unfortunately, though our first two days were in the low 70s/upper 60s and sunny, our ONE AND ONLY DISNEY DAY was of course cold, cloudy, windy, and occasionally rainy. But we were determined to have a good time (and make photo magic happen so that it didn’t look as dreary as it was). Therefore, when we saw a pocket of sunshine opening up in the clouds, we took immediate advantage. 

The Mermaid Lagoon area will forever be my favorite part of DisneySea – although I love the entire park. We took a million photos, then enjoyed King Triton’s Concert (Ariel flies over the audience – she even waved at us!)

We were delighted to see an old friend of mine under the sea!

...and I finally got to meet Prince Eric!

After hitting the shops (duh), we headed to the American Waterfront to redeem our FastPasses for the Tower of Terror and enjoy some infamous green alien mochi. If you don’t remember from my last trip, each one is filled with either chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry custard. People line up for ages to get these things – and for good reason!

One more snack that I neglected to get a photo of (because I gobbled it up THAT FAST) was the bacon-wrapped rice roll. My mouth is literally watering trying to describe this. The consistency of the rice was so soft – you would have thought it was potato. Here’s a photo from Have Seat Will Travel:

One of the things we really regretted missing on our last trip was Big Band Beat, the Broadway-style stage musical in the American Waterfront area. This show features a live big band, a vocal jazz quartet, tap dancers, and of course – the VIPs. Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, and Daisy make special appearances – but Mickey is the true star. He plays a drum solo and then GETS UP AND TAP DANCES. It was excellent. We were wholly impressed.

(Side note: we were taken aback by how the audience clapped heartily after every number and, without prompting, clapped on 2 and 4 at appropriate times. I need you to understand that hell would freeze over before this ever happened in Hong Kong Disneyland.)

(Side side note: we also noticed an enthusiasm for audience participation in general. In a special 35th Anniversary show on the lake earlier that morning, Mickey was able to rally the entire crowd into learning a simple dance and performing it along with him and his friends. Again, Hong Kong audiences would never go for this.)

This theatre is HUGE! The only ways to get orchestra seating are either to line up for the first show of the day (people were there at 8am and I was not about to sit there until 12:20, so no) or to win the lottery that I mentioned earlier. You can enter once a day, and our one try was not successful. We sat in the mezzanine because that’s the seating designated for the “unlucky” ones who don’t win the lottery seats on the ground floor. But actually, I quite liked the view from up there, and didn’t view it as a consolation prize at all. (I was also told that we were extremely lucky to get seats by lining up just 20 minutes before the performance. It must have been a slow day.)

Another thing we missed on our last trip was the gondola ride in the Mediterranean Harbor area of the park. This is a stunning area – I wish we could have taken more photos, but the weather was on the decline. The boat ride was a lot of fun – even though we had to hold an umbrella up for most of it. The gondolier even sang an Italian song as we passed under a bridge, and she got all of us to close our eyes and make a wish for good luck. (Again, this would never fly in Hong Kong.)

Next, we made our way to the north side of the park – mostly for photo-taking opportunities, and also to redeem our FastPasses for Indiana Jones.

We found this wall paying homage to Coco next to the Mexican cantina. We both love this film, so we had to stop for photos!

The Arabian Coast area is magnificent. This time we got around to riding the top level of the double-decker carousel.

After the cold started to take its toll and our feet and backs began to ache, we decided to take a dinner break at one of the “buffeterias” (offering set meals that allow you to pick an entree, bread or rice, a drink, and two sides). It felt like we had just won a reward challenge on Survivor. We gobbled up every last bite.

One thing we said we’d never do was Toy Story Midway Mania, for the sole reasons that 1. the line was usually 120 minutes or more and 2. the same attraction can be found in Walt Disney World back at home. But at the end of the day, while everyone was distracted by Fantasmic!, the wait went down to only 70 minutes. We decided to tough it out and make it our last attraction of the day.

The queue area for this ride is a bit different than that of its Orlando counterpart. I especially liked the detail of the corner of Andy’s bedspread revealing the entrance to the “arcade.”

Well, it was a very full day, and I think the weather took even more stamina than would have been necessary on a sunny day. We relocated to the Hilton Tokyo Bay (the Tokyo Disneyland Hotel had been very helpful in sending our bags there for free earlier in the day) and called it a night.

Travel Tip: Tokyo Disneyland offers special tickets called Starlight Passports and After 6 Passports, which allow you to enter the park after 3pm on Saturdays/Sundays/Public Holidays and 6pm Monday-Friday respectively, at a discounted price. These tickets are only available on certain days, but if you arrive on property midday, they can be a great way to save money and still get park time. This is especially useful because Tokyo Disneyland Resort does not allow same-day park hopping unless you purchase a 3- or 4-day ticket package. So make use of the half days that you’ve got! Check the park operation calendar before you go to see which days these passports are available. Click here for more information on TDLR ticketing.

Sunday, April 15

We woke up to this view after receiving a free upgrade to an oceanview room! Then we checked out, booked our airport limousine service, left our luggage with the valet and headed for Ikspiari. This is a shopping district, kind of like Tokyo’s version of Downtown Disney. Located right beside the Tokyo Disneyland stop on the resort line, the mall is attached to Disney’s Ambassador Hotel (which scarily resembles the Hollywood Hotel, my first home at Hong Kong Disneyland). Inside are dozens of shopping and dining options, among them Japan’s largest Disney Store. This marked our fifth Disney Store of the week (sixth if you count the one in the Hong Kong airport) and I wasn’t even a little bit remorseful. Here’s my merch haul from the trip.

From top left: 1. I snagged the backpack on day one of its launch; it’s part of a partnership between Disney and Legato Largo. There was also another style of this bag, and they came in other colors (pink with Rapunzel, pink with Ariel, beige with Belle, navy with Jasmine, black with Minnie Mouse). There is also a line of accompanying wallets and ID card holders. I really liked the Rapunzel one (especially because the text says “You can always find a new dream” – such appropriate timing for me!) but you couldn’t see the outline of the artwork unless you were about a foot away. It looked like a plain pink backpack from a distance. So I chose the Ariel one, with the text, “Under the Sea.” 2. These pink glittery ears were launched as part of the Sakura festival in Japan. Though the blossoms had already vanished from Tokyo by the time we got there, the park still had plenty of these accessories on their shelves. 3. A pin with Ariel’s silhouette. 4. Just a shopping bag featuring the 35th Happiest Celebration artwork. 5. I had to get a new Little Mermaid collage shirt from DisneySea because last time I had a lapse in judgment and bought a large kids’ size, thinking it fit better than the adult small. It shrunk in one wash and turned into an unfortunate crop top. 6. Another Little Mermaid shirt from the Disney Store Japan. This one has chiffon sleeves and a picture of Ariel on the back, with the text “Think Happy, Be Happy.” The artwork is similar to that of the Little Mermaid sweatshirt I bought on my trip to Osaka, but the text is a vast improvement from “Ariel and Flounder, very good friends.” 7. A cup and amenities kit from the Tokyo Disneyland Hotel, also featuring the artwork from the 35th Anniversary. 8. A mini Ariel wallet from the Disney Store, featuring the same artwork and quote as the white shirt. 9. A Chip teacup from Tokyo DisneySea.

As always, we had an incredible time in Japan. This visit solidified my goal to work and live there someday. If I’m not working there by spring 2019, I will definitely do my best to take a vacation there again. Japan has a little piece of my heart!

[alex-guerin]

So, the company I work for supplies all the local convenience stores and Speedway gas stations East of the Mississippi River with all their stuff inside the store (you go in and buy a phone charger from a Speedway station? Boom. Came from us. That Snickers ice cream bar you chowed down on? Picked from our freezer...well...not MY freezer -- unless you live within 100 miles of my particular warehouse, but one of our company’s warehouses). Our two major stores use to be Circle K (”Strange things are afoot at the Circle K...”) and Speedway. 

Second week of January, our contract with Circle K was up and they switched to a different distribution company. All of the sudden, our work days went from 10 to 12 hrs a day..............to 4.5. I’m not even kidding you. Today the freezer half of my department was done at 4am, my crew in the cooler was done at 4:30am. We started at midnight.  For months, and I do mean MONTHS, management was begging anyone and everyone who was willing to work as many hours as possible, to work as many hours as possible. The paychecks were decent, so those of us who decided to work extra hours never really complained, too much. 

Now that we’ve hit slow travel season, and we’ve lost Circle K, management doesn’t really want anyone putting in any over time. In fact, if it were up to them, they probably would have preferred that my entire department left once we were finished today...after only 4 or 4.5 hours of work. While 2nd shift no doubt got their full 8 or more hours in today. My shift (3rd shift) is the only one NOT promised a full 8 hour shift. We’d still be called full-timers, still get all the benefits, but there was a good chance we’d be lucky most days to make 36hrs a week during the winter (at least, that’s how it was last winter once we finally hit our winter hours). Now it’s even less likely unless our manager can find something for us to do until 8:30 when we hit our full 8 hr mark. 

Well, I like to stay and help Jason on Wednesdays. It’s a heavy day for him, and I like getting to help break down the skids that come in full of product, arrange them on the pallets, and slap the labels on so he can get them confirmed into the system and put away in the freezer. It’s a fun little way for me to be able to spend more time with him, and more often than not, we joke around and tease each other and play and be goofy and everything’s cool. So, when my guys finished at 4:30, and I finished stacking at 5:30/6am, I just wandered my way out to the dock, looked to see what Jason was working on breaking down and dove right in. 

My manager found me a few minutes later and was like, “Hey, you’re cool to stay until 8:30. But that’s it. Anything more than that, and we gotta go talk to the warehouse manager. They don’t want anyone to get any overtime right now.” Because of fucking course they don’t want anyone to get any overtime right now. Guuuuuuuuuh!! So, I said that was fine (*cue Morgan Freeman’s narration: “It was in fact not fine,”*) and I set about working to get as much done as I could in what little time I actually had. 

Now, Jason has not been feeling well this week. He called off Friday cuz he wasn’t feeling well, and he still isn’t up to par yet. I dropped cold and flu meds off for him Monday after I finished work (which his dad decided to steal most of, thanks dad...) and yesterday he basically went home straight after work and went straight to bed. Today, he still wasn’t feeling well. And on top of that, his “helper” Oscar was being an utter dumbass again and pissing him off right from the start of his shift. So, he was not in a good mood. At all. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get him to laugh or play or anything with me. He went on his first break at 6:30, I went with, and finally got him to talk and tell me what was wrong (Oscar, of course, was the reason. As he usually is). It seemed to help him a little to vent, but not enough to get him to play with me. 

Now, last week, he and I were being goofy and playful and...yeah alright, inappropriate but in a fairly innocent way (if that’s possible? All talk, I guess you could say?) and then on Wednesday, I was gonna be brave and do something for him at work (*coughs-lethimcopafeel-coughs*) where the cameras couldn’t see. It was Wednesday, I had hit my 8 hr mark, I was gonna head home. Went into the freezer where I knew he was and kinda nudged his side and told him to meet me in the ice cream room...where there’s no cameras whatsoever. He didn’t question it, he just went. I met him in there, he hopped off his forklift, pulled his skimask down, took half a step forward, his hands were reaching for my waist and while my brain was screaming to abort, my mouth was already telling him to close his eyes so I could take his hand and shove it against my chest. I literally missed a chance (and it was confirmed that I missed it) to make out with a sober Jason in the ice cream room at work. So, I decided today I was gonna ask for a redo! I wanted a second chance dammit! It got to be a little after 8, Corie (the coworker who cornered him and told him to go talk to me waaaaaaaaay back in September for the first time) was heckling me and telling me to go do it, I only had 20 minutes left before I was suppose to leave, he was alone in the freezer, there’s no cameras in the 95 aisle either, go fucking make out with him. So, I went wandering in and up to his forklift. We talked a bit, he thought I was leaving so he gave me my hug and I still just kinda hung around trying to get him to talk a little more and finally when he was like, “I should get back to work.” I was like, “Yeah?” “Yeah.” “Damn. I kinda was hoping I could get a redo of last week.” He gave a surprised laugh and was all, “What?” “I was hoping I could get a redo of last week. I blew it last week! I want a redo!” He tried to play like he didn’t know what I was talking about, I nudged at him and told him he totally knew what I was talking about. He finally was like, “Eh...well...maybe...” I just smirked at him and raised an eyebrow and tried to nudge a bit more and he went, “C’mon, really, lemme get back to work. I wanna get out of here at a decent time.” 

I was totally rejected. Turned down. I felt utterly stupid and kind of ashamed of myself for even suggesting it. I nodded and let go of his forklift and was like, “Okay, gimme another hug, I’ll go.” So, got another hug (a nice hug, both arms, sides of our heads tilted against each others), turned, shoved my hands in my pockets and shuffled off out of the freezer. 

Corie was still out on the dock, on her own forklift, talking to their manager, John. She saw me come out, I made a grumbling face, which got her to laughing and then when John looked from me to her and said something, she started laughing more. I went up and tried to play like I didn’t know why she was laughing, and both her and John just waved me off. I went and got my shit together, locked up my locker, felt like a total dumbass, and went to try and leave. Went up to Corie’s forklift and she finally was like, “Alright, so, 1: I was laughing cuz I saw your face. 2: Because John saw you walk out ahead of Jason and went, ‘Oh, they took a trip to the ice cream room, huh?’ Oh, by the way, John totally knows about you guys, totally by my own fault.” 

..........I don’t know whether to kill Corie, or just never show my face around their manager ever again. Either way, Corie got me to stick around a little while longer, until it was basically 8:30 on the nose, and during that time she was all, “Dude. I can’t believe he turned you down!” then look over her shoulder to see where he was and scream, “DUMBASS!” Pretty sure he had no idea she was talking about him. Then, right before I was gonna leave for real, she was like, “I’m totally gonna go up to Jason and be like, ‘Bro, you should give Lyssa a li’l somethin’-somethin’ in the freezer before she leaves.’” I begged her not to! She was just doing it to try and embarrass me and him! She grabbed up a stack of labels, went over to him and I ducked behind a pallet to hide cuz JFC how is this my life?!?! And yeah, she totally did it. Thankfully, he didn’t know she was serious. He just laughed about it. So, I left and felt stupid (though, did feel better once I found out that Purple Haired Bitch had left a while ago and never came onto the dock looking for him, he never left the dock to go with her, I was sooooo happy!) and texted him at like, 11am to apologize and say that I just thought if I could get him to play, it might help make his day a little more bearable. I figured the only response from him I’d get, if I got one at all, would be “It’s all good.” 

I grabbed my pajamas, and a towel, went and took a long, hot shower and when I came back down there was a text from him. As expected, it was, “It’s all good.” But there was more! “Just not feeling well and I don’t want to get you sick.” *Dopey grin and cuddles phone close* It wasn’t cuz he didn’t want to, or because last Thursday he sent me a text saying “I think we should start behaving”. It was cuz he doesn’t wanna get me sick. Which is what I told Corie I figured it was when he turned me down. And the meds I gave him? He’s actually taking. He literally just sent me another text, basically letting me know he was off of work, saying “Time to go take more meds lol”. I just...I know why he’s not ready for a serious relationship, and I know he’s been burned so many times before that he’s scared of it happening again, but I just...I’m gonna keep hoping. And trying, and working at him. I feel like I am chipping away his resolve, tiny bits at a time, but still doing so. And I know his life is an utter wreck right now thanks to his bitch of an ex, but there’s times when it feels like he’s almost willing to give it a shot. I’ve been praying, A LOT, and I’m not one for praying or very religious, but I have been praying a lot, every day...and amazingly enough, in small ways it feels like they’re being answered. 

His mom told me Friday when she and I were talking, if I thought he was worth it, to be patient with him and get him to talk. I’m as ridiculously patient with him as he is with me. I’m gonna keep working at him, keep trying to chip away at the shield he’s got around his heart. At this moment, right now, I have no intentions of giving up. He’s stuck with me. For however long it takes. 

[qvet]

so my favorite way to deal with someone that I am frustrated with is to basically unpack it all with someone I know/trust that will listen and also possibly add more fuel to the fire.  petty, I know, but doing so is truly cathartic for me and then after that I can almost always face aforementioned frustrating person more easily, or at least without EXPLODING.  I usually feel pretty safe about doing this but this time it’s my housemates that I want to complain about.  I feel like talking to someone who knows all of us might be helpful, but at the same time I’m always worried my shit talking will go back to them, and it’d be ESPECIALLY bad if it’s with people I live with.  so, human journal, I’m gonna complain here.

((also, I know that these pale in comparison to other roommate horror stories and that I am pretty lucky comparatively but…….I want to complain ok)

so to begin with I knew I was the “third wheel” of the house, as in the other two housemates are best friends and I am more secondary which is totally fine.  sometimes I feel a little sad because they click more with each other than I ever will click with either of them but that’s fine because I honestly don’t consider them my very favorite/best friends here, and that’s ok.  just made me feel a little sad at first.  things that they really enjoy like online shopping, makeup, Taylor Swift, I just can’t put my heart into and that is 100% fine for them to like!!!  I just can’t/don’t participate and feel really different from them is all.  anyways.  not a big deal.  then the stuff became bigger, like the “oh just gonna skip class” mentality that they both have from time to time.  which……I never understood because…..if you are mentally and physically able to go our parents are paying SO much money for this + literally what better things do we have to do than going to class????????  but again, minor.  extremely minor.

but then……….I started feeling some things were off.  with one housemate, she’s not even home half of the time because she’s at her boyfriend’s house ~30-40 minutes away (which I think takes away from her experience at college here but w/e it’s not my business and she seems happy) but other times he comes here.  he’s usually not a big problem but again, when he’s here she only spends time with him.  my only legit gripe with him is that when he’s here in the morning he takes a shower before leaving which…………I mean, ok, I get that you have to go to work but………..I have class to go to and I LIVE here?????????  could you please wake up earlier if you are going to do this????????  in my home??????  I expected to share the bathroom with two people, not three.  anyways, then for the housemate herself, she’s a perfectly nice person, but I have realized that our senses of humor are not on the same wavelength and I feel like I really have to put on an act for her to really click with me at all (not her fault, mine, but still something that bothers me).  my legit gripe with her is how passive aggressive she is with like asking us to clean stuff around the house…..like she’ll say something kind of serious and then after I say “oh ok sure I’ll do it tonight” or whatnot she’ll talk in this babyish kind of voice as if we were trying to confront her about something??????  I don’t know how to describe it but it makes me uncomfortable.  also, ok, not her fault, but she is from a pretty well off family and she is obsessive about like nickle-and-diming everything which I don’t know…..also annoys me?  like it always has to be EXACT with tax included which is like…..ok….that’s valid to a degree but you’re getting ONE DOLLAR more ????!?!!!!  whatever.  I think I’m just annoyed at how she just talks in a babyish way to us as if she is trying to avoid conflict when she asks us about things like mopping the floor?????  I don’t think I’m articulating this right but something about her demeanor is off-putting.  we’re also a part of this club together and she often puts her boyfriend/staying in bed over going to social interactions with the club which I mean is fine, it’s her choice, but it makes me kind of sad that she doesn’t really spend a lot of time with anyone other than him????  I don’t know anyways I’m not really super annoyed with her in particular.  usually I just need an hour break from her and we’re good again

it is the other one that I am kind of more fed up with……so first of all, they’re both kind of flaky about going to things, which is a HUGE pet peeve of mine because like…….how HARD is it to just DO something that you said you were going to do……..I mean ok if you’re sick sure, but like if you have a midterm two days later and we made the plan a week ago and agreed to it……you FUCKIN KNEW that it was going to happen so don’t cancel on me because you’re irresponsible!!!!! own up to your mistake!!!!!  whatever, anyways she just flakes out/cancels on plans all the time, almost always because of an academic thing she forgot about or LITERALLY just because she is tired…..and same thing with her and not going to social events for the club we’re in together.  I don’t know, I feel like it sends the message that her time/herself is more important than an agreement she made with someone.  like in the first two months of living with her she cancelled on me FIVE times.  and what makes it worse is that she does it so flippantly like…..I said “oh, yea, we have our dinner with friend x tonight!!” and she said “oh, yeah, that’s not happening” really casually in favor of staying in bed and I don’t know it really made me upset.  she also takes twenty minutes to shower which doesn’t sound like a lot but when you share a bathroom with others in the morning it is a TIME CRUNCH !!!!!!  two more things: one, the people that live above us used to have pretty frequent parties, and yeah, they were kind of loud but I at least never thought they were egregious (i.e. I could fall asleep).  this housemate is a pretty light sleeper so for the first few weeks of school when they were having parties she’d be like “can we call the cops” and I’d always be like “oh um I mean I’m ok with the noise for now but if you want to call them you can” just because I wanted to have a good relationship with the upstairs people just in case but I wasn’t super super opposed to filing a complaint.  but anyways this went on and on and she’d always ask ME to do it and I was like YOU ARE THE ONE that wants to call them, YOU be a big girl and do it.  eventually she got my other housemate + her boyfriend to call one night, which I was fine with, and I thought the ordeal was over.  but then one day on her birthday when we had a couple of friends over we were talking about it and in front of everyone she accuses me of not letting her call them!!!!!!!!!  like!!!!!! bitch!!!!!!! I fucking TOLD YOU YOU COULD I JUST WAS NOT GOING TO DO IT FOR YOU!!!!!!  AND YOU DIDN’T EVEN DO IT IN THE END!!!!!!!!!  I was just so annoyed that she would tell such a blatant lie in front of people/embarrass me in front of close friends.  but the latest thing that got to me was related to her light sleeping habit.  so basically I had a few of my favorite friends from college over at TEN on a Saturday night (tonight)…there were six of us total and we were pretty much just staying in my room, door closed, just snacks, no drinks.  anyways…..at ten thirty she says were are being TOO loud, she is trying to sleep, and ASKS US IF WE CAN GO TO SOMEONE ELSE’S HOUSE.  this just bothered me on SO many levels……..first of all, ?????  am I not allowed to have…..my friends over…..on a Saturday night after 9pm??????  then……you want me to….invite myself over at someone else’s house?????  I took a deep ass breath and just said we’d try to keep it down ((((I didn’t think we were really loud but reasoned ok we were watching videos on my projector and maybe we were laughing too loud, whatever, we’ll just talk)))) so we just talked.  we were just talking…..the six of us……and then at eleven thirty she comes into my room, pulls me aside, and basically tells me to kick them out and ask someone to host us.  but because I am just a people pleaser/weenie I just said yes to get her out of the way and told my friends.  my one source of validation was that one of them, my favorite friend in college, said that it wasn’t cool of her to do that to me since I lived here and it was before midnight on a Saturday which made me think……um yeah?????  and I was happy for the validation but I didn’t know what to do about it.  anyways I just told him I’d address in the morning even though I have no idea what I’d say to her and know I’m not going to say anything to her.  it just annoys me because she said she wanted to go to sleep because she had a “really late night” yesterday (read: she went out drinking) and I wanted to ask WHOSE FAULT THAT WAS and that basically she has a monopoly on all my nights here by just going to sleep and using her light sleeper excuse.  god.  I don’t hate her or anything I’m just very annoyed.  I think I’m just sad because I’m realizing our personalities aren’t as naturally compatible for friendship/I have to put on an act for both of them for things to run smoothly between us and all plus I am growing annoyed at their small quirks. 

I know I should probably just like tell them that I’m annoyed about these things but I don’t know how to do confrontation in non-professional/academic settings so I’m just going to have to SUFFER !!!!!!!!!  thanks for being here though, tumblr, I do feel at least a little better.

edit: I remembered something else about the first housemate!!!  like three weeks ago our wifi went out randomly and I was trying to communicate with her via text about it since she was at her boyfriend’s house.  I understand that it’s stressful to deal with but she was very evasive about doing anything and said “sorry I don’t have a lot of time to deal with this I have 2 midterms this week” which I mean is somewhat warranted but she didn’t ask/take into consideration me who also had two midterms that week????  like, we’re in college, we’re all having midterms.  but the other housemate was like ahhhh technology can’t do this sorry!!! (she is fairly inept with electronics) so I just sucked it up and called customer service/dealt with mailing it back to get a new one because I knew it’d just resolve it faster.  I wish I spoke up for myself more but just think it’s better to avoid conflict and do what I have to do to just resolve things faster.  but now I feel this way lmao so maybe not Update: LMAO I was such a drama queen about this what tf the fuck ????!!! .

[just-another-black-hole]

Ayyy... I felt like doing this just becuzzz

This could be fun (or extremely depressing) 1: Name: Annika 2: Age: 16 3: 3 Fears: Spiders, Clowns, Being Alone 4: 3 things I love: Chickens, Anime, Video Games 5: 4 turns on: No Idea 6: 4 turns off: No Idea 7: My best friend: This dude named Sam 8: Sexual orientation; Bisexual 9: My best first date: Never had one 10: How tall am I: 5′ 5″ 11: What do I miss: Nothing 12: What time were I born; around midnight....idk 13: Favourite color: Navy Blue 14: Do I have a crush: No 15: Favourite quote: “Do or Do Not, there is no try” -Yoda 16: Favourite place: My bed 17: Favourite food: Quesadillas 18: Do I use sarcasm: Yeah 19: What am I listening to right now: Volbeat...anything Volbeat 20: First thing I notice in new person: Their eyes 21: Shoe size: 9 22: Eye color: Brown 23: Hair color: Brown 24: Favourite style of clothing: Geeky clothing, kinda tomboy-ish 25: Ever done a prank call?: Ues 27: Meaning behind my URL: There are so many black holes on tumblr 28: Favourite movie: EraserHead 29: Favourite song: ‘Flower Child’ Sounds Like Harmony 30: Favourite band: Sounds Like Harmony 31: How I feel right now: Bored and depressed 32: Someone I love: Can’t choose one, so all of my friends 33: My current relationship status: Single, and looking for love 34: My relationship with my parents: Not that good 35: Favourite holiday: My birthday 36: Tattoos and piercing i have: N/A 37: Tattoos and piercing i want: Tattoos all over me, no piercings 38: The reason I joined Tumblr: I wanted to meet others with mutual likings 39: Do I and my last ex hate each other?: Never had an ex 40: Do I ever get “good morning” or “good night ” texts?: Nope, no one texts me 41: Have I ever kissed the last person you texted?: No 42: When did I last hold hands?: Probably with a friend before school ended 43: How long does it take me to get ready in the morning?: Literally 5 minutes 44: Have You shaved your legs in the past three days?: Yes 45: Where am I right now?: In Brazil, going to go home to U.S. soon!!! 46: If I were drunk & can’t stand, who’s taking care of me?: My boys Sam and Ahmad 47: Do I like my music loud or at a reasonable level?: Loud. 48: Do I live with my Mom and Dad?: Yes 49: Am I excited for anything?: When I can finally find someone I love 50: Do I have someone of the opposite sex I can tell everything to?: My boy, Sam 51: How often do I wear a fake smile?: All the time 52: When was the last time I hugged someone?: About a week ago 53: What if the last person I kissed was kissing someone else right in front of me?: No one would be kissing someone else   *sigh* 54: Is there anyone I trust even though I should not?: No 55: What is something I disliked about today?: I’m living...and still fat 56: If I could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?: Shane Dawson 57: What do I think about most?: Video Games  58: What’s my strangest talent?: I can deepthroat a water bottle! (Don’t ask) 59: Do I have any strange phobias?: No, unless being alone is one 60: Do I prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?: Both 61: What was the last lie I told?: Yes, I’m fine 62: Do I perfer talking on the phone or video chatting online?: Talking on the phone 63: Do I believe in ghosts? How about aliens?: Ghosts, yes. Aliens? Yes. 64: Do I believe in magic?: No. 65: Do I believe in luck?: Yes 66: What’s the weather like right now?: Dark and Gloomy 67: What was the last book I’ve read?: Trials of Apollo: Book Two 68: Do I like the smell of gasoline?: Heck, yes 69: Do I have any nicknames?: Chicken, Annie 70: What was the worst injury I’ve ever had?: I fell backwards from a highchair when I was little 71: Do I spend money or save it?: Spend 72: Can I touch my nose with a tongue?: Yep 73: Is there anything pink in 10 feets from me?: Hell. No. 74: Favourite animal?: Chicken 75: What was I doing last night at 12 AM?: Trying to fall asleep; I have insomnia 76: What do I think is Satan’s last name is?: IDK 77: What’s a song that always makes me happy when I hear it? : Summer Paradise by Simple Plan 78: How can you win my heart? Do you like anime, video games, and worry about my problems? You have my heart. 79: What would I want to be written on my tombstone?: It took SOOO long 80: What is my favorite word?: Nuzzle 81: My top 5 blogs on tumblr: I can’t list just 5 82: If the whole world were listening to me right now, what would I say?: Will someone ever love me? 83: Do I have any relatives in jail?: Yes 84: I accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow me with the super-power of my choice! What is that power?: To teleport 85: What would be a question I’d be afraid to tell the truth on?: Who was your first kiss? 86: What is my current desktop picture?: Galaxy tree 87: Had sex?: Nope 88: Bought condoms?: Yes 89: Gotten pregnant?: No 90: Failed a class?: Yes 91: Kissed a boy?: No 92: Kissed a girl?: No 93: Have I ever kissed somebody in the rain?: God all these kissing questions... NO 94: Had job?: Yes 95: Left the house without my wallet?: No 96: Bullied someone on the internet?: No, I was always the one bullied 97: Had sex in public?: No 98: Played on a sports team?: Yes 99: Smoked weed?: No 100: Did drugs?: No 101: Smoked cigarettes?: No 102: Drank alcohol?: No 103: Am I a vegetarian/vegan?: Hell no 104: Been overweight?: Yes 105: Been underweight?: No 106: Been to a wedding?: No 107: Been on the computer for 5 hours straight?: Everyday 108: Watched TV for 5 hours straight?: yep 109: Been outside my home country?: Yep 110: Gotten my heart broken?: Nope, and I don’t want to 111: Been to a professional sports game?: Yes 112: Broken a bone?: No 113: Cut myself?: Yes 114: Been to prom?: No 115: Been in airplane?: Yes 116: Fly by helicopter?: No 117: What concerts have I been to?: N/A 118: Had a crush on someone of the same sex?: Yep, but she didn’t like me back 119: Learned another language?: Yes 120: Wore make up?: Hell No 121: Lost my virginity before I was 18?; No 122: Had oral sex?: No 123: Dyed my hair?: No, planning on it 124: Voted in a presidential election?:No 125: Rode in an ambulance?:No 126: Had a surgery?:No 127: Met someone famous?:No 128: Stalked someone on a social network?:No 129: Peed outside?:No 130: Been fishing?:Yes 131: Helped with charity?:No 132: Been rejected by a crush?: Yep 133: Broken a mirror?: No 134: What do I want for birthday?: A Gaming computer 135: How many kids do I want and what will be their names?: No kids 136: Was I named after anyone?: No 137: Do I like my handwriting?: Yes 138: What was my favourite toy as a child?: A stuffed whale 139: Favourite Tv Show?: Attack on Titan 140: Where do I want to live when older?: Utah 141: Play any musical instrument?: Yep, Guitar 142: One of my scars, how did I get it?: I cut myself, deep 143: Favourite pizza topping?: Pineapple ((FIGHT ME)) 144: Am I afraid of the dark?: No 145: Am I afraid of heights?: Yes 146: Have I ever got caught sneaking out or doing anything bad?: No 147: Have I ever tried my hardest and then gotten disappointed in the end?: Tale of Two Brothers((An okay game, with a crappy ending)) 148: What I’m really bad at: flirting 149: What my greatest achievments are: There are none 150: The meanest thing somebody has ever said to me:Go Fuck a Cow 151: What I’d do if I won in a lottery: buy Gaming stuff 152: What do I like about myself: Nope, can’t find anything 153: My closest Tumblr friend: Avricce !! Go check them out! 154: Something I fantasise about: Finding love 155: Any question you’d like? : Anyone like me?

[mayninetyeight]

1-47 and 48-104 ;)

1. You woke up naked next to the last person you texted, what would you say?

“It looks as if…”  (@yeaoktherebud)

2. What’s going on between you and the last person you kissed?

Maybe if he texted me back once in a while I’d be able to tell you 

3. If your boyfriend or girlfriend was into drugs, would you care?

Depends on which drugs and how it interfered with their life/our relationship

4. Is your last name longer than six letters?

Yeah

5. Was your last kiss drunk or sober?

Sober

6. Have you ever wanted to have someone but you messed it up?

Lmao let me get back to you about that

7. What does your last received text say?

“I haven’t heard from her in a few hours” 21:10

8. How many times have you kissed the last person you kissed?

(am I supposed to keep count of this sort of thing?) A Lot, but not as much as I’d like

9. Where was your last kiss at?

In my living room on my janky ass pull out couch

10. When is the last time you saw your sister?

Last July :( BUT I’m spending the entire summer with her and we’re backpacking the east coast of Australia in July so I’m fuckin jazzed

11. What do you drink in the morning?

Water or the occasional cup of joe (after my daily semen intake of course)

12. Where did you sleep last night?

My bed?

13. Do you think relationships are hard?

Hell yeah

14. If you could go back and change something in the past 5 months, would you?

I probably would have forced myself to be more open minded

15. You’re locked in a room with the last person you kissed, any problems?

Depends on how long we’re there

16. Would you rather it be sunny or rainy?

Both

17. Do you know anyone with the same middle name as you?

My dad

18. Are you wearing jeans,sweatpants,or pajama pants?

I’m wearing my favorite ass sweatpants in the world

19. Do you think you will be in a relationship 3 years from now?

I have no idea

20. Does anyone like you?

I think so? Don’t know how much though.

21. Have you ever kissed someone with a name that starts with an S?

Not that I know of

22. Is the last person you kissed gay?

To some extent

23. Is there a person you CANNOT stand?

Hmm, probably. Trying to be a more positive person lately though so I won’t dwell on it.

24. Have you ever considered getting a tattoo?

YES but I’m incredibly indecisive. This summer maybe?

25. In the past week have you cried?

Kinda last night? But not really, I can’t cry 

26. What breed was the last dog you saw?

I don’t remember, I don’t see many dogs :(

27. Do you dry off in the shower or out of the shower?

Out of the shower, I’m not a heathen

28. Have you ever kissed a football player?

Maybe? I don’t know a lot about the people I’ve kissed tbh

29. Do you think you’re old?

Sometimes

30. Do you like text messaging?

Sometimes. I’m not the greatest at it, though.

31. What type of day are you having?

Not the best, not the worst. 

32. Have you ever thought about getting your nose pierced?

Yeah, I seriously want to at some point this year.

33. Do you prefer warm or cold weather?

Cold

34. Is there a person of the opposite sex who means a lot to you?

Yeah

35. Would you prefer a relationship or a fling?

Tempted to say fling, but like a serious fling. I’m shit at relationships. 

36. Are you a simple or complicated person?

Everybody is complicated

37. What song are you listening to?

“Gold Dust Woman” - Fleetwood Mac

38. When you say you’re sorry do you mean it?

Sometimes

39. Is there a girl that knows everything or almost everything about you?

There definitely was, but not anymore

40. What made you start liking the person you like now?

He’s charming as fuck, intriguingly intelligent, and pretty funny. Also, he has his shit together in a way I can’t really comprehend. It’s impressive.

41. When did you last receive a text message?

Like three hours ago

42. What is wrong with you right now?

Yikes. I compare myself to others to the point of madness. High school destroyed my motivation. I have no money. Nothing’s ever as good as the expectations I build up in my head. I have incredibly high standards. I overthink everything. I can’t connect emotionally with people. I struggle to connect emotionally with myself. 

43. How well do you know the last female you texted?

We really good buds. I wouldn’t say we know everything about each other, but we tight.

44. Does anyone disgust you?

The entire United States Government

45. Would you date someone right now if they asked?

Nah, I need to think that shit through.

46. Are you in a good mood right now?

Kinda

47. Who was the last person you talked to in person?

My manager Ammy

48. What color shirt are you wearing?

Gray

49. Has someone recently told you something you didn’t want to hear?

Big time

50. Anyone you’re giving up on?

Not entirely

51. Do you hate the person you fell hardest for?

I don’t even know who that would be, so no

52. Have you ever thought about giving up on someone but couldn’t?

Definitely

53. Do you like rain?

DEFINITELY

54. Do you care if your boyfriend/girlfriend drinks?

See question 3

55. Have you ever liked somebody and never told them?

All the time

56. Do you like to cuddle?

I didn’t used to, but now I love it (in moderation)

57. Are you shy?

Yeah, but I’m getting better at opening up

58. Do you get along with girls?

Better than with boys

59. Have you dated the person you texted last?

Nope

60. What do you carry with you at all times?

My phone/my wallet/a condom

61. If you were paid 1 million dollars to spend the night in a supposed haunted house, would you?

Hell yeah

62. Do you think you can last in a relationship for five months?

I have before, so I could probably do it again? I don’t know though.

63. Think back to October, were you in a relationship?

Nah

64. The person you like kisses you on the forehead, do you find this cute?

YES A MILLION TIMES YES this seriously kills me whenever it happens. I literally write about it in my diary.

65. Did anything “cute” happen in the last week?

My crush texted me first and sent me this cute video of him with his hair all ruffled and it was just really cute

66. How old are the last three people you kissed?

18, 30-something?, 19

67. Would you rather pay to get your nails done or do them yourself?  

I hate painting my nails, it’s so frustrating. I’ve been really digging Nail Career Education videos and am kinda contemplating getting dope ass acrylics, but I have no money.  

68. Which do you like better- Zebra print or leopard print?    

Zebra

69. Do you have any stickers on your car?    

I have a Bernie 2016 bumper sticker and a U.S. Army decal

70. Would you rather listen to Luke Bryan or Lil Wayne?    

Lil Wayne

71. Blackberry, Android, or iPhone?    

Android (don’t @ me)

72. When’s the last time you had pizza from Pizza Hut?    

Like, at least 6 months? Papa John’s is where it’s at.

73. Do you like diet soda?    

Hell nah! 

74. What color are the walls in your room?    

Gray and black

75. Are you 16 or older?    

Lol yeah

76. Do you watch Pretty Little Liars?    

Lol nah

77. Do you have a job?    

Unfortunately 

78. What are your initials?    

T.E.J.

79. Did you ever have braces?    

Yeah man, for 20 months 

80. Are you from the south?    

That’s pretty relative, isn’t it?

81. What does your last status on facebook say?

“yikes looks like we just booked a few flights to nowhere then”    

82. Do you still talk to the first person you ever kissed?    

On occasion, but not often

83. Are you closer to your mom or your dad?    

My mom

84. Have you ever done cheerleading or gymnastics?    

No. I wanted to do gymnastics when I was younger but I was too nervous.

85. What’s the last movie you saw in theaters?    

Beauty and the Beast

86. Do you smoke?    

Occasionally

87. Would you rather wear heels or flip flops?    

Flip flops

88. Is your phone touch screen?    

Lol yeah, when was this written wtf?

89. Do you normally wear your hair straight or curly?    

Straight, I guess?

90. Have you ever snuck out of your house?    

Yeah, my parents go to bed at like 9 pm so there’s not much sneaking involved tbh

91. Would you rather swim in a river, lake, or pool?    

Pool

92. Have you ever made out in a car?    

Yeah

93. …Had sex in a car?    

Yeah (I love the dramatic elipsis right there lmao

94. Are you single or in a relationship?    

It’s complicated lol

95. What were you doing last night at midnight?    

Talking to myself 

96. When’s the last time you saw fireworks?    

I think it was Fourth of July back in Hawaii?

97. Do you like the camera on your phone?    

It aight

98. Have you ever had a friend with benefits?    

Yeah

99. Have you ever passed out from drinking?    

No thank god

100. Are you friends with people on facebook that you actually hate?    

I don’t think so

101. Have you ever had a pregnancy scare?    

Lol no

102. Name your favorite Kesha song:    

Die Young or Blow

103. Do you have any tan lines right now?    

Nope

104. Would you ever wear cowboy boots with shorts?    

Yolo

[kdollmarie23]

Haven't done one of these in awhile

This could be fun or extremely sad 1: Name• keisha 2: Age • twenty freaking six 3: 3 Fears • spiders, car accident, heights 4: 3 things I love• animals, cosmetology, singing 5: 4 turns on• tattoos, androgyny, intelligence, manners, thighs. 6: 4 turns off• drugs, no sense of direction, mean, 7: My best friend• my cat and dog lol…. wow that sounds lame. 8: Sexual orientation• bisexual 9: My best first date• I’ll never tell 😽 10: How tall am I • 5'3" 11: What do I miss• free health insurance 12: What time was I born • midnight 13: Favorite color• green 14: Do I have a crush• yea 15: Favorite quote• idk 16: Favorite place• anywhere near the ocean 17: Favorite food• Thai 18: Do I use sarcasm• pretty much everything I say is sarcastic 19: What am I listening to right now• some weird ass movie on the tv. 20: First thing I notice in new person• their hair, what they’re wearing, and their smile. 21: Shoe size• 7 ½-8 22: Eye color• hazel brown/green lol 23: Hair color• right now it’s cool copper/ brown 24: Favorite style of clothing• feminine polished grunge 25: Ever done a prank call? Not since 8th grade 27: Meaning behind my URL• at one point I was loveable, and I also loved cupcakes 28: Favorite movie• dirty love and beaches 29: Favorite song• you’re not alone by Saosin 30: Favorite band• the used and knuckle puck 31: How I feel right now• mehhh 32: Someone I love• my girlfriend 33: My current relationship status• in a relationship 34: My relationship with my parents• complicated 35: Favorite holiday• Halloween 36: Tattoos and piercing i have• 7 tattoos, ear piercing and Monroe 37: Tattoos and piercing i want• nipples and lighthouse haha 38: The reason I joined Tumblr• to keep in touch Jainna, and find cool pictures for my myspace that no one else had back in middle school 😹 39: Do I and my last ex hate each other? I don’t hate her. 40: Do I ever get “good morning” or “good night ” texts? Yea, my gf gets up way earlier than me and texts me “good morning” around the time I wake up. Haha it’s cute. 41: Have I ever kissed the last person you texted? That would be my boss, and heck no. 42: When did I last hold hands? I few minutes ago ❤ 43: How long does it take me to get ready in the morning? It feels like it takes for freaking ever, I need a good 2-3 hours or else I look like a monster. 44: Have You shaved your legs in the past three days? Surprisingly yes! Although I wish I hadn’t because it’s fucking cold out. 45: Where am I right now? In my living room. 46: If I were drunk & can’t stand, who’s taking care of me? I would be home and in bed If that were the case. I don’t trust anyone lol 47: Do I like my music loud or at a reasonable level? Loud 48: Do I live with my Mom and Dad? Neither since I was 15. 49: Am I excited for anything? I’m excited for the two news jobs I just started. I am now a freaking talent director for a modelingagency lol and back to doing hair! 50: Do I have someone of the opposite sex I can tell everything to? No 51: How often do I wear a fake smile? Pretty much every day if I’m working hahaha 52: When was the last time I hugged someone? Today 53: What if the last person I kissed was kissing someone else right in front of me? I unfortunately wouldn’t be shocked at this point. 54: Is there anyone I trust even though I should not? Yes 55: What is something I disliked about today? I had a good day today. 56: If I could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be? Uhmm… I’d like to meet a pleiadian in human form, if they don’t exist, then I’d like to meet Britney Spears lol 57: What do I think about most? Lately my career path, family, and making my relationship work. 58: What’s my strangest talent? I can sing and do the splits! Hahaha is that strange enough? 59: Do I have any strange phobias? Fucking spiders…. ugh…. 60: Do I prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it? Both 61: What was the last lie I told? I have no idea, prolly that I wasn’t hungry or some shit lol 62: Do I prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online? Video chatting is becoming a lot more fun, but phone if my hair isn’t done. 63: Do I believe in ghosts? How about aliens? Ghosts idk, aliens yes 64: Do I believe in magic? What kind? 65: Do I believe in luck? Idk I just broke a mirror so….. 66: What’s the weather like right now? Cold as fuck in march 67: What was the last book I’ve read? #GIRLBOSS 68: Do I like the smell of gasoline? Not really 69: Do I have any nicknames? Kiwi 70: What was the worst injury I’ve ever had? I have never really been injured by anything…. oh, actually, Dorothy from my 5th class kicked me in the shin while playing soccer in gym class and that felt awful…. like thinking back I can still feel it. Ouch. 71: Do I spend money or save it? I freaking LOVE spending money, but I know I need to save it because I’m an adult and I need to be responsible. 72: Can I touch my nose with a tongue? Just tried, nope. 73: Is there anything pink in 10 feet from me? Oh yea 74: Favorite animal? Cats 75: What was I doing last night at 12 AM? Going over notes for my new job 76: What do I think Satan’s last name is? Uhm idk 77: What’s a song that always makes me happy when I hear it? I believe by nicko vega 78: How can you win my heart? I don’t have one anymore 79: What would I want to be written on my tombstone? I don’t know, always laugh or some shit 80: What is my favorite word? Namaste 81: My top 5 blogs on tumblr? There is more to Tumblr than just my page and my newsfeed???!! Lol 82: If the whole world were listening to me right now, what would I say? Everyone should stop eating like shit because processed foods cause cancer and you need more veggies so go try some! 83: Do I have any relatives in jail? Idk 84: I accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow me with the super-power of my choice! What is that power? Wow what timing, I would be able to go invisible 85: What would be a question I’d be afraid to tell the truth on? If I was attracted to them lol 86: What is my current desktop picture? My pets 87: Had sex? Well of course 88: Bought condoms? Yea, practicing safe sex is important. 89: Gotten pregnant? No 90: Failed a class? College class 91: Kissed a boy? Yeah 92: Kissed a girl? Yes yes yes, finally 93: Have I ever kissed somebody in the rain? Ya❤❤❤ 94: Had job? Yep 95: Left the house without my wallet? Prolly 96: Bullied someone on the internet? Lol yes 😞 sorry bout that 97: Had sex in public? Haha yea 98: Played on a sports team? Yes I was terrible 99: Smoked weed? Yea 100: Did drugs? No 101: Smoked cigarettes? Yes, I just quit yesterday 102: Drank alcohol? Yes 103: Am I a vegetarian/vegan? Multiple times, I love steak and burgers too much 104: Been overweight? I think I am now 105: Been underweight? Nope, I wish 106: Been to a wedding? Yes, I love weddings 107: Been on the computer for 5 hours straight? Today 108: Watched TV for 5 hours straight? Yes 109: Been outside my home country?Do the Bahamas count? 110: Gotten my heart broken? Unfortunately so 111: Been to a professional sports game?Like a legit football and hockey game, yes 112: Broken a bone? No 113: Cut myself?Ya 114: Been to prom? I actually went to 4 proms, 3 with the same guy and my senior prom with someone else 😸 I love dressing up. 115: Been in airplane?Yaaaaasssss 116: Fly by helicopter?No, but I've had sex in one .... secret never have I ever question! 117: What concerts have I been to?Omg sooo many! I love concerts 118: Had a crush on someone of the same sex? Oh yea 119: Learned another language?In the process 120: Wore make up?Everyday 121: Lost my virginity before I was 18? 16 lol 122: Had oral sex? I mean yea 123: Dyed my hair?Si 124: Voted in a presidential election?I did! I voted for Gary Johnson because there is no way in hell I was voting for Trump or Hillary 125: Rode in an ambulance?When I was six 126: Had a surgery?Tonsils removed 127: Met someone famous?Some band members and Delilah in NYC!!!! 128: Stalked someone on a social network?My secret crush 129: Peed outside?Only when I was camping or wasted 130: Been fishing? Yea, i suck at this, and deep sea fishing almost killed me.... I just like to lay out and tan and enjoy the scenery 131: Helped with charity?Yes, cuts for a cause and habitat for humanity 132: Been rejected by a crush? Yea, maybe I'm a weirdo, but now I have a gf so who cares 133: Broken a mirror? Yea I literally just broke one this week, and my week has been going great since, not gonna lie! 134: What do I want for birthday? A new car

[triss19]

All of the ask me things

number one, fuck you

number 2 imma do it cause im bored

1. You woke up naked next to the last person you texted, what would you say?

hi

2. What’s going on between you and the last person you kissed?

a solid healthy friendship strangely 

3. If your boyfriend or girlfriend was into drugs, would you care?

yes

4. Is your last name longer than six letters?

no

5. Was your last kiss drunk or sober?

sober

6. Have you ever wanted to have someone but you messed it up?

the entire plot of my Senior year of high school

7. What does your last received text say?

“^^^^^^^^ i repeat”

8. How many times have you kissed the last person you kissed?

uh, more than 11

9. Where was your last kiss at? 

at my old school 

10. When is the last time you saw your sister?

like an hour ago

11. What do you drink in the morning?

black coffee

12. Where did you sleep last night?

my bed

13. Do you think relationships are hard?

sometimes

14. If you could go back and change something in the past 5 months, would you?

probably

15. You’re locked in a room with the last person you kissed, any problems?

nope, nope

16. Would you rather it be sunny or rainy?

sunny

17. Do you know anyone with the same middle name as you?

no

18. Are you wearing jeans, sweatpants, or pajama pants?

sweatpants

19. Do you think you will be in a relationship 3 years from now?

hope so

20. Does anyone like you?

ha

21. Have you ever kissed someone with a name that starts with an S?

damn it... yes

22. Is the last person you kissed gay?

no, straight af

23. Is there a person you CANNOT stand?

duh

24. Have you ever considered getting a tattoo?

nah

25. In the past week have you cried?

yah

26. What breed was the last dog you saw?

don’t remember

27. Do you dry off in the shower or out of the shower?

both i guess

28. Have you ever kissed a football player?

soccer and football

29. Do you think you’re old?

hella

30. Do you like text messaging?

it is the god of communication formats

31. What type of day are you having?

fine

32. Have you ever thought about getting your nose pierced?

pfff, no

33. Do you prefer warm or cold weather?

hot

34. Is there a person of the opposite sex who means a lot to you?

so many

35. Would you prefer a relationship or a fling?

relationship

36. Are you a simple or complicated person?

medium difficulty 

37. What song are you listening to?

watching tv actually 

38. When you say you’re sorry do you mean it?

97% of the time39. Is there a girl that knows everything or almost everything about you?

not really 40. What made you start liking the person you like now?

i felt comfortable around him41. When did you last receive a text message?

who knows42. What is wrong with you right now?

so many things43. How well do you know the last female you texted?

really well44. Does anyone disgust you?

oh god, this is tumblr, why even ask that question45. Would you date someone right now if they asked?

probably not actually46. Are you in a good mood right now?

sure47. Who was the last person you talked to in person?

one of my brothers

48. What color shirt are you wearing?

dark grey49. Has someone recently told you something you didn’t want to hear?

i’m around my parents a lot so yes50. Anyone you’re giving up on?

low key51. Do you hate the person you fell hardest for?

no

52. Have you ever thought about giving up on someone but couldn’t?

no53. Do you like rain?

yes 54. Do you care if your boyfriend/girlfriend drinks?

no55. Have you ever liked somebody and never told them?

most of them actually  56. Do you like to cuddle?

does anyone not like to cuddle?57. Are you shy?

hahaaha 58. Do you get along with girls?

sure59. Have you dated the person you texted last?

sorta 60. What do you carry with you at all times?

chapstick 61. If you were paid 1 million dollars to spend the night in a supposed haunted house, would you?

if I get to bring another person along, yes 62. Do you think you can last in a relationship for five months?

i would fucking hope so 63. Think back to October, were you in a relationship?

noo 64. The person you like kisses you on the forehead, do you find this cute?

weak knees is what that causes65. Did anything “cute” happen in the last week?

yep

66. How old are the last three people you kissed?

there’s only 2, early 20s

67. Would you rather pay to get your nails done or do them yourself?

do them myself

68. Which do you like better- Zebra print or leopard print?    

neither69. Do you have any stickers on your car?    

car?70. Would you rather listen to Luke Bryan or Lil Wayne?    

who?71. Blackberry, Anroid, or iPhone?    

iphone72. When’s the last time you had pizza from Pizza Hut?    

couple months ago73. Do you like diet soda?    

gross74. What color are the walls in your room?    

white and one is a moss green75. Are you 16 or older?    

older76. Do you watch Pretty Little Liars? 

i’d rather die   77. Do you have a job?    

several  78. What are your initials?    

*79. Did you ever have braces?    

yep80. Are you from the south?    

literally the opposite of southern

81. What does your last status on facebook say?    

facebook?82. Do you still talk to the first person you ever kissed?    

no83. Are you closer to your mom or your dad?    

both, for different reasons84. Have you ever done cheerleading or gymnastics?    

gymnastics85. What’s the last movie you saw in theaters?    

Rogue One

86. Do you smoke?    

no87. Would you rather wear heels or flip flops?    

depends on where i’m going88. Is your phone touch screen?    

yus

89. Do you normally wear your hair straight or curly?    

wavy cause that’s how it is90. Have you ever snuck out of your house?    

yes, i guess, kinda91. Would you rather swim in a river, lake, or pool?  

salt water pool, or really clean lake  92. Have you ever made out in a car?    

yes?93. …Had sex in a car?    

no94. Are you single or in a relationship?    

single95. What were you doing last night at midnight?    

on this hell site96. When’s the last time you saw fireworks?    

July97. Do you like the camera on your phone?    

sure, it’s pretty damn solid98. Have you ever had a friend with benefits?    

:)99. Have you ever passed out from drinking?    

no100. Are you friends with people on facebook that you actually hate?    

so fucking many101. Have you ever had a pregnancy scare?    

noooo102. Name your favorite Kesha song:   

NOOOOO 103. Do you have any tan lines right now?    

no104. Would you ever wear cowboy boots with shorts?    

if they are the low rise kind, sure

[underuroobasumbrella]

Colores, Calores y Caleños: Colombia 2016-2017

This is an account of my recent trip to Colombia, from Dec. 27, 2016 - Jan. 2, 2017.

“You’re a Scorpio, right?”, he asked. “Yes, how did you know!?” I exclaimed. “Because Scorpios do everything with great passion. I should know, I am one too”, he smiled.

We had met just hours earlier, a chance encounter facilitated by technology — he was my first Tinder match in Colombia, when I arrived to the new country at the stroke of midnight by myself.

As I lay in my hotel bed, teeming with nervous excitement for the days that awaited me on my first solo trip, Anthony sent me a message, “What a beautiful smile you have.”

When we met outside my hostel the next day, as I scanned the streets for the “guy with glasses and a blue shirt”, I knew instantly we were not soulmates. We would not have a passion-filled romance, or even a casual vacation fling.

But meeting Anthony aligned so well with my recent resolution of not wasting my time by having meaningless, unfulfilling and temporal encounters with men, it set the best precedent for the rest of my trip.

We climbed some nearby hills to catch the best view of Cali, sipping Colombian Pokers. Later when the sun set, we walked along the riverside boulevard adorned with holiday lights and a rush of people, eating alitas rellenos, salchipapas and churros, and discussing Colombian literature.

Well, I only offered my insights on Gabriel Garcia Marquez, while he pointed out the significance of each lesser-known Colombian poet, as we stood next to their statues in the Parque de Los Poetas.

Not a bad date locale.

My resolution was off to a profoundly good start: Anthony liked me for my personality and my work, a welcome first.

While I could not reciprocate his feelings, proven as I stealthily thwarted his attempt to kiss me at the end of the night, I was grateful for that evening. It was a reminder that I didn’t have to stand at the fulcrum between the purely platonic and purely physical in my relations with men, and served as a hopeful omen for the coming year.

With my appetite for risky spontaneity satiated, along with my belly full from the food tour I took earlier in the day, it was time to experience Cali for what it was: the salsa capital of the world.

The market we went to during our food tour.

The best ceviche!

Feria de Cali was in full swing when I happened to be there, the city’s most anticipated event of the year. Swathes of people filled the streets at night, swaying to salsa — and its edgier cousin, salsa choke, my favourite. Snack vendors dotted the outskirts of the crowds, that were all of young and old, working class and otherwise.

After a few hours of sashaying my hips, it was time for me to tuck into bed: a 5:30 am wakeup call awaited me, as I’d be heading on a three-hour journey to San Cipriano — for a full day of hiking, trekking and swimming, deep in a Colombian tropical rainforest.

As our bus halted to a step the next morning, we tumbled out, rubbing the last of sleep from our eyes, and found ourselves in front of train tracks. No train ran on them, but instead a bruja, a wooden tram run by a dude on a motorcycle that would course through the lush landscape to bring us even deeper into the tropical rainforest.

Our bruja.

Coursing through the Colombian rainforest.

With our adrenaline pumping from the ride, we embarked on a full day of hiking, waterfall jumping and river tubing.

Later that evening, as I sat on my 45-minute flight to Bogota, the woman next to me struck up a conversation.

“You didn’t get a seat with your friends, did you?” she asked.

“No, I’m travelling by myself!” I told her.

Her eyes widened and she scrunched her nose.

“Ok, honey, I love Bogota, but you have to be careful. Here, write my number down, if you need anything call me,” she said hurriedly, as she typed her number into my phone.

I chuckled to myself, as I glanced into my screen to see she had written “Marcela Plane Friend”.

Marcela was a glamourous woman, manicured nails, blow-dried hair and all. She was Colombian, but had spent most of her life in Atlanta, in the United States. Although most of her family no longer lived in Colombia, she still visited every year during the holidays, with her son.

She told me she was going to be meeting her new lover on this trip — a man she had met decades ago as a teenager, before she had gotten married. Now single after years, they had been in touch again.

I listened in awe, amazed that Bollywood plot lines could actually manifest for people in real life.

After she finished her story, she looked at me quizzically, then said, “You know, I have a son around your age, sitting up there,” she motioned to the front of the plane.

“Oh cool,” I replied, slightly nubbed that she had known me for all of 20 minutes but could already tell I was single as fuck.

That “oh cool” would later change to “oh damnnnn” when she introduced me to this son of hers in the airport. As I awkwardly mumbled “hi”, I cursed myself in my brain for wearing my coveted “travel shirt”, an actual maternity shirt with boats and palm trees imprinted all over — quite possibly the least sexy shirt I own.

In expected Urooba fashion, I said goodbye to them, too awkward to function in the presence of this hot dude and started to walk away in the opposite direction.

It turned out the exit was only one way, so I turned around, catching up to them and chuckled, “Guess we’re going the same way.”

Needless to say, I did not sweep Marcela’s son off his feet.

***

Have you ever travelled to a city and could see yourself living there? I’ve been from Bali to Bellingham, but it was in Bogota that I first felt this.

My hostel was in the La Candelaria area, amidst some of the best graffiti and street art in the world.

The infamous Bogota graffitti tour.

I walked through the city with a carefree ease, treating myself to a fancy meal in a nearby restaurant and arriving at the conclusion that food in Colombia was much better than in Ecuador, as much as I love Ecuador for other reasons.

My first day there was New Year’s Eve — I had no definitive plans, or expectations.

But the night I rang in 2017 was by far the best way I have rung in a new year in my 24 short years.

After a Colombian buffet meal at my hostel, I was itching to get away from all the shallow, privileged people there and their terrible opinions on Cuba, the working class, Palestine and….pretty much everything else.

Luckily, a friend of a friend from Quito, Ellinor, happened to be in town, and was staying at a hostel one street over. I decided to meet up with her and her new friends there.

What happened next is nothing short of a spooky miracle.

I met Ellinor and the others in one of the rooms they were staying in. After a few drinks, we decided to head over to the city’s main square to ring in the new year with locals.

As most of the group left to walk over there, Ellinor and I got left behind because we took one too many selfies. As we scrambled out into the night, we decided to walk on our own, hoping to catch up with the others later.

Trouble was, we had no idea where we were going.

So we decided to ask the next people that walked by for help. They were a suave pair, the two people we stopped. They were musicians, young, and carrying through the world with a carefree ease, muy tranquil.

They joined us, and we decided to cab to the square all together.

Shortly after we arrived, we ran into the others. Their faces were panic-stricken, and two were missing from the group.

“Hey guys! Wow, we found you! ...What happened?” Ellinor and I blurted at once.

“Shit, guys,” one of the guys began. And then he told us how they had walked through a deserted, quiet alleyway on their way over, and were approached by a man acting deranged — and who wielded a knife at them. The two not there had been so terrified, they had run back to the hostel.

Ellinor and I listened in wide-eyed disbelief. And then we noticed — our new friends, the couple — were gone.

“Were they our guardian angels?” we asked each other when we were away from the group. Like literal angels that had dropped down to earth, they had gotten us where we needed to go that night, without harm.

We smiled and laughed in both disbelief and joy, citing the incident as another good omen for the year to come, and then we heard the crowd chanting.

“Diez, nueve, ocho, siete, seis, cinco, cuatro, tres, dos...uno! Feliz ano nuevo!” we screamed.

This was it — and just the beginning of the night.

New Year’s Eve crew.

We scurried in ubers and taxis to head to our next stop — an EDM club that I would dance the night away into, only realizing that we should head back, when we saw the first sun rays of 2017 enter the glass ceiling of one of the club’s rooms.

It was on that ride home that morning that I found myself smiling to myself. While 2016 had its tough moments, that challenged me beyond belief, it also gave me some of the most adventuresome, euphoric experiences of my life, mainly because I had moved to Latin America.

My trip to Colombia instilled in me the confidence to travel solo, and I would encourage all women and femmes out there to do the same at least once in their life.

I’m already dreaming about my next trip to Colombia.

Te amo, Latinoamerica.