#my granddad has showed up to stuff a day early ON PURPOSE before

[fingertipsmp3]

People who get annoyed with me for always wanting to be on time & being anxious about being late to stuff would not last two seconds with my family tbh

[godstaff]

Kent family watches the Incredibles movies

Clark: Well, guys: due to the pandemic, the JL has restricted the amount of operatives in the field, so Mommy and I will spend the day with our family. Do you know any of them? Where are they?

Aster: We’re here, Dad! We are your family!

Selene: He’s joking, you Goblin!

Aster: Shut up, “Big Larda”!

Diana: That’s enough! Both of you!

Clark: Mom is right: stop it now, or there won’t be ice-cream for anybody! I mean it. No more name calling, okay?

Selene: But, Daddy: aren’t we immune to this Covid stuff?

Diana: We are, Lena, but Dad and I have a duty to set an example to others. We are privileged, but we need to see the bigger picture.

Clark: Besides, we must not parade our immunity in front of much vulnerable people. It would seem like laughing in their faces. Even if we’re impervious, we can carry the virus with us and transmit it to the folks we come in contact with. 

Diana: We can’t deliver the wrong message.

Selene: Okay. Why don’t we end the problem once and for all?

Diana: May be we can, but we have to give humanity the chance to try and solve their problems themselves. As Daddy says: “we can’t carry them straight to the top, we can only...”

Selene and Aster: “...help them up when they trip and fall.”

Clark: Exactly. And accompany them in their journey. In this cases, we intervene when things get way out of hand, or they will start to depend on us for anything and stop thinking for themselves.

Aster: Is it bad not thinking for ourselves?

Diana: Thinking for yourself is the best way to really learn. Let you to think for yourself is the best gift anybody can give you. Daddy and I can teach you a lot of things, but it is up to you and your analysis of those things to create your own personality and knowledge. Imagine your head is a library and Dad and me are filling it with books, all kinds of books: if you can’t think for yourself, there won’t be any organization. You are the librarian who organizes everything in your personal order, to connect those books with others of the same content. So far, you need guidance. The day will come when you get good at it, and won’t need any help. When people learn to think for themselves, it will come a time, perhaps, when they won’t need our help.

Clark: It doesn’t matter if you don’t completely understand all this right now: just remember what you can. In time you’ll find out the meaning.

Aster: I’ll try, Daddy. Lena: did you find out yet?

Selene: What I’ve found out so far is it takes a lifetime to do it. The important thing is keep on trying. It’s like having a baby brother: it sucks, but you get used to it. You may even enjoy it sometimes.

Clark: Enough with the learning moment. What you say we have a marathon of movies and junk food?

Diana shot a disapproving look in Clark’s direction.

Clark (with an apologetic tone): Just for today...?

Diana: Just for today.

Clark, Selene and Aster: Yaaay!

Clark: What do you want to watch?

A battle of propositions and rejections followed, from “that is too childish” to “ugh! That’s a girl’s movie!”. Until Clark said:

Clark: What if we start with “The Incredibles”? I’ve heard it’s funny and not entirely for kids. Besides, they could be us.

Selene: I’ve seen the first, I was your age back then, but not the sequel. It’s truly funny, and realistically shows the pain of having two baby brothers, emphasis on “baby”. Count me in.

Aster: I’ve seen both, but I don’t mind watching them again. 

Diana: All set, then: “The Incredibles” 1 and 2 it is.

Clark: I’ll make the popcorn. Lena: a hand, please?

Selene: Sure, Dad.

Aster: Bring me a soda!

Selene: Of course, “my Liege”. Move it and get it yourself!

Aster: Mom!

Clark: C’mon, Len, we’re already here. Let get sodas for everyone.

Selene: Ugh! I swear I’m gonna kill him one of these days!

The movie started and Clark asked:

Clark: Do I look like that?

Diana: Don’t be so self aware: it’s a cartoon. Besides, you’re not blond, thank Hera!

Clark: I’ll double my workout routine, beginning tomorrow.

Selene and Aster: Shhhh!

Diana (whispering in Clark’s ear): Please tell me I don’t have that enormous ass.

Clark (also whispering): Of course not!

Selene and Aster: Shhhhhhhhhh! We still can hear you!

Diana and Clark: Sorry!

Selene (pressing pause): Doesn’t the villain remain you of Luthor? Minus the hair, that is.

Clark: Believe it or not, Lex had red hair too before losing it.

Aster: Dad: what do you think of capes?

Clark: I’m in favor, of course. It’s not that terrible, once you learn to deal with them. And they look majestic while flying. But you will have to decide for yourselves. Granddad Jor wore capes, and so did the fathers of aunts Karen and Kari, my uncles Zor from both Kryptons. It’s tradition.

Diana: And Grandmamá Lyta wears one for ceremonial purposes

Aster: And masks? What do you think of masks? They look cool.

Diana: Your Dad didn’t wear them because he wanted people to trust him. It would be a pity to cover that handsome face (smiling at Clark)

Clark (smiling back at her): When  Mommy and I got together, the double personality made no sense anymore. We were not hiding our love to the World, and, if we did, Superman and Wonder Woman and Diana Prince and Clark Kent were two very similarly looking couples: tall, black hair, athletic build, etc.

Diana: People are not stupid: they would’ve connected the dots in no time, so we came clean. And it was a good thing to do: now we have time for our family, instead of wasting it in a job or trying to make another life as a civilian. 

Clark: In fact, it’s very liberating not to hide half of the time, although I miss the office sometimes. 

Diana: Look at uncles Bruce and Richard and the Robins: all, except Jason, have to work twice as much, and none of them have a real job.

Clark: Besides, just look at your sister: blue hair, 6′7″, a complete and total Kryptonian Amazon...and, before you say a word, you’ll be no different: as tall as her, if not taller, and the same build. You only lack the blue hair.

Aster: Why does she have...?

Selene: Are we done? Can we continue with the movie?

Aster: It was you who pressed “pause”.

Selene: Well: I’m done. Are you?

Aster: Yeah.

At the end of the first movie, everyone stood up and went to do their things.

Clark: Okay, people, the intermission is 15 minutes. Stretch your legs, if you have to.

Aster: It was very cool. 

Selene: See? It’s not important how much we squabble, if we’re united when it matters.

Aster (coming back from the bathroom): Mom: Why does Lena have blue hair?

Diana: Dad and I are the first couple of our kind, therefore, you both are the first of your species. It was predictable you would have some genetic peculiarities. There was some magic involved in your conception, don’t forget Daddy is from another world. Don’t get me wrong: we made sure you two will not come out as strange beings, with two heads and all that.

Aster: It would have been cool to have two heads!

Diana: Mmmmno. We’d had love you all the same, though. Anyway, Lena was the first, and her hair is proof of that. You two are special, only in her case, she showed it immediately. Don’t sweat: you can still grow a second head.

Aster (enthusiastically): Really?

Diana (throwing herself over her son): Naaah!

Selene: Don’t talk about me behind my back! It’s not polite. I can hear you, you know?. Superhearing, remember?

Diana: I’ll have to teach you both sign language, so we can keep some secrets in our family. 

Selene: You know sign language?

Diana: And Braille writing and reading. So does Dad. There’s also a language based on small taps on the other people’s hand, for those unfortunate who lost both, sight and hearing, called Tactile Signing. If we want to help, we must be able to communicate with everyone, back and fore.

Selene: I want to learn! I’m starting tomorrow!

Diana: How about you, Ast? Your sis is giving you the chance of starting early.

Aster: I would hate she talking to you and me not understanding it. I’m in.

Clark: Two minutes and the show will continue!

Once everybody was sitting, the second part began. Half way to the projection, it was Aster who pressed pause.

Aster: Mom, Dad: do you need to have a job?

Clark: We don’t really need it. Mommy and I can get anything we need, and so will you someday. We could have one, if we want it, but our work protecting humanity and raising you takes precedence.

Diana: Dad and I can find all kinds of minerals men consider precious and extract it with our bare hands.

Selene: If they want it, they can be richer that Luthor, Mr. Terrific and uncle Bruce combined.

Clark: But the pursue of riches is not a priority. Some time back, Mommy and I designed the basics for nuclear fusion based energy supply, which is sustaining our home, the rest of the Fortress and some parts of Themyscira. We gave the blueprints to Mr. Holt and uncle Bruce, so they could adapt it for human usage. Mr. Holt wanted to make it into a business, but uncle Bruce and I prevented it. It wasn’t an evil thing what Michael wanted to do, from a mundane perspective, but if the whole planet was going to benefit of the findings, we better let corporations and businesses out of the picture, We convinced him with only two words: “Fair Play”. 

Diana: Lex hated us: he lost a ton of money and four of his energy corporations rolled the curtains down definitely. We made sure the employees left without a job, were absorbed by Wayne Enterprises and Holt Industries.

The movie continued. At some point, Selene interrupted it.

Selene. Mom, Dad: is it so easy to take over somebody’s mind, like in the movie?

Diana: Depends on whose mind. If the person is in need of something or lacking other things, like Elastigirl here, it’s easier to invade someone’s mind, the invaders has to take advantage of the weaknesses of that person. If Dad or any of you are in some peril, my state of mind will be compromised and I would constitute an easy target.

Selene: How can we prevent that kind of happenstances? Specially in our particular situation.

Clark: Being very careful, knowing all the time the others are safe. That’s why is so important to be always in communication with each other.

Diana: It’s not invasion of privacy, it’s just caution. We won’t stop you from living your life, we won’t use tracers or any kind of location devices: we are asking you to keep us informed. You’ll understand when you have children of your own.

Clark: There are individuals with immense power no mind can resist, like Maxwell Lord...

Selene: Who is that?

Diana: No longer a problem.

Clark: ...in those cases, we have to be patient and look for an opening. There’s always a mistake these people make: too confident and underestimating their opponent. There’s always, in the back of your mind, a vestige of consciousness. And Mommy’s Lasso of Truth will protect its bearer and it can reverse the process in others.

Selene: I see. But there’s always a risk.

Diana: Our occupation is always a risk. We must be prepared. Even if you don’t want to follow our steps, problems will reach you because of who you are, I’m sorry. It’s like being the offspring of someone very rich: there’s always a virtual target on your backs.

Clark: But life is beautiful and worth living, don’t let potential dangers take that away. People in other situations than ours are also in other kind of perils. Is a constant no living being can escape.

Diana: Animals in the wild are always at the mercy of predators. 

Clark: Ours are just another kind of predators.

Selene: I think I get the idea, but I have to ruminate on it.

Clark: Sure, baby. Take your time.

Diana: We are here for any question.

Selene: Thank you. Let’s finish the movie, please. Hey, Astroboy! Wake up!

Aster: Uh? Are we done?

Selene: Welcome to the land of the living.

Aster: Can we finish the movie now?

[mirkwoodshewolf]

Retrieved you a future boyfriend, husband and family; John Deacon x reader

*Author’s note*

Hey guys well I’ve seen this prompt in various forms of when there’s a doggy matchmaker but what about seeing it through the dog’s perspective? Based off the very sad movie “A Dog’s purpose” (I also did a Poe Dameron fic kinda similar to this) so I hope everyone enjoys this fic but BE PREPARED FOR THE SADNESS TOWARDS THE END. But until then I give you guys intense fluff and goodness. Also pic does NOT belong to me credit goes to the owner and just seeing these pics with Deacy and the dog also helped inspire this fic.

Taglist:

@psychosupernatural

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*Aug. 1975 Ridge Farm studios*

It started off like any other day.  I woke up to the sound of the rooster’s crow and stretched myself out letting out a loud yawn.  I then walked up the bed and whimpered as I pawed at my mum to get up.  That’s my mum, (y/n). Her and her parents own this lovely recording studio that they call Ridge Farm studios, my name’s Amber and I’m a golden retriever.

She soon stirred and woke up, my tail wagged as I let out a bark and she soon shot up and removed that strange mask that was over her eyes before she saw me.

“Oh, good morning Amber.” She said as she rubbed my neck and brought me close.  I loved my mum so much, she rescued me from the orphanage and picked me out of my entire litter of 9 brothers and sisters.  I had thought that I’d never get a new home but when (y/n) came along, she immediately picked me up and took me home, and so for the past 2 years, this has been my home.

It’s a privilege and a great experience being on a farm.  You get wide open spaces, fresh air, plenty of new things to explore, and so many different animals to bother and play with.  And with mum, she makes it all the more fun and special.

I waited for her to finish getting herself cleaned up and changing into her new fur patterns (clothes) and we went downstairs to see her parents running around cleaning the place. Lately all three of them I’ve noticed have been running around like the chickens I sometimes chase outside cleaning and pushing me off the couches, forbidding me from sitting on my thrones.

“Oh (y/n) thank god you’re up. Listen can you please run to the market and pick up a few things? I forgot to make a store run yesterday due to getting the studio all prepared for the boys.”

“No problem mum, what time did they say they would be here?”

“Well your uncle Shaun said they’d be here by around 2, maybe 3.” Her father answered.

“Okay well I’ll try to be back as fast as I can, c’mon Amber.” Yeah car ride! I love going on car rides!  I raced out and jumped up against the car barking happily as my tail wagged.  “Amber down!” I listened to her and she opened the door and I immediately jumped right in and she closed the door behind me.

She got into the driver seat and the car soon started and as soon as we drove out away from the house, I stuck my head out of the window to feel the rush of the wind blow through my fur.  Ohh that always felt nice, I sometimes wish mum would do it with me, it’s always so nice to feel the wing through your fur and the flies in your teeth, yum.

We soon reached the marketplace and I stayed close beside my mum as she looked down at a piece of paper and muttered to herself.  We picked all the food and I wish I could eat some of it, especially the chicken but she wouldn’t let me touch any of the stuff.  

Of course when she would pick up the green stuff, I almost felt like throwing up.  Why do humans eat that stuff anyway? It stinks, it’s green and its tasteless, so why even eat it? We spent a long time at the market till we were finally done and soon we were back in the car heading back home.

But before we came back up on the driveway, I smelled something.  Five unfamiliar scents were in our house.  I also took notice of another car that didn’t belong to either mum or grandmum or granddad.  My mum parked the car and I could smell that she was scared.

“Oh no, they’re early. Oh I hope mum and dad aren’t freaking out.” She shut the car off and she turned to me and said. “Okay Amber, now you remember the band members I told you who were coming, well I need you to be on your best behavior. We—didn’t really tell them we had a dog here.”

Mum you don’t have to worry, I’ll be good, cause I’m always a good girl.  I let out a couple of barks and she smiled and rubbed my head muttering.

“Good girl.” We both left the car and she grabbed a couple of the grocery bags but as she took a couple of steps, I saw her stop.  Her scent changed from calm to a sorta sweaty smell, she also had this dazed look in her eyes as they were locked onto something.

I looked ahead and saw two young boys that I had never seen before.  One of them kinda looked like me with the long blonde hair, while the other one had the same length of hair as my twin but it was dark brown.  I’ve never smelt my mum like this before as she just stayed there and became a little nervous.

I looked a little closer and saw that it was the long brown haired boy that she was looking at. Wonder if that boy had anything to do with it?  I raced up towards him, I could hear my mum calling out ordering me to stop but I didn’t listen because I wanted to know just what he had that made my mum smell this way.

So I greeted him the way we dogs always greet one another.  I heard him cry out as he turned.

“Bloody hell!”

“I am so sorry. That—that was my dog I swear I-I would never do that…..” my mum said nervously as she tugged me back by my collar trying to get me away from the brown furred boy.  The two men laughed softly and the brown furred man answered.

“Well, maybe you could teach your dog some proper manners.”

“Believe me I’ve tried she just—doesn’t listen to me.” Mum! I turned my head grunted embarrassingly at her.

“Really? Wow did you hear what she said about you? You look pretty smart to me.” my twin spoke up as he knelt down in front of me and began rubbing and petting along my face and neck.

Wow, he’s got a pretty good touch.  He rubbed scratches along my head and soon the brown furred boy knelt down and he began petting me.  He also had a good touch too, maybe even better than my twin did.

“Such intelligent eyes. And quite beautiful too.” Aww thank you. “What’s your name?”

“Amber, her name’s Amber.” My mum answered.

“Hello there Amber.” My twin spoke up.

“Well you seem like a good girl Amber.” The brown furred man spoke up.

“Again I’d like to apologize for what just happened. Normally she never runs at guests and—”

“It’s fine. In fact I’d kinda like to know the name of her mum, if that’s alright with you.” Huh, now they both had a sweaty smell.

“(Y/n), (y/n) (l/n). You probably already met my parents.”

“Ahh yes, well it’s also a pleasure to meet their beautiful daughter.” My twin spoke up with a scent of flirtation on him. “Roger Taylor, drummer of this rag-tag band.” They both shook hands and that’s when the brown furred man introduced himself.

“John Deacon born on August 19th, 1951.” He groaned as he hid his face and I could hear my mum softly giggle while my twin Roger just couldn’t help but laugh hysterically.

“I think he meant to say Bass player of our band.”

“Ahh, well John Deacon born on August 19th, 1951, thought I might let you know I’ve always found bass players the most fascinating members of bands.”

“Y-you do?” my mum nodded.  Before anything else could be spoken an eerie, buzzing voice called out.

“Roger! John!” Soon coming out of the studio was a man with what looked like a fuzzy caterpillar across his face.  He walked up towards us and already I didn’t like his scent.  He just smelt of ill intentions and it made me on edge.  “What in the world is taking you so—good lord what is that beast?” Uhh excuse me? Was he talking to me just now?

“I’m sorry?” my mum snapped.

“We don’t allow strays into this location, get it out of here before I call the pound. And you girl, will you kindly go make yourself useful and help with the equipment?”

“Uhh first of all you don’t talk to my dog like that. Second of all I’m no one’s servant girl or housemaid. And third…..”

“Paul, what is taking so long out there?” Soon two more men came out from the studio and walked up toward us.  One had black fur up to his shoulders and he smelt like sunshine and fun, the other one was really tall and sorta looked like Francine the poodle who lived in town. He had a mellow scent which was relaxing.

“Oh Freddie, I was just telling the girl here about the rules we have here about strays.”

“Paul don’t you remember the pictures the lovely couple showed us? This must be their lovely daughter they were telling us about, please tell me you are darling?” the black furred man spoke out.

“Yeah, I’m (y/n).”

“Ah-ha I knew it! Though those photographs do you no justice at all darling, you are too beautiful for the camera.” Oh I liked this guy; he compliments my mum a lot.

“And this must be your dog?” asked the poodle man.

“Yep this is my lovely girl Amber, she—she’s already met two of your other band members.”

“Basically sticking her nose right up Deacy’s arse.” My twin spoke which caused John to slap him over the head.

“Well she sure is pretty, aren’t you Amber darling?” The black furred man gave me a rub to my neck and I felt like I was in heaven.

Never have I ever been given this much attention by so many people, I was gonna like these four boys.

“She sure is beautiful, her coat is even so shiny. How old is she?” asked the poodle man.

“She just turned 2 last month.”

“Ohh big girl huh?” the black furred man smiled as he kept petting me.  I took notice that he had an overbite with his fangs but he still had a bright smile that almost if not was even brighter than the sun.  “Ohh she’s a sweet girl, aren’t you darling?” he placed a kiss to my forehead before standing up and I felt the poodle man stroked through my fur now for a brief moment before the black furred man said to caterpillar guy known as Paul. “Well go on Paul, make it up to her for insulting her and her beautiful mum.”

“You’re right Freddie I—I didn’t know what I was thinking. Terribly sorry miss, and to you to sweet—” as he reached out to pet me, I snared and snapped at his hand just barely missing it making him jump back as I lowly growled at him.

“Good doggie couldn’t have said it better myself.” Roger whispered. “So Prenter, why the big hurry?”

“We’re on a strict deadline, we’re lucky that Foster’s giving us a brief extension on the album so we must get to word as soon as possible.” Paul then trudged off.

I didn’t like him. Not one bit, and I hope he never insults my mum, me or any of these boys or does anything to harm them.

“Well I’ve kept you all distracted long enough; I should get these groceries in the house.” Mum said.

“Here why—why don’t I help you?” John offered.

“Oh I can’t ask that of you.”

“You’re not asking, I’m offering. Plus it can count as payment for your dog sniffing where she wasn’t allowed to sniff.” I looked up at mum and she looked down at me.  I softly grunted and she said.

“Okay, if it’s okay with your friends for letting me steal you for a bit.”

“Of course it is, you two kids go off and have fun. But be sure to use protection!”

“Fred!” John hissed out before the three of them headed to the studio while mum, John and I walked towards the car.

As we gathered up the groceries, mum said as she gathered some bags.

“You know Amber can actually take a bag of groceries into the kitchen.”

“You’re joking.”

“No, no I trained her to do that. Don’t believe me? Hold a bag to her and say kitchen.” It was then I saw John hold up a bag and I could smell the bag of apples as well as a carton of whip cream.

“Kitchen.” Instantly knowing the command, I took the handles into my mouth and trotted towards the kitchen.  As the two of them walked in, I set the bag down and mum patted my head telling me I was a good girl.  “I’ll say I’m impressed. Never did I think dogs could do that.”

“Some can’t just with retrievers they’re really easy to train, once you start them at an early age.” As the two of them put the food away, I sat down in my bed in the corner of the kitchen and couldn’t help but notice that the sweaty smell between the two of them got stronger.

“So will I—see you around?” John asked.

“Yeah.” Mum muttered. John nodded and began to walk away but then my mum stopped him by saying, “Hey!” he immediately turned around and he smelled hopeful about something.  “If you ever find yourself wanting a break, Amber and I would…..love to take you out to the lake or show you around town.”

“I’d like that, though be prepared it may just be later tonight that I might take you up on that offer.” Mum softly giggled and soon John left but not without giving me a gently pat.  It was then my mum sighed in a strange way as she slide down against the wall.  I walked up to her and she said as she cupped underneath my neck.

“Ohh Amber, I—I think I’ve just been struck by cupid’s arrow.” I tilted my head at her grunting softly.  I sniffed her face and gently licked her cheek before placing myself over her lap and the two of us just sat there in the kitchen.

As the weeks passed, we would either get to listen to the boys who I learned their band name was Queen; play their music.  I’ve heard mum play various other songs whether on her device that she calls a record player or in the car but Queen’s music was unlike anything my ears had ever heard.

I found myself howling along to some of their songs as they would record their songs.  Paul of course didn’t like it but John, Roger, Brian and Freddie didn’t mind it at all, in fact they saw it amusing, to which then Fred called me the ‘doggy approved’ critic.

And when they would all find the time to get away from work, they spent it playing with me and mum. We’d go out onto the tennis court, out in the fields to play fetch or take pictures so that they would have some memories of their recording (according to Brian since he was always the one with a camera in hand), or we’d swim at the lake or in the pool, but I honestly preferred the lake, since John would always throw my favorite ball into it for me to fetch it.

I’ve also noticed that mum and John have been spending a lot of time together.  He would come along on drives with us, he’d go to the lake with us, he’d even stay out and gaze up at the stars with us.  And every time they spent together; I’ve noticed their sweaty scents would grow stronger.  One night while gazing under the stars, I could sense that John was feeling extremely nervous.

I crawled up to him and gave him a comforting nudge and he soon placed his hand on top of my head, gently massaging my neck as mum said.

“Are you okay Deacy?”

“Hmm oh yeah, yeah I’m fine I—well I guess there has been something on my mind lately.”

“What is it?” I looked up between the two of them and it was then John said.

“Well I was wondering if uhh…..you’re not really doing anything tomorrow night, maybe you’d uhh—umm that is if you’d like to would you…..”

“Are you—trying to ask me out on a date?” my mum asked.  John’s face went as red as an apple as he looked down.  No, no you need to keep looking at her.  I stood up and nudged behind his back which knocked him into my mum and the two of them went down to the ground, with John on top of my mum.

“Oh god I-I-I-I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to……”

“I know just who it was that really did it Deacy.” I sat down and simply tilted my head trying to look cute.  The two of them got up and that’s when mum said. “And to answer your question, yes. Meet me in the living room at 8?”

“Yeah. Yes of course I’ll—see you then.”  It was then my mum had her first real date.

Humans were so complex; like last night my mum answered John or I guess I should call him Deacy since she calls him that now, with such ease but now here she was tossing stuff out of her closet muttering to herself.

“Too revealing, too stuffy, too dressy. Ugh Amber I don’t know what to where, please help me!” I hoped off of her bed and went into the closet and began sniffing around.  Ohh I don’t know why she hasn’t worn this yet.

I took the bottom of the shirt and she grabbed it and took it off the strange dinner triangle (hanger).

“Huh this?” She placed it over herself and she continued, “Don’t you think it’s kinda see-through?” I went back into the closet and suddenly found something else and I dragged it out from the corner of the closet and held it out to her, “What’s this? Oh. Oh that’s perfect, this is perfect, thank you Amber! Good girl Amber!” She ruffled through my fur and kissed my head and stood up and got dressed.

Mum looked at herself in the mirror as she now applied the stuff she calls ‘makeup’ on her face and as she went to pick up the dreaded smell bottle I barked at her warningly.

“No perfume?” I shook my head in disgust. “Okay, no perfume.” She set it back down then she fully stood up and said, “Well girl, what do you think?” My tail wagged and I let out a happy bark.  “Aww thank girl,” she sat down on the bed beside me and she suddenly became sad. “Amber—can I tell you something?” I grunted and mum continued, “I’m really nervous about this date, I mean—I think I’m falling in love with John and it…..seems like he loves me too. But what if I make a complete fool of myself? I mean he’s a rock star and I’m just—me. A simple farm girl.” I whimpered and set my head on her lap.

No you won’t mum. I can smell that he likes you, and I wouldn’t let you go near him if he didn’t smell of good intentions.  You’re the bravest girl I know, he’ll like you the way you like him.  And maybe if it all works out, I’ll finally have a dad.

“It’s almost 8, c’mon girl.” I hopped off and followed behind her.  We walked down the stairs and the second Deacy saw my mum, his sweaty smell intensified.

“Wow.” I heard him whisper.

“Is it too much?”

��No, no. You look—be-beautiful.” Mum’s sweaty smell also intensified and she said.

“You can thank Amber here for my attire for tonight.” He knelt down in front of me and scratched and rubbed my head as he said.

“You are quite the expert, maybe you could give Fred some tips.”

“My sense of style is fabulous darling, there’s nothing wrong with it!” Freddie’s voice soon proclaimed out.  I turned to see him, Roger and Brian all standing there.

“So you know the rules, have her back by midnight, no shagging in my car but if you do use protection.”

“Roger!” Both mum and Deacy exclaimed as they both got red in the face.

“And Deacy darling, if you do anything to break this girl’s heart you’re kicked out of the band.”

“No worries Fred,”

“God you lot are worse than my dad. The only thing your missing is a shotgun.”

“Ohh where’s that at?” Roger said.

“Rog there’s no need for that.” Brian spoke up.  “Just have a good time, the both of you and be safe.”

“Well with only so few things to do in this town, there’s not a whole lot of trouble to be made. The only big thing that happened here was the multiple robberies and break-ins. And they weren’t even armed.”

“But anyway, have fun you two.”  As they walked out of the door, I went to follow but mum stopped me before I got out the front door.

“No Amber, stay.” Stay? But we’ve always gone on outings together. The three of us.

“Don’t worry we’ll make sure to keep her company, maybe even run some song by her on what she thinks of them.” Roger spoke up as he came and held me back.

“I’ll be back soon girl, and I’ll fill you in on everything when we get back. I love you.” Mum kissed my forehead and soon her and Deacy went into the car.  I whimpered as I was pulled back and the front door shut. I got up on my hindlegs and watched as they drove off.

Aww, but I wanted to go with them.  It’s always more fun whenever I’m around. Why didn’t they want me with them?

“Don’t worry Amber dear, they’ll be back soon. Hey, does someone want dinner?” Food, did I just hear food? I let out a bark and headed straight for the kitchen with the rest of the boys coming behind me.

Deacy and mum were gone a really long time.  Everyone’s pretty much gone to sleep, except me.  I waited and stared out the window from my mum’s room that looked out into the front yard hoping that they would come back.

Then I saw the headlights and my tail wagged as I raced down the stairs and looked out through the curtains of the living room to see Deacy and mum standing together.  I then raced over to the front door and peeked out so that they wouldn’t see me as I heard Deacy say.

“I really had a wonderful time tonight.”

“Me too, thank you so much Deacy. This has been—literally the best summer I’ve ever had.”  I tilted my head as I saw Deacy tuck in a piece of my mum’s fur before the two of them leaned close together.

Until they finally met and their lips touched together.  I don’t know what they were doing exactly but it made me happy as I smiled and my tail wagged.

When I saw them separate I quickly raced upstairs so that they wouldn’t know that I was watching. I hopped into mum’s bed and pretended to be asleep.  I could hear their whispers coming up towards the room and that’s when my mum said.

“Goodnight, my handsome bass player.”

“Sleep well my farm girl.” I heard them do the thing again before I heard the door softly close. I decided to take a peek and I saw my mum slide down against the door and she smelled happy.

Really happy. 

Never have I seen her smile that widely before and her scent was mixed with Deacy’s scent, and it suited her when their smells were together. 

From that moment on, I knew that Deacy was a member of our pack.

As the days went on, the boys continued to work nonstop but when the evening came, Deacy and mum spent a lot of time together.  Sometimes we’d just stay out in the backyard looking up at the stars having a picnic, or we would go on nightly drives, this time I managed to convince them to bring me along.

We would howl together in the car as the music would play on the radio.  But I’ve noticed that every time they were together, mum and Deacy would wrestle with their lips and lick each other.  We’re they fighting over food or something? Maybe Deacy was hiding something in his mouth? Let me check.

I hopped over to the backseat and leaned over to the front as I nudged myself between them and began sniffing Deacy and licked over his face.  The two of them laughed but I smelt nothing.  Nope, nothing in there.

“What is going on?” Deacy laughed.

“Think she’s jealous.” Mum said.  But of course no matter how much mum looked, there was never anything in Deacy’s mouth. And she looked—a lot.

One day as the sun was setting over the horizon, I was walking through the fields and found the haystack and decided to jump into it and roll around in it.  Ahh I’ve always loved the feel and smell of hay.  The way it would tickle my nose, I let out a sneeze as I shook myself.  It was then I heard mum and Deacy talking.  I peeked over but something was different; usually when they were together there nothing but happiness and sweaty smells, now all I could sense was sadness.

Why were they sad? I watched as mum hugged Deacy and he hugged her back.  Maybe I could cheer them up.  I hopped over the hay and trotted up to them.  I let out a bark and they turned to me and it was then I began to try and chase my tail.  Grunting as I spun around until I finally managed to catch it.

The two of them smiled and softly laughed.  I released my tail and walked up towards them and lifted my paw up.  Don’t be sad anymore, please. Be happy, you two are together, and it’ll always be that way.

The next morning, I watched as the boys were packing up the cars.  All their personal equipment was being packed away as well as their luggage. Where were they going? What’s going on? Nobody ever tells me anything.

“We wish to thank you again for allowing us to finish the album here Mr. and Mrs. (l/n).” Brian spoke up.

“Anytime boys, it’s been wonderful having you here with us.” Grandmum said.

“And anytime you need a break from the city, I know we’d be happy to have you four here again.” Grandad said.

“Much obliged my dears.” Freddie said.  I whimpered as I walked up to them.  “And you, you fabulous dog. Probably the only dog I’ll ever love, you keep being your fabulous self.” Freddie said as he stroked through my fur.

“C’mon boys we need to get going. Foster’s waiting to hear the album.” Bad man Paul spoke up.  Brian walked up to me now and gently stroked through my fur and said.

“It was lovely to meet you Amber, take care of things here.” Roger then knelt down and he cupped my face.

“You keep being a clever girl, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” I grunted and licked my twin goodbye.  He placed a kiss to my head before standing up and then Deacy came up.

“Look after your mum for me, okay?” He smelt sad again. Why was he still sad? I thought I fixed it last night.  He couldn’t even look at my mum and she couldn’t do the same.  It was then the boys got into the cars and drove off.

Grandmum and granddad all waved goodbye, while mum was very sad.  I even heard her sniffle, I looked up and saw water coming down her face.  He can’t leave now, mum’s sad.  I tugged but mum held me back and said.

“No Amber, stay.” Stay? But you’re sad. Dad can help you.  I got myself free and I heard my mum call out my name but only one thing was circling through my mind.

Dad needed to go back and hug and lick mum again.  Wait dad come back!

I raced after the cars hoping that if they saw me, dad would come out and take me home, then he and mum can be together and happy again.  I raced through the field and onto the road but I knew I wouldn’t catch up with them at this rate.

Then I decided I could probably cut them off.  I raced through the wheat fields bounding up and down hoping to still see them. Racing past goats, cows and horses of neighboring farms until finally I came back onto green grass again seeing the car insight.  Remembering which one dad and went into, I raced towards that one and by luck the window was actually rolled down.

His car came to a stop and I took my chance of leaping through the window till finally I was in the car.  I walked up to dad’s face panting heavily, boy you sure did give me a run of my life dad.

“Amber are you crazy?” But maybe not—drive so far next time.

“I can’t believe she actually ran all the way here. You’re a crazy girl aren’t you Amber?” I heard Roger’s voice say as he scratched my back.  Dad, mum needs you and you need her. Go back to her, please. He cupped my face and I could see water fill his eyes as he leaned up against me.

“You need to go back Amber; your mum needs you.” I whimpered. Yes but she needs you too dad. “Life on the road is no place for a dog.” I lifted my paw and lightly pawed at him whimpering. He hugged me and whispered in my ear. “I love you girl,” I felt him kiss me before he ordered me. “Home, now!” He opened the door and I got out and he closed to door before the car took off again.

As I’ve said humans are so complicated. They do things that we dogs just can’t understand, like leave. I stayed there along the road and watched with a broken heart as dad drove away.  Finally not wanting to disobey him, I walked back home.

Mum and dad were meant to be together. But if they weren’t together, then what was the point of life? Maybe the point was to not go looking for it, I think that’s why the term I’ve heard grandad say ‘life’s not fair’ makes much more sense now.

Things changed a lot since the boys left.  Mum decided to move into the city so she packed up and took me along with her. Apparently she got a job offer in the city of London as something called a ‘music teacher’.  

It’s been two years since we’ve lived in the city and it was definitely a huge adjustment, especially to me. Loud noises, more dogs than I’ve ever seen in my whole life, smells that not even back home had to offer, and most of it really stunk.  But mum seemed to be happy, and if she was happy then I was happy.

She never really dated anyone, not after—well sometimes its even hard to hear their music sometimes, but even through the tears, she just couldn’t bring herself to stop listening to them, and neither could I.  One day as I was lying on her bed as she was grading some papers, I heard her sigh heavily and she said.

“You know what I’m thinking?” Ice cream. “This is crazy but sometimes I think I know what you’re thinking.” Ice cream ice cream ice cream ice cream.  “Ahh Amber I’ve been cooped up here for too long grading secondary school papers, you wanna go get some ice cream?” I grunted happily. Mum you read my mind.

We were now out in the city going by our favorite ice cream shop, she got her favorite flavor (f/c) and I got me a vanilla cup.  As we were now sitting in the park eating our ice cream, well I was more or less licking whatever was left in the cup.  As we sat there with our ice cream, suddenly something caught my nose.

I sniffed the air and it was then I recognized it.  That familiar masculine scent mixed in with toast and cheese.  Could it be? I took off running as fast as I could through the park.  Mum tailing behind me calling my name.  I tracked the scent down until I found him just sitting there underneath a tree right by the lake where I usually chase the ducks.  

He had his bass guitar in his lap and my tail wagged furiously.  I let out a bark and raced toward him before tackling him down to the ground and licking all over his face whimpering happily.

It was dad. I found him! I found him, he was back at last!

He pulled me back and got a good look at me before saying.

“A-Amber?” I barked happily.  Dad’s fur was shorter than when I last saw him but I knew those eyes and that smile anywhere.  I barked and licked all over his face again, my tail wagging as I heard mum say my name. I looked up and got off of dad and barked happily at her as I looked between the two of them.

“D-Deacy?”

“(Y/n).” mum and dad looked at each other.  He stood up and the two just stared at each other some more as they stood face to face, that was before they hugged each other.

Maybe now they would patch whatever it was that happened between them and they can be together again, especially now since we lived in the same territory.

We invited John to our home and the two of them talked over a cup of tea while I listened in from the kitchen.

“How have you been?” dad asked mum.

“It’s been good.”

“How—how long have you been in London?”

“I actually moved here about a month after you guys left. I’m currently working as a music teacher at a school nearby.”

“Is it good? Do you enjoy it?”

“It pays the bills, one thing I never will get about the city is why everything must be so expensive?”

“Can’t argue with that. When we were first starting off, Freddie actually gave away three months wages on our shared house just to record one album. It was a struggle to make a living those first several months.”

“But low and behold you guys slowly rose to the top. And you still are, even after the ‘A night at the opera album’.”

“You—still keep in touch with our music?”

“I’ve never stopped.”

“Even after—”

“Surprisingly yes. I mean it was hard don’t get me wrong, but we both agreed that it just wouldn’t work between us. The distance was just too much to bear.”

“Well…..what about now?” Yes, yes please tell him mum. You still love him I’ve smelled it on you for years.

“But what about Queen? You guys are about to go on another tour aren’t you? I-I couldn’t hold you back.”

“You wouldn’t be holding us back, nor me. Ever since that day when I left, I’ve never felt so heartbroken in my life. I was stupid for letting you go. But if you….if you’ve moved on I understand and…..” I heard dad stop talking so I decided to peek out from the door and that’s when I saw mom and dad softly licking each other like they used to do together.

I watched as dad’s arms went around mom’s waist and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders bringing him closer.

Finally.

From that moment on, mum and dad spent every moment together.  We would go on walks or he would take us to a brand new studio and when we saw the rest of Queen again, I was happy to get all the pets and scratches. Except for Brian, Freddie and Roger’s fur was also cut too but it seemed to suit them.

It was great being back with them once again, and I was extremely happy that mum and dad were back together again.  And it wasn’t long before we slept together.  Of course mum and I missed dad whenever he had to leave to go on tour with the guys, but every time he’d come back he always brought something back for us.

Never did I think I would get so many new toys in my life.  And they weren’t just from dad, they also came from Roger and Freddie as well.  One day in the early morning before the sun even rose in the sky, I felt something being attached to my collar.  I opened my eyes and saw dad.

“Go back to sleep girl, it’s only me.” I grunted before lying my head back down on the bed. I felt dad softly stroke my head as he whispered, “When your mum wakes up, show her your collar. You’re part of a very special surprise for her.” A surprise for mum? That sounds like fun, I hope the surprise is peanut butter. I love peanut butter.  I then fell back asleep after hearing the front door close.

When morning finally came and I heard footsteps coming down the stairs, I woke up to see mum coming down.  She went over to the kitchen and I heard her pour out my breakfast, immediately waking up I raced over and began chowing down.

“Boy someone’s a hungry girl today.” While eating my breakfast, something kept buzzing around in my mind, and I could feel something poking around my collar and I couldn’t see nor get it.  I barked at my mum who came up to me and said, “What is—well how did this get in your collar girl?” she took a piece of paper out and unfolded it and a smile instantly came on her face.

I tilted my head at her before going back to eating and that’s when she said.

“Well, hope you have a full belly girl, cause it looks like we’re gonna be busy running around town for the rest of the day.” Huh? We’re going on a car ride. Alright, where are we going?

We were soon driving around town; mum would tell me to find notes that looked like the one on my collar.  And thanks to dad’s scent, I was able to find them.  We went to places like the park, the diner where they first had their date in the city, then we went to the recording studio, then a concert hall where Queen had just performed at, the very first Queen concert mum got to do it, I wish I could’ve watched but it was too loud for me so I just stayed in the dressing room.

Now we were on our way to our final destination and boy was it a far one too.  It was then I was hit with the familiar smells of home.  We were going home. Could this be where our final surprise for mum was at?  Finally by the time it was sunset, we arrived home.

Mum turned the car off and standing outside was grandmum and granddad.  Mum opened the door and I raced over to greet them after not seeing them for what felt like forever.

“Mum, dad.” She hugged her parents and asked, “So do you have any idea what’s going on?”

“Well we promised not to spoil anything, but just head in the house and you’ll see what all this is about.” Grandmum said.

“Alright c’mon Amber.” We raced on inside and the first thing that hit me was the smell of flowers. Orchids to be exact, mum’s favorite.  We both saw batches upon batches or orchid petals scattered in some sort of trail.  I went on ahead and sniffed it leading us to the backyard where there was suddenly light, but it wasn’t daytime, it just turned dark.

It was then I realized they were lanterns, as we walked on ahead I soon smelled the guys, then I saw them.  I raced on ahead and went up to dad who petted my head and he said.

“Good job girl, you brought her here at last.”

“What’s all this Deacy?”

“Just a little something special for you darling, please take a seat you and Amber.” Mum soon sat down on a block of hay and she called me over and I trotted over to her and sat down beside her as she wrapped her hands around me, but I knew that I wanted to stay and watch what was happening.

The boys then began playing and soon a song came up and I recognized this tune.  I barked out happily knowing this was my favorite song, because Dad said that he had written this already and it was for the album they were recording when we first met them.  I think he said he called it, “You’re my best friend”.

The boys played in beautiful harmony and of course it was Freddie’s voice that stole the song, but of course I couldn’t take my eyes off of dad, and neither could mum.  I would look up at her and she was smiling widely from ear to ear and she would occasionally stroke through my fur.  I also took notice that dad didn’t take his eyes off of mum either as he played.

Once the song was over I let out a series of barks and my mum and grandparents clapped and it was then dad came up to mum and he took her hands in his.  Huh he also had that sweaty smell again, and it was then he spoke.

“(Y/n), even though we’ve spent such a short time together the first time around I knew I never wanted to be apart from you again. And just nine months ago when Amber found me again in the park, it felt like we got the second chance. So—I ask of you, (Y/n) (m/n) (l/n),” I then saw him take out a box and opening it I saw something shiny and I heard my mum gasp as dad continued, “Will you marry me my darling?”

“Oh John! Yes! Yes!” I watched as mum and dad tackled each other and once again wrestled and licked each other’s.  My tail wagged as I sensed nothing but pure joy from the both of them and I let out a series of excited barks as everyone clapped.

Their mating ceremony was beautiful and I got to actually carry my mum’s tail down the aisle. She looked beautiful and dad looked handsome too, they danced, cuddled, and couldn’t stop wrestling each other’s lips. Then they left somewhere for what the humans call a ‘honey-moon.’ Were they going to get honey on the moon? If they do they should bring some back, I’ve tried honey here so I want to make sure if honey on the moon tastes any different.

I sure did miss them when they were away, but at least Brian, Roger and Freddie came to check up on me so I still at least had some company, which I always enjoyed.

After about a year of them being mates, we were cuddled up together on the bed.  Dad had just came back from a long day’s recording their newest album and soon another tour would be happening, as we all lay there, my head was on top of mum’s stomach.  Lately I’ve been hearing this strange rumbling sound in her stomach.

“Deacy, there’s something I need to tell you….”

Nine months later, after dad had come back from tour mum had a baby. Currently the two of them were hovering over it in its bed.

“Is he breathing alright?”

“He’s fine Deacy, just let him sleep.”

“Maybe we should wake him up, just to be sure.” As the two of them whispered to each other, I merely lay down there.  I don’t understand why they got a baby. It took all their attention from me.  That was until the day they finally allowed me to meet him, I think they called him Robert.  It was then with one sniff I had a new mission.

To protect Robert at all cost.

Couple years later they got more babies, seemed strange that they kept having babies so quickly but my younger brothers and new baby sister at the time were lucky, because we had the best parents in the world.

As the kids got older, I had to live my life on the run, mostly from the boys as they wanted me to dress up in clothes that belonged to my younger sister.  With no chance of fighting them off, I just let them do what they wanted to whether it was putting sunglasses over me, a tutu around my waist or a crown on my head.

But I guess as long as they were happy, I was happy.  And if I’m being completely honest, I liked having all the attention. Especially when we got to run around the house and play tag or fetch.  Of course mum would tell us to either stop or go outside when it came to playing fetch.

Time moved slower, which was a good thing because I didn’t feel like running anymore, I didn’t feel like playing as much as I used to.  Even when the boys tried to get me to fetch my favorite ball, I never once moved or got up.  All I wanted was to just lay down.

I was also in pain, all the time.  I don’t know why I was hurting but I was.  I saw mum come into the kitchen and she said softly.

“Hey, there’s my best girl.” My breathing was labored now and has been for a while.  She knelt down in front of me and my food bowl as she said, “Amber, you okay?” I could barely keep my eyes open any longer as I let out a weak whimper.

The next thing I knew I was being put in the car.

When I came around, I saw mom standing over me with tears falling down her face and voices were muffled as I heard my doctor say.

“So, let’s see what we can find here?” Thank goodness he didn’t give me a shot this time.

“She’s uhh…..she’s mostly been lying around the house lately; she never wants to run around with the kids. She barely walks or hardly eats. Her breathing’s been labored and…..her eyes just don’t seem to look right.” I heard my mum say.  She sounded so sad, but I was too tired to try and cheer her up.  “Doctor what can we do for her?”

“Well I can run some tests but I think I might have a diagnoses already. I can feel this lump in her side and I’ve felt this with many other golden retrievers I’ve dealt with, and I—I’m afraid it’s not good news. I’m afraid she might have a tumor.” I heard my mum gasp and sniffle.  Faintly through the light that was shining down on me, I could see her hold her hand to her mouth as she was trembling.

“Can…..can I please use your phone doctor?”

“Of course Mrs. Deacon, it’s just over there.” I saw her leave and I could hear her voice very faintly.

“Deacy,” dad? Are you here? “Deacy it’s…..it’s Amber.” I can’t smell you…..where are you, dad?  Soon my vision went black.

“Amber.” When I opened my eyes, there he was.  Dad, you’re here.

“Hey there Amber darling.” Freddie?

“You clever girl.” Roger.

“Didn’t think you’d leave us without a proper goodbye, huh?” Brian.  They were all here.  And I could tell they were all sad, ohh I didn’t want them to be sad.

“Oh our royal queen, our best girl.” Dad leaned his head against me and I could feel the tears fall into my fur.  Mum sat beside him and she placed her hand over my paw and stroked it.

“Oh Amber, Amber, my beautiful, beautiful baby girl.”

“It’s what’s best for her, she won’t suffer anymore.” I heard the doctor say.  Both mum and dad with tears running down their faces, their presences filled with nothing but sadness looked down at me.  I didn’t want to leave them like this, but mum said.

“You’re a good girl Amber. You’ve always been a good girl.”

“Don’t worry, she’ll just feel a little prick in her neck, and then the pain will go away.” Then the last thing I saw before my vision went black for the final time was my pack surrounding me.

*My POV*

Amber Deacon died on August 9th, 1986 at the old age of 13 years old.  Deacy and I had to tell the unfortunate news to the kids since they were visiting my mum and dad for the summer.  I was thankful to get a hold of Deacon after their last concert and amazingly he and the guys had got to say their final farewells to a beloved dog.

We buried her in the backyard and as memory of her I kept her collar and leash with embroider tags that I got made for her when we first moved to the city right by my bed stand.

Losing my best friend was the most gut wrenching thing I ever had to go through.  I was depressed for weeks on end, I couldn’t stop crying and I’d even cry myself to sleep most nights.  I would most of the time spend my days out by her grave and just sit there for hours and hours in rain or sun.

*3rd Person POV*

The Deacon children Robert, Michael, Laura and Joshua all stared out at their mum and Robert said.

“I wish there was a way to cheer mum up.”

“Why did Amber have to die?” said Laura sadly.

“That’s just life my darlings.” John spoke up.  The kids turned to their dad and as he sat down at one of the kitchen chairs, he told them to come over.  They all gathered around their dad and he said, “It’s all just part of life Laura my love, though we wish she could still be here she—she was just very sick and hurting. You wouldn’t want her to still be alive and in pain do you?”

“No, not if she was hurting.” She answered her dad as she leaned up against his chest.

“She was a good doggy.” Joshua spoke up.

“Took the words right out of my mouth Joshua.” He softly scoffed a chuckle before saying, “Did I ever tell you kids how your mum and I met?”

“Yeah, you met her when you and uncles Freddie, Brian and Roger went to record your night at the opera album, right dad?” answered his eldest son Robert.

“True Robert, but there’s another part of the story I hadn’t told you all about. Come into the living room with me.” He kept hold of Laura and the boys followed behind him as they all gathered around the couch.  “You see, when we first came to mum’s and pops place to record our album, your mother was actually out buying groceries. Your uncle Roger and I were just about to head into the studio when I….ehehe I felt something nudge my bum.”  At hearing that the kids all laughed softly.  “Yeah, yeah laugh it up now. But when I turned around there stood your mother. Of course I thought it was her but it was then she introduced me to the cleverest dog I would come to know. It was Amber who helped your mum and I meet.”

“She did that?” asked Michael.

“Yeah she did. She was probably the smartest dog I would ever meet, in fact after a while she helped us reunite when your mum moved here to the city.”

“I wish we were there to say goodbye.” Robert spoke.

“She knew you all loved her Robert. She always knows when someone loves her. But kids, try not to think about her death, she wouldn’t want that. Think of all the fun times you had with her. That’s what’s really important.”

“Can we make a scrapbook with all the pictures of her, and…..maybe give it to mama?” Laura asked hopefully.  John smiled down at his little girl and said as he stroked through her hair.

“I think mummy would love that.”

“Come on you guys let’s go find some pictures.” Said Robert.

“Maybe even do some hand drawings.” Suggested Michael.  Soon the four little Deacons raced upstairs to work on the scrapbook.  Meanwhile John stood up and just looked out into the backyard to see his wife and best friend still at the grave of their beloved dog.

Quietly he opened the backdoor and walked towards her slowly and silently.  He knelt down behind her and cautiously wrapped his arms around her before resting his head on her shoulder.

*My POV*

I felt the familiar arms of my husband wrap around me and I choked out a confession.

“When I—first adopted her from the shelter, never did I think she would affect my life the way she would. But the second I held her she—she changed my world right then and there. Why did she have to die Deacy? Why her?”

“Shhh, shh.” Deacy held me close to him, my head resting over his heart.  As one arm was wrapped around me, his other cupped over my ear so that the only sound I could hear besides his voice was his heartbeat, trying to soothe and control my broken one. “She loved you so much (y/n).”

But even that didn’t stop the tears from falling down my face.  I felt him press little pecks on the top of my head as he then said.

“I’d imagine the doves up in heaven are not gonna be too happy now that she’s with them.”  Finally for the first time in over three weeks since her death, Deacy finally managed to get me to smile through my tears with that joke.  “Ohh there’s that smile I’ve missed so dearly.” He wiped my tears away and cupped my face so that I could look at her.

“I’m sorry—”

“No, you have no reason to apologize to me my love. You just lost your best friend; you have every right to grieve in how you see fit.”

“Are….are the kids—mad at me?”

“They’re more worried about you than anything. They also miss her too.” I sighed heavily and leaned up against him.

“I don’t know what I would do without you here Deacy.”

“We’ll get through this darling. But just know she’s never really gone; she’ll always be in your memories and in your heart.”

“I just…..never got to thank her. Without her I’d—we probably wouldn’t have met each other the way we did.”

“She knows that, she probably knew all along that we had a future together. Otherwise she would never have chased after our car the day the boys and I left the farm.”  He gently kissed me before placing gentle kisses along my temple and kept hold of me.

The rest of the day we all spent in the living room huddled up together on the couch, sharing stories and looking through pictures of the greatest dog to ever grace our lives.

Even as the years passed and we got a new dog to join the family, he didn’t take the place of her in our hearts.  She was in a class of her own.

It’s not often that a dog comes along whose a true friend, and a great matchmaker.  Amber was both.

[junker-town]

We asked for your wildest World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party stories. Here are your, uh, best

Florida vs. Georgia (or Georgia vs. Florida) has a case to be considered the trashiest rivalry in all of college football, and it’s pretty clear a whole lot of fans like it that way. (Some of these are obviously NSFW.)

Anyone who’s familiar with the rivalry between Florida and Georgia can agree that it’s one of the wildest rivalries in college football, and not just because it’s so hard to predict on the field. It can get a little rowdy, given the copious amount of alcohol that’s consumed all weekend. You could even make the argument that Jacksonville becomes the silliest fan scene in college football every year.

After all, for years, this game was called the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party, even though CBS isn’t allowed to call it that anymore. One of the rivalry’s most famous moments, Georgia’s 1980 game-winner, even ended with UGA announcer Larry Munson predicting an especially eventful late night:

Do you know what is gonna happen here tonight? And up at St. Simons and Jekyll Island and all those places, where all those Dawg people have got those condominiums for four days? Man, is there gonna be some property destroyed tonight! 26 to 21, Dawgs on top!

Naturally, we decided to ask some fans of games past to submit their messiest WLOCP stories and memories.

You folks did not disappoint!

These aren’t all the submissions, but I tried to pick the best ones.

Nick, a Georgia fan who attended in 2012:

I was in college. My best friend and I traveled form Birmingham last minute to go to the game. Needless to say, we got to Jacksonville late (5 a.m.). We sleep under a bridge in the car and we woke up around 8 a.m., surrounded by UF fans who at this point have made fun of us for two hours by now for being sleep. We party like every other kid that day. We go into the stadium an hour early so my friend could sleep before the game, and he lays down in the aisle.

Game kicks off, he is still sleep. The people next to us didn’t mind and kinda laughed — a guy mentioned that he hasn’t seen his granddad and he was supposed to be here by now.

Granddad shows up with hand cuff on his hand screaming ‘I ESCAPED!’ I couldn’t believe it. I asked ‘from what?!’ He apparently got arrested or detained before the game and as they were putting cuffs on him, a fight broke out, and he slipped into the stadium.

My friend meanwhile wakes up at the end of the first quarter and looks at me and says ‘Have I missed anything?’

Photo by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images

Tripp, a Florida fan who’s attended every year but one since 1993:

The year was 2008. Tensions were high, and beverages were flowing. My girlfriend, who is now my wife, and I were really getting after it. Bloody Marys at 9 a.m. Beer all morning. Bourbon in the afternoon. Typical day at the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party. We let the day get away from us.

Before we knew it, it was about 20 minutes to kickoff and we had forgotten to go get our tickets from my parents' tailgate. We had no way of getting in touch with them at that point, because phones don't work down there, but fortunately we were able to find their spot. They'd been parking there for years. Unfortunately, they were long gone. Our only hope was that they had left our tickets in the car, which I was able to unlock via numerical keyless entry. Meanwhile my girlfriend, who "wasn't feeling great," took a load off in the front seat, I ransacked the car from bow to stern. No tickets.

Then the barfing started. My girlfriend tried her best to point it out the door, but she yakked all over the floorboard of the driver's seat of my mom's Mercury Mountaineer. I removed the floor mat from under her feet to shake off as much puke as I could, uncovering TWO TICKETS to the 2008 Florida-Georgia Game. I found some paper towels and wiped things down as best as I could, started the car (my dad always leaves the keys inside), cranked the air, got some water for my future bride who was now sleeping peacefully in the front passenger seat, put her ticket in her jacket pocket, locked the door, and sprinted for the stadium.

I didn't get to see Brandon Spikes ruin Knowshon Moreno, but it was the only play I missed. My girlfriend, on the other hand, missed most of the game. She joined us, feeling refreshed, just in time to sing "We Are The Boys of Old Florida."

Tripp, do you have a brother? Chivalry is not dead!

Jack, a Georgia fan who attended from 2008-11, and 2013 and 2015:

Friday of the WLOCP Weekend is known as Frat Beach Day to the Georgia students who make the trip down to St. Simons Island. It’s day drinking on a strip of beach with 5,000 of your classmates. By the end of the day the beach is a battlefield of blackout 20-somethings staggering through sand, publicly urinating, and, in the case of 2013, engaging in the timeless art of public sex.

Those of us still on the beach in the late afternoon that day were treated to a, uh, “public display of affection” when a couple of coeds confused the Atlantic Ocean for their hotel bed.

Jack submitted a photo of the act (which we’ve edited to obscure identities by putting old Georgia logos on the faces of the people who are making love in the ocean in October), and it’s well, something!

Josh, a Florida fan who’s attended most of the 1990s, as well as 2004, 2004, 2007, and 2011:

I am reliably informed that I was found halfway under a truck, singing the chorus of “I’m Alright” by Kenny Loggins (2007). My female friend was pushed into a bush by a Georgia frat bro. She responded with the hardest nut kick I’ve ever seen (earlier in the week, 2007).

Someone at our tailgate got into the vodka-soaked pineapple and ended up grabbing a hot grill with his bare hands. He finished the day in an induced coma. He went off to medical school the next year.

Photo by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images

Joe, a Florida fan who’s attended from 1979-this year: Stealin’ golf carts!

1986 we were staying in the motor home, under the bridge, and had walked to the other end of the stadium. This was the Friday night before the game, to check out everything. A lot of cocktails were being consumed, and we were heading back to the motor home, which was a long walk ,and all of a sudden we saw a golf cart sitting empty. We looked at each other, and both at the same time jumped in and took off.

As soon as we pulled up to the motor homes and got out ,everyone was like ‘what the hell did you guys do, steal a golf cart?’ And we were like ‘well kind of, it was just sitting on the side of the walk.’

We rode it all over that evening; finally the batteries died. The next morning, we wake up, and come to find out ,the golf cart was owned by the city of Jacksonville, and they were letting their police officers drive them around for security purposes. We left it where it died, and it was still there when we left on Sunday. Never heard a word about it, and still park in same lot to this day.

Raul, Florida fan: Years attended: 2000-06, 2008-12, 2014 and 2016:

2002 (year we played at night) game Nov 2. Halloween was Thursday night. We decided it would be a good idea to drive to Jacksonville on no sleep at 7am. On the way to Jax, we decided it would be a good idea to kidnap this random freshman we were sort of aquatinted with name “Miami Mike”. We drove to keys complex and knocked on his door. He opened the door. We told him to get his stuff because we’re taking him to Jax to make a man out of him. There were two girls sleeping in his bed at the time. He looked back at them sleeping and said that he was in. He just left the girls in his room, didn’t pack clothes or toiletries and got in the car.

A big part of our crew played on the UF hockey team and they had played UGA in hockey that afternoon. A fight broke out, so they were fired up. We got drunk and belligerent in the hotel that evening . At 9 p.m., Gator City Taxi took us to the landing. UGA fans were extra chippy that year because they were undefeated in Richt’s 2nd year and UF had three losses (sound familiar?) in Zook’s first year. Several fights broke out at the landing including a 25 minute tug of war over a UGA flag, that was hanging on the stairwell next to Hooters, with a group of croakie wearing UGA fratties in long sleeve button downs and khakis. The UF crew eventually won the tug of war and burned the UGA flag around us chanted ‘it’s great to be a Florida Gator.’

The next night we beat UGA in the only night game in the series and dashed their hopes of a national title.

Photo by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images

Will, a Georgia fan who attended from 1999-06:

I am pretty sure it was in 2000. Our group was walking to the game from our tailgate, we had a few road beers in hand and it was a pretty typical walk to the stadium, cheering as we walk etc. About 500 yards from the stadium, a Gator fan with orange and blue paint on his face and chest runs up to our group. He is yelling ‘Go Gators’ and doing the Gator Chomp. Innocent enough to start, we laugh and keep moving, but he follows us and gets louder and more demonstrative in his chomping. We get to the queue to enter the stadium and he is still yelling now louder and more in our face. We ask him to stop, he gets louder.

After a good five minutes, I take my half full beer and do the only thing I know to get him to leave. I throw it in his face. A dick move for sure, but we were out of options at this point. A cop witnesses the whole incident, the painted Florida fan is aghast and points to me and yells at the cop and says that guy threw his beer on me.

The cop just laughs, and says I saw it all go down and you deserved it; now leave them alone and get in the stadium.

Tyler, A Georgia fan who attended from 2014-17:

I’m a member of the Redcoat band, and it never fails that there is some crazy fans that love to taunt us when we go on to the field for halftime. Last year (2016) we had just gotten out on to the field when some Florida fans started waving Milkbones in our direction.

A friend of mine decided to show off a little so he asked for them to throw a bone down to him. The fans obliged and my friend decided to take a HUGE bite out of the dog treat. The Florida fans went wild and so did everyone in the band.

After our performance my friend said that he didn’t regret doing it, but that the treat didn’t taste great.

Photo by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images

Anonymous Florida fan who’s attended “Since dad could carry me into Alltel Stadium (still will only call it this):”

I want to say 2010 or 2011, when the city wanted to really crack down on the partying outside of the stadium. All the UF fraternities had their tailgates at the usual spots in Lot J, right up against the pond. About an hour or two into our tailgate we get raided by ATF agents. Not normal cops doing security, but guys in bulletproof vests and machine guns. Tables covered in liquor and mixers start being flipped — ‘we know you're underage!’ being yelled.

The next day, a friend of mine appears on the front of the newspaper holding his head in his hands with some ‘has the partying gotten out of control-esque’ headline. Good times.

In 2010, EDSBS asked fans to submit stories, and there were some great ones in this batch as well.

bba:

We go over near van buren just north of the stadium each year. old houses that let you have bathroom access. plus there is this shady guy across the street that cooks a mean batch of ribs. there is also a house that was/is full of animals. this dude has all sorts of birds and such. one year we lost a friend and looked up to see her standing in the window w/ a macaw on her shoulder w/ the animal dude holding a raccoon beside her. i don't even have time to get into the lizards or pelicans. i really am not making any of this up.

Hogtown beatdown:

Back when they would sell the 32 oz beers at the Landing, we would go up to the food court where they were only $4 apiece. This was also where most of the Greek system partied when at the landings. I’ll never forget this as long as I live. Upon buying 2 of the big ass beers, a Tri-Delt girl I had hooked up with from BALLS bar at UF saw me and asked if I wanted a "gameday line", as she pointed to their table. That’s when I saw the 6 Orange Adderall lines alternated with 6 Blue Xanax lines.

Photo by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images

hailtogeorgia:

After a long night drinking on St. Simons, everyone awoke early in time to board the charter buses leaving the island at nine to head down to Jax. My fraternity had purchased kegs and cases of beer for the bus rides, but since the buses are loaded more or less first come first serve, I was stuck on a different bus without beer. Thus, I was forced to crack open my handle of Jack for the ride down. Needless to say, a few short hours later, I was quite possibly the drunkest I've ever been without blacking out. I had a girl taking care of me who thought I was going to be sick, so she asked if I needed to go to the bathroom. Naturally, I took this as her implying she wanted to go to the bathroom with me to hook up, so I answered affirmatively...off to the row of porta-potties we go. We get inside, I make my move, and somehow, she's semi-OK with this. One thing led to another and finally was ended with her realization that she was, indeed, about to have sex with a drunk guy in a porta-potty at the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party. We decide that she should go out of the john first, so out she goes. Unfortunately for me, she couldn't inform the 60-year old woman waiting in line next that I was still inside, and I promptly had the door opened up to me zipping my pants with an obvious erection. She screamed, I screamed, pulled the door back shut, and waited it out for the next 10 minutes peeking out of the top of the door until she walked off.

Shawn:

A fist fight started between a Georgia fan and a Gator fan amid a large crowd. There was cheering for both sides and occasionally it looked as though it might pull in a few participants. This isn't rare. This happens all the time. What was odd was how the fight stopped. A giant Miller High Life truck was rolling down the street toward us with many people with cameras following in tow. We're all still watching the fight - what do we care about some photogenic beer truck? Turns out that Windell Middlebrooks, who I'm sure everyone knows better as The High Life Guy was sitting in the passenger seat, hanging out the window talking with people and getting pictures and such. As soon as this was discovered, the residents of greater Duval county and beyond immediately dropped any interest in the fight and became starstruck. Maybe 30 seconds later, the fighters themselves finally heard that the huge celebrity, High Life Guy, was here! They could not disengage from their fracas quickly enough to go and meet this guy. Florida fan had a ripped shirt, Georgia guy had a bleeding cut on his face, neither of them cared. They had to meet him.

Photo by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images

Silver britches:

My best friend is a train fanatic. It's disturbing. The man had a Microsoft Train Simulator. This was not an exciting game.

In 2001, while walking to a liquor store in a questionable part of Jax, we came across some tracks about 1/4 mile from our hotel. The wheels start turning. We get back to Athens and he locks himself in his room. He comes out with satellite images of railyards, schedule tables, and pictures of engines and various cars. He's hopping a freight train to Jacksonville in 2002. He wants me to come with him. He was no stranger to this - he constantly hopped from Athens to Abbeville, SC and back. But. . . this. This was going to be his Mona Lisa. My rail experience consisted of taking MARTA to Hartsfield on occasion.

A year later we give our bags to a friend that's driving down and we're dropped off outside a railyard in Athens around midnight. We hop a fence and start looking around. He knows what train to hop because he has the engine number of the one we're looking for. This guy couldn't figure out the UGA bus system, but could find out which freight train to illegally hop to go to the Cocktail Party. After hiding in some scrub, we hop on once it starts moving. He says for the most part we'll be doing between 5 and 65 mph, but once we get south of I-20, we'll spend some time in excess of 80. After an interminable (yet scheduled) layover in Waycross and a train transfer, the last leg seems to take forever. He starts checking landmarks and rail switches, blah, blah, blah until he tells me it's time to get off. The only problem is that the train is going much, much faster than it was when we got on. He informs me it's not slowing down again until roughly Tampa. The trick is to kind of roll into the landing. At 1:45 a.m. Friday morning, our friend answers the door at the hotel to find the two of us, completely black from grime. It only took us about 23 hours what a Ford Explorer accomplished in 6.

Then we fucking lose.

My personal highlight from the 2014 game was seeing this dude passed out in the press box.

Morgan Moriarty, attended in 2013 and 2014:

Someone spent too much time at The Landing before coming to the press box. #UFvsUGA http://pic.twitter.com/IZIiv1htIL

— Morgan Moriarty (@Morgan_Moriarty) November 1, 2014

My colleague, Richard Johnson, who’s been to the game from 2010-15, also weighed in:

My fraternity in college used to get two parking spots right next to each other in the stadium parking lot donated by alums. For the visual, head to the 31-second mark in this video. Those are my fraternity brothers standing on pickups:

The year was 2012, and that day, everyone jumped on the trucks so often during pregame that the shocks on one of the trucks got ruined, and it had to be towed out of EverBank Field's parking lot.

We salute you, Florida and Georgia fans, for admitting your debauchery!

[apsbicepstraining]

The Timeline Of Becoming Human Again After A Weekend Of Terrible Decisions

Memorial Day Weekend is traditionally acknowledged as the kickoff for a summer of beach trip-ups, backyard beers and relentless tit sweat.

MDW is also my birthday weekend, which constructs my already skewed, drunken decision-making and self-care that much poorer.

This year was no different. Day drinking? Check. A nutrition of grilled meat and half-melted sugar? Check. Waking up in an outer parish apartment I’ve never previously seen with half an old sandwich in my handbag? Check.

Come the Tuesday following MDW 2016, I feel like someone replenished a Panera sourdough bread bowl with whisky, marijuana and repent and then left it in the sunbathe to think about what it’s done/ exhaustively curdle.

Is it possible to hop back into the scheduleof a responsible adult after a summer weekend of unadulterated fuckery?

I needed to be purified. For the coming week( ish ), I plan to document my seamless alteration into a well-rounded, health, sober human being who loves home cooking and early mornings.

Degenerates can have it all, too.

Tuesday, May 31: Welcome To A New Me, Assholes

7 am : I wake up, expecting to feel rested and revitalized from seven hours of sleep, except I live in New York City without an air conditioner. Forecasts say to expect warm, sunny days all week. I stand naked in my chamber and accept nature’s penalty for my miscreantbehavior over the weekend. 7:05 am : I turn on the rain. I plan to wash my whisker today because I haven’t in a few weeks. I’m starting to look like Johnny Depp I’m talking Captain Jack Sparrow Johnny Depp , not “Crybaby Johnny Depp and it’s not a sound I can pull off.

Before getting clean, I sit on the settle and suck cold coffee I stuck in the fridge the darknes before in an admirable ordinance of #MealPrep and #SelfLove. It’s merely OK.

7:30 am : After my rain, I silently praise myself for not only soaking my hair, but likewise scraping my legs. Unbridled feminine power is extending from my calves, which are a tiny bit lashed, but whatever. Nobody’s perfect.

I spray rose water( a hydrosol) with frankincense from Enfleurage on my face, justasmy bestie admonished. Herbraces once got stuck to my favorite sweater in front of our eighthgrade class, but now she’sa professional makeup creator, licensed aesthetician and semi-finalist on season 10 of Syfy’s Face Off.” If she told me it would build me eternally beautiful, I would fill my holes to the brim with goose poop and decorate thinner.

I pull my mane back because heat-free styling feels like a responsible move and slather SPF with zinc oxide on my sugared, smooth faccia to protect it from the sun that seeks to destroy its ageless glamour.

8: 15 am : I march to the nearest subway stop. Sweet Lord. It’s already so red-hot. Too numerous tacos from the nighttime before recur my bowels. 9 am : I arrive at work and heat up a packet of organic( ooooooooh !!!) instant oatmeal. I arouse in peanut butter and raspberries. I start to feel superior to anyone who devour a bagel this morning. Don’t they care about their own bodies? I do. I would NEVER consider putting that kind of drivel in my flesh temple.

I am a new lady brimming with self-respect. I would rather drownmy somewhat unblemished, 27 -year-old body in the shit hose from “The Shawshank Redemption”than load it full of simple-minded carbs and transfats.I am better than every human/ swine/ deity, nutritionally speaking.

10:30 am : I begin to sketch a breakup email to my therapist of nearly three years. This find counterproductive to my efforts to become the healthiest all-around Taylor, but I have no choice. My employer lately changed insurance carriers and my doctor only abides one type.

I consider living therapy-free. I’d have an extra 40 instants of period each week, and I wouldn’t have to hike to the Upper East Side for appointments. This tones, after nine years of therapy, like a welcome separate I may eventually be ready to handle.

Seconds pass. I embark Googling healers who admit my new guarantee, rapidly coming to expressions with the facts of the case a therapy-free life is a dystopian barren for me and everyone I love.

I’d likely end up dating a high school senior, going really into headbands as a flesh of self-expression, defining small-minded volleys to appear alive, counting calories from gum I ruminated as legitimate sections of energy and becoming one with my bed.

12 pm : I eat lunch, slapping sliced avocado and a mid-sized tupperware’s worth of homemade salsa on some rice patties. It’s all right, but it prepares me kind of thirsty. I realize I’ve merely had two glass of water in so far today.

Proper hydration is something health seeds( identify: Gwenyth Paltrow or the Moon Juice girl) take very seriously, likely. I suppose one day being that kind of wispy, elegant 40 -year-old woman whose surface incandescences and whose forearms examine just likethe small remains kids shove in the sides of a snowman. Totally achievable.

5:00 p.m. : I leader to the gym, fueled by a renewed feel of purpose and the disgrace that harasses one after a weekend of questionable choices. I run. I squat. I try to toss my hair behind my shoulders and snicker carelessly atop the treadmill, but my hair is very short and I cannot breathe deeply sufficient to chuckle because practice is hard. 6 pm : Each time I cleanse my hands, I put on Trader Joe’s Coconut Body Butter because I care about moisturizing now. It smells like dessert. It stirs my knuckles feel ridiculously smooth. My knuckles are basically astrapping young camel who’s precisely had his humps shaved for a big appointment, or something. 7 pm : I leader to Lowe’s to buy an AC unit for my suite, every inch of whichis charminglysunbathed in the winter and awash with unavoidable hellfirein the summer.I find a group that looks like every other unit and wait for my roommate, who’s hold back at her nannying profession, to come promotion me get this fatty bitch home.

I stand in the checkout expanse next to my large-scale girl buy, mutely praising those lucky enough to witness me expending $350 on something other than alcohol and fancy potatoes.

7:30 pm : My roommate, Charlotte, arrives at Lowe’s. We haul the human rights unit into a taxi and, formerly we make it uptown to our structure, haphazardlydragit up five flights of stairs to our apartment.

The whole seek leaves me feeling proud and physically destroyed. We soondiscover special bolts on our opening grate that won’t allow us to install the air conditioner until acontractor trips. So, fuck it, I guess.

8 pm : I snack a veggie burger patty and a container of sauted kale for dinner. So many nutrients! I want to die, kind of.

9:15 pm : Charlotte and I use the AC unit as a foot residual/ coffee table, and we begina series of dialogues so specific to our generation I think, for a moment, whether it would sound like system to my grandfather( or any other 84 -year-old because my granddad is deaf ).

Me: U can’t use the black thumbs up emoji, Charlotte, that’s racist.

Roommate: I feel bad shedding all my emoji white-hot. Like Hollywood.

— Taylor Ortega (@ taylor_ortega) June 1, 2016

Remember where reference is all caused Cara Delevignenevne a Nobel prize for I approximate having almost a personality

— Charlotte Barnett (@ CHARBAR) April 20, 2016

Pitbull is proof the Harry Potter universe is jolly since he’s certainly retired Miami Voldemort.

— Taylor Ortega (@ taylor_ortega) October 8, 2015

Sexism in Hollywood: no one asked for MORE David Schwimmer, hitherto here we are

— Charlotte Barnett (@ CHARBAR) May 5, 2016

I too wonder whether any of the dumb shit we say is proof Millennials are mankind’s salvation or itsfinal damnation. I decide we’re maybe the latter, but implant that thought deep in an effort to stay positive and shun stress-eating the box of chocolate almonds Charlotte has opened on the couch.

9:25 pm : My ex-boyfriend arrives to pick up the stuff he left at my accommodation before we broke up. I look like a sweatbeast and my leg is bleeding a bit, for some reasonablenes. I facilitate him carry his containers downstairs.

We chat. It’s all really mature. Extremely Calvin Harris and Taylor Swift, if Calvin Harris was a beautiful, half-asian human who insisted on accompanying his goddamn bike everywhere and Taylor Swiftwas 5’10”, willowy and born in 1989( this is an outright brag about how much I have in common with Taylor Swift ).

We are advanced humen capable of enjoying and losing without hysterium. My leg hemorrhages the whole time, but he doesn’t say anything.

12 am: I wash my face, spray it with rose water, brush my teeth, determined my frighten and contribute myself a big ol’ pat on the back for a epoch of task, healthful eating, evolve interactions, adult acquisitions and sobriety. I is certainly be able to pick up the slack from this weekend without breaking a sweat.

Wednesday, June 1: 24 Hours Might As Well Be A Million Years

9 am : POTATO CHIPS FOR BREAKFAST? COME ON, YOU WEAK, SWEATY BITCH. You know what? It’s fine. I’m fine. Part of self-improvement is acknowledging moments of weakness and not letting dichotomous thoughts to thwart progression. I’M STILL IN THE GAME. 1 pm : I steadily hydrate throughout the day. I ingest tofu salad with brown rice for lunch. I am sharp-worded, alert and full of energy. 6:30 pm : My improv team, Champagne Empire, rehearses a few stymies from my agency. After a few particularly physical scenes, I wonder whether I should have worn a short sundress on a show darknes, regardless of the fact that I remembered to put on bikeshorts underneath. 9:00 p.m. : I arrive at the theater an hour before my substantiate. What should I have for dinner? A gin and tonic with acquaintances? Sure, sounds great! 9:01 pm : SHIT, WAIT. 10 pm : Champagne Empire’s weekly substantiate begins. Without being provoked by another teammate, I decide to play the status of women whose legs were burned off by a chocolate fountain.

I drag my person around the stage by my limbs for 25 hours, realise it’s my fault for not only wearing a dress to this evidence, but choosing to play a flailing, horizontal persona for no reason whatsoever.

11 pm : All is not lost. There is one hour to save my era. I’m not going to stress out about perfection. I’m going to take each hour as it comes and allow my health choices to cleanse every last cell in my form until I have achieved a superior status of world. What’s that? My friends are having a few beers? SURE I’ll join! 11:01 pm : WAIT, SHIT. UGH.

Thursday, June 2: You’re Not Better Than Me

8 am : I am beginning work with an easy daylight ahead of me. I have no rehearsals , no shows and no air conditioners to drag up and downthe west back of the city. All of my fortitude and centre can be exploited to achieve the clean lifestyle that’s escaped me my entire life/ the majority of members of this week. 8: 10 am : Organic oatmeal and fruit for breakfast. I smile as I eat it, hoping the physical pageantrywill influence inner gaiety. It doesn’t because oatmeal is just red-hot, mushyplant matter.

Fruit is delicious and beautiful, but it’s not magic. Trans fatties? Those are magic.

Over the past few decades, the meat industry in its own country has obtained a method to deliver us orgasmically yummy plows made from ingredients that just characterize as edible.

Beyond plainly creating these considers, they found a method to addict the American people to them like cigarettes, if cigarettes didn’t preference like dry hound shit and, instead, savor like rich chocolate with a faint plastic aftertaste.

God bless America. I would dismembera live stranger with my bare hands for a Drake’s Cake.

4:00 pm : I pate to the gym, telling myself I just have to get through 40 times before I can leave and do what I actually want to do, which is anything else in the whole wide world. While pretending to try, I receive an email tell people I’ve been charged for a month-long Tidal subscription.

I certainly forgot to cancel it when the free ordeal resolved, and now I’m persisted paying for it. Even in my evolved, nutritious, semi-sober position, small things arefalling through the cracks and I’m starting to wonder whether I was better off waking up with my jeans on and my contacts suctioned to my eyeballs in my fully lit bedroom at 4 am most days.

6:30 pm : For the first time, I see Dumbo. It’s the neighborhood in Brooklyn whereDan Humphrey and his floppy-haired, Gin Blossoms-y dad lived on “Gossip Girl, ” despite being outlined as too good to live in any waterfront property.

I meet afriend to listen some live salsa music and watch babes dance( read: run in circles, mainly ). Here, sitting outside amonga cluster of Brooklyn children with cooler haircuts than me and their swank mothers who likely live in lofts nearby, a calm washes over me and I have the first substantial epiphany of my rebirth…

Friday, June 3: Fuck This Stupid Lifestyle Change

I don’t need to be better at living. I’m already amazingat living.

I have a relatively helpful magnitude from a commonwealth institution I begrudgingly attended following a substantial nervous breakdown at artwork school.

I have a task I enjoy and show up to every day in a semi-punctual, enthusiastic manner.

I have never missed a rent payment on anapartment I’m hesitantto show to gentleman callersbecause, fine, it’s like walking into an immersive trailer for “Grey Gardens.”

I have two floras in my room that, despite being half dead, are also half thriving.

I recently met, and then instantly deleted, two separate dating apps that attained me feel like a judgmental elitist/ future carnage victim.

I showered this morning.

Ihave a strong, positive relation with their own families, despite my mother’s evident outrage at the factI workfull time in an manufacture that substantiates my degree rather than livingin a youth hostel somewhere, elapsing my occasion doing whippets and watching old escapades of “Family Matters.”

I have never physically tortured or killed an animal or human, which I suspect is a concept the majority of members of us haven’t done, but that probably shouldn’t disrepute my achievement.

Self-improvement must be somewhat important, seeing as Americans waste billions of dollars per year trying to rift it, but perhaps, for the majority of us, it’s bullshit.

The version of adulthood I hoped to represent mine so many times is a fantasize that, formerly I actually tried to attain it, took me less than three days to vacate for something I basically understood from the beginning: Stop has become a dick.

Stop being a dick to strangers, to friends, to lineage, to your form, to your psyche, to the environment, to Anne Hathaway, to jerks and to enemies.

I’m tired, you guys. Life is tiring.

If waking up every morningat 4:45 am to shove a bunch of dry greens and ginger into a juicerbefore heading out for some cardio reaches you joyous, then experience your 9 am, in-office diarrhea break-dance knowing full well you’ve accomplishedsomething personally beneficial. If it doesn’t, fuck it.

Just don’t be a dick.

The post The Timeline Of Becoming Human Again After A Weekend Of Terrible Decisions appeared first on apsbicepstraining.com.

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[thecloserlook]

This past week, we reached Spring Break, and boy did we need it. On top of the normal reading assignments, lectures, and weekly tests, the guys have been adding in message preparations and preaching practices. We had decided a month ago that, instead of the long trek to PA, we would keep our driving more local, and opted for a quick visit to my favorite southern locale, my Grandmother's farm in Toccoa, GA. Toccoa holds a very dear place in my heart. I have visited, for a week to ten days at a time, at least once a year. I vividly remember the long car trips, stopping for lunch and dinner, passing the huge Georgia peach (that looked like a butt), spotting Currahee Mountain (knowing we were close!), and waking up from a restless sleep to make sure I didn't miss seeing her house approach. I remember opening the van door and the dogs would run to my feet (my grandparents had several different strays come and live with them over the years). I remember Grandmom and Granddad greeting us, helping us inside, and the short fifteen minute conversation before everyone dispersed into their various bedrooms (five spread out in an eight-room house, accompanied by three full bathrooms). I have memories of Granddad making bows and arrows from bamboo and wooden dowels. The year we constructed a teepee. Biking on mountain trails. Swimming down the cold river at Sliding Rock. Gorging at the Dillard House. Playing football in the valley. Riding the horses in the pasture across the street. Swinging lazily on the "front" back porch. The assembly line at meal times (for creamed corn, Brunswick stew, cole slaw, and cold sweet tea). Learning from Grandmom in the kitchen or in the garden. Spending time (sometimes begrudgingly) with Granddad in the shop. Hiking. Playing card games. Building puzzles. Wrestling. Exploring. Feeding the animals. Hymns on Sunday. It feels like half of my life is there, in bits and pieces, perfectly preserved every time I go back and visit. But the purpose of this blog post is to introduce someone who has come to help define me. She is who I want to be in so many ways. As I have grown older, I have tried to be more intentional in asking her questions, getting to know her, and learn from her years of experience. I feel like I scratch the surface in every conversation, but never full peel back the layers that make her whole. So many years of life and love and loss are stretched across her face and visible in her hands. And yet she is a woman of few words. So I have been trying to make sure I ask the right questions. (Margaret) Faye Farmer is a talented woman. She has a mind for mathematics and science. She has an incredible memory, and an ever increasing capacity to learn. She is scrappy, but has the quintessential southern charm. She is tough without being rough. If she has an opinion, she offers it softly, as a suggestion. You must press her to get her to talk about herself. She is honest and direct, and not afraid to say "I don't know" or "I don't want to say." Here are some things I learned about my Grandmother in this last trip to Toccoa; things that inspire me and challenge me, and I hope paint a small portrait of the woman we all love so dearly. 1) Her home is a haven for others. My Grandmother's home was not originally hers. It belonged to her mother-in-law. When it became clear that they could not manage the property, she agreed to move in with them and help care for them with my Granddad. And in time, they inherited the property. She made someone else's home her own, purely because they needed her help, giving her own house to her daughter. Faye worked alongside her mother in law, honoring her place as the mistress of the house Now, she has two of her own children living with her, helping her to care for the property. Instead of holding onto her rights or seeking to remain autonomous, she has sought to share this place freely. That includes giving up her room, her habits, sometimes her own things, to accommodate those around her. She does not live a life as someone entitled. She knows she has something to offer, and she offers it willingly. She would rather change and acclimate than put her foot down and demand things her way. And she doesn't do it with a grudge. She genuinely learns how to be happy with the "new." Her home is a vehicle for her to care for others. For a few years, for a month at a time, she would bring her mother from Gastonia to Toccoa to live with her while she succumbed to Alzheimer's. She has hosted families and friends who need a place to stay. And her home isn't just a haven to people. Every single house pet they have ever owned there showed up one day and decided to stay. Penny (a terrier mix), who mated with a beagle down the road and gave birth to Shadow and Midnight. Smokey, who was a German Shepard/lab mix. Jumper (who was a nasty little dog to everyone but Grandmom). And she told me that thirteen different cats have found their home on her farm over the years (current ones being Buster and Cissy). My Grandmother has lived many places. But she will readily say that a house is just that, until you fill it with people and use it to care for others. Then, it becomes a home. 2) She honors the heritage she has been given, without idolizing her possessions. Faye inherited a house and furniture that wasn't hers, but had been loved and valued by generations before her. And she took loving care of everything she was bestowed. The vegetable garden my great-grandmother slaved over (even up to the months before her passing) still give produce today. The lawns and flower gardens are tirelessly weeded and maintained. The cast iron skillets and mixing bowls still sizzle and clang with use. Sometimes, even when things partially break, she continues to use them, because to throw them away is a waste (she used an old rolling pin with only one handle for years until my uncle found a brand new one sitting in a box in the back room). She closes her eyes and sighs if she sees things get tossed in the trash because they have a dent or a scratch. She works slowly and meticulously, with loving hands that deftly clean or prune or cook. But she doesn't see these heirlooms as treasures on earth. They are still just "things." She isn't upset that things are thrown away because of sentimentality. She just hates seeing things wasted or devalued because they aren't "new." She said "I was upset at first when my kids started clearing out the house. Agnes (my great-grandmother) would not have liked so much stuff being thrown away. When you live through the depression, you don't just get rid of things because they are old or used. But now that it's done, I really am glad. I do think we had too much stuff, and we certainly weren't going to use it all. But when they got started, I did hide some things that I didn't want them to find and get rid of. Just a few things, you know." Don't worry Grandmom. I won't give away your secret hiding place stash. 3) She thinks little of herself; she doesn't think of herself as impressive, and she doesn't think of herself often. My grandmother grew up on a farm owned by her uncles. She had to pull water up from the well every day. She had to help her mother wash her clothes on Mondays in a boiling pot of water, and then hang it on lines and chicken wire to dry. Her first dog was named Tiny, and one day he got lost on a walk. When he came back, it bit her and started doing strange things, and they realized he had rabies. Everyone in her family needed 21 shots EACH in the hip, once a day. On Christmas, they would go to church for a special service, and get a small goody bag with some peppermints, an apple, and an orange (rare treats). She never had a birthday party until after she was married, when a friend at church discovered this and threw one for her. But even after that they have been few and far between. She worked as a teacher for a few years after graduating college, but her favorite job was working at her cousin's Nursery, selling plants and tending to the store. She met my grandfather on a blind date, set up by his cousin, who was a mutual friend of theirs. And she told my grandfather when they married that she would change her political party if he changed religions. I share this because I find her life to be quite interesting. Every memory she has is like a historical novel. What she endured, how she lived, what she considers "normal," it is all fascinating. And yet, she doesn't sit in an armchair and drone about the past like it's a lecture. Sometimes she will see something that sparks her memory, and she will chuckle to herself, and that's it. It's only when pressed (usually by one of us) that she opens the window into her past. If you were to stop her ten times throughout the day, and ask her what she is thinking about, ten out of ten she is thinking of some task that needs to be done, or some person who she needs to check in on. It's like she keeps her past in a drawer, and sometimes, while looking for something else, she will open it by accident, and smile as she remembers the contents, but then close it quickly and move on. It's not that her past is painful. She just lives in the moment she has been given. She loves showing me old photo albums of myself, or my family, but not of her own life growing up (what few pictures there are). She doesn't force anyone to think about her or remember her. If she wants to talk to you, she will call you herself. Or write you a letter. But she doesn't wallow in self-pity when people don't keep up. She lives her life simply, and makes sure she is someone who is easy to please and appease. 4) She is a hard worker. My Grandmother rises early. She makes breakfast and does chores almost automatically. She cares for the animals who find their way to her. She walks all over the property, her skilled eye noticing new weeds to pull or fallen twigs pick up or new bamboo shoots clip. She volunteers at the food bank once a week. She drives an elderly woman to church every Sunday. She sings in the choir and volunteers monthly to make food for the church potluck after services. She collects aluminum and rubber for recycling yards and drives. She checks in on her neighbors. No project is beneath her. No chore is too hard for her. Where physical limitations step in, she asks for help, but that's only after she has tried it first herself. She wants to have an equal share of the work as she gets older, not be relegated to the armchair for observation. She thinks about others. Every year that we have visited, she has slaved over the mountain of dishes, planned the meals, gotten us blankets or towels before we knew we needed them, ironed our clothes out of the laundry, or pulled out the games or activities we enjoy. Her mind is running almost as fast as her body is working, and even as she gets older, her drive to work hard for others remains as strong as ever. 5) She is an example of biblical femininity. No one who looks at my Grandmother would call her "weak." No one can say she has a "weak mind." In fact, she has watched her own mother and sister forget who she is as their minds erode with Alzheimer's, while she remains sharp as a tac. She has lived with relatives who grow old and die in her house. She has seen family move away. She has watched her church struggle to grow in numbers. She was the one who found her husband had peacefully passed, while resting during a day working outside (on someone else's property, no less). She is an example of a strong woman, carrying itself in a meek body. She thrives in her home. When she has had to, she worked outside the home for income. When she was able to, she stayed home with her kids to raise them and care for them. She isn't out to prove herself to anyone. She isn't out to make a name for her own accomplishments. She works with skill, effectiveness, and timeliness in her responsibilities. She is dependable. She is compassionate. She is generous. She is long suffering. She loves the Lord, and communes with him every day. And everything she does flows out of the knowledge that her life is not her own. It is an instrument. She is capable of many things, and has done many things, but her name is not the one heralded at the gates. No, she would rather work behind the scenes, a sweeper of the floor in the house of the Lord. She is content with being "made nothing" so He can be made great. I love you, Grandmom. And I can't wait to see the storehouse in Heaven that the Lord is preparing for you as your reward for serving him.

[apsbicepstraining]

The Timeline Of Becoming Human Again After A Weekend Of Terrible Decisions

Memorial Day Weekend is traditionally acknowledged as the kickoff for a summer of beach trip-ups, backyard beers and relentless tit sweat.

MDW is also my birthday weekend, which constructs my already skewed, drunken decision-making and self-care that much poorer.

This year was no different. Day drinking? Check. A nutrition of grilled meat and half-melted sugar? Check. Waking up in an outer parish apartment I’ve never previously seen with half an old sandwich in my handbag? Check.

Come the Tuesday following MDW 2016, I feel like someone replenished a Panera sourdough bread bowl with whisky, marijuana and repent and then left it in the sunbathe to think about what it’s done/ exhaustively curdle.

Is it possible to hop back into the scheduleof a responsible adult after a summer weekend of unadulterated fuckery?

I needed to be purified. For the coming week( ish ), I plan to document my seamless alteration into a well-rounded, health, sober human being who loves home cooking and early mornings.

Degenerates can have it all, too.

Tuesday, May 31: Welcome To A New Me, Assholes

7 am : I wake up, expecting to feel rested and revitalized from seven hours of sleep, except I live in New York City without an air conditioner. Forecasts say to expect warm, sunny days all week. I stand naked in my chamber and accept nature’s penalty for my miscreantbehavior over the weekend. 7:05 am : I turn on the rain. I plan to wash my whisker today because I haven’t in a few weeks. I’m starting to look like Johnny Depp I’m talking Captain Jack Sparrow Johnny Depp , not “Crybaby Johnny Depp and it’s not a sound I can pull off.

Before getting clean, I sit on the settle and suck cold coffee I stuck in the fridge the darknes before in an admirable ordinance of #MealPrep and #SelfLove. It’s merely OK.

7:30 am : After my rain, I silently praise myself for not only soaking my hair, but likewise scraping my legs. Unbridled feminine power is extending from my calves, which are a tiny bit lashed, but whatever. Nobody’s perfect.

I spray rose water( a hydrosol) with frankincense from Enfleurage on my face, justasmy bestie admonished. Herbraces once got stuck to my favorite sweater in front of our eighthgrade class, but now she’sa professional makeup creator, licensed aesthetician and semi-finalist on season 10 of Syfy’s Face Off.” If she told me it would build me eternally beautiful, I would fill my holes to the brim with goose poop and decorate thinner.

I pull my mane back because heat-free styling feels like a responsible move and slather SPF with zinc oxide on my sugared, smooth faccia to protect it from the sun that seeks to destroy its ageless glamour.

8: 15 am : I march to the nearest subway stop. Sweet Lord. It’s already so red-hot. Too numerous tacos from the nighttime before recur my bowels. 9 am : I arrive at work and heat up a packet of organic( ooooooooh !!!) instant oatmeal. I arouse in peanut butter and raspberries. I start to feel superior to anyone who devour a bagel this morning. Don’t they care about their own bodies? I do. I would NEVER consider putting that kind of drivel in my flesh temple.

I am a new lady brimming with self-respect. I would rather drownmy somewhat unblemished, 27 -year-old body in the shit hose from “The Shawshank Redemption”than load it full of simple-minded carbs and transfats.I am better than every human/ swine/ deity, nutritionally speaking.

10:30 am : I begin to sketch a breakup email to my therapist of nearly three years. This find counterproductive to my efforts to become the healthiest all-around Taylor, but I have no choice. My employer lately changed insurance carriers and my doctor only abides one type.

I consider living therapy-free. I’d have an extra 40 instants of period each week, and I wouldn’t have to hike to the Upper East Side for appointments. This tones, after nine years of therapy, like a welcome separate I may eventually be ready to handle.

Seconds pass. I embark Googling healers who admit my new guarantee, rapidly coming to expressions with the facts of the case a therapy-free life is a dystopian barren for me and everyone I love.

I’d likely end up dating a high school senior, going really into headbands as a flesh of self-expression, defining small-minded volleys to appear alive, counting calories from gum I ruminated as legitimate sections of energy and becoming one with my bed.

12 pm : I eat lunch, slapping sliced avocado and a mid-sized tupperware’s worth of homemade salsa on some rice patties. It’s all right, but it prepares me kind of thirsty. I realize I’ve merely had two glass of water in so far today.

Proper hydration is something health seeds( identify: Gwenyth Paltrow or the Moon Juice girl) take very seriously, likely. I suppose one day being that kind of wispy, elegant 40 -year-old woman whose surface incandescences and whose forearms examine just likethe small remains kids shove in the sides of a snowman. Totally achievable.

5:00 p.m. : I leader to the gym, fueled by a renewed feel of purpose and the disgrace that harasses one after a weekend of questionable choices. I run. I squat. I try to toss my hair behind my shoulders and snicker carelessly atop the treadmill, but my hair is very short and I cannot breathe deeply sufficient to chuckle because practice is hard. 6 pm : Each time I cleanse my hands, I put on Trader Joe’s Coconut Body Butter because I care about moisturizing now. It smells like dessert. It stirs my knuckles feel ridiculously smooth. My knuckles are basically astrapping young camel who’s precisely had his humps shaved for a big appointment, or something. 7 pm : I leader to Lowe’s to buy an AC unit for my suite, every inch of whichis charminglysunbathed in the winter and awash with unavoidable hellfirein the summer.I find a group that looks like every other unit and wait for my roommate, who’s hold back at her nannying profession, to come promotion me get this fatty bitch home.

I stand in the checkout expanse next to my large-scale girl buy, mutely praising those lucky enough to witness me expending $350 on something other than alcohol and fancy potatoes.

7:30 pm : My roommate, Charlotte, arrives at Lowe’s. We haul the human rights unit into a taxi and, formerly we make it uptown to our structure, haphazardlydragit up five flights of stairs to our apartment.

The whole seek leaves me feeling proud and physically destroyed. We soondiscover special bolts on our opening grate that won’t allow us to install the air conditioner until acontractor trips. So, fuck it, I guess.

8 pm : I snack a veggie burger patty and a container of sauted kale for dinner. So many nutrients! I want to die, kind of.

9:15 pm : Charlotte and I use the AC unit as a foot residual/ coffee table, and we begina series of dialogues so specific to our generation I think, for a moment, whether it would sound like system to my grandfather( or any other 84 -year-old because my granddad is deaf ).

Me: U can’t use the black thumbs up emoji, Charlotte, that’s racist.

Roommate: I feel bad shedding all my emoji white-hot. Like Hollywood.

— Taylor Ortega (@ taylor_ortega) June 1, 2016

Remember where reference is all caused Cara Delevignenevne a Nobel prize for I approximate having almost a personality

— Charlotte Barnett (@ CHARBAR) April 20, 2016

Pitbull is proof the Harry Potter universe is jolly since he’s certainly retired Miami Voldemort.

— Taylor Ortega (@ taylor_ortega) October 8, 2015

Sexism in Hollywood: no one asked for MORE David Schwimmer, hitherto here we are

— Charlotte Barnett (@ CHARBAR) May 5, 2016

I too wonder whether any of the dumb shit we say is proof Millennials are mankind’s salvation or itsfinal damnation. I decide we’re maybe the latter, but implant that thought deep in an effort to stay positive and shun stress-eating the box of chocolate almonds Charlotte has opened on the couch.

9:25 pm : My ex-boyfriend arrives to pick up the stuff he left at my accommodation before we broke up. I look like a sweatbeast and my leg is bleeding a bit, for some reasonablenes. I facilitate him carry his containers downstairs.

We chat. It’s all really mature. Extremely Calvin Harris and Taylor Swift, if Calvin Harris was a beautiful, half-asian human who insisted on accompanying his goddamn bike everywhere and Taylor Swiftwas 5’10”, willowy and born in 1989( this is an outright brag about how much I have in common with Taylor Swift ).

We are advanced humen capable of enjoying and losing without hysterium. My leg hemorrhages the whole time, but he doesn’t say anything.

12 am: I wash my face, spray it with rose water, brush my teeth, determined my frighten and contribute myself a big ol’ pat on the back for a epoch of task, healthful eating, evolve interactions, adult acquisitions and sobriety. I is certainly be able to pick up the slack from this weekend without breaking a sweat.

Wednesday, June 1: 24 Hours Might As Well Be A Million Years

9 am : POTATO CHIPS FOR BREAKFAST? COME ON, YOU WEAK, SWEATY BITCH. You know what? It’s fine. I’m fine. Part of self-improvement is acknowledging moments of weakness and not letting dichotomous thoughts to thwart progression. I’M STILL IN THE GAME. 1 pm : I steadily hydrate throughout the day. I ingest tofu salad with brown rice for lunch. I am sharp-worded, alert and full of energy. 6:30 pm : My improv team, Champagne Empire, rehearses a few stymies from my agency. After a few particularly physical scenes, I wonder whether I should have worn a short sundress on a show darknes, regardless of the fact that I remembered to put on bikeshorts underneath. 9:00 p.m. : I arrive at the theater an hour before my substantiate. What should I have for dinner? A gin and tonic with acquaintances? Sure, sounds great! 9:01 pm : SHIT, WAIT. 10 pm : Champagne Empire’s weekly substantiate begins. Without being provoked by another teammate, I decide to play the status of women whose legs were burned off by a chocolate fountain.

I drag my person around the stage by my limbs for 25 hours, realise it’s my fault for not only wearing a dress to this evidence, but choosing to play a flailing, horizontal persona for no reason whatsoever.

11 pm : All is not lost. There is one hour to save my era. I’m not going to stress out about perfection. I’m going to take each hour as it comes and allow my health choices to cleanse every last cell in my form until I have achieved a superior status of world. What’s that? My friends are having a few beers? SURE I’ll join! 11:01 pm : WAIT, SHIT. UGH.

Thursday, June 2: You’re Not Better Than Me

8 am : I am beginning work with an easy daylight ahead of me. I have no rehearsals , no shows and no air conditioners to drag up and downthe west back of the city. All of my fortitude and centre can be exploited to achieve the clean lifestyle that’s escaped me my entire life/ the majority of members of this week. 8: 10 am : Organic oatmeal and fruit for breakfast. I smile as I eat it, hoping the physical pageantrywill influence inner gaiety. It doesn’t because oatmeal is just red-hot, mushyplant matter.

Fruit is delicious and beautiful, but it’s not magic. Trans fatties? Those are magic.

Over the past few decades, the meat industry in its own country has obtained a method to deliver us orgasmically yummy plows made from ingredients that just characterize as edible.

Beyond plainly creating these considers, they found a method to addict the American people to them like cigarettes, if cigarettes didn’t preference like dry hound shit and, instead, savor like rich chocolate with a faint plastic aftertaste.

God bless America. I would dismembera live stranger with my bare hands for a Drake’s Cake.

4:00 pm : I pate to the gym, telling myself I just have to get through 40 times before I can leave and do what I actually want to do, which is anything else in the whole wide world. While pretending to try, I receive an email tell people I’ve been charged for a month-long Tidal subscription.

I certainly forgot to cancel it when the free ordeal resolved, and now I’m persisted paying for it. Even in my evolved, nutritious, semi-sober position, small things arefalling through the cracks and I’m starting to wonder whether I was better off waking up with my jeans on and my contacts suctioned to my eyeballs in my fully lit bedroom at 4 am most days.

6:30 pm : For the first time, I see Dumbo. It’s the neighborhood in Brooklyn whereDan Humphrey and his floppy-haired, Gin Blossoms-y dad lived on “Gossip Girl, ” despite being outlined as too good to live in any waterfront property.

I meet afriend to listen some live salsa music and watch babes dance( read: run in circles, mainly ). Here, sitting outside amonga cluster of Brooklyn children with cooler haircuts than me and their swank mothers who likely live in lofts nearby, a calm washes over me and I have the first substantial epiphany of my rebirth…

Friday, June 3: Fuck This Stupid Lifestyle Change

I don’t need to be better at living. I’m already amazingat living.

I have a relatively helpful magnitude from a commonwealth institution I begrudgingly attended following a substantial nervous breakdown at artwork school.

I have a task I enjoy and show up to every day in a semi-punctual, enthusiastic manner.

I have never missed a rent payment on anapartment I’m hesitantto show to gentleman callersbecause, fine, it’s like walking into an immersive trailer for “Grey Gardens.”

I have two floras in my room that, despite being half dead, are also half thriving.

I recently met, and then instantly deleted, two separate dating apps that attained me feel like a judgmental elitist/ future carnage victim.

I showered this morning.

Ihave a strong, positive relation with their own families, despite my mother’s evident outrage at the factI workfull time in an manufacture that substantiates my degree rather than livingin a youth hostel somewhere, elapsing my occasion doing whippets and watching old escapades of “Family Matters.”

I have never physically tortured or killed an animal or human, which I suspect is a concept the majority of members of us haven’t done, but that probably shouldn’t disrepute my achievement.

Self-improvement must be somewhat important, seeing as Americans waste billions of dollars per year trying to rift it, but perhaps, for the majority of us, it’s bullshit.

The version of adulthood I hoped to represent mine so many times is a fantasize that, formerly I actually tried to attain it, took me less than three days to vacate for something I basically understood from the beginning: Stop has become a dick.

Stop being a dick to strangers, to friends, to lineage, to your form, to your psyche, to the environment, to Anne Hathaway, to jerks and to enemies.

I’m tired, you guys. Life is tiring.

If waking up every morningat 4:45 am to shove a bunch of dry greens and ginger into a juicerbefore heading out for some cardio reaches you joyous, then experience your 9 am, in-office diarrhea break-dance knowing full well you’ve accomplishedsomething personally beneficial. If it doesn’t, fuck it.

Just don’t be a dick.

The post The Timeline Of Becoming Human Again After A Weekend Of Terrible Decisions appeared first on apsbicepstraining.com.

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[apsbicepstraining]

The Timeline Of Becoming Human Again After A Weekend Of Terrible Decisions

Memorial Day Weekend is traditionally acknowledged as the kickoff for a summer of beach trip-ups, backyard beers and relentless tit sweat.

MDW is also my birthday weekend, which constructs my already skewed, drunken decision-making and self-care that much poorer.

This year was no different. Day drinking? Check. A nutrition of grilled meat and half-melted sugar? Check. Waking up in an outer parish apartment I’ve never previously seen with half an old sandwich in my handbag? Check.

Come the Tuesday following MDW 2016, I feel like someone replenished a Panera sourdough bread bowl with whisky, marijuana and repent and then left it in the sunbathe to think about what it’s done/ exhaustively curdle.

Is it possible to hop back into the scheduleof a responsible adult after a summer weekend of unadulterated fuckery?

I needed to be purified. For the coming week( ish ), I plan to document my seamless alteration into a well-rounded, health, sober human being who loves home cooking and early mornings.

Degenerates can have it all, too.

Tuesday, May 31: Welcome To A New Me, Assholes

7 am : I wake up, expecting to feel rested and revitalized from seven hours of sleep, except I live in New York City without an air conditioner. Forecasts say to expect warm, sunny days all week. I stand naked in my chamber and accept nature’s penalty for my miscreantbehavior over the weekend. 7:05 am : I turn on the rain. I plan to wash my whisker today because I haven’t in a few weeks. I’m starting to look like Johnny Depp I’m talking Captain Jack Sparrow Johnny Depp , not “Crybaby Johnny Depp and it’s not a sound I can pull off.

Before getting clean, I sit on the settle and suck cold coffee I stuck in the fridge the darknes before in an admirable ordinance of #MealPrep and #SelfLove. It’s merely OK.

7:30 am : After my rain, I silently praise myself for not only soaking my hair, but likewise scraping my legs. Unbridled feminine power is extending from my calves, which are a tiny bit lashed, but whatever. Nobody’s perfect.

I spray rose water( a hydrosol) with frankincense from Enfleurage on my face, justasmy bestie admonished. Herbraces once got stuck to my favorite sweater in front of our eighthgrade class, but now she’sa professional makeup creator, licensed aesthetician and semi-finalist on season 10 of Syfy’s Face Off.” If she told me it would build me eternally beautiful, I would fill my holes to the brim with goose poop and decorate thinner.

I pull my mane back because heat-free styling feels like a responsible move and slather SPF with zinc oxide on my sugared, smooth faccia to protect it from the sun that seeks to destroy its ageless glamour.

8: 15 am : I march to the nearest subway stop. Sweet Lord. It’s already so red-hot. Too numerous tacos from the nighttime before recur my bowels. 9 am : I arrive at work and heat up a packet of organic( ooooooooh !!!) instant oatmeal. I arouse in peanut butter and raspberries. I start to feel superior to anyone who devour a bagel this morning. Don’t they care about their own bodies? I do. I would NEVER consider putting that kind of drivel in my flesh temple.

I am a new lady brimming with self-respect. I would rather drownmy somewhat unblemished, 27 -year-old body in the shit hose from “The Shawshank Redemption”than load it full of simple-minded carbs and transfats.I am better than every human/ swine/ deity, nutritionally speaking.

10:30 am : I begin to sketch a breakup email to my therapist of nearly three years. This find counterproductive to my efforts to become the healthiest all-around Taylor, but I have no choice. My employer lately changed insurance carriers and my doctor only abides one type.

I consider living therapy-free. I’d have an extra 40 instants of period each week, and I wouldn’t have to hike to the Upper East Side for appointments. This tones, after nine years of therapy, like a welcome separate I may eventually be ready to handle.

Seconds pass. I embark Googling healers who admit my new guarantee, rapidly coming to expressions with the facts of the case a therapy-free life is a dystopian barren for me and everyone I love.

I’d likely end up dating a high school senior, going really into headbands as a flesh of self-expression, defining small-minded volleys to appear alive, counting calories from gum I ruminated as legitimate sections of energy and becoming one with my bed.

12 pm : I eat lunch, slapping sliced avocado and a mid-sized tupperware’s worth of homemade salsa on some rice patties. It’s all right, but it prepares me kind of thirsty. I realize I’ve merely had two glass of water in so far today.

Proper hydration is something health seeds( identify: Gwenyth Paltrow or the Moon Juice girl) take very seriously, likely. I suppose one day being that kind of wispy, elegant 40 -year-old woman whose surface incandescences and whose forearms examine just likethe small remains kids shove in the sides of a snowman. Totally achievable.

5:00 p.m. : I leader to the gym, fueled by a renewed feel of purpose and the disgrace that harasses one after a weekend of questionable choices. I run. I squat. I try to toss my hair behind my shoulders and snicker carelessly atop the treadmill, but my hair is very short and I cannot breathe deeply sufficient to chuckle because practice is hard. 6 pm : Each time I cleanse my hands, I put on Trader Joe’s Coconut Body Butter because I care about moisturizing now. It smells like dessert. It stirs my knuckles feel ridiculously smooth. My knuckles are basically astrapping young camel who’s precisely had his humps shaved for a big appointment, or something. 7 pm : I leader to Lowe’s to buy an AC unit for my suite, every inch of whichis charminglysunbathed in the winter and awash with unavoidable hellfirein the summer.I find a group that looks like every other unit and wait for my roommate, who’s hold back at her nannying profession, to come promotion me get this fatty bitch home.

I stand in the checkout expanse next to my large-scale girl buy, mutely praising those lucky enough to witness me expending $350 on something other than alcohol and fancy potatoes.

7:30 pm : My roommate, Charlotte, arrives at Lowe’s. We haul the human rights unit into a taxi and, formerly we make it uptown to our structure, haphazardlydragit up five flights of stairs to our apartment.

The whole seek leaves me feeling proud and physically destroyed. We soondiscover special bolts on our opening grate that won’t allow us to install the air conditioner until acontractor trips. So, fuck it, I guess.

8 pm : I snack a veggie burger patty and a container of sauted kale for dinner. So many nutrients! I want to die, kind of.

9:15 pm : Charlotte and I use the AC unit as a foot residual/ coffee table, and we begina series of dialogues so specific to our generation I think, for a moment, whether it would sound like system to my grandfather( or any other 84 -year-old because my granddad is deaf ).

Me: U can’t use the black thumbs up emoji, Charlotte, that’s racist.

Roommate: I feel bad shedding all my emoji white-hot. Like Hollywood.

— Taylor Ortega (@ taylor_ortega) June 1, 2016

Remember where reference is all caused Cara Delevignenevne a Nobel prize for I approximate having almost a personality

— Charlotte Barnett (@ CHARBAR) April 20, 2016

Pitbull is proof the Harry Potter universe is jolly since he’s certainly retired Miami Voldemort.

— Taylor Ortega (@ taylor_ortega) October 8, 2015

Sexism in Hollywood: no one asked for MORE David Schwimmer, hitherto here we are

— Charlotte Barnett (@ CHARBAR) May 5, 2016

I too wonder whether any of the dumb shit we say is proof Millennials are mankind’s salvation or itsfinal damnation. I decide we’re maybe the latter, but implant that thought deep in an effort to stay positive and shun stress-eating the box of chocolate almonds Charlotte has opened on the couch.

9:25 pm : My ex-boyfriend arrives to pick up the stuff he left at my accommodation before we broke up. I look like a sweatbeast and my leg is bleeding a bit, for some reasonablenes. I facilitate him carry his containers downstairs.

We chat. It’s all really mature. Extremely Calvin Harris and Taylor Swift, if Calvin Harris was a beautiful, half-asian human who insisted on accompanying his goddamn bike everywhere and Taylor Swiftwas 5’10”, willowy and born in 1989( this is an outright brag about how much I have in common with Taylor Swift ).

We are advanced humen capable of enjoying and losing without hysterium. My leg hemorrhages the whole time, but he doesn’t say anything.

12 am: I wash my face, spray it with rose water, brush my teeth, determined my frighten and contribute myself a big ol’ pat on the back for a epoch of task, healthful eating, evolve interactions, adult acquisitions and sobriety. I is certainly be able to pick up the slack from this weekend without breaking a sweat.

Wednesday, June 1: 24 Hours Might As Well Be A Million Years

9 am : POTATO CHIPS FOR BREAKFAST? COME ON, YOU WEAK, SWEATY BITCH. You know what? It’s fine. I’m fine. Part of self-improvement is acknowledging moments of weakness and not letting dichotomous thoughts to thwart progression. I’M STILL IN THE GAME. 1 pm : I steadily hydrate throughout the day. I ingest tofu salad with brown rice for lunch. I am sharp-worded, alert and full of energy. 6:30 pm : My improv team, Champagne Empire, rehearses a few stymies from my agency. After a few particularly physical scenes, I wonder whether I should have worn a short sundress on a show darknes, regardless of the fact that I remembered to put on bikeshorts underneath. 9:00 p.m. : I arrive at the theater an hour before my substantiate. What should I have for dinner? A gin and tonic with acquaintances? Sure, sounds great! 9:01 pm : SHIT, WAIT. 10 pm : Champagne Empire’s weekly substantiate begins. Without being provoked by another teammate, I decide to play the status of women whose legs were burned off by a chocolate fountain.

I drag my person around the stage by my limbs for 25 hours, realise it’s my fault for not only wearing a dress to this evidence, but choosing to play a flailing, horizontal persona for no reason whatsoever.

11 pm : All is not lost. There is one hour to save my era. I’m not going to stress out about perfection. I’m going to take each hour as it comes and allow my health choices to cleanse every last cell in my form until I have achieved a superior status of world. What’s that? My friends are having a few beers? SURE I’ll join! 11:01 pm : WAIT, SHIT. UGH.

Thursday, June 2: You’re Not Better Than Me

8 am : I am beginning work with an easy daylight ahead of me. I have no rehearsals , no shows and no air conditioners to drag up and downthe west back of the city. All of my fortitude and centre can be exploited to achieve the clean lifestyle that’s escaped me my entire life/ the majority of members of this week. 8: 10 am : Organic oatmeal and fruit for breakfast. I smile as I eat it, hoping the physical pageantrywill influence inner gaiety. It doesn’t because oatmeal is just red-hot, mushyplant matter.

Fruit is delicious and beautiful, but it’s not magic. Trans fatties? Those are magic.

Over the past few decades, the meat industry in its own country has obtained a method to deliver us orgasmically yummy plows made from ingredients that just characterize as edible.

Beyond plainly creating these considers, they found a method to addict the American people to them like cigarettes, if cigarettes didn’t preference like dry hound shit and, instead, savor like rich chocolate with a faint plastic aftertaste.

God bless America. I would dismembera live stranger with my bare hands for a Drake’s Cake.

4:00 pm : I pate to the gym, telling myself I just have to get through 40 times before I can leave and do what I actually want to do, which is anything else in the whole wide world. While pretending to try, I receive an email tell people I’ve been charged for a month-long Tidal subscription.

I certainly forgot to cancel it when the free ordeal resolved, and now I’m persisted paying for it. Even in my evolved, nutritious, semi-sober position, small things arefalling through the cracks and I’m starting to wonder whether I was better off waking up with my jeans on and my contacts suctioned to my eyeballs in my fully lit bedroom at 4 am most days.

6:30 pm : For the first time, I see Dumbo. It’s the neighborhood in Brooklyn whereDan Humphrey and his floppy-haired, Gin Blossoms-y dad lived on “Gossip Girl, ” despite being outlined as too good to live in any waterfront property.

I meet afriend to listen some live salsa music and watch babes dance( read: run in circles, mainly ). Here, sitting outside amonga cluster of Brooklyn children with cooler haircuts than me and their swank mothers who likely live in lofts nearby, a calm washes over me and I have the first substantial epiphany of my rebirth…

Friday, June 3: Fuck This Stupid Lifestyle Change

I don’t need to be better at living. I’m already amazingat living.

I have a relatively helpful magnitude from a commonwealth institution I begrudgingly attended following a substantial nervous breakdown at artwork school.

I have a task I enjoy and show up to every day in a semi-punctual, enthusiastic manner.

I have never missed a rent payment on anapartment I’m hesitantto show to gentleman callersbecause, fine, it’s like walking into an immersive trailer for “Grey Gardens.”

I have two floras in my room that, despite being half dead, are also half thriving.

I recently met, and then instantly deleted, two separate dating apps that attained me feel like a judgmental elitist/ future carnage victim.

I showered this morning.

Ihave a strong, positive relation with their own families, despite my mother’s evident outrage at the factI workfull time in an manufacture that substantiates my degree rather than livingin a youth hostel somewhere, elapsing my occasion doing whippets and watching old escapades of “Family Matters.”

I have never physically tortured or killed an animal or human, which I suspect is a concept the majority of members of us haven’t done, but that probably shouldn’t disrepute my achievement.

Self-improvement must be somewhat important, seeing as Americans waste billions of dollars per year trying to rift it, but perhaps, for the majority of us, it’s bullshit.

The version of adulthood I hoped to represent mine so many times is a fantasize that, formerly I actually tried to attain it, took me less than three days to vacate for something I basically understood from the beginning: Stop has become a dick.

Stop being a dick to strangers, to friends, to lineage, to your form, to your psyche, to the environment, to Anne Hathaway, to jerks and to enemies.

I’m tired, you guys. Life is tiring.

If waking up every morningat 4:45 am to shove a bunch of dry greens and ginger into a juicerbefore heading out for some cardio reaches you joyous, then experience your 9 am, in-office diarrhea break-dance knowing full well you’ve accomplishedsomething personally beneficial. If it doesn’t, fuck it.

Just don’t be a dick.

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