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babytaes · 3 years

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All Night Long

➳ 𝚜𝚞𝚖𝚖𝚊𝚛𝚢: “you forgot about your daughter’s school project until the last minute, what happens when you join her partner’s father on a 11 PM Walmart run

❥ 𝚙𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐: seungcheol x female reader

❥ 𝚐𝚎𝚗𝚛𝚎: fluff

❥ 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚍 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝: 3K

❥ 𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜: just a cute seungcheol, we need more father content.

↪ 𝚊/𝚗: It has beeeenn a while since I posted something like this. I wanted to finish at least 3 members before I post this whole series.... but I can’t keep stalling. The first of many series from here on out... Enjoy and much love- BT

➳ part of the song series

↳ Does it ever drive you crazy.

Just how fast the night changes?

Your daughter leaped across the parking lot, humming a melody in her head. You grinned as you squeezed her hand and walked up to the car door. Walking over to the side door you opened it, allowing her to get into her car seat.

You tossed your things in the front seat and climbed in the car while she fixed herself in her seat and buckled up for the journey. It was ice cream Thursday for both of you, so it was a special day.

“Mommy... Mommy, are we still getting ice cream today?” she inquired, her feet swung wildly in anticipation. You looked at her radiant face and gazed deep into her delicate soul, admiring both the good and the bad in her.

As you gazed at her, time seemed to stand still for a moment; your life with your daughter had been remarkable, and she was your pride and joy. Your life would be pointless without her. It was difficult for both of you to navigate this life without a strong father figure beside you, but she has been a trooper the entire time.

You looked up at the love of your life as he held her in his arms and asked, "Isn't she beautiful?" As he clutched her delicate fingers, a tear welled up in his eyes.

“I can't believe we made this little booger; I can't wait to see you grow up, my little girl,” you turned to the nurse, laughing at the sight in front of you.

“Is it okay if he stays in here with me for a while?” the nurse nodded her head as she walked out of the bed, dimming the lights. He then gently climbed onto the bed, holding both of his loves in his arms.

“You and our little creation, I love you.”

You paused and swept a tear that had escaped your dry eyes. You quickly turned around and composed yourself before answering your daughter's question.

Even though your daughter was only 5 years old she had the intuition of some wise old mentor, which came in hand occasionally. She extended her neck to the side and looked over to see what was going on.

Within minutes she was on your lap wiping your tears as you hugged her tightly. She gleaned at you and brushed your stray hairs forming around your forehead.

“Are you okay, mommy? We don't have to get ice cream if you don't feel well.” You chuckled as she leaned in close and poked your necklace, a habit she enjoys.

You took her hands in yours and kissed them as you straightened her clothes, trying to relax. You haven't had a panic attack in a long time, due to your busy schedules, and life hasn't given you a break.

“I'm fine, sweetie; I'm just a little tired, but we'll certainly get some ice cream. Okay,” As she looked at you, you peered into her eyes for a reaction. She lifted an eyebrow and cocked her head to the side.

“You know lying is bad, mommy.” She got up from your lap and returned to her car seat, where she strapped herself in and grabbed her toy while humming away, oblivious to your presence.

You started the car thinking about how much she resembles you. Justtt a little too much.

“It's up to you whether you want to go home first or go get our ice cream.” You raised your head and checked the rearview mirror.

“Let's go home and get ready, then we'll go get some ice cream,”

You laughed as you pulled out from the parking lot on your way home.

(On the other side of the parking lot happening at the same time)

“How was school, buddy? Suengcheol took his son's hand in his as he opened the car door and helped Youngsoon into his car seat. He jumped into the driver's seat and started the car to warm it up. He then turned around and awaited his reply.

“Do you mind if we try something different today? You know my friend Hyejin, she and her mother go out for ice cream every Thursday,” Youngsoon said as he put his toys down. I really want to do something similar. “Do you think we can?”

He glanced at his watch and noted the time, nodded, and turned around to proceed to put the car in drive.

“How about we go get milkshakes like we used to when mom-.” He gulped as he remembered what he had said before restating it, “Yeah bud, we should go get milkshakes like we used to.”

As he pulled out of the parking lot and drove to their favorite restaurant, Youngsoon grinned and went back to playing with his toys.

“Sweetie, are you nearly ready? We've got to get going. It's a school night, so we can't stay out late.” For the third time today, she skipped down the stairs, reached for your hand, and walked with you toward the car.

As you both yelled the lyrics of your favorite song together on the way to the ice cream store, it became exciting and enjoyable. When you and Hyejin went out on the town, it was always a blast. Whatever the case might be, it was certain to be entertaining.

You pulled into the parking lot, parked your car, and unlocked the door, remembering to lock it again when Hyejin exited.

“Would you like your stroller or would you like to walk today?” As she figured out what she wanted, she looked around and pondered. She shook her head and crossed her arms, expressing surprise.

“Now that I'm a big girl, I think I'll be fine.” You smiled as you walked into the store. While we walked past the bright shops and tourist attractions, you saw her eyes widen.

You don't get much time with your daughter, so you want to make the most of it when you do. It was difficult at times to support her because you missed the other half of the support needed to truly make the best life possible for her. But you did your best to make her happy about what you had.

You were working two jobs at the time and rent was increasing as the days passed on.

“Are we going out for ice cream today, Mommy?” She raised her eyes to you as you rubbed your neck to relieve the cramp. As you squeezed her back, you shed a tear.

“Not this week, love; next week, perhaps.” Ms. Tzuyu is approaching the driveway, so mommy has to go to work. Make sure you behave and finish your work; can you do that for me?”

She gave you a slight smile as you embraced her and kissed her on the cheek as you hurried out the door, greeting Tzuyu as you pulled off and drove to work.

You wiped a tear thinking about how not even next week, you could get that ice cream for her. Bills were piling up and you had to prioritize. That is what you had to do not for yourself, but for her.

“So, do you want your usual flavor or would you like to try something new?” She peered through the window and investigated each flavor. For her, it was more of a new experience to see how many different flavors she could try.

Such an adventurous spirit.

“Mommy, I'd like to try a different flavor. “There's one named Rocky Road,” She grinned as she gazed up at you with her lovely almond-shaped eyes. You smiled and ordered her a small cone and an ice tea for you. On the way out of the shop, you grabbed some napkins.

You looked up as her hand swung in the air, admiring the bright buildings flecked with various artwork and taking in the fresh air as the cool breeze rushed through the city. It was fun, and you were thankfu-

“Oh no, I am so sorry let me help you.” You hadn't known it, but you'd unintentionally stumbled into a grown man and spilled your drink on him.

Your daughter laughed as she approached the stranger to embrace him, but you pulled her back and held her behind you before she could reach him. You felt her hand on your side, but you dismissed it because you wanted to see who it was.

“Please accept my sincere apologies; my daughter is extremely extroverted. I'm sorry, but do I know you.” As he spoke, a small voice leaped out from behind the figure and began giggling at your daughter.

“Hello, Ms., my name is Youngsoon, and Hyejin is my class. And this is my daddy.” He pointed up to the good-looking man if I say so myself. You drew Hyejin from behind you while covering your mouth with your hand.

When the man saw the kids hugging and talking about their days, he laughed and reached out his hand.

“Hello, my name is Seungcheol, and I believe we are meeting for the first time. It's wonderful to finally meet the girl my son keeps bringing up.”

While you sat down to meet with his son, you shook his hand and gave him a napkin to clean himself up. You stood up and held your daughter's hand while you waited to see what would happen.

Your daughter squeezed your hand and begged you to pay attention to her. She whispered in your ear as you bent forward and smiled at her appeal.

Youngsoon had the same facial expression as your daughter. You exchanged a smile and cocked your heads at Seungcheol.

“Would it be okay if we hung out with them today?” You grinned when you looked at her pouty face and saw Youngsoon doing the same to Seungcheol.

“If it's fine with you guys, I don't mind at all. We were on our way to the park.” Both of the kids let out a scream as they marched forward side by side, giggling and laughing as children do.

“Forgive me, but I'm so embarrassed that I have no idea who you guys are. My daughter is always talking about your son. I find it amusing that we are meeting up after such a long time.” He laughs as you both settled on a park bench, still in view of your children.

“It's the same here; with Hyejin, there's something different every day. Did you guys get ice cream today as well? He told me that you guys do this thing every Thursday.” As you took in his features, you peered into his eyes.

As his curly locks swept over his warm-toned skin, his plump lips accentuated his wide almond-shaped eyes. As you thought about him, a smirk emerged on your lips, and you lost focus in his eyes.

He is a father, his wife must be lucky.

As you and Seungcheol spoke about life and how it was impacting both of you, time flew by as you heard the laughter and cries of the numerous children in the park.

You'd discovered that he doesn't have a wife anymore. She died when youngsoon was just two years old due to a variety of health issues. You're not sure whether it was destiny or just a random ice cream day, but it seemed like you and he was communicating on a deeper level that only single parents could comprehend as the conversations progressed.

However, as time passed, the sun began to set earlier than usual, and the shops began to close. Your heart ached as it yearned for this, someone with whom you could communicate with.

“Daddy, my feet are hurting and I'm getting tired.” You laughed at his answer because Hyejin was in the same boat as him, dozing off by your side. You gently picked her up and held her in your arms while reaching out to Youngsoon with your free arm.

“It was a pleasure to meet you, Youngsoon, as well as your father.” You extended your hand to him, and he firmly shook it. Seungcheol then walked over to where their cars were parked, holding his son in his arms.

You couldn't see it as you both walked over in silence, but you could sense the tension in the air, and something had to be said.

“Why don-“

“We shoul-“

As you slid your sleepy kids into the car seat, you exchanged glances and chuckled. As soon as you've finished, you move over to the driver seat overlooking the door waiting for him to turn around.

What can I say, we weren't exactly friends, but we weren't strangers either. Is it appropriate for me to invite him over for a play date? Is that something that kids still have? Why are you so anxious?

He cocked his head and chuckled at your strange head motions, and a laugh escaped his lips as he waved his hand in front of you.

As you swore internally, a wave of humiliation rushed over your face.

“Before I say something stupid, it was wonderful to meet you, as well as your son, who has had a huge influence on my daughter's life. I'm glad she's kept a smile on her face the whole time. It's difficult when, well, you know. I'd like to hang out with you again... I mean with our kids if you're not busy."

Great job Y/N

He smirked and reached for his phone, which he unlocked and handed to you, motioning you to enter your number.

You checked the time as you exchanged numbers and quickly made a mental note that it was way past Hyejin's bedtime. As you hopped into your car, mentally cursing, you waved a short wave.

Why does it feel like I’m a teenager again?

You struggled to get all of your belongings into the house whilst looking for the light switch. A light turned on as you yelled at the intruder who did it. A tall figure emerged from the darkness, her brows scrunched as she took some items from your hands.

“You scared me, girl. “What are you doing here?” You noticed Hyejin's droopy neck as she slept through the loud introduction, a trait she inherited from you. Tzuyu smirked and slid Hyejin out of your arms as she put her drink down.

“I hope you didn't forget, Hyejin's project is due tomorrow, and you were supposed to get the materials for it.” A hand flew across your face as you gasped and rushed to the calendar, where you saw her project.

“I thought it was next week, and Hyejin would have told me?” When you realized the time, a sigh escaped your lips; all you wanted to do was take a nice bath and soak away all your worries.

Such a great mom move Y/N.

Tzuyu lightly checked to see if Hyejin was awake, her eyes fluttered as she stretched and rubbed her eyes. Her gaze darted around the room, searching for you. Her eyes fell on your worried expression.

“Are you going to tuck me into bed, Mommy?” You walked up the stairs with Tzuyu, pinching her cheek and telling her to brush her teeth and use the bathroom while you helped her get ready for bed.

A text message came through your phone as you waited for her on the bed; stunned, you quickly opened and read the message.

“I'm not sure whether you're awake or not. However, sleepy Youngsoon just told me that he has a project due tomorrow and that he needs some supplies. Unfortunately, all of the good supplies have run out at my house. Do you want to join me on this late-night trip to Walmart if you're up for it?”

As you answered quickly, a cheerful chuckle rang through your throat.

“So it wasn't just me; my lovely babysitter had just told me that I needed to pick up some supplies. Having a companion would make the journey seem shorter. I'll be leaving in ten minutes to meet you there.”

A more vivacious girl jumped into bed and rushed to your side, hugging your arm and waiting for you to move. It was a family tradition to have a kiss on the forehead and tuck covers, as well as a bedtime story if you were lucky. You had never failed to do that one job for her, no matter what the circumstances were. Not only did it make her happy, but it also brought you closer together.

“I don't want to hurry, but mommy needs to run to the store for a few supplies for your project. That is why Ms. Tzuyu is staying with you until I return. Okay, could you please be a good girl tonight and not cause her any problems?” She kissed your lips with a giggle before returning to her side of the bed and nestling into Tzuyu's embrace.

“I love you, mommy, and goodnight.” You returned the kiss and said a soft "I love you" as I closed the door behind you, you dimmed the lights as you rushed to your car.

When you both died of laughter, it felt like the world was spinning. You nabbed a cart and headed down the school aisle, debating on whether a hot dog counts as a sandwich.

Seungcheol grabbed some glue from the shelf and tossed it into the cart, laughing as he whizzed down the aisle.

“A hot dog is a sandwich because it has bread and meat.” As you walked down the aisle, collecting materials as you went, you shook your head as you reached the next aisle, searching for construction paper.

“You are aware that a sandwich is made up of three parts: two sides of bread and the filling. There can't be just one side of bread. It's just basic math.” He turned around and waved his hand in displeasure as he shook his head.

As you observed his behavior, you were reminded of the days when you and your husband would go out on spontaneous dates once you were done with work. You yearned for him and the memories he brought with him.

“I'll get the drinks while you go get the popcorn on the next aisle down. Shall we go with tipsy or chill?” As you contemplated what you wanted, he leaned over the shopping cart.

When you looked at his face, a grin crept across your lips. “Why don't we do both? We haven't had much time for ourselves in a while.” “I'm cool with it.”

He took your hand in his and yelled at the top of his lungs as he moved the cart to the next aisle.

“Tipsy it Itsssssss.”

Seungcheol approached you and tapped your shoulder, curious about what had happened.

“Hey, are you good? You've been zoning out for a while.” As you looked down the empty aisle, he cocked his head and waited for your answer.

As you regained awareness, he shook your arms as you rubbed the back of your neck. As he observed your movements, he gave you a thumbs up. A light smile formed on your mouth as you followed him in silence to the checkout line.

As you took out your card and began putting your things on the belt aimlessly, you were already calculating how much it would cost. He shifted his hand around you before you could pay. As you scoffed at him, he grinned and swiped his card.

“Why di-”

“Before you protest, consider it a gift for joining me on this late-night adventure. Don't be worried.” You slapped his arm with a playful slap as you gathered the rest of the bags and loaded them into the carts as you both walked slowly toward your cars.

As you both loaded your bags into the vehicle, the walk to the car was excruciating. You didn't want the night to end, and you didn't know how to keep it going.

You’re acting like a child Y/N, you’re a grown-ass woman!

“So-”

“Do-”

You were the one who spoke first, as you laughed.

“We need to stop doing that, also I'm not sure if you'll be available next week.” But, if you want to invite Youngsoon over for a play date or something similar. I could call my babysitter?”

You fiddled with your hands as you leaned on your foot to relieve some tension, as he nodded his head with a grin on his face.

“I would love that, you know, some single-parent quality time together. Text me the details, and we should definitely do something without the kids!”

“Definitely that's a must.” You were reminded of what your daughter said a long time ago as you stood there watching him.

“I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with you, Mommy.”

Something inside of you began to open up as if the grooves had restocked with enough oil to run again. As you both walked back to your car door, something blossomed in your chest.

You'd be happy to spend the rest of your life with him.

You chuckled as you waved goodbye to him for the second time today, thinking of all the possibilities of this unexpected run-in.

What a great way to finish the day.

➳ Navigate to the Maze

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ashintheairlikesnow · 3 years

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Paul Higgs: Baby Daze

Tomorrow I will return you to your regularly scheduled whump programming. Today... this is what wanted to be written.

CW: Teen pregnancy, some crass language surrounding said pregnancy, brief gun reference, some organized crime references

Approximately eighteen years before Tristan Higgs became another casualty of WRU…

"Well, look who’s here! Billy Higgs’s boy, come to see us after school, then?" Sean Malley claps him on the back and Paul nearly stumbles forward, just barely catching himself as he crosses the threshold from the sun-warmed walkway with straggly weeds growing stubbornly up through the cracks into the chilly shadowed warehouse. His sneakers scrape along the ground, but he stays standing.

He's hardly even as big as a stick compared to his dad's work buddies, all older guys with thick muscled forearms and sleeves rolled up to their elbows. He’s never had much muscle on him at all, but then his dad didn’t have much in old photos either. Maybe he’d get some as he got older, if he worked here. If they let him. "How’s things, hm? Keeping your grades up?”

Paul smiles, a slightly strained expression. The smile is automatic, it’s what everyone expects with small talk. At school he mostly doesn’t even bother with it, but with his dad’s friends… well, a smile’s polite. Right? Friendly.

He tries to look more friendly. He needs them to say yes to what he’s about to ask for.

“They’re fine,” He says, squinting as his eyes adjust to the change in light. “Same as always, A’s and B’s.”

Mostly B’s, but they don’t need to know that.

“Good, good.” Sean slides an arm around his shoulders, jovial as always. Paul tries not to be visibly uncomfortable at the touch. Everyone is always touchy, in the world, and he’s never liked it much. Except with Ronnie, but… that’s different. “So, talk to us, Paulie. What's got Billy’s boy mucking around here at the Garden with the old-timers?"

It's not actually much of a garden, unless you count the dandelions in the sidewalks and the bits of scraggly grass along the edges of the pavement as your rows of plants. Instead, the big warehouse stretches wider than two Walmarts, chopped off into pieces by the standalone temporary walls inside that don't reach the ceiling.

The ‘Garden’ is a place where things happen that no one with a badge is ever supposed to see. There's shouting, good-natured calling out of sums and figures and code words Paul doesn't know, bouncing and echoing in a constant chaos of sound. Metal scrapes, an odd clicking Paul vaguely recognizes but can’t quite place until he thinks of his dad cleaning his guns now and then at night, carefully putting them back together once he’s done.

All that noise lays heavy like a blanket over his skin. He pushes past it - he's got a reason to be here, and he won't let Ronnie down. He can’t let her down.

"I'm here to work," He says, going for strong and loud. He doesn't change expression when the men around him laugh.

He doesn't think their laughter is meant to be unkind, and besides, he doesn't really care if it is. These men have all known him since he was born - if anyone’s going to give him what he needs, it’ll be them. "My dad told me I could pick up some shifts this weekend as a lookout, that you pay cash at the end of the shift, right away. That I could get a couple hundred if I’m good at it, maybe five if I do some running, too.”

"Oh he said that, did he?" Sean meets eyes with Cilly, whose real name Paul has never learned. He isn’t entirely sure anyone here has ever given him their real legal name. Not even Sean. "Will might've let the family know first before he sent his boy here, hm?

"Well, it's. It's important I get cash. Um. Fast. I just spoke to him, probably he'll call you in a bit thinking he's giving you a warning." Paul tries for another smile, and hopes it's warm enough. A bit of coppery strawberry blond hair falls over his green eyes as he looks hopefully from man to man.

He's not even eighteen yet, but really, isn't that even better for a lookout? He knows where they do their business, he knows who to watch for, and he doesn’t look like he’s one of them at all. He's paid attention, sat up at night making maps of where they work and what they do. He knows they’ve gotten into business with WRU, even, the big Facility up in Berras has been sending people down here now and then. He’s good at this sort of thing. He knows he can do this. He’s going to make a living at this one day, and everyone starts somewhere.

He just… has to convince them. These men aren't unreasonable, and they're family. Well, sort of. In a way. In that they all commit crimes with his dad. And some of them actually are real family, although he’s not always sure exactly who.

"What d'you need cash for that can't wait for your parents to come back from Florida, then?" That's Cilly, scratching idly at a red spot on his face, sipping a mug of hot tea like they're at a kitchen counter and not a fold-out table by a warehouse door. The others all have takeout coffee cups, but not Cilly.

Paul's mom buys him new mugs on all her vacations. A gentleman among thieves, she said once.

Nah, Paul's dad had said. Just a thief. But he puts on airs for you.

All the more reason to show him my appreciation, Bill.

The mug he’s drinking from now was one of Paul’s mom’s presents to him. It has a little palmetto tree on the side and Nothin’ Could Be Finer written in swirling script. It came from a trip to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina when Paul was seven.

He hated that trip. He never liked sand. Or the ocean. Or the noise of all the people everywhere in the street. He would have been happy with a book on the couch in the condo if they’d have let him stay there.

"They're not in-"

"Think they're in Georgia," Conor pipes up, the oldest with hair gone nearly gray, cousins to the real boss, a man Paul has met maybe three times and knows only as Mr. Sondheim - which isn’t even a little bit his actual name.

Conor makes Paul’s skin prickle, the way he thinks maybe a cat feels when it sees a mean-looking dog across the street. Paul's dad came home once with blood he had to wash off his hands and a shirt he had to throw out. When Paul asked, he said only, Conor's temper is going to get someone who matters killed one day. Too bad his grandson's as bad as he is. "Aren't they?"

"Nah," Sean says, shaking his head. "Florida. Definitely Florida."

"Actually," Paul starts. "They're in-"

"I thought Texas," Cilly says, almost thoughtful. He interrupts Paul thoughtlessly, and Paul’s face colors a little with embarrassment. He feels like the odd man out in a conversation meant to be about him.

"They went to Alabama," Paul finally says, soft. Thinking no one’s listening, but they all look at him then. That's worse than when they weren't paying attention at all. He never meets any one person's eyes, instead focusing on Sean Malley's forehead, a spot that'll look like eye contact without having to be it. He's never liked having to look too many people in the eye.

Or anyone, actually.

"Ah, all right then. Alabama. Well. What couldn't wait for them to get back from Alabama, Paulie-Wol?"

No one's called him Paulie-Wol since he was eleven - and he hated it then. He blushes even darker. He's always been easy to make blush, and they laugh again. It's a little meaner this time. He has to not care. It’s important not to care, so they’ll let him work.

Paul Higgs straightens his narrow shoulders and pulls a crumpled but of paper, shiny on one side, out from his back pocket. "This is why. I need money. Fast. For this."

He can't help how his voice dips, hushed, almost in awe. Sean is the first to take the little piece of paper, eyes widening in surprise at what he sees, before he hands it to Conor, who whistles through his teeth. Cilly takes it next, with a soft exhalation that's either curse or prayer.

With this group, it could be either. Or both. Paul’s dad always says God doesn’t care overmuch about the difference.

"You're a bit young, aren't you? To need money for this?" Sean asks, and he's… concerned, Paul thinks, and he tries to square himself up even taller. “What’re you, Paulie, fifteen?”

"S-seventeen. It’s-... we didn’t plan on it, Sean, it just happened." This time when his face stays red, heat burning under the smattering of freckles across his cheeks and nose, they don't laugh. All their smiles are gone, too.

They've gone serious, these men who aren't quite blood but might as well be. They aren't laughing at or with or because of him. They look worried about him.

"Paulie," Conor says, shaking his head. "Paulie, you know better than this. Don't they teach you how to make sure this shit don't just happen? Thought we’d stop having teenagers knocking each other up once we got past the eighties.”

"They did. I had a whole health class where we-... but it doesn’t matter, it still. Happened, okay?" The absolute last thing he wants to do is talk to these old guys about Ronnie, and why, and when. If they ask him he’ll melt into the floor, and die, and just be dead right here and now.

“So, when you say you need money… Are you looking to drive her up to Berras?”

“No, that’s not... We talked about it, but she said she already thought about it and made her decision. This isn’t… Don’t look at me like that. I like her decision. I’m happy.”

“You are?” Sean blinks, surprised.

“Yes! I'm happy, so don't tell me I fucked up, because I did. I know I did, but… but I talked to Ronnie, and we have a whole plan and I need money for my plan. And just. Look at it.”

Sean glances back down, taking the paper back, smoothing it out. Shiny on one side, it's a printed black and white image, a smeary blur of monochrome shades. Unmistakable in its center, more or less, is a gently rounded blob of white, topped with another and with other little blobs coming off its sides. Labeled along the top is Baby Botham, 14 weeks 3 days.

“Botham?” Sean asks, head cocked to one side.

“That’s… that’s Ronnie’s last name. She, uh. She didn’t tell them… Because we’re not married.” Paul squares himself up again. “Yet. We’re not married yet.”

He tries not to think about Ronnie crying on his shoulder about how her parents and her sister had screamed at her when she told them, that no one was talking to her and they might throw her out, like this. His throat will close up if he does, in hurt for her, and in anger.

His own parents he’d just told on the phone today, heard the long silence on the other end. Whispers that didn’t quite carry through the line. Then his mother had said, brisk and no-nonsense as always, So what does Ronnie want to do? We’ll help however we can. Will she need somewhere to stay?

“You’re not married yet,” Cilly repeats, not with derision, just with a kind of flat uncertainty. “You’re seventeen, Paulie. Little young to be talking marriage, don’t you think?”

“Well, we’re talking it, anyway,” Paul says firmly. “And don’t tell me it’s stupid. We already made our minds up.”

“Well, far be it for me to question your judgement,” Sean deadpans. “Since you’re clearly making excellent decisions already-”

“I got married at sixteen,” Conor points out. “Wife and I been married forty-two years this December, too. Sometimes it works out.”

“Different world, different times,” Cilly counters, and Conor has to nod in agreement to that. “Lots of those didn’t work out either, now did they? Besides, kids got options now we didn’t have back then.”

“Ronnie doesn’t want those other options,” Paul says, forcing his voice to be loud enough to carry, surprising all three men, who give him a new kind of look. Maybe even seeing him as nearly a man and not a kid, just for the moment. “She doesn’t. I never told her to do or not do anything, we talked about it, and she knows what she wants to do, and I agree with her. Ronnie and I want to get married, and we’ll need somewhere we can live when-... when the baby comes. So I need to start making money. And I want-... I need some fast, this weekend.”

Cilly’s expression goes cold. “Don’t tell me your folks are making you find a place that fast. I’ll take Billy to the woodshed myself if he’d be such a bastard to his own kid when things get tough-”

“He’s not,” Paul says quickly. “They’re not. Mom and Dad aren’t-... but they get it, they’re helping us. It’s not for an apartment, not yet. It’s so I can buy her some stuff.”

"This is a serious thing," Sean says, and he rubs his thumb over what Paul is pretty sure is his baby's head. The blobs are all sort of odd to look at, but… he's pretty sure that one's the head. It’s where he would put the head, if he were designing a person, anyway. "But I can see you’re quite the serious young man, now. What sort of stuff are you lookin’ to buy, Paulie?"

Paul swallows, nervously rubbing his palms along the seems on the outside of his pants. “I… I don’t know. What do you buy someone who’s pregnant? I thought, like, baby clothes? Or a crib?”

“No, no, no.” Sean shakes his head. “You can’t just get her baby stuff, not this early. You are not starting with a crib, Paulie. You got nowhere to even put one yet.”

“Then… what do I buy?” Paul looks from man to man. “I’ve never known a pregnant person before, not anyone I cared about.”

“You were around for my wife’s last pregnancy,” Sean says, mildly offended.

Paul shrugs.

The three older men look at each other, and then sigh nearly as one. Someone pushes out the fourth chair from the fold-up table and Paul sits, each of the other men sitting in turn. Sean picks up his phone and dials. “Hey, Don. Let everybody know we’re off-limits for the next couple hours, ‘til lunch. Yeah, Billy Higgs’s boy stopped by. He’s sniffing around for some lookout work this weekend. Find him some decent jobs for me, will you?”

Paul starts to smile, and it’s genuine this time. Sean hands him back the little picture of the blob that will become a baby, his and Ronnie’s baby, and he tries not to crumble it fully in his hands, worried his sweat will smear the ink. She’ll get another one in a few weeks, said her doctor told her it’ll look more like a person, then. Less like a weird frog. Or like a really, really bad painting.

“Thanks, I’ll owe you.” Sean hangs up the phone and grins, leaning on his elbows on the wobbly little table. The sun shines warmly through the open warehouse doors on Paul’s back. “All right. Between the three of us, we’ve got, what, ten kids?”

“Yeah, but five of those are all Cilly’s,” Conor points out. “And mine stopped bein’ kids decades ago.”

“Yeah, but babies don’t change, and they don’t need much. You need a pen and paper to write things down, Paulie?”

“Write… write what down?”

“What you’re gonna spend your money on, for your girlfriend. You don’t just show up with baby clothes, kid, you gotta go all out. Let’s talk date, let’s talk gifts for this Ronnie, let’s talk it all out.”

“What to Expect When You’re Expecting,” Cilly says. “They all get that book, right? Isn’t that the one?”

Sean snorts, derisive. “Don’t get her that, not this early. That damn book had my wife in fucking tears telling her everything that could go wrong. We need to think of a happier book than that.”

“Well, call your wife and ask her what she’d want, then.”

“Maybe I will.”

“You should!”

“She’s liable to start planning a damn baby shower if I do. You know how Christa is about little ones.”

Cilly grins. “Think she’ll make those deviled eggs I like for the shower?”

“Cilly, for God’s sake, we found out about this five minutes ago.”

“Right, but... deviled eggs.”

Paul takes a deep breath, and sits back in his chair. “I’ll remember, whatever you say. I promise. I don’t need to write it down. Just tell me what I should get her, what I should do.”

“Right. Well, then.” Sean spreads his hands. “Let’s talk gifts.”

Tagging: @burtlederp , @finder-of-rings , @endless-whump , @whumpfigure , @astrobly @newandfiguringitout , @doveotions , @pretty-face-breaker , @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @boxboysandotherwhump , @oops-its-whump @cubeswhump , @whump-tr0pes @downriver914 @vickytokio @whumpiary @orchidscript @moose-teeth @nonsensical-whump

#original fiction #chris the strawberry blond romantic #paul higgs #ronnie higgs #the past #a very special flashback episode #teen pregnancy tw #mob stuff #brief gun reference #fluff #honestly I just wanted to explore Paul as a character because you don't see much inside his head or get much of a feel for him #writing #writeblr #whumpblr #bbu #box boy universe

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tangent101 · 4 years

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Perceptions of Wealth with Max Caulfield in Life is Strange

One thing I’ve noticed repeatedly in Life is Strange fanfics (and in occasional commentaries elsewhere) is how people assume Max Caulfield comes from a wealthy family. And while I’ve talked about this in the past, it’s probably about time to mention yet again that Max is in fact from a poor family, and that her parents either live in an apartment complex or in her grandfather’s house.

It’s easy to claim otherwise, especially when you compare Max to Chloe, but when you look a little deeper, the signs are clear that not only is Max poor, but she may in fact be as poor as Chloe. We can start by looking at Max’s clothes. Let’s start by looking at Max’s journal entries on clothes:

My mom cried, and my dad laughed. They're so weird. But they're happy and this means extra financial support because they don't have to pay anything to Blackwell. This means new clothes and if I can work it, a new laptop.

Max’s journal entry for July 10th already lays the groundwork here. She believes that seeing her family doesn’t have to pay for tuition, she can get new clothes and maybe even a new laptop. And to be honest, I actually bought into this... until just now when I saw this August 25th entry as well:

That made me want to cry like a little girl. And never leave Seattle. So instead of packing, I feel like burning all my clothes, then just raiding a thrift store to build up a new Max wardrobe over my junior year. Not that I even have an old Max wardrobe.

First, do note that Max talked about “raiding a thrift store” to build up a wardrobe. Her comment here is so matter-of-fact that the point Max was thinking of going to a thrift store for her clothes slipped past my radar... but as a middle-class woman, I do have to admit that it wasn’t until finances got rather tight that I started buying at thrift stores myself. Given that clothes aren’t tremendously expensive at Walmart and the like (especially if you hit sales) that’s perhaps not surprising. But there are no back-to-school sales for Max mentioned or the like.

In fact, we see no signs that Max got a new wardrobe (and admittedly she doesn’t have a lot of outfits, even accounting for keeping jeans in the bureau). Her laptop also is a fairly small one and may in fact be her old laptop. I cannot recall anything Max says or does that genuinely states that anything Max brings with her is new. (This also is true for alt-Max, seeing alt-Max’s journal states on September 14th “Yes, I'm older and thanks to Vic and Nathan I'm now a bit more fashionable too.” In other words, the nice clothing alt-Max wore were gifts from Victoria and Nathan.)

Max even comments on this when perusing Victoria’s clothes. She comes across some socks that “cost more than my entire wardrobe” and given a nice pair of thigh-high silk stockings can cost $75 or more, this might not have been hyperbole. Given that if you’re very lucky on sales you could probably snag skinny jeans for $8 new, and designer t-shirts for close to that (and let’s not go into the hoodies)... and it becomes most likely Max’s wardrobe, with (as Chloe puts it) “chlorine brand [T-shirts] and generic jeans” is cheap used clothing.

Hell, even Chloe’s clothing is in better shape. Despite the fact Chloe’s “poorer” than Max, her clothes look much less shabby and worn. Her ripped jeans look designer. Her shirts are likewise in good shape, with any “damage” being strategic and done for looks. Admittedly, Chloe may prefer certain outfits over others, and thus the lack of wear is Chloe not wearing most of her outfits all the time... but if you put Max and Chloe side-by-side (without Max’s camera evident) and ask which girl is from a wealthier family... and people would probably think Chloe is.

This also helps explain why Max never visited her best friend even in the summer despite living six hours away. If Max’s parents lived paycheck to paycheck then the cost of fueling up a car to drive Max to Arcadia Bay would be painful. (I say this as someone who once had to put her last two dollars in her car so to have just enough gas to last a week, back when that would buy two gallons of gas.) Max didn’t fall out of touch because of stressing out over William or being a bad friend. Max probably didn’t have a cell phone for the first year she lived in Seattle.

Again. Max and her parents moved to Seattle in the middle of the Great Recession. Yes, that was 11 years back but a lot of people lost their homes. Some of those who become financially destitute never recovered, even today. Others were forced to move in with parents. So if Max is living in a house, it belongs to her grandfather. She probably lives in a two-bedroom apartment and one that’s not even in a good part of Seattle. (She most definitely never rubbed elbows with Victoria in Seattle and never met Victoria prior to Blackwell.)

Speaking of Victoria, this gives another reason for Victoria’s harassment of Max and that is classism. Victoria acts like the typical snobby rich girl who sneers at those who struggle financially. Add in that Max has actual talent despite her lack of wealth, and she becomes a prime target for Victoria (along with Kate for her religious upbringing and lack of “shame” over her religiosity).

There’s another aspect of this “economic value” with Max that you might not expect, and that’s behavior. When you’re poor, you tend to become invisible to people wealthier than you. In return, some poor people will try and avoid standing out and drawing attention to them. Max has this in spades. She is a “shy cliched geek” who hides behind a lens rather than interact with a world that judges based on appearances. Well, Max appears as shabby and without value.

She is treated as such by various people as well. And trust me, if Max dressed like Victoria or Juliet, she would not be treated as dismissively. Appearance and behavior are reflections of each other, and we again see this with alt-Max with her nice clothes and more assertive personality, compared to the original Max who feels out of place.

Amusingly enough, as she starts wearing Rachel and Chloe’s clothing she increasingly becomes assertive and willing to take a stand. A good part of this lies with Chloe’s confidence with her, but we the players get to see this as well with Max’s clothes changing and becoming more vibrant.

So, why do people think Max is financially comfortable? I suspect it’s primarily because Max uses an instant camera. I once calculated out the financial value of the Caulfield Photo Wall, and came to over $100. Admittedly, that may have been all of Max’s photos (outside of ones that Chloe or other people had claimed over the years)... but when you also account for however many photos get rejected for not being good enough (and Max rips up several photographs in Life is Strange) and you’re left with the possibility Max has taken probably a thousand dollars’ worth of pictures.

That said? This doesn’t mean Max has spent a thousand dollars on film. Don’t forget, Max starts out with a battered camera that despite the design being extremely sturdy falls apart when it is knocked off a desk. Polaroid Instant Cameras are much sturdier than that, so the only way that camera fell apart that easily is if it had been broken in the past (which would explain why Max knows how to repair the camera). And with Max’s own journal, we know that Max is perfectly willing to buy and utilize previously-owned items.

In all likelihood, Max lucked across an estate sale or yard sale where someone was getting rid of an old camera they didn’t know the value of and all the film with it and Max walked away with $500+ of film and camera for $10 or so. If she bought more film via eBay and was lucky? She could very well be getting more film for only a couple dollars per cartridge of eight shots. It is also noteworthy to state Max doesn’t have a backup camera. She doesn’t have a digital camera on the side for most of her shots. She uses her phone for some pictures but mostly it’s that old beast of a camera that barely is holding together.

There’s another reason why a lot of people just assume Max is from a nice middle-class family and that’s because many gamers are from that setting. Who wants to think of Max as a poor girl who is only attending Blackwell because of a art grant? Especially when you add in shabby clothes that highlight Max’s shy and withdrawn personality... you end up with someone that people can have difficulty connecting with. So it’s understandable people just assume the best for Max. After all, they are Max in the game, and who wants to be poor?

#life is strange #lis #max caulfield #chloe price #victoria chase #kate marsh #alt-max caulfield #recession #polaroid instant cameras

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the-entity-down-the-street · 4 years

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We Have the Moon

Hey guys, sorry I disappeared off the face of the Earth for a while. I’ve been pretty depressed and unmotivated because, well *gestures vaguely to everything.* Here’s the second installment of my human-monster romance stories. We’re going full Gothic Lesbian Vampire Love today. I hope y’all enjoy. I can’t think of any content warnings off the top of my head, this is pretty tame honestly, but if there’s anything I should add let me know! Read under the cut.

Plink.

It was a light tap, subtle as the wind itself. Nobody should’ve woken up. But Alice did. Subtle, tinkling reverberations made her ears perk up.

Plink.

She lifted her head. Though only the pale moon offered light, she had no trouble seeing. Her eyes were built for picking apart shadows. The room was empty.

Plink.

“Alice!”

Oh. Oh no. Why was she here? Alice scurried to the window. It was covered in a frosty sheen broken up by a few persistent stones. Cracking it open enough for one eye to peek around, Alice spotted a familiar figure standing outside.

Melody. In a prom dress.

It was silver, sleeveless, and dripping with rhinestones. She’d woven matching ribbons into her box braids. “Alice, come down.”

“Go home, Mel. You know you shouldn’t be here.”

“Yeah, and?” Melody asked, indignant.

“Please go home. You must be cold.”

“Guess I’ll just be cold till you get your ass down here. And put on something cute.”

Alice narrowed her eye. “You’re not going away, are you?”

“Negative.”

She sighed. Melody was stubborn enough to freeze until she came down. Might as well keep her from getting frostbite. Alice hurried to slip into a pair of black leggings, a button-up top, and her dad’s leather jacket. Dressed, she opened the window fully and crawled down the side of her house.

Alice wasn’t the beautiful type of vampire. Her skin wasn’t pure white marble; it was pale corpse flesh, showcasing a network of black veins pulsing underneath. Her limbs weren’t perfectly sculpted; they were spidery and knotted and all her joints protruded into bulbs of tendon and bone. And her face did not showcase a haunting beauty, but a ghoulish caricature of something that might’ve been human, once, if you squinted a little. If she were a full vampire, Alice was sure her friend would run home, leaving only a trail of piss and tears behind. But her horror was diluted by the glow of her mom’s humanity, so Melody stayed waiting for her.

“Happy?” Alice asked.

“Yes,” Melody replied, grabbing her arm. “Now come on. I’m freezing.”

Melody’s hand, even kissed by the winter wind, was so warm. Alice’s half-beating heart sped up to a human pace.

The two of them ran through the woods separating Alice’s house from the rest of the town. There was no snow, but a low fog hung over the roots of the trees, whipped up by their legs and soft laughter.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Where do you think?” Melody said.

Oh. Alice would’ve blushed if she’d had the heat for it. The graveyard. Melody always waited for her there, always where the moon was brightest. Never afraid. Ready to play with death. To flirt with it. To dance with it. To go to prom with it.

“I thought your parents said they’d cut off your college fund if you saw me again,” Alice said.

“They did. And if we don’t do this tonight, they will.”

“And what is this, exactly?”

“You’ll see.”

Christ. Always so damn cryptic. As much as Alice was annoyed by it, she had to admit the spark of mystery was welcome. The heartbeat of her life had slowed to a comatose lull since Melody left for college. It had just her and her parents eking out a quiet existence where they wouldn’t be bothered by the townsfolk. The shadows may have been safe, but they weren’t nearly as interesting as humans thought they were.

They arrived at the graveyard. The headstones they grew up around were glistening with ice droplets. In the center was an abandoned, rotting church which towered over the graves. They always sat in its shadow on the hotter nights. The memory of a lingering kiss danced on Alice’s tongue as they made their way up the mossy steps. The front door was held shut by several wood planks haphazardly nailed over it.

“Help me open this, would you, baby?”

Yes, she could, happily. The door, and the boards, caved like paper when Alice kicked them in. No invitation necessary.

Like vampiric beauty, it was also a myth that God held vampires at bay. That implied that vampires weren’t of God. It also implied that the Christian God was the only Holy Spirit around. That was the biggest myth of all.

It was oddly lovely inside. Pews draped in cobwebs decorated the otherwise barren space. The altar at the front was defaced with graffiti, mostly of pentagrams drawn by misinformed teenagers, highlighted by the stained-glass window throwing muted rainbows across the floor.

“Okay, we’re here. Now what are we doing?”

Melody looked towards the altar. A crystalized breath fell from her soft lips. “Getting married.”

“…Huh?” Alice felt her heart speed up even more. It was uncomfortable. How did humans deal with this?

Melody looked to Alice and squeezed her hand. The shifting browns of cats’ eye swam in her irises. “Marry me, Alice.”

“B-but this isn’t… I thought maybe…” she scratched her neck.

“That I’d meet someone?”

“Yeah.”

“Why would I do that?”

Alice took her other hand. “Because they’re human, Mel. Because you could have a normal life. Because, I don’t know, you could grow old together and stuff.”

Melody made an audible snoring sound.

“I’m serious.”

“So am I. That shit’s boring.”

“But your parents—”

“Will have to get the fuck over it. I chose you.”

“That’s a choice I could never understand.”

“But I’m making it anyways,” Melody said. “You in or not?”

Alice bit her lip. Her fang poked into the skin, and a stream of black blood ran down her chin. She had no doubts that Melody was serious. And looking into her eyes, Alice also had no doubts that Melody loved her. Humans couldn’t hide their feelings well even if when they tried. It was kind of cute, really. Their little twitches, jittery hands, hushed curses, even their breathing— it always gave away the truth. Melody’s truth was stark, longing gazes, reaching lips, and a racing heart.

“This isn’t exactly an official ceremony,” Alice said. “We don’t have a priest or a wedding license or anything.”

Melody offered a shrug. “That can come later. Once I’m on my own. For now,” she pointed towards the large circular window above the altar, where the full moon shone, “we have the moon. She’ll be our officiant.”

Alice considered this. The moon. It followed them through their every night. Even when they were apart, even when they couldn’t talk to each other, the moon would know. That was all that mattered. “The moon it is.”

“Great, I already bought rings. Come on.”

The excited, giggling brides ran to the altar and took places opposite of each other. Melody pulled two rings out of her bra. One had a large red gem and one had a blue gem, both oval, a little like class rings.

“I hope these weren’t too expensive.”

“Nah, got them from Walmart. We can get real ones for the real wedding.”

“Think your parents will suspect?”

Melody waved her hand flippantly. “They know I like a lot of jewelry. One more ring won’t set off their alarms if it doesn’t look like a wedding ring. Stop worrying.”

“You’ve been planning this a while?”

She lowered her head. “Since they forced us to break up.”

Alice held Melody’s cheek and stroked it. They had tried to be sneaky, but people in this town never mind their own business. As soon as they found out Melody was going to prom with the local abomination, all hell broke loose. A lot of screaming. Even more crying. They never even got to go to prom. “I’m sorry, baby.”

Melody looked up to Alice. “Doesn’t matter now. Hold out your hand.”

Alice did. “No vows?”

“I think we both know what I’m agreeing to.” Melody slid the red ring over Alice’s finger. Alice slid the blue ring over Melody’s. “Till the end, love.”

“Till the end.”

Their lips met, hot upon cold, life upon death. The kiss was long and lingering. Alice knew it would be their last for a long time. Maybe months, maybe years. It all depended on how often Melody could sneak visits during her breaks. Alice could wait. Once Melody was on her own, they would get their real wedding. After that they had eternity waiting ahead.

Until then, they had the moon. She would know, and that was all that mattered.

#entitywrites #terato #terato love #monster girlfriend #monster wife #wlw #monster lover #vampire girlfriend #vampire wife #romance writing #my writing #writing #terato writing

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mywalkintofreedom · 4 years

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Life at West Main Street - part 2

In my last story, I really just painted a picture of what life was like. I didn’t go into a whole lot of detail about how God came through, though. God really came through for us in many ways, especially through the body of Christ.

Before we moved into our apartment we lived at a friends house for a month. During that month I had a dream that I really believed was from God. We had a lot of things to sort through together and figure out. In my dream I was with my mom and we were walking in the ocean and I had to follow her. I kept looking behind me and was afraid, and every time I looked behind I would start to sink and I would have a hard time seeing where she was going. My mom turned around and said “don’t look to the right or to the left, keep your eyes on me”. After I woke up I had an incredible sense of peace and I knew it had been God. Any time after that when I would start to lose focus, I would think of that dream and God would remind me “don’t look to the right or to the left”. Also in other words, “stop looking at your circumstances”. So much stuff hadn’t been figured out yet, but I had to choose to trust God.

I shared how we had a $20 food budget, which we did, and later in our journey it slowly increased. We also had dear friends that fed us dinner once a week to cut down the cost of food, it was a huge help. We had another church member that dropped off bread almost weekly. We had more church members that gave us food boxes regularly. The body of Christ really upheld us. Without them, I don’t know how we would have done it. We had friends teach us how to coupon and counsel us. When we had a need, we prayed, and God would provide in one way or an other. Sometimes I had a small desire, like I would be craving Nutella, and someone would randomly give me a jar of Nutella at church because they said they were thinking of me.

I shared about having two suitcases and a desk chair when we moved in. Within a matter of probably two weeks, we were donated a couch, a bed, a table and chairs, a stove (which took some months to be able to hook it up, because of funky wiring in the apartment, but we had it), a mini fridge, a toaster oven, a waffle maker, a washer and eventually a dryer. One friend was sending us boxes anonymously with brand new pillows, bedding, blankets, some maternity clothes, towels, kitchen towels, plates, bowls, pots and pans, utensils. Pretty much any essential item was send in anonymous boxes that would arrive, even toilet paper and cleaning supplies. It was very humbling and overwhelming, I mean we even had a can opener! Just imagine packages arrive from an anonymous person with all the things you need, when you haven’t told anyone what you need. It was amazing.

Someone took me to Walmart and told me to pick out curtains and other things we needed for our apartment. It was also someone else from our church that gave us money to turn on the water and power to our apartment. We never asked any of these generous people to do this for us, we never told them our need. We prayed together and stuff would happen. It was life changing.

Micah and I were never good at asking for help, which is why it was hard to take out a loan when we needed to, but people showed up and supported us even if we didn’t ask.

And even in the midst of being supported, it was only us that could walk that journey. We had a lot of support, but I struggled greatly any time I was by myself in those first months. Mostly, because I wasn’t used to being by myself. I had just finished a year of college studying social work before we got married, and was around people every day and had a very fast pace busy life. I also came from a big family where there were always people around me. One of my love languages is quality time, so being by myself was new. Going from that life, to being alone every day was a shock for me, and I don’t mind admitting that. BUT through it all I learned the most valuable lesson I could’ve ever learned: I learned to be content. I learned to be okay with my own company, and most of all, I learned how to entertain myself and to be thankful for every little thing in life. Sounds pathetic, but in today’s society, entertainment mostly comes from technology. I had to really face myself and even find out hobbies that I would enjoy to keep my spirit lifted, because being a millennial, the only way I really entertained myself was by watching shows or scrolling on my phone and hanging out with family and friends.

A few weeks after we moved into our apartment Micah was offered a full time job at a car dealership, where he had been doing odd jobs. This was a huge milestone for us, because it meant that we had some stability and a consistent income. I have to say though, even before he had a permanent job, we had one financial miracle after an other. Somehow there always was an odd job for him to make just the right amount of money. The way we were living really made my faith in God become so real. He truly was the One providing for us.

The apartment continued to be an interesting living space. As clean as we tried to keep it, we regularly dealt with cockroaches. We eventually came to the conclusion that perhaps the other people in the building weren’t keeping their spaces clean. We were given a space heater that would show us the temperature in the apartment. It would get as low as 48 Fahrenheit in the coldest months at night, but when it would go over 55 or so it would feel comfortable. We dressed warm in several layers and I would usually sit right in front of the space heater, which made it not so bad. Pregnancy also helped, because it keeps you warmer as well. Anytime we’d go to someone else’s house, or go to church, my cheeks would get flushed and I would be so hot! I had gotten used to colder temperatures. I couldn’t believe I had taken central heat for granted.

The house next to our apartment that we saw from our window, had a basement in which an entire family was living. A mom and dad, a little, maybe 4 year old boy and a baby. I often felt for them and often wanted to help them. The kids were usually only wearing onesies, even in winter. Upstairs, in the regular part of the house lived the grandparents, I think. I think they bred dogs, they had about 5 tied to trees in the yard. These dogs never stopped barking and often kept me up at night. As much as I wanted to help this family, I also thought about calling the police on them for having these dogs! I might have threatened I would untie all of them in the middle of the night in my hysterical mood. I did eventually get used to the dogs and stopped hearing them, and I think they sold some because they eventually only had 1 or 2.

Our upstairs neighbors, were a couple, probably in their late 50s. It was this lady that actually had hollered from across the street telling us there was an apartment available below them. They were sweet people, and also very troubled people. I would often hear them fight, but it’s not like we never had arguments, so who was I to judge them? I also overheard the lady, what I thought was, dealing drugs one time outside our window. We found out it was her birthday from her husband one time. We put together a little basket for her with a few items we had and went up to give it to her. Her reaction was priceless, as if she had never received a gift before. Anytime we had too much food that we couldn’t store in our mini fridge we would give it to them, and they were always so grateful. I really felt for them and we tried to share the gospel with them whenever we felt there was an open door. I also believed the lady had some kind of disease, because about once a month I would hear her vomit all night and then she would disappear for several days in a row and look different every time she returned. She also was picked up with an ambulance several times. We prayed for them and did care about them. We borrowed things from each other. We often borrowed their plunger and they often borrowed things from us. One time they would not stop fighting and were cursing at each other loudly, so Micah told them if they didn’t cut it out he would call the police. That night the guy came to our door and asked for all of his things back that we had borrowed, which was a giant old tv that we sometimes would watch dvds on from the library, and his plunger. This put an end to borrowing things, but we did still give them food. I still see them at the apartment sometimes when I drive by, and often think about asking how they are doing.

Our neighbor next to us, was an older lady. She was quiet and sweet as could be. She told us she never heard us, and I thought she must have impaired hearing, especially after we had the baby. She always greeted us, but she rarely got out of her apartment.

The other apartment had different people moving in and out. At one point a guy was living there that would never stop playing music. It was music with a loud base and bad words, and I couldn’t stand it. I prayed, and thank God, he moved out pretty soon.

We got to host my sister a few weeks after we had moved in. She had just gotten back from missionary work, so in my mind I had thought, “Surely our apartment will be better than where she’s been living.” But while she was with us the toilet kept clogging up. One morning she was using the bathroom and I had heard her trying to flush several times and after awhile she stuck her head out the door and said “uhh guys, my poop is coming up in the bathtub”. We all busted out laughing, it was hysterical. I had the best time with her. She stayed for three weeks, and I had never appreciated her company more than I did when she came. She helped me make our apartment homey, and we hung up pictures together. It’s some of the most valuable memories I have with her now.

Our landlord, Miss Charlotte, was also the sweetest lady. We experienced a lot of issues with the apartment, and would call her about it, every time she would immediately send someone to come fix it. We eventually got a new toilet, because the repair guy determined that it was too old and therefore clogging so much. We also had trouble with the electricity. Whenever we’d plug something in, the lights in the living space would dim really low. If we plugged more than one appliance in, the power in the entire apartment would go out. We became friends with the electrician named Terry, because he had to come over so often in the beginning😂 Someone gave us a huge microwave at one point, we never really used microwaves but we did use it for popcorn. Well one time when we plugged this beast in and turned it on there was a loud noise and half the apartment was without power and wouldn’t come back on. Terry had to come over again, but it took a few days before he could, so we lived in the dark for awhile until he fixed it. We decided not to use the microwave anymore, we didn’t really have room for it anyways. It was at this point that Micah got concerned about fire safety and collected all of our important documents in case there would be a fire😂, this was dramatic, but felt real at the time. Terry pretty much fixed most issues and we just didn’t use too many appliances at once.

As the months went by my due date was getting closer. Our baby was due on May 3rd of 2015. We were seeing our midwife regularly now, I loved our trips up to Atlanta. It was so fun to spend that time together. Paying for gas stretched our budget quite a bit, but I loved the drive.

What I thought was impossible became reality, our apartment truly became home. I started to feel safe and remember one time coming home after going grocery shopping saying to Micah “you know this really is home”, and he said “I was thinking the same thing”. I was nesting, I stopped volunteering at our church’ school when I was nearing the end of my pregnancy, and actually enjoying the isolation towards the end, and painted just about any piece of furniture that could be painted with cheap crafts paint. Most has held up amazingly well after all these years.

We lived close to the library. All I had to do was walk up a steep hill and there it was. It took me about 7-10 minutes. It was a great motivator to get exersice! I walked up that hill every day to connect my old phone to WiFi and I would contact Micah asking him what time he could come home for lunch. I also got to know the ladies that worked there as I saw them often. The library had a huge selection of Shirley Temple movies, so every day at 4 in the afternoon during my last week or 2 of my pregnancy I watched one of the movies and actually really enjoyed it.

At one point much earlier in the journey I temporarily had Micah’s phone, which had regular service. We thought it would be best for me to have his phone so I could contact him by texting the business’ cellphone. Well, one time his boss called Micah’s phone and I picked up. He said “is Micah there?” I told him no, then his boss said “ he just drove away in a customer’s car and I can’t reach him!” Just a few minutes later Micah arrived at the apartment and he came in and said “get dressed honey, we’re going to pick up some keys in Colombus!” (Sometimes if Micah had to take a trip somewhere his boss allowed me to come along with him). So I told Micah, “I just got off the phone with John (Micah’s boss), that’s not the business’ car, you took a customers car!” Micah’s eyes got big and he got back in the car and drove back to work. He had indeed accidentally mistaken a customer’s car, who had left the keys in their car, as one of the business’ car. He then from then on had to have his phone on him at all times so they could always contact him.

During these weeks, before our first child came into the world, I had a lot of victory in a lot of areas in my life. I got to a really good place actually before our child was born. I had no idea how my life was about to change, I also had no idea what kind of birth experience I was about to have. I will share more about this in part 3.

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qtsp00k · 4 years

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I heard from a friend and they said that they were trying to find a corned beef and cabbage meal to bring over to my place so we could have traditional Irish feast together and I was like oh my gosh I was just going to go to Conroy's by myself so if you want to go with me to Conroy's we can go out to eat if you're up to it cuz I'm up for it feeling great aside from my headache which is technologically induced so as long as I avoid technology I will continue to be feeling relatively well right right.

And so we headed to Conroy's but we got to Conroy's and they popped in and found out that it would be an hour and a half wait and they were like dude I'm just like calling Nub's pub and seeing what the weight is there like we can wait here but if Nub's pub is doing traditional feast and the wait time is shorter would you be okay not going to Conroy's and I was like dude my heart is not set on Conroy's it was just where I was trying to make plans with other people that fell through so I was just going to go by myself after all the plans fell through but calling Nub's pub they had a 20 minute wait which is exactly how long it took us to get there so we get in the door and our table is ready and I had a root beer and they had a Guinness and we feasted and it was delicious like really really good good corned beef and cabbage meal and sadly Alaska and I was like prepared to eat Irish soda bread with raisins in it which is a common preparation which I never do with my father never did I don't think I've ever eaten Irish soda bread with raisins in it in my life actually but I digress there was no Irish soda bread and so for dessert we split a creme brulee which I took like two bites of before I was like this is making me sick already and they were like yeah it's making me sick too and then proceeded to Wolf it down.

dinner conversation was delightful and my now intoxicated from one Guinness friend was much fun so we popped over to Walmart and hung out at Walmart looking at toys and clothes and I was like where's the St Patrick's Day clearance and we immediately turned the corner and there's just like a rack just a loose rack on Wheels just like hanging out just the road there and it was like well asking you shall receive and on that rack was like plenty of shirts but I have I think six St Patrick's Day shirts which is all I will need for the rest of my life I'm pretty sure because one of them is pizza I believe one of them is a tuxedo tea which I live for tuxedo tease I have several of them and I love them dearly and one of them is a luck o meter like if I was an Irish robot like oh man that one's really good and then I have the one I was wearing which is from 6th grade and I have the shirt from when well from one of the years my dad was almost always in our local Saint Patrick's Day parade and I have one of the first years that I remember seeing my dad on the float wearing that shirt I have that shirt and I'm about to cry just talking about it and I didn't find it I really wanted to wear it but I didn't find it and there's no way that it's like that it was lost or I don't have it it just has not been located since the move.

So even though there were some nice shirts I was most excited about the green leopard print leggings that have shamrocks like stealthy incorporated into the pattern OMG I cannot believe what I'm seeing unfortunately the only size options available were extra large or even bigger and I am nowhere near an extra large like I just told you I wear child shorts so I now have a pair of St Patrick's Day leggings that are super soft and comfy like those nice Walmart leggings you know like the only other pair of nice Walmart leggings that I have like this are my black and white Halloween bat pattern and the like sweater pattern Halloween that's traditional like purple orange green black white like skulls and whatever but I actually thrifted in like brand new condition and was really funny because I was trying to decide between that pair and the black and white batty very cartoon simplistic design like I would totally design those legs like I would be capable of like drawing all of those things on those leggings and slapping them on there and pushing them out into the world you know and I guess that's ultimately why I settled on that legging but it was really hard for me to decide between the other ones so when a couple of years later I came across them practically brand new at a thrift store it was like oh the heavens have smiled upon me.

I know one that have been funny if I had made the other choice and then come across the leggings that I owned and in fact could even be wearing them as I stand in a thrift store because what I do when I go to a thrift store is where the tightest clothing that I can so I can try on everything right there in the aisle which usually just entails a tight tank top and leggings.

Since we were at Walmart and I need a phone and I had money for a phone I decided to get a phone and this is a very interesting story because I talked to you several employees of several stores electronics areas to try to determine which phone I needed and I have also Google searched and ask people and try to figure out what phone I can get that will just go off Wi-Fi and we'll just play animal crossing pocket and I thought that you know I had found that and I got the phone I get it home and it turns out it's like one of the only phone that is not compatible with animal crossing pocket camp and dude dude dude mother-effing dude how we know this is my friend just like popped on to Google and the first time they ever search for this information this information that I've been trying to obtain ever since pocket camp updated to the freaking AR camera thing which knocked me out of the game it's just a list of all the phones that are compatible like like they just put in the exact right like set of words and I think that like one of the reasons that this friend gets so frustrated with me not being able to find stuff on the internet is that they don't come from an English speaking household and like somehow like that is really conducive to Google searching it is like so weird that like I'm like dude I looked for it and then they're like you're just an idiot like here it is dumb dumb and just like a list of it so I now have that list and it's not a big deal like I freaking just like collapsed when I got home and like could not get animal crossing on my phone but not a big deal I'm just going to go back to Walmart and exchange the phone for one that will work now that I have that list so that's really cool.

So really like again like synchro thing that happened is that while I was getting that phone I got a text from one of my best friends and it turns out that they are legit like contacting me to consult me about whether or not they should purchase animal crossing for the switch and like what so like after I go through this whole like oh no and then the acceptance and like it's not a big deal of my animal crossing kind of debacle on St Patrick's Day I get to talk about animal crossing for the switch and it's still all of its virtues and like I really could not think of any negative thing to say about it. And they are like oh my goodness spending $60 on a video game Mindy I don't know about this and and I'm like I really feel like it's worth it but here's what you can do to get an idea of what the vibe is like the aesthetic of playing like a very cartoony and like the interactions and just how chill it is if your phone is compatible just download the free Pocket camp one and if you like that then you will absolutely love the switch version and being able to play both of them is like heaven on Earth and that's where I'm going I'm going to heaven on Earth because as soon as I'm able I'm going to go get a phone and I'm going to be able to play Pocket camp so the next time I have a day where I cannot move any muscle in the right side of my body I cannot get up from my seat and in fact just urinating myself and my adult diaper all day in excruciating pain I will be able to play animal crossing Park camp with my left hand and only my left hand and it'll never give me a headache unlike the version on the switch does whether it's handheld or on a big TV so like I'm just like over the moon about absolutely everything and even though the day started off really rough St Patrick's Day with none of my blood family and my dad and my brother and my mom and like everything just like like that aching and that family trauma that like hasn't been cleared yet the day ended on like the highest note connecting with one of my favorite people to end my day with honestly so it was just amazing and I what did I do oh yeah I put on leprechaun 5 and I put a green filter on my TV and I tried to watch The matrix but like it kicked me back out of the app as soon as Trinity got kicked and had not gotten back up yet yeah that happened that seriously happened like that thing that I say to myself like to encourage myself through life ever since seeing that movie get up get up Trinity get up get up Trinity yeah movie gone before we even got to that line I was just aight we just rollin wif it.

right now I honestly don't even remember what I put on to fall asleep to at all which just tells you how fast I fell asleep after my head hit the pillow and my cat curled up in my arms.

No sleeping no portendum actually even and yep I slept great and I woke up today and I feel pretty great I mean I'll have to take it easy pain is a little problematic I had quite an outing yesterday but possibly because it's early enough I could I could get a second win and and be able to go get my animal crossing phone.

So that's awesome.

the level of socialization that I'm doing is like exhausting and like it's a lot but I really love it and I've never had so many friends in my life there's like maybe like seven or eight people that I want to connect with every day and that like every time I'm doing anything you know like yesterday like I want all of them right there and I don't know how to make that happen but I promise you I promise you all I'm going to get on discord I'm going to figure that out my understanding is that we can then like watch stuff together or like you can tune in to like me watching stuff or something I don't know but it's going to be more interaction with me than what you've had and I'm very happy for you of course because I know how much you love me and I know how much you miss me and I wish that I was not such a debilitatingly disabled person that I could you know be like a shining YouTube star celebrity interaction like I'm not able to juggle all of that but I love the attention I love your love and even though it it's an overwhelming amount of appreciation I am not upset about it at all and the stress that I feel of producing content and interacting with my fan base like it's a pressure that I welcome in my life because it's a motivating factor to be social and you know for my personal self is why I put my entire life online or on paper.

I don't know if you know this but for whatever reason like probably as a result of my traumatic brain injury combined with being erroneously mistakenly over medicated with antipsychotics when I was wrongfully institutionalized I kind of just like forget everything recent that happened like once I go to sleep the day before is just like almost completely gone like an edge of sketch erasing.

And that's why I document everything that goes on in my life for myself and and that's how I'm able to be even in your lives because I'm doing it for myself and my story and my life just exist as this inspiration and this motivation and this light in all of your lives the enriches me AND you so yo I've been online doing this sharing my life 100%. No such thing as TMI N D whY??!

because you need the full story of the highs and the lows and of My darkest hours and of the moments where I feel cradled in the loving arms of creation and in our intelligent creator in order to properly appreciate my story.

Instagram has been fun but as you may you're not know Instagram is something that I created solely for myself and it is entirely curated to be all of those moments where life is worth living so that when I feel like life is not worth living and become terribly suicidal because again I experience untold pain chronic debilitating disability and emotional suffering like you would not believe I can go to my Instagram scroll for like 30 seconds and then see that how I feel in the moment that that there's only darkness is not the reality and and that if I just hang in there through that darkness I'll come out of it and I'll be bouncing around on Instagram in no time soon.

those of you who know me from there like there's very little mention of any hardship in my life and that's why and it is not that I ever was trying to conceal that from you or that I ever stop my full disclosure intention that I've been here on the internet doing since 2005 and really really doing since 2008-2009 detailing the journey of my chronic invisible illness issues with chronic lyme disease traumatic brain injury endometriosis schizophrenic symptoms bipolar diagnosis borderline personality disorder diagnosis you know like the whole enchilada the whole enchilada has been here since 2009 solid.

So I'm not sure how I should go about like separating my Tumblr or tagging it really like I just want to figure out how to tag it so that I can pull up all the good stuff and all the bad stuff and kind of keep them separate but I mean that's kind of the thing of tumblers that I don't have to like do that and as long as I do decent tagging so that I can find what I'm looking for and and you can find what you're looking for then I've done my job.

I love you also much and I don't remember exactly what my follower count was on my ladyluvlee account before it was hacked & deleted(close to 5K) but I would really like to still produce the t-shirt designs that I created as appreciation for your appreciation and just with my cutie spook handle instead of Lady lovely.

I really really think we're getting close to the point where I'm going to be creating merchandise with my original drawing designs on that merchandise so be excited cuz I'm excited and thank you for hanging in here with me.

I could have done it without you because I can do anything under any circumstances but I would not want to do it without you at all because after all my years as a lone wolf sociopathic weirdo I truly believe that life is an experience that is better when it's shared.

Even when and if we don't particular like it or agree with those perspectives.

I don't seek to change your perspective I just seek to expand it and the more people sharing their experiences of life the more puzzle pieces we have of the bigger picture.

And life is a picture so big that no one person could possibly comprehend it, so we need all the perspectives we can get!

#qtsp00k returns #ladyluvlee #qtsp00k update

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evwuniverse · 4 years

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Nintendo Nostalgia Nintendogs

Talk about a blast from the past, I was cleaning my room today and came across my Nintendo DSI. Now keep in mind it’s completely normal to find video game consoles literally everywhere. I consider myself a console collector and I’m super proud of it. Most of my concosles are from Nintendo I specifically loved all of their handheld consoles. I’m always on the go and have been my entire life so it just makes sense for me to have consoles that I can take with me on the go. Anyway before I diverge off the beaten path of this post...

The game that was inside of my Nintnedo DSI was the original Nintendogs game Nintendogs Dauchsund and friends. So, naturally when you have a sense of nostaligia with a video game what do you do? you play it. That’s exactly what I did I stopped cleaning for a full hour just to go in and play with the puppies I haven’t visited in years. What’s super sad about this is this gives you actual emotions so it made me feel like I abandoned them for so long. The connection was far to real when I started to play the game again. I didn’t know how much I truly missed the original game. Keep in mind I do have the 3Ds game but it’s not the same. There’s something about the original that just doesn’t feel right about the “newer” version.

Below is my story about my first video console bought specifically for me which was the original Nintendo DS and the Nintendogs game. I really hope you’ll read it. It’s just a sweet memory I wanted to share with all of you. Just press the “keep reading” button below.

My Story Receiving a Nintendo DS (original) With the Nintendogs Game:

I feel like for a little bit of time I’m going to be playing it a little more. Not that I don’t have my own real life pets that I love and adore. But keep in mind I had the original Nintendo DS with that particular game. It is a HUGE part of my childhood and it brought back so many amazing memories. I won’t forget the day I had a best friend at the time we’ll call her Alex (not her full name). She had a red original Nintendo DS with the Chihuahua and Friends Nintnendogs game. I’ve never seen anything like it. This was my first time ever seeing a video game console outside of a Sega Genisis system. I was amazed! there was a touch screen. I was very much shielded as a child which isn’t always a bad thing but wasn’t a great thing either.

My friend asked me if I wanted to borrow it and bring it back the next day. Which might I add was the beginning of my insomnia. Thank you Nintendogs. Ha-ha. I was so excited and of course didn’t pass it up I told my mom I was borrowing it so she would know and I played it literally all night. The next day came and I brought it back as a kid this was one of the best nights of my life. So what did I do? I’m not particularly self motivated I was in 4th grade and I failed the FCAT reading (state standardized test at the time) in 3rd grade. So, I said to my parents if I pass the FCAT reading this year may I get an original Nintendo with the Nintendogs game. I didn’t want anything else. My parents at the time would do anything for me to just pass these standardized tests that no matter what I did I just had the worst time. I even had extra time on them.

What did I do? I passed the test! I remember the night so vividly we went on either the Walmart or Target website during the holidays. There was a bundle one specifically with the game and the DS so they told me to go over and choose everything quickly before they sold out. I did. I was so excited this was my first time getting a video game console and video game that was mine. This was the beginning of my console collection and every few years I saved up the money or worked hard for a newer console when I could. I was never handed anything to me on a silver platter I’ve worked hard for everything I’ve done and received. To be fair I also never really asked for a whole lot and appreciated a lot of what I had. So when I did go to my parents for something I’d ask “What could I do? or what would it take for me to get _____ for my birthday, holidays, passing tests, etc?”

Finding my Nintendogs game brought back so many memories to me today. I had to share it with all of you. I hope you enjoyed my story. Let me know what your first console and video game you’ve ever played was. I’d love to hear it.

Until next time...

Ellie

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fuelcut · 4 years

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A thought experiment on Silicon Valley’s third era

[ read the tweetstorm if you’re in a rush]

June 19th marks the end of American slavery, July 4th American Independence and July 14th the storming of the Bastille. It’s also my 40th birthday, and I’m exploring what we can learn from the past to help navigate today’s struggles for racial justice and economic freedom.

1940-1980: “Atoms” and the military-industrial-labor complex

My dad arrived in the Bay Area in 1970-1971 to get his PhD at Berkeley - just as the area was being rebranded as Silicon Valley.

Free from the stifling hierarchy of the East, the Bay was America’s center for social, technical and institutional change. Black Panthers policed the police in Oakland, shiny BART trains crossed the Bay to SF where the Gay Rights movement was flourishing. My family tree waited a millennia for India to recognize intercaste marriage. My parents would see radical social change in America across every axis in a single generation. Bold leadership in the 60s expanded civil rights and embraced immigration. They (and I) benefited greatly from an economic and social foundation that had been laid over many decades.

Caterpillar Tractor - founded in the Bay Area - embodied the spirit of this era. It went from liberating France in WW2 to building a massive middle class, unionized labor force. Cat later moved its headquarters to Peoria, Illinois - because in this era, cities across the country - not just the coasts - had the ability to compete. Since WW2, America pursued an intentional strategy of geographically broad-based economic development - via highways, airline regulation and distributed national labs.

Caterpillar didn’t just give Peoria a chance, it also gave my dad a chance to put down roots in America by sponsoring his green card. There was no H1B limbo. The nexus of military, industry and labor unions brought immigrants, Women and Blacks into the workforce - with paid apprenticeships (not exorbitant higher education) and technically-focused community colleges paving the way for millions. My mom learned COBOL while her toddlers played in the back of class. Even Hunter’s Point in SF was vibrant during much of this period. (Of course, it was far from a halcyon era - the war machine had massive human cost globally and civil rights were far from evenly enforced in America.)

And while atoms reigned supreme during this era, the military and government patiently invested risk capital in advanced manufacturing, semiconductors and software/networking to prepare America for its future.

1980-2020: “Bits” and global capital, jackrocks and polarization

In 1980, Reagan was elected President - and I was born. This would also be the peak of private sector labor employment in the US and the beginning of global capital (and the multinational companies they backed) as the leading force in forging the social contract.

They promised us that countries with McDonald’s would never go to war with each other. Indeed the Berlin Wall fell, Asian laborers got jobs and Americans could buy cheap stuff at WalMart. Global capital (bits) put atoms inside shipping containers and sent them around the world - abstracting consumers from the manufacturing base.

The writing was on the wall for unions.

As a middle schooler, I saw Cat management and labor (UAW) locked into a multi-year strike over the future. The front line was not in a boardroom or on the picket line. It was neighborhoods, schools and community groups. I remember when a classmate whose dad was in the union talked about how folks in the factory were peeing on effigies of management - including my dad.

Naturally I knew which side I was on. Cat needed wage concessions and freedom to operate to be globally competitive. I’d read Akio Morita, TPS and Lee Iacocca. I worried about Japan Inc. eating our lunch (yes as a 12 year old!) UAW workers and families were much more grounded. They needed a livelihood and wanted certainty for their future.

---

War continued to wage into high school. We came home one day to find “jackrocks” outside of our driveway - a tool used in feudal Japan to thwart the advancing armies - horses, chariots - etc. of those in power. In <60 years, Caterpillar had gone from transforming America’s agrarian society to becoming the enemy of American workers. We had the GOP’s Contract with America (stored in my Trapper Keeper) and Clinton signing NAFTA within a couple years. Both parties supported global capital and global capital supported both parties. Maybe jackrocks worked better than voting?

Corporate America soon figured out that if your workers were in China, Mexico or the South, it’s harder for them to stick jack rocks in your driveway. If your kids go to private school or you live in a quasi-private suburb, they’ll be insulated from the wrath of the have-nots in heavily policed, declining urban centers. No peeing on your effigy or having your kid hear about it!

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After college, I became an analyst at Bain & Company. Once an auto parts company hired us to do a “portfolio review”. I meticulously compared the costs of building mirrors in Eastern Michigan or Malaysia - creating a zero defect Excel model. Guess which location won? The auto parts company - like Cat - had the freedom to choose where to put jobs.

But what freedom did the workers have? Marie Antoinette once said “let them eat cake”. The elites of our era now say “let them move”. Social capital is critical for folks navigating change. The educated elite take the portability of social capital (embedded in college degrees and iMessage threads) as a given.

But place and social capital are deeply intertwined especially if you’re poor or a minority. While the deep introspection elites once had during 2016 has now been paved over by new crises, we should never forget that there’s a cost to society of losing its manufacturing base and jobs. How do you model the costs of broken families, drug addiction and a polarized electorate in Excel?

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I grew disillusioned with management by spreadsheet. But I saw a bright spot on the horizon: tech. I remember opening my first iPod, getting 1000 songs in my pocket and believing that America had a shot at leading a new generation of consumer electronics when everyone a decade earlier had written us off in favor of the Japanese. Perhaps tech could bring jobs and prosperity back to the country? I wanted to be part of it.

So I moved to the Valley in 2004 and joined a VC fund. I saw how the VC funding model that Silicon Valley was built on incentivizes high-risk, high-leverage and massive-scale. It encourages companies to cherry-pick top-end talent (immigrants, marquee college grads) to build the differentiated bits. Pick the highest leverage point in the stack, outsource everything else - by building in China and/or pushing the last-mile to an ecosystem that you can control at arms length.

Tech companies could more than pay back the largely fixed costs of software / semiconductor design from the large and homogenous American market. This dynamic attracted massive amounts of private risk capital and enabled aggressive expansion abroad. This model didn’t work for everything (I got burned with cleantech) - but it worked amazingly well for broad swaths of enterprise software, consumer services and marketplaces. I saw how tech could be an incredible lever for wealth creation. But every visit back home to the Rust Belt made me wonder - wealth creation for whom?

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2020+ - A thought experiment on institutional innovation and putting people first

July 14, 2020 - Q2 Earnings - CEO, MEGA TECH CORP - Hi everyone. These aren’t normal times. We’re not going to talk about our 10Q on this call. We’re here to talk about the next 10 years. So if you’re here for DAUs, ARR or CPC, you can drop off now. 

We’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the race, health and economic crises our country faces. Over the last few weeks, I’ve asked our exec team to leave their homes, their Zoom calls, their DoorDash deliveries - to join protests and explore our community through new eyes.

Race & Place: On Juneteenth, we biked from Sheraton Place to Hunters Point to Tanforan. We saw the real life impact of redlining, mass incarceration of Blacks and the lack of jobs from decades ago - and how our headquarters sustain - rather than disrupt - the region’s policies of de facto segregation. We also remembered how political demagogues once imprisoned our neighbors of Japanese descent. We see today how their rhetoric affects our Black neighbors and colleagues. What might it do tomorrow to folks without legal status in ag/service industries that California depends or the H1Bs we depend on? What does diversity & inclusion mean in this context?

Jobs: The next Friday we biked from SRI to PARC to Sunnyvale and Moffett Field. Our industry once dreamed of a bicycle for the mind and embraced technical education and apprenticeship as a path in the door for Women and Blacks. Meanwhile we’ve pushed vast swaths of work to contractors or platform-mediated transactions - making it harder to use up-skilling as a talent lever like manufacturing employers did in the last era. What’s the impact on income mobility? At what point will 40 million unemployed Americans affect our share prices and the stability of society?

Climate: On Independence Day, we biked on the Bay Trail past landfills, superfund sites and the 101 - alongside poor and minority neighborhoods with terrible health outcomes. We talked about the Bay Area weather forecast for 2060 “fire with a chance of flooding”. We passed abandoned railways and dreams of regional transport - the result of which is folks commuting hours each way from the central valley to work service jobs in our campuses. We wondered about the long run political consequences of isolating our employee base inside the WiFi confines of a private bus network. Where is the voting base to drive institutional change? How many axles or tires will our commuter buses need to keep them safe from jackrocks on the 101?

Health: Last week, we rode from the old Permanente cement quarry to 101 (built by the same cement workers.) We talked about how Kaiser - a private employer of low-skilled workers - internalized their healthcare needs, pursued disruptive innovation and faced fierce clashes with the medical establishment. We thought about how COVID is exposing the brittleness of our employee’s isolation inside a private insurance bubble. No one can be healthy in a pandemic without competent public health infrastructure. Meanwhile, the growing cost of private healthcare makes it harder for tech - let alone the rest of the country - to employ American workers across the wage spectrum - exacerbating job loss and instability.

And as we spoke with others, we saw how the issues that Silicon Valley faces are not unique to one metropolitan area or one industry. It just happens to be the ultimate archetype of Global Capitalism and de facto segregated American metros.

What we now see - more clearly than ever - is that our entire company, our entire industry, our entire Valley - is built on a flawed foundation.

We can no longer just focus on the magical software bits and hope someone else figures out racial equity, employment, climate and health. This is Joel Spolsky’s Law of Leaky Abstractions on the ultimate scale. The abstractions are failing - and we’re seeing bugs and unintended consequences all around us. And the more we invest to deal with one-off bugs, the more likely we are to calcify change and imprison ourselves inside a failing stack.

It’s like we decided to build the world’s notification service on Ruby on Rails - or building an iPhone competitor on Windows CE. Fail Whale everywhere. Unfortunately, America’s democratic institutions are in poor condition. They are struggling to deal with inequality let alone looming environmental disaster. A polarized electorate - particularly at the national level - leads to populism and makes it hard for these institutions to execute meaningful, long-term plans.

We talk a lot about speech, misinformation, fairness of targeted ads etc. But it’s becoming clear that UX, linear algebra/training data and monetization in our products is just the tip of the spear to address polarization. We believe polarization is a product of the underlying conditions of civil rights, education, health and climate debt that affect Americans differentially based on race, wealth, neighborhood and region. e.g. If we care about justice, how far does focusing on the fairness of employment ads get us in a world when many people lack the skills and negotiating power to secure a living wage?

So will today’s peaceful protests for racial justice expand into tomorrow’s revolution(s) for economic freedom? If you don’t think things are bad now, think about what happens when the stimulus checks run out. Take a look at the amount of debt in the public sector, use any imagination about COVID, work out what happens to their tax base / pension returns and consider the impact on public services, public servants and their votes. MMT better be a real thing. Maybe we didn’t start these fires, but that refrain won’t save us when the flames come our way.

We’re done debating why we need to act. It’s clear America needs our help. Let’s talk about how we’re going to rise to the occasion. Our mantra will be “internalize, innovate, institutionalize”.

First, we’re going to internalize our problems. I’m here to tell you that issues of racial and economic justice are not just moral issues but they’re financial issues. Racial debt, education debt, health debt, climate debt will hit us harder and harder each year. (By the way, revolution probably won’t be great for your DCF models.) So we’re going to recognize these off-balance sheet liabilities - which amount to a few hundred billion in the US alone over the next 10 years for a company at our scale.

Second, we’re going to innovate against these systemic problems - but our only shot at making progress is if we realign the entire company’s mission to address them. This is not about optics. This is not about philanthropy. This is not another bet. We’re putting all our chips behind one bet - America. It's the country that backed us in the first place, it's where most of our people are and most of our profits. The job for our existing products, platforms and cash flows will be to advance four areas: place / race, skilling / manufacturing, health / food and climate / mobility - starting in America. The board will measure me based on job creation and diversity. It should go without saying that we’re pausing dividends and buybacks for the foreseeable future. Every dollar will serve our mission. Every senior leader will need to sign up for our new mission - and those who choose to stay will receive a new, back-end loaded, 10 year vesting schedule. We want them focused on the long-term health of society - not the whims of Robinhood day traders or strengthening the moats of existing products. We will need to invent entirely new ways to operate and ship products. As Joel Spolsky said, “when you need to hire a programmer to do mostly VB programming, it’s not good enough to hire a VB programmer, because they will get completely stuck in tar every time the VB abstraction leaks”. We need engineers, designers and product managers that will look deep into the stack, confront the racial, job access, health and climate debts that our products, our companies and our communities are built on top of. This is not about CYA process to protect cash cows or throwing things over the fence to policy. We will need to innovate across technical, cultural and organizational lines. This requires deep understanding and curiosity. This will bring more scrutiny to our company - not less. Not everyone’s going to be on board - so for the next 12 months, we’re giving folks a one-time buyout if they want to leave.

Third, we can’t do any of this by ourselves. The problems are too big. Our role will be to provide enlightened risk capital (from our balance sheet or by re-vectoring operating spend) alongside R&D, product, platform leverage to help leaders and innovators pursue solutions in these areas. Of course we will work with our peers and the public sector wherever possible - buying/R&D consortia, public-private partnerships, trusts, etc. But the new era and landscape demands that we explore institutional models beyond global capital/startups, labor unions, NGOs or government. We need models that can more flexibly align people and purpose, that innovate on individualized vs. socialized risk/reward - and that ultimately help build and sustain local, social capital. It’s difficult to say what these will look like - but increasingly figuring this out will be existential for our core business too. Right now, it doesn’t matter if you’re designing the best cameras in Cupertino or the best way to see their snaps in Santa Monica - we’re all just building layers of an attention stack for global capital. Our Beijing competitors have figured this out. ByteDance is already eating our lunch. They’re using the same tech inputs as us - UX, ML and large-scale systems - which are now a commodity - but with vastly lower consequences for the content they show - creating a superior operating / scaling model. They’re not internalizing social or political cost.   What we need in this era is the accumulation stack - where each interaction builds social capital. This is not about global likes. This is about local respect. We’ll create competitive advantage when we build products that reach across race / economic lines to harness America’s amazing melting pot and do so in ways that build livelihoods / property rights for creators and stakeholders.

With this operating model in place, we’re committing to fundamental change in four areas:

Place & Race - We’re done with de facto segregation. Over the next 10 years, 100% of our jobs will be in diverse communities that embrace inclusive schooling, policing, housing and transit policies. (Starting tomorrow, we’re putting red lines on our maps around towns with exclusionary zoning.) This is not about privatizing cities or an HQ2-style play to extract concessions. This is about investing our risk capital and our reputation to innovate alongside government. How do we bring world-class education to neighborhoods with concentrated poverty? What is the future of digital/hybrid charter schooling? Unbundled, community-driven public safety? We’ll embrace “remote-first” as a means to this end. The Bay will become one physical node alongside others (e.g. Atlanta, DC, LA) creating an Interstate Knowledge System that develops diverse talent across the country. We’re going to coordinate our investment with leading peers - since after all, this isn’t about cost savings or cherry-picking. It’s about broadening our country’s economic base.

Skilling & Manufacturing - We will 10x the tech talent pool in 10 years - by inventing new apprenticeship models that bring women, minorities and the poor into the workforce. We’ll start with our existing contractor base, convert them to new employment models with expanded benefits and paths for upward mobility. Next, we will invent new productivity tools for all types of workers - from the front office to mobile work to call center - that brings the power of AI and programming to everyone. These will be deeply tied into new platforms for work designed from the bottom-up to build social and financial capital for individual workers and teams. Last, we’re going to manufacture most of our hardware products - from silicon all the way to systems - entirely in the US within 10 years. This will require massive investment, collaboration and innovation. It may require a revolution in robotics - but we will pursue this in a way that makes the American worker competitive - not a commodity to be automated away. If we’re successful, the dividends of our investment here will have massive spillover benefits to every other sector of manufacturing in the US - autos, etc. - including ones we have yet to dream up.

Health & Food - We’re not going to tolerate a two-class system for healthcare anymore. As we convert our contract workforce to new employment models, we’re going to have to innovate on the fundamental quality/cost paradigm across our benefit stack. This may feel like a step down but it will put us (and the rest of society if we’re successful) on a fundamentally better long-term trajectory. Food is part of Health, and we’re going to innovate there too. Free food for employees is not going to come back post-COVID. Instead, we’ll use our food infrastructure to bootstrap cooperatively-owned cloud kitchens. We’ll provide capital to former contractors - mostly Black and Hispanic - to invest and own these. We’ll build platforms to help them sell food to employees (partly subsidized), participate in new “food for health” programs and eventually disrupt the extractive labor practices we see across food, grocery and delivery.

Climate & Mobility - Lastly, we’ll be imposing a carbon tax on all aspects of our own operations - which we’ll use to “fund” innovation in this space - with a primary focus on job creation. This is an area where we’re going to be looking far beyond our four walls from the beginning. As a first step, we’re teaming up with Elon and Gavin Newsom to buy PG&E out of bankruptcy and restructure it as a 21st century “decentralized” utility. It will accelerate the electrification of mobility - financing networked batteries for buses, cars and bikes along with charging infrastructure - and leading a massive job creation program focused on energy efficiency. Speaking of mobility, private buses aren’t coming back after COVID. Instead, we’re teaming up with all of our peers to create a Bay-wide network of electric buses (with bundled e-bikes) that will service folks of all walks of life - including our own employee base. Oh and one more thing - we’re bringing together the world’s most advanced privacy/identity architecture and computational video/audio to bake public health infrastructure directly into the buses. For COVID and beyond. None of this is a substitute for competent, democratically accountable regional authorities. This is us investing risk capital on behalf of society - with the goal of empowering these authorities. Yes the New York Times will have a field day with this. Maybe in time they’ll leave their bubble, enter the real world, see the sorry state of their institutions - the behavioral health and infrastructure crises on their crumbling streets - and get on board. Until then, our job is to be patient longer than they can be inflammatory.

Open technology for global progress - While we have to prioritize America given the scale of problems, the intent is not to abandon the rest of the world or hold back it’s progress. We feel the opposite - that over the coming decades each country’s technology sectors will thrive. To get there, we will continue to invest patiently - hiring, training, partnering, investing and innovating - but with a clear north star to help each country develop local leaders in new areas. Long-term, we’ll continue to contribute open technology that others can build upon.

America should be the proverbial city on a hill for everyone - not a metaverse for the rich with the poor dying in the streets. We don’t have much time so we’re getting to work now. See you next quarter.

----

This call may be imaginary but none of this is sci-fi or requires MMT. What it requires is us to care. To act. Join me on bike rides to explore our past and discuss what tangible actions Silicon Valley’s leading companies can take in the coming quarters and years. Logistics here for rides on June 19, June 26, July 2 and July 10!

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this-lioness · 4 years

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Weekend Update, Admittedly a Bit Late

I am in a mood today, so forgive me for just brain dumping. Hoping it will improve my outlook.

Well, we put off both sushi-making and counter-refinishing this weekend because Saturday was going to be (and was) so, so nice. We did get sushi from Q-Mart, which satisifed me just fine.

We were on a hunt for dwarf cherry trees, but the overall pickings for fruit trees of any kind are pathetic right now. I suspect everyone is gussying up their back yards right now, hence the shortage. Failing that, I’ve since ordered something called a “columnar apple tree”, which we should be able to grow in pots in the back. We ordered one so far, and will get another -- of a slightly different variety -- once they’re back in stock, so they’ll be able to cross-pollinate.

Picked up some additional goodies for the garden, and filled up those five garden bags I got off Amazon. Really liking those, I think next year I’ll get more of those instead of the buckets.

So right now we’re growing the following: Regular tomatoes (x2) Candyland tomatoes Red bell peppers (x2) Eggplant (x3) Zucchini Cucumber Pinto beans Corn Jalapenos Tobasco peppers Watermelon Acorn squash Onions (still not sure what kind, but I guess we’ll find out!) Parsley, Oregano, Basil and Catnip Sweet mint and chocolate mint Lavender Citronella Strawberries Plus the resident blackberries, raspberries and blueberries.

We still have the fig tree, and it still appears to be alive, but it’s in an extended dormancy. It would be nice if it leafed out and sprang back, but we really don’t know what’s up with it.

The new garden bench arrived as well, so while Marc was assembling it I scrubbed the old one back to a nice bright white and we brought it over to my Mom’s, along with a big hanging flower basket for the front. This weekend we’re going to go over and install some white lattice around the front porch, and I’m going to power-wash the siding. You can see a certain pride of home ownership in them now, which feels nice. Jim wanted more flower baskets because a neighbor across the street had some out, and he needed to show them up. Her veggies and herbs appear to be doing pretty well, too.

Their freezer came in yesterday! We brought it over and got it all set up, so some time this week I’ll probably take my Mom to BJs to stock up on Stouffer’s meals, which she is already excited about. She’s really keen to use it, which makes me happy. She’s also going to go through all her Christmas ornaments and sort out a smaller quantity to keep so that we can sell the rest. I actually plan on doing the same with ours tonight. More room in the attic, less to fuss with at Christmas.

Jim is not walking very well, in part because he’s 86 and in part because he absolutely refuses to do any kind of exercises or physical therapy that would actually help him regain some mobility. He’s finally conceded to a transport chair, so I spent quite a bit of time researching and pricing them. They sell basic ones at Walmart for like $150, but he’s 6′2″ and with long legs, so most anything “regular” doesn’t fit him. It also has to be collapsible and light enough for a 5′1″ woman (that’s me) to get it into and out of her trunk without too much hassle.

I (think I) finally found one that will fit him comfortably, however, and now it’s on order.

With any luck he’ll like it more than he hates it, and we’ll be able to take him to the lake and for little outings. At the worst he’ll despite it but he’ll suck it up for short trips to the doctor.

The greenhouse arrived today as well, and Marc has snuck off to start the assembly ahead of some expected wind and rain. We’re also waiting on the delivery of a small fountain / water spout for the front pond, as the original is really at the end of its lifespan.

Oh, that’s the other thing! While we were out looking for cherry trees we found a “bird feeding station” at one of the nurseries. They’re normally between $400 - $500 online, but this one was just $220, and I talked them down to $200.

Basically it’s an iron arbor with some miscellaneous bits and pieces to hold bird feeders. Instead we installed it in the back, straddling two of the blackberry beds, and are using it to hang any veggies that we don’t have room for on the ground (as well as the catnip, to keep it from getting loved to death.)

The berries are coming along nicely, in a bit of a bid for who wants to ripen first. Marc helped me assemble some home-made bird scares out of CDs, tin-foil and laminated brightly-colored paper with drawn-on eyes. I hope it works, although once things start ripening I may need to keep a closer eye on things. I am highly suspicious of birds.

Just the same, I cleaned out two of our old feeders, bought two more, and we filled them and hung them out front for the birds to enjoy. Maybe if we keep them fat on seed they won’t fuss around in the back (although I suspect Fidget has a lot to do with that as well.)

It’s been really nice to see the garden growing... little plants I had doubts about are getting tall and plucky. They love to grow. Sometimes we just like to walk around and check on everything, identifying the new bugs that are showing up to pollinate or just live in this tiny ecosystem we made. My cityboy husband marvels on the regular how much he’s learned, and how much he loves the garden, its maintenance and care.

I have been having some... health frustrations for the past year and change. They’re not serious, that I know of, but they have been greatly affecting my sense of self and well-being, and as time goes on and they don’t resolve it’s just getting more and more stressed out. The only medical solution may be worse than the problem itself, so I’ve spent a lot of time today trying to get hold of a doctor or counselor or someone who can point me in the right direction, and won’t just keep giving the same trite advice without actually running tests on me. I almost bit the bullet and took the damn pill they were recommending, but upon calling the pharmacy discovered it’s almost $120 a month. For something that 1) May not work and 2) May actually make me feel worse. Yay.

So no.

I have a virtual visit with an endocrinologist on the 22nd, so we’ll see how that goes. I’m tired of feeling like I’m living in someone else’s body, and that everyone’s response is basically to shrug and say, “Oh well, guess you should just suck it up forever.”

Today I made some banana applesauce muffins, and they were good.

Other than that, everything seems to be well. Cats are fat and obnoxious and happy. So are we, I suppose!

#personal

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greatshell-rider · 4 years

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day twenty-four of quARTine: parent (prompt list)

Jerry missed peanut butter. He missed a lot of things from Earth, but after visiting dozens of planets and browsing through dozens more betwixt markets, he’d found suitable replacements for most stuff—a lot of it cooler, truthfully, with magics or technologies from thousands of ’scapes woven into every fabric and material.

But he had yet to find a foodstuff even sort of close to peanut butter. And he missed it.

Jerry shoved his hands in his hoodie pouch, the shopping bag dangling from his elbow as he wandered through the aisles of the store. A scrunched-up paper in his hand got steadily sweatier, each item on the list of requests from Lani and Cindy scratched off. The bag on his arm was full. He had no reason to stay at Stuff? Food? You Decide! any longer.

He paused by a shelf stocked with jars of “sliknut spread”. The containers were clear, revealing the creamy golden-brown spread inside, and each had a patterned bow tied around its lid. He reached for a pink-bowed one, but hesitated. Then shook his head and headed for the clerk’s counter. He paid with a handful of fingernail-sized crystals left over from the last ’scape.

The clerk eyed them skeptically. “Jastners?” they asked in Wide.

Jerry shrugged. “Think so.”

“Eh.” They dropped the crystals in the tin. “Thank you for shopping at Stuff? Food? You Decide! on Vaspin’s. Tell your friends about us, and have a nice day.”

“You too,” Jerry said, but the clerk was already shifting on their stool to greet the next customer. He grabbed his sword from the bin—leaving behind a small mace and bandolier of smoke bombs—and switched the grocery bag to his other arm as he left the shop. The enchanted wooden gecko engraven over the door yawped his departure, just as it had when he’d entered.

It was raining still, so Jerry put up his hood and drudged down the street, not caring that he splashed through muddy puddles or that rainwater dripped onto the unprotected groceries. Not many people were out, and he soon left the town, so it was quiet but for the sound of rain as he walked. The scenery was pretty enough—the road was bordered by a white picket fence, separating it from gentle rolling hills blanketed with turquoise coral-like plants—but Jerry felt his mood darkening the longer he walked. Earth’s rain didn’t react aggressively against his skin, leaving nasty green boils wherever a drop hit. The more he thought about it, the more he realized how much this planet sucked.

You suck, he thought at it, kicking a pebble of the same turquoise from the fields down the road.

He could imagine Lani’s smug retort. Salty you don’t align to its magic, aren’t you? Which, of course, she could say, since she aligned perfectly and could send large objects flying with just her mind. Typical.

By the time he reached the two-storied cottage with roof tiles made of that weird turquoise-coral whatever, Jerry had mud streaked up to his knees and a minor headache—another of this ’scape’s fun little side effects it gave him; something to do with the particle composition in the atmosphere’s lower layers or some crap, according to Lani—and would’ve rathered to brawl a Nellio in one of their lava pits than deal with anyone. Unfortunately, Lani was sitting at the table when he came in, building a house out of cards with her newly-learned telekinesis. House was inaccurate, really. His sister started on a third tower of her castle as he kicked off his boots.

“Is it raining again?” she asked, too innocently, though the patter of raindrops could clearly be heard and seen on the windows.

Jerry said nothing, dropping the groceries on the tabletop.

A mistake. At his silence, Lani turned in her chair to face him, a smile spreading across her face as she set her elbow on the backrest and rested her cheek against her fist. “Did someone have a hard time in town today?” she lamented in a babyish tone. “No one told you how cool your sword is?”

Jerry stomped up the stairs.

“Oh no, now I’ve upset him too—Hey, don’t forget you’re also making dinner!”

He reached the door and slammed it shut behind him harder than necessary. The room was empty, and there he let out a tight, angry breath. That left him feeling drained, his headache even worse now, and he dropped wearily onto his cot of the three, setting his sword down beside him. Maybe he would just sleep the rest of the day away, try to forget, since he’d already failed at not remembering.

But as he bent to pull off his socks, he saw his small pile of belongings by the foot of the cot, and laying atop his change of clothes, a flower. It had yellow petals and a brown disk, very similar to an Earth sunflower. When he picked it up, however, the petals shifted to a lavender hue and the disk a sickly white. Jerry scowled, crushing the flower in his fist and throwing it aside. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, fists clenching and unclenching as he breathed in and out, in and out. His headache pounded. Even after counting to fifty, then back down to zero, he nearly went down the stairs to confront Lani about that thing. It had to have been her. It had to. Who else? Who else, after all these years, after all they’d been through, who else—

A rap on the window. Jerry looked up. Cindy’s face stared back on the other side of the glass. Ze beckoned him over, then motioned for him to open the window. He did so, expecting zir to clamber in, but ze instead turned and walked down the slanted roof of the cowshed without a word, probably thinking he would follow.

“Cindy,” he called zir, “I don’t have shoes.” The rain didn’t react strangely to zir skin, so ze was free to go as barefoot as ze wanted, but Jerry less so.

“You’re already wet.” Ze crouched and, gripping the edge of the roof, swung zirself down to the ground before Jerry could reply. Ze stepped into the shed and out of view.

Jerry wavered, looking over his shoulder at the door leading downstairs. A part of him wanted to stay stubbornly inside the room, to curl up on his cot and refuse to move or speak until Lani came up and apologized. . . . Well, she would never do that, except to mock him. But he could make her make her own dinner. It would serve her right. Today of all days . . .

But Jerry couldn’t stay in this room for a second longer. Not upstairs. With his socks still on, he balled his fists in the hoodie’s long sleeves and hopped through the window. It didn’t matter if his clothes got soaked and got his skin damp. For some reason, only falling raindrops caused the boils. So, though his socks got unpleasantly soggy, Jerry was able to carefully slide down the tiles to the edge of the roof and copy Cindy’s move, swinging himself down. He padded into the cowshed, which was really just a second, shorter roof protruding from the back of the cottage propped up on stilts. Currently it only sheltered a single scrawny goat, the only animal they’d found for sell in town. In theory she gave milk, but so far had only eaten absurd amounts of hay that beguiled her skinny frame. Right now, she was nibbling on grain cupped in Cindy’s palm, and gave Jerry a distrustful stare with a single dark eye as he walked in.

He ignored her, putting his back to a post and sliding down until he was sitting. Though the roof blocked the rain, he kept his hood up.

For a while, Cindy said nothing. When the goat finished off the grain, ze grabbed a brush and sat cross-legged. The goat settled right down and laid her head in zir lap, eyes drifting half-shut as Cindy moved the brush down her back in long, steady strokes. Jerry rested his chin on his drawn-up knees, watching the strangely hypnotic scene, listening to the rain beat against the turquoise-tile roof. He sniffled quietly and crossed his arms over his knees, burying his nose into the sleeves of his hoodie. The specific garment was surprisingly common across the ’scapes, so Jerry had frequent access to them, but he had yet to find one exactly like Earth’s. Something about the fabric, the dye or material or design, just wasn’t right. He ran his thumb idly down a seam. Maybe it was just the scent. Nothing like mass-produced Walmart brands, right?

Cindy hummed, and Jerry realized he’d spoken aloud.

“Nothing,” he mumbled. “Just . . . Just feeling nostalgic I guess.” But that wasn’t right. This mix of sadness and anger, of guilt, of despair, of pain, it wasn’t something as whimsical as nostalgia. Jerry didn’t know if it could be defined with one word.

He fidgeted, picking at a ball of fuzz on the sleeve. “It’s just.” He huffed. Tried again. “Shopping today, surrounded by stuff, by foods that are familiar, but not the same, I just—” He cut himself off. There was a long pause. Jerry buried his face completely into his sleeves, hands sliding up underneath his hood to grip his hair.

“I miss it,” he said, voice muffled. “I miss it so bad, Cindy.”

He thought he was too angry for tears. But there they were, burning at his eyes. At least his hoodie was already wet, right? No one could tell. No one knew.

“It’s your home,” Cindy said.

“It is,” Jerry said angrily, swiping his arm across his face then scrubbing his knuckles at his eyes. “It’s not perfect, of course it isn’t. Yes there’s loads of planets and ’scapes without corrupt governments or decade-long wars or, or, or climate change, but it’s still mine! It’s had everything I’ve ever wanted.” He sighed, because that wasn’t true either. That’s why he and Lani had started the whole thing, wasn’t it? They’d wanted more. And in the process, they’d lost everything.

Jerry dropped his head into his hands. He pressed his fingers hard against his closed eyes, though it made his head hurt more. “Do you know what day it is?” he asked Cindy, his voice croaky.

In zir silence, he imagined zir shaking zir head.

“My mom’s birthday.” He swallowed, his mouth and throat dry. “And the anniversary.”

That made him laugh, a harsh, bitter bark. “Anniversary,” he sneered. “Like it’s something to celebrate.” His hands dropped to dangle over his knees, and he stared sightlessly at the straw-strayed dirt. “Maybe for the slavers.”

He swallowed again, knowing he had to say it and hating himself for it. “It’s my fault, you know,” he said. It came out in a hoarse whisper. He tried to clear his throat, but it didn’t do any good. “My fault. Partly, sure. Lani and I both did it. But it is. My—”

He hadn’t noticed Cindy moving until ze was suddenly next to him, extending an arm across his shoulders. Ze said nothing, but pulled him close in a hug. At first Jerry resisted, going stiff in zir embrace, and Cindy started to loosen zir grip and pull away. That shot a spike of panic through Jerry’s heart and he slumped, burying his face into zir shoulder. He started crying again, quietly, as he’d learned to do in the trench, and Cindy held his shaking body tight.

“I miss her,” he sobbed, “and it’s my fault.”

He thought ze would say something, some trite phrase that was supposed to be comforting, supposed to resemble her, but ze didn’t. Ze rested zir chin atop his head and began to sing. A soft, lilting melody, haunting in the rainshower’s murmur. Jerry had heard the song before. Once, Cindy had told him it was the lullaby her parents had sung together when ze was a toddler, to help zir fall asleep. It was the same song they’d whispered into zir ear before sending zir away.

The rain continued to drizzle.

#quARTine #writing #my writing #Lani & Jerry #i saw the prompt and was immediately like heheheheh i know what im going to write #wrote this sunday actually but haven't been able to post until now #and now i have nothing else to procrastinate with. gotta go write that essay now huh 😔

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mythicalsecretsanta · 5 years

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Christmas Together (G)

This gift is for: Rachel (AKA @bloody-fucking-cigarettes) Merry Christmas! I loved all your Nicesties but I couldn’t get past the phrase “Tooth rotting Christmas fluff”. I snuck a couple of others in there too! I hope you like it :D From your Secret Santa, Ross (AKA @mythical-ross)

Link to AO3, or read below:

Even though they’d spent almost their whole lives together, Rhett and Link had never really spent Christmas together. They’d been a couple for the past few Christmasses, but they’d been living separately and stayed at their parents’ houses on Christmas Eve. This was the first year they were staying in LA for the whole Christmas season, living together in their own house.

“You can’t force Christmas spirit,” Rhett had said when Link started fretting that it ‘wouldn’t feel right�� to stay in LA, “in a few years this’ll all feel normal.”

Link had snorted at the sentiment, but he appreciated Rhett’s attempt to cheer him up. “Christmas Spirit,” he laughed. “What is this, a Hallmark movie?”

On December 1st, Link insisted it was time to decorate the house. They had several boxes each labelled ‘Xmas’ that had been unceremoniously dumped in what would eventually become the guest bedroom. Link was eager to start consolidating all their decorations but the more he talked about it, the more Rhett seemed to be trying to avoid it.

“Can’t we just watch a Christmas movie and curl up under a blanket?” Rhett suggested hopefully.

“I’m doing it today and you better help or I’ll just throw all your stuff away,” Link told Rhett. He had no intention of doing it without Rhett, but Link wasn’t above an empty threat to encourage him.

It was just starting to get dark when Link carried one of the boxes into the living room. Rhett gave a long moan when he saw Link coming. “Now?” He whined.

“Yes,” Link said cheerfully. “Come on, it’ll be fun!”

Despite his protests, Rhett helped Link carry the boxes downstairs. They sat facing each other on the rug as Link looked around the room thoughtfully. “How big is your tree?” Link asked. “We’ll only have room for one big one… maybe some little ones.”

“What?” Rhett practically whispered.

“Your tree,” Link prompted.

“I always get a real tree.”

They stared at each other, mouths ajar, like they had just discovered a horrible secret about each other. Link was the first to speak.

“I’m not having a real tree in my house!”

“But you’d have a fake tree? Those things are horrible!”

“They’re a lot more appealing when you don’t have to worry about it catching fire and burning down the whole house!”

Rhett scoffed at the suggestion. “That won’t happen.”

“You don’t know that!”

“Yes I do,” Rhett said, trying to sound reassuring. “Plus a real tree looks and smells better. It smells like Christmas to me. Why do you think I like wood so much?”

Link hesitated. He knew Rhett was trying to emotionally blackmail him and it was working… almost. “Rhett, come on,” he said calmly. “We already have a nice tree. We don’t need to go out and buy another one.” He placed a hand on Rhett’s knee and squeezed gently. “Just for this year and we can talk about it again next year.”

Rhett sighed. He, of all people wasn’t immune to Link’s charm. “Ugh, fine. But just this year. I love my real tree dang-it.”

Link smiled, both relieved and satisfied to get his way. He opened a couple of his boxes until he found the tree in pieces. “The one downside,” he said, grinning as he pulled out a bundle of branches and set them on the couch, “is that you have to attach each branch individually.”

“Are you kidding me,” Rhett muttered under his breath, but got up to help.

With the ‘trunk’ connected to the base, Rhett kneeled on the floor and slotted in the branches as Link passed them to him one at a time. He put out his hand to receive the next branch, looking up at Link when it didn’t come.

Link gazed down at him blissfully. “I can’t believe I’m doing this with you.”

Rhett huffed out a laugh, “why d’you say that?”

Link shrugged. “We always spent Christmas with our parents and I figured some day we’d start spending it with our own, separate, families.”

Rhett gave a small smile, unsure what to say to such a touching comment. “I’m glad,” he said, the words catching in his throat.

Link cleared his throat, physically shaking himself, and handed Rhett the next branch. They were soon standing side by side inspecting the bare tree.

“It looks so sad,” Rhett said.

“Once it’s decorated it’ll look great.”

“Why don’t we put some lights on it?” Rhett suggested. “I’ve got a bunch of them.”

Link watched him go back to the boxes and select a string of little white LED lights. “I have colored ones,” he said.

Rhett stopped what he was doing and looked at Link. “Aren’t those a little old-fashioned?”

“I like them,” Link shrugged. “They remind me of the tree in my mom’s house.”

“Oh yeah…” Rhett said, tilting his head slightly. When they were kids he was always so jealous of Link’s Christmas tree. The tree in his house was all red and gold (‘tasteful’ his mom called it) but he always thought Link’s tree looked more like Christmas. “Okay,” he said after a pause, “colored it is.”

Rhett held one end of the string of lights at the top as Link circled the tree with the rest, adjusting as he went. He couldn’t resist running his fingers across Rhett’s stomach each time he passed, earning a giggle from Rhett.

With the lights on the tree, Rhett went looking for ornaments. He opened the next of Link’s boxes and peered inside. Sitting right on top was a little tree, about two feet tall, made entirely of green tinsel. He’d bought it years ago when Link said he wanted something to brighten up his desk. Rhett had found the tackiest, cheapest decoration he could and proudly set it down beside a bemused Link. “Why do you still have this?” he said, unable to hold in a laugh.

When Link realized what Rhett was talking about, he snatched the tree out of the box and held it away from Rhett. “Because I love it,” he said, placing it defiantly on the table at the end of the couch. “Remember when you bought this for me?”

“Yeah…”

“I was having such a bad day,” he said, “and you just appeared beside me with this ridiculous tree and a huge smile on your face, so pleased with yourself. It turned my whole week around.” Link smiled to himself at the memory and looked up to find Rhett smiling back at him.

“In that case, I love it too,” Rhett said. He went back to the box of Link’s decorations. There were no tree ornaments, but the box was full of little snow-covered buildings. “What are these?”

Link looked into the box and lifted out two of the houses. “My Christmas village!” he grinned. He moved an unopened box off the coffee table and set down the houses. “I got this one first because it looked like my house and then I bought that one because it looked like your house.”

Rhett watched as Link arranged the buildings on the coffee table. He had a space for each one and looked up at Rhett triumphantly as he placed the last one. “It’s Buies Creek,” Rhett realized.

“Yeah!” Link said, and stood up beside Rhett to survey the town. He wrapped an arm around Rhett’s waist and leaned his head against Rhett’s chest. “I know it takes up a lot of space. I’m sure we can find somewhere else for it.”

“I like it there,” Rhett said. “We can work around it.” Since they weren’t going back to North Carolina, it was a nice way of keeping their family and old friends close.

Link retrieved a candle out of one of Rhett’s boxes and set it down beside the village. “Can I light this candle?” He said, hoping to improve the ambiance.

“Not that one,” Rhett said quickly before Link could find the candle lighter.

“What? Why not?” Link asked. It was just a plain white church candle with a Christmas tree stuck on the side. It looked like he got it at a gas station.

“It’s just a reminder,” Rhett said, looking a little uncomfortable. “Before we were a couple I was really good at hiding my feelings… most of the time.”

Link sat down on the couch and gave Rhett an encouraging nod. Truth be told he was still good at hiding his feelings. When he opened up, Link liked to encourage him as best he could.

“Once I was in Walmart, minding my own business, and you text me all excited about some guy who’d just asked you out and it killed me man.” Rhett cleared his throat and sat down beside Link on the couch. “I just started crying right there in the aisle.”

Link placed a hand on Rhett’s knee and squeezed gently. “Yeah, I was a dumbass.”

“We both were,” Rhett said. “This nice lady came and asked what was wrong and I just blurted it all out. She told me if it’s meant to be, it’s never too late and she would light a candle for us.” He lifted the candle and smiled. “I picked this up in the next aisle over to remind myself that God would be working on it.”

“That’s really sweet,” Link said. He placed a hand on Rhett’s cheek and gave him a gentle kiss. “I guess it must have worked.”

“Guess so,” Rhett grinned.

Link scanned the rest of the boxes and pointed at a small one by the couch. “That one says ‘Rhett’s Xmas tree ornaments’. You think that has Christmas tree ornaments in it?”

Rhett narrowed his eyes. He didn’t remember labelling his boxes so extensively. “Alright alright,” he said, amusement in his voice. “You just concentrate on finding your own so we can figure out what to keep and what to throw away.”

Link found his box of ornaments and sat down beside Rhett on the couch. “My own decorations take up the whole tree so we definitely need to get rid of some stuff,” he said, searching through the decorations.

“I don’t want to get rid of any of mine,” Rhett muttered.

“Well, neither do I,” Link said and looked into Rhett’s box. “There’s bound to be something you don’t need in there,” he said. He pulled out a plain blue star and turned it around in his hand. “Like this. It’s nice, but it’s not very distinctive.”

Rhett took the star from Link’s hand and held it up beside his face. “It’s the same color as your eyes,” he said sheepishly. “I couldn’t resist it… it was just something subtle that reminded me of you.”

Link took the star back and looked down at it in a new light. Before they got together, Link would keep little items all the time that reminded him of Rhett but he didn’t realize Rhett would be sentimental enough to do the same. Without speaking, he went and placed it on the tree and sat back down on the couch.

“Thanks,” Rhett grinned. He peered into Link’s box and picked out a little plastic Santa carrying a christmas tree. “Do you want to keep this? It’s a little cheap looking.”

Link’s face flushed. He gave Rhett a guilty look.

“Seriously?” Rhett said, understanding right away. He held the ornament up to eye level so he could get a closer look.

“What?” Link said. “A bearded man with wood made me think of you.”

Rhett couldn’t help laughing. “Okay, fair enough,” he said. “That one can stay.”

Link leaned over and gave him a kiss. “Don’t worry, you’re still my favourite bearded man with wood.”

Rhett rolled his eyes, but laughed anyway. “Okay, well what about this?” he said, lifting a gold bell out of the box. “It isn’t even a Christmas decoration.” Rhett had taken a trip to Philadelphia years ago with his brother’s family, and brought a Liberty Bell back for Link as a souvenir.

Link smiled fondly at the memory. “I was so pissed at you for going on that trip,” he said. “We were crazy busy with work and you just left me for a week to deal with it on my own.”

“That doesn’t sound like a great memory,” Rhett pointed out.

“But you came back,” Link went on. “We spent so many Christmases apart, I moved the bell to my tree to remind myself you’d be back. You always come back.”

Rhett couldn’t think of a response. It was just like Link to turn a bad memory into something positive.

Before Rhett had a chance to speak, Link leaned over and took a plain silver ball out of Rhett’s box. “What about this? It couldn’t possibly have any sentimental value.”

“Um…”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’ve had that one longer than any other decoration,” Rhett said, grinning at the confusion on Link’s face. “One Christmas I was at your house, and I was telling your mom how much I loved your tree and how it didn’t feel like Christmas until I saw it.”

“That’s really cute,” Link said.

Rhett shrugged. “Well your mom must have thought so too, because she took that ball off the tree and gave it to me to keep.”

“I never knew that,” Link said. “I always wondered why you had that one silver ornament on your mom’s beautiful red and gold tree.”

Before long, there wasn’t a bare branch on the whole tree. Every ornament seemed to have some sentimental value and neither was willing to let any of them go.

“What kind of topper do you have?” Rhett asked, setting the remainder of the ornaments on the floor.

“A star,” Link said. “What kind of topper to you have?”

“A Link!” Rhett said, holding up the weirdest looking angel Link had ever seen.

“What the hell is that,” Link asked slowly.

Rhett smiled at the angel in front of him. “I got it because I liked the look of it,” he said, “then one day I saw it out of the corner of my eye and realized it looks exactly like you.”

“It does not!” Link protested, narrowing his eyes at the doll’s heavy brow and square jaw.

“Let’s see your star,” Rhett said, trying to change the subject.

Link pulled the star out of his box and held it up to show Rhett. It was made of wood and painted with red, yellow and blue paint.

“Uh…” Rhett said, not wanting to criticise it in case it was particularly meaningful to Link.

“Don’t give me that look,” Link snapped. “Remember the time I took my mom to Europe for Christmas? I picked it up in a Christmas Market in Berlin and the woman selling it told me to make a wish and put it on my Christmas tree.”

“Good sales technique,” Rhett grinned.

“Well it worked,” Link shrugged.

“What did you wish for?” Rhett said, a smile teasing at the corner of his lips.

Link couldn’t help smiling. “It doesn’t matter, it already came true,” he said, and leaned forward to press a kiss to Rhett’s lips.

“Oh,” Rhett grinned, “well in that case, can’t Angel Link go on the tree?”

Link picked up the little gold angel and looked at her face. Apart from the long hair, it actually did look a lot like him. Distinctive for a woman, to put it nicely. “I guess,” he said, turning his nose up.

“I think it’s beautiful,” Rhett said, looking at Link instead of the angel.

“Shut up,” Link said while trying not to smile. “Okay fine, put the angel on the tree. But I’m not getting rid of the star.”

“Put it on that little tree,” Rhett said, pointing at the 2 foot tall tinsel tree.

Link shrugged. They didn’t match and the star was half the size of the tree, but he crossed the room and placed it on top anyway.

“Perfect,” Rhett said.

Perfect wasn’t the word Link would have used but it looked whimsical if nothing else. “Better than putting the angel on here,” he admitted. “That would just look like me with a tree up my ass”

Once again, they stood back and inspected the tree. It looked considerably better with the decorations.

“Do you feel more Christmassy now?” Rhett asked, prodding Link in the side gently.

“Yeah,” Link said, grinning up at him. “Don’t you?”

“A little.”

“We still have a box of ornaments we don’t want to throw away,” Link said, pointing at the box on the floor. “What are we going to do with them?”

“Save them for next year?” Rhett suggested.

“But I want them out now!”

“Well then we’ll have to take something else off.”

Link looked up at Rhett pleadingly, like Rhett was going to be able to magically fix it. “Well,” Rhett said, after thinking it over for a moment. “There is one easy solution.”

“What?”

“We could get a bigger tree.”

“Oh!” Link said, initially pleased with the suggestion. He narrowed his eyes at Rhett when he realized what he was really suggesting. “Wait a second. You’re just saying that so we’ll go and look at real trees.”

“Aw come on Link,” Rhett said. He placed his hands on Link’s shoulders and turned him towards the tree. “We tried yours and it’s not big enough.”

“I’ve never had any complaints before,” Link grinned, unable to help himself.

“Please?” Rhett said, trying not to giggle at Link’s joke.

“Fiiiine,” Link said. “We can go tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” Rhett said, leaning down and giving Link a kiss on the cheek.

“I must really love you,” Link mused. “I guess if you’re happy, I can cope with the fear of the house burning down.”

#mythical secret santa 2019 #type: fic #rating: G #gift swap #rhink #submission

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finderskeepersff · 5 years

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63. Part 5

Things have become slightly awkward between us all, I mean of course it would have because I don’t care what they say, I will be asking Cassius and if he says no then no what can I say, I don’t care for the club anyways “my sister, my fucking sister” Jasmine yelped out “you made it? I text you the address five times” Jasmine hugged me “I know but you know me, you out here? Oh shit, bring back memories huh” I had to laugh “somewhat, how are you? You look so well” holding Jasmine close, I miss her “you think? You know what, I am trying. I am much more happier being me, being away from my family. I needed it, I needed to get away” Jasmine moved back from the hug “you look happier, you lost weight?” I looked her up and down “I did, you like?” nodding my head “you are popping, but you know Amira, these are my friends. You know them” waving at them “anyways, I am glad you came. I didn’t think you would have, you too busy for me now” I can see she has a overnight bag “I’m not, I am actually doing my own thing here. I got a job, at a gas station currently but I am getting there. Oh and I have a story to tell you, it’s a groupie story” I had to laugh, this is Jasmine all over “you are crazy, but come in. We are renting this out thanks to my lovely friend Mia” she is not happy and neither is the rest of the girls, I mean whatever I guess “this is nice, Mia chose well. Not cheap here either” stepping inside the home, I can hear a lot of people talking, I mean like a party type “I know you ain’t having a party here” Mia said, Olivia did not.

Walking into the living area, there is at least five guys and then the very guy that left in the morning “came for round two?” I said looking at him, he just smiled “come and join us?” he said “I’ll pass” feeling an arm rest on my shoulder “typical Cali niggas, tuh” Jasmine said “I am actually going to beat you myself” Mia said as she started taking her earrings off “Mia, stop. Leave it, she wants to do that she can. Olivia has always been unstable, we been knew that. I think she is waiting for Kenton to come, and we have seen this situation before, toxic asses” turning aorund “come” I said to Jasmine “I am not staying down here, they are going to argue it out, I just don’t care. This whole trip has been a disaster Jasmine” walking up the steps “why? Don’t say that, Cali is always good” rolling my eyes “not when people are going through things. I feel like there is a alot of broken souls reunited, including me so there is that” I am pregnant and fucking tired, I can’t be bothered. Had that disagreement with Mia and I am done, Amira is high and Olivia is tossing her pussy around so I will go and do my thing upstairs.

Walking out of the bathroom and throwing my oversized shirt on the bed “no way!?” Jasmine said “no way are you just fat, you are pregnant!?” Jasmine spat, I forgot that she don’t know “uh yeah?” I breathed out smiling, I totally didn’t tell her this “oh my gosh! Cassius does not wait, come here” Jasmine ran at me “congratulations, another one!? I mean I understand why he don’t want to wait, this is so fucking good, such beautiful news. We Warrens haven’t had that in so long, I am so happy! For you and and him, look at you, you look so cute pregnant” Jasmine held my hands “oh my god, wait till my mom hears. Another baby, I miss you guys so much. I don’t even know what Cartier looks like anymore, how is Cassius? We have so much to talk to about” it’s nice to see and hear such happiness for this bundle of joy I got in my stomach “I am so emotional” Jasmine walked off “so much has happened, I mean it’s just so much. It hurts when I think about it but we have this blessing, even though Cassius hates my ass but I am so happy for him” Jasmine wiped the tears that fell “it’s nice to hear that, Jasmine I don’t think he does hate you. He just wanted all of you gone, he has a little heart. Trust me, so much has happened” walking over to her slowly as I sat next to her on the bed.

“You really think he don’t hate me?” nodding my head “I really don’t think he does Jasmine, he was in that moment but Carnell, he won’t forgive and your mom I think there could be space for her in his heart but he was so hurt by her, you know. The man abused him and she chose him, but anyways. How is your mom and dad? I have not heard from them I mean Monique tried but she left, never came back” I would like to know they are ok “my dad is at Walmart still, they are staying with family, my mom is not the same. Josiah, he’s actually in LA. He is living out his little modelling thing. But I guess we are getting by, it split the family up anyways. But I miss my family home so much but how is Cassius?” Jasmine asked “hard, he went back on drugs, life has been cruel to him and I hurt for him but he is ok now, he went to rehab and he got better for himself. And I am here, he is looking after Cartier” Jasmine smiled “I am glad he is ok, he is actually looking after his son on his own? You got him trained” I laughed out “trained? I mean I wish, he does what he need and he does help when he can but I love your brother so much, he means the world to me and I miss them both so much” I smiled “I can see you do, you have been his blessing and look at that! Two babies, oh god, I am so happy” I chuckled “thank you Jasmine, I need to call him actually” he did call me earlier and I kind of forgot.

Pressing my phone to my ear as it rang out, I hope he picks up his phone and not moody that I had to go because I was shopping “hey” he picked up “hey baby, I am free now. I called as quick as I could now that I am back, why did you call anyways? Well facetime me?” pacing the room “just wanted to say sorry I disconnected, you know me I worry a lot but are you ok?” he is so cute “I am, I want to be back with you both. Is Cartier being nice to you? I mean besides biting, I don’t know why he likes biting you, I think because you don’t give him that look of don’t you dare, he probably thinks you’re funny” he doesn’ try to bite me “I think it is, he does that a lot. He bites and then watches me but Cartier is being good, he is being daddys boy, he is on the floor playing. We are going to go out again today, I am actually enjoying myself” least one of us is “I am happy you and Cartier are bonding, where are you going both anyways?” I am jelous “we going to get some food, we having a daddy and son date. This little nigga been out every night also people are so helpful, this lady thought I was a single dad, it’s was funny” pulling a face “you been flirting with other women?” I questioneed “not exactly, Cartier been pulling the girls not me, no ma’am” I bet his ass been loving it “sure, but honestly I am happy you have been having a good time but I called because” I paused “well Amira has been calling her connects in the club business and well, A$AP Rocky is hosting tonight and she got us VIP, and she wants us to go” I hope he doesn’t get too annoyed with that “wow, y’all been clubbing a lot. Tell Amira she ain’t shit by the way” he ain’t happy, that tone in his voice, he is not happy “I am not happy” I knew he wouldn’t be “but I guess you go, be careful. I will be worried” I am shocked he even said go but I know he is hating it “you want to say no, I know you” I know him “have fun” he avoided the question.

So to say, I am not a fan of this guy I mean he is ok but still. I mean at least Jasmine is with me “you never told me, the groupie story!” I shouted over the music in the club “oh, so. I was in a club like this, and I don’t know who the fuck this guy was but he said he was a rapper, which he ain’t, probably was but let’s just say his jewellery looked fake but he had a whole section full of bitches, so anyways. I ended up in there, so I ended at his condo, full of girls. I am just there for the free drink and weed, and then I realised it ain’t no free ride, he was like threesome, I goes no and ran off, but anyways. The following morning, I was getting a coffee, he sees me walking and he tried to kidnap me saying I owed him weed money, I was like the fuck I do. Anyways I am still alive to tell the story, it was funny because one of his people tried to pick me up, I screamed and threw coffee at him. So there is that” I am staring at Jasmine like she is crazy, how calmly she is telling me this “ain’t you scared?” I questioned “of what? I lived with Cassius and do you know how many times I have been threatened and nearly died, I’ve seen worse” she got a point.

I take morning with Cartier then nights, morning Cartier is such a breeze. He is so goofy in the morning and more loving, I don’t know who that kid is in the evening because he is some devil’ child now that he can crawl. I can’t even look away for once second, he is gone straight away if I do “why your momma call this bubzy, it’s stupid” grabbing his little monkey toy and held it up “you woke up early today” I am slightly tired, I would like to have slept more but he is awake now. The bed is full of toys, I am just laid on my side on the bed watching him. I don’t want to fall asleep either “Hey, son. Say dada” placing his toy down, he ain’t even playing with any of his toys he is just staring at them. He looked up at me and smiled “aww you goofy as shit boy” Cartier fell forward and made his way over to me “you coming to get bubzy?” he ignored the monkey and came over to me “you want dada, them other toys ain’t shit. I get it, I am the best” he reached up and used my arm to get up “I ain’t about to be your climbing frame again” Cartier shakily shuffled across “what do you want boy?” looking at him, he fell forward and on me, near head butting me “I ain’t having you biting me again” using my hand I moved him back down “you stay there” looking at his wrist and at the bracelet, that Kyle got him. Cartier gurgled placing his hands in his mouth before falling to the side “such a fat baby, come” getting off of the bed “let’s go down and feed you, hopefully your momma is good in Cali” reaching over the bed and grabbing Cartier “heyyy dada” picking him up “you daddy boy yeah” pressing a kiss on Cartier’ cheek, you know what. I ain’t going to lie but this is a mess, I mean this home is a mess. I still got my old boxers on the floor in the bedroom “shall we get someone to clean for us? I ain’t doing this” walking around the pile of clothes.

Cartier loves to make so much noise, honestly. Him and his damn high chair tray, all he keep on doing it slapping his hands against it “I am here” sitting down across from him “I think I warmed your oatmeal up too much, so we going to wait” placing his oatmeal on the table “today we got Banana oatmeal, you going to grow up strong son” turning to him “say dada then, you know you want too” he is staring at me like I am crazy, like I swore at him “let’s see what momma been up too, you think she been good. If not, then we going to have problems” unlocking my phone, tapping on Instagram and the first thing to come up is Sofia and “Jasmine” pulling a face seeing them both, they met up then. Sofia looks nice, liking the picture and scrolling “oh your momma being fancy now, she met the man himself. I could have been there with her, but no” locking my phone “I am stuck with you, let’s test this oatmeal out” grabbing his bowl, Cartier is greedy, I can hear his breathing heavily from here now he has seen the oatmeal. Putting some of the oatmeal on the baby spoon “this is nasty” testing a little and pulling a face, hearing Cartier gurgling “you think this is funny? It’s not nice” moving my head back quick “that is hot, you outta luck” we got to wait a little longer now, I really think I should tidy this house up.

“You know when I think of Cassius, I didn’t think this” Ethan said, his complaining ass “you mean come to the aquarium? When you have kids then you will know, I want to do shit with him. Or maybe I wanted to come? Just stay away from me, I don’t want people thinking we are a gay couple doing this” I did say I was going to tidy the house but I didn’t I ended up wanting to take Cartier out again, I mean I felt the need to take him out. Even though he probably won’t remember, he will have memories, well I will anyways “so what is your next move, once Sofia is back” Ethan asked “my next move is to celebrate Christmas with my family and then it’s go time, I am not rushing this. Just I need you to get those pictures of Kalia doing the deed, she wants the money right?” its actually so cool seeing fishes, it’s crazy “yeah I will get that done, I need to go back to Brooklyn for that. I just need to know a timeline that is all” least Cartier is awake for this “look at that son, oh wow boy! Is that a shark” this bitch is just floating over us “imagine if the glass broke” I shuddered at the thought “after Christmas Ethan” pushing the stroller.

Picking Cartier out of the stroller “my boy” kissing his cheek, walking over to the glass slowly as I turned Cartier in my arms “you see these fishes, look” I pointed, Cartier probably thinking what the fuck is this shit. Holding him near the glass as the coloured fish swam by “oh wow” Cartier placed his hands on the glass staring “it ain’t cheap you know” Ethan stood at the side of me “what ain’t?” I questioned “Kalia’ hospital bill, she need to be jumping through hoops. We use her” I sniggered “I will be getting my drugs imported here, she will be helping me or I will cut off her money that she needs. It’s simple, Imagine it, imagine all of the drugs just flowing. Having all the details they have on me, I just need to get her on my own. But continue to scare her” Cartier slapping the shit of the glass “awww it’s a seahorse, it’s cute” looks lonely as shit on it’s own “you going to make history Cassius, I just know it” I hope I do, I just need to take my time with it.

I laughed to myself “who knew penguins were dope” typing out a caption for the gram picture ‘The day we met a penguin, Cassius and Cartier Chronicles #Theboy’ it was kind of dope to have a picture next to a penguin, I mean shit is weird but cool at the same time but things like that with my son, I will remember always. Pressing send on the picture “I think little don is tired now, he is out now” Ethan said as he pushed the stroller “you make being a dad a breeze, not lying. It makes me want to be a dad” I chuckled “people make it hard, it’s not hard. I mean all they want is love. If you got that in your heart then you will be ok with that” I pointed at Ethan “now you like pushing the stroller” walking behind him “I am telling you, you make being a dad a breeze, you’re a good dad. Like you fun, every day you took him out and you ain’t been scared of it” it’s nice that he sees that “thank you, I appreciate it. To know I am not my dad” I am different “I mean if Cartier was a girl, I may have to keep her at home. He’s the boy you see, he can hang with me like that. If that was a girl, I would handle with care a lot more. They are delicate” what if Sofia is having a girl, I didn’t think of that actually she could be.

#Chrianna #Chrianna FF #Fanfic #Fanfiction

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aleapoffaithfiction · 5 years

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This is not a coincidence  And far more than a lucky chance  But what is that was always meant  Is our ribbon in the sky for our love, love  - Stevie Wonder

Am I a pessimist?

History has shown that it is quite laughable that Americans celebrate Thanksgiving and yet every year, we flood the grocery stores spending hundreds of dollars to prepare a meal for a large number of people who we most likely won’t see or communicate with until the very next year when they’ve come to freeload from our dining room table all over again for the same ol’ holiday. It’s all in “thanks” though, right?

I think Thanksgiving is more of a performance for my mother than it is a time for thankfulness and bonding. It often feels like the event of the month for the neighborhood and she seems to hypothetically leave the door open for anyone to either drop by to have a couple of words with her or sit down to have a plate of the feast made by the hands of she, my sister, and myself. It’s also a day for her to head into her closet to pull out pieces of her more expensive attire that she likely purchased with my Nordstrom credit card. Today, when the apron came off, she only claimed to be freshening up, but upon exiting her bedroom she was donning a Roland Mouret dress and Christian Louboutin “Piagelle” pumps. I found myself scratching my head in confusion at the manner in which the pale orange material skimmed over her frame like a second skin. Though subtle, the seams were angular in their waist-defining approach. I hadn’t seen her wear anything that formfitting since the last date night she and my father enjoyed before his untimely death. The pearl set she paired with it was typical. She swears every woman should have a set of them though the world has certainly moved on to strictly gem stones. Thankfully, she didn’t put together a clutch bag or purse because I probably would have screamed in mental agony at how ridiculous she would have looked. Like a woman competing for a pageant, she’s been working the rooms filled with people all throughout the house for clout that she doesn’t need in the slightest.

“You still hiding in this corner?” I didn’t have to look up to know it was Kyle. Every year he flies up here from Miami to spend the holiday with Preston and my sister, so he ends spending the holiday right here in Brooklyn at my mom’s like the rest of us. Initially, I thought they’d pushed Kyle in my direction because we’re not that far apart in age and could probably relate on some things, but over these past two years I now know it’s because yet again Celeste thinks that she’s found someone who can be a good match for me. She does her most fucked up rendition of cupid whenever she comes across a man who she’d be interested in herself if she weren’t married and then she pushes him in my direction. I fell for her bullshit with Shamel but it will never happen again. Also, her husband’s brother? That’s entirely too close for comfort.

“It’s my preferred place to be when I’m not feeling the atmosphere.”

“What are you drinking?”

“Merlot.” I’ve been babysitting this glass of wine for over an hour now. My tongue is yearning for a Don Julio Paloma. If I don’t get home too late tonight, I’m absolutely going to fix one for myself while I watch whatever movie that’s OnDemand that I missed out on while it was in the theaters.

“I think Preston has some Barcardi in there. You want some?”

“No, I’m okay with this.” I only made the decision to indulge as a literal painkiller. I needed something to relax my body after having mostly been on my feet since early yesterday morning when I was rushed out of my bed to go and pick up a few last-minute items from Walmart.

I had no choice but to leave Odell tangled in top sheet and blanket as I quietly readied myself and put together an overnight bag for the following day. I thought I’d at least be able to make him breakfast but her demanding phone calls did not cease until I was actually at the store. As of now, my feet are viciously aching and I barely have enough energy to move my mouth to speak to everyone, let alone walk around. I’ve been wanting to go to sleep since I ate and I’m mentally cursing myself out for choosing to wear these boots, though they’re one of my most comfortable pairs.

“I think it’s cool that you all host this every year. My family always went to my grandmother’s for holidays. We never hosted anything at the house because my folks were never into that.” Neither am I. Maybe that’ll change when I have my own family, but as of right now, I’d rather keep my home as the safe haven that it is.

“Yeah, we’ve been doing it as far back as my memory goes. I feel like my father set the precedent. He was a people person and chose to have an open-door policy within the neighborhood. It used to be the one trait about him that drove my mother insane, but somehow, she adjusted to it and opened herself up to understanding why he chose to be that way. If people needed anything, they knew they could come here and we’d help out somehow. I guess you can say that our blessings were fruitful so that we’d be able to share them with others.” Though he’s no longer with us, I’ve kept his gems about being about the community embedded into my conscious. I donate to women’s shelters, the Boys and Girls Clubs, afterschool programs within the inner-city schools, and I’m working on creating recreational weekend sports camps for this up and coming summer.

“You look a lot like him.”

“Yeah, my looks definitely lean in his direction.”

“Great looks, by the way.” With a faint chuckle, my shoulders slouched in an adjustment for the slight aches in my back. Living alone has its perks and not having to constantly stand in front of a hot stove every day is one of them. The last time I stood on my feet for hours cooking was last year, this time. I’m just not used to it.

“Thanks, Kyle.”

“So, what’s it like being on ESPN? I know that it was always a dream of yours and it’s cool as hell to see you sitting up there. I feel like often times when we look at public figures on television, it almost seems like jobs like that are so far out of our reach and yet look at you. It’s impressive.”

“It’s great. It still feels surreal and then it has its pressure and stressfulness too. It’s a job in every single sense and I think a lot of people don’t think about it that way. A lot of people look at the glitz and glamor of it, but there’s so much that goes into our panel being able to sit there and entertain people every morning with our sports knowledge and banter.”

“I believe you. I know there’ll be a lot of work to put in for it, but is the goal to have your own show?”

“I don’t know. I’ve thought about it and sometimes it sounds ideal and other times I feel like I want to do something more. I don’t know if I want to spend the rest of my life on television but I probably wouldn’t mind it either depending up on the circumstances. I’m trying to figure that out. I know I want to create my own sports platform or possibly be in collaboration with another black creative or many of them to create something for us and by us. I can try and get our people in the door at ESPN but that final say isn’t mine, you know? And that fucks with me.” It still makes me chuckle when people call Scott the “token white” on our panel but it makes perfect sense in all of the wrong ways. His overdone sarcasm and constant need to play the devil’s advocate doesn’t negate his talent but could they have added a black journalist in his place? Would they have is the real question? I can’t call it.

“I feel you. I feel the same way. In tech, there aren’t many of us. I spend a lot of time going to speak at historically black colleges to persuade students to bring their talents to the field. You’d be surprised how a lot of the internal parts or software programming for some of our favorite gadgets are created from ideas young talented blacks have either sold or got swept under the table over due to fucked up contracts. I’m doing my best to change that reality, because I’m not slaving for anybody and none of us shouldn’t have to.”

“Cheers to that.” As our glasses clinked, I nodded in appreciation. Kyle and I always have great conversations and if Celeste weren’t so pressed for me to romantically pursue him, I think we’d be great friends. He’s progressive in all the right ways.

“Pictures please! You know I do a Facebook photo album every year. Stand up Sarai.” She came out of nowhere like a bat out of hell. I hadn’t even heard her Jimmy Choos clacking against the floor. I’m now finally realizing that both she and mommy have the same curls in their hair. What a kiss ass. I’ve been rocking a hat since guests began to arrive. After having sweated out my hair in the kitchen, I couldn’t be bothered with slaving in the bathroom with a flat iron trying to fix the pity. This slicked back ponytail will have to be until Anna fixes me up tomorrow.

“I’m not standing up.”

“Don’t be a sour grape.”

“My feet hurt. You can take one or two with me sitting right here.” Though she prepared her phone for the photos, it didn’t happen without her childishly rolling her eyes and stomping one heel clad foot. Kyle allowed it to be a solo moment by standing up and stepping away from the warm mantle of the fireplace. Even with the bit of makeup I put on to mask the exhaustion, I know I’m not in a picture worthy state but I’ll compromise for the sake of not having to hear her go on an attention seeking rant.

“Can you at least smile?”

“This is not a photo shoot. Take the pictures and send them to me when you finish. You’re not going to have me looking crazy online.” She took them, but without flash, and that within itself left me weary of her intentions. I’m slumming it in my joggers and this little off the shoulder top I randomly found on a clearance rack at Wet Seal. It damn near looks like I dressed myself in pure darkness but I’m making it work enough for myself alone. I wasn’t wearing pearls either way.

“I sent them. They’re cute.”

Surprisingly, they are. Daddy swears both Celeste and I get our photographic nature from our mother. He had a thing for constantly either videotaping or snapping pictures of us around the house or during family outings. Keepsakes of that kind have always been a tradition on his side of the family and he felt compelled to instill that in our household so that the future generations could use it all to piece together our family’s tree and history.

Everything we have is idly collecting sheets of dust in the lower cabinets of the entertainment center in the living and that’s where they’ll remain until someone has the courage to pull them out for what is sure to be the most draining emotional rollercoaster that any of us needs right now. I’m still trying to figure out how to navigate my memories of him, so I’d rather not clog it with better detailing about our days. I don’t know when I’ll get to the point of complete acceptance with a clear conscious but I’m with dealing it. For now, that’s enough.

I felt like a booty call gone wrong when you just got up and left like that. I woke up like, oh wow…

Heat flushed through my face as a fit of giggles erupted from my core at his nonsense. Not only did I text him and let him know that I left, but I wrote down the security code for the security system so he’d be able to lock the door whenever he planned to leave out.

How did you feel like a booty call when I left you in my bed? It’s not like I walked out of a hotel room on you. No one leaves booty calls in their own beds. If anything, I treated you like a booty call that I plan on calling again.

I considered waking him up, but the serene expression on his sleeping face halted my actions. The side of his face was meshed into the plush pillow on my side of the bed once he readjusted his position and though he reached for me, my absence didn’t wake him.

Oh, so that’s all I’m good for?

I despise how he has the capability of making me blush with his silly little banter and presence alone. It’s a naturalness that I’ve never experience at any of point of my life thus far and comprehending it seems undoable. My grandmother used to say that sometimes we don’t need to think but instead just feel but that is by far the most perplexing statement I’ve ever heard. All I know how to do is think, especially over these last couple of years.

Don’t be offended. At least I like it.

Like it? Lately I’ve been questioning if that’s enough to describe it. Liking it would be simple and this is anything but simple. I can do simple and blow it out of my way, but this? It’s a fucking enigma.

Happy Thanksgiving gorgeous. I’m rocking the boot today. Everyone is loving it.

Unexpectedly, an impromptu picture of himself standing in front of the grandeur double doors of his home followed his message. Per his usual, he was in loud textures that only he can get away with and hilariously covered in winter attire above the waist and summer attire below it. He wouldn’t be himself without having the crimson Supreme crossbody bag around him to perfectly match the boot. Oh, and how can I forget the phone case? Everything about his style would reek of hypebeast if it were anyone else and yet for him, it’s as uniquely expressive as his personality can be.

Handsome.

And that he is. It’s throttling.

Thank you, baby. Send me something.

The prickling in my dampening skin worsened my posture. I’ve never sent racy photographs to any man and yet the thought of sending a few to him is doing more to me than I understand, though that’s not what he’s requesting. Shamel would request them from me quite often and I’d deny him every time because the thought of laying back somewhere and spreading my thighs for a photograph of something that I barely wanted to give to him was unwarranted. On birthdays and holidays, I’d get pieces of lingerie that were satisfying to his eyes rather than well thought out gifts with aspects of my taste involved in the selection process and all of it was left in a box on the side of the street when I moved. I didn’t even deem it worthy enough to be sent out to the shelters and Goodwill's that I donate plenty of my things to.

I couldn’t bother with putting on anything special because I’m in no mood for that, so don’t judge me.

I bit the bullet by sending one of the pictures taken by the ever-nagging Celeste. Now that I’m looking at it, I know damn well I could have put on a pair of jeans with this flannel shirt.

You’re the epitome of beauty in every sense.

Not even the sudden presence of Quinton’s frame walking past me could put a damper on the gut-wrenching fluttering uncontrollably multiplying throughout every bit of me as I read his words over a few times. Does he know what he’s doing to me? Has he called my bluff? Am I exposed?

Even with a bad hair day?

I’m not completely aware of all of the details of his dating history but I’ve seen the women he has been rumored to have dated and much like anything would expect, they’re picture perfect. I don’t fit into the mold of those ideal body types who have all of their curves in the right places with a perfect set of perky boobs and an ass that is sure to make any man look back twice. I don’t even understand my shape enough to be able to describe it but I do my best to work with what I have.

Once upon a time, I thought about ridding myself of my breast insecurities by having a fat transfer done to plump them up without having to have implants inserted. Shamel didn’t make the situation any better by agreeing that I’d go from average to a dime piece if I did so. He even offered to pay for it if the insurance wouldn’t. When he and I split, I finally had the time to really sit down and consider if it was something that I desired to do for myself and it was then that I let the idea of it go. I am who I am. Laying on a surgeons table was never going to fix the issues within my mental space.

What bad hair day? I don’t see a single hair out of place. Am I still seeing you tonight? I miss you. I know it sounds weird for me to say that because we were just together, but I really do.

Not only am I physically drained and in need of my bed, but I also have to work tomorrow. I considered making this weekend a four-day weekend for myself last week but it slipped my mind to request the day off.

It doesn’t sound weird. I miss you too. I’m so tired though. You don’t want sleepy company, do you? I just want to lay in the bed.

I’m purposefully sitting on this bricked fireplace, because it’s uncomfortable and keeping me from dozing off somewhere.

Well, my bed is waiting for you to come and go to sleep in it. I don’t mind sleepy company at all. Come on.

I’m still very convinced that the universe is somehow trolling my life for whatever reason. Where did this man come from? When my prayers go beyond my loved ones and I began my requests to the man above for myself, I only pray for peace. This isn’t peace. It’s disruptive, confusing, and yet so damn earth shattering.

I’ll let you know when I’m on my way. I have work tomorrow, so I have to head to my house to grab some things so that I’ll be able to properly ready myself in the morning.

Hopefully, it’s not too late.

Sounds good. See you in a bit. Oh, and bring me some red velvet cake.

It took an additional twenty minutes of me idly sitting there to muster up the strength to move. Upon observing the room, Quinton walked past me twice without a word spoken and though it didn’t trouble me, I can’t say that I’m not shocked about his chosen tension and immaturity. I thought we’d be better than that because as he said, we have a history, and it goes beyond a date that didn’t turn out the way he wanted it to.

You win some, you lose some. Despite everything said between the two of us that night, I haven’t held any of it against his character and I probably never will because I honestly do believe that he’s a good guy with a good heart. I just think he’s lost track of who he is beyond the political career and until he figures that out, he will continue to make superficial decisions for his life all for the sake of upholding a specific public image.

“You coming to eat again?” Though everything else remain perfectly in place, mommy finally removed the heels and comfortably leaned against the kitchen’s island in a pair of Nike slippers she took out of my closet about two months ago.

“No. I can’t eat another bite. I’m just going to take some dessert with me for right now and then I’ll come over tomorrow after work for anything else I have a taste for.” I’m going to bring Beckham some red velvet cake, pineapple upside-down rum cake, and a bit of banana pudding. That should more than satisfy his sweet tooth. I handled all of the desserts this year. Next year, I’ll be damned if Celeste doesn’t help me.

“You look tired. I told you if you’d get into that kitchen of yours more often, you’d be used to this.”

“Cooking for a neighborhood of people? Not really.”

“Cooking for your family.”

“I cooked with my family, which counts for something. I don’t have a family of my own and I’m not sure if or when that’s going to happen for me, so I haven’t cared to train myself. I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. The fact is, I actually do know how to cook, so I’ll be fine either way.”

“You could have a family of your own but you choose to avoid it.” If I’m avoiding anything, it’s where this conversation is about to go.

“With Quinton? Yeah, I’m sure that makes sense to you but it never will for me and I don’t appreciate you inserting yourself into that situation. I’m perfectly capable of choosing who I will and will not involve myself with romantically. I don’t need any lobs or assists from you.”

“If you’re so capable of choosing, why haven’t you chosen anyone? Why is he not worthy of a proper chance? You didn’t even try.”

“There was nothing to try. I’m not interested. I get it, though. It looks like it makes sense since we come from the same background, have success stories while coming out of the same neighborhood, and his mother and yourself can relate in ways that are both painful and triumphant, but it’s not going to work for me.” Quinton and I look good on paper. We’re ideal in the general sense, but anything beyond that? We’re a disaster waiting to happen.

“So, what is? You live in that huge home of yours all alone and you want to do that for the rest of your life? I worry that you’ll actually do that. Companionship is a good thing, Sarai. Having someone around to balance out life with you is healthy. Celeste has her own life and though I am your mother, you need more than just my shoulder to lean on whenever you take a break from that overly done independent woman rampage, you’re on.” Rampage? If anyone’s on a rampage, it’s her. She’s on a rampage for me to be barefoot and pregnant while being subservient to someone not even worth my troubles.

“Whatever I do will be my decision and I’ll have to live with that, not you. You’re so adamant about all of this, but you don’t even know half of the shit I went through with Shamel. So, excuse me for not being as enthusiastic about settling down as you need me to be. As I said before, I don’t know if or when it’ll happen, but I’ll be okay either way. Sometimes I wonder if the only time you’ll be proud of me is when I put on a big fluffy white dress and vow my life over to someone, because you certainly don’t show it when it comes to anything else that I do.”

“Oh, nonsense. Don’t do that Sarai. You know that I’m proud of you.”

“Well, you have a poor way of showing it. Excuse me.”

I had to put the banana pudding in a small plastic to go bowl because I didn’t want it to touch the pieces of cake I had on the plate. I don’t know about him, but occasionally I can be super anal when certain food touches one another. It throws the taste off.

“It’s late and since the crowd in here has died down, I’m going to head home. I have to work in the morning. I’ll be over here tomorrow.”

“You sure about that?”

“I’m sure.” I’m not cooking anything, so leftovers it is. I’m definitely coming.

“Well, give me a hug and kiss before you go.” I fulfilled her request immediately. I would have done so whether she asked or not. No matter what we disagree about, she is my mother. I don’t allow our indifference to steer me from that reality. I have one parent now and I’m going to nurture that as best as I can for as long as I’m granted to. I’d rather not live with any regrets.

“Drive safely and let us know when you get home.”

“Will do.”

People being slumped inside of the comfort of their homes or someone else’s seemed to keep the traffic down. I avoided the tolls by taking the FDR drive and Harlem River drive to Hudson Terrance in Fort Lee. Even Exit 73 was clear and I always tend to hit a bit of a slowdown whenever I’m coming from that direction.

The sight of my bed enticed me like no other as I lazily put together all that I needed to make the morning go as smoothly as possible while I drag and dread having to make that commute to Bristol. I’m going to need the most potently caffeinated cup of coffee while driving myself up there and I’ll probably need another for the commute back. That aside, having no plans for the weekend is absolutely official. I intend to sleep until my body can’t take it anymore.

On my way.

The anticipation to be within his presence battled the fatigue like the fiercest gladiator and that yearning carried me back out of the door and into my car. Even if I attempted to pass out, the guilt of standing him up would have kept me wide awake and staring up at my ceiling. I’m not even sure what to call Beckham but he’s my…something.

Taylor’s my person in the same manner that Meredith Grey is to Christina Yang. Is Beckham, McDreamy? Are our souls tying within that manner? It’s terrifying to think about and even more distressing to know that in some manner, it feels that way.

With Eris and Khan idly walking around the entry driveway to his home, there he sat awaiting my presence. It was the sight of the headlights that alert him to stand to his feet and I barely had the car in park before he was standing alongside the driver’s side of it.

“Glad you made it safely.” As the seatbelt slid back into its proper position, he leaned in and I instantly pressed my lips into the warmth of his for the kiss we both seemed to have been anticipating.

“You didn’t have to wait out here in the cold. I could have rung the bell.”

“It’s nothing. It’s not that bad out here anyway.” It was his strength that pulled me out of the seat and I was thankful for it because I know I would have sat there for much longer than necessary. The Chanel bag he gifted to me was all I had to carry inside, because he handled the rest.

The chattering coming from the kitchen and the low music was to be expected but with it nearing almost midnight, it was clear that whatever crowd he had in the house before had already gone home.

“That’s momma, Jazzy, and Kordell in there. They knew you were coming. You cool with saying hey?”

“Of course. I can’t just come in here and not speak.”

“You’re tired.”

“Tired, but not rude.”

There’s something about being in the house with his family that unnerved me. It’s not their presence but instead the circumstances for why I’m here. Family tends to be perceptive and how would his feel knowing that I’m likely going to lay alongside him in his bed tonight as I rest? It’ll be no marital bed.

Despite our ages, it doesn’t prevent people from side eying or negativity whispering about whatever it is they’re frowning down upon. Heather and I mutually admire one another and I’d hate for her to no longer feel the same way about me or believe that I’m a poor influence for her daughter.

“Sarai! You made it. Happy Thanksgiving.” Her long arms pulled me in for the bear hugs that she always gives. They’re comforting and reassuring; maternal and yet friendly all at once.

“Happy Thanksgiving. How are you?”

“I’m so good. Look Jazzy. Meet Sarai. Sarai this is O’s little sister Jasmine and his little brother Kordell. Sonny’s sleeping.” In some ways, the both of them resemble him, especially Kordell. He’s literally the milk chocolate version of his older brother. In just my short moments of observing him, they also have similar mannerisms in the way they shift and squint their eyes.

“Wait, so this is your girl? This is the one? She be on TV with Kobe.”

“Kordell, shut up. It’s nice to meet you, Sarai. My brother speaks very highly of you.”

“You do too. Don’t try to water down the fangirling you be doing.” Beckham needed to put them on blast in order to save himself from the playful embarrassment they were attempting to inflict on him. I was once just as annoying to Celeste whenever she’d bring company over to the house. Even though we didn’t share a room, I’d deliberately invade her privacy just to be an annoying ass.

“I am a fan.” There was pride in her tone.

“I appreciate it Jazzy. Thank you.”

“How was your Thanksgiving? Did you spend it with family?” In her usual behavior whenever I’m here, Eris circled my feet and I leaned over to give her the attention she craved.

“It was nice. I spent it in Brooklyn with my mom, sister, and brother-in-law. Some family stopped by and a whole bunch of neighborhood friends. My mom likes to do it big for Thanksgiving, so it was busy.”

“It sounds like a good time though.”

“It was. It turned out nicely.” People kept the peace. I suppose that’s nice enough. I’ve been at family functions when shit has gone left and arguments happened.

“That’s good. Are you hungry? We have plenty.”

“I’m stuffed, but I love leftovers, so tomorrow sounds like a plan.” I could raid his fridge and my mothers. Either way, I can’t lose.

“You’re welcome to whatever you like. We were just getting ready to start…” Before she could finish the statement about the UNO game they were soon to begin, her impatient son cut her off.

“She’s tired. She has to get up for work in the morning.”

“If you wanted her all to yourself, all you had to do was say so.” What his siblings didn’t accomplish, she had. The rosiness flushing throughout his face tickled me into an uncontrollable laughter, that eventually both his mother and sister joined in on.

“She really does have to get up for work in the morning.”

“I do, but I can play a round of UNO. It’s no big deal.”

“You can play tomorrow. You need to sleep.” He held his hand out for me as if I were a stubborn child. If I weren’t so tired, I would have given him a run for his money at one of my all-time favorite card games. I know he hates losing.

“Well, goodnight.” I waved before latching my hand onto his own. Can this get anymore awkward? I should have just told him to come over to my place. Next time, I will.

“Goodnight.” It was all in unison with their attention completely locked into to whatever they assume is going on between one of the most important people to them and myself. I’m not sure what he’s told them but they’re well aware that we’re beyond just being friendly. At this point, even the dimmest person could pick up on it.

“I put extra towels, wash clothes, and a toothbrush in the bathroom for you. I’m not sure if you brought your own soap, but I took some Dove body wash from out of the bathroom my momma uses whenever she’s in town and staying here. I’ll plug your phone up and sit it on the nightstand for you.”

As soon as I removed my coat, he grabbed it and walked off to hang it on the outskirts of his closet. I’d been in his bedroom before but I didn’t necessarily observe every detail about it, but it’s very telling of the demanding career that he leads. Though a master suite in size, it’s fairly simple in décor and yet exudes the masculinity that I expect. Given that he’s highly detailed and puts plenty of thought into the attire that covers his body, I’m surprised that he hasn’t hired an interior design team to come in and turn the entire house into something out of an art gallery.

“I know you’re not hungry, but do you want anything to drink?” While I rummaged through my bag, I could hear the paws of the doors pattering against the wooden floors as they made their way into his personal space.

“No, I’m okay. I do need something to sleep in though. My sleepy ass forgot to pack that.” I don’t even remember attempting to find pajamas. I was so preoccupied with finding the perfect dress to wear on air and after that, decorating for Christmas. There’s always a mixture of dread and excitement about that. That’s one of the downsides of living alone. I have to spend days putting everything up on my own and it’s not easy.

“I got you. Hold on.” Yet again, he headed in the direction of his closet. At home? I only sleep in actual pajamas if I have company. Other than that, I’m usually in bed in damn near nothing. It’s comfortable and less of a hassle.

“Okay, here’s a shirt.” I knew it would be something Giants related. I’m sure that he has thousands of team related shirts that he hasn’t worn.

“What kind of shorts do you want? The cotton Nike ones are soft and light. Or do you want sweats? You want socks too?”

“The shirt is fine. That’s all I need.” Everything else will eventually end up on the floor if I put them on.

“Okay.”

I didn’t have to ask for privacy. As soon as he placed the shirt on the bed, I was left alone with the dogs once he walked out and closed the door behind himself. He’d given me more than enough time to change, brush my teeth, and even get settled into the coziness of his California king bed. The plushness of his ice grey down comforter was coaxing me into the perfect relaxation for slumber and yet I couldn’t refrain from rocking my hips, snapping my fingers, and mumbling along to Stevie Wonder’s “Higher Ground”. It wasn’t loud at all, but the volume was up just enough for me to be able to make out the song. Stevie’s soulfulness has always been a part of the extensive musical collection in my mother’s living room. His sounds were our Saturday morning clean up music during my childhood and that tradition followed me all the way to my own home.

“You’re an old soul too?” His amusement didn’t go unnoticed upon his reentry.

“I don’t have much of a choice but to be that. I get it from the two who made me.” I wonder if he allows the dogs on the bed. If it were my bed, I’d allow it. They’re so lovable, even in their massive size and intimidating demeanors.

“Stevie’s only on because my momma’s here. This is a Future household.” He could barely contain his own laughter. Future?

“Oh, how enjoying it is to listen to the misogynistic raps of Hip-Hop’s walking sperm bank.” Why do women fuck Future? I need a 60 Minutes episode about that.

“He’s just misunderstood.”

“I will kick you out of your own room. Misunderstood? He’s a demon.” Though I couldn’t see him, I could hear his laughter loud and clear. I can’t front, I can and will hit the dance floor to some of those infectious trap records created by the Atlanta native but the antics of his personal life are atrocious. No, but seriously, why do women subject themselves to him? Is the dick that lethal?

“A demon huh?” I couldn’t respond. The muscles in my throat contracted into a tightness that forced my frame back against the pillows as my lips fell agape at the sight of his tattoo covered skin. His chiseled abs aside, there’s something about the manner in which the ink is etched into his golden skin that is worthy of being displayed in the Louvre. Every bit of it tells a story that I want to run my fingers over and know thoroughly from start to finish. I want to plant kisses on the areas that are representative of past pain and marvel over those that are picturesque versions of his triumph.

“That’s exactly what he is.” I wasn’t as edgy as I am now when he was in my bed and yet as he joins me in his own, I nearly want to run to the opposite side of the room. As he did that night, he stretched out his arm to invite me into his space and I slid over to the middle of the bed to meet his warmth. With one press of a button near the bed, the lights were off, setting the complete mood for the few hours of sleep that I’m going to get.

“Am I forcing you to go to bed early? You’re a night owl.”

“I’m only a night owl because having surgery ruined my sleep schedule. When you don’t have much else to do, you tend to occupy your time with crap that’ll keep you up. Video games were it for me.”

“I miss being a night owl. Nowadays, I struggle staying up past ten. This is why I hope the show moves to New York. We’re currently in on and off negotiations about that. We’re also tossing around the idea of doing a few weeks in the Los Angeles during the summers with a live audience just to change the scenery of the show. Hopefully it goes through.”

“That would be great. You’d be closer to home and L.A. is always a nice change of scenery. I’m sure Kobe would love that too.”

“Yeah, he’s definitely the one who’s advocating for that idea.”

“And we’d be together in either city, because the timing would permit it. That’s perfect, actually.” He does spend his off seasons in the West, so I can see why he made note of that.

“It could be perfect. Fingers crossed; it works out.”

Our limbs were like magnets as they intertwined at different points and he’d idly plant a kiss on my forehead seemingly every ten to fifteen seconds.

I wouldn’t consider either one of us worthy of musical recording contracts and yet as the medley of Stevie’s “Ribbon in the Sky” faintly played below us, hums from the both of us drowned out his vocal delivery. The depth and rasp of his lulled me beyond what his warmth and the comfort was already doing. It inflicted a tranquil sense of drowning that I welcomed and yet the manner in which is large palm lightly grazed over the heated skin of my inner thigh ignited a ravenous blaze for him. The seat of my flimsy barely there panties dampened with every thrashing throb of my center. I haven’t been touched in so long, I’m afraid to know if I just unraveled from a gesture so simple.

A dewiness flushed over my skin as my heart thumped against my chest in a quickened rage. The pressure ignited that natural yearning that any woman should have when lying next to the man of her affection and I have no way of being able to reach over to my own nightstand, open the draw, and grab the blackened vibrating device to handle this myself. I had to move over for the sake of my sanity and most of all, to lessen the possibility of humiliation. His now resting body didn’t allow the distance to last as long as I needed it to.

Yet again, his hand met the inside of my thigh and drew me into his side as I once was before. The aroma of his intoxicating fragrance slithered up my nose as I was locked into place with his arm, which coaxed me to whimper at such an endearing torture.

God, help me.

The scenic sunrise was my company in the shower after hitting the snooze button twice to extend the comfort that I didn’t want to lose. With a lack of regard for time, I prolonged my minutes in his state-of-the-art shower just as much. It’s the first time in a long time that I’m sorrowfully dreading stepping onto that set to do what I love to do.

“Good morning.” I attempted to be quiet but I must have not done a good enough job. As his frame towered behind me, he trailed kisses up my back, ahead of the zipper that he was pulling up from the back of my maroon pencil style dress. At home, I unraveled a wire hanger and turned it into my own personal hooked zipper closer. I prefer this. The feel of his lips pressing against my skin and the aura of his being surrounding me supersedes that any day.

“Good morning.”

Although I’ll be doing my make-up routine in my dressing room, I still moisturized my face and applied a decent amount of lip gloss to my lips as while he stood at the sink brushing his teeth. I’m not even sure if concealer will be able to do much hiding of my exhaustion today. My eyes are literally burning because they’re open and I have a budding headache just waiting to worsen as soon as I walk out of the door.

“I’m going downstairs to let the dogs outside.”

“Okay.”

I chose comfort for the commute with my favorite black Nike slippers and carried my Jimmy Choo pumps in the dust bag I keep them protected in. I didn’t bother switching purses, although the Chanel one is no match to this dress. No one’s going to see it and right now, I don’t give a shit.

While sitting on the bed, I texted Chad to take pictures of the agenda and send it over so that I can glance over it once I hit traffic, because there’s no doubt that maybe forty minutes into the commute, I will. If I can get a head start on reading over it, our briefing will be a few minutes and I’ll be able to take somewhat of a cat nap before we’re on air. If I’m not mistaken, Isaiah Thomas is coming by to speak with us today about how he’s adjusting to life in Cleveland. Boston’s decision to trade him was one hell of a shocker to the public and a blow that he took extremely personally after not only dedicating all of his loyalty to the team, but even continuing to do so after the loss of his sister. So, no matter how worn out I am, I certainly want to be alert to ask him a few of my own burning questions.

Yet again, I did my best to remain quiet as I maneuvered through the second floor of the house and descended down the staircase to the first. No one else was awake with the exception of us and the dogs, who were all highly alert and within close proximity to me.

“I thought you’d come down sooner.” He was in the silver reflective goose coat that he greeted me in last night and I’m even more in love with it now. If I can’t find it to buy on my own, I’m going to plead with him for his because he’s probably never going to wear it again. I have some Maison Martin Margiela boots that would be perfect with it.

“I’m dragging. What’s that?”

“Your breakfast.” In one hand is what appears to be some kind of a green thick smoothie and in the other is a bag with God knows what in it. He hates coffee and the way it makes him feel, so the smoothie makes sense.

“Thank you, babe.”

“Uhm. You coming back here when you get off?” With every inch we moved closer to the door, his four-legged protectors were right along with us.

“After I drop by my mom’s.”

“Okay.”

The awaiting SUV completely caught me off guard because I hadn’t requested a driver. Should I have? Absolutely, because I don’t feel like driving, but did I? Nope. I didn’t do a lot of things that I should have done this week. This is why I need to spend my weekend in the bed.

“You called?”

“You’re tired.”

His simple explanation made more sense than anything that I can think of.

“While you’re at work, think about coming to Louisiana with me.” He held my things while I slid into the backseat. Louisiana?

“When?”

“Tonight.”

“You’re joking, right?”

“No.”

“What’s in Louisiana?”

“Home.” I already knew the answer and yet I asked.

“I’ll consider it.”

“That’s all I ask. Gimmie them lips.” There was no hesitation. If anything, it was lingering and nearly enough to make me truant on ESPN.

“I’ll be watching.”

“Thank you. See you later.” I snuck another taste of his lips for a good day and closed the door on my own.

I prepared to nearly gag at the green concoction he blended together for me, but ended up pleasantly surprised at its appeasing taste. Though it was kale, the medley of pineapple, mango, and banana served as a balance. Inside of the bag? Chobani yogurt, crackers, and Sargento string cheese. He remembered my odd choices for a favorite snack. I never remember to put together any of that stuff the night before or right before I’m leaving out for work. I don’t even need to stop for a crappy sandwich at Dunkin Donuts now. I owe him, because this is perfect.

“Any requests for the radio ma’am or should I turn the Bluetooth on?”

“Bluetooth, please.”

I let my Stevie Wonder playlist on Apple Music do its thing. “Signed, Sealed, Delivered” instantly began my usual solo backseat party. Usually it happens on a Friday as I’m on my way home from work, but on this particular Friday, I’ll be partying both ways.

Louisiana sounds like a nice trip.

#fanfiction #fan fiction #fanfic #fan fic #odell beckham jr fanfic #odell beckham fanfic

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lovemesomesurveys · 5 years

Text

Do you believe life is fair? It’s not always fair, but we’re not promised that it will be. Have you ever made a fan account on Instagram? No. Have you ever bought a youtuber’s merch? Yes. Name three people you want to meet in Heaven. I’d love to see my grandma and grandpa again. Do you believe in Heaven and Hell? Yes.

If so, do you believe you are going to Heaven? I pray that I will. What was the best time of your life? Childhood. Do you feel loved or appreciated for who you are? I know I’m loved. I don’t feel there’s anything I should be appreciated for. What could be the theme song of your life? I don’t know. Don’t you hate being all alone? (if applicable) I like spending some time alone. Sometimes I’m completely alone, other times I’m alone in my room but my family is home. I also like spending time with my family. Now as for figuratively, I do feel I’m alone in a lot of ways. Do you believe rich people are worth more than those who are poor? Wow wtf kind of question is this. When was the last time you read the Bible? I finished my first read-through earlier this month. Do you have any embarrassing health issues? Yes. What are you longing for? A life where I’m in better health, happy, and doing something productive. Who do you wish you could talk to? I miss Ty. What was the name of the college you went to? Nah. Were your college years the best years of your life? No, but I wouldn’t say they were the worst. There were rough times, but what I’d consider my worst years came after. Who was your first roommate? I’ve never had one. Who lived across the hall from you your first year of college? I didn’t live on campus. What was your favorite food they served in the Dining Commons? Do you consider the lunch ladies your friends? Have you ever had a janitorial job? No. Have you ever worked in food service? No. What was your first job? I’ve never had one. What year did you graduate high school? 2008. What’s something of yours that is missing right now? I can’t think of a physical thing that I’m missing. If there is, I’m not aware of it. Do you lose or misplace things a lot? No. Have you ever had a nasty rumor spread about you? No. Has anyone ever tried to ruin your reputation? No. What is your favorite flavor of frosting? Vanilla buttercream. What is your favorite type of donut? Glazed or maple. What is the name of your favorite bakery? I just get stuff like that from the bakery section at the grocery store. What is your current favorite Starbucks drink? White chocolate mocha with soy or a caramel macchiato with soy. I’ve been waiting for them to come out with more fall drinks besides icky pumpkin spice, but they’ve been lagging. Previous years they had other options that I really liked, such as the toasted graham latte. Have you ever been to the very first Starbucks in Seattle? Nope. I’ve never even been to Seattle. Or Washington. When was the last time you wrote someone a letter? Uhhhh. Do you write mostly in cursive or in print? Print. Have you ever called a teacher “mom” by mistake? Yes, in 2nd grade. I was so embarrassed. Do you like the color of your eyes? Meh. I wish I had blue or green eyes. What color are your eyes? Brown. What was the name of the street you grew up on (if you don’t live there now) Nah. What was the name of the first dorm you lived in? Like I said, I never lived on campus. What was the name of your first imaginary friend? I don’t remember having any imaginary friends per se, but my cousins and I would make up other people when we’d play house or school. Does it still feel like summer where you live? It most definitely does and has since May. What is today’s date? September 28, 2019. Who’s birthday is today? One of my cousins. What do you usually get for your birthday? Clothes. Who’s birthday is coming up next? Another one of my cousins next month. What is the last thing that came in the mail for you from Amazon? Phone case. Do you have a Paypal account? Yes. Have you ever had a brand or company reach out to you on Instagram? No. What is the last thing you purchased from Etsy? Some bracelets. Do you sell on Etsy? Nope. What is a childhood dream that hasn’t stuck with you? I wanted to be a teacher when I was a kid. What is something you want to change about your life? My health. What is one thing you are looking forward to coming up? The drive I’m tagging along for later on today to drop off my brother. He’s going to one of my favorite cites for the weekend. Have you decorated for fall yet? Just a little. I have stuff for my room I need to get out, but I haven’t done that yet. I’ve been majorly slacking. I still have my Christmas decorations from last Christmas lmao. They’d only be put away for a shot time now... I don’t know if I’ll ever get around to it honestly. Do you type fast? Yeah. What color was your bedroom growing up? White. Who was your first favorite cartoon character? I don’t recall my first favorite cartoon character. I know my first favorite character in general was Barney, though. I was obsessed. Who is your favorite Disney princess? I don’t really have a favorite one. Do you enjoy typing? I mean, yeah. Definitely over handwriting. What bank do you use? Nah. What grocery store do you shop at the most? Walmart. What is your favorite fast food place? BK, Taco Bell, McDonald’s, Chick-Fil-A, Jack in the Box. I haven’t been much into fast food for the past few months, though. Do you get sauce on your pizza? Uh, yeah? Ew, why would you not get sauce on your pizza. That’s an absolute must. Extra sauce for me. Do you like hamburgers? Meh. Do you like Coca Cola? Yeah. Do you like McDonald’s french fries? Yeah. What color is your hair? Naturally it’s dark brown, but I dye it red. Did you get your hair color from your mom, your dad, or a grandparent? My mom. What is your name (first and middle)? My first name is Stephanie. That’s all ya need to know. What are some other names your parents’ considered when naming you? Andrea. What would you have been named if you had been born the opposite gender? Jesse, I think. Do you prefer tea hot or cold? Hot. What is the best fall drink? Coffee (hot). That’s my favorite all year round. Who was the last person you know who had a baby? One of my cousins. …And what was the baby’s name? He’s named after his dad (my cousin). If you had a boy and a girl, what would they be named? I’m not having kids. Do you clean your room often? I keep it clean, it just gets a little cluttered. I need to go through and get rid of some stuff. Who taught you how to drive? No one has, I don’t drive. What color is your dresser? Brown. Do you have a hope chest? No. Do you have a favorite aunt, and if so, who is it? I have an aunt I’m really close with. Who is your favorite cousin? I was really close to a couple of my cousins, but when I distanced myself and became very recluse and withdrawn these past few years, that included from them as well. :/ Do you look like your mom? Yeah. What does your middle name rhyme with? What does your first name mean? “To be crowned” or something like that. Have you bought next year’s calendar yet? Nah. I don’t use calendars except for the one on my phone. The only reason I had one last year was because I won it in a giveaway. What year did/will you turn 30? I turned 30 this July. Have you found your first gray/white hair yet? I’ve found a few. D: Is your hair long or short? Long. …and which way do you like it best? I like it long. What’s a food that you like, but it makes you feel sick? I just have a messed up stomach and bad indigestion, so. Do you have a problem with needles? Yes. Have you ever had to use an epi pen? No. If so, do you get a bruise when you use it? Have you ever ridden in an ambulence? Yes. If applicable, what color are your glasses? Black. Do you like the name Addison? Sure. Is there anything that you regret getting rid of? Yeah. I have a hard time getting rid of stuff. What have you been saving up to buy for a while? I haven’t been saving up to buy anything, but I do want to start on my Christmas shopping next month. I should have started saving up for that. This month was especially bad for some reason in regards to my spending. Does anything bother you about your past? I have a lot of regrets. Do you get bullied on facebook a lot? No, I never have. Why do you think people bully others? There’s a lot of reasons. Have you ever stood up to a bully? I’ve never been bullied. I was/am the only bully to myself. Do you post on youtube regularly, if you have a channel? I don’t post at all. Which famous person do you think you could be friends with? I don’t know. If you could sit down and talk to anyone for an hour, who would it be? I wish I could do that with my grandma who passed away over 10 years ago. Do you own striped tights? No. Have you ever made your own Halloween costume out of clothes from ur closet? Yes, a few times. Do you own any antique furniture? I personally don’t. What year were you born? 1989. What is your favorite alcoholic beverage? I don’t drink anymore. Do you set goals for yourself? I should. Which country has the coolest flag? I like the American flag. I like Sweden’s flag’s colors. Do you like your country’s flag? Yeah. Which country do you live in? USA. What is your heritage? I really want to do one of those DNA kits to know for sure. When was the last time you received a hug? A few days ago. Do you have anyone who hugs you regularly? Yeah. Who gives the best hugs? My mom. Would you rather have the bottom bunk or top bunk? I’d have to use the bottom bunk. Window seat or aisle seat? I’ve only flown a total of 2 times and both times I sat in the middle. Have you ever thrown up on an airplane? No. Have you ever seen anyone else throw up on an airplane? No. Have you ever gotten sick in the car? Yes. What color pen do you write with the most? Black. Do you still wear clothes from the children’s section? I could. What were your favorite stores when you were in high school? Hot Topic was one of them. For some reason I don’t remember where else I shopped at for clothes. Do you watch Bethany Mota on youtube? Nah. What color is your watch? I don’t have one. What color was the last pair of flip-flops you wore? I don’t wear flip flops. What is your favorite season? Fall and winter. Were you born in your favorite season? No, I was born in the summer. Blech. Have you eaten oatmeal lately? No, it’s been several months since I’ve hat oatmeal. I was eating it pretty regularly the last couple years, though. If you have bangs, do you cut them yourself? I trimmed them myself back when I had bangs. What color was the last cup you drank out of? Red. Do you enjoy graphic designing? I don’t do any graphic designing. Do you enjoy editing photos? I like adding filters, ha. I used to dabble with Photoshop sometimes and made photo edits and gifs. What is your favorite app on your phone? I use YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Spotify, Instagram, and Snapchat the most. Do you answer your phone every time it rings? Only if it’s my parents or brother. Have you ever called the wrong number? Yeah. Do you usually pick Truth or Dare? Truth. Was your first kiss magical? No, but it was all I knew at the time of course and I was pretty giddy about having had my first kiss, even though it was awkward af lol. Do you like kissing? Yes. Who do you want to be best friends with? My best friend is my mom and I’m perfectly happy with that. Do you like to decoupage things? I don’t do that. Do you have a printer? Yeah. How many tabs are open on your browser right now? 1 window, 5 tabs. Which Internet browser do you use? Chrome. Did you have a Myspace page back in the day? Yep. Do you miss Myspace bulletins? No. They were just posts like these are. Did you ever learn HTML? Just the very basics. Have you ever wanted to start a business? Nope.

#personal #text #survey #surveys

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