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mannien · 3 years

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Mornings in Sheffield Park | TH - CHAPTER 1

The one with stress, takeout food around the world, late night walks, and Disney dreams.

Word count: 6.6k

Warnings: some stress, some anxiety, mention of sex, and a lot of smiles

Masterlist

Fourth week into the morning pitch meetings at BBC, Millie felt lifeless and drained. The room was usually exploding with ideas, creative energy, and a lot of constructive feedback to the few interns who were allowed to join the conversation with editors, writers, and producers. That morning had started ugly enough for her: with an overwhelming number of e-mails about the schedule and missing content for Politics Live.

When she first landed her spot at BBC, Millie was over the moon. She was constantly calling it a dream come true, a once in a lifetime opportunity for her to begin a writing career in media. Her degree seemed to be the best choice for her future and Millie was ready to prove that graduating from humanities can actually land her a decent job. Her first days were filled with morning preparations, early commute to the city centre and exceptionally smoothed out shirts. The work environment in such a fast-paced industry felt inspiring and daunting at the same time, but Millie felt obligated to use this experience to its full potential. Each day she attempted to learn more than the day before and possibly show off a tiny bit more of her creative skills to her superiors. She spent her evenings researching topics and people, trying not to fall out of the loop. Being one step forward was hard work, one that Millie desperately wanted to ace.

The second week of her internship brought a slight shift to her agenda. After grasping the general concepts of working for a major radio and TV broadcasting company, she was aware of the production processes. She tried to happily follow up all the details about the work of a writer, a researcher, or an editor – just so she could be prepared for the follow-up of the introductory week. And as she hoped her interview was remembered and she would soon contribute to any program touching upon music or pop culture, her dreams and calls were slowly fading away. The intern manager ascribed her to the team devoted strictly to politics and daily news, having no vacancies for the popular radio programs. Even though she took whatever spot was offered, it was only to get more insight and experience.

Having already managed to speak up a few times during the morning routines in the conference room, Millie eased herself into the work environment and was treated like a regular employee. But the first wave of success quickly passed, especially when she was hit with growing emptiness in her brain. She did not enjoy politics, so as far as she could, she attempted to sneak in a sociological aspect into the context. But her tactic had an expiration date.

A couple of heads were expectantly turned at Millie when she was unsurely stuttering her weak ideas for the upcoming programme. She knew it wasn’t going well and she was mentally cursing herself for trying to impress the producers that much so early on.

“This isn’t gonna work. We’ve covered this enough in the evening news. Let’s take five, and maybe you’ll come up with a different angle. I’ll give you another shot here.”

Hugh, the head writer took off his glasses and watched her fidget in her seat. She nodded and took a deep breath, before leaving the room for a short break. Her mind was racing in panic; she wasn’t ready to admit that she didn’t have any idea. She walked back and forth through the corridor until she cursed quietly and walked away to the main hall. She pulled her phone from the back pocket and without overthinking this anymore, she called her boyfriend. He picked up after the third ring.

“Babe, can I call you back…”

“No, Frank,” She felt determined and fierce. Her hands shook from the pure view on board members slowly coming back from the kitchen with fresh coffee mugs. They were probably waiting to hear her another take on the TV show which Millie, wholeheartedly, was beginning to hate. “My work on the programme is too basic and I’ve been roasted for the past fifteen minutes or so. Hugh has me in the spotlight in front of everyone. Help me, please?”

“It’s not your fault they’ve given you a job you’re not good at, babe. It’s just an internship, they will roast you anyway.”

Millie’s lungs were ready to stop working and suffocate her. She feared she might start hyperventilating, or at least meet up with a panic attack from the nerves. Franklin’s reaction seemed to be absolutely unfair and inconsiderate of her actual feelings, and he must have felt that through the piercing silence on the line.

“Look, I’m sorry, but you shouldn’t worry so much about it. They will probably just give you another placement where you’ll fit more, I don’t see why it’s such a bad thing.” And just like that, she started doubting herself and her right to overthink her situation. It didn’t sit well with Millie and she could feel anger slowly making its way through her veins.

“Can’t you just fucking help me? This one time?” She lost her temper, she lost her patience. At the same time Riley, one of the end writers, started waving at her from the end of the hall as to show her that her time is coming to an end. “I need a hook, or something that would spark a debate. Brexit-themed, maybe. Can you think of anything?”

Frank groaned loudly. He wasn’t exactly happy that she made him break down his ambitious wall and let her in on topics he was too invested in. Millie could hear him moving around as he left his desk of the equally large office of The Guardian, until the line went surprisingly quiet. Her anger and fear made her clutch her phone tightly to her ear, while her legs started carrying her slowly to the terrifying conference room.

“Think internationally. See what the Spanish had to say about May’s resignation from the Office. Think economics in the EU. Try to stand on the Union’s side and do some fair judgement.”

“Give me facts, not ideas. You’re the one who knows politics.”

“Spanish government says that May’s resignation is bad news. Compare it to the popular opinion that she was the worst Prime Minister since the 18th century and the American war on independence.” Millie breathed in, trying to desperately grasp all the details he just provided her with.

“That’s a… harsh and history-digging argument,” She mumbled in surprise, “where did you get that from?” She grabbed a yellow post-it note from the reception desk and quickly scribbled the key words on it. Her briefing on politics was never something like this and she could feel the embarrassment making its way into her heart. It wasn’t her way of thinking and she felt like a fraud.

“I can’t tell you that.” By the end of the single sentence Millie could feel the blood escaping her face, making her look pale and scared for dear life. She didn’t want to have heard that sentence, she was definitely happier not knowing how did he come up with a story like this. That was one of the many reasons she tried not to talk business with him.

“An opinion entry. A column for The Guardian. Shit, you just busted one of your colleagues.”

“Sometimes I hate it that you’re smart. Did I ever tell you that?”

“You just saved my internship!”

“Please don’t say that. I will pretend that we just talked about the weather.”

“I’ll spend them the details. You’re the best, Frank.”

“Alright, go kick ass.”

And that she did. Franklin did save her internship, mainly because Millie avoided the specifics about who and why said something so harsh about the resigning Prime Minister. However, it definitely did spark interest among the production board. Afraid of not being so lucky next time, she decided to politely suggest a replacement for her permanent internship division within BBC, due to her ‘personal discomfort with discussions over issues of such importance and potential shame to their glorious country.’

Millie felt bad for using her boyfriend’s knowledge for survival at work. She wasn’t genuine and her idea didn’t come from her hard work - it was sourced in fear and anxiety-driven reactions. This situation proved to her that she wasn’t fit for the position, but it also raised her stress levels around the fact that she couldn’t get by on her own in the industry. She didn’t want others to navigate her through it all, but the conversation she had with Frank had also made her uncomfortable. Her need of support in a stressful situation was primarily turned down, so—naturally to her character—she started to worry even more.

With a heavy heart and two bags of Wagamama takeout, she walked up the stairs to his apartment. She was usually working until later hours than Frank, so all she really needed was for him to open the door for her. She leaned on the doorframe as she waited patiently for the two turns of the lock. He opened still in his work attire – tailored jeans and a light grey button up shirt. He was holding his phone next to his ear and humming approvingly to the speaker when he looked her up and down. He winked at her and let her in, as he continued to talk with someone.

Inside, Millie found the TV turned on with a football game playing. His work jacket was still hanging on the back of the tall stool in the kitchen, and the grocery bags laid unpacked on the table. She took off her shoes and made her way to the kitchen, where she made a little room for their food on the countertop. Pulling off her sweater, she peeked into the shopping bags – she wasn’t surprised to find a couple bottles of beer and food essentials, a multipack of tissues and a large box of condoms.

“What’s all this, babe?” Franklin came up to her and briefly kissed her on the lips, before looking into the boxes with deliciously smelling food.

“I just thought it might be nice to eat some goodies,” She smiled, trying to sniff out his mood first. He smiled back at her with approval and reached for the plates in the cupboard, so she continued, “also, it’s a ‘thank you for being my saviour today,’ kinda thing.”

“Ah, yeah. I bet everyone on my floor will hate BBC’s guts for that.” Frank said it so casually, with a shrug to follow up, that Millie struggled to understand the dynamic he had at The Guardian. He seemed to be a great fit for his team, because a week into his new job, he was already invited for Friday drinks and talked about his co-workers just like anyone would about their long-time friends. She couldn’t understand how was he getting so lucky at any step, but the last thing she wanted to do is doubt him. Any time worries and competitiveness clouded her brain, Millie was making extra room for compassion and support.

Frank unloaded some of the curry on his plate and started eating with a fork, and then made his way to the living room where he spread out on the sofa. He didn’t say anything else, somewhat scaring Millie that he will let her know he’s uncomfortable randomly, on a promisingly good day. Trying to figure out her brain, she followed his actions and took some extra food to the coffee table, before sitting down next to him.

“But you’re not gonna get into trouble for that, are you?” she was biting the inside of her cheek hard, definitely not used to not being judged for using someone else’s help.

“Nah, I don’t think so. They don’t know I’ve got a girl at BBC, so I should be just fine.”

Millie ate her curry in silence, suddenly at loss of words driven by his surprising statement. She didn’t want to raise an argument or seem overly sensitive. But for some reason she hoped that he would talk about her at work, especially considering his already formed strong bonds in the office, and a definitely higher success rate in his position. Ever so charming Franklin, he always glowed among people. She couldn’t really fight with this, so she just kept any comments to herself and focused on her food.

Frank switched the channel to the evening news and pulled her to his side once they were done eating. It comforted Millie to know that at the end of the day, they could both enjoy each other’s company, no matter what was happening at work. She didn’t pay much attention to the news, but rather focused on the way he reacted to it and what he enjoyed. She felt too tired to get invested in another load of politics, so she just soaked in his warmth and curled more into his side. He smelled of coffee and heavy, musky cologne that he liked to reapply frequently. Millie closed her eyes and breathed out the stress that weighed her down after a long day, finally finding peace.

“I’ll go grab a beer, you want one?” he abruptly stood up, making her slightly loose her balance and lean back towards the pillows. She closed her eyes and pressed her lips in a thin line.

“I’m good, thanks.”

“You sure? You’re awfully quiet today.” He spoke already from the kitchen, not even catching a glimpse of her pursed lips.

“I just need to wind down. It’s been stressful day.” She pushed a little smile on her cheeks as he came back with a frown. He took a few large sips of his drink and put it on the table, before lowering himself on the couch and leaning over Millie.

“I can help you relax, if you want.” He raised an eyebrow in a flirtatious manner, leaning into her and leaving a series of delicate kisses on her lips. He then moved onto her jaw and sucked on her skin, but never left a mark. Slowly massaging her waist, he slid his hand under her shirt and sprawled his fingers across her hip to pull her closer.

Millie enjoyed the warmth that started to spread through her body, but she couldn’t find any energy to give some of it back. She felt drained and exhausted, so a mere thought about participating in sexual activities was sure to make her at least slightly uncomfortable. Unless Frank was willing to change something about it.

“Okay, hold on,” her chuckle and a light push at his chest made him narrow his eyebrows in confusion, “I don’t think I’ve got enough energy today, Frankie.” Her whisper was followed by a reassuring smile. She weaved her fingers through his short hair and kissed the tip of his nose.

“What if I provide you with some energy first?”

“What, you’ll give me an energy drink?” She laughed at her poor joke and he chuckled, too, but more at her silliness than anything else. He laid her down comfortably and cautiously peppered her with kisses on her neck and the tiny bit of cleavage that was available without unbuttoning her shirt. She was slowly giving in, allowing him to get lower on her body and touch her. Frank either wanted to make her feel better, or was really horny. But whatever the case was, she didn’t want to stop him and ruin his enthusiasm. The glow in his eyes and admiration painted across his face were too intoxicating to back away. His touch was filled with sparks of emotions and a kind of drive that Millie was addicted to. She felt wanted and needed, and that’s what made her return the heated kisses despite her hooded, weary eyes.

They walked hand in hand through the chilly evening, sometime after she persuaded Frank to walk her to the nearest tube station. The wind was slightly tickling her neck, but other than that she felt at peace. She let her hair down, flowing gently with each blow of the air and lightly caressing her face like a safety blanket. They swayed their hands until they had to make room for a group of people passing by.

“Jane texted me about a little get together this Friday,” She mumbled into the night, trying not to disrupt the peaceful atmosphere around them.

“Ah, yeah. Aaron told me about it, too. I guess we’re going, right?”

“Yeah, it might be nice. The girls mentioned this new club near their apartment? I think that’s where they wanted to go.”

“Cool. I could use a little break.”

As they continued their walk, Millie mostly focused on leading the way through tight London streets. Franklin’s parents rented him an apartment in the city centre, close to everything you could dream of in London. It also meant crowded streets at any hour, so to have a nice walk around the neighbourhood usually requested it to be late at night. But it didn’t matter to him, as long as he had a short commute to the office and all other things that life requested from him, within reach. There were times when he would mention coming back to Manchester and supporting his parents at their law firm, but Millie saw how much he preferred his growing career as a journalist. Mathilda and William were a generous couple, so they shared their resources with him and tried to help him get into the business as smoothly as possible. Sometimes she wanted to ask him about his permanent position at The Guardian and whether his name had anything to do with it, but she never felt comfortable enough to do it. Some things were better left unspoken.

Reaching the staircase to the station, Franklin stopped and made her turn to him and look up at his smiling face.

“Thanks for coming over tonight. I had fun.”

“Yeah, me too.” She smiled shyly, nodding her head in reassurance.

“I wish you could finally move to the city, though. It would be so much easier if you were a few blocks away.”

“You do realize that even if I moved out, it wouldn’t be anywhere nearby?” Her chuckle resonated through her body, almost as if she wanted to humour herself at the topic that had started to come up more often in their conversations.

“I could ask around the office if anyone has a room available to rent.”

“But I don’t want to share my personal space with strangers, you know this. Don’t try to change my mind about it.” She smiled tightly.

Frank has been trying to persuade her into moving out for months. He wanted to be closer to her, within a short train journey, rather than a whole commute in and out of Kingston. He felt comfortable in the business of London, and Millie liked to call him out on being spoiled by having an apartment on his own in such a lively part of the city. But she wasn’t financially ready to leave her family home in equally comfortable Southwest London, where she had all she needed within her reach, and her social life was just a tiny bit longer train trip away. It was a source of their small disputes from time to time, because it was Millie who spent more time on going to his place and spending time there. Naturally, it made her feel more engaged in their relationship and Frank tried his best make up for the difference. But one thing that never occurred, was Millie staying over for longer than a night. Even a night’s sleepover was a rare event, somehow always blessed by excuses from either one of them.

“You’re right, I’m sorry,” he pecked her lips and brushed her cheek with his thumb. “I talk about it out of concern, okay?”

“Okay. But I like my train rides and I like Kingston. So let’s just deal with it for now, yeah?”

“’Course,” He sent her a tight smile before giving her one last kiss. “Text me when you get home.”

“Will do.”

Millie was one of those people who could be easily judged as thinkers. Years of taking trains and buses in and out of central London taught her to cherish every moment of peace she gets during her journeys. That’s how she learned to create playlists for each season – summer commutes were always different than autumn ones; they required different sounds and lyrical quality. Intense months during university semesters also showed her how to read fast between the stops and how to juggle standing on the tube and holding an open book without falling, as the train slowed and rushed every few seconds.

As she was approaching her station in Kingston, she stopped the music but kept her earphones in. A bunch of other people was hurrying to get out of the train and get home as soon as possible, but after leaving the station, she would have a lonely 15-minute walk to her neighbourhood, so she always tried to stay alert in the evenings. Getting on the sidewalk in the busiest area of Kingston, she closed her book and put it back in her backpack, pulled the jacket tighter around her middle and continued her steady walk.

The air was getting crispier with each minute outside. It was refreshing and calm, disturbed only by a few laughs from the pub across the street and two cars passing her by. She turned into one of the quieter streets, where the buildings were becoming shorter and more separated from each other. Brick fences and trimmed hedges adorned the concrete sidewalks on both sides of the street, illuminated only by a few lanterns. Most of the light was coming from the windows in a row of semi-detached houses that Millie has known for a good chunk of her life.

Right when she wanted to cross the street and take a right, she heard a subtle clicking of a dog collar and a leash. Soft padding from the back was slowly approaching her and becoming louder, as well as someone’s whistle.

“Tess, come here!” a hushed call didn’t disrupt the peace of the night, but rather added the familiarity that Millie adored. She slowed her walk and turned around, just in time to be met with lightly jogging blue Staffordshire Bull Terrier. She panted lightly with her tongue out and reached Millie’s legs, where she tucked her head and mewled timidly.

“Oh, and who do we have here?” Millie chuckled at the dog’s persistence in keeping close. She scratched her head and patted her on the back, “are you on your evening walk, Tessa? Is that right?”

“We didn’t mean to scare you, Millie,” Dominic reached them and sent Millie a kind and apologetic smile, “good evening.”

“Hi, it’s good to see you.” She beamed at the middle-aged man, whom she learned to adore like a family member.

“Likewise, yeah. Heading home?”

“I am, just got off the train.”

“We will keep you company, then. Is that alright?” He fixed his glasses and leaned down to attach the leash to Tessa’s collar. Millie’s insides warmed and her mind calmed down at the idea that she will get to spend a few minutes with a friend.

“Absolutely, thank you.”

“Ah, don’t mention it. I bet Tom would have my head, hadn’t I offered,” they chuckled at the mention of his son. Their laughter died off comfortably and escaped into the night air, while Millie reminisced about the caring nature of the Hollands. “How is it going at BBC?” he asked after a moment, letting her go first through a narrow passage.

“It’s… going,” she smiled shyly, not sure how to dress up her words. In Dominic’s company she always felt one step behind in her creative skills; his writing and comic abilities exceeded her capabilities, or so she thought. “but I feel like I’ve definitely hit an end with politics. I know it’s only been a month, but it’s just… it keeps on proving that I should be writing about something else.”

“Oh, it’s totally understandable. Rest assured, you’re not the only one stuck like this,” They turned the corner onto her street. “but I wish you luck there. They have some sensible editors, so I assume you’ll get a chance at something else as well.”

“I hope so. Today I asked them about switching departments and the intern manager told me she will think about it, so there is a tiny light.”

“Something will always work out. You’re smart, you’ll find your way there.”

Dom and Millie continued down the sidewalk, until Tessa stopped near the gate to Millie’s house. She sniffed the pavement and turned back to the girl who crouched down to pet the Staffy one last time.

“Thanks for walking with me,” her smile was genuine, coming straight from her heart. “please say hi to Nikki and the boys. Is Sam still home?”

“He is, he starts his practice at the end of June. So, we all will be here to celebrate your birthdays.”

“Oh, that’s great! It’s been a while since we’ve all been together.”

“That’s true. But you’re welcome to stop by anytime.”

“I know, thank you.” With fondness painted across her face, she scratched Tessa’s ear and stood up straight, reaching for the keys in her pocket.

“Have a good night.”

“You too. Bye, Tess!”

Whenever she got the chance to interact with someone from their family, Millie instantly felt their love and care penetrate her straight to the core. It was this kind of relationship that had been built through the years, only making it stronger and bringing it closer to the concept of family.

Nikki, Dom’s wife and Anna, Millie’s mother met shortly before Millie and Tom were born. At first only neighbours, soon they became best friends to the point of engaging their families in a kind affair. Greetings at the doorstep turned into late night family dinners and weekends away with the kids. They were used to spending most of the birthdays and holidays together, especially when Millie and Tom’s birthdays two days apart brought them all closer. She raced her best friend in Anna’s womb and came out to this world right before the brown-haired boy. Ever since the Beavers celebrated the birth of their third and youngest daughter, the Hollands began their journey with four boys. They always stayed close and treated each other like family, deeming it necessary to nourish their friendship and turn it into something everlasting. The example of their parents taught Millie and Tom to mimic the closeness and made them create their own little world.

Millie’s older sisters also treated Tom, Harry, Sam and Paddy like brothers, but not as much as Millie did. Samantha and Liz were already grown toddlers when the families got together, so they figured more as the female patrons of their youngest sister and her adventures with the boys. But Millie and Tom’s friendship turned into something so effortless and harmless that no supervision was necessary. They were each other’s partners in crime, best friends from next door. Their mothers had signed them up for the same dance classes, helped them get to the same summer carnivals, and let them have late nights in makeshift dens. Millie was one of the first people their dog, Tessa, got familiar with. She missed him dearly when he started his journey as a young actor, but Nikki made sure he always made the time to call his best friend when the time zones were somewhat cooperating. They nurtured their friendship through Millie’s education and Tom’s career, not stopping even for a moment. He was there for her always, carrying her home when she scratched her knee after falling off the slings. She would help him with homework whenever he felt too embarrassed to ask his parents. Tom escorted her home from her disaster of a prom; he was the first one to understand her anxiety and help her through it. And Millie always read the books and scripts Tom needed to prepare for auditions. Just like that, they always found home in one another.

Their house smelled of baking and freshly watered plants. As quietly as possible, Millie took off her shoes and tip-toed into the kitchen, turning on only the least invasive, small lights. She put down her backpack and lightly stretched, letting out a tired, yet content breath. Her eyes scanned the kitchen in search for the source of the sweet scent, and there it was, on a cooling rack in the corner, covered with a tea towel – fresh lemon sponge cake, the favourite of Millie’s mother. Lightly dusted with powdered sugar, it added an extra layer of sweet comfort to the late night’s atmosphere. She left the cake untouched, but put the kettle on to quickly make herself a cup of tea for a good night’s sleep. She let out an overwhelming yawn and rested her hips on the side of the countertop, patiently waiting for the water to boil.

She felt her phone vibrate in the back pocket of her jeans. The brightness of the screen was almost blinding, until it adjusted to the low lighting in the room. She could feel the anticipation growing in the back of her head as she noticed a new message.

(Tom) I got you something today

After a second or two, a picture loaded under the message. Millie gasped and smiled like mad, when he showed her a pair of Minnie Mouse sequin ears. It was an artefact that Millie has always dreamt of, not having an opportunity to go to Disneyland ever in her childhood. She awaited the chance with high hopes and wandering mind, but she knew the trip had to be thorough, well-planned, and wholesomely happy.

(Me) You were in Disneyland????

(Tom) yeah we did promo for spidey today

(Me) I’m so jealous rn

(Me) THANK YOU FOR THE EARS!!!!!

(Tom) it’s alright

(Tom) I didn’t get any weird looks at all

(Tom) Just casually carried around this shiny sparkling beauty

(Me) I bet you loved this feeling

(Me) I bet you bought yourself a pair too

(Tom) Don’t tell anyone

(Me) You could always pretend they’re for Tessa

(Me) I just saw her and your Dad btw

Whenever her and Tom texted, it always sparked a never-ending conversation about sweet nothings. They mocked each other, talked about their days, spoke about all things home. It allowed them a safe space from their daily hustles; Millie was able to breathe lightly and happily, and Tom had a chance to detach from the world he desperately tried not to drown in.

Almost spilling the tea, she slowly made it upstairs without losing the sight of her phone screen. She struggled to turn off the lights in the corridor without making a noise but somehow, she managed not to disturb her parents too much, as she reached her bedroom. Safe within her own little space, she put down the mug and let go of her backpack and jacket. She threw herself on the softest bedspread and waited patiently for Tom’s reply.

The text bubble stopped and a massage didn’t appear, but her phone started ringing. Millie answered the FaceTime call and waited for the camera on his phone to adjust and show his familiar face.

“I had a meeting with Disney and they want me to participate in one of their projects for a Marvel-themed ride at Disneyland,” from a crooked angle she could see his neatly gelled hair and uneven eyebrows. Tom was walking somewhere, but then sat down and perched his phone on the mug that stood on the coffee table, so that she could see him better.

“That’s exciting, right?”

“Oh, yeah!” She could see him rummage in a brown paper bag and pull out a box with some takeaway food. “But I’m telling you this because we could turn it into our Disneyland trip that you’ve wanted, right?”

“That would be nice, yeah.” She smiled back at the screen, but a terrible yawn sneaked in to her expression. Tom scrunched his forehead and took a large sip from a bottle of water.

“I didn’t wake you up now, did I?”

“No, I just came back home. I am tired, though.”

“Yeah? How was work?”

“Stressful and not nice. It wasn’t a good day.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Wanna talk about it?”

Tom spent the next minutes carefully listening to her words and trying not to spill his soup on his fresh clothes. He hummed to some of the stories and asked little intrusive questions, to get the whole picture. She kept rubbing at her eyes and stifling her yawns every now and then, at last making a mess of her mascara and getting it all over her skin. Despite the seriousness in her voice, Tom smiled fondly to himself at the view of her ruined face that probably mimicked her current mental state. It wasn’t something he should laugh about, but it was rather endearing to have her so comfortably sharing her lows with him, while he casually ate his lukewarm, very late lunch.

“Why are you laughing at me?” She returned his smile, knowing it was probably something she did.

“You made yourself look like panda.” He chewed on a chunk of chicken from his second plate. The wrinkles by his eyes deepened with each of her chuckles and proved to them that this is the lightness they need in their daily routines. “Well, it’s good you asked for a new placement. You should be comfortable in your work environment. I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks,” she yawned again and stopped herself mid-rubbing her eye again, earning a wholesome, groggy laugh from her friend, “your dad thinks they will give me another chance.”

“I mean, he knows some people there, so he probably has a point.”

“Yeah, I just don’t want to get my hopes up too high, you know?” A comfortable silence rested between them after he nodded and continued munching on his food. Millie stood up from her bed and took the phone with her, but also started to slowly get ready for the night.

“You will know when the moment feels right and shows you something worth a shot. Trust yourself, Mills.”

“I guess…” she trailed off, making her way to the closet to find fresh pyjamas. “I’m glad my panda face entertained your… what is it, lunch break?”

“Sort of, yeah,” he chuckled, enjoying the playfulness of her tired self, “I should be coming back in two weeks. We could hang out then, if you’ll have the time.”

“Oh, for sure.”

“Alright, I’ll let you rest. Text me anytime, yeah?”

“I will. Thanks for the Minnie ears!”

“You got it, Minnie Mouse. Sweet dreams.”

* * *

After her little mishap with Politics Live, Millie tried her best to keep up the hard work, but stay low. She tried not to focus too much attention and just assist other workers in their tasks, only coming up with ideas when necessary. She strived to come back to her public voice, but she knew she needed it to have a comfortable outlet, preferably in another setting and on different topics. She was greeting the intern manager with additional caution and kindness, trying her best not to leave her case forgotten.

Segregating files for the research team seemed to be the best solution to her temporary creative break. Her attention to detail and wholesome care about the task being done to its full potential came in handy. She volunteered to help the group of meticulously scribbling and researching men in keeping their documents in order.

The soft mumble of the radio in the background was interrupted by a guy named Tim. He always wore rock band t-shirts under his jackets and Millie swore she had seen him participate in a wild dance routine during the last year’s Glastonbury Festival. He stopped typing on his keyboard and started to quietly hum a song that was definitely different to what Scott Mills was announcing on Radio 1.

“Oh my God, do you guys know this song? I can’t get it out of my head!” he groaned in frustration, making a few people in the open space office chuckle.

“Do you know any words, maestro?” Millie’s head snapped up at the sound of Kim, the intern manager’s voice. She was passing by with a bunch of files and a coffee, before she perched herself on his desk, obviously making fun of her friend.

“It’s got this very cool, mariachi-like trumpet between the lines,” he mimicked a trumpet player and hummed some more, “and the guy sings something about stopping a feeling…”

“Justin Timberlake?”

“You know he’s not my jam, Kim! It’s an old-school song.”

“You’re the old-school one here.” Kim’s comment earned a couple more laughs at poor Tim, who was genuinely struggling. “you’re the researcher, have you googled it?”

“Of course I googled it, stop mocking me! People are watching.”

Their little light-hearted exchange brought a breezy atmosphere to the office and made Millie smile some more. She kept on looking up at Tim to check if he’s found the song he was looking for, but without luck. Her fingertips started to tingle with each swipe through the pages in a file, because she felt like she knew the song. Deciding to come against her decision to lay low, she gently cleared her throat and swallowed her nerves of speaking up in a new environment.

“Hey Tim, have you tried to find it on Spotify?” they both looked at Millie with playful smiles, as anyone would to the up and coming intern fresh out of university.

“I don’t think it’s the title of the song, so I won’t find it there.”

“But you actually could,” she offered, biting her lip nervously “since the recent update, you can now type in the lyrics into the search bar and the results will show you all licensed songs with the same or similar lyrics.” Tim instantly reached for his phone and started typing away.

“Oh really? I didn’t know that, let’s see…” Kim looked into his phone and watched his progress.

“And since you’ve remembered a catchy verse, it’s very possible that others also tried to find this song through the same words. So, it will probably come up within the first few results.”

“Alright, smarty.” He shook his head in amusement. Millie watched as Kim’s face got ridden of any emotion and just stared at Tim’s work.

“But if nothing comes up, you can always try ‘Hooked on a Feeling’ by Blue Swede.”

Millie waited with racing heart at their reactions. Tim clicked on one of the results and raised the volume, filling the room with a sound so familiar to Millie’s memory. She smiled shyly and internally patted herself on the back, before coming back to her task.

“How did you know this song?” His triumphant smile was radiating, as he did a little dance in his seat and twirled on his rolling chair. “It’s such an old tune, I didn’t think your generation would know it!”

“Yeah Millie, how did you know?” Kim encouraged his question and watched her carefully, almost as if she was studying her intern.

“It’s in the soundtrack to Guardians of the Galaxy. I wrote a paper on it.”

“Hm.” Kim’s unreadable expression was giving Millie chills, but in a positive way. She liked to be asked about things that interested her and prompted her to be creative, so the way this situation evolved was close to burst her heart into passionate flames. “I’ll ask the Radio managers if they want a music and pop culture geek, how’s that sound?”

It sounded like Millie put the trust in herself at the right time.

****

tagged: @peeterparkr @katieraven @kozybear@sunsetholland @hey-marlie @lauras-collection@cunaeparker @constellationsv @heyhihellowhatsup0 @spideyspeaches

If it bothers you that you’re tagged, please let me know!

#tom holland #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland fluff #tom holland x oc #mornings in Sheffield park #misp #tom holland fanfic #tom holland blurb

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positivlyfocused · 3 years

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It’s Like Being A Jedi In Real Life!

Being Positively Focused is a lot like being a Jedi in real life. I create my ideal versions of other people who then give me what I want when they realize what I want is what they want.

Nutshelling it: When I work through my Broader Perspective, my Inner Being talks to their Inner Being so that what I want occurs to them as what they want too.

A true story showing how this works.

I live in a house I share with three others. When I first moved in, the other three people were quiet and kept to themselves. The landlord showed me my space, “the basement suite” they called it.

Of course, it was perfect. It represented a fulfilled desire coming in perfect timing, as I wanted a new, quiet living space after my ex and I split.

Over several months these original three housemates moved out. Three new people replaced them. People I didn’t enjoy as housemates.

The first was a party boy. He enjoyed drinking, playing loud music and having people over for loud conversations.

The next person was an “adult child”. He had family of origin issues that showed up as screaming at the top of his lungs for no reason, using other people’s property without asking, getting offended at the slightest provocation and not cleaning up after himself. Oh, he also peed in the backyard!

The third person was even worse. He was an Adult Child of Alcoholics, muttered to himself and didn’t respect the landlord’s established norms for living there.

His replacement oddly enough, expected others to clean up behind him. He left things all over the house, let his food get moldy in the fridge, and would leave dishes and utensils on the front porch instead of taking them to the kitchen and washing them.

What’s interesting was each of these people reflected a dimension of my ex. While living with her I developed strong co-creative momentum with her. So strong a momentum, housemates who moved in after I did reflected that momentum. In other words, my Moment of Becoming and momentum brought housemates after me matching experiences I had with my ex.

My ex is from a family of alcoholics. Slight provocations triggered her too. She enjoyed playing her music loud while ignoring other people’s interests. Occasionally she cleaned up behind herself, but often would leave things right where she had them last. I tried a lot of things to change her (not a good idea at all I realize now). All my attempts made things worse.

I’m happier no longer there.

Obviously though my Belief Constellation still included thoughts about her. I know this because each house mate brought experiences and behaviors matching my ex, or rather matching beliefs I still had active about my ex. Were my experiences with my ex less active in my Belief Constellation, different people would show up. These new housemates were not random coincidence.

I know everything in my reality reflects back to me Belief Constellation content. That’s helpful knowing because I can do something with that knowledge. Not knowing what I know, life seems random and separate. It never is though. My thoughts and my reality always match.

So every housemate served me: Each showed me I still had beliefs worth changing. In changing them, I could get a better reality.

Before that though…

At first, I let myself get annoyed about my new housemates’ behaviors. I know emotional reactions are never about what’s happening in my physical reality, they’re always only about my connection with my Inner Being and that is all.

Saying “each new housemate was annoying” or “my new housemates made me annoyed” are complete, inaccurate distortions.

I also know what to do when I feel annoyance. I didn’t do that at first though.

At first I tried coaxing different behaviors out of them. I tried asking the slob to clean up after himself, which, of course, he refused. I asked the ACA dude to stick to the house norms. He told me to fuck off. I asked the party guy to be more quiet. He complained about me to the other housemates, which exacerbated my relationships with them. I asked the backyard pee-er to stop doing a lot of stuff. He got better, but still did things I didn’t like. The other housemates didn’t like it either.

Since direct action didn’t work, and my frustration was getting unbearable, I did the only thing under my control. I changed what I paid attention to, I let go, I surrendered.

It was a radical choice, an interesting sociological experiment. The only recent experience I had creating new people from existing people was with my ex. But that was indeliberate creation. Now, life presented me a huge learning opportunity: Learn to create people you want in life experience deliberately, it said.

So that’s what I did.

Surrender isn’t giving up. It’s realizing where power exists. Real effortless power comes through allowing Universe to bring me what I want instead of trying to make it happen myself.

People always reflect back to me what I believe. I’m creating them for my benefit. I know whatever thoughts I’m thinking that I’m ignoring for some reason will come clear through how people both show up and how they treat me. My expansion never ends, so learning opportunities never end either.

^^Life is best when I follow the inner knowing of my Broader Perspective. When doing that I realize people always reflect back to me my beliefs. (See the full illustrated post here).

So people in my life experience all are helpers, giving me feedback, as does everything else in my physical reality. This feedback tells me “Universe will bring me what I want when I let it.”

I let it through being Positively Focused.

I am feedback for others as well. With many years Positively Focused practice, I feel the pull of other people’s focus. Feeling that pull, sometimes it’s hard maintaining my own focus. I end up being someone less than I want to be. But I know when that happens, I’m matching that other person’s reality, and doing so, give them what they’re wanting to know, even if they don’t know that.

These days it’s easier being authentic, loving me while feeling others’ pulls. My Positively Focused practice has perpetual momentum now. Most of the time these days, I set the tone of an interaction. People shape to my pull instead of me shaping to theirs.

Not so when I was with my ex. Back then, when out in the world, I found it easy staying positive and excited about life. But then I’d come home and almost instantly feel my mood shift when I re-entered the persistent negative atmosphere she and I co-created.

I benefitted a ton from that marriage. She did too. For me, marriage helped me prioritize my Inner Being relationship. As a result, I’m living even more of a Charmed Life than I lived before.

I love how all relationships have that potential: they can amplify one’s focus on the one place unconditional love comes from: the relationship between one’s self and one’s Inner Being.

Things got interesting

So instead of trying to cajole my housemates into compliance, instead of trying to get them to stop doing what I didn’t like. I did what I show my clients: I focused instead on what I wanted. Then I let my Personal Trinity coordinate a new reality. One which included versions of my housemates that matched what I wanted.

What I wanted was a calm, quiet, peaceful place where people subordinated their behavior to the goals of a mutually beneficial, peaceful living space.

I knew, and know even more today, that through my Inner Beingrelationship, I can be, do and have anything I want. I knew I already created probable versions of my housemates, versions matching what I want. I knew my Inner Being held for me a living situation filled with such housemates.

My job: tune myself to that probable reality alive in my Belief Constellation, so it would emerge through my Moment of Becoming in to my physical reality.

Here’s what I did.

First I clarified in my mind what I wanted. I knew it was there in my belief constellation. I just had more momentum behind what I didn’t want (experiences similar to living with my ex) as a result of still thinking about my ex.

I thought thoughts about what it would look like living in my ideal living situation.

I thought about how my ideal housemates moved through the house and…

I thought about and focused on how peaceful, harmonious and quiet it was in my minds-eye version of my living situation.

By envisioning these, I knew I cued up that probable reality matching my ideal, my Charmed Life. But I needed something more. Something critical.

Early in Positively Focused practice, the practitioner strengthens their perceptive skills through feeling emotion. People feel emotions easier than vibration. Emotions let me know what vibration I’m tuned to. Vibration is early-stage manifestation. I needed to tune my vibration via my thoughts to my desired reality.

So while thinking about my ideal living situation, I focused more and more on how that situation felt. Then I amped up those feelings by focusing on them and riffing on emotions in the same vicinity:

It feels nice living in this ideal situation

It feels peaceful living here

It feels like harmony

It feels like peace

It feels satisfying

It feels like home

It feels joyful

It feels right

It feels good…

Next, I completely ignored what my current housemates did. When Slob left his dishes in the living room, or on the porch outside, I ignored it. When Family-of-origin peed in the backyard, or screamed “FUCK!” in the middle of the day, I ignored that too.

Then I took it up a notch. I ignored my housemates. Whenever they were in the common areas – the living room, the kitchen – I stayed in my room. If I was in the kitchen and one came in, I made sure I had my headphones in and listened to a podcast or music.

Then I amped it up further. This is a bit hard to explain. I lived in the house as though my ideal housemates already lived with me. I felt how good that felt. I reveled in their presence. I focused on how great the place would feel with them with me.

^^How I create other people in five easy steps.

Then awesome happened

The fist thing that happened was ACA moved out. Unbeknowst to me, he contacted the landlord saying he needed to move out ASAP. He said his counselor said living alone would be a better living situation for him.

Next, Slob and Family of Origin started getting on each others’ nerves. Family of Origin started enjoying the house being clean and tidy. He also improved around cleaning up after himself.

Problem (for him) was, Slob’s living habits started getting on hisnerves. So Family of Origin pointed out more often things Slob was doing. Exasperated, Slob started looking for someplace else to live. In a month, he was gone!

Perhaps you’ve seen my pictures on my website, so you know I’m brown-skinned. All my housemates up to this point were of the dominant culture. So you can imagine my surprise when my landlord introduced me to ACA’s replacement, another person of color. Let’s call him Andre.

Not surprisingly, Andre told me and the landlord he was looking for a cleaner, quieter and more peaceful living situation, which was NOT where he lived before. He said he liked keeping to himself and was super-respectful. Having toured the house, he already recommended ideas on improving the living situation.

After he moved in, the whole character of the living situation changed. Andre shared a bathroom with Family of Origin and right away Andre put his foot down about how Family of Origin left hair all over the bathroom and hardly cleaned up after himself (I have my own bathroom).

Next the landlord introduced me, Family of Origin and Andre to Slob’s replacement, another person of color and a college student I’ll call Lorenzo. Like Andre, he expressed living in a respectful, quiet place because he’s studying full time from home. Lorenzo and Andre’s energy both transformed the house’s culture. Family of Origin mentioned feeling uncomfortable living with three people of color, this being the first time that ever happened.

Not long after Lorenzo moved in, I heard him and Family of Origin having a slightly tense conversation about race. I went upstairs to see what was up. They were discussing whether a person of color could be racist. It was an interesting conversation I joined with eagerness. It went well, but I could tell Family of Origin was struggling with his “white fragility”.

Within two months, Family of Origin moved out too. His replacement: a kind, peaceful, hard working woman I’ll call Cindy. Cindy and I hit it off right away. Today, we share meals, watch movies together and talk eagerly about our passions. She’s a great fit. So is Lorenzo and Andre too!

Lorenzo and Andre moved out, but two new housemates I’ll call Jeff and Tomiko moved in behind them. They both are wonderful, peaceful, respectful and quiet people. And one of them is transgender which hits close to home.

Epilogue:

What happened here?

Several things unfolded in perfect universal coordination. One, I realized how my current, unwanted reality clarified beliefs in my Belief Constellation I wanted cleaned up.

Next, I surrendered to the unwanted by accepting rather than pushing against those things.

Then I ignored all those things, including the people creating them. Instead of giving what I wanted changed attention, I put attention on future realities containing what I wanted.

Doing all this, I tuned myself so that my now gradually matched my desires. On the way to that, my Inner Being coordinated with Inner Being’s of my old housemates. Through that coordination their Inner Being’s gave them impulses they felt were right for them. They came to their conclusions that served them. Conclusions that served me too.

My Inner Being simultaneously coordinated with people who matched what I wanted, people whose desires matched what I wanted too, and inspired them to me. The result: new people in my living situation matched with my desire and thus, an ideal living space.

Creating people consistent with one’s desires is fairly advanced, but possible for everyone. Cultivating Positively Focused momentum makes available nonphysical connections we share with others. Those connections exist for our use. When Positively Focused, that use ultimately matches me with people consistent with and in agreement with what I want.

It feels like mind control, but it’s not. I feel like a Jedi, but that’s at best, a fable. What’s really happening is I’m drawing to me people wanting what I want, for their own personal reasons that match my own. I call that co-creation between people. It’s so fun!

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fidespeaks · 3 years

Text

About Fides: An Introduction

Hello, my name is Fides! It’s very nice to meet you and, however you’ve fond your way onto this blog, I’m happy that you have. In this post, I hope to cover a few important things before getting started with the meat and potatoes of this blog: namely I’d like to introduce myself and, in the name of transparency, give you as many details about myself and my background as possible while still maintaining relative anonymity. Some things have been left intentionally vague (i mean. kinda LOL), this is to protect myself. I hope you’ll understand.

SO! Let’s start with the basics...

My name is Fides. I am in my late twenties and the only information I’ll give regarding my location is that I am currently in the PST timezone and I live on the American west coast. I currently work as a retail associate, but I have experience in food service & professional animal care as well. I am currently pursuing an undergraduate degree in forensic psychology with a minor in philosophy. I have an avid interest in clinical psychology, criminology / behavioral analysis, social psychology, sociology, anthropology, political sciences, race relations, gender studies, and a lot of other stuff that I spend the majority of my time studying (reading books on the subjects, listening to podcasts, ect). I have been roleplaying on this hellsite since 2010 and I have seen my share of bullshit, believe me.

As far as gender goes, I an AFAB genderfluid enby. I prefer they/them pronouns, but I won’t be miffed over she/her or he/him or anything else that you would like to (respectfully) refer to me as. I don’t mind gendered slang (queen, king, dude, girl, babe, boss bitch, etc) but I ask that you not refer to me as any derogatory sexual terminology typically associated with women (slut, hoe, thot, skank, etc). I have been out as nonbinary for a little more than a year but have been actively surrounded by enby friends for over a decade.

Sexuality / orientation wise I am demisexual, biromantic, and polyamorous. I have been identifying as bi since my early teens and am out to everyone in my life. I often refer to myself as a lesbian because I am in a lesbian relationship (so if you have issues with enby lesbians, you’re just gonna have to leave or get over it). I am married & my wife is a trans woman who has been out for a little less than a year and has a masters degree in post civil war reconstruction & the race relations of the time. We have a child who is around three and told me this morning that their gender is “zombie”. So... do with that as you will.

I am not neurotypical. I was professionally diagnosed with ADHD sometime in kindergarten and I have spent long periods of my life both medicated and unmedicated (I am currently medicated). I also have been diagnosed with C-PTSD and am currently undergoing EMDR treatment with a licensed therapist. I am a CSA survivor & I display a good number of the symptoms of BPD although I haven’t been officially diagnosed with it.

As stated above, I am American. My mother’s side of the family is white as fuck my father’s side of the family is latinx & native american. I am extremely white passing and was raised by my conservative christian mother & step-father, so while I do consider myself of color, I also am hyper aware of the fact that to the outside world I always have been and always will be white as fuck. I try to use this to the best of my abilities to fight against racism and implicit bias when I see it and am, as I said, fully aware of my privilege. I will always concede to BIPOC when it comes to matters of race, but I also do not pretend that that voice and group are a monolith and I always do my best to make sure I have collected a multitude of opinions regarding a subject before formulating my own. Plus, I think that white saviorism is one of the worst behaviors any sort of leftist or progressive white or white passing person can engage in and part of this blog (as you will see) will def touch upon that.

Uh... what else? I consider myself pretty far left. I grew up christian (lutheran) and am now some weird flavor of agnostic existentialist. I believe that capitalism is cultivating a hellish apocalyptic landscape and needs to be stopped at all costs (I’m a socialist ig lol). I think that everyone suffers from implicit biases that cause them to act poorly and while they need to be educated the way that we do it currently in the rpc and the community at large are disgusting, counter productive, largely a waste of time, and extremely unhealthy. I dislike both antishippers and proshippers equally and.... uh.

That pretty much lays out most of my background and both my privileges and lack thereof. Next time (ON DRAGON BALL Z) I will think I’m gonna talk about and discuss privilege and ladders of it and how it stacks and the like because I think that’s pretty important to why I made this post beyond just introducing myself. Or... first I’m going to make a post about what I kind of want to do with this blog and why I’ve made it and THEN I’ll start talking about the interesting stuff to lay the groundwork for what I really want to do and talk about here so...

Thank you to everyone who basically read this really boring summary of myself and my life! I look forward to talking more with y’all. <3

#001. ⟹ FIDES SPEAKS.

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star-anise · 5 years

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why would your social environment affect if you identify as a woman or nb?

I don’t know if you meant it to be, but this is a delightful question. I am going to be a complete nerd for 2k+ words at you.

“Gender” is distinct from “sex” because it’s not a body’s physical characteristics, it’s how society classifies and interprets that body. Sex is “That person has a vagina.” Gender is “This is a blend of society’s expectations about what bodies with vaginas are like, social expectations of how people with vaginas do or might or should act, behave, and feel, the actual lived experiences of people with vaginas, and a twist of lemon for zest.” Concepts of gender and what is “manly” and “womanly” can vary a lot. They’re social values, like “normal” or “legal” or “beautiful”, and they vary all the time. How well you fit your gender role depends a lot on how “gender” is defined.

800 years ago in Europe the general perception was that women were sinful, sensual, lustful people who required frequent sex and liked watching bloodsport. 200 years ago, the British aristocracy thought women were pure, innocent beings of moral purity with no sexual desire who fainted at the sight of blood. These days, we think differently in entirely new directions.

But this gets even more complicated, in part because human experience is really diverse and society’s narratives have to account for that. So 200 years ago, those beliefs about femininity being delicate and dainty and frail only really applied to women with aristocratic lineages, and “the lower classes” of women were believed to be vulgar, coarse, sexual, and earthy, which “explained” why they performed hard physical labor or worked as prostitutes.

Being trans or nonbinary isn’t just or even primarily about what characteristics you want your body to have. It’s about how you want to define yourself and be interpreted and interacted with by other people.

The writer Sylvia Plath lived 1932-1963, and she said:

“Being born a woman is my awful tragedy. From the moment I was conceived I was doomed to sprout breasts and ovaries rather than penis and scrotum; to have my whole circle of action, thought and feeling rigidly circumscribed by my inescapable feminity. Yes, my consuming desire to mingle with road crews, sailors and soldiers, bar room regulars–to be a part of a scene, anonymous, listening, recording–all is spoiled by the fact that I am a girl, a female always in danger of assault and battery.”

She was from upper-middle-class Massachusetts, the child of a university professor. A lot of those things she was “prohibited” from doing weren’t things each and every woman was prohibited from doing; they were things women of her class weren’t allowed to do. The daughters and sisters and wives of sailors and soldiers, women who worked in hotels and ran rooming houses, barmaids and sex workers, got to anonymously and invisibly observe those men, after all. They just couldn’t do it at the same time they tried to meet the standards educated Bostonians of the 1950s had for nice young women.

Failure to understand how diverse womanhood is has always been one of feminism’s biggest weaknesses. The Second Wave of feminism was started mostly by prosperous university-educated white women, since they were the people with the time and money and resources to write and read books and attend conferences about “women’s issues”. And they assumed that their issues were female issues. That they were the default of femaleness, and could assume every woman had roughly the same experience as them.

So, for example, middle-class white women in post-WWII USA were expected to stay home all the time and look after their children. Feminists concluded that this was isolating and oppressive, and they’d like the freedom to pursue lives, careers, and interests outside of the home. They vigorously pursued the right to be freed from their domestic and maternal duties.

But in their society, these experiences were not generally shared by Black and/or poor women, who, like their mothers, did not have the luxury of spending copious amounts of leisure time with their children; they had to work to earn enough money to survive on, which meant working on farms, in factories, or as cooks, maids, or nannies for rich white women who wanted the freedom to pursue lives outside the home. They tended to feel that they would like to have the option of staying home and playing with their babies all day.

This is not to say none of the first group enjoyed domestic lives, or that none of the second group wanted non-domestic careers; it’s just that the first group formed the face and the basic assumptions of feminism, and the second group struggled to get a seat at the table.

There’s this phenomenon called “cultural feminism” that’s an attitude that crops up among feminists from time to time (or grows on them, like fungus) that holds that women have a “feminine essence”, a quasi-spiritual “nature” that is deeply distinct from the “masculine essence” of men. This is one of the concepts powering lesbian separatism: the idea that because women are so fundamentally different from men, a society of all women will be fundamentally different in nature from a society that includes men.

But, well, the problem cultural feminism generally has is with how it achieves its definition of “female nature”. The view tends to be that women are kinder, more moral, more collectivist, more community-minded, and less prone to violence.

And cultural feminists tend to HATE people who believe in the social construction of gender, because we tend to cross our arms and go, “Nah, sis, that’s a frappe of misused statistics and The Angel In the House with some wishful thinking as a garnish. That’s how you feel about what womanhood is. It’s fair enough for you, but you’re trying to apply it to the entire human species. That’s got less intellectual rigor and sociological validity than my morning oatmeal.” Hence the radfem insistence that gender theorists like me SHUT UP and gender quite flatly DOESN’T EXIST. It’s a MADE-UP TERM, and people should STOP TALKING ABOUT IT. (And go back to taking about immutable, naturally-occuring phenomena, one supposes, like the banking system and Western literary canon.)

Because seriously, when you look at real actual women, you will see that some of us can be very selfish, while others are altruistic; some think being a woman means abhorring all violence forever, and others think being a woman means being willing to fight and die to protect the people you love. As groups men and women have different average levels of certain qualities, but it’s not like we don’t share a lot in common. The distribution of “male” and “female” traits doesn’t tend to mean two completely separate sets of characteristics; they tend to be more like two overlapping bell curves.

So, like I said, I grew up largely in rural, working-class Western Canadian society. My relatives tend to be tradesmen like carpenters, welders, or plumbers, or else ranchers and farmers. I was raised by a mother who came of age during the big push for Women’s Lib. So in the culture in which I was raised, it was very normal and in some ways rewarded (though in other ways punished) for women to have short hair, wear flannel and jeans, drive a big truck, play rough contact sports, use power tools, pitch in with farmwork, use guns, and drink beer. “Traditional femininity” was a fascinating foreign culture my grandmother aspired to, and I loved nonsense like polishing the silver (it’s a very satisfying pastime) but that was just another one of my weird hobbies, like sewing fairy clothes out of flower petals and collecting toy horses.

Within the standards of the society I was raised in, I am a decently feminine woman. I’m obviously not a “girly girl”, someone who wears makeup and dresses in ways that privilege beauty over practicality, but I have a long ponytail of hair and when I go to Mark’s Work Wearhouse, I shop in the women’s section. We know what “butch” is and I ain’t it.

But through my friendships and my career, I’ve gotten experiences among cultures you wouldn’t think would be too different–we’re all still white North Americans!–but which felt bizarre and alien, and ate away at the sense of self I’d grown up in. In the USA’s northeast, the people I met had the kind of access to communities with social clout, intellectual resources, and political power I hadn’t quite believed existed before I saw them. There really were people who knew politicians and potential employers socially before they ever had to apply to a job or ask for political assistance; there were people who really did propose projects to influential businessmen or academics at cocktail parties; they really did things like fundraise tens of thousands of dollars for a charity by asking fifty of their friends to donate, or start a business with a $2mil personal loan from a relative.

And in those societies, femininity was so different and so foreign. I’d grown up seeing femininity as a way of assigning tasks to get the work done; in these new circles, it was performative in a way that was entirely unique and astounding to me. A boss really would offer you a starting salary $10k higher than they might have if you wore high heels instead of flats. You really would be more likely to get a job if you wore makeup. And your ability to curate social connections in the halls of power really was influenced by how nice of a Christmas party you could throw. These women I met were being held, daily, to a standard of femininity higher than that performed by anyone in my 100 most immediate relatives.

So when girls from Seven Sisters schools talked about how for them, dressing how I dressed every day (jeans, boots, tee, button-up shirt, no makeup, no hair product) was “bucking gendered expectations” and “being unfeminine”, I began to feel totally unmoored. When I realized that I, who absolutely know only 5% as much about power tools and construction as my relatives in the trades, was more suited to take a hammer and wade in there than not just the “empowered” women but the self-professed “handy” men there, I didn’t know how to understand it. I felt like I was… a woman who knew how to do carpentry projects, not “totally butch” the way some people (approvingly) called me.

And, well, at home in Alberta I was generally seen as a sweet and gentle girl with an occasional stubborn streak or precocious moment, but apparently by the standards of Southern states like Georgia and Alabama I am like, 100x more blunt, assertive, and inconsiderate of men’s feelings than women typically feel they have to be.

And this is still all just US/Canadian white women.

And like I said, after years of this, I came home (from BC, where I encountered MORE OTHER weird and alien social constructs, though generally more around class and politics than gender) to Alberta, and I went to what is, for Alberta, a super hippy liberal church, and I helped prepare the after-service tea among women with unstyled hair and no makeup who wore jeans and sensible shoes, and listened to them talk about their work in municipal water management and ICU nursing, and it felt like something inside my chest slid back into place, because I understood myself as a woman again, and not some alien thing floating outside the expectations of the society I was in with a chestful of opinions no one around me would understand, suddenly all made sense again.

I mean, that’s by no means an endorsement for aspirational middle class rural Alberta as the ideal gender utopia. (Alberta is the Texas of Canada.) I just felt comfortable inside because it’s the culture where I found a definition of myself and my gender I could live with, because its boundaries of what’s considered “female” were broad enough to hold all the parts of me I felt like I needed to express. I have a lot of friends who grew up here, or in families like mine, and don’t feel at all happy with its gender boundaries. And even as I’m comfortable being a woman here, I still want to push and transform it, to make it even more feminist and politically left and decolonized.

TERFs try to claim that trans and nonbinary people reinforce the gender identity, but in my experience, it’s feminists who claim male and female are immutable and incompatible do that. It’s trans, nonbinary, and genderqueer people who, simply by performing their genders in public, make people realize just how bullshit innate theories of gender are.. Society is going to want to gender them in certain ways and involve them in certain dynamics (”Hey ladies, those fellas, amirite?”) and they’re going, “Nope. Not me. Cut it out.” I’ve seen a lot of cis people who will quietly admit they do think men and women are different because that’s just reality, watch someone they know transition, and suddenly go, “Oh my god, I get it now.”

Like yes, this is me being coldly political and thinking about people as examples to make a political point. Everyone’s valid and can do what they want, but some things are just easier for potential converts to wrap their minds around.. “I’m sorting through toys to give to Shelly’s baby. He probably won’t want a princess crown, huh?” “I actually know several people who were considered boys when they were babies and never got one, and are making up for all their lost princess crown time now as adults. You never know what he’ll be into when he grows up.” “…Okay, point. I’ll throw it in there.” Trans and enby people disrupt gender in a really powerful back-of-the-brain way where people suddenly see how much leeway there is between gender and sex.

I honestly believe supporting trans and enby people and queering gender until it’s a macrame project instead of a spectrum are how we’ll get to a gender-free utopia. I think cultural feminism is just the same old shit, inverted. (Confession: in my head, I pronounce “cultural” with emphasis on the “cult” part.)

I think feminism is like a lot of emergency response groups: Our job is to put ourselves out of a job. It’s not a good thing if gender discrimination is still prevalent and harmful 200 years from now! Obviously we’re not there yet and calls to pack it in and go home are overrated, but as the problem disappears into its solution, we have to accept that our old ways of looking at the world have to shift.

#staranise original #lgbt discourse

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dclevinson · 5 years

Text

June 1: tired

The last few weeks have been tiring. Lots of reasons. Some more defensible than others.

We had a new aide in for our two days this week, but for now training/observing adds to my burdens rather than freeing me up much. There’s a big sociological analysis of who does this work under what conditions to explore, but from my narrow, practical end it always leaves me a bit uncomfortable in several ways. They know what they know, which is often useful... and not. They’ve got their lives to worry about, with life situations far more harrowing than mine. For cultural and occupational reasons I never really know what they’re thinking. The agency may make sure I can get trained and reliable enough people in key basics of care and safety, but aides are clearly wary of upsetting their bosses in any way. That can be good for us, but it also means I will learn of concerns and issues here or elsewhere only after they’re gone. They’ll be in the house week after week but I’ll never really know them. They’re more wary of me than I of them (I think). The new one (I never know how long they’ll keep coming) is more talkative and assertive (potentially good and bad on that last point), but we are doing this delicate little dance where she judges me (you do that?!) and I’m gritting my teeth and deciding how to say something or not to. Well, it’s early. But tiring.

Our situation is feeling (again, talking about this small slice of time) a bit Sisyphusian. I’m pushing the rock up the hill every day, and it always seems to roll back so that --- as much progress as Cindy has made --- some big problems remain stubbornly there. Or progress feels microscopically slow. And I’ve been planning for a delayed colonoscopy next week, and trying to deal with all the normal stuff with anything else added on top always feels de trop (too much!).

Sometimes I’ll check out a word in the online dictionary on my dock, and recently a mini essay on the word has popped up on occasion. Very cool. Reminds me how much possibility almost anything has to be a bit more interesting if attacked with creative energy (note to me: remember!).

As I’ve pondered the many different kinds of tired I’ve felt (or more accurately some form of all encompassing but varying weariness --- the no-crisis-but-no-letup-burden-blues) I was quite taken by the mini Francine Prose meditation/rumination on the word “tired” :

Tired is the perfect example of how language can illuminate the murkier corners of the psyche, and raise delicate questions of etiquette, sensibility, and intention. Of course, the word has many obvious, simple, and appropriate usages. After running the marathon and swimming the English Channel, I felt a bit tired. But in my opinion, it should never be used to convey one's sympathy with someone else's overtaxed physical or psychological state. Oh you poor thing, you look so terribly tired! It is less likely to make the tired person feel like the recipient of tender solicitude than like the victim of some deforming and previously undiagnosed wasting illness. Told we look tired, we are less apt to feel that our hard work is being appreciated than that we should immediately run to the mirror to check out the damage—and to wonder, with good reason, if the person whose sympathies we have aroused was actually expressing some sort of covert hostility.

Yep. It’s nice to know that reading a good sentence is still like eating a good piece of fudge. Straight rush to the brain.

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theblackandgold-series · 6 years

Text

The Prince and The Boy

Chapter One: Still Tippin

A College AU

Texas Southern University (Houston,Tx)

Ship: Chiron x Erik Stevens

Warning(s): slight slow burn

Chapter 2 Chapter 3

It’s hot as shit. Chiron thinks as he makes his way across campus towards his first and only class of the day. The sun beats down on his neck, making the two minute walk from his car seem much longer.

He shakes his head as the music bumps lowly through his headphones, continuing his commute across campus. Sweats seemed like a bad idea now, but it’s cold in the buildings, so it balances out right? he thought.

Several people smile and wave to him as they pass, and he gives a small smile in return. After two years he’s still not used to people he doesn’t know acknowledging him. Girls coming up for hugs or waving at him, guys dappin him up like they know him, but he’s always polite enough to speak.

The introvert in him is uncomfortable with the attention, making him want to shrink in on himself and blend in with the crowd. He’d accepted the scholarship to TSU for one reason: he loved to run. He could easily do without the rest.

Track is his escape. He puts his heart and soul on the track. He stops thinking and just runs. His body feels free, and he is in his element. It helps that he has a competitive spirit by nature and loves to win.

He walks into the building that houses his Sociology class, the air conditioning immediately cooling him off. As usual he is one of the first students to arrive, taking his seat up front.

He mindlessly scrolls through his phone as his classmates slowly start to trickle in. Out of the corner of his eye he catches a glimpse of a fresh pair of Concord 11’s. His eyes take in grey joggers, and a fitted gray TSU t-shirt. Noticing the pecs that show through the shirt, he continues on to the mystery man’s arms. Damn. Arms stacked with muscles that seemed to be hand carved by Michelangelo himself. God had took his time with this man. His eyes finally made it to the man’s face, admiring his nice full lips and deep dimples.

Damn he looks good as hell. Who is he? Chiron thought and just as he began to put his phone down to grab his notes, he hears his voice, still scratchy and deep like he had just rolled out of bed. He stills, intrigued by how intoxicating he sounds. His mind imagines hearing that husky voice first thing in the morning, whispering all kinds of dirty things as he thru- He has to snap himself out of it… Chi... chill out. He says to himself and pulls his book and notes out so he can pay attention.

He gets one more glance at this fine strangers face briefly meeting his eyes, before the professor announces that class has started.

“Erik have a seat please, thank you.”

Erik…. Chi nodded, making a mental note to remember that name.

“My bad teach.” A smirk graces Erik’s face as he heads towards an empty seat in the back.

Today’s lecture focused on the damages of toxic masculinity which had Chiron intrigued but he wasn’t one to participate. Class went on as usual. Chi payed attention as various students talked, though none of them said much, causing him to tune most of the lecture out. It wasn’t until he heard that same intoxicating voice that he turned around, and he wasn’t the only one. he entire class had turned their eyes to him. His voice carried towards the front of the room, nothing but confidence exuding from him as he spoke.

“In this society, we as black men are condemned for showing our feelings, let alone admitting that our feelings exist. Our white counterparts demonize and denounce our humanity.”

The whole room went silent and Chiron nods. He agreed with Erik one hundred percent and was glad someone said it. The ignorant white man that he was arguing with however, was not. He was obviously heated, getting flustered as he responded. Erik laid back in his chair obviously amused, drinking his coconut water and slightly shaking his head. All eyes focused on him as the white man’s voice continued to elevate, his facing turning beet red. Erik waited patiently for him to finish, smirking the whole time.

“You’re singling out black men in this argument as though you're the only ones who experience toxic masculinity.”

“Nah that ain’t what I said at all bruh but go off I guess.” Erik says taking a bite of his waffle, “Might wanna calm down though yo face getting a little red”

“That’s what it sounds like to me. I was also taught that crying isn’t manly. It’s not exclusive to just the black community.”

“You’re absolutely right it’s not. However what is exclusive to the black community is the issues we have in addition to society’s skewed views of masculinity and how it pertains to black men. That aspect of it is special in my community due to the hundreds of years of mental, physical, and psychological hardships that you as a white man cannot and will not ever understand. So when I said what I said, I was speaking from my own experience because that’s the only one I know.”

“So I can’t speak from my experience? Our experiences can’t possibly relate?”

“Yeah you can speak your truth, just know that your truth can never compare to mine. And they won’t ever ever relate. That’s facts.”

A lone “Preach, my nigga!” was heard before the classroom was quiet. Most of the students looking at Erik with respect and admiration while a few saltine crackers had a look of disdain. One thing was for certain, everyone’s eyes were on him and they all were listening. Especially Chiron.

He’s fine and woke? Too good to be true. Chiron thought as he gazed at Erik.

He continued to study Erik as the professor jumped in before the conversation could continue to escalate, the ignorant white student walking out once he realized he couldn’t win.

Professor Henderson brought everyone back and brought up the next assignment for class. A paper due in two weeks. Groans were heard all through class. Chi actually didn’t mind writing papers, he just hoped he had enough time to write between track and work.

“Class is dismissed, I will see you all next week. Have a good day.”

As everyone rose from their seats, Chiron couldn’t help but sneak another look at Erik. Before he could look any longer his phone dinged with a text about practice. In the time that he looked down to answer it, Erik had slipped out the back entrance, leaving Chiron disappointed when he looked up and noticed he was gone.

He sighed, playing his music again and walked out of class. Thinking about Erik as he made his way back to his apartment. He’d gone to the same class for the past two months and not once had he noticed the tall dreaded man. Now that he had, he was sure he’d never be able to forget him. Those dreads, that smile, his dimples, those wide shoulders, fuck, his eyes. Everything about him was captivating, everything about him left Chi wanting to know more. He shook his head as he tried to rid himself of these thoughts. Now was not the time.

Chiron was breathing hard as he rounded the edge of the track. His chest rising and falling as he made his way to get his bottle of water. One hand on his hip he clenches his eyes shut as he tries to rid himself of the image currently ingrained in his mind. All he could think about was Erik. He’d dropped his baton twice during practice. His head was definitely not on the track. Instead it was with Erik and those goddamn dimples. The way his voice sounded when he responded to that cracker, how confident he was, his voice unwavering as he spoke. He didn’t have to get angry, he believed in what he said so much that, he made everyone believe in him too. The power behind his eyes, it was clear he got whatever he wanted. What if he wanted me? Chiron thought. He’s taken out of this thought when one of his friends comes up to him.

“Aye Chi, what’s up with you today?”

“Nothin man.”

“Really? Cause you been actin’ real weird.”

Chiron shook his head, “Nah, I’m just a little out of it today. I’m good, though. Promise.” He takes another gulp of water.

“Alright man, if you say so. You going to the game?”

“I don’t know, man.”

“It’s the homecoming game. You can’t miss it.”

Chi wasn’t trying to hear it. He needed to catch up on some work and sleep.

“Besides,” his friend continued, “You know Kayla gonna be there.”

Chi wrinkles his nose. “Kayla? What she gotta do with me going to homecoming?”

His friend sucked his teeth, “You know damn well she feelin you.”

“Nah, man. We just friends.”

“You tell her that?”

“Didn’t think I needed to.”

“What’s wrong with her? She fine as fuck. You not tryna hit that?”

Chi rolled his eyes and sighed. “Then why don’t you get at her?” He puts down his water bottle and starts packing his bag. “Look man, I’ll be there aite?” Chi holds out his hand towards Bryson.

“Aite nigga, see you later.”

Chi, makes his way to his car. He wasn’t interested in Kayla. She was cute, but she just wasn’t his type. His mind swirled with thoughts of the person who actually held his interest.

The October air bites at Chiron as he sits on the bleachers. He should have worn more than a sweatshirt and sweats to this game. He didn’t have much time to get ready though and he really didn’t even want to be there so he hadn’t given it a second thought when he pulled the TSU gear over his head. He’d walked into the stadium right as the fourth quarter started. This is so stupid. He thought. Why am I here?

His reason showed up in the form of a 6’3 Adonis. His breath was stolen from him when he saw Erik in his uniform, the number 12 etched across his back. Subconsciously he gripped at his thighs, doing anything he could to contain himself. Erik looked so damn good. How could a nigga he’s never said a word to have so much control over his body and mind?

Suddenly, he could see Erik above him, thrusting into him as his hands scratch down that broad back. He can feel the pressure of Erik’s body on top of his, the way he would give Chi everything he needed, and Chi would gladly take it all.

“Chi! Yo Chi!” Chiron is once again taken out of his thoughts. His head snaps in Bryson’s direction, his lips pursed. This is the second time his daydreaming has been ruined by this nigga. Can’t he just leave him alone?

“What’s up man?” They nod at each other, Chi still distracted. Bryson notices him clutching at his thighs. “Yo, you good nigga? What’s up with you today?”

Clenching his jaw, Chi shakes his head. “I already told you, I’m good nigga.”

Bryson held his hand up in surrender, “My bad, nigga. I was just making sure you aight, shit.”

Before Chiron can respond to Bryson, the crowd around him erupts into cheers.

“GO STEVENS!”

“RUN! RUN!”

Chiron looks toward midfield and sees Erik bobbing and weaving through his defenders. Damn he’s fast Chiron notes.

“He’s at the 30! The 25! The 20! He’s going all the way folks! TOUCHDOWN TIGERS!!!”

Chiron finds himself cheering with the rest of the crowd, but his eyes stay on the receiver. He watches as Erik runs over to the sideline, celebrating with his teammates as special teams set up for the extra point. He watches as Erik removes his helmet , dreads falling perfectly over those beautiful eyes. Chiron is frozen, staring at the deep dimples that accent his gorgeous smile.

That smile doesn’t go away as Erik’s attention is pulled away by his coach. Chiron watches as Erik bends over to hear whatever his coach is saying. He takes this opportunity to admire Erik’s blessed backside. He can imagine gripping that ass as the hips it was attached to thrust into— Dammit, Chi. You doin it again.

Chi was so caught up in his thoughts of what he would do if he was alone with that masterpiece of a man that he didn’t notice when the huddle broke. Now the ass that he was looking at was replaced by a crotch. His eyes made their way upwards until they connected with another pair of chocolate eyes.

He was met with a smirk and a raised eyebrow causing his face to heat, for the life of him he couldn’t look away. He sees Erik’s shoulders jump with what he assumes is laughter, before turning his attention back to the game.

Chiron continues to watch Erik as the final seconds wind down on the clock. His eyes glance at the illuminated scoreboard and smiles at the score. The game ends with a score of 24-14. Before making his way up the bleachers, Chi found himself seeking out Erik once more, hoping to get another look at him. His prayers were answered when he caught the very man he was looking for already staring at him. Erik gave Chi what must be his signature smirk before he is swept up in celebration by his team. Once he loses sight of Erik he decides it’s time to head home.

On his drive back to his apartment flashes of Erik pop into his mind. The way he talked that morning, the look he gave him at the game. He had an effect on Chi that he hadn’t experienced since his last failed relationship. It was overwhelming. He didn’t know what to do with himself, but he knew he had to make something happen.

tag: @wakandas-vibranium @bartierbakarimobisson @randomwordprompts @storibambino @theultimateblacknerdwithglasses @stressedgyal @great-neckpectations @wakandan-flowerz @blackgirloneshots @panthergoddessbast @maya-leche @texasbama @killmongerdispussy @yaachtynoboat711 @hearteyes-for-killmonger

#erik killmonger #chiron #chiron x erik #moonlight x black panther #black panther fanfiction #killmonger fic

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two-browngirls · 6 years

Video

vimeo

Not Today's Yesterday - Seeta Patel

Seeta Patel is a force to be reckoned with. Her strong will, magnetic presence and passionate ideas come across equally as powerful on and off stage. But the life of a dance artist isn’t as glamorous as it may seem. Seeta is extremely busy with multiple projects on the go at once but I manage to catch her during a brief lunch break while rehearsing with a group of rising Bharatanatyam dancers in Birmingham as part of #TheNatyaProject, to chat about her exciting new tour.

Not Today’s Yesterday is an international collaboration between UK award-winning Bharatanatyam artist Seeta Patel and Australian choreographer Lina Limosani. This work blends classical Indian dance (Bharatanatyam) & contemporary dance in a striking, intelligent and engaging evisceration of ‘pretty’ and ‘suitable’ historical stories. It is a one-woman show which subversively co-opts whitewashing against itself.

“The inspiration stems from our concerns that revisionist and airbrushed histories have become a central issue of tension throughout the world, in particular in Western democracies.”

I first asked Seeta how the idea of the work came about as I was aware that it had been a number of years in progress.

“It started with my feeling that the history of Bharatnatyam has been white-washed. Having read Unfinished Gestures by Davesh Soneji, it really blew my mind that many of us going through the system are not often taught about the social and political history of the art form in its entirety. There’s more niceness rather than the grit of it. This is basically how history is white-washed in order to make it more palatable.”

I’d seen the work in progress around a year ago and it was haunting, hypnotic and extremely clever in its execution. Through the medium of a fairy-tale story, it draws people in with eerie familiarity, but as with any fairy-tale there are always dark undertones. Parts are grotesque and exaggerated with caricatures of colonial supremacy but other parts are gentle and vulnerable as Seeta gazes wide-eyed into the depths of what was.

The collaboration between Seeta and choreographer, Lina Limosani was first funded by the Arts Council’s Artist International Development Fund 2016 where Seeta travelled to Australia where Lina is based, to research and develop the work.

“Britain and Australia, amongst others, have sordid histories and relationships with indigenous and migrant communities. Skewed histories fuel a distorted sense of nationalism. This work aims to open up conversation through a clever appropriation of whitewashed histories.”

The following year, Seeta was able to gain further funding to develop the work in Poland, as another one of the collaborators was based there and perform previews of ‘Not Today’s Yesterday’ around the UK. Being based in a foreign country during this process really fuelled the creative ideas and themes, which fed into the piece.

Earlier this year they were able to sharpen the work to a fine point and received funding to perform ‘Not Today’s Yesterday’ at Adelaide Fringe Festival. During that period, they were successful in gaining a UK touring grant for this Autumn, so it has been through several stages and Seeta envisions it to live on in many different contexts, as the work deals with some of the most pressing issues of our time.

“This piece is a part of my wider work. Along with my classical work, whatever I do is political on a certain level. I can’t wake up in the morning and change the colour of my skin or the country that I’m born and live in, I am political. It’s not something I can choose to remove. I’m not of that privilege. Not in this country.”

As Seeta’s career rises and expands, I’m interested to learn about what advice she has to offer the next generation who look up to her as a role model and as an example of someone with a successful career as an Indian classical dancer or dancer from a South Asian background in this country. She’s brutally honest and explains that this career is by no means conventional, in any sense of the word. Her path has forced her to challenge the accepted ‘norms’ that we are socialised into as first and second generation South Asian immigrants who constantly strive to over-achieve. So to have to find temporary or casual work through the ebbs and flows is perfectly acceptable as it means that you can earn money, which doesn’t have to eat into the time that you want to work on dance.

“Certain professions require just as much energy as dance does, so I don’t personally believe that you can do both and give each job the commitment that it deserves.” says Seeta. “You have to understand what you really want and sometimes take scary steps to get there that you’re not confident or comfortable with.”

The interactive element of the work is the carefully curated post-show talks, as Seeta hopes that the audience becomes lured into a dark fantasy and taken on an experiential journey during the performance then the discussion afterwards is a chance for reflection and transformation.

Each performance has specifically relevant researchers, academics and powerful personalities who will help to uncover the themes behind the performance and welcome the audience to share their thoughts and ideas too.

So don’t miss out on a very special chance to experience a dance theatre work by such a phenomenal BROWNGIRL and book your tickets to a performance near you.

TOUR DATES

Seeta is on a UK Tour of her one woman dance theatre work Not Today's Yesterday this Autumn 2018. A collaboration with Limosani Projects. Tour details as follow:

- 2nd Oct - The Place - 3rd Oct - The Place

booking info

[email protected]

+44 (0)20 7121 1100

SPEAKERS

2nd October Gurminder K Bhambra is Professor of Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies in the School of Global Studies, University of Sussex.

Alice A. Procter is an art historian and museum educator. She runs Uncomfortable Art Tours, unofficial guided tours exploring how the UK’s major art institutions came into being against a backdrop of imperialism.

Tanika Gupta - Over the past 20 years Tanika has written over 20 stage plays that have been produced in major theatres across the UK. She has written 30 radio plays for the BBC and several original television dramas, as well as scripts for EastEnders, Grange Hill and The Bill.

3rd October Kenneth Tharp - Kenneth Tharp is the former Chief Executive of The Place, the UK’s premier centre for contemporary dance.

Inua Elams - Born in Nigeria, Inua Ellams is a cross art form practitioner, a poet, playwright & performer, graphic artist & designer and founder of the Midnight Run — an international, arts-filled, night-time, playful, urban, walking experience.

Tobi Kyeremateng - Tobi Kyeremateng is a theatre, festival and live performance producer. She is currently Producer at Apples and Snakes, Executive Producer (Up Next) at Bush Theatre, and Programme Coordinator at Brainchild Festival.

- 5th Oct - Amata Theatre Falmouth University

booking info

Phone: 01326 259349

Email:

[email protected]

SPEAKERS - TBC

- 12th Oct - Watermans Arts Centre

booking info

Box Office: 020 8232 1010

SPEAKERS

Bidisha Mamata: Bidisha is a British writer, film-maker and broadcaster/presenter for BBC TV and radio, Channel 4 news and Sky News and is a trustee of the Booker Prize Foundation, looking after the UK's most prestigious prizes for literature in English and in translation.

- 13th Oct - Kala Sangam, Bradford

booking info

SPEAKERS

Pauline Mayers Associate Artist with the West Yorkshire Playhouse Pauline produces her own shows as The Mayers Ensemble themed around participation, intimacy and identity.

Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan is a writer, speaker, playwright, award-winning spoken-word activist and founder of the political blog www.thebrownhijabi.com

- 23rd Oct - Patrick Centre, Birmingham

booking info

Box Office: 0844 338 5000

SPEAKERS

Dr Kehinde Andrews: is Associate Professor of Sociology, and has been leading the development of the Black Studies Degree at Birmingham City University.

Abeera Kamran: is a visual designer and a web-developer based in Birmingham and Karachi, Pakistan. Her creative practice is research-based and lies at the intersections of design, archiving practices and the internet.

“Once upon a time... in a faraway land... it happened... did not happen... could have happened.”

Supported by Chats Palace, Arts Council England, Country Arts SA, Arts SA, The Place London, Adelaide Fringe Artists Fund, LWD Dance Hub, British Council, The Bench UK and NA POMORSKIEJ Artist residency.

#bharatanatyam #bharatnatyam #indian dance #indian classical dance #classical dance #dance #dancer #dancers #theatre #colonialism #white supremism #white supremisist #white superiority #australia #britain

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nickrbockr · 6 years

Text

Simon Vs Fan Fic: Chapter 4 - Trust your Gut

I landed early and Leah was there to pick my tired butt up from the trip (I can never sleep on planes). I told her it had to happen in Shady Creek and she was on board with it and that made me feel better. Our first day back was filled with catching up in between first day boring syllabus reviews in classes.

Freshman are forced to live on campus their first year and I had an interesting, but forgettable roommate. I have friends in the theatre department here, but starting sophomore year, Leah and I lived together in a nice (and affordable) apartment. Mom and Dad helped us with the rent, Dad being happy that it was the last year he had to pay. People kept telling us we were crazy to live with a friend, but since we’ve been friends for so long and Leah is…well Leah, who always spoke her mind, we never had any issues.

Luckily for both of us, we are great cooks at exceedingly different aspects. I am a stovetop master and handle dinners and savory breakfasts and Leah is a baking champion and handles sweet breakfasts and lunches. Yin-Yang of food: I wake up to waffles and Leah comes home to stir-fry. It’s a match made in love handles.

Ever since my best friend in the department caught on, Ian would come over from time to time to eat both breakfast and dinner, and we swore lunch because our peanut butter would mysteriously be consumed at a fast rate. Ian’s a diamond in the rough in the sense that is he one of the only straight men in the theatre department. This makes him a perfect ladies man because everyone assumes he’s gay when we go out together, girls talk to us, I tell him ‘Oh, my boyfriend’s calling me,’ and that opens the conversation to his heterosexuality and he leaves me with a wink and a finger gun. I’d give it the ‘ol Leah exhale if Ian and I hadn’t perfected it so much.

Outside of that aspect of Ian, he’s a great actor and has, on the hateful occasions, defended me against some drunk country boys at the city bars. Leah calls me his ward and Bram found it too funny. It’s not that funny, but Ian is a guy I know I’ll be friends with for the rest of my life.

“Aaaaaaaaayooooooooo Si-Si,” Ian yelled as he busted in the door and bear hugged me.

“Ugh, I regret it giving him a key already,” Leah said, not standing from the dinner table.

“What’s on the menu tonight?”

“Chicken BLT with pesto mayo and rice.”

Ian glanced over at Leah, “The TA checks musta kicked in with a two course meal, Le Burke.”

Leah and I both paid equally for the food, but Leah was the one who did the shopping. Because she loved it. Also, she actually doesn’t mind Ian’s nickname for her because he gives it a French pronunciation. Also, and she’ll never admit this because it’s against everything she believes, but she maaaaaay have a slight crush on him.

“It’s our last year Ian, may as well live it up, right?”

We all ate and caught up from the summer. Leah regaled us of her TA duties by day, and wine-infused studying by summer night, I bragged about Bram & I’s historic Splash Pad attendance since Bram saw my minute abs I formed junior year and wanted to show me off, and Ian explained his summer back in South Dakota camping every weekend with his high school buddies.

“Dude, have you ever seen the stars without light pollution?” Ian asked, in a serious tone.

“Yes, Ian, Si and I have the capability of turning our head up.” Leah said sarcastically.

“Yeah, but when you did, were you within or outside of the yellow light of the city.”

“Come on, Ian, Midwest dudes aren’t the only dudes who can see stars,” I validate. It reminded me of when Bram and I took a trip this summer with Nick & Abby to an AirBnB beach house. All days were spent as a group, but once the sun finally set, it was hard to not sneak into our bedrooms at opposite ends of the house and do what couples do. I try not to tell Leah about too much as she gets mad FOMO (fear of missing out).

“Okay, so you know what that looks like when the sky comes to life and you see the billions of other starts that you normally can’t see and all it took was unplugging and going out on your adventure.”

“But you don’t need just to see stars to feel that way, Ian,” Leah claims.

“Okay Le Burke, fine, but we all have that place we can go that makes us emotionally unpack, and not in the lets talk about our feelings way, but in the I feel less pressure from society and what it expects of me way. Where’s that for you?” Ian points at her.

“My bedroom.” Leah states.

“Your bedroom? Really?”

“Yeah, what’s wrong with that?”

“I dunno, seems trapped to me.” Ian answers, helping himself to the last BLT.

“You’re an extrovert, I’m an introvert, I don’t see a cramped room, I see a space in the entire universe that is built specifically for me and my liking and it relaxes me!”

Ian took a big bite and replied with a mouth full, “You know what, you got a point Le Burke.”

“Enough time around me, you’ll find I always know what I’m talking about.”

“What about you, Simon?” Ian asked.

I hadn’t been listening the conversation. When Ian asked about the place where we can emotionally unpack, all I could think about was that night on the Ferris wheel with soft eyes Bram Greenfeld in his strong arms next to his soccer calves. Though many people were around us, that little carriage built for two felt the most weight lifting experience.

“Si? Earth-to-Si,” Leah said in a robot voice.

“The ring,” I start. “Would it be tacky to get a ring that looks like a ferris wheel?”

“I didn’t take you for the man jewelry type, Si” Ian laughed, taking another bite that was probably a bit too big.

“A ferris wheel would just look like a merry-go-round on its side and I don’t think that’s cute.” Leah replied. “Besides, it would be a statement engagement ring and Bram isn’t really a statement jewelry person.”

“Engagement ring?” Ian muffled out of his mouth. “Are you proposing to Bram?”

“Oh, shit. Yes, Ian, I’m proposing to Bram in January.”

Ian spit out the food onto his plate to the lament of Leah and powered over to me to give me another bear hug.

“Fuck yeah Si! That’s so fuckin’ cool congratulations!”

Ian is obsessed with Bram. On the occasions Bram visited me up here, Ian steals him away so they can talk about soccer. Bram loves it because it’s hard to talk soccer in Baltimore, so I usually have to peel Ian off of Bram. Ian always asks Bram jokingly if he has a sister and Bram always lets him know she’s only five.

He finally let me go and went back to his spit out food and put it back in his mouth to finish.

“Are you fucking serious Ian?!” Leah screamed.

“I don’t want to waste food on such a beautiful evening. We have to celebrate.”

Celebrating turned into shots and beers and the rest of the night we spent talking about the show line up for our senior year and which roles we’d want verses the one we may be assigned. Leah explained her classes and we got into brief sociology based debates. Around one A.M., Ian was asleep on the couch and Leah and I were in my room, head to head, just like in high school.

“So I was thinking and you’re right, I think the ferris wheel ring maybe too much.”

“Maybe a little.” Leah replied in a slight slur. “It could have been worse, you could have suggested an Oreo ring.”

She’s right, unfortunately. We both laughed a drunken laugh.

“Know of any cool ring shops in New Haven?” I ask. “I wanna start looking.”

“Si, don’t rush this. Let the ring find you. The one ring-”

“TO RULE THEM ALL!” We both finish.

“When I brought it up to Dad, he just said ‘do you trust me’ and so I don’t know if he’s helping me or not.” I explain.

“Maybe trust your Dad. You’ll be proposing in Shady C anyway, take a chance on your Jack Spier.”

We both chuckle and talk a few more minutes until Leah goes to bed and I’m left staring at my ceiling. I grabbed my laptop and began some drunken Google searching for engagement ring ideas and of course they’re all the most un-Bram like options.

But…like what could I get Bram that will scream us, but at the same time be elegant and show how much I love him? I am leaning towards no stone…I think Bram and I are simple folk with simple tastes. Bram tastes like…no, focus, get my hand out of my pants.

Should I put the ring in a sleeve of Oreos and have him open it? I mean, it know how tacky it sounds because it’s so tacky, but would Bram like how tacky it is and just think it’s cute? Where is the tipping point!?

Bzzz

Bram I hope you had a good first day! I’m assuming Ian’s passed out already? ;)

And just like that, my ring anxiety began to dissolve.

I did and he is! For a bro, he’s not much of a drinker

. .. … If you talk about soccer, he’ll drink you under the table. He runs on pure adrenaline when you bring up Argentina.

You know I tried, and it didn’t work I think I’m missing the Bram-factor in my conversation

. .. … I’m missing the Simon-Spier.

Strange, I thought you had my heart Be sure you don’t lose it, it’s the only one I have

. .. … I keep it in the space mine was because you seem have taken mine.

<3 Above is evidence I have yours, show me mine so I know it’s safe

. .. … <3 It isn’t going anywhere. Oh, also, I almost forgot. Mom is going to be in New Haven guest lecturing for the...ugh, Women Sexual Studies Class.

Holy shit, this is perfect. I was going to call her but this is a thousand times better. In person, somehow, seems easier because I can see her reactions. Bram’s Mom and I get along great…I think. She allows me to call her by her first name, Tracy, so that’s a start. I just don’t think we’ve ever really had a chance to talk about anything but Bram, so our relationship is just a little one-note, but think we’re both okay talking about Bram that much.

Even after four years, Ms Every Time Including Oral strikes again! That’s great, I’ll call her tomorrow to get the details. I’ll make her dinner. Remind me, her favorite dish is baked salmon right?

. .. … Yes. Simon, you’re too kind. You don’t even like salmon.

Yeah, but I love you.

. .. … <<33 That’s your big heart, still with me. I love you more.

Impossible.

I fall asleep and wake up to my alarm and more textual love from Bram. I roll out of bed, shower, and get Ian’s ass up for class. Leah already had an egg bake on the table with a note that said ‘Warm me for a minute in the microwave nerds.’ Ian stuffs an extra large portion in his mouth and straps on his bag. I pull us out the door and we jump into Ian’s beat-up Buick to Acting IV.

At lunch I call Tracy and she let’s me know she’ll be here Thursday night for a full day of lectures on Friday. She sounded excited to be asked to lecture and hopefully a good mood enough to hear me wanting to marry her son.

Tuesday comes and goes (for dinner it was just Leah and me and I made us homemade pizza with a cauliflower crust and actually. Actually it wasn’t half bad. Normal crust is always better, but it wasn’t bad).

Wednesday night Leah and I are in the library, me searching for monologues and she posting up to help the Intro to Sociology class students write a big surprise essay assigned by a notoriously hard professor.

“I hope the sociology professors see the irony in making me slave away helping their students cause they’re too lazy.” Leah scoffs, chewing a big piece of pink bubblegum.

“Isn’t that the gig of a Teacher’s Assistant?” I’m burning through stacks of books I stole from the shelves and have a few to photocopy of already earmarked monologues from actor’s past.

“Be on the right side of history, Simon. I’m supposed to assist the teacher, not the student. I got the salmon, by the way, I pulled it from the freezer this morning.”

I gave her a puppy dog smile and head tilt. “This is why you’re the Queen.”

“Damn straight. Know what you’re going to say?”

“No,” I reply. “But I’ve landed the best people in my life by going in without a plan…pretty much my entire life is that.”

“I’m not here to be your English professor, Google how to set up a works cited page!” Leah shouts at a baby freshman. He runs off and frantically types away at his laptop. “Trust your gut, Si, trust your gut. All of it except the part that thought a ferris wheel ring, though, throw that part in the trash.”

I scanned copies of the chosen monologues to work on and we went home. Abby and Nick Skyped us and we all caught up since leaving each other this summer. We planned trips and talked about classes and how Abby and Nick saw Benedict Cumberbatch walking in New York. I fell asleep that night as a usually do, texting Bram, and woke up Thursday morning to cook Leah and I omelets. The rest of the day flew by because before I knew it I was back at home prepping dinner.

I tidied up the apartment as Leah left to study at the library again. She was worried the students would still be there and ask her for helps so she, honest to God, wore a wig to throw them off. I chuckled as she sashayed out the door. Even though I don’t like to eat salmon, I’m a natural when it comes to cooking it and I had all the food ready as soon as Tracy knocked at the door. We hugged and exchanged kisses on the cheek as she presented a bottle of red wine. Then she flew past me into the kitchen and she checked the salmon.

After a deep inhale, she smiled. “Simon, I must say you know how to season.”

“Practice makes perfect, Tracy.”

We made small talk about her trip up here, which evolved into her career taking off. That quickly transitioned into the points she was covering in her lecture during the classes until we both finished eating, but she saw me playing with remnants of potatoes with my fork.

“So, Simon, what are your plans after college?”

“Oh, you know,” I started. “Bram and I were talking of living in New York for awhile. Professors here have some connections to companies there and if I pay my cards right I can get some steady work right away. Bram said he’d love to write for the New York Times, so it’s a perfect move. He mentioned a professor there is on the staff and wrote him a great letter of recommendation, so that’s exciting. Hoping to focus on having fun this year too before we have to be full-fledged adults.”

“Sure sounds like the planning part of Bram rubbed off on you. He gets that from me, trust me.”

“Yeah, Bram is, the greatest, Tracy. I actually wanted to talk to you about Bram.”

I swallowed hard and set my fork down. I was still formulating the words, so I covered myself quickly and picked up the bottle of wine. I got the nerves I felt right before an audition. This audition, however, I couldn’t afford to screw up.

“Refill?”

Tracy nodded with a raised eyebrow and I topped off her glass.

“Seems you want me a little buzzed for this, Simon.”

The audition started. “Oh, no, no, not buzzed. It is custom to have a drink if you’re celebrating something.”

“Oh? What are celebrating tonight?”

Bram…Bram…Bram. Saying his name calmed my nerves. Picturing his lips and remembering his scent centered me.

“Tracy. I am so madly…deeply…overwhelmingly in love with Abraham. My life has been nothing like I could have imagined it or deserved it and it is because of him. I want to always be with him and, because of that, I wanted to make you aware of my intentions. Tracy, my intentions are to ask your son to marry me and before I do, I wanted to ask for your blessing as his mother.”

Tracy tilted her head in the way Bram does and covered her mouth with her right hand. A loud inhale through her nose told me she had an emotional reaction to the news, and I was hoping it was tears of joy. She dropped her hand and a large smile crossed her face (Bram got his smile from her. Definetely).

“Simon Spier. The fact that you...that you gave my son the courage…that you make my son happy…that you cooked me dinner and asked me…I see the way you look at my son and I see the way my son looks at you and even Elijah and I never looked at each other they way you both do. My goal as a mom was to give Abraham a great life and a better one than mine and it looks like this will be just another strong foundation to that claim.”

Tracy put her hand onto mind and squeezed it.

“Simon, you absolutely have my blessing.”

YES, YES,YES! With tears in both our eyes, we hug each other. I pour the last of the wine between our glasses and we chees to me, to Bram, and to us.

“Thank you, Simon. I know you didn’t have to do this, or ask, and it means a lot to me that you did.” Then she became serious for a minute. “Do you intend on asking my ex-husband?”

Is that…a trick question?! Audition not over.

“Yes,” I start wearily. “I wanted to be sure I can tell Bram both of his parents gave me their blessing. I wanted to be sure that you both know how much I intend to love and care for your son. I’m not sure I can fully explain or find the right metaphors to show to what capacity I care for him, but I will spend the rest of my life trying to perfect it into a simple phrase that, when I figure it out, I will tell you.”

Tracy smiled and burst into a happy, crying laughter.

“Simon, since the moment we met, I never had a doubt that you would marry my son. I’m so happy and excited for both of you.”

A tear dropped down my face. What an enormous compliment from a mother to another about her son. I smiled and went on to explain to her when I was planning on proposing.

“Of course, how perfect! Do you have a ring?”

“Funny story, Tracy. Dad said that he’d help me with that, and I’m going to put my bet that he will deliver. After twenty-one years, he has yet to let me down.”

“Wonderful, I can’t wait to see it.”

“Yes, so I was still arranging how I wanted to propose and one scenario has me doing in front of my parents and you and Elijah.”

“Such an old soul in a young man. Why so formal?”

That’s a good question. Maybe…maybe it’s because Bram and my middle school and high school experience wasn’t conventional. And that maybe there is a comfort in being a part of a conventional process. Plus, it’s respectful and is bound to earn me brownie points with the possible new in-laws.

“I trust my gut, Tracy. My gut told me formal.”

“Trust your gut, Simon. It’s made all sorts of great decisions. But I have one, very important question for you.”

I clear my throat. “Uh, yes, of course.”

“Do we have more wine?”

We laugh and Tracy explains it’s getting late and excuses herself back to her hotel room.

When I check my phone, I have a few missed texts from Bram.

Hey! I hope Mom is going easy on you. Be careful, she will try to judge how you seasoned the fish, but I’m confident you’ll pass. I taught you well. I can see you both eating the food right now and I’m super jealous I can’t be there. Well, not super jealous if Mom talks about her lecture, which she will. Text me when you can! I know you’re being courteous and won’t check your phone while she’s there. I’m so confident in that fact that I’m going to send you a picture.

Below that text was a well-curated picture of Bram’s nether region.

Bram! Scandalous! Though you were right, Tracy just left. We finished a bottle of wine, sorry I got her tipsy! You’re right, she did talk about her lecture, but it’s focused on female anatomy, something we needn’t worry. I love you Bram. I love you so much. And that picture, you better be careful or it may start something.

. .. … Start something, huh? I’m not afraid. Show me what you got! ;)

You can imagine what the rest of the night turned into.

#Love simon #simonverse #simon vs #svthsa #simon x bram #simon spier #bram greenfeld #gay love #love #love simon fanfiction #love simon fic #my fic

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momosmessages · 6 years

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Life Update: Living Situation

I know I haven’t posted in a little while. When I talk to people from home, they’ll ask how I’m doing or about my living situation. So here’s a quick update!

The Logistics

For the past month I have lived with a family of four.

My school is in walking distance from where I live, making daily transportation a breeze. The house is located on a street where many buses come, so it’s easy for me to go places. However, I’m still trying to learn where all the buses go, so I may need another month!

In my new dwellings, I have my own room. It’s located at the far most point of the house. What I like and dislike most about it is that is has there’s big window looking out to the back “yard”, letting in sunlight and fresh air.

My favorite feature of the house is it’s back patio. This is where we keep the washing machine and air dry clothes. The family will often sit there during the day, because the house can easily get stuffy. Sitting there, you always feel the the Barranquilla breeze.

Most homes here only have a front or area, which faces the street. I like the back patio better because you can be outside while still having some privacy.

Frustrations

And speaking of privacy, I’m sometimes frustrated because I have no curtain. During the week it’s generally not an issue, and I feel comfortable changing my clothes or sleeping. But on the weekends when family and friends come to visit, it can be difficult to have solitude. I’ve told Grace this recently and she plans to tell her mom. (As I write this post family friends are in the patio now.)

And since I’m learning Spanish, it can be quite a challenge. Weekends are when I have the most free time. I want to take advantage of this by studying as much as I can. However, I’m a person where I need to study completely alone. I’m always paranoid of someone hearing me pronounce a word or phrase. I know this sounds silly, but it’s just how I feel. I need to think of other ways I can study without a room full of native Spanish speakers hearing me.

I feel like I haven’t been able to write much even because on weekends there’s almost always someone in the patio. When I write or study, I need silence to concentrate. If someone else is talking, I can’t focus, regardless of the language spoken. I’m struggling to find solutions to this issue, and hope I find one soon.

Conoce la familia!

In this family, there’s Silvia*, a social studies teacher at my school, her husband, Juan*, their daughter, Grace*, and their son, Roberto*. Over the past month, I’ve enjoyed getting to know them.

Silvia is a diva. I’ve noticed that’s the norm for Colombian women, especially teachers. For school, she’ll wear large, extravagant earrings, brightly colored lipstick, and of course, height-enhancing shoes. They’re never less than 2 inches high.

All teachers at my school wear platform shoes. I think it’s because many women here are short. Silvia’s shoes are always at least 2 inches high. When she wears them, her height is the same as my nose.

Every morning, this woman will walk to school in these shoes. When class is over for the day, she’ll refuse to walk home, more so because of the hot sun than her shoes. Silvia swears by moto taxis, and sometimes she’ll hitch a ride from another teacher. She claims she doesn’t want to become more “tan”. I think it’s a little ridiculous, since it’s only a five minute walking distance between the school and home. Still, I give her mad props.

As soon as we get home, we’ll strip to our pjs, and the “fabulous” rests in the closet for another day.

I always choose to walk home.You know, because it’s snowing in New York. In April.

Silvia is also a mom. She is constantly checking in on me, making sure that I’ve eaten.

At first my meals were not included in the rent. Here, regardless of your class, its normal to have hired help clean and cook meals.

Juan’s sister in-law, Ruth*, comes to the house six mornings a week. She will clean the house and make a big lunch for everyone.

In the United States, you only hire help if you have money. The idea of being “waited on” felt so weird, and I told the family I could cook for myself.

I was supposed to be paid the week I moved here. To my luck, the the government failed to pay me on time. I couldn’t afford groceries, and was forced to have the family’s meals. I was paid two two weeks later, but I ended up loving their food. I’ve learned about traditional Colombian food, that I wouldn’t have otherwise tried. And Ruth is an amazing cook! I’m determined to learn how to make “arroz con coco” before I leave.

Silvia and I walk to school together in the mornings and walk back home in the afternoon. By the time we get back, Ruth is gone for the day. I don’t feel like I’m being “waited on” because we will help ourselves to whatever is in the pot. Silvia and I usually eat lunch together, and then go to our rooms to take a siesta. Like a mom, she puts giant-sized portions on my plate and encourages me to eat.

Silvia mainly speaks Spanish. I say “mainly” because over this past month, she’s acquired a few English words, like “my husband”, “my cousin”, and “shredded cheese”. When we eat, I try to converse with her as much as I can. She’s learned a few English words from me.

If I’m feeling sick, she’ll do anything she can to make me feel better. For example, this week, I had a stomach ache, and made it her priority to spoon feed me medicine. Surprisingly, it didn’t taste yucky.

I’ve also noticed that when she needs me, she’ll call my name out in the most inconvenient times, like when I’m in the bathroom, or when I’m video chatting my mom. Which, in my opinion, is a true trait of a “Mom.”

Silvia also goes to law-school part time three to four days a week. Grace says that to continue school, she may have to give up her teaching job.

I commend Silvia for wearing so many hats, while still looking hella fabulous.

Juan is a dad. He drives a school van/bus for a living, and I will see him least often. Juan is the strong, silent type. Of course there’s times where he’ll enthusiastically educate me on classic Vallenato singers and disco music. One time, he showed me how to make jugo de arbol.

Roberto is 16 years old. And yup, in the same vain as his parents, is a stereotypical teenage boy. His interests include playing Fifa on his PS 4, eating the portions of two adults in one sitting and yet still manages to stay skinny, and listening to American rap. We once bonded over Post Malone’s “Congratulations” - a big game changer in our relationship.

He also once told me that he was now the “cool kid” at his high school because he lived with a “real American.” I was touched. Anything I can do to help others.

Grace is 21 years old. Grace goes to university and studies sociology. She also studies English, and is at least at C1 level. She’s a Sagittarius like me, and it’s really nice to have someone so close to my age. We’ve gone shopping together a few times, had waxings done, and I’ve even met her friends. I sometimes feel guilty because she often plays the “family translator.” Roberto speaks some English, but is more of a B1 level.

I’ve told her multiple times that after time living with me, she could easily become a professional translator. She’s so intelligent and has a big heart. Throughout the week she volunteers at an organization that helps high school students reach their career goals. I know that after she graduates she will help the world even more.

In the one month I’ve lived here, the family includes me in many gatherings. Silvia visits her mother at least twice a week in a neighborhood called La Esmeraldas. The majority of their extended family lives within a five-block radius of her mother’s house. In addition to these weekly outings, I’ve been to one birthday party and one barbecue. Like themselves, their extended family is very warm and friendly.

Living with a family is definitely what I wanted as part of my cultural experience. It has expected and unexpected attributes to both it’s pros and cons list. I’ve laughed with them, sobbed like a baby in front of them, and shared embarrassing moments with them. I know that they are meant to be an integral part of my journey here.

I look forward to knowing this family more throughout these next few months.

*Names have been changed

#barranquilla #colombia #living situation #teaching english #english teacher #travel blog

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naminearuno · 6 years

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Diary Entry #2

January 27, 2018

It’s been 11 days since my last entry and so much has happened. I’m not gonna talk about it in any specific order.

First of all, Lexi’s mom found out about her stick-n-poke tattoos (After they had already faded, too) which led to further investigation and she told her mom that she’s been using Maya’s phone to talk to me. That was obviously a big deal because that’s the way it is with the Lesch’s. So now Lexi is supposed to have to move out on May 3rd, but I doubt they will hold her to that because they want her where they can most easily control her. She went a night without being allowed to sleep in her bed. She was supposed to quit her job, but she still has it for now. She’s still on guard. We’re still talking since it wasn’t really Maya’s phone to begin with and I’m not a fan of Maya anymore… Lexi is doing alright for the most part. Her grade in AP stats is really high and I’m impressed because I’ve heard a lot of crap about that class.

I didn’t go into my sociology class thinking that I would personally get anything out of it. But then we talked about depression. We talked about how as societies rely more on consumer capitalism and individualism increases, so does depression. When people have as much freedom as we do, they can also have excessive hope. That can make people feel even worse when they fail or still pretty awful even if they’re doing fine because they know better is possible. And as we become less and less reliant on others to make decisions for us we can feel more alone and more to blame if our lives don’t work out the way we intend. Basically, he explained that community is extremely important toward mental health. This got me thinking. First of all, it reaffirmed my belief that I should push my children to get involved from a young age. But it also got me thinking… I do believe community is important for mental health. I think that’s why my life got so much better when I joined guard. I don’t want someone telling me how my life is gonna go and who I’m gonna be, because I grew up in an American society after all :P, but it led me to a conclusion… about something I’ve thought about before. Maybe I would be happier if I went to church or another religious institution. I feel like I’m too open to follow a religion the way religious people typically do. I’m too skeptic of accepting a truth with no proof behind it and too open to the possibilities. I do think I might be able to get behind the values a religion preaches without believing in their God and their stories. I think I might enjoy being apart of a community like that… assuming I can find one that is positive. I look at people like Dani and Hannah Beer and I see how happy church makes them. Maybe I could benefit from it, too. Maybe it would help me feel like I belong. Probably not. I’ll feel like an outsider because I don’t believe. But still. It would also be interesting to learn about a religion first hand like that. I don’t know… This will most likely be next year adventure if it happens at all. Next year… When Amber and I are hopefully living in an apartment and transitioning to veganism… And hopefully I see my girlfriend regularly and finally lose my virginity (Lol do I /really/ belong in a church? Probably not…)

I’m not sure what I believe. I believe in something… I identify as Agnostic. I’m sure there is something more than us, whether it is a higher power the way people typically envision a higher power or something completely different we haven’t thought of… Or maybe that we can’t think of because we can’t understand it. I don’t know. I don’t know what happens when we die and I’m scared of the possibilities. I’m scared of everything just stopping and I’m scared of being eternally miserable and I’m scared of being reincarnated as a fly or bee or wasp or an even more messed up human. Humans fear what we don’t know. I don’t know and I am afraid.

Moving on to a lighter topic… I finished Dreamfall Chapters and started playing Remember Me. It’s a really interesting game, but also frustrating.

I also ordered a charger that should be here on Monday and my books better be here Monday because they were supposed to be here last Wednesday.

I’m still trying for straight As though I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t need to review my chem notes EVERY day. Whether I get straight As or not, I’m not overwhelmed by the workload this semester… yet. It all seems doable. I haven’t turned anything in late yet. There aren’t a lot of grades in the gradebook yet, but I only have 100s so far… It will not stay that way lol.

Amber and I have been sticking to our goal of going to the gym at least twice a week. We started the bluecoats training regime yesterday and I’m super excited. We’ve also decided that we’re gonna try to go Mon, Wed, Fri, and Saturday. Friday and Saturday are really good gym days because not a lot of people are there. We have yet to go on a Monday… heheh.

There’s been drama with Drew and his family. His mom has been bashing Jordan on his profile… on public posts. He’s still trying to contact Jordan and even messaged Zoe and accused Jordan of being a pathological liar. Speaking of which… his hickass mom sounds a lot like one of those what with her “degree in law” and her daughters husband that there have been no previous pictures or mention of… Anyway, it’s all been very annoying but also kind of hilarious. I think his mom needs to learn what the definition of “intelligence” is.

I don’t have time for these people to be honest. (Drew and his family). I’m too busy trying to better myself. I’m going to talk about some of my goals, values, and general things I’ve learned:

I now know what it means to invalidate someone’s feelings and why even if those feelings are irrational, that’s not okay. Feelings are real. Calling them “just chemicals in the brain” doesn’t devalue them. Chemicals in your brain are a very real and powerful thing. If you understand anything about science and the human body, you know that chemicals in your brain are responsible for a lot of physical and mental traits. For example, chemicals in your body determine how tall you are. Growth hormone, specifically. It is secreted by the pituitary gland in the brain. Growth hormone deficiency causes dwarfism. That is a very real thing that you can see. It being caused by a chemical in the brain does not make it any less real. Feelings and mental illnesses are also caused by chemicals secreted by the brain. You just can’t always see the effects. Anyway, this is turning into a very different point…. The point I wanted to make is that feelings are real and therefore you cannot just tell a person to ignore them or that they shouldn’t have them. If someone’s feelings are irrational, you still cannot invalidate them. You must first acknowledge them and the fact that they are not something easily controlled (And often times not controllable at all) and then bring in the logic. I.e. “I know you’re angry because your spaghetti’s on the floor,, but Shanaynay didn’t spill it on purpose.” V.S. “Calm down, it’s not like she did it on purpose.”.

There is a thing called emotional intelligence. I’m very lacking in this department, but I have enough regular intelligence to acknowledge and work on it. I really do think I have a mild form of aspergers or something like it, but I’m glad I came to that realization. I’m bad at understanding social cues and piecing things together. I miss out on jokes and sarcasm from time to time because I honestly just don’t get it. Sometimes I stop to think about things for a long time before coming to a realization that feels like an epiphany, but when I go to explain it to someone else it’s something they picked up on without even having to think about it. I have a hard time understanding why it’s not always okay to say things that are true. Hell, I picked honest as my personality trait for that English assignment in Becker’s class Sophomore year. I also have a hard time understanding emotions that I can’t physically feel. Anyway,, I’m glad I realized I have this problem/these problems. It allows me to prevent a lot of issues and explain behaviors of mine that other people don’t understand.

I enjoy intelligent arguments. I also believe they are an essential part of the modern human experience. People who don’t understand how to engage in intelligent arguments make me sad. I almost can’t comprehend how people think that belittling others and using profanity does anything but invalidate their arguments. When you come out and say that you are intelligent, when you attack for something that doesn’t relate to the topic (especially when it’s something they cannot control), and when you use swears/slurs, you decrease the intelligence of your argument. You significantly decrease the chance that anyone who didn’t already agree with you will even hear the point you’re trying to make. Words can hurt. It’s also important to understand opposing arguments. Your argument is much stronger if you show that you understand the opposition, but still think it’s wrong.

Words can significantly impact a person's emotions, mental health, etc. Words can start wars. Words can make people famous. For a lot of people, stringing words together and/or understanding words is their job. Words are one of the main ways we communicate. Words have power. Without them, our societies would be drastically different. Words can get you into all kinds of legal trouble. Words matter. Expression matters. Communication matters. How someone can dismiss words in favor of violence, I will never understand. Violence doesn’t lead to change or understanding. Words can. Words can hurt. Words can heal. They are not insignificant.

That’s not to say that you should be offended by specific words. Words like “fuck” for example. Yes, it’s not a “nice” word and it’s not a word that is socially acceptable in most professional settings. But hearing someone say it on TV or at a restaurant or in any random context that does not require professional language, should not offend you. If it does offend you, that is your problem. If something someone says, whilst not meaning to hurt anyone, bothers you, that is not their problem. They can say whatever they want. If you don’t like it, it is your job to stay away from them, to ignore it, to reflect on why it offends you and whether or not it’s a feeling you want to hold onto. Words matter but the intention behind them matters more.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. Everyone in America has freedom of speech. These things don’t mean that you can say whatever you want. Saying hurtful things can get you into legal trouble. Cyberbullying, harassment, stalking, libel, and slander can all get you into legal trouble. You do not have the right to go around and be a jerk to people. You just don’t. A good general principle to live by is to do whatever you want as long as it doesn't hurt others.

You don’t have to cottle people. You don’t have to refrain from talking about things because it offends people. But you do have to keep in mind that the platforms you leave your opinions on have rules and guidelines. You do have to keep in mind that saying certain things in a certain way can be illegal. And if you want people to care about your feelings, you should be sure to care about theirs. There is a balance between being yourself/expressing your opinions and trash talking people, harassing people, etc.

I’ve been putting a lot of effort into becoming a better person. I think it’s important to always be reflecting on who you are and working towards positive changes, especially when you’re not happy with who you are as a person. By coming to college and being in the Bears for a Just Community LLC alone, by surrounding myself with new people and opportunities, I am growing more and more each day. I’ve been actively choosing to be better - to be more conscious of others feelings and how what I say and do impacts them, to put more effort into school, to learn, to go to class everyday, to evaluate myself and my choices, to go to the gym, and to be healthier. I feel more productive. I feel like I’m actually living and participating in the college experience; I didn’t feel like that before. I think being productive, bettering myself, and learning are going to make me so much happier. I’m ready to do the whole “New year, new me” cliche right. I want to always be improving.

There is a lot more I could say, but I’ve been working on this entry for a while so I’ll leave it at that.

#diary #journal #dear diary #personal #vent #rant #march

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ghuleh1996-blog · 7 years

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Hey there, @iamnightbreed tagged me to do this one (cheers boi) so here it is:

LASTS:

Last drink: Diet Bepis

Last phone call: My other half

Last text message: My mum asking when she could come round to my house

Last song listened to: Secular Haze by Ghost

Last time you cried: A few nights ago, I was feeling hormonal I guess lmao

HAVE YOU EVER:

Dated someone twice? Sort of, if breaks count.

Been cheated on? Yes

Kissed someone and regretted it? Yes, I was really drunk and it was a bit of a disaster all round.

Lost someone special? Yes.

Been depressed? Yes.

Been drunk and thrown up? Let me see, the last time was…oh yeah, last week hahaha

Talked to someone named tom? Yeah, my friend Tommy

IN THE PAST YEAR HAVE YOU:

Made a new friend? Yeah, I’ve become pretty close with a couple of my other half’s band mates. One of them is a huge fan of Ghost, he’s awesome.

Fallen out of love? No, I tried to tell myself I had at one point, but I was kidding myself.

Laughed until you cried? Yes. Last night I got high and watched ‘Pingun ADHD’, I nearly died.

Met someone who changed you? Probably, I think a lot of my friends have influenced my personality.

Found out who your true friends were? Sort of. I definitely realised what doesn’t qualify as a good friend, a.k.a. every ‘friend’ I had before the age of 16. School was the worst.

Found out someone was talking about you? Not that I can recall. Not anything bad, at least.

GENERAL:

How many people on Tumblr do you know in real life? Nobody, I prefer to keep my Tumblr anon and away from real life, if that makes sense.

Do you have any pets? Sadly not. I want a kitty and I want to call him Toby. The other half doesn’t really like cats, unfortunately.

Do you want to change your name? No, I kind of like my name. Even if everyone asks me how to spell my last name.

What time did you wake up this morning? 9 am, then I went to a doctor’s appointment at 10 am.

What were you doing last night? I made a curry and then I got high.

Name something you cannot wait for: My Halloween party next week. I’ve got lots of awesome decorations, I’ve perfected the playlist, I’m going to prepare snacks, I’m going to be a Sister of Sin, and I’ve got friends coming through from another city.

What’s getting on your nerves right now? I’ve recently moved into a house with my fiancé. I got it all nice and tidy, and exactly how I wanted. But today his mum came round and dropped off a load of his crap. He hasn’t sorted it out and it’s made a total mess in the living room.

Blood type: No idea.

Nickname: I don’t really have one. A couple of my friends at uni shortened my name to ‘Em’. But I don’t have a solid one that a lot of people call me.

Relationship status: Engaged, and having an imaginary affair with Tobias Forge. I’m only kidding, of course

Zodiac sign: Cancer

Pronouns: She/Her

Favorite tv show: Ooh, I can’t decide. I’ll list a few: Rick and Morty, The Simpsons, Black Books, The Young Ones, House MD, Mighty Boosh, American Horror Story, Red Dwarf, and of course, the Great British Bake Off.

College major: We have a different system in the UK, but I studied Sociology at uni. I’m hoping to do a Masters degree next year.

Hair color: It’s like a dark purple colour at the moment. It kind of looks dark brown, but it has overtones of violet and undertones of red. My hair colours are always a little hard to describe.

Long or short: Looooong

Do you have a crush on someone? Tobias Forge lmao

What do you like about yourself? My taste and knowledge in stuff like music and films, and also the fact that I’m a bit geeky. I like that I’m a little cultured and educated but obviously I’m still developing that, and I like being able to cook. I also kind of enjoy being an introvert, in a way.

FIRSTS:

Surgery: None, I nearly had surgery on my knee once but I think I’ve grown out of the issue I had with that.

piercing: Ears.

Best Friend : Probably my fiancé

Sport: I’ve never been into any sports. I was good at darts when I was younger, if that counts.

Vacation: I think Florida when I was 2.

Pair of sneakers: I don’t remember that hahaha

NOW:

Eating: Nothing.

Drinking: Diet Bepis

I’m about to: Get ready to go out for a meal.

Listening to: The TV in the background.

WANTS:

Kids: I’m really not sure.

Get married: I’m engaged, so yeah, probably haha

Career: I want to be a writer of some sort, probably in an academic way. I’m not religious, but I’m very interested in religion, and I’d like to develop my academic knowledge in that area and make some contributions in that field.

WHICH IS BETTER:

Lips or eyes? I can’t decide. Lips, I guess.

Hugs or kisses? Depends who they’re with!

Shorter or taller? I’m pretty short, so men who are anywhere near 6ft are a bit too tall for me hahaha

Older or younger? Older. I don’t think I would be with someone younger than me.

Romantic or spontaneous? Spontaneous I suppose, they’re both pretty good.

Sensitive or loud? Sensitive. I can’t handle loud people.

Hook up or relationship? Relationship

Trouble maker or hesitant? I guess hesitant, I don’t know, it depends on the context.

HAVE YOU EVER:

Kisses a stranger: Yes, see the ‘disaster’ thing above.

Drank hard liquor: Yes, too many times lmao

Lost glasses/contacts: Not yet

Sex on first date: No

Broken someone’s heart: Not that I know of

Been arrested: No, I’m always careful ;D

Turned someone down: Yes.

Fallen for a friend: Yes, my fiancé was my friend

DO YOU BELIEVE:

In yourself: Haha sort of, that’s deep

Miracles: No

Love at first sight: No

Heaven: No

Santa: Um, of course!

Witchcraft: No, it interests me though. I nominate... @captain-kio @cotojestpan @maxwell-demon @ladyrevealedofcloak @dreamingworldsforme

#wow this got personal #personal #ask #questions

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dippedanddripped · 4 years

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There’s only one problem as the growing clothing rental market inches toward offering men’s wear: Guys may not buy in.

By Jessica Testa and Jonah Engel Bromwich

Jan. 8, 2020

A little more than a decade ago, a pair of Harvard Business School students founded Rent the Runway, a platform for renting special-occasion evening wear that has since expanded to all kinds of wear: leopard-print blazers, bright red ski pants, Swarovski crystal necklaces and leather fanny packs.

By the spring of 2019, the company was valued at $1 billion and had spawned multiple competitors.

But Rent the Runway has never carried men's wear. Despite the popularity of renting, there are no companies of its size that offer men’s apparel. Because aside from prom or wedding tuxedos, men do not rent — for now, at least.

Why don’t men rent? Are they fearful that borrowed clothing carries the unsanitary residue of other men? Do they dread the logistical planning required to return a pair of cuff links? Or is it just that their renting options are so few and little known that they didn’t know they could?

The New York Times asked a dozen stylish men across the United States (and one abroad) about their attitude toward renting clothes. Nearly all were dubious, and not because of hygiene or laziness.

Through their explanations, they provided a window into how fashion-aware men think about clothes in 2020. Their stated values — individuality, ownership and longevity — were at odds with the ever-rotating closet pushed by the rental market.

Still, leaders and new players in that market are plotting expansions into men’s wear, each on slightly different paths. Whether men know it — or want it — the race to make them rent is about to begin.

The Post-‘Metrosexual’ Moment

Sometime around 2007, it became easier for men to talk about their appreciation for clothing, according to Volker Ketteniss, the director of men’s wear at the trend forecasting firm WGSN. Marketers began pushing a more “technical approach” to shopping for men, he said, placing the idea of heritage brands and craftsmanship front and center.

“This became a guy’s way of being into fashion,” Mr. Ketteniss said. “The same way you could be into cars, stereos and other gadgets.” (Before that time, men who liked clothes were more often called “metrosexuals.”)

Their interest often starts with flashy accessories, like sneakers and watches. That’s how it worked for Ty King, a shoe enthusiast in Nashville.

“Especially early on, with shoes, you didn’t want the shoe that other people were wearing,” said Mr. King, a 43-year-old music and sportswear writer known online as John Gotty.

In mid-December, when Nike released the new Air Jordan 11, Mr. King decided to skip the drop. Too many people were lining up for the $220 red-and-black retro sneakers.

“Even if I did buy them, I’m probably not going to wear them for a year or two,” he said. By then, he expects everyone else will have moved on.

Mr. King’s individualist attitude extends to renting clothes, which he said he would never do. Through years of digging and researching, he has developed his own “strong sense of style.”

“I truly know what I feel works best for me,” he said.

Mr. King fears that renting will lead to herd mentality, and he’s not alone.

“How much of truly being stylish or expressing oneself with clothing is going to be left?” said George Lewis Jr., the 36-year-old Angeleno who makes music as Twin Shadow.

Mr. Lewis said he was familiar with the concept of renting clothes, and he knows women who rent clothes, but that he personally thinks the concept is strange.

Mr. Ketteniss of WGSN has a theory about men’s skepticism toward renting: Women are accustomed to the idea because they have been swapping clothes with their friends since they were teenagers.

This pastime never really caught on with men. And the women’s wear market has always grown at a faster pace than men’s wear. Why would the renting phenomenon be any different?

Pride in Ownership

On Instagram, under the handle ThePacMan82, Phil Cohen has amassed 770,000 followers, with posts that show a neat collection of clothing and accessories, styled as if for an advertisement.

Though Mr. Cohen appears on lists of prominent fashion influencers, he prefers to leave himself out of the pictures. The spotlight belongs to the clothes themselves.

In an interview Mr. Cohen, 37, expressed pride in his clothing and the work it took to obtain it. He said that renting a nice pair of boots or a hard-to-find jacket may thwart the proper way of things, which for him is a four-step process: Man wants garment. Man saves up for garment. Man purchases garment. Man wears garment.

“I like the idea that you save up and buy something that then becomes part of your life, part of your wardrobe,” he said. “I think that there’s a genuine sort of appreciation for the product when you’ve put yourself into it.”

Several men agreed. A few said that being outed as a rental customer may be embarrassing. It would be as if they were pretending to have more money than they did.

Jason Ryan Lee, a 38-year-old editor at the black celebrity gossip website Bossip, said renting feels almost like cheating.

“I would hate to walk out in a rental and get all kinds of compliments and in my mind be like, ‘This is cool, but this isn’t mine,’” he said. “‘Now I feel like an impostor of some kind. I’m not as cool as people think I am. This $2,000 jacket, I just rented for $35.’”

Through clothing, people project their wealth, status and work ethic. For men, being caught in clothes they don’t own could threaten those projections, and their masculinity.

Mary Blair-Loy, a sociology professor at the University of California, San Diego and the founding director of the Center for Research on Gender in the Professions, said that men often still see themselves as breadwinners. Owning their belongings helps support that image.

“Ownership is a sign and a signal of wealth and status and success in a precarious capitalist competitive world,” she said.

A Double Standard

There is also less pressure on men to own extensive wardrobes. At work, they are less likely to be scrutinized for wearing the same outfit every day. And they take pride in wearing their clothes for a long time.

Dylan Walker, a 20-year-old welding student who lives in Georgia, said that he owns about 10 pairs of cowboy boots and would never think about renting an additional pair.

“Boots last for a really long time,” he said. “One pair of boots for six years. When I buy clothes, I’m buying them for the long haul.”

Stanton Coville, a 29-year-old software developer in Ohio, said that he takes a utilitarian approach to his clothing, to the point that he calculates the cost-per-wear of individual pieces. After wearing a $300 pair of Japanese jeans for four years, its cost was justified, he said. His wife makes fun of him, but he has had to get the jeans repaired only once.

Gert Jonkers, the 53-year-old editor in chief of Fantastic Man and a publisher of The Gentlewoman, spoke of the double standard women face when they repeat outfits. For women, it’s thought to be a faux pas. For men, it’s unremarkable.

Women also have a harder time getting away with informality, he said; they are more liable to be judged for ignoring fashion trends.

“Last night I was wearing a Missoni jumper I’ve had for 10 years, and people were saying ‘Oh, wow, I love that jumper,’” Mr. Jonkers said. “Nobody notices that it’s from fall or winter 2008. It just really doesn’t matter.”

Pride in ownership and longevity combine to create sentimental value. Mr. Lewis said that he appreciated the way personal possessions become “weathered by the energy of your household, or physically weathered by you wearing it.”

Continue reading the main story

Of the white jeans he was wearing during an interview for this article, he said: “I love them and hate them, because two days after wearing them I have to wash them to make them fit the right way, and every time I wash them they get a little bit worse, and my mom overbleached them so they’re looking slightly pink now.”

“But it’s important to me because these have a story to them,” he added.

Thinking About Men

Major rental companies nevertheless look at men as an untapped market, even if they’re not quite sure how to go about tapping it.

Nuuly, a Rent the Runway competitor founded in 2019, is “actively looking” at expanding into men’s apparel, said Sky Pollard, the head of product.

Owned by URBN, the parent company of Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie, Nuuly is “talking to customers and trying to figure out a program that would work for them,” Ms. Pollard said. “We really see no reason to believe that they wouldn’t respond to it and love it as much as our women customers.”

Rent the Runway said it has also been thinking about men for a long time, albeit less urgently. The company believes men want variety in their closet, but it is still determining the best way to introduce men’s wear.

For example, should it advertise to men directly or target existing female members who buy clothes for the men in their lives?

Continue reading the main story

Either way, Rent the Runway could give style-conscious men what it has already given to women: the ability to cycle through trendy clothes at a reasonable cost (its cheapest plan is four pieces for $89 per month), without resorting to lower-quality, questionably sourced fast fashion destined for a landfill.

Unlike other men interviewed, Khalid El Khatib, 34, was enthusiastic about the idea of renting. Ever since Mr. El Khatib, a marketing and communications professional in New York, learned about Rent the Runway from his two sisters, he has wished he had access to something like it.

A few years ago, when he went to Cuba on vacation, he brought a brand-new Reiss floral button-down shirt.

“I never wore it again,” he said. “I bought it for Cuba, I wore it in Cuba, and then I retired it.” He appreciates fashion, but he isn’t attached to owning pieces no one else owns, or owning them for a long time.

In November, a New York start-up began experimenting with renting men’s wear to a list of 50 family members and friends. The company, Seasons, was founded by Regy Perlera and Luc Succés, who were also behind an app that allowed users to text each other Drake lyrics.

Continue reading the main story

In an interview, Mr. Perlera said that “men are very ownership oriented.” But, he said, “the concept of ownership is changing drastically and very quickly. We used to think that we needed cars, and now we have Lyft and Uber and Car2Go. We used to need homes, and now we have Airbnb.”

Mr. Perlera hopes to make fashion more available to people for whom the cost has traditionally been prohibitive. The Seasons website says it has inventory from Yeezy, Off-White and Gucci.

But at the moment, it plans for its cheapest subscription package to be $155 per month, which lets the renter get three pieces.

Mr. Perlera said he has been studying Rent the Runway’s successes and missteps. When asked if he was concerned that these lessons may not apply to men, he said that the Seasons inventory is actually not particularly gendered, despite the language on its website: “A members only rental subscription service for menswear & streetwear.”

“It’s really a category of fashion that really doesn’t have gender boundaries,” he said.

#men and boys #menswear blog #urbanwear blog #streetwear blog

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