#imagine hearing the february friday’s letters | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

raibebe · 3 years

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Love Is On Air

Genre: fluff & smut Words: 8.722 Prompt: radio host Johnny x secret admirer female reader Warnings: soft dom Johnny, oral (f receiving), safe sex, dirty talk

A/N: Finally: My entry for the February event of my lovely network @neosmutcollective. This is totally not the fic I planned on writing. In fact this was started way later after I realized I was never going to finish my original fic on time. Not that this one is on time... Special thanks to everyone who sent our lovely DJs some music recommendations @sly-merlin, @moonctzeny, @lenaluvs, @lucas-wongs, @burtonized and to @ncteaxhoe who helped me figure out this idea. I hope you enjoy this even though it’s wayyy too late.

You hurried home to your apartment after your last class of the day that was horrifically late because of whoever had fucked up your schedule this semester. Panting heavily, you busted into your room and threw your jacket and backpack somewhere onto your couch, diving straight for your laptop that was perched on your desk. Cursing the old thing, you waited for agonizing minutes until it had booted up and your browser was open. You quickly opened the familiar page of your university’s campus radio just in time to hear the familiar voice saying: “Hi I’m John-D, welcome to NCT Night Night.” After that both hosts chuckled lowly before Jaehyun spoke: “Tonight we’ll read some of the letters you wrote us over the week again and we will try our best to help you out with whatever problems you throw our way.” “Exactly. Right after we play this song that was suggested by evangelie_99 over on our Twitter, it’s Pluto Projector by Rex Orange County and she said that she loves our show. We’re glad you like it so much, darling. This one is for you,” Johnny softly said before the soft tunes of the song filled your little one-room apartment.

Sighing, you leaned back in your chair, carelessly toeing your shoes off. Listening to NCT Night Night was your escape at night from the stress that classes brought you. The two DJs that were on air every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday were your favorites though. Not only did they have great chemistry but they both could be incredibly funny as well as soothe all your nerves with their calming voices – especially Johnny or John-D as he was called on their show. You might have developed a slightly embarrassing crush on the fratboy with a heart as sweet as his voice from what you knew about him from his radio shows and your shared classes. Since they had started their weekly segment where they would read out letters that students could send them, you had gathered the courage to send Johnny little messages about how you were crushing on him and it had quickly become a running gag on the show. Jaehyun would tease Johnny about it every week while Johnny kept insisting that his secret admirer should just talk to him. But how could you do that? Johnny was everything one could want in a boyfriend. Not only was he ridiculously tall and devastatingly handsome but he was also smart, always seemingly staying on top of his classes and he also went to the gym regularly if his thirst traps on his Instagram stories were anything to go by. When he wasn’t giving out advice in a gentle voice on their radio program, he was out partying with his frat brothers on the weekends more often than not complaining about headaches on their Sunday show. How could you just walk up to him and talk to him? Right. You couldn’t. So you had to resign to sending him anonymous love letters through his radio show.

“Welcome back, hi,” Johnny chuckled once the song had gently faded out and you couldn’t help but giggle along. “That was Pluto Projector by Rex Orange County,” Jaehyun tried to stay on script but you could almost hear the grin on his face because of Johnny’s antics, “If you want your song to play on today’s show, please suggest something over on our Twitter with the hashtag,” Jaehyun paused momentarily and let out a dramatic sigh before continuing, “hashtag JohnDplaymelikeaviolin.” Jaehyun hadn’t even read the whole hashtag out loud when Johnny was already bursting out in laughter and how could you not laugh along with his melodic laughter. “I swear to god I am never letting you choose hashtags for our show ever again,” Jaehyun groaned while Johnny sounded like he was still dying in the background. “Don’t be mean to me Jaehyunie,” he whined and even though today’s episode was not viewable, you could vividly imagine how he was pouting. While the two friends were busy bickering and talking about what they had done since their last show, you pulled up your own Twitter to send a recommendation in.

“Aaaah, I see we’re already getting plenty of suggestions. Sly-merlin suggested us Sexy Dirty Love by Demi Lovato – a great song – and added ‘I wish John-D would actually play me like a violin.” After a potent silence, Johnny broke out in laughter again. “And this is why you won’t choose any more hashtags,” Jaehyun groaned again. “Baby,” Johnny rasped into his mic and even though you weren’t wearing headphones, it sent tingles down your spine, “Just come to our frat party on Friday and I’ll see what I can do.” “Stop plugging our parties on the radio,” Jaehyun scolded the elder, the slap audible over the radio, “Also sly-merlin has to stand in line. You still have your number one admirer who has sent in a letter yet again.” “She still hasn’t come up to me,” Johnny shared, “I can only keep up my chastity for so long. I am saving myself for this girl.” You know he was joking but you were just a simple woman and even in your secluded home, you felt heat rising to your cheeks, your thumbs stopping on your keyboard where you had typed out your song recommendation. Both DJs shared a quiet laugh before Jaehyun asked: “And you really don’t know who she is?” “I really don’t man,” his friend sighed, “Like I have my suspicions because she has to be in my major if she sees me in class that often. That or she’s a stalker which I do not want to think about. But for real, hit me up. I’ll take you out for a coffee.” “Now everyone is going to come up to you and claim that they’re her.” “I’ll take that risk,” Johnny laughed, “Maybe I’ll finally meet the love of my life and settle down.” At that Jaehyun snorted loudly. “The woman that can make you settle down gets free coffee for like a month from me.” “Watch me have a wife and kids at 25 Jae, just to spite you,” his friend snorted, “But up until then, let’s play sly-merlin’s song recommendation: Sexy Dirty Love by Demi Lovato.”

While the song was playing, you finished up your own tweet and hit post before you grabbed your bag that you had carelessly thrown away before to get out your notes. You actually had to start a project for one of the classes you and Johnny actually did share. The professor had announced that he would announce the pairings for a group project tomorrow and you didn’t want to seem like an actual idiot if your group would decide to already meet up and discuss after class. So while you listened to your favorite DJs discuss the questions and worries of whoever had sent them to their email address, you worked through the notes you had taken over the last couple of weeks, trying your best to organize them to remember the key points.

“Oh John-D, I have a very special letter here,” Jaehyun said, waving the paper in front of the microphone so it would pick up the wiggling noises. “What could that be?” Johnny asked with over-exaggerated interest. “It’s from your secret admirer, John-D. So I think you should read it out.” Just like every time, they read your letter, your heart began beating faster and faster in your chest until you were sure, it would break free from your ribcage. “Okay, here I go,” Johnny announced while Jaehyun was playing the same cheesy music he always played when they were reading your letters, “Happy Thursday, John-D. The weekend is almost in reach, keep up the energy for the last day of classes! – she’s so sweet, I’m holding up alright – One of my professors will announce the pairings he made for a group project soon and I am nervous. I don’t have many friends in the course and I’m praying that I will get good group mates I can work well with.” “Oooh, I get that struggle,” Jaehyun interrupted, “I once had to work with a bunch of stoners and ended up doing all the work for a presentation that made up 30 percent of my grade. Worst experience of my life, would not recommend. But we’re wishing you all the luck.” “But you know what’s more interesting about this story?” Johnny tuned in, “Coincidentally my professor for my literature class is assigning our group projects tomorrow as well. Say, my sweet admirer, are you perhaps in the same literature class as me?” In your otherwise silent room, the panicked squeak you let out was loud even to your ears. There was no way Johnny could figure out who you were, there were probably at least 20 more girls with a crush on him in that class alone, so you were safe. “Oooh, so maybe she’s a lit major so that’s why she’s writing love letters.” “Could be but lots of people from different majors are taking that class,” Johnny argued, “Anyways, back to her letter. But I won’t let that disturb me! I will be doing my best regardless! – That’s the spirit – I’ll work through my notes as I listen to your honey voice so I can be prepared. I’m glad you don’t do viewable radios on Thursday’s or else I wouldn’t be able to get anything done, you’re just too distracting John-D,” at that Jaehyun let out a fake gag while Johnny just giggled softly, “Thank you secret admirer, I do clean up quite nicely if I do say so myself. – On last Sunday’s episode you melted my heart when you hid in your hoodie for half the show. – God that was the worst hangover I had in a looong while, I was so miserable.”

“You should have seen him at home,” Jaehyun laughed, “I had to physically drag his whole 180-something-centimeters body first into the shower, then into the car and into the station. He is the biggest crybaby when he’s hungover.” “Don’t expose me like that, Jaehyunie,” Johnny whined loudly, “I was dared to drink a bunch of tequila and my mother didn’t raise neither a quitter nor a coward.” “No, but clearly an idiot,” the younger DJ laughed his deep laugh. “Let me read my love letter in peace,” the other grumbled, “I couldn’t follow for half the show because I was so focused on watching you. Not in a creepy way of course! – Of course not,” Johnny chuckled, “I hope you finished that essay you had to work on after the show in time and still had some time to relax. – I did, don’t worry.” That you already knew when Johnny had handed in his essay in another class you two shared just before you had handed in yours and he had thrown you a little smile that had kept you going through the whole day. “Take care of yourself and keep smiling your beautiful smile, I look forward to seeing you again on Sunday or in classes. And fighting to Jae-D as well of course! – I look forward to hearing from you again, secret admirer. I bet your group project will go just fine, don’t worry too much. If anyone is mean to you, just expose them here and we’ll fight them for you.” “Love that she acknowledged me in one sentence as well,” Jaehyun grumbled, cutting off the cheesy music abruptly. “You’re just jealous you don’t have a sweet admirer who sends you cute messages,” the other teased his friend. “Yeah, yeah, shut up and put that letter in the box under your bed.” “It’s in my sock drawer, thank you very much.”

Giggling, you listened to the two friends bicker, your chest warm with a feeling you were scared to put a name on. “Anyways, I think it’s time for another music recommendation you can still send in via our lovely hashtag JohnDplaymelikeaviolin. This one is from lenaluvies and she says: Please play Hurts So Good by Astrid S thank you. No, thank you for sending something in darling. This one’s for you,” Johnny announced and you couldn’t help but laugh a little pained laugh. That song title hit a little too close to home for your liking. The rest of the radio show went by smoothly and Johnny and Jaehyun tried to help a handful of more students with their problems that couldn’t be more diverse. From a boy who had fallen in love with his best friend which had send him into an identity crisis over to a girl who was failing her classes because she claimed the professor hated her to a freshman who wanted to apply for a fraternity but was scared because of the rumors surrounding them which the DJs quickly debunked since they both were in the same fraternity. In the end they had to cut themselves short, asking their viewers to vote on a poll they would make if people wanted a whole Tuesday episode surrounding fraternities.

“So.” “So,” Johnny copied his friend. “We’re almost at the end of our time with you guys. We couldn’t get through all of your submissions but we hope our team picked a few good ones and at least some of you could get some advice.” “As always you’re free to send us your own stories to our e-mail [email protected] to get some advice next Thursday from your favorite DJs: John-D.” “And Jae-D. Every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday on your campus radio on 127mHz. On NCT-“ “Night Night,” they said their ending together and just like every night with them, you said goodnight to your computer screen, closing the tab which draped your little apartment in silence. Sighing loudly, you looked over your notes that needed a little more work if you wanted to make a good first impression on your fellow students tomorrow. Because you couldn’t stand the silence, you opened your Spotify to play the NCT Night Night playlist Johnny and Jaehyun had made with the songs that had been recommended to them, still missing the new additions from tonight.

The next morning found you in your literature class, sitting two rows behind Johnny, staring at the back of his head while doodling on your paper rather than taking notes on whatever the professor was saying. If you were to let your eyes wander, you’d see that almost everyone in the big room was paying as much or even less attention as you were; the students in different states of excitement and anxiety over the group projects he had yet to announce. “I’m sorry professor,” Johnny’s voice suddenly cut through the room, “I’m sure you have already noticed that no one is paying attention to whatever you’re trying to teach us right now. Could you please just announce the groups for the project?” That moment you swore you would be able to hear a pin drop until your eccentric professor chuckled lowly. “I like you, Suh. I was waiting for someone to mention it,” he spoke, getting the dreaded list out of his bag, “Listen closely now, you’ll be assigned in groups of four and each group will get a specific novel to work on. Deadline will be by the end of the semester and your individual paper combined with the group presentation will make up 40% of your final grade.” That made a bunch of people, including you, gasp out loudly. A group project with this much credit to your final grade was always dreaded. “I don’t want to hear any complaints, that’s how it’s always been. Now listen carefully, I won’t repeat myself but the list will be hung on our blackboard as well.” With that being said, the professor began listing names and novels in the most monotone voice he could muster. To say you were basically vibrating off of your seat was an understatement when he got further and further down the list and neither yours nor Johnny’s name had been called yet. “And lastly, an all-time favorite: Romeo and Juliet.” You didn’t even register anything else after the professor had announced that the group featured both Johnny and you along with two other students you didn’t know. Your brain was reduced to static noise while everyone else was getting up around you to pick up the books that had already been stacked in a corner, probably by a poor TA. Only when a person bumped into you, you broke from your stupor to quickly pick up your stuff as well to hurry down to steps to where a crowd of students had already gathered.

Luckily Johnny towered over most of the other students and you could easily spot him and the rest of your group that were two other boys you didn’t recognize. “Hey, you’re the last one we were missing,” Johnny smiled and handed you over your copy of the book. “Y... Yeah, sorry for making you wait,” you stuttered, clutching the small book tightly in your hands. “No big deal,” Johnny played it off, “Do any of you have any more classes today?” When everyone declined, you all agreed that you should get a head start on your project as it would be hard to make a good project out of such an overused love story. While walking over to the student center to decide on a concept, conversation flowed easily between the four of you even though you were still really nervous to be around Johnny. God, you really hoped he didn’t think you were stupid or something just because you were nervous.

The little study session went by in a blur and only further confirmed that you were so whipped for Johnny it wasn’t even funny anymore. You found yourself attentively listening to all of his ideas and laughing at every of his stupid little jokes and only mildly spacing out while looking at Johnny when the others were discussing ideas which had led to one or two mildly embarrassing situations where you would lose track of what you were actually discussing, your mind blank of any input when they asked for your opinion.

Soon you found yourself parting ways with your groupmates, leaving you and Johnny alone because his frat house and your little apartment were located in the same general direction. “Anything fun you’re doing this evening?” Johnny asked, trying to make some light conversation to fill the silence. “No, I’ll just binge watch some shows maybe or listen to the campus radio,” you shrugged it off. While today’s show wasn’t your favorite, you quite liked the DJs soft and gentle voice. “You listen to the campus radio? I have a show on there,” Johnny smiled. “I like listening to you and Jaehyun,” you confessed, trying to fight the heat that was licking at your cheeks. “Oh.” “You seem surprised.” “Yeah, it kind of still seems weird that people enjoy listening to Jae and me rambling for hours on end. You know with him it just feels like I’m hanging out with my brother rather than work.” “Your voices are really soothing, you know,” you tried to explain what you were feeling when listing to them, “And your friendship is kind of adorable. Like we can feel how much you care about each other and you always genuinely try to help your listeners without making fun of them.” For a while Johnny didn’t say anything and you thought you had fucked it up, that he thought you were weird now. “Thank you,” he suddenly said. “Huh?” “It means a lot hearing that. We do lurk on Twitter to see what people think of our show but hearing it like this is something else entirely.” “It’s nothing,” you mused, playfully hitting his arm, “No need to get this soft.” “Hey,” he laughed, “I’ll have you know that I am 180 centimeters of walking softness despite what people might say about me.” Smiling softly you caught his eyes for the first time since you two had started walking and the way his honey eyes were smiling back at you momentarily took your breath away.

“I- My room is right around here, sooooo,” you stuttered. “It was nice working with you. Even though you were spacing out half the time,” Johnny teased, “Thinking about a special someone?” You. The word sat on the tip of your tongue, the low light of the afternoon sun making you bolder than you actually were and Johnny just made you feel incredibly comfortable. “No... No- I- I’m single.” “A crush then?” “Something like that,” you mumbled, your fingers nervously playing with the hem of your jacket. “Talk to him. Or her. Or them,” Johnny advised. “I really can’t,” you sighed, “He doesn’t even know I exist.” “Well you don’t need to confess your undying love for him,” he laughed, not knowing he was the boy in question, “Just you know. Casually talk to him. Get to know him.” “I’ll try?” “Is that a question?” “Yeah?” “Have more confidence in yourself,” he gently nudged you, “You’re nice and very easy to talk to.” “Nice... Wow.” “Shut up,” he laughed, “I usually give better compliments but I have yet to get to know you better.” “Would you... Would you even want that?” “Sure,” Johnny shrugged and your heart skipped a couple of beats, “I have to get going or everybody will already be drunk when I arrive. So... I’ll see you in class? And you’ll hear me on Sunday?” “Yeah sure. Don’t drink too much or you will be miserable all show like last week,” you giggled. “Don’t remind me,” he groaned, “I’m never going to drink tequila on a Saturday ever again.” “Goodbye Johnny,” you smiled, really liking how his name sounded when you said it out loud. “Bye,” he waved before going his way.

Once you were sure he was out of hearing distance, you let out a little happy squeak and jumped up and down excitedly. You did it. You had actually done it. You had talked to your crush. And managed to not make a complete fool out of yourself in front of him. Which was a win in your books. A huge win. With a little spring in your steps, you stepped by one of your favorite pizza places to treat yourself before heading home where you spend your evening daydreaming about none other than Johnny while watching reruns of old dramas.

“Hi, I’m Jae-D.” “And I am John-D. Welcome to NCT-“ “Night Night.” “John-D.” “Yes, Jae-D,” Johnny chuckled. “It’s Thursday again which means it’s time to tend to our listener’s worries,” Jaehyun read off of the script, not getting distracted by his friend’s antics, “And today is a very special episode.” “Special?” Jaehyun barely repressed to roll his eyes at his friend’s over-exaggerated acting before continuing: “Yes, since tomorrow is a day off for all students, we have decided to make this episode extra lengthy and-“ he shortly stopped to flash the camera a peace sign, “Viewable despite it being Thursday.” “Do we look okay?” Johnny laughed, checking himself out in the video that was playing on one of their monitors. “Aaaaah, the comments say we look good tonight, thank you,” Jaehyun mused.

And they really did. Not that either of them had to do a whole lot to look good but today they were both wearing white button-downs with their sleeves rolled up to expose their forearms. Jaehyun had even gone so far as to put on some fake glasses. “And if you’re following us on our Twitter you also already know that this week it’s all about love on our campus radio and our show today is no exception,” Johnny read his part of the script. “Today John-D and Jae-D are Loveholics, trying our very best to help you with your problems surrounding love,” Jaehyun completed, “You can send in song recommendations through the hashtag JohnJaeLoveholic just like taryn1026 did – I hope I said that right – but they recommended Paris in the Rain by Lauv to set the mood for today.”

The soft tunes of the song made you relax a little into your sofa where you had chosen to watch today’s episode of NCT Night Night. You had to say that you were kind of nervous for today’s episode. Just like every week you had written your letter to Johnny, telling him about your week and cheering him on for your group project. At this point it should have been pretty obvious just who exactly you were and judging by how Johnny was acting towards you, his flirting leaving you flustered after your study sessions and your group mates mildly annoyed, he seemed to already have put together the pieces. But yesterday while writing your letter you had felt extra bold (and maybe also extra riled up and horny from Johnny’s shameless flirting) and had written him a message that should confirm all his suspicions and would hopefully lead him straight to you and into your bed. But until the end of the show or at least until they read your letter, which you really hoped they did today as well, you had to wait sitting in your apartment, for once not in comfortable clothes but in a nice shirt and pants.

“That was Paris in the Rain by Lauv, recommended to us by taryn1026 through our Twitter with the hashtag JohnJaeLoveholic,” Johnny’s raspy voice filled your apartment when he leaned close to the mic, “Jae-D are you ready to make some love happen?” “I already had my love juice,” Jaehyun answered, showing his pink Starbucks drink to the camera, “And my reading glasses are on.” As to prove his point, he hiked his glasses up his nose before scratching his eye through the holes in the frame, making both DJs chuckle. For the next hour Johnny and Jaehyun tried to solve several relationship dramas as well as a very tricky friends-with-benefits situation and telling a boy to break up with his cheating girlfriend which had been a rather heartbreaking discussion. “So after this,” Jaehyun sighed, “Let’s play another song recommendation. Burtonized has sent in a very fitting song, I hope you all don’t mind a little Korean: It’s God Damn by I.M – a song about heartbreak.”

While the foreign song was playing, the two DJs stretched their backs and sipped on their respective drinks: Jaehyun still on his pink sugar concoction and Johnny already on his second iced Americano. Jaehyun must have found something funny on his phone, nudging his friend to look at him but Johnny was busy typing away on his own, only acknowledging his friend after he had typed his message. Just after that, your own phone buzzed with a message, showing Johnny’s name on the screen.

From: Johnny Are you watching our show?

To: Johnny Sure, you look good today

From: Johnny Make sure to listen closely ;)

“That was God Damn by I.M suggested by burtonized over our Twitter hashtag JohnJaeLoveholic,” Jaehyun’s smooth voice tore you from your spiraling thoughts about the winking face Johnny had sent. “Sadly our show is coming to an end even with our extended airtime.” “But John-D a very important letter is still missing before we close our show. Dare I say it could be the highlight of our show,” Jaehyun joked, already playing the cheesy music he was always playing when Johnny would read your letters. “You’re right Jae-D my lovely secret admirer has sent in another letter,” Johnny mused, arranging himself so he could read the printed out letter while being as close as possible to the mic for it to pick up the rasp in his voice, “Happy Thursday John-D, I hope your week has been more exciting than mine. I have just been going from class to class without much thought, the only high points are my group meetings for the group project we have to hand in soon – That seems very familiar, baby – But since today is all about love, I’ll tell you about a little problem I have: – get your love juice ready, Jae – There is this boy in my group. And boy isn’t really the right word to describe him, he’s a man really,” at that Johnny couldn’t hold back a low chuckle, “I’m sorry, I’ll be serious – And he is flirting with me. Has been for a couple of weeks now. And it has gotten to the point where our groupmates are kind of annoyed at us. He has also walked me home a couple of times but he never so much as touched me. At this point I am so frustrated with him. Is he just playing with me? Or is his mouth bigger than his actions actually are? He has been riling me up all day today and I was ready to let him have his way with me but he only wished me goodnight and left again, leaving me to deal with what he had done all by myself – oh wow, I,” Johnny stuttered, sharing a gaze with his friend who was only barely repressing his laughter, “Wow, okay, I hope we’re in the good for reading this out and it’s late enough,” clearing his voice and raking a hand through his hair, Johnny continued, “John-D I hope this man hears what he has done to me and will deal with the consequences of his actions. Would you play Animal by Jin Yosef and RIELL for me? Just in case this letter hasn’t gotten my point across? – Y... Yeah sure, darling. We’ll play that once our show is over.”

“So John-D,” Jaehyun grinned while loudly slurping on his ‘love juice’, “What would you advice your secret admirer to do about this problem?” “Well if I were her,” Johnny started, his gaze going straight to the camera where he knew you were watching and it felt like he was looking straight into your soul, “I’d wait for him. I’m pretty sure he can prove that his actions speak even louder than his words.” For a while it was quiet between the two DJs, safe for Jaehyun’s obnoxiously loud slurping noises but even if they would have been saying anything, you weren’t sure if you could have comprehended any words with how furiously your heart was beating. “Anyways,” Jaehyun eventually broke the silence once he was sure there was nothing left in his ‘love juice’, “I’m afraid that was it for tonight. This has been your extra lengthy episode of Jae-D and John-D and we will leave you with this wonderful song recommendation: Animal by Jin Yosef and RIELL. If you’ve liked today’s show, we’re here every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday night on your campus radio on 127mHz to listen to all of your worries on NCT-“ “Night Night,” Johnny joined in and they both waved into the camera as your song of choice started playing. The video stream didn’t cut off immediately, showing the boys gathering their things and if your eyes weren’t betraying you, you swore you saw Johnny tense up when the song turned a little more explicit. The two DJs waved to the camera one last time before the stream cut off, leaving the screen of your laptop dark.

That was when it dawned on you what you had done. Shit. With how Johnny had sounded, you probably had about fifteen to twenty minutes until he would be at your doorstep. Oh god. Shit. Taking a couple of deep breaths, you tried to ground yourself before hurriedly closing your laptop and cleaning everything that seemed messy in your little one-room apartment. That was until you heard a knock on your door.

With shaky hands, you slowly opened the door and while you knew who would be standing on the other side, you weren’t ready for how he was going to look like: Johnny was leaning against the doorway casually with his arms crossed over his chest so the tight button-down he was wearing would strain over the planes of his chest muscles but what really reeled you in was how dark his eyes looked when he raked them over your body. “Good evening miss,” he drawled. “Hi,” you breathed. “Tell me what you want so I’m not misinterpreting any of this,” Johnny all but growled, one of his hands coming up to cup your face. “I want you to have me.” If you thought his eyes were dark before, they turned into bottomless black orbs once the words had left your lips. “You don’t know what you’re asking for, baby.” “Please,” you whimpered and that seemed to break Johnny’s resolve as he pulled you close to him and all but crashed his lips into yours. The kiss wasn’t delicate in any way, shape or form with how Johnny was licking into your mouth the second a moan left your lips. His tongue was intertwining with yours messily and in no time both of you were panting into each other’s mouths. “Inside. Now,” you rasped. “All with due time,” Johnny chuckled but let you pull him into your apartment, slamming the door shut to crowd you against it, one of his strong thighs slipping between your legs like it belonged there, “If you’re a good girl and listen well, I’ll give you anything you want.” “Fuck,” you cursed before slamming your lips together again, a new neediness bleeding into the kiss as you tugged on the longer strands of hair at the back of Johnny’s neck which made him growl lowly. “Anything off-limits?” Johnny breathed into your skin as he kissed down your neck to suck a mark there while his hands were busy pulling your shirt from your pants so he could rake them over your naked skin. “Just,” you had to cut yourself off with a moan, “Don’t be mean to me.” “Never,” he promised, “You’ll be my pillow princess.” His sweet words were in stark contrast to how hard his hands were gripping your hips and how his teeth were grazing over your neck that must be littered with marks already. “Take me to bed,” you heaved breathlessly, positive your legs would give out if it wasn’t for Johnny holding you up.

Listening to your demand, he slowly started walking you backwards towards your bed until the two of you were toppling down on top of the covers, his lips never leaving your skin. Whoever had spread the rumors about Johnny being a great lover had been absolutely right, he knew just how to touch you to have you gasping for air and judging by the grin on his lips he hadn’t even started yet. “Please,” you whimpered, arching into his touch, not exactly sure what exactly you were asking for but Johnny seemed to know all the better when he freed you from your top and pants to leave you in your matching lace set while he was still fully clothed in his by now wrinkled button-up and pants. “All for me?” He chuckled and pressed a kiss right between the valley of your breasts, his big hands cupping the soft flesh to squeeze it gently. “Have me,” you gasped out and you could feel the growl he let out vibrating where you were pressed together. “I’m going to ruin you,” Johnny promised, pulling down the cups of your bra to wrap his plush lips around one of your nipples to tease the soft nub until it hardened under his ministrations, sending waves of pleasure down your spine and straight to your core where you could feel your wetness starting to seep into the fabric of your panties. “Johnny,” you mewled and arched into his every touch, his calloused fingertips setting your skin alight when he let them travel down your body to tease over your lower stomach. As if by reflex, you let your thighs fall open for him to finally touch you where you needed him the most. “Such a good girl,” he smiled, blowing cold air over your spit-slicked nipple to watch you squirm beneath him. Your remark got stuck in your throat when he finally cupped you through your panties, feeling how damp the fabric had already become. “Naughty,” he chuckled, his eyes never leaving your face as he circled your clit through the fabric, watching your eyes fluttering shut when his gaze became too intense.

“Johnny,” you sighed, forgetting all other words except for his name. “Relax, princess,” he rasped and kissed his way down your body, leaving love bites on the sensitive skin of your stomach and thighs that shook with anticipation. If you’d say you hadn’t dreamed about his lips on you like this, you would lie and you weren’t going to miss the sight of this for nothing. Fighting back the fog that had started to cloud your mind, you forced your eyes open to look down to where he had settled between your open thighs to find him staring right back at you. “Good girl,” he praised you again before pressing a kiss over your clothed sex that made your head fall back already, the anticipation of what was to come making you push up your hips which made Johnny chuckle lowly. He didn’t leave you any time to feel embarrassed by how needy you were when he hooked your panties to the side unceremoniously and licked a broad stripe up your center, tasting your arousal. “Oh fuck,” you breathed out, your hands flying down to tangle them in the long strands of his hair. Johnny worked his tongue in slow and clever strokes, leaving your mind reeling with pleasure and taking his time to take you apart piece by piece, not even paying attention to your leaking center or your aching clit. But when he did wrap his lips around your clit to gently suck on the nub, your mind almost went numb with how intense his touch was, your thighs clamping shut around him. To make it even worse, he started humming around you while prying your thighs back open, holding you down with his large hands. You felt your orgasm approach almost embarrassingly fast now that he was altering between teasing your clit with his tongue, lips and even his teeth and fucking your velvety walls with his tongue, setting your nerve endings on fire. “Johnny I’m close,” you warned him but instead of slowing down, he stretched his jaw wide to press his tongue further into you, his nose bumping into your clit in the process and with the combined sensation and his doubled effort, it took no time for your first orgasm of the night to wash over you, a scream of his name leaving your lips as you shook through it, your mind going equally as numb as your legs.

When you came back to it, Johnny had straightened up between your legs and he was grinning down at you while he was unbuttoning his shirt, his face still shiny with your arousal. “That was the first one,” he spoke darkly. “Come here,” you whined, making grabby hands for him until he took pity on you and covered your body with his before connecting your lips in a bruising kiss. You could still taste yourself on his lips but that somehow just made it even hotter.

“Want you inside me,” you panted against his lips when Johnny broke the kiss in favor of raking his teeth over your racing pulse. “Yeah?” He rasped and ground his hips down into yours, making you feel him strain against the fabric of his pants. “Need it,” you moaned at the sweet friction. “Think you can take me?” He laughed as he leaned back on his hunches to pop open the button of his pants, pulling down the zipper agonizingly slow. With wide eyes you watched him push his pants down his narrow hips, leaving him in just his navy boxers that showed the sizable imprint of his hard cock, the fabric against the head dark from where he had leaked precum. Chuckling, he stroked over the outline and just the sight alone made your mouth water. “Show me,” you breathed, spreading your thighs so he could see your needy core, clenching around nothing. “Hmm,” he hummed, dragging one of his fingers that wasn’t preoccupied with teasing himself through the mess of arousal and his saliva between your legs, only barely dipping it into you to feel the muscles trying to suck him inside. “Don’t tease me,” you whined high in your throat. “But I like seeing you squirm,” Johnny grinned but took mercy on you and sunk his finger into you up to the knuckle, gently pumping it inside you. Still sensitive from how intense your last orgasm had been, you were torn between pulling away and wanting more but Johnny made the decision for you when he pulled his finger out, wiping your arousal onto your thigh.

“Eyes on me,” he commanded and finally freed his cock from his briefs. “Fuck.” The curse left your lips without even noticing at the sight of his flushed cock, too heavy to properly stand up against his toned abs. The tip was tinted red and shiny with precum that Johnny generously spread down that whole length, his eyes not leaving yours as you watched him lazily jerk himself. “Like what you see?” You eagerly nodded your head. “Want it inside me.” “Yeah? Show me.”

Throwing all caution out of the window, you quickly sucked two of your fingers between your lips before guiding them to your weeping core to slip them inside you, letting out an over-exaggerated moan as you crooked them. “Oh you’re so naughty, baby,” Johnny groaned, squeezing the base of his cock tightly as he watched you fingering yourself and if you had even one coherent thought left in your head, you’d have the decency to be embarrassed because of how intensely he was staring. “It’s not enough,” you pouted, pulling your fingers free and spreading them to look at the slick covering them, “I’m so wet for you.” “Such a dirty mouth,” he groaned, quickly grabbing his pants to fish a condom from his wallet to roll over his hard length. “Please, Johnny,” you hiccupped, winding your legs around his waist to pull him closer to you. “Sssh, princess,” he soothed you, running his hands over your torso before bending down to press tender kisses to your stomach, “I’ll take care of you.” “Please kiss me.”

Dropping his elbows next to your head to support his weight, he covered your body with his and caught your lips in a kiss much too tender for your current situation, taking his time to explore your mouth until you were perfectly pliant beneath him. “Tell me if it hurts,” he whispered into the small space between you while he snaked a hand between your bodies to guide his cock to your core. When the head slipped in without much resistance, both of you let out twin moans of pleasure. Painstakingly slowly Johnny pushed inside you, centimeter by centimeter until his hips were flush to yours. “Breathe, princess,” he reminded you because you indeed had held your breath and had buried your nails in his biceps. “Shit, you’re big,” you cursed. “So I’ve been told,” Johnny chuckled and peppered your face and neck with little kisses while he slowly ground his hips so you could get used to him inside you.

“Move,” you demanded after a while. “What’s the magic word baby?” He grinned. “Please, Johnny,” you whimpered, clenching down on him. “Once more.” “Don’t make me beg.” “But you sound so pretty when you do,” he chuckled, only barely moving his hips. “Johnny please,” you whined, trying your best to move on his cock on your own but the angle was just not working out. “Oh, you want to do the work?” “I want you to move,” you groaned, pawing at his chest.

“But I think you’d look so pretty riding my cock,” Johnny rasped and in one fluid movement, he had sat up and pulled you onto his lap. Shit, it felt like he was even deeper now. “Come on, princess.” Whining, you wound your arms around his shoulders and pulled your legs beneath you so you could lift your hips up to make his cock smoothly slide out, the friction just right before you slowly dropped back down again, earning you an appreciative groan from Johnny. “That’s right, baby,” he praised you as you slowly found a comfortable pace, swiveling your hips until the angle was just right. Tightening the grip you had on his shoulders to use it as leverage, you began riding him in earnest, impaling yourself on his cock over and over again until your head was spinning and your thighs started to burn. “Come on, doll,” Johnny grinned, catching one of your nipples between his lips. Whining, you rolled your hips faster until your thighs began shaking. “Need help?” He just grinned, his big hands holding onto your hips to help you move up and down his cock at a steadier pace. “Please Johnny,” you hiccupped, hiding your face in his neck to ground yourself, “Please fuck me.” “Am I not doing just that?” He chuckled, filthily grinding his cock inside you. “Do it right,” you panted into his skin, “Fuck me like you mean it.”

“Then get on your hands and knees for me, baby.” He didn’t have to tell you twice, it was almost comical how quickly you obeyed his command and arched your back for him. “Hmm, that’s it,” he praised you, tracing the curve of your spine with his hands until he reached the space between your shoulder blades where he gently pushed down to make you arch even further. “So good and pliant for me, just waiting to be filled.” “Please,” you just whined again, past the point of caring about how pathetic you sounded, begging for his cock. “Say it baby,” he demanded, slapping his cock against your wet folds. “Please fuck me Johnny. Please. I want your cock inside me so badly. Want you to fuck me until I can’t even remember my own name anymore. Please I need it. I-“ your frantic rambling got cut off by the surprised moan leaving your lips as he thrust into you without any warning. “Don’t hold back baby,” Johnny rasped before gripping your hips tightly to finally fuck you in earnest, the sound of skin slapping together loud in the otherwise silent room. “God, your ass looks amazing,” he moaned, burying himself in your tight heat over and over again, mesmerized by how his cock was glistening in the low light and how easily your body opened up for him, “You’re basically made to take my cock.” You could only mewl at his dirty words and fist the sheets tightly in your hands as you tried to meet his thrusts as best as you could while you felt like you got your soul fucked right out of you.

“Feels so good,” you slurred when you felt the familiar knot in your stomach ready to snap, clenching around Johnny’s cock. “God baby, if you keep clenching like that I’m gonna cum,” Johnny cursed, grabbing you by the neck to pull you up against his chest, the pace of his hips only getting faster. “Please Johnny. Want it inside,” you whined, letting him use your body how he wanted to relish in the low moans he let out. “You want me to fill you up baby?” “Want it so bad, Johnny,” you mewled. “Then cum for me. Cum on my cock and I’ll give you anything you want.” And oh god. You had never thought that the strained sound of a couple of words could be enough to actually trip you over the edge but the rasp in Johnny’s voice had you falling apart in his arms, your orgasm ripping through you so hard it had your thighs shaking. “Such a good girl,” Johnny praised you before he let out a low guttural moan and fucked into you once – then twice – before his hips came to a halt, emptying his cum inside the condom.

For a while you two just panted loudly before Johnny gently laid you back down onto the mattress, chuckling lowly when you whined at the loss of his cock. “Shit,” you giggled while he quickly got rid of the condom, throwing it in the general direction of your trashcan. So tender you could have missed it, Johnny pressed a row of kisses down your spine until he reached the swell of your ass. “Cuddle me,” you pouted, making grabby hands at him. “We’re sweaty, princess,” he laughed but gave in when you kept pouting. “I don’t care,” you whined, fitting your head beneath his, wrapping your arms and legs around his body to cling to him like a koala. “You’re cute,” he smiled, pressing his lips to your forehead.

“For how long did you know?” “Know what?” Johnny asked, clearly confused. “That I was your secret admirer.” “I didn’t.” “It was so obvious,” you groaned. “Okay maybe I got a hunch after we started that group project. But you never said anything.” “What was I supposed to say? Oh Johnny, by the way, I’m the one who has been writing you cringey love letters for like half a year already. Please go out with me?” That made Johnny laugh, the sound melodic in the quiet of your room. “I would have said yes, you know?” He spoke lowly, “I’ll miss your letters.” “What makes you think I will stop writing them?” “Because you can tell me all that stuff in person now when we go on dates.” “We’ll go on dates?” “That’s what people do when they like each other, princess,” Johnny chuckled, “And I really like you. Both as my secret admirer and my classmate.” “Oh my god stop,” you whined, hiding your hot face in his chest, feeling shy all of a sudden while Johnny was just laughing.

“I like you too,” you eventually mumbled once it had gotten quiet again. “I figured,” he teased you. “I changed my mind,” you immediately shot back, rising from where you were cuddled into his chest but every other protest died on your tongue when you saw his dreamy expression, his honey eyes finding yours and completely ignoring the fact that you were still very much naked. “Date me,” he said. “Okay,” you answered, easily meeting his lips in a sweet kiss that wouldn’t be the last one you two shared tonight.

“Hello and welcome back, that was Middle Of The Night by Monsta X, suggested to us by raibebe through our Twitter with the hashtag JonJaeLoveTalk. We’re your DJ’s John-D.” “And Jae-D on NCT Night Night. Hello again to all of our listeners. John-D.” “Yes Jae-D,” Johnny chuckled, leaning back in his chair. “Something is off today. I looked through our mail and there was no letter from your secret admirer.” “Oh really,” he feigned surprise. “Either they didn’t send anything in or our director got sick of the pining.” “I can calm you right back down Jae-D,” Johnny smiled, “Because she simply doesn’t need to send any more letters. I finally found her.” “No way. For real? And you didn’t tell me? I have to find out through our radio show? Friendship is dead,” Jaehyun sighed dramatically and you couldn’t help but chuckle. “Jae-D you know you’ll always be the number one in my heart, you know that.” At that Jaehyun let out fake gagging noises that made both friends chuckle.

“No but for real. I finally found her and asked her out. It’s going great so yeah,” Johnny shrugged, “In case you’re listening baby: I’m dropping by later and bring sushi.” “This is so domestic already,” Jaehyun sighed dramatically, “Where is my secret admirer?” “Maybe you could find love as well if you stopped acting like the textbook example of a frat boy.” “What is that even supposed to mean?”

Smiling, you leaned back on your sofa and listened to your boyfriend bickering with his best friend. Boyfriend. That sounded good even though it still felt unreal. Love Letters weren’t dead after all it seemed.

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stretchjournalemerson · 3 years

Text

We Are, We Aren't

By Connor Gibson

02:51 PM

Dirty piles of slush litter the ground of the Public Garden. The ice on the pond is melting in the sun. Kids scoop up the last traces of snow, melted and hardened and melted into chunks of ice, to throw at each other. The Garden is full of people, tourists and natives alike taking advantage of the 42-degree weather— which, for a Boston February, is “warm”. I’m bundled in my wool coat and hat; others’ Patriots tees show under unzipped hoodies. The blindingly white neck of my Tatte shirt peeks out above my scarf. As always, I’m running early, but I speed-walk anyway.

Google tells me that Back Bay, the neighborhood home to the Tatte where I work, is one of the wealthiest places in the Boston area. It tells me that the bay on which the neighborhood sits was drained in the 1800s, uncovering foul-smelling fens and swamps. Developers poured cement on top of it and chopped it up into rectangles. There’s something there, some cute metaphor comparing designer stores atop a concrete-covered swamp to glossing over the issue of gentrification in favor of a new Sweetgreen.

I’ll write about that later, I think. I exit the Garden at Newbury and Arlington and cross the street. A high-cheekboned model, face blown up to the size of my entire body, peers down at me from the Burberry store window. Her eyelashes are lowered seductively under her huge sunglasses. Excuse me, I hear in my head. A posh British accent. Excuse me, why are you looking at me? I look away.

Letters barrage me as I turn onto Boylston. MK MK MK MK on clutches and purses. Chanel on a storefront. HOMELESS VETERAN PLEASE HELP GOD BLESS, scrawled on torn cardboard with a marker.

I walk into Tatte and take off my coat. VIBE CHECKER blares at me from the temperature gun, neon pink Sharpie on white.

Sarah, the mid manager, points the VIBE CHECKER at my forehead.

How’s my vibe? I ask.

She chuckles. Fine. Symptoms?

All of ‘em, at once.

Go grab an apron and we can talk about the new dinner menu. Her sweatshirt says BREAKFAST SANDWICH. I know that our BREAKFAST SANDWICH sweatshirts retail for $35. I wonder which Michael Kors clutch goes best with a BREAKFAST SANDWICH sweatshirt.

I step into Tatte Connor with his pristine white shirt and bandana and sickly sweet voice— a voice both Connor and not Connor, a voice that is mine and isn’t. Tatte Connor doesn’t create witty metaphors about systemic problems, he fires off meaningless platitudes: I like your outfit, cold out there, isn’t it? I know, I don’t know how I don’t eat them all. He grabs an apron, clocks in, and listens intently as Sarah explains chraimeh sauce.

03:14 PM

I’m at the register today, standing in one place for over five hours. It means hi, welcome in! to everyone who enters. It means my voice will stay in its customer service pitch for long after I leave, and when I walk around a person at Target while picking up yogurt that night, I will automatically announce BEHIND! and scare the shit out of them.

A woman walks in, several shopping bags swinging from her arms. Hi, welcome in! She nods acknowledgement. She wants a medium latte, almond milk and vanilla. We only have a small and a large. She asks to see the large. She’s fine with a large.

I take her phone number. All right! Will that be all for you? And would you like to leave a tip today?

She would not. She announces this so happily that I’m forced to match her tone. All right! I hope it sounds authentic. She takes her card.

I do NOT need a receipt, she proclaims, and walks out the door, bags bumping against the doorframe. The bags are massive, stiff, and glossy. They look expensive, down to the heavy serif font. My stained apron feels incredibly out of place. I wonder if it would be stupid to go get a new apron.

Caleb, the barista, waves his hand. He’s made my drink— it’s on the bar. I nod and ring up three more people before I get enough of a break to go grab it. He’s written my name on the cup and drawn little hearts for the O’s. My heart swells. I take half a sip, and then someone else walks in the door. Hi, welcome in!

03:32 PM

It’s a full-on late-lunch rush. The morning shift has just left, and the crowd hits us in the middle of a change. I’ve been moved off register and over to expo, where I’m doing three people’s jobs at once. Picking up? Todd? Would you mind waiting outside for a few minutes? Hi, Doordash? Do you need a menu? Take care! Thank you so much. Hi, welcome in!

A couple enters. They wear matching black puffy jackets with faux fur hoods and matching black sunglasses, similar in size and shape to the glasses on the Burberry model. They don’t remove their hoods or their sunglasses when they step inside. Picking up? Favio? I hand them their drinks. They are not happy.

You should be more thoughtful of your customers, I am told. It’s cold outside, and you shouldn’t keep people waiting. You need to be thinking about that.

I’m so sorry, sir.

I am reprimanded.

You need to move faster,

I’m sorry, sir. We’re doing our best.

I am told that maybe, that is not good enough, eh? And Favio and his girlfriend leave.

Have a good one! Take care! I imagine labels on their backs, as bold and shiny as the ones on their jackets and sunglasses: ASSHOLES.

03:42 PM

I am back on the register. The late-lunch rush has died down. In eighteen minutes, dinner will open up, and we’ll get slammed again— but for now I get to rest. I stack pistachio croissants in a delicate, buttery pyramid, coating my gloves with green dust and oil. Once I’m pretty sure they won’t fall, I head back to the register to count my tips.

Most people tip, but off-handedly, trying not to sound eager or generous. Sure, throw a dollar on there— “there” being a $12 sandwich. I wonder what kind of life they lead where dollars are something they throw. I notice that those thrown dollars never fall into the HOMELESS VETERAN’s plastic cup.

05:08 PM

An older woman enters and beelines for the Grab-and-Go case. She wears a brightly patterned scarf over her hair and carries an enormous H&M bag, full to bursting. She swings the bag onto one shoulder and holds up a small container of chicken salad. How much is it?, she asks. Maybe six or seven dollars, I reply.

She is surprised that I don’t know the exact price. She asks, don’t you work here? She asks, again, how much it is.

Give me one minute to check. It is seven dollars.

She complains that nobody here ever knows anything. She explains to me that it’s just one item, and you should know how much it costs. She tells me, I asked a girl a similar question, just the other day, and she didn’t know either.

I’m sorry about that. Will that be all?

She doesn’t want anything else, and pays with cash. She counts what I give back to her. She drops the chicken salad in her H&M bag, and then she leaves.

Have a great day! In my mind, I replace the H&M on her bag with BOOMER.

I remind myself that I am not an idiot, and that I deal with a lot, all day, and that I am good at my job. I remind myself that I am a human who makes mistakes. I remind myself to smile.

Another woman walks into the store. Hi, welcome in!

06:26 PM

I’m back from break, during which I inhaled a breakfast sandwich and submitted two

discussion posts on my phone. Apparently we have only made $96 so far from the dinner menu. The store is dark. Half of the patio is empty, and the people walking by, bundled up in winter coats, lean against the wind.

I’m sent over to the pass to bag food while my coworker Ayad takes his break. The dinner items come with a side salad and a little bag of pistachio cranberry cookies. Between orders, I stuff napkins into sandwich bags and draw hearts with a Sharpie on the cookie bags. I think of the people receiving them, in brownstones around Boston, living alone, living with girlfriends, living with husbands, living with tiny yappy dogs.

A woman comes in. I walk over to the register. Her hair is dark, curly, and pulled back in a tight ponytail. She carries a WHOLE FOODS canvas bag. She reminds me of my mother. She’s been thinking about getting a challah all day, but now she’s not so sure about the challah versus the pain de mie, and do I have a suggestion for her?

I bake challah at home, I say, but our challah is delicious.

She asks excitedly what recipe I use— I use Smitten Kitchen’s fig and sea salt challah, without the figs. I can’t find another good recipe for just one challah. She uses the New York Times recipe, makes two and freezes one. Smart, I say.

She decides on the pain de mie. She asks how long I’ve been making challah.

When I was at home, I made it every Friday since the start of the pandemic. I wanted to do that here, but I live alone and I can’t eat that much bread.

She’s sure my friends would be glad to eat it, and I agree. I ring up the pain de mie and an orange juice, and she tucks them into her WHOLE FOODS bag. Happy baking, she tells me, and leaves, pulling her hood up to block the wind.

08:32 PM

The close went quickly. Caleb, Ayad, and I walk out the door. Our manager stays behind, counting money, shutting everything down for the night. Lights flick off one by one. The wind bites my skin and whips my hair off my forehead. I button up my coat. Caleb and Ayad walk down the steps of the Arlington stop, waving goodbye, and I start the cold walk home.

Google tells me that the drought of the summer of 2016 brought many Back Bay buildings dangerously close to rotting and crumbling. Their foundations sit on man-made land, supported by wooden pilings. The drought brought the water table close to the pilings, putting them at risk for decay.

There’s something there, something about how the tiniest bit of stress can expose the problems lurking below a neighborhood so put-together and pristine on the surface. I’ll write about that later, I think.

It’s hard to put how I feel right now into words. I feel homesick. I feel happy. I feel tired. I want to collapse onto my sofa and pass out. I want to eat way too much cheesecake. I want to feel, just for a few minutes, like the people I welcome into Tatte.

I want to roll out dough on the dining room table, showing my mother how much it’s risen when she walks through the door with a WHOLE FOODS canvas bag full of groceries. I want to keep talking about bread. I want to work at a job where everyone who comes in asks me about recipes; where nobody plops their Chanel bags on the counter, knocking dinner menus left and right while digging in their MK MK MK clutch for their platinum VISA; where Favio and his girlfriend realize that the people bringing them their soy macchiatos are people; where older women understand that I have to remember three thousand things a day and sometimes none of those things are the price of chicken salad. I want to thank the New York Times Challah Lady for making my day a little less shit and reminding me why I even.

I could work at Starbucks, or Caffe Nero, or JAHO Coffee Roaster & Wine Bar. Sometimes, when people take their masks off inside to snap pictures of them biting into donuts for their Instagrams, I think about working at Target.

Then I bring home a whole cake, or I get handed a free iced latte with my name written on the top and little hearts drawn around it, or I talk about Boston winters with a customer excited to learn I’ve also moved from the Bay Area. I strike up a conversation with a man waiting for the restroom— he wants to know about the history of Tatte in Boston, and I tell him what I can.

I pet a very small dog. I hand the last almond croissant to a woman who tells me she is overjoyed that we have one left. She tells me that she stops by after work every day to try and buy an almond croissant. More often than not, we’re sold out.

I’m happy I could get you one today, I say, and I mean it.

I want to think that Back Bay is this woman— Almond Croissant Woman— or the New York Times Challah Lady. At times I think Back Bay is Favio and his girlfriend, MK MK MK clutches, $7 chicken salads, the Burberry model’s poster-sized glare. I want to think these things, but I know that Back Bay is none of them.

I know that Tatte Back Bay is just a coffee shop. I want to call it a microcosm of humanity, a shiny white petri dish for me to peer into. I want to claim that I know these people, that Favio and his girlfriend are selfish assholes, that the boomer really does value chicken salad over basic kindness and gratitude. I want to slap labels on them, thick-serif RICH KID, glossy embossed DADDY’S MONEY, CHALLAH LADY (GOOD PERSON?) in cursive scrawl. The truth is that I don’t know them, and I will never know them. Maybe Favio and his girlfriend were fighting that day. Maybe the boomer’s husband had just died. Maybe Challah Lady ran over a cat with her Subaru on the way home. Maybe maybe maybe.

Google tells me that Back Bay has a population of 16,427. The median age of those people is 35.3 years. Over nine thousand of them are white-collar workers. Their average household income is over $127k. Most of them are women. Most of them walk to work.

Google doesn’t tell me what challah recipe they use. It doesn’t tell me whether they feed the cookies that come with their cod in chraimeh sauce to their small, yappy dogs. It doesn’t tell me whether they notice the hearts I drew on their bags, or whether they smile before throwing those bags away.

We are what we say to customer service workers, and we aren’t. We are our jobs, our genders, our hobbies, our incomes, and we aren’t. We are the hi, welcome in and the thanks, take care and all the other facades we present to people, and we aren’t.

I walk up the steps of my apartment building, unlock and open the door, then close it behind me. Tatte Connor— the Connor I am and am not— stays out in the cold, perched on a wooden patio chair, shivering in his perfectly white work shirt: ready for me to step into him tomorrow.

Acknowledgements:

My inspiration for this essay came from working at Tatte and getting to know, through the lens of customer service, the people of Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood. As anybody who has ever worked in customer service will know, working with people is the best and worst part of the job. I’ve had some truly frustrating interactions, and I’ve also met some people that brightened up the rest of my day. When I’ve been on my feet for five hours, maintaining a customer service persona, and dealing with everything else that customer service entails, it’s easy to assign labels to people and make snap judgements about them based on a one-minute interaction.

My goal for this essay was to go deeper than that. The assignment that prompted this essay was to compose a profile, creating— in the words of my WR 121 E47 professor Stephen Shane— a “dominant impression that captures the complexity of your subject”. While I wanted to profile the people of Back Bay, I’m aware that I will never be able to understand their complexity through these tiny snapshots, and I tried to convey that struggle in this essay. I’d like to thank Prof. Shane for assigning this essay, and I’d like to thank the customers of Tatte Back Bay for their inspiration.

#stretch2021 #memoir

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dinaxoxo · 4 years

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I love you early in the morning and it’s difficult to love you. I love the January sky and knowing it will change although unlike us. I love watching people read. I love photo booths. I love midnight. I love writing letters and this is my letter. To the world that never wrote to me. I love snow and briefly. I love the first minutes in a warm room after stepping out of the cold. I love my twenties and want them back every day. I love time. I love people. I love people and my time away from them the most. I love the part of my desk that’s darkened by my elbows. I love feeling nothing but relief during the chorus of a song. I love space. I love every planet. I love the big unknowns but need to know who called or wrote, who’s coming—if they want the same things I do, if they want much less. I love not loving Valentine’s Day. I love how February is the shortest month. I love that Barack Obama was president. I love the quick, charged time between two people smoking a cigarette outside a bar. I love everyone on Friday night. I love New York City. I love New York City a lot. I love that day in childhood when I thought I was someone else. I love wondering how animals perceive our daily failures. I love the lines in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof when Brick’s father says “Life is important. There’s nothing else to hold onto.” I love Brick. I love that we can fail at love and continue to live. I love writing this and not knowing what I’ll love next. I love looking at paintings and being reminded I am alive. I love Turner’s paintings and the sublime. I love the coming of spring even in the most withholding March. I love skipping anything casual—“hi, how are you, it’s been forever”—and getting straight to the center of pain. Or happiness. I love opening a window in a room. I love the feeling of possibility by the end of the first cup of coffee. I love hearing anyone listen to Nina Simone. I love Nina Simone. I love how we can choose our own families. I love when no one knows where I am but feel terrified to be forgotten. I love Saturdays. I love that despite our mistakes this will end. I love how people get on planes to New York and California. I love the hour after rain and the beginning of the cruelest month. I love imagining Weldon Kees on a secret island. I love the beach on a cloudy day. I love never being disappointed by chocolate. I love that morning when I was twenty and had just met someone very important (though I didn’t know it) and I walked down an almost empty State Street because it was still early and not at all late—and of course I could change everything (though I also didn’t know it)—I could find anyone, go anywhere, I wasn’t sorry for who I was. I love the impulse to change. I love seeing what we do with what we can’t change. I love the moon’s independent indifference. I love walking the same streets as Warhol. I love what losing something does but I don’t love losing it. I love how the past shifts when there’s more. I love kissing. I love hailing a cab and going home alone. I love being surprised by May although it happens every year. I love closing down anything—a bar, restaurant, party—and that time between late night and dawn when one lamp goes on wherever you are and you know. You know what you know even if it’s hard to know it. I love being a poet. I love all poets. I love Jim Morrison for saying, “I’d like to do a song or a piece of music that’s just a pure expression of joy, like a celebration of existence, like the coming of spring or the sun rising, just pure unbounded joy. I don’t think we’ve really done that yet.” I love everything I haven’t done. I love looking at someone without need or panic. I love the quiet of the trees in a new city. I love how the sky is connected to a part of us that understands something big and knows nothing about it too. I love the minutes before you’re about to see someone you love. I love any film that delays resolution. I love being in a cemetery because judgment can’t live there. I love being on a highway in June or anytime at all. I love magic. I love the zodiac. I love all of my past lives. I love that hour of the party when everyone’s settled into their discomfort and someone tells you something really important—in passing—because it’s too painful any other way. I love the last moments before sleep. I love the promise of summer. I love going to the theater and seeing who we are. I love glamour—shamelessly—and all glamour. Which is not needed to live but shows people love life. What else is it there for? Why not ask for more? I love red shoes. I love black leather. I love the grotesque ways in which people eat ice cream—on sidewalks, alone—however they need it, whenever they feel free enough. I love being in the middle of a novel. I love how mostly everyone in Jane Austen is looking for love. I love July and its slowness. I love the idea of liberation and think about it all the time. I love imagining a world without money. I love imagining a life with enough money to write when I want. I love standing in front of the ocean. I love that sooner or later we forget even “the important things.” I love how people write in the sand, on buildings, on paper. Their own bodies. Fogged mirrors. Texts they’ll draft but never send. I love silence. I love owning a velvet cape and not knowing how to cook. I love that instant when an arc of light passes through a room and I’m reminded that everything really is moving. I love August and its sadness. I love Sunday for that too. I love jumping in a pool and how somewhere on the way up your body relaxes and accepts the shock of the water. I love Paris for being Paris. I love Godard’s films. I love anyplace that makes room for loneliness. I love how the Universe is 95% dark matter and energy and somewhere in the rest of it there is us. I love bookstores and the autonomy when I’m in one. I love that despite my distrust in politics I am able to vote. I love wherever my friends are. I love voting though know art and not power is what changes human character. I love what seems to me the discerning indifference of cats. I love the often uncomplicated joy of dogs. I love Robert Lax for living alone. I love the extra glass of wine happening somewhere, right now. I love schools and teachers. I love September and how we see it as a way to begin. I love knowledge. Even the fatal kind. Even the one without “use value.” I love getting dressed more than getting undressed. I love mystery. I love lighting candles. I love religious spaces though I’m sometimes lost there. I love the sun for worshipping no one. I love the sun for showing up every day. I love the felt order after a morning of errands. I love walking toward nowhere in particular and the short-lived chance of finding something new. I love people who smile only when moved to. I love that a day on Venus lasts longer than a year. I love Whitman for writing, “the fever of doubtful news, the fitful events; / These come to me days and nights and go from me again, / But they are not the Me myself.” I love October when the veil between worlds is thinnest. I love how at any moment I could forgive someone from the past. I love the wind and how we never see it. I love the performed sincerity in pornography and wonder if its embarrassing transparency is worth adopting in other parts of life. I love how magnified emotions are at airports. I love dreams. Conscious and unconscious. Lived and not yet. I love anyone who risks their life for their ideal one. I love Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. I love how people make art even in times of impossible pain. I love all animals. I love ghosts. I love that we continue to invent meaning. I love the blue hours between three and five when Plath wrote Ariel. I love that despite having one body there are many ways to live. I love November because I was born there. I love people who teach children that most holidays are a product of capitalism and have little to do with love—which would never celebrate massacre—which would never care about money or greed. I love people who’ve quit their jobs to be artists. I love you for reading this as opposed to anything else. I love the nostalgia of the future. I love that the tallest mountain in our solar system is safe and on Mars. I love dancing. I love being in love with the wrong people. I love that on November 23, 1920, Virginia Woolf wrote, “We have bitten off a large piece of life—but why not? Did I not make out a philosophy some time ago which comes to this—that one must always be on the move?” I love how athletes believe in the body and know it will fail them. I love dessert for breakfast. I love all of the dead. I love gardens. I love holding my breath under water. I love whoever it is untying our shoes. I love that December is summer in Australia. I love statues in a downpour. I love how no matter where on the island, at any hour, there’s at least one lit square at the top or bottom of a building in Manhattan. I love diners. I love that the stars can’t be touched. I love getting in a car and turning the keys just to hear music. I love ritual. I love chance too. I love people who have quietly survived being misunderstood yet remain kids. And yes, I love that Marilyn Monroe requested Judy Garland’s “Over the Rainbow” to be played at her funeral. And her casket was lined in champagne satin. And Lee Strasberg ended his eulogy by saying, “I cannot say goodbye. Marilyn never liked goodbyes, but in the peculiar way she had of turning things around so that they faced reality, I will say au revoir.” I love the different ways we have of saying the same thing. I love anyone who cannot say goodbye

Alex Dimitrov “Love”

#alex dimitrov #love #personal #poetry

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yieldfruit · 4 years

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From Desiring God - Freedom From Worry

How do we find freedom from our worries? One of my favorite answers to this question is from the apostle Paul in Romans 8:13–15. There he writes this: “If you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’” We battle sin to be freed from worry. And in the battle, we demonstrate our faith in Jesus Christ and his work for us.

Ask yourself this question: Why didn’t the Bible just teach me to defeat sin by asking the Holy Spirit to do it? Why isn’t prayer the be-all and end-all of this battle? So here comes a temptation to either feel discouraged about finances, or to feel fearful because you’re sick, or to feel proud because you did something right. Why, at that moment, isn’t the way of killing that to simply say, “Holy Spirit, I ask you to come now and defeat the sin in my life. Amen”? And it’s done. Ask, and you will receive, right? Wrong. Why? Jesus gets no glory if you do it that way.

Foreground the Foundation

The reason it says in Galatians 3:5 that the Holy Spirit is supplied and becomes miracle-working in power “by hearing with faith” is that if you left out the hearing dimension — namely, hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ and the promises that he bought for you by his blood — and if Jesus doesn’t get the credit for those promises that you’re laying hold of, then he won’t get any glory. He’s just out of the equation.

And you might now and then think, “Well, theologically, I guess he’s the foundation of everything.” Well, you know what? Foundations in your house get no attention. You don’t go through the day saying, “I’m so thankful that I have a twelve-course basement. I love those cement blocks; they’re so pretty.” You don’t even think about the foundation in your house. So, to say every now and then, “Jesus is the foundation of everything” — so what? He gets no glory if you never talk about it, you never sing about it, you never bank on his blood to buy for you the promises.

Do you remember what 2 Corinthians 1:20 says? “All the promises of God find their Yes in [Jesus].” What that means is this: When you live your Christian life by picking a promise, banking on it, plugging in, so that faith goes into the word of God, do you know who bought that for you? Jesus. We’re sinners; I’m a sinner. I don’t deserve any promise of God fulfilled in my life. How can I count on the promises of God being fulfilled in my life? One thing: Christ died for me. Christ bought every promise for me. This is the new covenant. Christ shed his blood so that I can pick anywhere in the Bible and say, “I’ll take that promise for today.”

“I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10).

“The Lord will fight for you” (Exodus 14:14).

“God will supply every need of yours” (Philippians 4:19).

I can pick that promise. Why? Because I’m deserving? No way. Because Jesus is deserving, and I trust Jesus, and he gives it to me.

Cling to God’s Truth

And let me close now with a couple of illustrations. We’ve got three missionary families that have gone out from this church who are walking through the darkest waters of eviction from Tanzania, this very moment, that we’ve ever had. And put yourself in their shoes right now. They’ve been given a thirty-day notice: “Get out of here with all your families and all your belongings.” It’s the only home their children have ever known. Denise wrote to us last Easter. She wrote the email the night before Easter. And this is what she said. She’s picturing the disciples between Good Friday and Easter.

They are sitting quietly and numbly at someone’s house . . . and they don’t know about the resurrection that is to come. That’s what this time feels like to us in many ways: darkness and an unknown future. Out of the blue, we’re packing up and leaving the country, our home for the last seven years, the only home our children have known.

Now ask yourself, what are the sins threatening here? Here are the ones I thought of: anger, despair, self-pity, fear, impatience, irritability. Those are a few sins that would threaten to rise up in these missionaries right now. Now listen to one of these warriors — Denise — in her email, as an embodiment of this sermon. She begins by saying, “We are clinging to these truths.” Do you hear it? “We are clinging to truth.” No vague notion of a God out there. We are clinging to particular truths.

We are clinging to these truths: God is good; he is in control; he loves us more than we can comprehend; and he has plans to give us a hope and a future, plans to prosper us (Jeremiah 29:11). Our spirits are understandably low. We are emotionally and physically exhausted. But “because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning” (Lamentations 3:22–23).

And thus, she puts to death the deeds of the body.

How Faith Speaks to Fear

One more illustration: Rich and Tricia were here for several years until they left last year to go to Africa with three small children. They worked with refugees in the community, learning language and so on. They’re going to a country that is so fragile, so hostile, that they can’t name it. And imagine three small children and a young couple going to a destitute land with no infrastructure. The religion is hostile to Christianity. What kinds of things would arise in your mind as you make such an obedient plan? Let me quote from his letter. This is the February newsletter that I got. It’s one of the most powerful applications of this message in a missionary letter — and I’ve read many. All our missionaries get this, I think, and they weave it into their letters, but this one was remarkable:

Whereas the constitution of this country may state one thing, the word of God says, “he who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). Where fear says, “What if blank happens?” faith says, “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10). When worry surfaces, faith responds, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:27). When doubt and frustration scoff, saying, “They’ll never change; this is a waste of time!” Jesus looks us in the eye and responds, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).

Specific, Christ-Spoken Promises

We need to become the kind of people who, when we’re walking across a bridge or walking between offices or walking into a classroom — young people, maybe you’re nervous about some test or something, or you’re walking down the hall, and you wonder, “Yikes, did I wear the wrong color today?” or whatever — “Am I going to be viewed funny?” If you believe God’s right here — “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5), and he says, “All things are possible with me. Trust me. I love you. I will take care of you. I’ll supply all your needs. I died for you. I have counted you righteous” — would you not become a free person? It’s failing to hear specific, Christ-spoken promises moment by moment through the day that lets us sink so badly.

Learn from our missionaries. Learn from the apostle Paul. Put to death the deeds of the body, put to death the flesh, put to death sin by the Spirit — that is, by setting your mind on the things of the Spirit, on the word of God (“hearing with faith”), and trust them. And in this way, peace will come, the Holy Spirit will flow, power will be given, sins will be slain, Satan will be pushed back, and Jesus Christ, who bought all those promises, will be magnified.

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elizabeth-234 · 4 years

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The Supplejack

Previous Chapter Nine: Progress

Summary: Peter Parker has been alone his whole freshman year but finds hope when Stark Industries announces a science competition. The prize? An internship with Tony Stark.

Chapter Ten: Fast-forward

Beginning of February

“I think we might be able to start the full-scale model soon.”

Peter looked up from his phone, which he was reading his notes he doodled in class off of. Mr. Stark offered multiple times to get him a new phone but he preferred the simplicity of this. When he told Mr. Stark it was easier to use the man acted all offended under his smile. Teasing Peter about his inability to figure out a simple phone when they were working on building a full-scale code and model of tech for cars. It was also easier to understand his thoughts written down. While they didn’t look particularly neat on the page it made more sense to him. Mr. Stark seemed to understand that.

He snapped his jaw shut when he realized it was hanging wide open.

“Really?” He said, dropping his eyes back down ignoring the sinking feel in his chest.

Mr. Stark chuckled and went back to scanning the algorithms.

“We can get a full team in here to work on it. Whatever we need.”

A whole team? Someone to take over what they were doing? Peter flinched.

Their work had come so far. From car models went from mere imaginations, to metal models, and back to hologram full scale models. Their protocol were written in C++ after debating between the Python coding.

Peter found the time… soothing to his mind. Sometimes coming in late at night to work by himself even if Mr. Stark wasn’t there. Friday always let him in with a kind word.

He remembered the first couple of times they worked together Mr. Stark would get into a kind of trance, rock music blaring in the background. While Peter liked the music – he made his own playlist to all the songs they listened to – his head rang after an hour or so.

His expression must have revealed more than he wanted to because without comment the next time Peter arrived the music was quieter.

It was little things like that and the temperature which had Peter settling into their work focusing more on Mr. Stark and less on Tony Stark.

With summer coming up in less months than he thought Peter was sure their time would be cut short.

What he wanted to do was ask the man himself. To beg him to continue working through the summer and next year and the next even if it meant bringing in fifty other people to work on it. He wanted to finish their project, to see their models turn into something real. Something that could help people. The selfish part of his brain suggested that what he really wanted was to continue working with Mr. Stark even if it didn’t end up helping anyone.

Instead what Peter did was stay silent and hum slightly to the music nothing about his appearance gave his thoughts away besides the fists he made every so often looking at Mr. Stark working.

Would he even want to continue working with Peter?

End of February

Julia sat next time him while the subway rumbled forward. He kept his legs folded in front of him, fingers grasping backpack which rested on his knees in order to take up less space.

They already passed his stop but he stayed on like he always did riding with Julia.

“Do you really think the permission will go through?” She asked quietly. Julia had fidgeted today in the lab. Her eyes scanned the paperwork over and over making sure they filled out every form correctly. Their whole team practically had their proposal memorized with the amount of times they’d reworked it.

“I’m sure they will.” He said but continued when her expression didn’t change. “It was really good, Julia. You did a great job.”

Peter stared at the glass window on the other side of the subway. Their reflections looked back and he saw her head duck down.

The subway came to a stop and she stood to leave. She ran her hand through her hair and looked at him.

“Thanks for riding the rest of the way with me. Text me when you get home?” Her tone was quiet and it was Peter’s turn to drop his head. “You’re a great friend, Peter.”

He mumbled something and she smiled over her shoulder walking onto the platform. The doors closed behind her but he didn’t lift his head.

Peter switched trains but couldn’t stop the smile from coming over his face.

She thought they were friends.

Beginning of March

“Kid… Peter?”

He blinked. Mr. Stark’s hand landed on his shoulder. His muscles tensed under the sudden intrusion but Mr. Stark’s eyes never left his face. Slowly, he squeezed, calming Peter’s pulse, and stepped back.

Mr. Stark ran his hand through his hair.

“Time for food.” He said and waited for Peter to put all his notes away.

“I can just go home, Mr. Stark. It’s no problem.”

The man chuckled and Peter flushed knowing he said that every time.

“I already ordered your favorite from that Korean place down the street.”

Peter stopped walking before hurrying to catch up. They settled around the table piled with way more boxes of food they could ever finish. Sure enough a container of Bibimbap with all tofu, no eggs, and spicy sauce was waiting for him.

Mr. Stark began telling him some gossip he’d heard around the office.

“And how do you know about poor Mr. Singer?” He said, scrapping the crispy rice off of the bottom of the takeout box.

The man didn’t even have the decency to look ashamed when he spoke. “Oh, I just happened to be walking by when his wife came storming in.”

Peter snorted. “Friday told you. Didn’t you, Friday?” He asked over Mr. Stark’s copious denials.

“That is correct, Peter.” He smiled upward at Friday and failed to notice the soft look Mr. Stark was giving him.

“You caught me, kid.”

End of March

It would have been easier to accept if the letters were stamped permanently in red across the whole paper. It would have made since in a way – been final. Instead they received a formal reply. One with fancy wording and apologies that had the vague pretense of sounding sincere and apologetic.

This made the news so much worse.

Their proposal had been rejected or as the letter said: “at this time we are not allowing student groups access to our facilities.”

Julia’s face crumpled while Frank swore. Monica began typing frantically but through it all Peter just sat there.

What would they do now?

Beginning of April

“You still have a lot of time to make yourself be what you want. There’s still a lot of good in the world."

They were watching The Outsiders while he waited. Peter had read it the year before in English but had missed the movie day because he had been sick.

The rain pelted down against the glass windows. Thunder and lightning battled in the sky only an arm’s length away from where they sat. He’d watched many storms pass through from his fire escape but here, this high up, Peter felt like he was inside it. Every clap of noise sent a pulse into his bloodstream pumping the blood through his veins. It didn’t key him up like it did in the apartment. The sounds were loud enough to sooth his racing thoughts enough so he could focus on the movie playing in the background and the soft sounds of response Mr. Stark was making to the movie. He felt safe there in the storm.

Of course, Peter had put up a mild protest. He’d been fine to go home, he told Mr. Stark. But the man took one look outside and suggested the movie. Food was involved, too.

It took Peter exactly thirty-two seconds to decide he could wait for the rain to pass.

An hour later, laden with stir-fry and popcorn Peter was boneless on the couch. He smiled as Mr. Stark leaned forward, his eyes focused on the screen. It was the man’s first time watching it as well and though Peter knew the ending, it didn’t stop his enjoyment.

He yawned and sank deeper into the cushions.

The day had seemed unending and filled with busywork assignments. Things that weren’t teaching him anything but would take all night to do. Ned was gone so he spent all lunch listening to Mike debate the pros of anarchy with everyone at the table. He stared at MJ until she caught him and he ran away to the library. It wasn’t until he got to the lab that he had a moment to breath.

Something touched his shoulder and then with more force he was pulled away from the couch.

The sound of the credits rolled. He didn’t realize his eyes had shut.

Peter could hear Mr. Stark’s voice whispering something and a feminine answer but his eyes stayed closed, blessedly on the brink of sleep.

His head was against a hard surface, a chest, and Peter was lulled deeper by the heartbeat within. A hand brushed back his hair after he was placed on something soft and he could swear the voice said something important but Peter was too asleep to make sense of it.

Ned leaned across the lunch table. His hands bordered their lunchboxes in a protective frame as Peter relayed the news from his meeting the previous week.

“I just feel so bad for those Frank and Monica. I mean they’re graduating and everything. This was their final hurrah.” He said, nibbling on a carrot.

“Dude, that sucks. What are you going to do?”

Peter nodded at the question. As it was they weren’t sure.

The prototype of the machine was necessary for them to see before they could come up with a model for themselves. He had thought about going to Mr. Stark and asking him for advice, but he decided not to in the end. It was an unfair advantage that the other teams couldn’t use. If no one else could go to the owner of Stark Industries for help, why should he?

Peter was also proud of the work they accomplished so far. Sometimes he forgot how young they all were, given the amount and quality of work they completed.

The whole experience had changed him more than that though and he was loathe to sit there and do nothing.

“I don’t know, Ned. We’ll figure something out though.”

He could only hope.

“Look, Peter. Mr. Stark will understand if you can’t make it today.” May spoke with an edge to her voice. “I forbid you from going.”

“May, I have to go. This is important.”

“Peter, you’re sick. It’s okay.”

He coughed into his elbow, sniffling and meagerly taking a tissue May was holding out to him with pouting lips.

Peter whispered something to her. Something he was too afraid to think but needed to say.

“What sweetheart?” She said and even though he was sick and had a fever May sat on the edge of his bed.

“It’s just,” he licked his chapped lips. “What if he finds someone else to help out?”

He thought of the team Mr. Stark mentioned before. Peter looked away from the piercing glance. His fingers fidgeted with the blanket wrapped around him.

“Peter, he would never do that. You know he wouldn’t.”

She said it with such conviction but his stomach sank. Did he know that?

May kept talking, running a reassuring thumb over his knuckles but Peter was too wrapped up in his thoughts. He went through cataloging every interaction and every word spoken between them.

Peter thought of the way Mr. Stark smiled when he came into the lab and how he would always check the temperature to make sure it was warm enough. The man practically bought the whole menu at a restaurant when Peter stayed for food and it was getting more common for him to stay after a work day. Sometimes they would watch a movie but most times he would just work on homework as Mr. Stark continued with business. But were those concrete signs? It certainly didn’t mean he would abstain from finding a replacement if the work needed to be done. Peter sighed into his hoodie, wincing at the way his stomach was cramping.

It was with the image of Frank helping Mr. Stark in the lab that Peter made his decision.

He realized May had left when she popped her head back into the room.

“Stay home, Peter. Okay? I’m sorry I have to go to work.”

His cough wracked his chest but he managed to tell her he loved her. She gave him one last searching look before she left for work.

After he heard the door shut with limbs groaning Peter got out of bed. He toggled back and forth as the blood ran to his head but with careful steps made it out of his room. His hand swept across the length of the highest cabinet and found the last packet of powdered vitamin C before mixing it in his water bottle.

There was sweat seeping into his sweatshirt and on his forehead by the time he made it to the subway platform and he shivered into it. His breath shuddered when he finally sank down into one of the empty seats, making sure to touch as little as possible. He kept his hoodie up and took small sips of the vitamin infused water, praying for an instant cure.

Friday greeted him when he got into the elevator but he didn’t lift his head up to the lights like he normally would. They burned his eyes.

“Hey, Friday.” He said rubbing his hand along his chest to stop a cough. Even to his own ears his voice sounded tired.

“Are you alright, Peter?” Friday said, softer than normal.

“I’m fine, just a cough.”

Friday said nothing but the elevators opened.

The room was void of people and Peter sat down with a heavy breath. He crossed his arms on the table in front of him. Thankfully Friday must have forgotten to put the lights on so it was dark in the room.

Every minute he sat there, Peter shrunk down until his head came to rest on his arms. Wet coughs racked his chest and he shivered again. It was cold in the room but he didn’t want to bother Friday. The curt tone he used earlier with Friday sent a guilty tendril tightening along his spine.

The doors swept open and bursting into the room with wide eyes was Mr. Stark. Peter tried to smile but from the furrow in the man’s mouth, it wasn’t as reassuring as he meant it to be.

“Kid, what’s wrong? You okay?”

Peter sat up trying to relax the ache in his muscles. He flinched back when rough hands touched his cheek before moving to rest against his forehead.

He felt silly to realize Mr. Stark had moved across the room and was now kneeling beside him. Peter concentrated on the small lines forming lightly in the corner of his eyes. For a moment he imaged being younger and being sick at home, but instead of Ben kneeling in front of him it was Mr. Stark making sure he was okay.

With a shake of Peter’s head Mr. Stark removed his hands and walked away. His voice rung out as he barked orders to Friday and then he was on the phone.

Peter gripped the edges of the counter, tears blurring in his eyes. How could he even think that? The betrayal of his thoughts sent a tear over the edge and down his hot cheek. Worse than that though was the longing he’d felt – still felt - when Mr. Stark looked at him with such concern.

It wasn’t right. It wasn’t his to want.

Mr. Stark came back and led Peter into the elevator. His tone was quiet, soothing, and Peter weakly followed him after brushing his tear away. Friday chimed in to give reports on his temperature. His brain felt fuzzy.

There was an arm, guiding him, warm across his back.

“Come on, Kid.”  

They arrived into a bedroom and dimly Peter realized this is where he fell asleep the previous month. He stopped short at the door.

“Peter?” The man spoke softly and the back of Peter’s throat itched.

“But… we have the meeting. We were going to work on …” His brain failed him at the end.

“Hey, kid. You’re in no position to be working. Hell, you’re burning up.”

He sent Peter to the bed and disappeared into the bathroom.

Peter sat at the very end of the mattress, his butt halfway off the edge. It wasn’t his bedroom, just one for guests. There was nothing in there that was his, but Peter noticed that the lamp was where he moved it before when he tried to get some reading in the morning when was there.

He moved closer to the headboard, eyes on the light in the bathroom, and switched it on.

Peter could still convince Mr. Stark they could work today. It would be fine. Mr. Stark wouldn’t have replaced him then as long as he remained useful.

“The work will still be there later.” Mr. Stark said emerging from the bathroom as if he read Peter’s thoughts. “Drink this while you take this.” He gestured to the water and Tylenol in his hand.

Peter’s protest died on his tongue and Mr. Stark spoke again.

“I’m not in any hurry to finish the project. As long as you get better.”

He blanched at the implication of the words.

There was no anger in the man’s face. Something uncurled in his chest when all he saw was concern. Ben used to wear that face well.

Peter’s eyes dragged on his cheek. Another cough stormed through his chest.

“I’ll go fill this up again. There’s sweatpants and t-shirts in the dresser.”

Peter stood up, feeling red on his cheeks. There were clothes there?

He browsed the drawers looking at the various t-shirts - all avengers themed. Quickly he got into sweatpants and sweatshirt glancing at the door back and forth.

With a speed he used when changing after gym class he shucked his shirt and pants off and into his chosen clothes, grey sweats and Stark Industries shirt. His hand brushed over the ironman one but he couldn’t quite make himself put it in.

He settled on the bed again just before there was a knock on the door. Dizziness wavered through him and Peter grasped the bedside table for support.

Mr. Stark came in carrying the glass. The covers were pushed back and Peter found himself lying down. The man hovered for a moment, his hand came up from his side reaching out before dropping back.

“Get some rest, Kid. Friday will be here if you need anything and I will just be in the living room outside.”

Peter’s eyes closed of their own accord and he nodded. Footsteps swept across the room but before the door could close Peter thanked Mr. Stark, wishing he had the right to say more.

“Of course, Peter.” Peter’s throat went tight. The door shut and Peter spun around. He didn’t want to look at the lights shining through the cracks in the door.

Of course, he said like he would look after Peter. As he would have if Peter’s mind conjured up sound for his imagination. Like he cared.

The knot loosened in his throat and Peter locked the guilt away for a moment, instead basking in the knowing someone was waiting up in case he needed them right outside this room that wasn’t technically his.

He reached up, adjusting the pillow under his head and closed his eyes.

Middle of April

Peter’s stomach protested as the smell of leftovers wafted from the lid he opened. The nausea from being sick still lingered and Peter found his appetite was suffering because of it.

The cafeteria, loud as ever, raged around him. He pushed the container of food away with a grimace.

Something nudged him from the side and he saw Ned’s profile looking straight ahead. He shrugged and went back to staring at his lunch. Ned’s elbow dug into his upper arm and Peter looked over while rubbing the spot of impact. Narrowly dodging another nudge, he got the hint and followed the boy’s gaze.

Peter blinked at the figure coming forward.

Flash waded through the crowds and tables. His gaze was fixed forward and now that they weren’t precisely enemies Peter let himself feel intrigued by how people just seemed to get out of Flash’s way.

He wondered why Ned was so interested in Flash until the boy in questions eyes moved and landed on Peter.

He was making his way in their direction.

Peter knew from the previous eight months how rare this was and his stomach cramped in response. His eyes flounced back to the Tupperware.

“I wonder where he’s off to,” Ned said.

Peter watched Ned in his observations not wanting to be caught blatantly staring at Flash himself. Despite the itching feeling crawling through his limbs Peter smiled at his friend and the way he moved forward so Flash’s view of Peter would be limited.

Under his lashes he looked up to see Flash continued the straight path to them. Peter held his breath and watched his legs, which seemed much safer than his face.

Flash continued forward until he was a table away. Peter finally looked up at a sound from Ned and met his eyes. The boy stared straight at him and Peter forced himself to maintain contact. Flash glanced toward the doors and back at Peter, his brow quirked when Peter’s face remained in ignorance. He did it again before veering off toward the exit.

The doors closed behind him blocking Peter’s curious gaze, food dilemma forgotten.

Should he follow?

Ned began talking about how weird Flash had been lately and Peter nodded along. His hands twisted in his lap, bouncing in time to the rise and fall of his foot against the ground.

Without breaking eye contact with the door, he stood up, murmuring something to Ned whose eyes flickered to the door. Ned nodded without missing a beat.

As Peter was passing toward the door he briefly reached out to touch Ned on the shoulder before hurrying away. Ned was such a good person…. A good friend.

Backpack slung over his shoulder Peter followed the path his eyes traced before and saw Flash leaning against the lockers down the hallway from the cafeteria.

“Flash. Hey.” He said trying to keep the weary tone out of his voice. They’d seen each other off and on at their time at the Tower but hadn’t seen much of each other at school. In fact, the last time they talked was when Peter had a meltdown in front of him, which was slightly awkward to realize how Peter yelled at him before. Not that he didn’t deserve it.

The boy’s arms were crossed in front of him. Peter could see his shoulder’s tensing and he held his body still. Peter forced his hands to stop fidgeting by shoving them in his pockets. A blush worked its way onto his cheeks when neither of them spoke. Was he wrong? Was he supposed to follow Flash?

“So, I hear you need a connection at Oscorp?” Flash said uncrossing his arms and casually raising his eyebrow at Peter.

His jaw dropped. This was not what he expected.

“Uh… How did you hear that?” He said trying to find a semblance of rational thought.

Flash had the decency to look embarrassed but he answered anyway, if a little cautiously. “That Mike kid is loud as shit. Anyway, do you?”

“Why?”

Flash sighed and crossed his arms again.

“Listen, I’m trying to be... decent. My dad has connections there and I could see if something could come of it.”

“Why?”

Was that all he could say?

“Is that all you can say?” Flash snapped.

Peter shut his mouth and thought about the options. He could lie. Say that they didn’t need this. Then he wouldn’t need to repay Flash for anything. But the image of Julia’s clenched hands and the hours they spent working came to mind. And he decided he didn’t care if he was put in Flash’s debt or that he didn’t know the motivations behind this act of supposed kindness.

Plus, Flash proved changed – sort of – mostly. If he wanted help, well, Peter wasn’t going to say no.

“Yeah, Flash. We do need help, if you’re willing to offer it.”

They nodded at one another before walking down the hallway too close to be considered friends but too far away for anyone to perceive them as enemies.

“Sorry, Monica couldn’t make it today but she said as long as we take notes it should be fine.”

Flash stood shuffling on the balls of his feet in the doorway. Julia and Frank were clearing off a spot for him to sit at the table while Peter motioned him forward.

Frank clapped Flash on the back in greeting and welcomed him.

“Thanks man. This is going to be a great help.”

When Flash sat down, moving his backpack to rest against the leg of the table, everyone stared at him. It was the first time after their sandwich fiasco that Peter had seen him look so embarrassed and out of place. He withheld a smile.

Flash got straight down to business, explain the security and how his father got them a tour and question time with the person in charge of the prototype. Julia’s hand flew over the paper trying to write every word he spoke. Without breaking his speech Flash slight a typed-out sheet of all the information. Her hand shook slightly and thought she thanked him, Peter noticed she didn’t look him in the eye.

The meeting passed quick and Peter was pleased with how much Flash got along with everyone. He and Frank spent a bunch of time talking about sports and the playoffs. After some cajoling he even got Julia to talk about their new kittens at home. In turn, Flash smiled as she told him how BOGO would steal all of Free’s food.

Flash smiled at the story. A real, teeth-baring smile.

Peter was used to things happening slowly in his life.

It took him almost half a school year to decide to participate in the S.T.A.R.K competition. Days avoiding the sign in sheet until finally he took the plunge. Months after dreading nearly everything he settled into a routine. He was opening up to the people around him.

He thought back to how scary it was considering Ned’s offer to sit with him at lunch. It was weeks until he was able to go more than once a week. He even went over to Ned’s house over break.

But all these things took time and much thinking on Peter’s part. He weighed the consequences of everything before stepping forward and rarely out of his comfort zone. That was safe. That was good.

Things happening quickly were never good in Peter’s opinion. Ben’s funeral came and went so fast. The whole thing sped up like someone was pressing fast-forward. Though he was careful and took his time letting Sam into his life; it took but a second for her to break his heart.

That’s why when Flash sat at their lunch table at the end of the week, Peter’s stomach turned sour. He knew to expect the worse. He foresaw the worst. But there was nothing he could do or say in the moment.

Ned, after a moment of scrutiny, looked between Flash and Peter, then stuck out his hand for the two of them to shake, forever reminding Peter how forgiving Ned was.

How many second chances had Ned given him?

Just like that Flash began to eat lunch with them sometimes. Not every day, but throughout the week he would stop by and join an argument between Mike and Midge before wandering off again. Somedays he would even find Peter in the library when the cafeteria was too much for him to get through.

Flash was quieter than Ned. He would hold himself still, aware of his space at any given time and there was still tension between them sometimes. But it was nice all the same.

Peter didn’t find it so strange that Flash and him became friends so quick this time.

End of April

Peter looked around the lab. Scattered on the tables were scraps of paper, all smudged with crunched writing, and metal shavings discarded from the models they had built. His backpack was folded over itself on the floor by the door on top of which his jacket was crumpled.

Mr. Stark stood beside him and if Peter turned his shoulders slightly to the left he could see the slight furrow in his brow. How his hand would come up and rest under his chin while his finger traced his goatee every five minutes or so.

It was his thinking face, Peter knew.

Months of working together and Peter’s steady heartbeat was proof he was relaxed. Content.

He didn’t think about the fact this would all be ending come summer. And he absolutely ignored the itch in the back of his throat thinking about the possibility of never seeing Mr. Stark again.

“I’m still thinking we are going to totally have to overhaul the thrust mechanisms on this side, Mr. Stark. It’s working now, but barely, and it could be so much better.” He said breaking the silence.

Mr. Stark’s eyebrows rose in response but he didn’t say anything. His eyes stayed trained on the new schematics displayed in front of him. He grumbled something under his breath and Peter cracked a smile knowing he was right.

The lab settled under the silence again. Peter moved around to Mr. Stark’s other side and grabbed a Stark pad off the table. Easily Mr. Stark stepped to the side to accommodate his reach and giving Peter enough room to work at the table.

Peter yawned as he opened the door to the apartment. He grabbed a box of Chex mix and sank into the couch. His phone vibrated again and shoving his hand into the box checked his messages. The group chat between everyone went off with a near consistency putting his flip phone into overdrive.

There had been time of the subway to look at it but he ended up falling asleep, waking only to find drool gathering on his sleeve where his head rested and to hear he missed one his stop.

Even though he was barely awake now, Peter considered the walk home beneficial. The moon hung in the middle of the sky decorated by a vague face and stars all around.

It let him think, at least.

His third handful came away as the rest, only the little breadsticks and the occasional rye chip. May must have eaten her way through the bag first. He set it aside feeling a cramping in his stomach. Maybe he was still sick.

He yawned again and sank further into the couch knowing he should go to bed, but his bones felt too brittle to get up.

Everything was coming to a head soon. Midterms, Mr. Stark and their work, and the tour were compounding at an exponential rate.

It was all amazing. Peter knew he was so lucky and at times thought he dreamed it all.

But it was sometimes too much.

He wasn’t used to having so many people in his life or having to check his phone throughout the day to see who was texting him.

Who would have thought at the beginning of the year Ned and Flash would send each other memes? Or that Julia would come out and lead one of their group meetings?

Peter smiled remembering how Monica’s jaw dropped when Julia, gently, corrected her on some of the analytics. Or how she gave everyone in their group, Flash included, a newer version of the pen that landed her in the internship program.

He felt so full of life, something he’d never thought possible for someone like him.

And right now, it hurt that all he wanted to do was curl up and sleep for the weekend. He wondered what would happen if he told them. If he just needed some time to disconnect for a bit.

He knew he couldn’t do that though. They would be fine without him, they would move on and continue texting minus his phone number, and Peter wasn’t ready to get rid of them so soon. They deserved someone who was normal, who could sit in the cafeteria for the whole week without feeling bone tired, or someone who could be fully present without worry about sneezing the wrong way.

Peter would get through it and soak everything up. Every laugh, and debate at lunch. Flash’s and his new acquaintanceship. And especially any time Mr. Stark was willing to work together. He could push through it for now.

It would be fine.

He groaned against the couch pillow thinking about everything he had to do and after looking at the calendar on the way he realized something.

It was only a week until they would tour Oscorp.

It's always one step forward and two steps back for our Peter isn't it?

a/n: Hi sweet friends. I hope you are all doing well and you and your loved ones are staying safe. This semester has been crazy, as things get in real life. My classes have been moved online so I can finally start writing again which makes me so happy. I also just wanted to say thank you for continuing to read this story. Every comment and kudos make my week so bright.

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts.

Taglist: @verdonafrost @demi-starzak @whatisthou

Next Chapter Eleven: Welcome to Oscorp

#Ironman fanfiction #MCU #pre-powers #spiderman fanfiction #Shy peter parker #the supplejack #my writing #ao3 fic #tony stark #ned leeds #Flash Thompson #marvel fanfiction #Peter parker #writing

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billehrman · 4 years

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The Oracle(s) of Omaha Speak

We look forward each year for the Saturday morning in February when Warren Buffett, along with Charlie Munger, release their annual shareholder letter. For those who doubt their status as the best investors in our lifetime, just look at their performance over time. The value of Berkshire shares has compounded at 20.3% annually from 1964 - 2019 whereas the S&P 500 with dividends has compounded at 10.0%. And that includes their current cash levels and the float, now exceeding $129 billion. Warren and Charlie are the penultimate investors.

Here are some of our key takeaways from this year’s letter:

· The intrinsic value of their equity holdings continues to grow steadily and substantially.

· Retained earnings is like compound interest as it funds future growth with higher and higher profits. Use retained earnings advantageously and seek to invest in your businesses. Berkshire’s depreciation charges have aggregated $65 billion whereas internal investments in property, plant and equipment have totaled $121 billion.

· The power of compounding and holding long term rather than selling a stock and paying a federal tax of 21% is clear. If you sell a stock that you like longer term but worry about the short term, the stock would have to drop 21% before you can buy it back and break even. Hear us traders!

· Deploy capital without employing excessive debt levels. Their investments earn more than 20% on net tangible equity capital required to run their businesses. This is mind-blowing when compared to the returns on bonds over the last decade—2.5% or even less on the 30-year Treasury bonds.

· It is almost certain that equities will outperform bonds over time. Remember the American tailwind!

· A board should be truly independent with business-savvy directors who are owner- oriented.

· Berkshire will buy back its stock when Buffett/Munger perceive that it is as selling well beneath intrinsic value. They bought back a record $5 billion in 2019 or approximately 1% of the outstanding stock.

Berkshire will meet their fellow “capitalists” at the May 2 Annual Meeting. Do you think that they support Bernie Sanders?

We always reflect deeply after reading their annual shareholder letter. It reminds us that we need to focus almost entirely on long term investing rather than being influenced by short term events. We continue to get better at looking over the valley rather than reacting to short term events that will pass, such as the coronavirus. In fact, it reinforces our thesis that adversity really creates opportunity for long term investors which we are like Buffett and Munger.

On the other hand, we cannot be fully invested like Berkshire at all times as we do not have an insurance float that backstops us. That backstop affords them added capital to buy when and if there are significant drops in the markets. We begin with a 12 to 24-month market view which impacts our capital allocation by asset class (stock, bonds, cash), the level of investment in each class, which specific sectors to focus on in each class and finally which specific investments to make after our own independent research. While we tend to maintain a significant core portfolio of long-term investments selling well beneath intrinsic value, there is also a part of our portfolios which we are willing to shift amongst and within asset classes consistent with our market view.

Let’s take a look at what is happening in the markets today.

Uncertainty abounds as no one really knows when the coronavirus will be contained. The longer the problem lasts, risks rise that supply lines will be hurt around the world jeopardizing global growth and pricing/profits even more. Our view remains that the worst of the coronavirus will pass within the next several weeks and then it will take China an additional month or so to get it manufacturing/industrial machine up to speed. The key question to ask is whether the coronavirus will impact China’s future potential which is a driving force behind global growth. Our answer remains a resounding no!

We imagine that Charlie Munger, who has been a long term believer and investor in China, is using this opportunity, no matter how unfortunate it may be for the people of China who have been afflicted by the coronavirus, to add more to his exposure as the gap between current price and long term intrinsic value has only widened. We get it.

While the U.S is clearly best positioned to weather the impact of the coronavirus than most other countries, our bond yields have fallen to all-time lows. That’s right. It is hard to imagine that the 30-year treasury fell beneath 2% on Friday. Can you fathom a 2% 30-year bond when our economy is still chugging along around 2% with inflation running near that level too? We have 4% nominal GNP and a 2% long bond. Wow! How much money must be pouring into this country and how scared investors must be to accept a 2% 30-year treasury. Yes, the dollar is strong, too.

It is easy to understand the weakness in our markets last week. All the machines are kicking in predicting a recession with low bond yields along with flat to inverting yield curves. While we do see a near term slowdown here and abroad, we then expect a reacceleration of growth by the second half of the year once the coronavirus peaks which we still anticipate sometime in the early second quarter. We might add that spreads have not widened, and bank capital/liquidity ratios are at all-time highs. Even the IMF is predicting a global economic rebound later this year.

We remain confident that all of the global monetary bodies will keep the spigots wide open providing far more capital to the system than needed by the real economy. Hence, investors will be forced further out on the risk curve. Would you rather own a great company with sensational management, growing with increasing free cash flow after heavily investing in their businesses, selling beneath intrinsic value, yielding over 2.5% and buying back stock or a 30-year treasury yielding under 2%. What would Buffett and Munger do?

We recognize that we are living through uncertain times. But this too shall pass, and we are confident that all the preconditions for accelerating global growth are present once the coronavirus gets contained. After all, monetary policies are extremely accommodative; fiscal stimulation is expanding almost everywhere; trade deals have been reached reducing global trade tensions; Brexit is nearly resolved; Boeing 737 Max should come back in production by the summer; and Trump is doing all in his power as standing President to get re-elected.

The bottom line is that we have not changed our view that the S&P 500 could hit 3600 this year as interest rates are so low while corporate earnings are exceeding expectations. We expect the global economy to pick up in the second half of the year entering 2021 with a full head of steam. We would use current weakness to build positions in economically sensitive stocks selling at recession valuation while reducing defensive stocks. We would be shortening the maturities of your bond holdings and go flat the dollar at a minimum as we are looking for a peak soon. Also, we would be gradually adding to your industrial commodity position favoring copper while excluding energy.

It’s never too late to invest like Buffett and Munger. We recognize how hard it is to invest in a down market but that is when opportunity is greatest for the true investor willing to look over the valley focusing on long term returns. Who can argue with their success?

Our portfolios continue to emphasize technology, especially the semis; global capital goods and industrials; financials, just like Buffett; housing related retailers; low cost, free cash generating industrial commodity companies; cable with content like Disney, healthcare and finally may special situations selling well beneath intrinsic value with exceptional returns on capital.

Our weekly investment webcast will be held Monday morning February 24th at 8:30 am EST. You can join by entering https://zoom.us/j/9179217852 into your browser. Feel free to send any questions beforehand to [email protected].

Remember to review all the facts; pause, reflect and consider mindset shifts; turn off the pundits/experts who are traders rather than investors like Buffett/Munger; look at your asset mix along with risk controls; do independent research and …

Invest Accordingly!

Bill Ehrman

Paix et Prospérité LLC

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runningonmarvel · 5 years

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be my valentine ch. 1

Happy Valentine’s Day!!! @you-get-to-exhale-now-cyrus For your valentine’s day gift I have written two chapters of a multi-chapter Valentine’s Day-centric fic (and I will of course be finishing and posting the rest of the chapters in due time, but, these two chapters are pretty long so I figured it works). Anyways, I hope you like it and happy Valentine’s day!!

A/N: takes place the two weeks before Valentine’s Day in their junior year. wonah. bandi. tyrus. a few curses. unedited but enjoy!!

Chapter 1: Put Your Hand in Mine

You know that I want to be with you all the time.

Jonah snaps the headphones over his ears and half closes his eyes, back against the bench. It’s a romantic song, too peppy for his current mood, but he can’t stop listening to it. He taps one foot against on the tiled floor while Grant students shove by each other.

Oh darling, darling, baby you're so very fine

You know that I won't stop until I make you mine

He’s so sick of love songs. Andi loves them: Taylor Swift and Meghan Trainor and Beyonce. So maybe there’s a reason behind his newfound annoyance with sappiness on the radio. But this one keeps sticking in his head. Jonah imagines reaching out his hand and taking someone else’s. And for the first time in a very, very long time, the person holding his hand in his imagination isn’t Andi. And it’s not Amber, or Natalie, or anyone else.

As half of Grant high school shoves by him, Jonah pushes the headphones down around his neck. He can hear his heart pounding way-too-loudly in his chest, and there’s a continuous beat and song inside his head.

Until I make you mine

And all he can think is: just in time for Valentine’s Day.

————

“Driscoll, catch!” Andi ducks out of the way just in time for Buffy to catch the miscellaneous basketball team member’s thrown shoe. She stares at it in confusion, but Buffy just shoves it into her backpack, gives a quick wave of thanks to the girl sprawled out on the bench, and turns back to Andi.

“Eleanor took my shoe on accident,” she explains, but Buffy’s eyes have already moved on from this conversation. They drift upwards to the large pink banner strung across Grant’s entrance, which is currently being pinned up and decorated with paper heart chains. Andi doesn’t stop to consider how an extra shoe can be taken accidentally and instead gapes up at the poster.

“Since when do we have a Valetine’s Day Dance?” Andi asks.

As if summoned by the deity of high school cheesiness, Student Council president Kip Warren steps into their path. “Since you juniors started sucking at raising money for our prom. We’re having a fundraiser dance—you buy candygrams and roses for people for three times the prices we bought them for. And we’re using that money to pay for a real prom, not one which you idiots scheduled in someone’s garage.” Kip storms away, and a lone senior—one of Amber’s friends—starts applauding.

“He’s way too salty. I heard that our student council planned a good prom but he’s just picky and annoying. Ugh,” Buffy says, glaring after him.

“And they’re probably spending more money on this dance then they’ll make from a few candygrams, honestly.” Andi bends over to grab a cardboard heart, which she reattaches to the wall.

“Cyrus is going to have a field day, though,” Buffy says. She looks curiously over at Andi. “Do you think you’ll go?”

Andi feels something rush through her: undeserved indignation, maybe, accompanied by an annoying blush she wishes would go away. “I mean… are you?”

“I would suggest the Good Hair Crew go, but you already know Cyrus is dedicating this night to his boy.” Buffy shrugs. “We could go together? Single and unattached?”

If Andi were eating cereal right now, she would choke. She hasn’t been to any date-requiring function since her year-long disaster of a breakup with Jonah. And now Buffy Driscoll had the audacity to stand in front of hear with her cheeks blushed dark and her eyelashes clipping her cheeks and ask her to the dance.

“I mean—sure! Maybe Amber could go with us too?”

“You don’t think Amber is going to ask Iris? I think she’ll finally get the nerve to do it. I should probably make a bet on it,” Buffy considers, digging for her wallet and frowning slightly.

“Maybe we should ask boys?” Andi counters, suddenly. Buffy glances up at her, and the look in her eyes could kill.

“Maybe I’ll ask Natalie. She’s cute.”

Andi can’t even respond to that. So she does what she learned best from her mother; she changes the subject.

“So, Buffy. What’d you think of the movie you and Cyrus saw?” Andi tilts her head, meeting Buffy’s eyes again. She thinks of the cheesy block letters glued to the Valentine’s Day Banner: Will you be our Valentine? February 14th at 7. Two weeks away.

Buffy knows this game, but Andi watches her play along. “Best Summer of My Life 2? It was alright. Not as good as the first one. The love story kind of sucked—classic girl meets bad boy trope.”

“Wish I could have seen it,” Andi says, adjusting the straps on her backpack.

“Yeah, well. How was Iris’s?”

Andi has a momentary flashback to Amber and Iris chucking Skyzone dodgeballs at her while shrieking filled the general vicinity. Somehow, Iris had been convinced to have a birthday at a trampoline place, and somehow, Amber had been coerced into going along with it.

“Horrifying.”

Buffy laughs uncomfortably, and Andi can hear the nonexistent joke fall flat. How long has it been like this? How long has the Good Hair Crew been out of sync, and the tension between Buffy and Andi unbreakable?

Almost a year. Too long.

“Well, I’ve got Lit. See you later?” Buffy doesn’t bother waiting around for an answer to the question. She strides away, and it’s all Andi can do to avoid staring directly at the back of her head as she leaves.

“Ask Natalie,” Andi scoffs to herself, kicking at a spot on the ground. Cyrus would call her pettiness levels off the chart, but Andi doesn’t have any other way to react to Buffy. It’s not just the ever-rotating list of new girls; it’s Buffy’s obvious annoyance with Amber, it’s Buffy’s piercing eyes and sharp, true smile she hasn’t worn in so long. It’s Buffy’s acceptance of whatever is between them, while Andi flounders, trying to pretend she’s still in the waters of freshman year, when Jonah was her only problem.

When did the thoughts in her head get so complicated? Don’t answer that, she tells herself, because she already knows the answer. Andi lifts her phone from her pocket and starts absentmindedly scrolling through her old photos. There’s Cyrus and TJ sharing a milkshake with Buffy’s arms around them. There’s Amber trying on a faded leather jacket and Andi wearing a worn suit at the Thrift Store. Andi and her mom attempting gardening while Bowie laughed in their general direction. Buffy, Cyrus, and Andi holding on for dear life while ice skating two winters ago. Further back, there’s Jonah kissing Andi on the cheek, and Marty with his arm around Buffy and Andi with her arm around Jonah on some ridiculous double date. There’s a couple miscellaneous photos of Cyrus in his costume from the musical. And then, from about a year ago—

Andi’s cheeks color red. Red, like the sauce on Bex’s homemade pizza she recently learned to cook. Red, like the color of the Space Otters’ failed sophomore year uniforms. And she shuts her phone.

This is why it’s so hard to talk to Buffy. More than the color of her eyes or the defiance in her words, it’s the specific memory every time Buffy smiles at her. It’s the memory that’s controlling her.

Andi glances back at the Valentine’s Day banner, and sticks her tongue out just for good measure. She won’t let a stupid dance run by stupid Kip Warren control her too.

Then, from behind, a hand grabs her by the shoulder and starts dragging her backwards. Andi yelps, already running through the list of eight things she learned in self-defense class with Bex this summer. Quote: if you’re not a strong athlete your best hope is to hit where it hurts. Anywhere.” Andi is about ready to swing when the arm drags her into a closet and reveals the body attached to it.

“Cyrus?”

“Sorry,” he pants, as if the physical effort to kidnap her from the hallway was exhausting. “Top secret… information.”

“Oh?” Andi says, suddenly interesting. “Another cult?”

“Heck no,” Cyrus says. “I’ve got a plan for Valentine’s Day, for TJ. But I wanted to run it by you and Buffy first. And probably Jonah too.”

Andi starts to smile, leaning back against the shelves on the wall. “Spill.”

“Well… since his big game is on Valentine’s Day…” Cyrus leads in, unable to contain his grin.

“Go on.”

“I was thinking… we could all go… and hold up signs—“

“Signs for TJ! Valentine’s Day signs?!” Andi puts a hand over her mouth. “Cyrus, that’s adorable. No, it’s perfect!”

“Yeah, and I’d ask him to the dance, and we’d go afterwards, and hopefully he won his big game, and then the dance would be super romantic, and he could take the signs home and hang them up on the walls of his room, and we’d take polaroids before the dance in our suits, and you guys would be there—“ “Thought about it much?” Andi cuts in, but her lips curl upwards with excitement. The mention of the dance is the only sour bit—Andi doesn’t need that subtle reminder that she’ll never know how to not be awkward with Buffy about it. She’ll never know how to articulate what she wants, so she’ll be stuck watching TJ and Cyrus and maybe Buffy and Natalie or some other random girl get their perfect Valentine’s Days.

“Well, maybe a little. Anyways, do you like?”

Andi breaks out of her thoughts. “I don’t like, I love. When do we make the signs?”

“This weekend maybe? To be ready by that Friday?”

“You got it, Cyrus. Text Buffy, she’ll be thrilled.”

Cyrus narrows his eyes. “She will not. I’m betting she doesn’t want to help with the signs, so it might just be you and me.”

“Aw, Buffy’ll help if you ask her.” TJ and Buffy don’t fight anymore, but it suffices to say that they’re not exactly best friends.

“I’m already asking her to hold up one of the signs. And especially if she ends up with a crucial word—for example, Valentine—I can’t risk losing her support. I’ll just ask her about that and see how it goes.”

Andi smiles. “You and TJ have been dating for a year now, Cyrus.” Strange. A lot happened a year ago. “I’m sure she’ll be happy to hold up a sign. She just might not cheer for him.”

Cyrus nods, laughing a little. He types out a text on his phone to Buffy, sends it, then looks back up at Andi, looking a little panicked. “Should I tell Jonah? I need him to hold up the sign that says TJ. I don’t think he’s busy that weekend, the Otters don’t have a game—“ “Text him,” Andi reassures Cyrus. He nods and types out the text while still looking up at her.

“I need Buffy, Jonah, you, and Amber. I’ll text Amber and Jonah tonight.”

“You’re asking TJ’s sister to help with his Valentine’s Day ask?” Cyrus and Amber have been friends since middle school, and it’s still hard for Andi to wrap her head around sometimes that Cyrus is dating the brother of one of Andi’s closest friends and is additionally friends with her. It’s the type of friendship that thrives off drama, and Andi has a feeling that even if Cyrus and TJ break up (which it seems like they never will), Amber and Cyrus will be close until the ends of the earth.

“Of course. Who else was I supposed to ask? Walker?” Cyrus asks, giving Andi a look. It’s a group-acknowledged truth that Andi drove Walker from the group, even if Buffy was the last one who dated him. Walker hasn’t hung out with them for a year and a half now, except maybe a few times with Jonah. Andi misses him and his lovely creativity, but she doesn’t miss the drama he brought; Buffy was happier with Marty than with him, but then she was happier by herself than with Marty. Andi blinks slowly, realizing how this topic has made its way back to her again.

“Amber will be fine,” Andi assures, her mind not really on Cyrus or TJ. “You think she’ll finally get the guts to ask out Iris?”

Cyrus shrugs. “I hope so. Who are you going with, anyways? Not Jonah—“

“No.”

A pause.

“Jonah is my friend, yes. But I’m done being romantic with him.” Andi stops, because the words sound harsh, even if they are true. “Buffy and I are just gonna go together, like old times.”

Cyrus smiles a half smile, because old times would include him too. And all three of them know that they’ve moved on from old times. Maybe Andi the most. And yet.

“I’m gonna go find TJ now. Keep the plan under wraps, ‘kay? Friday afternoon we can pick out supplies?” “Glitter glue!” Andi says, and she can’t stop it from coming out like a squeal. “Count me in.”

Cyrus steps out, the brightness of his phone lighting up the dim closet, and leaves Andi alone, still against the wall.

Alone.

In the closet.

Andi nearly throws her phone across the room.

————

There are three parks in downtown Shadyside: the tiny one off the elementary school, the Valley Park where legend says a swamp monster lives, and Agley Park. Agley is where coffee shop people go to be in nature; it’s also, incidentally, Walker’s favorite place in town. The Saturday morning is crisp, with light winter fog in the air, and Agley looks like the rolling fields and forests of some picturesque Scottish village. The only piece of color barring the serenity is the hunk of metal in the middle of one of the squares; that hunk of metal, though, is what has drawn Walker downtown this early on a Saturday.

“It’s kind of… underwhelming?”

Walker ignores the voice to his right and keeps reading the printed plaque beneath the statue. Installed four weeks ago, reads the monotone font, the Rest of Infinity display serves as a reminder to all viewers of the eternity of space and its never-ending mystery. The 20-foot tall sculpture contains seventeen rotating pieces and thousands of tiny gears. The reflective paints were mixed by the artist herself, and the glass portions were blown by her as well. Walker is aching to reach for a sketchbook and draw it, but he promised himself that this time he would just look. So he does.

After a while, the same voice cuts in. “So maybe I’m starting to see why Cyrus can be such a science nerd sometimes…”

Walker looks over his shoulder at Amber Kippen, who is wearing a faux leather skirt and carrying a latte. They were in the same studio class—much to Walker’s chagrin at first, who had found Amber’s eclectic, relaxed approach to art to be flighty. But when Amber’s realism came out looking like a photographic negative, and when her paints were soft pastels that fit perfectly into her nature theme, then Walker decided to give up on judging before he knew things.

And now, lo and behold, Walker and Amber were visiting an art exhibition outside of school. Together. For fun.

“I really like the colors on the back few layers,” Walker says finally, and his voice sounds gravelly from lack of use. “And the way the black pieces spiral to infinity first, with the smaller pieces following behind.”

Amber nods, and Walker notes that she’s not really listening. “Do yo know who would love this?”

“Yeah?” Walker does know, because there’s only ever one right answer. But he holds off.

“Iris.”

Amber’s eyes get dreamy when she’s talking about Iris, her crush of many a year. Walker recognizes the look because it’s the look he used to see on Andi’s face when talking about Jonah. Buffy’s face when talking about Marty. The faces of people in love with someone else, not him.

“I’m sure she would, Her photography project is so cool, maybe she could take pictures of the statue—“

“I think I need to ask her to the dance,” Amber says suddenly. “It’s now or never, right? Senior year will be too late. It’s got to be now.” “What dance?”

Amber looks shocked, offended, horrified, embarrassed—everything on the list—that Walker is unaware of said dance. “Uh, Grant’s Valentine’s Day Dance. On account of the fact that Kip Warren and the dance team girls want prom to not be in someone’s basement this year. But Iris!”

Walker considers this, as they start to walk away from the statue and back toward Amber’s car. He listens to Amber’s list of reasons: “We texted all last night, and she ended with a heart, not me. We’ve held hands twice and been to four movies alone together. Her eyes are the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen, and her bangs are so nice and her smile…”

In his head, Walker wants to make a comparison to something he’s feeling for another person. But he won’t let himself. Pretty eyes…hanging out alone together. His breath is catching, and Amber’s voice fades a little in the background. And that dance…

“Walker? Walker!” Startled out of a daydream, Walker feels Amber’s arm in front of his chest and suddenly sees the curb drop away in front of him. “Absent-minded much?”

“Call it an artist’s trait,” Walker says dizzily. He can’t stop thinking about the crush—shit, a crush—and it’s like the world is falling to pieces. It can’t be real, not over one movie and an air hockey game and a couple walks home from school. Maybe if he doesn’t think it, then it won’t be real.

“Walker.” Amber’s statement pulls him completely back to the surface, where he faces Amber’s scrutinizing gaze. “Are you going to ask anyone to the dance?”

Oh no. Walker opens his mouth to say something, and then doesn’t. They keep walking, but Amber’s eyes are staring him down with all the intensity she used to have as Grant’s resident mean girl. It’s the look she gets when she sees something she wants—or wants to know—and will do anything to get it.

“Um.”

“Um? Don’t give me that, Walker Brodsky. I spill my guts to you about Iris regularly. Now it’s your turn: who’s your crush?”

Walker blushes, reaching above his head to tug on a tree branch. “Amber, I—“

There’s a small voice in Walker’s head, and it’s trying to overcome the wave of anxiety he has about this situation. The voice is saying: Amber will understand.

Amber, who came out as lesbian when she was a freshman in high school. Amber, who goes to the LGBT alliance and activism meetings on a regular basis and cites it as her most important extracurricular, even more than dance or studio. Amber, who cries while listening to Heaven by Troye Sivan. Amber, who is staring at him right now with her Annabeth Chase-esque gray eyes and inquisitorial eyebrow raise. Amber, who has dated—

“Jonah.”

Amber doesn’t miss a beat, but Walker is already dizzy from the weight of the word.

“Jonah! Of all the people at school, you chose Mr. Heartbreak himself?”

“Um.”

Jonah is Mr. Heartbreak, isn’t he? Walker thinks of Andi, and the disaster that was the final six months of her and Jonah’s relationship. Jonah, who Andi always like more than him. Jonah Beck, who Walker first met at the art gallery, and then at the color factory, and then at canoeing. A couple months ago Walker ran into Jonah outside the skate shop, and they ended up making plans to see a movie in town they both wanted to see. Then, Walker started seeing Jonah more at school, and they were partners on a Bio assignment. The events keep spilling over themselves in his mind, and Walker feels two things: one, feelings. A crush. Like he had on Andi. The second thing is what has been washing over him for months and what kept him from telling Amber in the first place: he’s scared.

“Yeah,” Walker says, just to affirm it. “I like Jonah.” And there it is, again, the feeling in his chest of relief and anxiety all at once.

Amber nods as the rolling park ends and she clicks her key fob in the general direction of her station wagon. “Okay. Well, considering I’ve dated him, I’m probably authorized to give some advice—“

“No, Amber. He’s not even into guys; there’s no use thinking about it.” Walker slides into the passenger seat and takes out his phone from the glove box to start typing out notes about the statue.

“Walker, you never know. I mean, he’s never said that he does like boys, but he’s never said that he doesn’t—“

“That’s useless,” Walker says, keeping his eyes trained on his phone. “He’s straight, whatever. Let’s go home.” “Don’t play this card. You’re not the first person to fall for someone who you think is straight, and you won’t be the last, not by a long shot. Guess what? Jonah hasn’t said that he’s straight. So you have a chance. Don’t waste it.” Amber’s voice gets quiet at the end, as the grips the wheel of the still-parked car. Walker thinks of Iris, and he sees the pain of pining in Amber’s eyes.

“Hey,” he says softly. “You can’t give up either.”

She shakes her head. “Yeah, whatever.” She sounds just like Walker did moments ago, but Walker doesn’t push.

“So…do you still want to give me some advice on Jonah Beck?”

Amber starts to laugh, and she reaches across to give him a shove. “Of course, Walker Brodsky. Of course.”

————

“Heads up!”

Buffy runs in anyway and snags the rebound away from TJ. She brings the ball back to the top of the key, eyebrows poised in challenge, and checks the ball to him. Then she pounds it into the floor, slipping beside TJ to get in an easy layup.

“That’s 18 to 17,” Buffy pants as TJ sets it back up.

“Careful, Driscoll, don’t get too confident,” TJ warns, crossing the ball to take a shot from just inside the three-point line. The ball circles the rim, achingly close to the net, but rolls back out and sinks to the court.

“Missed me, missed me, now you got to—“ TJ interrupts Buffy’s taunt with a shove, and Buffy laughs as she grabs the ball and shoves it back into his hands.

“I will not,” TJ says, “allow you to complete that sentence.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Buffy laughs. “Don’t worry, I have no interest.”

“Good,” TJ asserts, and his next shot is nothing but net.

Three points later and Buffy has won the game, but they don’t keep score, shockingly. One-on-one has become a daily occurrence after their respective practices, because TJ has to wait for rehearsal to end to drive Cyrus home anyways. Cyrus tried to convince him that he could just go home on the late bus, but TJ has insisted.

“Ready for next Friday?” Buffy asks, once they’re done playing and are just dribbling around.

“I hope,” TJ says, chucking the ball up with zero regard. Buffy catches it and looks over at him.

“You better be ready for Valentine’s Day. I know Cyrus is excited.”

TJ does a double take, and Buffy laughs like she’s caught him unaware. “Well, yeah I’m ready for Valentine’s Day. Or I will be. But the game—“ “Screw the game,” Buffy says, and drives the basketball into the ground. “I mean—sorry. Screw my game, not yours.”

“What’s up? How’s the team doing?” TJ holds his hands out, and she throws it at him. He’s always tried to be somewhat lenient towards Buffy in her captaining, because he knows it must be hard carrying the girls basketball program on her shoulders. When they came to Grant, Buffy had to leave behind her newly-founded middle school team for a program that’s only improvement on Jefferson’s was the fact that it was school-mandated. The past few years Buffy has been constantly trying to mend a rivalry with Kira while simultaneously attempting to take the team to the next level.

“We’re doing alright. But we’ll be playing teams in the region tournament that have AAU girls and are state-ranked. I don’t want to get eliminated in the first round, but that looks like what we’ll be getting. And I’m trying to deal with Kira, but I really can’t—“ Buffy stops.

TJ shakes his head. “You can’t be so hard on yourself, Buffy. Regionals is a hard tournament, and it’s okay if you guys—“

“No! It’s not,” Buffy shouts, and her eyes flash. TJ steps back, because this is starting to feel too much like middle school. “I have to do well, and you don’t get to talk to me like that. Why don’t you talk to me like you would a teammate—“ Buffy stops.

TJ knows some people think Buffy can be harsh, but she’s harder on herself than she is on anyone else. The thing about being friends with her is never knowing exactly how to handle it. If Cyrus were here, he would know, but Cyrus is onstage pretending to be Lysander from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

“If you were my teammate, I would tell you to stop worrying and play the game. It goes how it goes. And I’d tell you to get along with Kira. You have to,” TJ says.

“Yeah,” Buffy breathes. “Sorry. Now pass me the ball.”

TJ obliges, and she dribbles in for a layup. He doesn’t know if he handled it right; but, he did something. Which is better than nothing. Now back to the matter at hand.

“So, Driscoll,” he calls. “What else has Cyrus said about Valentine’s Day?”

“That’s not for me to tell,” Buffy shrugs, starting to smile. “But I hope you’re taking him to the dance.”

“Uh, what kind of boyfriend do you think I am? Of course we’re going.”

“Alright, good,” Buffy says, taking a jump shot.

“And,” TJ says, excitedly, “It’ll actually be fun. We’ve got the games, which everyone is coming to, and then the dance in the gym. Cyrus is coming over after, and we’re going to bake cookies and watch a movie—“ “Okayyy, I do not need to hear about your big date,” Buffy cuts in. TJ bites the insides of his cheeks so she won’t blush, because he had been planning a sort of date with Cyrus. But Buffy doesn’t need to know that. “But you’re right, it’ll be sweet. If your idea of romance is dancing in a sweaty gym in the dark.” TJ, who had been jogging back from the ball rack where he put away the basketball, stops to put his hands on his hips. “While you may be a cynical human being, Cyrus is a romantic—“

“So are you, TJ Kippen, don’t even try.”

“I refuse to acknowledge that statement. Buffy, you must come to the dance. It’s a part of the high school experience: the big game and then the sweaty prom.”

“Sweaty prom.”

“Sweaty prom!” TJ yells and does a spin around the gym. It’s exhilarating, he thinks, to have caring friends and a team he love to be on and a boyfriend who likes him back and has for over a year. And speaking of said boyfriend—

Cyrus enters the gym, and they both hear his hard-soled theater shoes from across the room.

“Cyrus!” Buffy shouts, and runs over to him. TJ follows. “Save me from TJ, he’s trying to force me to go to… wait for it… the dance!”

Cyrus snorts, and swings his drawstring bag over his shoulder. “TJ, are these accusations trustworthy?”

“Very,” TJ says, pulling in Cyrus under his arm.

“In that case, I support them. Buffy, we need you to go the dance! Who else will ridicule their music choices and teach Gus how to do the cha cha slide?” “First of all, the instructions are in the song. Second of all—“ Buffy’s phone dings from inside her pocket, and she stops immediately to check it. TJ raises his eyebrows at her as she frowns at the tiny screen, then stops frowning and smiles a tiny bit. TJ runs through in his mind who it could’ve been—not Marty, who Buffy parted with freshman year. He shrugs it off—a mystery for another time.

“Got to go,” Buffy says, and rushes off to the locker room.

“Buffy,” Cyrus calls, then shakes his head. “She’s been weird lately. I’m not sure what’s up.”

TJ nods absentmindedly, then turns to Cyrus. “How was rehearsal?”

Cyrus’s eyes go wide. “Some freshman dropped a set piece on Amber and she broke her pinky!”

“WHAT.” TJ feels his voice get quiet.

“Yeah, it’s okay though, it’ll be healed in two weeks. Show isn’t for another month. She said it feels fine.” “Fucking—sorry, fricking—freshman. Idiots, all of them,” TJ says, pulling Cyrus by the hand over to the bleachers so he can grab his bag.

“Can’t argue with that,” Cyrus shrugs, and they start to head to TJ’s car. “Oh, and Amber told me to tell you she’s staying out late tonight, so don’t wait up for her.”

“She’s going out with a broken pinky?”

“She’s got a tiny cast; she’ll be alright.” TJ squints, unconvinced. “Anyways, how was your practice?”

TJ pulls Cyrus against his side. “The usual, you know. You’re bringing the whole gang out to the games on the 14th, right?”

He nods and wraps his arm around TJ’s waist. “I can’t wait.” Then he does that Cyrus-smile: with his lips upturned to his cheeks, and his eyes intense. “It’s Valentine’s Day too, you know,” he says sweetly.

“Oh, trust me,” TJ says. He puts both his arms on Cyrus’s shoulders and pulls him into a kiss. “I know.” Cyrus blushes when he pulls away, and TJ spins him towards the car.

“Movie tonight?” Cyrus asks. TJ bites his lip, then shakes his head.

“I wish. I’ve got precalc homework which is going to take me approximately four hours,” TJ says, slipping into the drivers’ seat. “Ms. Walters is evil, I swear.”

“I’ll be sending good luck in your direction,” Cyrus says as he buckles his seatbelt. TJ drives to Cyrus’s house, and on the way they listen to Billie Eilish and discuss the day’s events, their feelings towards pineapples, and Degrassi, their show. By the time TJ pulls into Cyrus’s driveway, it’s gotten dark and Cyrus’s eyelids are slipping closed. TJ smiles over at him and bops his nose with his index finger. Cyrus blinks awake, focuses on the house, and smiles a sleepy smile. Struck, as he is daily, by how cute Cyrus is, TJ leans across the seat and kisses him. Cyrus takes TJ’s hand, squeezes it, and tumbles out the door with his bags.

“See you tomorrow, underdog!” Cyrus turns to wave back at him, and TJ can still see the soft smile on his face.

As he drives away, TJ stops at the intersection that breaks off back to the Kippen house, and he takes a left instead of a right. He thinks about Cyrus’s excitement over Valentine’s Day and the dance as he pulls into the Target parking lot. Cyrus Goodman, he thinks, his own smile filling his features, you deserve the world.

#andi mack #am gift exchange #friendom gift exchange #valentines exchange #wonah #bandi #tyrus #writing #fanfic

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theworldoffostering · 6 years

Text

Letter to the Court

Well y’all, I’m letting it all out this month apparently. I sent an email of concerns to Ms. 6’s ongoing worker on Friday. Today I’m sending a letter to the judge because we have court this week and I’m too chicken to ad lib my concerns on the spot. I already sent a copy of my letter to the judge to the ongoing worker and the attorney for the state. I am required to send it to the attorneys I’m complaining about as well. I was notified this morning that the GAL won’t be there because he’s on vacation this week, so it looks like I will only stare down Ms. 6’s personal attorney in court.

I’m nervous about all this, but I’m also just fed up with The System. I have no power in these situations. I only have a voice. I don’t think it will make a difference, but I’m going to use it anyways because again, it’s all I have. I have a draft that I’m planning to send on to the head of adoptions for the state as well. Might as well since I’m in letter writing mode, right?

Dear Honorable Judge,

As you may know, there is a permanency hearing scheduled in July for our foster daughter, Ms. 6. As longtime foster parents, my husband, DH and I have sat through many different court hearings for many different children. In my 12 years as a foster parent, I have never written a letter to a judge before, but I feel like at this point in the case, it is necessary to do so.

Attorney Horrible is appointed as Ms. 6’s GAL. He has been her GAL since at least 2012. In addition, Attorney Doesn’t Care, has been appointed as Ms. 6’s personal attorney because she is over the age of 12.

In April of 2017, when DH and I were relatively confident that Ms. 6 would be discharged from the residential placement and placed in our home, we requested a meeting with Attorney Horrible. He met with us. During the meeting, Attorney Horrible was very discouraging. He told DH and myself that he did not believe that Ms. 6 could be rehabilitated. He reminded us that we had several other children at home, that we were an older couple (at the time I was 42, and DH was 39), and that perhaps we were not up to the challenge of parenting Ms. 6.

I am a big believer that in order for foster care to work in the way that it was intended, every person on the team has to be an active participant in the role that they have been given. This is true of the ongoing workers, the GAL, the foster parents, the judge, etc. After meeting with Attorney Horrible, I checked in with both Ms. 6’s ongoing worker, and Ms. 6’s therapist at her residential placement. I was pained to discover that at no time during Ms. 6’s residential placement did Attorney Horrible check in with residential staff. In fact, I was told by Ms. Therapist that she had called Attorney Horrible to speak with him, but he told her he was too busy to speak with her at that moment, and he never took the time to follow up with her. How can a GAL be dispensing such weighty advice about a child’s life without even having a conversation with someone who had such an active role in his client’s life?

In addition, Attorney Horrible has not checked in with DH or myself a single time since we initiated meeting with him back in April 2017. Attorney Horrible has not seen Ms. 6 since she was placed in a previous foster home. According to court records, she left that home in November of 2015. That means that he has little to no contact with his client or the foster parents, in nearly three years.

Unfortunately, Attorney Doesn’t Care’s involvement in the case has also been minimal. He has never met Ms. 6. When he attended the first permanency review for Ms. 6 after being appointed as her attorney (during the summer of 2017), he came to court without even knowing where she was living. At our last permanency hearing in February, Attorney Doesn’t Care called me as I was driving to the hearing and then couldn’t stay on the phone with me because he had to leave to drive to the hearing as well. I spoke to him for less than five minutes, which was not an adequate amount of time to provide any details regarding Ms. 6’s progress or struggles. I am shocked that we have two attorneys appointed to this case who have not made the time to reach out to their client or the foster home in a meaningful way in the months and years that they have been assigned to this case. To be blunt, I believe it is wrong for anyone to come into a courtroom and make a recommendation about a child’s life without doing some basic due diligence.

The reality is that DH and I are caring for an incredibly traumatized teenager. She has been repeatedly let down by the county and state foster care systems. My husband and I are now trying to pick up the pieces and put things back together. We cannot do it alone, and yet there seem to be precious few resources to help us help Ms. 6. Ms. 6 is a bright, engaged, loving girl who has a list of challenges a mile long. There is no way that we can do everything she needs as a couple. She needs a mentor, tuition for her private education, a tutor (the State is currently reimbursing us for the cost of the tutor), financial help if she hopes to go to college. She needs ongoing therapy for all of the mental health diagnoses. She needs insurance after the age of 18 for ongoing treatment of her scoliosis. Certainly, some insurance and adoption assistance will be available to us, but all of that goes away once she turns 18.

Minimally, I expect Ms. 6’s attorneys to check in with us prior to court hearings and have a meaningful conversation with myself, DH, and/or Ms. 6 so that they have a basic understanding of what is going on in the case and at that point can make a recommendation based on the current information that they have. It is not in Ms. 6’s best interest to have people advocating on her behalf who have not even taken the time to hold a conversation with the people who have the most to gain or lose based on their recommendations. I imagine that they are reading the permanency plans that the case worker is sending, but in my opinion, that is not enough to gain a clear understanding of what is happening with the child in the home.

Thank you for taking the time to hear my concerns.

Sincerely,

THAT Foster Mom

#this is foster care #foster to adopt #GAL

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amandajeanwrites · 5 years

Text

This is not a drill.

Imagine waiting with baited breath, watching the digits of time click by on a glowing screen. The house is dark and quiet around you, only the sound of your dad’s snoring can be heard alongside the creaking of an old house settling for the night. You have to hold in your squeals of anticipation and delight, shoving your face into the lavender pillow sham. Consistently tabbing from one browser window to another, you’re managing all of your social media sites in excitement. An MSN Messenger alert flashes at the bottom of your screen, and you flick it open quickly to an onslaught of messages from fellow fans in capital letter screeching through your screen about how you have mere seconds left before the video drops. You respond with an adrenaline filled “IKR!? XD!”

When you pull your internet browser back open and reload the page, it crashes from over activity, but when you reload for a second or third time, you’re greeted with the perfect little window of a new music video. Three young men are dressed in various suits, hair straightened and pulled forward into their eyes. One delighted shriek slips past your lips, and you leap from your bed, unable to watch the video from a seated position.

Now imagine that same you, ten years down the road, waking up to an iMessage from your lifelong best friend. It’s a screenshot of an Instagram, which she’s captioned “This is not a drill.” Instantly, the adrenaline comes rushing back. You’re 16 again, in your old bedroom, posters strewn across every square inch of visible dry wall. That’s the exact feeling I had this morning, February 28th, 2019, when the Jonas Brothers announced they were back.

The Jonas Brothers, a pop band of, you guessed it, brothers, made their debut and became famous in the early to mid-2000s. They had a handful of hit albums, two original movies, and a short series on the Disney Channel, as well as a handful of sold out World Tours. In 2013, after the release of their single, Pom Poms, the boys announced a break and decided to go their separate ways over “creative differences”. Nick, the youngest in the band, went on to produce a couple of successful solo pop albums. Joe formed the band, DNCE, also finding success in the pop music scene. Kevin, the eldest, started a real estate development business. They’d all gotten engaged or married, things were going great for the brothers.

Things were going well for me too, I’d moved on. I’m married, I have a dog. I’ve lived my life and grown into adulthood similarly to the rest of the JB fandom. Sure, I fell into a torrid love affair with One Direction (and then they abandoned me too), but I never gave up hope that one day those Jonas boys from New Jersey would reunite. I just never imagined it’d be so soon.

The Jonas Brothers announced their reunion this morning with a wealth of Instagram photos, boomerangs, and video clips regarding their latest single, Sucker. Among these was an announcement that they’ll be musical guest starring on The Late Late Show with James Corden on CBS, this coming Monday-Friday. (Harry Styles and Shawn Mendes were among other heartthrobs who received this preferential treatment on Corden’s show for their own album releases.) Later this afternoon, they teased with the link to a live stream video on their YouTube channel which streamed the image of a castle until the release time of 12AM EST.

On the West Coast, as 9PM rolled around, after a day of singing some old JoBro hits like Hello Beautiful and Much Better, I loaded the livestream, watching the thousands roll in to watch the video with me. I texted the link to my best friend and sucked in a breath of anticipation. I called to my husband from the bedroom, he told me he’d watch it later. Suddenly, at the seconds rolled, 70 thousand people on the chat, I felt like a high schooler again.

That familiar giggle bubbled in my throat, the excited shriek of a girl beyond words. My fingers tapped against the glass of my phone, rattling out excited messages to my closest loved ones, anticipating their reactions. It’s the suspense that really gets you. It’s the feeling at bedtime on Christmas Eve, where you can’t close your eyes, but you know the moment you wake up, Santa will have brought you everything your little heart desired. The seconds ticked away, I brought the video up to full screen, and there they were.

The song itself, their new single, Sucker, is a downright JAM. The song opens with an easy to follow funk beat, all bass guitar and clackers, and Nick’s sweet-sweet falsetto croon. My adolescence was made of this stuff. Joe comes in with the bridge with bouncy consonants:

“I’ve been dancing on top of cars

And stumbling out of bars

I’ll follow you through the dark”

The two brothers harmonize beautifully until the drop before the hook. This song, about being head-over-heels and madly in love (“a sucker for you”) is impossible to not bob along to. The beat is reminiscent of Pharrell’s Happy, a chipper little clap-clap-snap. The chord progression is distinctly pop, but in a great way. The combination of Nick and Joe’s vocals bring me back to other JoBro’s hits like Pom Poms or Burnin’ Up, but in a way that’s fresh and relevant and entertaining. There’s even a whistle interlude before the last bridge, and who can really resist a good whistle?

As a lifelong Jonas Brother fangirl, I’m pleased to hear their music has grown with them and their fandom. They’ve clearly taken ideas from their individual solo work and applied it to the group dynamic, and it works. The song is fresh without feeling outlandish or unfamiliar, and I can see it driving me insane from overplay in a few days. I can only imagine how radio listeners will feel.

Upon first listen, I bobbed along excitedly, but I almost couldn’t focus on the new single whilst watching the incredibly indulgent and stunningly fever dream of a music video. Opening on a castle overflowing with multicolored balloons (aka my dream home), the video takes you through an Moulin Rogue meets Marie Antoinette journey of epic proportions. The boys, all clad in impeccable velvet and sequin attire, are performing in a dimly lit room with checker print floors. Their audience is their three stunning wives, also wearing incredibly outlandish outfits, sunbathing beside a gaggle of rabbits. I can’t make this up, but I wish I had.

The video takes you through various Alice in Wonderland-esque scenarios of the large Jonas family indulging in fencing matches, a lavish feast, and garden baths. All the while, they’re sipping cocktails, sucking on sweets (get it? I’m a sucker for you.), and doing the tango in incredible over-the-top wardrobes.

Although Nick, Joe, and Kevin were my initial draw to the video (and the band, let’s get real), their S.O.s definitely stole the show. Priyanka pulled gaze in every shot, and Danielle looked to-die-for while walking those corgis. Honestly though, Sophie Turner, in all of her glory, made this the best music video the Jonas Brothers have ever shot. Consistently pulling diva faces or lip syncing to the best lyrics, Sophie killed it. Every little cock of her eyebrow or lick of her lips had me cackling. At the end of the video, there is a rather racy predicament in which the women are sensually teasing their men, and Joe is found tied up precariously while Sophie watches on from a throne. It’s incredible.

At the end of the video, I was a bubbling bundle of excitement and pride. The Jonas Brothers have really brought it this time around, and they don’t intend to disappoint. I intend to be right here, the glow of my laptop illuminating my face, trying to stay quiet while my husband snores in the background. Occasionally, I’ll let out a fangirlish shriek, ready for what other surprises the Jonas Brothers have up their sleeves.

#jonas brothers #nick jonas #joe jonas #kevin jonas #priyanka chopra #sophie turner #danielle jonas #sucker #music video #reunion #jobros #jb #the jonas brothers #they’re back baby!#bestdayever #kevtuplets

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lunarlychallenged · 6 years

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For @weasleyprotectionsquad’s Weasley Appreciation Week, and just in time for Valentines Day, I’ve written a fanfic about Arthur!

February 1st

Arthur Weasley had never been fond of hugs, persay, but he hadn’t been able to get them out of his mind for the past week. It wasn’t even the concept of hugs in general. He could have handled that easily enough. It seemed like everywhere he went, people mentioned how spectacular Molly Prewitt’s hugs were.

“I always love winter,” said a girl at his table in the Great Hall. “When I get cold, I ask Molly for a hug, and it warms me right up every time.”

“Mols is the only person I know who gives real hugs,” Bilius had grudgingly admitted while the two fifth years played Wizard Chess in the Common Room. “It’s like she hugs you with her entire body.”

Even Minerva, who seemed like an untouchable Seventh Year, seemed fond of the girl. Minerva had taken a nasty fall during a Quidditch match that gave everybody quite a scare. When she came back to the common room a few days later, Molly had thrown herself at the injured chaser to squeeze out the concern.

“Molly,” she had scolded with a small smile. “If you don’t let up, you’ll rebreak all of my ribs.” All the same, she had wrapped her arms around Molly with as little cringing as she could muster.

When Molly walked up to him, all smiles, before Transfiguration started, he couldn’t help but hear the words of his schoolmates echoing around his head.

“Can I sit here?” She asked him every time they had this class, always gesturing to where her two best friends sat giggling at the table in front of him. She was always the odd one out, and her friends always seemed delighted about it. The first time they had stranded her, her cheeks had been very pink the entire time. At first he had thought that the shine in her eyes had been tears, but nothing about the way she acted seemed sad. Bashful, maybe. Nervous, almost certainly. But Molly was one of the only people who seemed to genuinely enjoy talking to him, and Molly was one of the only people he was excited to talk to.

“Help yourself,” he said for the umpteenth time that year. She collapsed into the chair like it was the most delightful thing she could possibly imagine doing. That was how she did everything, and Arthur couldn’t help admiring it. She treated everything like it was her greatest desire, be it eating or homework or talking to him.

“How was Muggle Studies?” She leaned her cheek against one small hand and gazed raptly at him.

He smiled. “We practiced playing Muggle card games today.” He launched into an explanation of a game they called Gold Fish, though he didn’t understand why they would call it that. As much as his mind buzzed with delight as he imagined Muggles sitting around a table and playing, a small part of him focused on her small hand. That small part of him thought that it was a very fine hand, and that part of him wished terribly that there was a reason for him to hold it. It was a very new thought that made his stomach twist a little.

Arthur had always thought that Molly was cute, of course. She looked like she was really alive, and for Arthur, who sometimes forgot that he was alive in the midst of all of the projects he tinkered with, the liveliness that she infected the world with was almost like a drug. It had just always been a drug that he enjoyed recreationally, but these past few days had made it seem far more necessary. She was a thought that niggled at the back of his mind, unwelcome but somehow enjoyable all the same.

February 6th

“Arthur!”

The hiss was very quiet, but it was awfully sharp. His head snapped up from the light bulb he was doodling on the parchment that ought to have been used for an essay about the Giant Wars. Molly Prewitt’s red hair was bright against the dusty books about the uses of lavender in potions. She jerked her head impatiently towards the window in the back corner. He frowned, confused, but got up to follow her out of sight.

She hopped from one foot to the other eagerly as he approached. “A little birdie told me it’s your birthday today,” she beamed.

He smiled helplessly, struggling to comprehend what she had said in the light of her smile. “Hmm? Oh, yeah, who told you?”

She waved him of impatiently. “Arthur! You should have told me yourself!”

He shrugged, the tips of his ears going a little pink. “I didn’t think it mattered.” It wasn’t a lie. His birthday had always been a small family affair, or at least as small as affairs could be in a family as large as his own. He and Molly, friendly as they were, were not so close that he expected her to care about a birthday as minor as his fifteenth.

Molly pulled a small bag out of the folds of her robes. His brow creased as he looked at it. The bag itself was nothing fancy; a simple red paper bag with some ribbon carefully curled around the handles. His spectacled eyes flickered between the bag and Molly’s suddenly nervous face.

“Well?” she demanded. She held it out a little further, and only then did it click into place that she had gotten him a present. When he reached for it, his calloused fingers brushed against her soft ones. Tingles spread from his fingertips to his heart to his belly, dancing a jig as he struggled not to smile.

“You didn’t have to,” he said distantly.

She tutted. “It’s not much, but everybody should get to celebrate their birthday.”

At the top of the bag was a small package of fudge.

“I made it in the kitchens last night,” she said as he stared. “I didn’t know what your favorite flavor was, but I figured that everybody loves chocolate-”

“It’s wonderful,” he said softly. It could have been any flavor and he still would have thought that it was to die for.

Next, he pulled out a pair of rather lumpy scarlet and gold mittens. He thought the blobs on the tops were supposed to be lions, but he couldn’t be sure that they weren’t badly done suns.

“I’ve been learning to knit,” she said with pride. “I’m not very good yet, but I’m working very hard at it.”

He slipped them on. The mittens were scratchy and oddly shaped, but he wiggled his fingers at her. “Perfect fit.”

He went to fold up the bag, but she shook her head vigorously. Her hair wobbled madly as she spoke. “There’s one more thing!”

At the very bottom of the bag, small and thin, was a grey plastic stick. He pulled it out, eyes widening, and all breath left his body.

“Muggles call them ‘pens’,” she said, fingers twisting anxiously around her cloak.

His lips curled in a manic grin. He wrapped one hand around the back of her neck and yanked her toward him without thinking, ignoring her surprised squeak as he plastered his lips against the crown of her head before rushing off to test out the pen on the abandoned parchment at his table. Had he turned back to look at her, Arthur would have seen a bewildered Molly Prewitt, cheeks blazing and eyes alight, wrapping her arms around herself in a hug that perhaps she might have given him if he had paused for half a second to thank her properly.

February 14th

It had started with the desire for a hug, certainly, but now Arthur was fit to burst with the desire to touch Molly all the time. He was overly conscious of her presence all the time.

During every Transfiguration lesson since his birthday, he hadn’t been able to pay any attention to the professor because of the way her thigh pressed against his. Had it always done that? She was a very soft girl, all curves and smoothed edges, so she very well may have always been pushed up against him at their tiny table. If so, he had been so caught up in everything happening inside his head that he had been completely blind to what was real. Her leg touched his, and it somehow seemed far too intimate for a classroom setting.

His mind would frequently wander to the brief feeling of his lips against her hair. He wanted to kiss her again. He wanted to kiss her for real. If he was one of his brothers, he probably would have done. If he was his father, who had successfully wooed one of the infamous Black sisters, he probably would have done. Instead he was Arthur Weasley, and the only things that had ever responded to his touch were inanimate objects that he probably shouldn’t have been tinkering with in the first place. Instead he was Arthur Weasley, who had always considered himself lucky if somebody was willing to put up with him as a friend at all. Molly had been his greatest stroke of luck, so of course he would wind up wanting to be with her in a decidedly non-friendly way.

Determined not to get ahead of himself, he thought he would focus on hugging her first.

He kept his head low during breakfast. There was a low, warm buzz in the Great Hall. There had been a Hogsmeade trip on Friday, but it hadn’t sapped the energy that only teenagers on Valentine’s Day can give off. The buzz rose to a roar when the owls swooped in. Some carried newspapers or letters from families, but others carried boxes of chocolates or cards from secret admirers. Even those who knew that nothing was coming for them inevitably still hoped for something, anything, that would make the stress of being single on a holiday for lovers dissipate.

Arthur allowed his eyes to dart to Molly for the first time that morning just as one of the school owls dropped a small card into her lap. Her face went from carefully blank to cautiously delighted as her friends gave encouraging coos for her to open it. Her lips silently mouthed the words he had hurriedly written in the Owlery that morning before breakfast. He hadn’t trusted himself to send it if he thought too long, so he hadn’t wasted his courage on something poetic or romantic.

You were the best part of my birthday. I hope you’ll be the best part of my Valentine’s Day too.

Arthur

He kept his eyes glued to his eggs, cheeks flaming, when he felt her eyes settle on him. He would talk to her later, he promised himself. He could invite her on a walk, or to the kitchens, or to study in the library. Later, when nobody was watching.

Maybe that would have been a reassuring thought, had the entirety of the Gryffindor table not been watching him as whispers about Molly’s card spread. Bilius clapped one hand against Arthur’s back when he walked by to talk to a Ravenclaw girl he fancied. Molly’s friends shot him knowing smiles all through the meal. Smiles that he realized he recognized from months of Transfiguration lessons.

Finally, giving up on his breakfast, Arthur decided that his best bet was to leave. He could hide in bed until the talk died down. Surely people would be done acting smug by dinner. If not, maybe he could just starve. He walked hurriedly toward the doors, shoulders hunching all the way to his ears. Just as his heart started to calm at the thought of leaving the Great Hall, a set of warm arms wrapped around his waist from behind.

Looking down, he saw the hands he had watched so carefully for the past few weeks. A bashful smile graced his face, and those watching were surprised to think that Arthur Weasley, when happy, was sort of handsome. He pressed his own arms against Molly’s to return the hug as best he could. Hours of wondering had not done her a bit of justice. He was warmed to the tips of his toes; his back creaked a little from the strength of it; she leaned all of herself into all of him; he didn’t think that he had ever felt so painfully and overwhelmingly human as he did in that moment.

“Happy Valentine’s,” she mumbled into the fabric of his sweater vest. He could feel her smothering a smile into his back, but he didn’t bother hiding his.

“Do you want to go to the kitchens later?”

She nodded, tightening her hold a little before releasing him. She didn’t say anything when she walked back to the table, and he didn’t try to stop her. Arthur tilted his head back to smile at the ceiling.

He thought that he might love hugs, just a little.

#weasley appreciation week #arthur weasley #valentines day #weasleyprotectionsquad #ally writes

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lettersfromthepandemic · 4 years

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Letter Eleven; It’s only been 6 months. July, 13, 2020

Dear Future Generations,

I’ve been asked to write you a letter to give my account of life during the year 2020. I’ve spent a month trying to write these letters to you, unsure of where to begin and end. The first half of this year has been so tumultuous it’s hard to accept that it’s only been 6 months. A letter that was started assuming that we would see an end to this pandemic before the year is over, now feels overly optimistic. This may well drag on into next year—the year after that? I can’t even begin to imagine what you be told about this moment in history. There isn’t much that people can agree on these days, but the one thing that most can at least agree on is that good or bad history is being made. Buckle up kiddos, this is a long one.

The months in the “before-time”

COVID-19 January: 9,846 cases 213 deaths

When society counted down to midnight on New Years Eve, everyone was celebrating the beginning of a new decade. There’s always an unspoken amount of hope that lines the beginning of new milestones. It’s why new years resolutions, and birthday celebrations have always been such a staple of the human existence. By celebrating the passing of time, we’re also looking forward to the promise of what the future brings. The past ten years have been hard. Many of us were ready to wash our wounds of the past decade and move forward. I stood in a crowded concert hall with hundreds of other people. I ate, drank, danced and sang my way into the new year as I have many years past. I had my own list of hopes for the upcoming year. As I made my way home through the city that I’ve lived in my whole life, I too clung to the hope that the imaginary line we had just stepped over would, in fact, be the beginning of bigger and better things to come. I had no idea.

We are slowly beginning to learn the story we are now living through actually began in 2019. I, myself, had my own concerns following a smattering of news headlines about how particularly bad the flu season has been the past couple years. These headlines caught my attention because these strains of the flu had proven particularly deadly. I wondered how it could be possible, with all of our technology, that we haven’t gotten better at fighting off something as common as the flu. I worried about the vulnerable amongst my own social group. Cold and Flu season is a part of midwestern life when the weather turns frigid. We do our best to practice healthy habits to stave off infection. We get bombarded with yearly reminders to get a flu vaccine. Our prime time TV is littered with commercials in which gross blobs of talking snot are fought off by cold medicines promising miracles. It’s our modern day snake oil salesmen brought into our living rooms nightly. After making it through most of this season with everyone I knew unscathed, there started to be rumors and rumblings of something else happening. Something more. But it was somewhere else. Far away. So it didn’t concern us. It was the problem of foreign people in foreign places. Why should we worry?

As of right now it is widely accepted that the COVID-19 outbreak originated in China. What is not agreed upon is exactly when, where or how it began to infect people. According to the official WHO timeline China began to document clusters of Pneumonia in December 2019. By January it was then identified that those clusters were actually a new coronavirus - what we now know as COVID-19. I remember talking to family members about the images we were seeing on the news coming from China. Doctors and nurses in hazmat suits tending to patients. Other people in hazmat gear spraying down streets and buildings with disinfectants. It was something out of an apocalyptic movie. But it was still all the way over there. Across the big ocean. Far away.

Before the disease had been publicly confirmed of spreading outside China — we were already pointing fingers and placing blame. In what began as an effort to explain where it came from, people began to pick apart the customs of those that lived on the other side of the world. We blamed the population density of their cities. We reacted in disgust at their cultural practice of buying live animals for food at street markets. We spoke about the people as if they were dirty, barbaric, uneducated and superstitious people who held onto old world beliefs. We painted the entire country as the proverbial leper that we wanted to cast out of society. Political leaders insisted on referring to the disease as the Wuhan virus in order to make no mistake who was at fault for the outbreak. Wuhan, China.

For me it was infuriating how quickly a human crisis became a political agenda. Prior to the outbreak our country’s relationship with China was on rocky ground at best. American’s distaste for Chinese politics was a hot topic. Our President had been waging a trade war on China for the better part of a year. We were told they were taking advantage of our country. We were told they were stealing our jobs. Most importantly we were told that they couldn’t be trusted. In true American fashion, the virus outbreak was an opportunity to further attack and humiliate our adversary. So while the world watched in fear as hospitals became overwhelmed and people died by the dozens, the narrative here removed the human element from the story. We didn’t respond with concern. We stated numbers and statistics. We accused and criticized. Socially, we people poked fun —calling the virus the “Kung-Flu”. We didn’t look to see the faces of the people that were living through a nightmare. After all it was the problem of foreign people in foreign places. Why should we worry?

By the end of January the virus had been confirmed to have made it’s way to the United States. The city of Wuhan in China was under strict government mandated quarantine. We continued to watch on our televisions and think to ourselves how we’ll never let it get as bad as it was “over there”. That denial even existed within the White House amongst the people who should have been preparing our country for worse case scenario. They simply weren’t. I wish I could offer you a good explanation as to why. I honestly don’t know. From my point of view, it appeared to be simply American arrogance that allowed our leaders to think that our country would be safe, that we were somehow better than those foreigners from across the ocean. They failed to see that the virus doesn’t care if you’re Chinese or American. At the end of the day the virus infects human beings. In spite of how different we may all seem…we are all people just the same.

COVID-19 February: 75, 287 cases 2,012 deaths

In February I went to have dinner with a group of friends in China Town. It was eerily empty. I saw people wearing medical masks in the streets, something up until this point I never really experienced in this country. Many of the restaurants were closing early for a Friday night. It didn’t occur to me until after we parked our car that people were afraid to go there, thinking that they would catch the virus from the Chinese Americans that frequented the area. It made me sad. Not long after I began to hear in the news about Asian Americans being the victims of hate crimes. In one case, a man stabbed a woman and her two children in a Sam’s Club while screaming that they should go back to their country. They were all born here. He said he did it because he thought they were Chinese and didn’t want them to spread the virus. This is just one example of the type of fear and hatred that was born out of our 24 hour a day news coverage - it perfectly illustrates the dangerous side effects of the narratives we chose to push and the words we choose to say publicly.

The following weeks can only be described as chaos. Nations began closing their borders to outsiders. Flights were getting canceled at rapid pace. People were getting stranded in countries away from their own. Cruise ships were being denied access to ports and were becoming hot beds of infection. Xenophobia was being excused if not encouraged as no one wanted their country to be responsible for increasing the spread. Governments were sending rescue planes to bring people home and then quarantining those people on military bases and in hotels. It was on March 11th that the World Health Organization formally categorized COVID-19 as a pandemic. I wish I could tell you exactly everything that happened between January and March. Truthfully, so much happened that it’s hard for me to keep it all straight. What I can say is the situation escalated very quickly.

Clorox Wipes, Hand Sanitizer and Toilet Paper - Oh My!

COVID-19 March: 175,282 cases 7,399 deaths

By the time March was around the corner, many people had a strong hunch that we would start to see disruptions to our every day lives. No one was quite sure what that would look like for Americans. We certainly didn’t think that we would be under a strict quarantine like what we were seeing happen in other countries. None the less, that seed of fear had been planted and so Americans did what we do best —we went shopping!

It started off slowly with people buying up cleaning supplies and hand sanitizer. It was an honest response to the fear of a virus, and I can’t say it was entirely unreasonable. I personally took stock of what I had in the house and felt that I had more than enough to get by. The talking heads on the news encouraged people to make sure they were well stocked in home essentials. Soon enough, whenever you’d go to the store there were no cleaning supplies. Gone were the days when small pocket sized bottles of hand sanitizer could be found in almost every check out lane. The shelves that typically housed the Clorox wipes and lysol spray were bare and adorned with signs from store management apologizing for the low stock “due to high demand”.

The most talked about phenom of those early days is still one that I can’t comprehend. People went out in droves, they stood in long lines, they got into fights, they trampled one another all so that they could stockpile and hoard…toilet paper. The paper good aisles at big box stores appeared as though they had been ransacked. The prices of toilet paper skyrocketed online. People were posting packages of toilet paper on E-bay for 3x what it should cost. It was the butt of the joke for every late night talk show, and the subject of a million memes on social media. I’m not sure what it says about Americans that one of our biggest fears during a global crisis is not having enough TP to wipe our rear ends with.

I did my best to do a reasonable amount of shopping for whatever “just in-case” scenario might happen. I was starting to believe with every day that passed, we were heading closer to a situation in which we would probably need supplies to stay at home for a while. I made a couple of trips to the store. In one such trip I was standing in line behind a woman who had grabbed one of EVERY kind of over the counter medicine the store had to offer. I giggled to myself as I wondered how useful 4 different kinds of laxatives would be against COVID. At the grocery store people were swarming the fresh meat section and stalking the store clerks to find out when they would be stocking more. I shrugged my shoulders and moved along to buy canned beans - I had been a vegetarian for 5 years, a meat shortage was the least of my concerns.

I had heard the term “shelter in place” thrown around a few times, and hearing it kind of scared me. When I think of taking shelter I think of going to the basement because a tornado is coming, or heading into a bunker because of a bomb. I didn’t know what sheltering from a virus would be like. My brain pictured a scene from a TV show in which men in dark clothing and gas masks drove giant trucks down quiet suburban streets spraying radioactive looking green fog. Suburbanites peered through their windows terrified that they were being poisoned. I wondered if that was the dystopian future we were headed for. I shook off the nightmarish visions that had been floating around my head only to then think that reality might not be much better. The world was going to shit, and the new currency was toilet paper.

COVID Confusion

One of the hardest things for me to personally navigate during the pandemic has been the misinformation, and the blatant lies told and the disagreements this shoddy stream of information has fostered. I’ve done my best to fact check the information I’ve included in these letters because I even doubt myself and the information I believe to be true. That’s how confusing this has all been.

After the genetic sequence of the virus was determined by scientists in China, scientists from all over the world began to study it. At this point we weren’t even sure what kind of disease it was. Even now there is still some debate about if it is a respiratory virus, or possibly a blood vessel virus or maybe both. One of the earliest objectives was to discover how the virus spreads. Is it airborne? Does it live on surfaces? Does it survive in bodily fluids? These questions were then answered, and then sometimes re-answered. Information was being shared before it could be 100% confirmed. And then mis-information was having to be redacted, but the damage had already been done. There was such a frenzy to feel like we were going to beat this thing quickly that the typical scientific process, which is inherently slow, was being tossed aside and anyone who seemed even slightly qualified to speak on the matter was given a platform to share their opinions, findings and speculative thoughts.

-We were first told that the virus could live on surfaces for over 14 days. This lead to people not wanting to accept their mail, leaving their shoes outside their homes and refusing to handle cash amongst many other things.

-We were told to sanitize everything that came into our homes, including our groceries. There were youtube videos and TV segments about the most appropriate ways to sanitize everything from your countertops down to your car keys. The CDC now states that the virus can survive on certain surfaces up to 3 days, a far cry from the terrifying two weeks they were shouting about before.

-There were some reports of people catching the virus from their dog. This then caused people to abandon pets en-masse at shelters that were already stretched too thin. As a result new outlets ran stories saying it was highly unlikely for a pet to transfer the virus to a person, however I’m not sure if this was ever proven or not.

-They said that children were not at risk of getting infected. As of this writing, THOUSANDS of children have been diagnosed with COVID-19. Fatalities have been low, but children have died as a result of this virus. In my opinion, one child fatality is one too many.

The list of conflicting information feels endless. The back and forth created a lot of confusion and fear as to what the best safety practices were. A lot of people experienced anxiety as a result. Others simply felt it was easier to give up on what seemed like a losing battle. The “powers that be” were just as scared and confused as we were. They stirred the pot so strongly that it created a roaring ocean.

We were instructed to wash our hands and not touch our faces ad-nauseam. We were told that average citizens who were healthy did not need to wear masks. This would be one of the most damning lies told early on. News outlets and politicians repeated this misinformation over and over again. The truth was that our government had no where near the supply that they needed to ensure that all hospital workers could have the protection they would need to treat the number of patients they were anticipating. They had already seen how people were hoarding other household supplies, and knew it was only a matter of time before the same happened with items crucial to our healthcare workers. So they lied, and told us that washing our hands would be enough. This month long crusade to dissuade people from buying PPE would then become a sticking point for others later on, but we’re not there yet. We still have a LONG way to go.

A Broken System

We’ve been arguing about healthcare in this country for a long time. I have to be honest. Our healthcare system is broken. The only thing it is truly good at is bankrupting the poor and helping greedy corporations make more money. We are the only developed nation to not have some form of universal health care. THE ONLY ONE. How the hell did we let that happen? I’m not arguing that other countries are perfect. But that’s the beauty of our situation- we have so many examples to learn from. We can ask tough questions, and then to come up with our own plan that works for us as a nation. Instead we’re too busy living in fear that taking care of our people would tear at the fabric that built “the American way”. That’s a bunch of bullshit and we’re now reaping what we’ve sowed.

Here’s the real kick in the pants - we’re in the middle of a pandemic that is not only putting our health at risk, but it’s also affecting our economy. Unemployment is at an all time high. More people are getting laid off and furloughed every day. On top of that, prior to this economic down turn, a vast majority of people in this country were part time workers whose companies denied them full time hours in order to avoid providing benefits. Many of the people who are not eligible for workplace healthcare simply cannot afford to purchase their own plans. The point is: a person’s access to health care should NOT be tied to their employment status. Think about it, this virus has caused MILLIONS of people to lose their jobs due to no fault of their own and therefore their access to health care. An already bad situation has been made devastating by how we’ve chosen to structure our health care.

Adding to the problem is the financial impact that this will have on those who get sick. The President said that private health insurance companies had agreed to waive all co-payments and extend insurance coverage for COVID treatments. That was a lie. He also stated over and over again that any person who wanted to get tested for the virus could. That was also a lie. There were not enough tests to go around. In truth, the Insurers agreed only to absorb the cost of coronavirus testing—waiving co-pays and deductibles for getting the test. A bill passed by Congress later mandated that COVID-19 testing be made free. The federal government has not required insurance companies to cover COVID treatments. The costs of other non-coronavirus testing or treatment incurred by patients who have COVID-19 aren’t waived either. We know that COVID is particularly brutal for people who have existing medical conditions. These people are very likely to end up with hospital bills in the tens of thousands if not millions. Mitigating the cost would require the cooperation of hospitals and insurers. Insurance companies have never been willing to cooperate or do anything in the best interest of a patient, they’ve always chosen profit over people.

Only in the past few weeks have testing sites been opened up to the general public. Early on when the president claimed that everyone could get tested, tests were only available to the elderly or people who had a doctor’s note because they were showing symptoms or had been directly exposed. There was so much confusion about how to get tested. There were insanely long lines that stretched down city streets of people sitting in their cars hoping to get tests. Many people were denied tests and turned away, thus increasing the possibility of those people infecting someone else. The tests were vastly ineffective in the beginning. There were many reports of people getting false positive results. At once point large batches of tests were mishandled and the wrong results were given to the wrong people. Our early numbers were also incredibly skewed because of lack of tests, and ineffective tests. In spite of those failings there were those who still wanted to use those early numbers as proof that the infection rate was low. It was an easy way to manipulate public opinion using real numbers as long as you were willing to omit the inconvenient truth that the data was incomplete because the method of collection was incompetent.

Perhaps watching these politics play out on the TV daily hurt so bad because of what my generation has already experienced in our adult lives. It’s no secret that my generation got fucked in the “living the American dream” department. I was in High School when September 11th happened. Our country then spent ungodly sums of money on a war that was never about what they told us it was. We took advantage of a tragedy and ushered in a generation of loss in more ways than one. Our country prioritized a war because it meant big profits for an elite few.

Then I graduated college in 2009. During the recession. There was no work. Those first few pivotal years out of college in which I should have been building a career were spend barely scraping by. Millions of people were like me, taking any job they could find. I got to use my fancy expensive college degree to work at Blockbuster, The Gap, and run Children’s birthday parties for $9.00 an hour while rent was $1,200 a month and my student loan payments were more than that of a car payment. I worked multiple jobs, I babysat on evenings and weekends. I forewent going out, wore clothes with holes in them, didn’t travel and lived off of canned and packaged food. I worked through holidays and missed family get togethers. I never went to the doctor for preventative health screenings, and had to “tough it out” every time I got sick. My peers and I daydreamed about getting married and having families just like our parents did, but the notion seemed idiotic when we couldn’t even dig $2.50 out of a change jar to get on the bus. Many of us still live with the wounds of that time. Many are still digging out from under student debt, still trying to save up enough to own a home or start that business or chase after a dream. A middle class life with a home, a functioning car and a yearly vacation is a pipe dream for many people my age. And no - it’s not because of avocado toast brunches and Starbucks coffee. It’s because of the hand we were dealt when we came of age. It’s because of the broken systems we inherited that we now need to fix.

People might like to poke fun at Millennials and say that we’re an entitled, whiny, lazy generation looking for handouts. It couldn’t be farther from the truth. We’ve learned a thing or two from the bullshit we’ve lived through and we’ve worked our asses off to barely get by. Here we are, a little over ten years after the last economic crisis and we’re right in the middle of another crisis. Enough is enough with bad policies. Once again we are light years behind other developed nations that have mandatory sick leave policy, living minimum wage, guaranteed maternity leave, flexible work hours, childcare benefits, mental health initiatives and more. The current Pandemic proves why so much of this is important.

According to one survey, 69% of Americans said they had less than $1,000 in savings in 2019. Most Americans were one emergency away from wiping out their savings completely. The age old advice that you should have enough cash savings to sustain yourself for a few months in case of job loss or illness is not a realistic goal. For most U.S. workers, real wages have barely budged in decades. When you take into account inflation, the reality of what people are actually earning vs. what it costs to live is bleak at best. We now have policy makers issuing $1,200.00 COVID relief checks to individuals claiming that it should sustain them through 3 months of joblessness. The ultra wealthy in this country are so out of touch with the actual value of a dollar that they fail to realize that $1,200.00 doesn’t even cover the rent, let alone buy groceries or keep the lights on. If we want our economy to be robust we need to pay our people better. If more people had savings they could dip into right now, we might not have 22 million people clamoring for unemployment benefits while they wait to find out if they will still have a job when this is over.

The argument that we could bankrupt our country trying to restructure healthcare and taxes to favor individuals is a lazy argument at best. The US just gave a contractor with a history of GOP donations $569 million to build parts of the border wall. They decided not to use the money to produce more ventilators, or secure more protective gear for our health care workers. They didn’t divert that money to help cover the costs of treating the sick or to pay our furloughed doctors to come back to work. Instead our government thought now would be an appropriate time to spend money building a border wall. That GIANT sum of money only builds about 18 miles of wall. On average our government has paid $20 million dollars per mile to construct the wall (although for this segment we’re paying closer to $30 million). We have 1,954 miles of land that borders Mexico. At 20 million dollars per mile that’s $39,080,000,000.00 (thirty-nine billion eighty million). This is just one example of the many ways in which politicians have chosen to spend our tax money chasing personal agendas rather than investing in the things that really matter: education, infrastructure, healthcare and public services.

We were so ill prepared to handle this virus it would almost be laughable if it weren’t so sad. Experts both inside and outside the federal government have expressed their concerns many times in the past decade about the potential for a devastating global pandemic. We’ve had plenty of dress rehearsal situations. SARS, H1N1, Ebola. In spite of the fact that all of these diseases hardly impacted America- it revealed how greatly unprepared we were to handle a full scale pandemic. But nothing was done. We didn’t replenish supplies, we didn’t put systems in place, we didn’t secure funds, we didn’t come up with a unified plan. We stuck our heads in the sand and leader after leader kicked the can down the road for the next guy. When the dust settles from this disaster- if we don’t do anything to be better prepared for the future, we’re setting ourselves up for massive failure. Because it’s not a matter of IF this happens again, but when? We have to do better than this. I hope we do better than this.

Shelter In Place

I know up until this point my letter has been quite impersonal. That is because up until this point in the sequence of events, it wasn’t personal. In February I began to work for a very small company in which I only come in contact with 3 other employees throughout my day. I had very little concern over exposure. Aside from watching the news or talking about the virus conversationally, my life was unchanged. That is, until March 21st. The governor of Illinois declared that we must shelter in place until April 7th. All non-essential businesses were to close. You were only to leave your house if you worked in an essential job, or had an essential errand to run such as grocery shopping. No gatherings of any kind were permitted. This, we were told, was what we had to do to save lives.

The concern with how rapidly the virus was spreading was largely in part due to how ill prepared our hospitals were to handle the huge influx of patients. We were told we needed to “flatten the curve”. A phrase that turned into somewhat of a battle cry to describe lessing the amount of new cases. Such that if you were to graph out the virus, the line would stop going up, and would simply sustain a straight trajectory or even better go down. This cry became even more important as we watched our government and hospitals scramble to acquire supplies that simply weren’t there. We heard doctors from other countries talk about hospitals being so over run that they had to make life or death choices about who they would treat and who they would not. Our nurses and doctors would post on social media and do interviews pleading with the public to not put them in a position in which they would have to do the same.

The day before Illinois stay home order went into effect my husband and I stood in our kitchen telling each other our “quarantine wish list”. I had been laughing at him pretty hard when he declared that he would use his extra time to learn Norwegian. I had told him I wanted to clean out closets and finish some digital photo albums I have been putting off for years (as of right now I have not completed a single one of those tasks). We talked about things around the house we could try to fix ourselves and how we could better prep for the projects we planned on completing once life went back to “normal”. I was naive to think that normal was anywhere near by. We were still in the cold and gloomy grasp of March which helped keep us content with quiet evenings at home. I’ve dealt with hardship and uncertainty before. It wasn’t that difficult for me to adjust to this new reality of sheltering in place. I think we settled in a lot easier than most people that we knew.

COVID-19 April: 2,248,329 cases 162,436 deaths

We were some of the lucky ones. I was furloughed from my job, but my husband was able to work from home. He is the primary earner for our family and was still getting paid, therefore, we weren’t worried about missing mortgage payments or not being able to afford groceries. I can’t tell you how grateful I am that we got to ride this out at home, safe, healthy and with our finances intact. My husband and I made a point to remind ourselves often of the gratitude that we felt. We were acutely aware that we were better off than a large portion of the population who were simply devastated. That’s not to say that this virus hasn’t affected me or that I wasn’t struggling. I just did not feel that I had the right to complain all things considered.

I had made the conscious choice to be as cheerful as possible about this insane thing we were experiencing. Even on social media I stuck to sharing live stream concert info, pretty landscape pictures, and cute animals. I knew that my family and friends were exhausted by the over abundance of bad news being broadcast 24 hours a day. I did not want to add any more weight to that burden. However, there were quite a few times where I’d retreat to my room and cry quietly while my husband rubbed my back. The first night we were officially placed on lock down— I woke up around 4am in a full blown panic attack. My husband had to hold me down while I sobbed hysterically because my fight or flight response was making me want to run circles around our bedroom. In his concern he asked if I needed an ambulance, which then set me into a completely different type of panic. In-between hyperventilating and crying I was able to say that there was no way in hell I was stepping foot into an emergency room. I can look back at it now and laugh, but at the time it was scary. I hadn’t realize how much I had taken all of the bad news to heart.

I quickly began to look for ways to make my days feel useful and important. Some days that meant cleaning the house furiously. Other days it meant visiting deceased family members in the cemetery and tending to their gravestones. I found a sense of purpose and peace in long walks alone. Even in the cold or the rain, it made sense to keep moving. The world was a sleeping giant and people were nothing more than eyes that would occasionally peer through window blinds. I walked my neighborhood daily acquainting myself with the houses, the flowers and the trees. There really is no way that I can think of to describe what that was like. A city that is normally boisterous and deafening was quiet and still. There were no children playing, no commuters commuting, the bars and restaurants were dark. Some days it felt like the world had ended and I didn’t get the memo. The only sign of life was the constant blaring of sirens from the ambulances that went to and from the hospital that is four blocks from my home. Each time, the sirens would make you stop in your tracks you wondered if there was a COVID patient inside.

Impatiently Waiting

One of the unspoken consequences of COVID is the effect it has had on people like me who need help from their doctors to start a family. Two years ago, in April 2018, I suffered a miscarriage at 12 weeks pregnant. Arguably one of the most devastating moments of my adult life. We didn’t tell many people because it’s one of those things...people just don’t know how to talk about it. Currently, the accepted statistics are that 1 in 3 pregnancies end in a miscarriage and 1 in 8 couples suffer from infertility. I would argue that those numbers are actually much higher, but the taboo nature of the topic makes it difficult to record with accuracy.

It took me almost a year to physically feel normal after my loss. It was a slow process that I found tedious and exhausting. Then, in Sept 2019, I suffered a second loss of what is commonly known as a chemical pregnancy. This term describes a pregnancy that is lost very early on. I think a part of me will always separate my life into the before and after. Before I was blissful about starting my family. Afterward, I will always be aware of how I’ve changed. It’s this ever present pain that makes me burst into tears in public when I hear a baby cry. It’s anger, and rage and grief that come and go in waves. I find it interesting that I have compartmentalized my mind into the before and after regarding my loss. That is what many people have done in regard to the virus outbreak. Many people will call the time before COVID as “the before-times”. No matter the trauma, we all seem to respond the same way. Whether it be a global pandemic or a deeply personal loss…we all feel the need to try and make sense of a situation. Even if there is no sense to be made, we are at least connected in the aspect of trying.

After it became glaringly obvious that we still needed help conceiving, we decided to start our fertility treatments in June 2020. It was a long wait, but I really needed the mental and emotional break. I took this time to really try and get my shit together— for possibly the first time in my adult life. Mentally I was in a really good place. I finally landed a job I loved, I had the space in my home for a family, my health was consistently good. It seemed that a little bit of the fog of my “life-after loss” started to lift. I was finally ready to move on. However, COVID had other ideas.

Once doctor’s offices and hospitals were mandated to suspend all unnecessary procedures, the fertility clinics had no choice but to shut their doors. All appointments for the next few months were canceled and were to be rescheduled at a later date. No one knew when that later date was going to be. No one was even able to make an educated guess as to how long we would have to wait. It was out of everyone’s control and there was no choice but to just….wait…

We’ve been trying to get pregnant for three years and waiting can be a torturous game. After getting word that the fertility clinics were closing, I sat at my computer with tears streaming down my face as I read about women who were half way through their IVF cycles and were unable to complete them. This meant they had used up their very expensive supply of drugs for nothing. They had no way of getting reimbursed for them either. I read other stories about women who only had one chance left because of their age, or a lack of healthy eggs or a lack of funds. They all ran into the hurdles of being somewhere in the process and then were suddenly forced to come to a screeching halt. The only comfort I had was that we hadn’t begun. I hadn’t wasted any of the precious fertility drugs that would eat away at our budget. I wasn’t close to aging out of treatment nor was I at a risk of running out of viable eggs. These small comforts were enough to keep me from falling apart, but they were just that— small comforts. In a big way my heart still worried and ached over the big question; when will it be safe to begin?

As of my writing this I still don’t have an answer. Doctors offices and hospitals have slowly started to reopen their doors for what they consider elective procedures. The fear that impedes me from rescheduling my appointment is the whispering that there will inevitably be a second wave of contagion coinciding with our usual cold and flu season. Many people believe that in the fall, unless a vaccine or cure is discovered, we will have to enter another period of sheltering in place. The stories of those women I read about are in the back of my mind like a cautionary tale. I do not want to start the process only to be forced to stop at a pivotal moment. What many people don’t realize is how long of a process IVF actually is. You don’t get to just walk in the door and a week or two later have the procedure. It’s weeks worth of tests, and meds to work up to the actual procedure. It all has to be perfectly timed and carefully orchestrated to have the best possibility of success. The success rate in the IVF world sucks—it’s less than 40%. Even if I were to begin now, I most likely wouldn’t be ready for the procedure until the fall. That timing couldn’t be worse.

I tried to keep my eyes on smaller prizes— small things that I can look forward to. But one by one those things went away. Concerts were canceled, vacations were called off, everything was shut down. The more time that went by the farther away we seemed to get from the end of COVID. Even as things have slowly started to reopen, I know it could be a game of one step forward and two steps back. It’s no longer a matter of pep-talking myself through the next few weeks. It’s allowing myself to accept that a whole year will be lost whether I like it or not. 2020 is not going to be the year that I thought it would be and I have to be OK with that.

We’ve all had a price to pay in COVID times. I think that the thing you’ve had to give up certainly dictates your perspective on the pandemic. So while socialites and suburban moms whined about not being able to go to brunch or get their hair cut, I cried about the extra room in our house that was meant to be a nursery. For me, this time has been an epic lesson in patience as I impatiently wait for the one thing I want most in the world.

Moving on to the “new normal”

COVID-19 May: 5,021,115 cases 342,311 deaths

I think everyone has been ready to go back to “normal” way before it was actually possible. Where I live, our original stay home order was extended from the two weeks that it was intended to be to an additional month. We were now going to be staying home til the end of May. I’m not going to lie, at this point it started to feel pretty helpless. The numbers at the hospitals were grim. Our situation acquiring supplies hadn’t improved. Health care workers were being asked to wash and reuse their protective gear - an idea that would have sounded like pure lunacy prior to the pandemic. But this is where we were at. We had to make the most of what we had to just keep trying to push ahead. What else could we do?

Because there was nothing to do and nowhere to go, the groceries stores were always packed. People shopped and filled up their carts day after day because it made them feel like they were doing something.

I didn’t want to be out there amongst the crowds, but when I had to, I would. I’d put on my mask, strap my hand sanitizer to my purse and would subconsciously pray that I’d see an empty parking lot when I’d pull into the store. As soon as I’d be forced to touch anything in a public place: a door handle, a shopping cart, a credit card machine, my hands physically felt dirty, as if I could actually feel the germs. Every chance I got, I would scrub my hands sometimes to the point of bloody knuckles. I know it was all in my head, but it felt real and washing my hands obsessively made me feel like I was doing something.

I got called back into work in early May- technically before the stay home order was lifted. We were able to create a schedule in which only one or two people were in the office at a time. I would go in to the office early in the morning and work alone for a few hours until the next person would come in. She would work in the back and we hardly saw each other except for perhaps shouting a question through a doorway every now and again. Those first few days back didn’t feel real. I commuted on an empty highway and practiced in my head how I would make my job sound essential if I got pulled over. I would sit in the parking lot of my office building and stare at the door making sure that I wouldn’t run into anyone on my way in. It was the same routine every morning - put on your mask, check no one was coming, sanitize your hands, run from your car into the office, close and lock the door behind you, wash your hands, sanitize the desk, the phone, the keyboard and mouse, take off your mask. After a day or two of this routine —when I realized that I wouldn’t be interacting with anyone, I was able to relax. I was actually grateful to be back at work. I enjoyed working in the quiet office. In spite of how strange everything seemed, at least it felt like a small step towards progress and I was OK with that.

I was hesitant to tell anyone that I had gone back to work. The social etiquette that has been created during this time has been weird to say the least. There are a lot of feelings of guilt every time you possibly bend a rule, or push a boundary. There’s guilt in those actions because you can be a carrier of the COVID-19 virus, but show no symptoms. For reasons that still baffle scientists, some people become deathly ill, some people, although infected, do not get sick at all, and others experience something in between. So even if you don’t feel sick, you can pass the virus on to a loved one and potentially be the reason they end up in the hospital. Because of this—there is a lot of self righteous judgement about how people have chosen to conduct themselves. No one wants to be the silent carrier that brings illness, but everyone is quick to point the finger at someone who they think might be putting them at risk. I didn’t want anyone to feel that I was making poor choices. I was being as careful as I could be while still living my life. I would hope that no one would judge me for that, but considering how sensitive everyone is right now…I just couldn’t be sure.

I have said many times that you could almost pin-point the exact moment when everyone started to give up. It was shortly before memorial day weekend. The weather was starting to get warmer and everyone was agitated and restless. I started to see more and more people gathering in back yards, and parks. More people going out to do things that were not essential. Traffic was getting heavier. People were breaking quarantine and posting on social media about the friends they saw or the people they allowed into their homes. Prior to this shift, everyone had been championing “flattening the curve” and “staying home saves lives” but after a while it seemed people were more willing to wave their white flags of defeat made of toilet paper and say “fuck it! I can’t do this anymore”. Earlier in the year, I’d go for my evening walks and wouldn’t see a soul. Now, I’d go for evening walks and have old women scoff at me and say I looked like a bank robber in my mask, and teenagers would fake cough in my direction and laugh loudly about how they gave me the virus. It was no longer cool to be cautious. I was no longer seen as being courteous to my fellow neighbors. I might as well been wearing a tin foil hat and ranting about aliens as crossed the street to avoid sharing a sidewalk with strangers. It felt awful to be trying so hard to do the right thing when everyone around you couldn’t have cared less.

This is also about the time in which people in other states started to show up at government buildings to protest the shutdown. They demanded to be allowed to get their hair cut, to be able to go to a tattoo parlor, to be allowed to get drinks at the bar. Some states caved and began opening up their businesses too soon (something they would pay for later in spikes in infection rates). Other states, like mine stayed the course. People were demanding their lives to go back to normal, consequences be damned. In truth, I don’t think things will ever go back to how they were before. How could they? This is one of those life changing events that influences policies to try to prevent it from happening again. Look at how much airport security changed post 9-11. Same idea, different type of catastrophe. I wish I could tell you what our new normal is going to look like, but we’re still in the thick of this thing so honestly, I don’t know.

The MOST Important Thing

COVID-19 May: 5,957,665 cases 367,405 deaths

On Memorial Day weekend, something unimaginable happened. George Floyd, a black man, was murdered by a white police officer during an arrest. The officer pinned George to the ground and kneeled on his neck for over 8 minutes. It played out in front of a group of onlookers who pleaded with the officer to stop and George himself cried out that he couldn’t breathe. There were multiple videos taken of the incident that proved that it was murder. However, the officers involved were not immediately disciplined or charged criminally for their appalling behavior. The videos taken spread on the internet like wildfire. It was an incident that illustrated the racism that exists in this country. It forced us to talk about something that’s happened too many times since the birth of this country — how people in positions of power abuse people of color. How police officers get away with murder because of a system that doesn’t care about black people. The lack of an appropriate response to George Floyd’s death set off protests across the country, and protests turned into riots.

COVID barely on their minds, people rushed out in numbers. In an expression of raw emotion, protestors burned down entire city blocks. In Minneapolis, where George Floyd was murdered, they burned down the police station amongst many other things. The rioting and looting lasted for days. In an effort to contain the unrest, curfews were issued and stores were closed. Business owners boarded up windows and stood vigil outside with their guns in hopes of protecting their property. Everyone stopped talking about COVID-19. There was something so much more important to talk about. What were we going to do about our racism problem in this country?

The first night that rioting broke out in the city, I as glued to my phone. I refreshed my twitter feed every five minutes to read the live coverage of what was happening. In the distance I heard sirens, helicopters and what sounded like explosions. I felt a lot of guilt for being home, safe in my bed. Should I have gone out there? Should I have been documenting this with my camera? I saw pictures on my feed of buildings downtown on fire. Police cars being smashed. I saw videos of children who showed up to protest with their parents being maced. Day after day, 2020 seemed hell bent on out-doing itself. It was the first time I had ever seen anything like that happen and it’s a weekend that I’m sure many of us will never forget.

After days of unrest, the officers were officially charged with the crimes they committed. As we swept up the glass and boarded up the broken windows—the rioting turned into marches, vigils and peaceful protests. However, the problem was far from solved and the debate continued to be on the lips of practically every person that lived in this country. Once again we were choosing sides. Racists were standing firm in their beliefs, while hoards of others were doing their best to humble themselves, acknowledge their privilege, educate themselves and become allies to the black community. For the first time that I can recall in my entire life people hit pause on their own dialogs to listen to the people of color in their lives—to let black people shout at the top of their lungs about the generations of abuse and hate they’ve been subjected to. It’s been an eye opening experience. Every time I think I finally begin to understand, I hear another story and realize that I have no fucking idea what it’s like.

For those who didn’t go out into the streets, there was activism happening on the internet. Places to donate money, places to get and share information, places to lift up black artists, black owned small businesses, and black organizations. It was a flood of activity in which people felt compelled to make a statement, make art, give opinions and have debates…just anything to feel like they were doing something.

What we all saw happen to George Floyd in that video is something you can’t un-see. It’s the type of thing that reaches inside and unsettles you at your core. What happened that day set off a shock wave and kindled the fires of a movement. It’s been 5 weeks since then, and it’s still on the lips of most people most days. The knee jerk passionate reactions may have died down, but the heart of it still remains. What are we going to do about our racism issue in this country?

Whatever answers we come up with will end up being the most important thing that will have happened this year. I wish that I had more to say on what should be done. I’ve been trying to wrap my head around the fact that I live in a country in which not all people are seen or respected the same. I live in a country in which white men feel they have every right to kneel on the necks of black men and take their lives. I live in a country in which people hate others because of their skin. I mean—FUCK, what do you even say about that?

Right now we’re seeing old confederate monuments being brought to the ground. States are changing their flags to rid them of associations with the confederate army. Companies are changing old racist branding that was once thought of as being innocent. Lots of small steps are being taken to create a more inclusive and sensitive world. However—the big stuff, the stuff that really matters. Those are the things that are still up in the air. The small things will only feel like consolation prizes if we don’t get the big stuff right. So now, as I wait for answers about when and how a seemingly unending pandemic will end, I also wait for answers about how we’re going to proceed when faced with a movement that should have happened decades ago. My typical inclination to search for a silver lining is being challenged heavily. It’s hard to see a silver lining when carrying the weight of such heavy things. 2020 is challenging the fuck out of us all and I’m not sure who we’ll be when we step out on the other side.

I’ve tried time and time again to think of an appropriate way to end this letter. There is none. There is still such a long way to go before we can look back on the pandemic as a thing of the past. I have no doubt that you’ll be reading more letters from me, and others like me, who are doing our best to make it through. If I’ve learned anything at all in my life, it’s that these big challenges are the things that mold us. These are the things that give us strength and perspective. We’re earning our strength in spades right now, and I hope that the perspective we gain from living through this will help create a better world for you in the future.

COVID-19 To Date: 3,225,950 cases 566,355 deaths -Anonymous Writer / Photographer in the Southwest Suburbs of Chicago

#lettersfromthepandemic #chicago #photography #history #covidtimes

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dfroza · 4 years

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the Body.

all parts interconnected, to function as a whole. different parts, different functions. all significant.

we are children of Light who form the Temple of our Creator here on beautiful earth carrying within the sacred treasure of the Spirit and the Word of God (who is the True illumination of the Son)

and this significance is seen in Today’s reading of the Scriptures from Paul’s Letter of First Corinthians with chapter 12:

What I want to talk about now is the various ways God’s Spirit gets worked into our lives. This is complex and often misunderstood, but I want you to be informed and knowledgeable. Remember how you were when you didn’t know God, led from one phony god to another, never knowing what you were doing, just doing it because everybody else did it? It’s different in this life. God wants us to use our intelligence, to seek to understand as well as we can. For instance, by using your heads, you know perfectly well that the Spirit of God would never prompt anyone to say “Jesus be damned!” Nor would anyone be inclined to say “Jesus is Master!” without the insight of the Holy Spirit.

God’s various gifts are handed out everywhere; but they all originate in God’s Spirit. God’s various ministries are carried out everywhere; but they all originate in God’s Spirit. God’s various expressions of power are in action everywhere; but God himself is behind it all. Each person is given something to do that shows who God is: Everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits. All kinds of things are handed out by the Spirit, and to all kinds of people! The variety is wonderful:

wise counsel

clear understanding

simple trust

healing the sick

miraculous acts

proclamation

distinguishing between spirits

tongues

interpretation of tongues.

All these gifts have a common origin, but are handed out one by one by the one Spirit of God. He decides who gets what, and when.

You can easily enough see how this kind of thing works by looking no further than your own body. Your body has many parts—limbs, organs, cells—but no matter how many parts you can name, you’re still one body. It’s exactly the same with Christ. By means of his one Spirit, we all said good-bye to our partial and piecemeal lives. We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life in which he has the final say in everything. (This is what we proclaimed in word and action when we were baptized.) Each of us is now a part of his resurrection body, refreshed and sustained at one fountain—his Spirit—where we all come to drink. The old labels we once used to identify ourselves—labels like Jew or Greek, slave or free—are no longer useful. We need something larger, more comprehensive.

I want you to think about how all this makes you more significant, not less. A body isn’t just a single part blown up into something huge. It’s all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together. If Foot said, “I’m not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I guess I don’t belong to this body,” would that make it so? If Ear said, “I’m not beautiful like Eye, limpid and expressive; I don’t deserve a place on the head,” would you want to remove it from the body? If the body was all eye, how could it hear? If all ear, how could it smell? As it is, we see that God has carefully placed each part of the body right where he wanted it.

But I also want you to think about how this keeps your significance from getting blown up into self-importance. For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of. An enormous eye or a gigantic hand wouldn’t be a body, but a monster. What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own. Can you imagine Eye telling Hand, “Get lost; I don’t need you”? Or, Head telling Foot, “You’re fired; your job has been phased out”? As a matter of fact, in practice it works the other way—the “lower” the part, the more basic, and therefore necessary. You can live without an eye, for instance, but not without a stomach. When it’s a part of your own body you are concerned with, it makes no difference whether the part is visible or clothed, higher or lower. You give it dignity and honor just as it is, without comparisons. If anything, you have more concern for the lower parts than the higher. If you had to choose, wouldn’t you prefer good digestion to full-bodied hair?

The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don’t, the parts we see and the parts we don’t. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance.

You are Christ’s body—that’s who you are! You must never forget this. Only as you accept your part of that body does your “part” mean anything. You’re familiar with some of the parts that God has formed in his church, which is his “body”:

apostles

prophets

teachers

miracle workers

healers

helpers

organizers

those who pray in tongues.

But it’s obvious by now, isn’t it, that Christ’s church is a complete Body and not a gigantic, unidimensional Part? It’s not all Apostle, not all Prophet, not all Miracle Worker, not all Healer, not all Prayer in Tongues, not all Interpreter of Tongues. And yet some of you keep competing for so-called “important” parts.

But now I want to lay out a far better way for you.

The Letter of First Corinthians, Chapter 12 (The Message)

and in Today’s paired chapter of Genesis 25 we see the point when Abraham married for the 2nd time, along with the children of Isaac and Rebekah of whom Jacob was born, whose name was eventually changed to Israel:

Abraham married a second time; his new wife was named Keturah. She gave birth to Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah.

Jokshan had Sheba and Dedan.

Dedan’s descendants were the Asshurim, the Letushim, and the Leummim.

Midian had Ephah, Epher, Hanoch, Abida, and Eldaah—all from the line of Keturah.

But Abraham gave everything he possessed to Isaac. While he was still living, he gave gifts to the sons he had by his concubines, but then sent them away to the country of the east, putting a good distance between them and his son Isaac.

Abraham lived 175 years. Then he took his final breath. He died happy at a ripe old age, full of years, and was buried with his family. His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah in the field of Ephron son of Zohar the Hittite, next to Mamre. It was the field that Abraham had bought from the Hittites. Abraham was buried next to his wife Sarah. After Abraham’s death, God blessed his son Isaac. Isaac lived at Beer Lahai Roi.

[The Family Tree of Ishmael]

This is the family tree of Ishmael son of Abraham, the son that Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s maid, bore to Abraham.

These are the names of Ishmael’s sons in the order of their births: Nebaioth, Ishmael’s firstborn, Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam, Mishma, Dumah, Massa, Hadad, Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah—all the sons of Ishmael. Their settlements and encampments were named after them. Twelve princes with their twelve tribes.

Ishmael lived 137 years. When he breathed his last and died he was buried with his family. His children settled down all the way from Havilah near Egypt eastward to Shur in the direction of Assyria. The Ishmaelites didn’t get along with any of their kin.

[Jacob and Esau]

This is the family tree of Isaac son of Abraham: Abraham had Isaac. Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan Aram. She was the sister of Laban the Aramean.

Isaac prayed hard to God for his wife because she was barren. God answered his prayer and Rebekah became pregnant. But the children tumbled and kicked inside her so much that she said, “If this is the way it’s going to be, why go on living?” She went to God to find out what was going on. God told her,

Two nations are in your womb,

two peoples butting heads while still in your body.

One people will overpower the other,

and the older will serve the younger.

When her time to give birth came, sure enough, there were twins in her womb. The first came out reddish, as if snugly wrapped in a hairy blanket; they named him Esau (Hairy). His brother followed, his fist clutched tight to Esau’s heel; they named him Jacob (Heel). Isaac was sixty years old when they were born.

The boys grew up. Esau became an expert hunter, an outdoorsman. Jacob was a quiet man preferring life indoors among the tents. Isaac loved Esau because he loved his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.

One day Jacob was cooking a stew. Esau came in from the field, starved. Esau said to Jacob, “Give me some of that red stew—I’m starved!” That’s how he came to be called Edom (Red).

Jacob said, “Make me a trade: my stew for your rights as the firstborn.”

Esau said, “I’m starving! What good is a birthright if I’m dead?”

Jacob said, “First, swear to me.” And he did it. On oath Esau traded away his rights as the firstborn. Jacob gave him bread and the stew of lentils. He ate and drank, got up and left. That’s how Esau shrugged off his rights as the firstborn.

The Book of Genesis, Chapter 25 (The Message)

my personal reading of the Scriptures for friday, february 21 of 2020 with a paired chapter from each Testament along with Today’s Psalms and Proverbs

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allisonswrittenwords · 4 years

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Or “Bee” My Valentine. No one is judging your cute, pun-filled Valentine card.

Way Back, In Allison’s Past…

When I was in elementary school, from Kindergarten until fourth grade (I don’t remember the exchange happening beyond that, or it was totally optional by then), there was the time-honored tradition of creating a mailbox and passing out Valentine’s Day cards to the other kids in class. Store brought or home made, we carefully printed our recipients’ and our own names on the back of the cards.

On February 14th (or thereabouts, if Valentine’s Day fell on the weekend, or the Friday of President’s Day), there would be a designated time to deliver the Valentines during a classroom party. Junk food and card exchanges, it’s like Christmas, but with hearts!

A few weeks before the holiday, the teachers would give us a list of the names of our classmates, and we would go about purchasing the Valentines for our class. I don’t remember what I gave out prior to the final year I handed out Valentines, but in fourth grade, my mom ordered Valentines from the Current catalog. They came with envelopes – how cool! I can’t remember specifically what they looked like (I’m sure pink and red with hearts, nothing totally obvious), but they had envelopes. They were like real letters!

I used to love giving out Valentines to my classmates – even if the little brats in my class didn’t deserve a Valentine, they still got one, because it was the rule of elementary school Valentine’s Day. Fourth grade was the last time I did it, and I had no problem not having to fill out Valentine’s cards anymore. It was fun while it lasted, and while kids were appreciative of them. It’s a shame that kids stopped being appreciative of them, but hey, kids.

Can’t imagine what this tradition is like today. Probably involves digital something of some kind.

So Many Ways To Say “Be Mine!”

The Valentines themselves were always cute – some came with candy (a card with a lollipop tucked into holes on the card), licensed characters, cute animals holding hearts – it was always fun to dump out the mailboxes and read the Valentines after they were delivered. Having grown up and gone to school during the late 1980s through the 1990s (I graduated high school in 2001), the best licensed character Valentines were a few years before my time, but the beauty of the internet is that wanting to see what kids gave as Valentines in the 1980s (and even into the 1990s) is a Google (or Pinterest) search away.

Because you know I live for looking up these kinds of treats, here are a few of my favorites, culled from multiple Pinterest searches.

Robots In Disguise…Of Their True Feelings!

I was trying to find Transformers Valentines, preferably Generation 1, because that’s what I was raised on. Optimus Prime holding a heart, Megatron and his bromance Starscream saying “be mine,” stuff like that. And just when I thought I came up short on finding the perfect Transformers Valentine, I found this one…

My happy geeky heart squeed a little bit – ok, alot – over seeing Bumblebee on a Valentine. I love Bumblebee the way I love Optimus Prime, if only because…he’s super adorable. True story – my husband and I watched Bumblebee over the summer, and when Bumblebee lost his voice and his memory, I screamed out (probably a little louder than I should have, but it’s the nostalgic geek in me) “Oh my God! That’s how he lost his voice!!!!!!” My husband, who is not really a Transformers fan, stared at me over my reaction. Like I said, it was louder than it should have been, but it answered what I didn’t already know about Bumblebee!

But this Valentine…he’s cute!!!

Gahhhh! So cute!!!!!

Heroes in a Half Shell, with Big, Full Hearts!

In addition to a deep love for robots with personalities and mad fighting skills, I was also into turtles with personalities and mad fighting skills. Michelangelo was my Turtle of choice, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was on my TV, in my brother’s toys, and currently part of my Funko Pop Collection.

And the best part (for my brother) about Christmas 1989.

“TURTLES!” (Christmas 1989, age 7). Photo Credit: Venezio Family Collection

I remember the Turtles being on Valentines given out by little boys in school (I’m pretty sure I got at least one in elementary school), but I found this one on Google, and Dudes, it’s time for Hugs and Kisses!

The Seas Are Shining Bright with All the Colors of The Rainbow On Valentine’s Day…

Rolls off the tip of your tongue when you think “what belongs on a Valentine’s Day greeting,” right?

Rainbow Bright and her friends (well, Canary Yellow, Buddy Blue, and Red Butler, because apparently they double date) love to share in some Valentine love. If I were in school when Rainbow Brite was popular, you can guarantee I would have been giving out Rainbow Brite Valentines to my classmates. They’re not too girly, since there are boys on it; therefore, these are the ones you give to the boys!

But if Rainbow Brite is just too girly for you, perhaps some colorful bears with hearts do more for you?

Care Bears Care About Valentine’s Day!

These are ridiculously cute, and so simple in their approach. I watched The Care Bears Family, and the movies they starred in (as well as those two early animated specials that still weird me out to this day). They’re not fancy, not throwing some huge, long-winded message of Valentine’s Day at you, but rather, a simple sentence and a few hearts. They’re not saccharin, not at all.

But, if you prefer something sweet…

Little girls, boys, and pets named after desserts deserve plenty of 1980s love. Strawberry Shortcake not only was cute and cuddly in her own special way, but if you ever had a doll from that collection, it smelled freakin’ amazing. My best friend gave me a Strawberry Shortcake (along with Custard) Funko Pop a few years ago, and she smelled so good. So did Custard. That smell lasted a long time, way longer than it had any right to last.

Again, these are the kind of Valentines I would have given out, without regard to the fact that boys were always included in giving out these cards. And to them, I say…

Huckleberry Pie WAS A BOY!

Pop-Pop-Popples!

I loved Popples when I was four years old. I had three Popples – one big plush, one smaller plush, and one of those pocket-sized plushie/vinyl hybrids, and I had pajamas. I’ve watched the “movie,” the cartoon, and I still think they’re cute to this day, even if I don’t have any of my Popples to prove my love.

I have come to the realization that I would have been hard pressed to pick a freakin’ set of Valentines Day cards, had I been given the choice. For me, 1985-1986 was all about Rainbow Brite, Jem, Popples, and She-Ra. I would have been all about giving out these choice Valentines to my classmates.

Oh, and did I say She-Ra?

She-Ra: Princess of Powerful Stickers!

Image: Etsy

*Brain explodes*

I think I’ve chosen the Valentines I would have given out to my classmates. She-Ra and stickers…you can never go wrong with bonuses on you Valentines!

Of course, knowing me, I would probably have given out Valentine with California Raisins on them. Apparently I was into that when I was five, because I had a California Raisins nightgown.

I’m serious.

It’s over 30 years later, and I don’t understand why this was so popular. Were five-year-olds into Motown or something?

And Now, You!

What kind of Valentines did you give your “Valentines” at school? Did you have the tradition of making mailboxes and delivering your mail to the other kids in class? Did you give out any of these Valentines?

I’d love to hear your stories of Valentine’s Day past!

We’re a few days away from Valentine’s Day, as the Month of Love keeps on going. I’ve got commercials and a Valentine’s Day treat coming up for you this week. As for the rest of the month, I have more music and nostalgia-heavy articles coming. When I celebrate a holiday, it overtakes the entire month!

Have a great day!

Be My #Valentine - Do you remember the Valentines you gave out at school to your "Valentines"? Or "Bee" My Valentine. No one is judging your cute, pun-filled Valentine card.

#ValentinesDay #1980s #licensed characters #Popples #Rainbow Brite #Strawberry Shortcake #Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #Transformers #Valentine&039;s Day

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rosetintedglassesbs · 5 years

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Everything I wish you could read, but also goodbye.

Dear R, I’ve lost track of how many letters I have typed and posted on here, so let’s mark this one letter number 300.

This is the final one, the final chapter, to a story I wish/hoped would of been forever, or however long forever is, but this one I wanna start right from the beginning, this is going to a long one, so bare with me.

I think we met in February 2015 and were together officially March 19th, that’s when you asked me to be your girlfriend, I even remember the date of when we first met, the first night we met is was Friday 21st of February 2015, let’s go back to the start.

21/02/15-

The first night I met you, I honestly was at the point in life where a relationship was really something I wasn’t looking for, a relationship was always in the back of head, sure I wanted someone to call my own, but it wasn’t something I was going out looking for, I was very much in the stage of just wanting to go out have fun every weekend, so you can definitely much say I was a party girl, after every weekend ended another night out for the following weekend was planned, I would go out get too drunk and kiss a few people I didn’t remember kissing in the morning, I was suppose living the life of any other 19 year old.

I remember the night we met really clearly, my best friend at the time fully set me up, do you remember that???, he pretended his phone was dead so he gave you my number instead to met us in town, but tbh I didn’t really think much of it, they were forever trying to set me up with people so again I didn’t think much of it.

We spent that whole night glued to each other’s side, I didn’t really think at first you were interested in me, so I sort of played it cool, in till we drunkley kissed in the night club, and we walked out together, while you insisted I went home with you that night, I knew going home alone was my way of proving I wasn’t one of those girls, I was at one point but with you I actually wanted to see you again and didn’t want it to just be something that was just sex!, but do you think if I slept with you that night we would of even attempt a relationship??. I always believed us meeting was some sort of weird fate, because that night I was dead set on staying inside on the sofa, do you think if we never met that night we would of ever met at all? I wonder that sometimes.

08/03/15-

This was the date of our first date, because despite going out the following weekend together with everyone this was the first prober time it was just us two, when you asked me on the date I nearly said no, but I got dressed and did my make up hair and forced myself out the door, I was so nervous, all the way to meeting you I felt sick, this was the first time I had ever gone on a prober date and the thought of made me nervous, but I went anyways, we went for dinner down the harbour, I think this is the first time I realised you were about to become someone who I would fall in love with, I didn’t get home till 3am that night, and for the first time in ages I felt this feeling were I just felt content, I felt like I didn’t want to waste my weekends on drinking and partying but I wanted to spend them with you. After dinner we sat in your room and watched Netflix and just laid next to each other talking, with you everything was easy, we got along ridiculously well.

19/03/15

This is the date you asked me to be your girlfriend, allot of people told us it was too soon and that we wouldn’t last, but we were happy, and although we did get together very quickly I don’t regret that, you made me happy, and I knew you were someone I wanted in my life for as long as possible.

21/03/15

The first time you told me you loved me, and I swear to god when you said this I had never felt a feeling like it, I was the happiest I had been in months, and you know what in that moment time stood still, I wish time had frozen, just so I could hold on that, although me being the dick I am couldn’t say it back, I knew I loved you but I wasn’t ready to say that out loud, I was new to all of this and was scared of hearing myself say it, but I loved you, I think I knew from the first date that I was going to love you.

The first few months were memories I always cherished, everything felt good, I was falling in love with you, and for the first time in my life I was experiencing what it was like to fall in love, you were my best friend, and I thought we had forever, but we were too young to know about forever, we were on borrowed time, and if I knew that I would of held on to every second I spent with you if I knew there would come a time that I would have to do everything without you.

12/06/15

This isn’t really the most memorable date, well it is but for all the wrong reasons, long story short I got drunk and told you I didn’t want to be with you, and quite frankly I did this because I was scared I was scared you would leave one day, you had a big drug problem to be brutally honest I didn’t know how to handle that, we spent allot of weekends in your bedroom doing nothing while you took drugs and drank, and it wasn’t exactly how imagined I would be spending every weekend with you, there wasn’t many times I saw you sober, not for long periods of time, and I wanted to help you but you didn’t see the problem and I was scared I would lose you, so I cowardly dumped you, and my god have I never felt instant regret in till I did that, I was deversrated, I just wanted you but I couldn’t fix you, even though we were spilt up, we still spoke, you lost your job so I was trying to help, and I thought the only way to make you come back was to be a friend.

19/05/19

Much to everyone’s surprise we got back together on this date, and I knew for that moment that losing you wasn’t an option, I was too far in too not have you in my life I was in love with you, you were the only person I wanted, I didn’t see a future with anyone else, you vowed that it was only going to work if I accepted things as how they were, which I did, and although I should of held my ground I knew not having you was the worst feeling so having half of you was better than nothing, I believe at this point we should of walked away, I should of walked away, because I was losing myself but I wanted you.

Those few months were months I won’t forget, there was nothing but love, and honesty if I were to choose anyone to fall in love with for the first time I would still pick you, because you taught me allot, not all the memories of us were sad but there are moments I try not to think about, I was in love with you, and I wish I told you that more oftern, we weren’t perfect, we were far from perfect but somehow we found a way to make it work, we had to work so dam hard at it, but it was worth it, now these are memories I sometimes think about.

16/09/15

This is also another date I hate because this is where everything changed , this is when I realised you were falling in love with her and there was nothing I could do, but we don’t need to dwell on this date, but this is when we spilt up for the second time, and this time fully broke me, because after this I never felt good enough, I lost you at this date, we ended again here, and I spent the whole weekend wishing and wishing you would come back, because at this point I knew I wasn’t just going to walk away I had to try, I think at this point we should of known better, I don’t remember the dates but we soon got back together promising each other that if this time it didn’t work we would stop trying, but I knew about her long before I told you I did, and things just got harder, most nights I cried, I became more needy because I couldn’t lose you, but you also became someone who was just breaking my heart, I didn’t recognise myself anymore, I was dependent on you, I needed you, because you were my everything, I believe at this point you were cheating maybe not physically but I knew something was going on.

07/11/15

This is the morning you lost everting, you had no job and you had nowhere to live, I was going to stick by you through everything so I held you hand and told you it was going to be ok because whatever was going to happen it was going to be you and I, because I was there for you through everything and I cared about you more than you could of ever imagined, this is the date you moved in, and at first I loved living with you, I loved going to bed every night and you were there, like I had everything I had ever wanted, I felt close to you during these few weeks.

Everything felt ok for a little while, but I couldn’t of felt any low about myself, and well let’s be honest you didn’t fancy me anymore, and I knew you were cheating, but I couldn’t lose you, we argued you allot, you went out most weekends out and each time you went out I was scared that would be the moment you wouldn’t come back again that you were leaving me, I was broken and staying with you hurt me, but I loved you.

03/05/16

I don’t know if I really need to say what date this is, but that morning shattered my heart, I have never experienced pain like it, I wanted it too all be a bad dream and from that moment I knew we were a ticking time bomb, I was losing you but I was still holding on, I blamed myself for why you cheated, and I don’t regret choosing to stay with you because it’s a lesson I had to learn, I had to learn how to put myself first, I wanted to hold to you,but I couldn’t even look at you,you were my everything my best friend, but being with you hurt, nothing was really the same after that, but we had moments were we loved one another.

09/10/16

And this was the point we realised that we couldn’t be together, that we had both hate to let go, you were in love with someone else, and I wasn’t someone you wanted anymore, and I know half hearted we made the right decision, because you loved that girl, you were in love with her, and all I wanted was you to be happy, it broke me, but I knew we had been through too much to just work on it, we had to let go, and tbh I never wanted to let go, I never wanted you to leave, but it wasn’t my choice.

So Reuben there’s the time line, and I’m sorry it’s so long, but I just wanted one last trip down memory lane, some of those memories aren’t the happiest, but we tried so dam hard for what we had, and I’m glad we happened, I won’t ever regret a single moment, because I loved you and shocker but I think a small part of me somewhere will always care for you, you were my first love, you were my best friend at one point, so I will always hold some level of love for you.

It was nice to be in contact with you for these past few weeks, but I have to realise I am not someone who is any good for you, I am not someone who belongings with you, but I wish you nothing but the best, I wish you all the success because you fucking deserve to be happy, I hope you find what you are looking for, and I hope it fills you with so much peace and contentment I really do, because you deserve happiness, and I hope next year and all the years to come bring you happiness and you carry on progressing, thank you for teaching me some of life’s hardest lesson but also showing me love,

So here is where it ends, here is where all those memories fade, so here is the end to something that almost broke me but built me to the person I am today, and for that I’m grateful.

Goodbye, final goodbye.

The final letter to what seems like a life time of letters I wrote out, and maybe I’ll never be done with writing about you, but not in the way that I’m still in love with you because that’s long gone, but in a way sometimes the pain from that relationship still haunts me, but I wouldn’t take any of it back, I wouldn’t of changed anything, I grew from the pain, at in the most fucked up way the pain changed me into someone who is strong but also a work progress, I don’t know when I’ll ever be able to love another person again, but I’m not hurting anymore, not like the ways I once did,

And writing to you helped, helped because pain makes you feel creative, pain makes you want better things for yourself, pain makes you grow and without it,I probably wouldn’t of grew to the person I am now.

I need to stop waffling on, and now let this be.

But goodbye to you, and goodbye to all the memories we shared, all the moments, the laughing, the crying, the shouting, and the days were we loved one another with nothing but love, and goodbye to the day’s I wish I never had to experience, goodbye to the person I thought you were, and goodbye to the idea of you and I.

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