#my mom letting me watch this at 9 years old changed me fundamentally

[kaitcake1289]

IT’S A LOT MORE NUANCED THAN THAT

#edit: rachel bloom is a zionist sympathiser !!!! keep that in mind when you interact with this show!!! #my mom letting me watch this at 9 years old changed me fundamentally #kaitsart #ik this is mainly mythic quest acc but yours truly has a new brainrot show #or we’ll old brainrot show #rebecca bunch #crazy ex girlfriend #rachel bloom #cxgf #cxg

[frostbite-merun]

Well Known Knights of the Round Table Ranked

King Arthur: ???/10 So he's weird because his whole deal is that he's a Good King. The interpretation of what that is varies from person to person so he's wildly different across pretty much everything. Is he a noble and somber figure doing his best? Is he a kind of dumb but well meaning golden retriever of a man? Is he a mighty warrior and shrewd politician? Depending on the person, yes. And while that's really cool, it means I can't really rate the character because there's a million different versions of him. There's also interpretations where he's the antagonist to Lancelot and Guinevere's Whole Deal because I guess it's easier to excuse cheating by twisting the cheated-on character into a jackass. Just make it polyamorous you COWARDS

Sir Lancelot: 9/10 Fundamentally changed the entire canon and story. He's been awarded with the 'Most Accidental Teamkills' award and was voted 'Biggest Drama Queen in Camelot' 7 years running. He's inherently funny as a concept as the world's most popular OC do not steal, doubly funny taking into account that he also caused what I suspect to be the first instance of Vriscourse-esque fandom drama. Legendary. Also he's bisexual and if you give me like a week in The Hole I think that I can find pre-internet sources for this.

Sir Kay: 9/10 Unfortunately overlooked in later works considering he's A) King Arthur's adopted brother B) Funnie and C) A good foil to a lot of the other characters. He's a hothead, bully, braggart, and a jokey kind of guy with more pride than sense that's usually there to get his shit kicked in a bit. A good chunk of knights also have him talking shit at them as their entire motivation for going off on a grand quest. They can't put him in gritty reimaginings because he'd make them too much fun to read/watch. Though I DO admit that he has the potential to be very, very annoying if written poorly. I'd also like to note that he's avoided being made into a perfect-pure-special-Christian-boy-who-does-the-chivalry for over 2000 years and has maintained his shithead status. King.

The G Boys (Gawain, Gareth, aGravaine, and Gaheris): 6/10 I wish people would stop forgetting that Gaheris and Agravaine exist and/or mashing all four of these men into One Guy. I understand the irony of me giving them a shared entry but this is a long post and they're all brothers. It's nice that Gawain got some love recently with the 2021 movie Green Knight. And by love I mean good lord people were horny for Dev Patel. Also Gareth is canonically Baby. He is the ultimate Little Brother.

Sir Mordred: 10/10 MORGAN LE FAY IS NOT HIS MOM. Shoulders the whole final act of the legend as the antagonist. Let's be honest, he'd be a Tumblr sexyman if more people knew about him. He ticks all the boxes: Misunderstood, pale, dark hair, a bit evil, tragic backstory (incest), rebellious... Personally I'd love to see him break containment and take the Sexyman Crown he so rightfully deserves. Duck from Thomas the Tank Engine managed it, so I don't see why he can't.

Sir Bedivere (Bedwyr if you're a REAL gamer): 10/10 I do not CARE if I am biased. This man is my BLORBO. He HAS BEEN since I was FOURTEEN YEARS OLD. And I am VERY UPSET that the most common spelling of his name is borderline un-google-able because of the Fate Series. I am ASSAULTED by mildly horny images of anime men that I wasn't looking for. I was LOOKING for scraggly Welshmen. It's like accidentally taking a sip of someone else's drink. I wanted COKE not TEA dammit. At least they remembered that he has a prosthetic hand. He and Arthur possess the only braincell in Camelot.

Sir Griflet: 10/10 This guy is functionally a different character from who he initially was. Who did he used to be, you ask? Nothing big, nothing important just a minor welsh faerie deity. I don't know how he got added to the canon but I'm glad he did. Now he's Bedivere and Lucan's cousin and sometimes trades places with Bedivere as the last survivor of the final battle who chucks Excalibur into the lake. I like to think of him as a faerie who just showed up, convinced Bedivere and Lucan that he's their cousin, and hangs around Camelot because he finds it all interesting. Lastly: He has like... a hundred different names.

Sir Tristan: 6/10 Look his whole deal is that he's sad. Not sad as in like... pathetic but experiencing the emotion of sadness. That is what he's known for. His name is SYNONYMOUS with being sad. The ORIGINAL Sadboy. He would have an emo cut with those weird checkerboard streaks if he lived in 2007.

Sir Galahad: 0/10 The most inherently funny character in the canon. He was invented as a middle finger to Lancelot. He EXISTS because people were mad at Lancelot. He is THE purest HOLIEST mostest special boy. We're talking 'angels come down to take him away to Heaven' special. The only reason that he's a 0/10 is because I am mad that he steals Percival's role in a lot of stuff or gets mashed with him to form a Dragon Ball Fusion.

Sir Percival: 9/10 To be perfectly honest I only like this guy as much as I do because he has the coolest name out of all the knights. He's a pretty generic 'super cool and special and handsome and chivalrous' sort of knight... But I do not care. He has a cool name and I vibe with the aesthetic it conjures in my brain whenever I read it. I'm not alone in this based on all the adventures he was given until they got given to Galahad which sort of implies that he's the blueprint for the 'godly and virtuous knight who does chivalry'.

Sir Dagonet: 10/10 This guy is great and I'm pretty sure he was almost a meme a few years back??? I just remember getting blindsided by seeing a bunch of tumblr posts about him a few years back. He started his existence as just an asshole braggart who existed to make some of the other knights look better, then a violent, bloodthirsty crazy guy, and now he's a beloved jester who got knighted. I'm a fan of the jester interpretation myself because good lord there's enough 'violent man accidentally murders people' guys running around and Kay covers the 'braggart asshole foil' role in a less obnoxious way. I imagine him with silly little jester bells tied to his armor whenever he goes out on quests.

#text post #arthurian legend #arthurian mythology #long post #knights of the round table #I'm just going to bite the bullet one of these days and write my own adaptation #and then write a second one but with mechs

[jamie-is-here92]

The truth is after you reach age 10, every birthday from then on is the end of its own decade.

But we typically reflect more deliberately when we reach an age that ends in either 0 or 5.

I could wait until my 30th to do that, to do this, but I’ve decided to let my impatience get the better of me. And as I’ve learned, impatience isn’t always a negative thing. In this context, it allows me the opportunity to do something I love. Write.

So I'm going to have fun with this while staying true to my character.

I turn 29 today and I feel happy, but I want more out of life. And contrary to what popular belief may be, to quote my friend Diane, “You don’t have to be unhappy to want more. You want “more” that is true to you and your passions while being grateful for what you do have.”

You are so right Diane. I love having you as a friend.

I don’t have the love and support of a significant other, but I have my family and friends, and I wouldn’t survive without their love and support, especially from my family. But to be honest, my upbringing didn’t exactly prepare me for “reality.”

The funny thing about reality is there are many realities. There’s my reality and your reality. But fundamental decisions that were made a long time ago created a long standing and probably never-ending theme where society relies on the goal of making money to motivate people of all lifestyles and mental states to work for a living. And all for the pursuit of some sense of personal happiness. Whether you like your job or not isn’t really the point. As long as you show up and do what you’re being paid to do, and can manage a smile, even if it’s fake, nobody really thinks to ask if you like what you’re doing.

I like what I’m doing, but I’m ready to move on. But finding something else is a struggle. I was recently turned down for a life changing opportunity that would’ve placed me in my field of passion: Film. So now I’m working on finding the next step.

My colleagues who I love and respect, my job security, and confidence in my abilities at my work keeps me from applying to other jobs.

And to be honest, I did the very stupid and cliché thing and leaned on this one opportunity to carry me forward. I think part of the reason I did that is I aspire to live my version of a cliché life, which includes being a working artist in LA. That isn’t my life right now. But I’ve still got time to turn things around.

Considering my level of experience, being passed over for that film job wasn’t that surprising, so now instead of waiting for a mid-life crisis to wake me up and motivate me to pursue the next job, I’ll look with focus and a sound mind. It’s a matter of putting in the work to find the next step forward.

On the creative side of life, over a year ago, I stopped creating content for a YouTube channel that I created in 2011. The channel is called SeeItInIMAX. I made movie reviews. Most of them are either terrible or meh. I tried to get better, and was somewhat successful, but I wasn’t successful in my attempt to build a large fan base. I thought by putting in the work, being consistent, and being creative and funny, I would connect with a lot of people. But after investing 9 years into my channel, it went nowhere. I haven’t totally made my peace with that disappointment, but I’m working on it.

On the flip side, one major creative positive is I am the editor of an Independent Feature Film by a Filmmaker in New York. I’ve been waiting for forever to share this news, but have held back, partly because the film has yet to be given an official release date. But rest assured, I’ll let you know when you can watch it.

In my personal life, without revealing too much, I’ve confused infatuation for love, had some disappointments, let some people down, made mistakes - some more costly than others - learned I have a knack for self-sabotage, and learned that a committed relationship is not for me. To anyone reading this who is in a relationship and is genuinely happy, I’m happy for you. It’s rare to find the kind of companionship that you don’t question. It just works. So keep that person close.

One piece of life advice I wanna share:

If you’re in a toxic relationship of any kind, find a way to remove that person from your life. Within the last few years I had to remove a toxic friend from my circle, and it was one of the toughest things I’ve ever had to do. I knew this person for 5 years and I couldn’t have guessed it would end the way that it did. I think about the last interaction we had everyday. It was the day I gave myself permission to free myself. It’s sad to say, but at the end, I felt trapped around this person. I didn’t feel safe around them. And anyone you don’t feel safe around isn’t your friend.

If I could go back in time and have coffee with my 19 year old self, I’d say:

“I wish I could tell you that 10 years from now you already have one feature film as a director under your belt and that your day to day life will be filled with creative activities that you get paid for, and you live on your own in LA with a friend. But that’s not gonna be the case. This time 10 years from now, you will be a medical supply delivery driver, and you’ll still be living with Mom and Dad. The good news is, you’ll be helping people, you’ll take pride in your work, and you’ll be a wiser version of yourself. On top of that, living with Mom and Dad works, everyone who belongs in your life at that time will be in your life, and you’ll have grown into a sensitivity where the only type of T-Shirt you wear are Batman T-Shirts with the Bat Symbol on the chest, like on his suit. You wear one everyday. So cheers, here’s to being Batman.”

The part of my ego I suppress wants this piece in The New Yorker or some other high profile arena for writers. But that creative slot is not my reality, so like a lot of writers, I somewhat happily settle with the platform available to all.

To all of you reading, thanks. It’s nice to have an audience.

[riverforasong]

Climbing Through the Wall

TW: Self Harm, Weight issues, and family instability, oh and nudity, I guess. It’s a non-fiction thing so if that’s not your bag, thanks for coming anyway!

It’s never really been a secret, per se, but I’ve only just now started to freely admit to people that I’m a nudist. Be it out of fear of how people would react, or embarrassment stemming from a, now that I think of it, weirdly conservative upbringing, I never talked about it. I would drop hints here and there, but never much explicit, even with super close friends it remained a non-topic, despite the fact that it was, and is, a very big part, and honestly, fundamental part of my life. Hell, I’m literally naked right now (Probably, depending on when you’re reading this and what time of day it is, I could be at the store or at work or something, but it’s like a solid 90 percent chance). When the topic does come up, especially with people just learning about it for the first time, I get a lot of questions about it, which is absolutely to be expected, and I don’t mind it one bit, mostly because I love talking about this kinda stuff. One of the questions that always trips me up a little bit though, is “Why?” Why choose to go naked all the time? Which seems like an easy answer, being naked is awesome, it’s more comfortable, it releases stress, and makes it easier to sleep, and it honestly baffles me why anyone would choose to wear clothes if they didn’t absolutely have to. For me at least, it’s the only time I’m ever really comfortable, clothes and I just never really gelled. But it wasn’t until recently, and I’m talking within the last 3 months recently that I realized how important it was to me, and the recovery of my self image. My self esteem has always been low, and a lot of that stems from how I physically look, but it goes even deeper than that. From here on out this story gets kind of intense,TW: Self Harm, Weight issues, and family instability, oh, and nudity I guess, but you should have figured that out by now,  so if you’re not into that, maybe skip to the last paragraph? Or you could bail out here, the whole gist of it is being naked makes you feel better about yourself, you and your friends should give it a try sometimes. Got it? Good, and here we go.

I’ve always been the fat kid, right from the get go, in school that’s how I was pegged. Like a lot of fat kids, we learned to be the funny one in the group, because humour is a damn fine way to mask any and all insecurities you’re hiding within yourself. I’d always told myself that it doesn’t bother me, people are gonna say what they say and you can eiher take it personally, or let it roll off your back and make a joke about it, and that’s what I always did. Or at the very least, tried to do. It worked, or so I thought, but I’d be lying to you right now if I said it never got to me. Late night when no one was listening, it would replay over and over in my head, about how that’s the only thing people ever see in me. That’s always going to be their first impression. I will never be loved if I look like this. Now this is a batshit crazy way of thinking in retrospect, but that’s how m'brain works when it’s back on it’s bullshit. Later in life, what I now know to be an anxiety issue and mental illness, went unchecked for too long. In my family, I always had to be the level headed one, parenting the parents so to speak. My brother had sever Social Anxiety Disorder and would lash out in increasingly terrible ways that he can talk about in his own damn story, but my parents were not… I dunno, mature enough? No that seems silly, equipped to? Equipped to take care of this in the way it needed to be. Yelling begat more yelling, violence begat more violence, you see how things roll. I would always have to step in and make sure things don’t escalate any further than they already had. Taking pieces of myself and shoving them in the holes of the levee to make sure the whole place doesn’t flood. It would work, things would calm down and merrily we’d roll along until the next disaster hit. This worked for them. It didn’t however, work for me. Being the person who took care of these issues took a toll on me that I didn’t expect. See, I was just as sad and angry as everyone else, but I couldn’t express it in any way, because I needed to fix the issues before they became worse, but unlike everyone else, I had no one to check on me. No one to make sure that I was doing okay enough to function, which as it turned out, I was not. The anger and the sadness and the overall  negative emotion swelled inside of me and remained bottled up until it could no longer stay. I began to cut myself to release it. I couldn’t find someone to help, and I couldn’t take it out on anyone else, so I took it out on the person who mattered least in the house, myself.

Still with me? If so, here’s a puppy.

Cutting may have relieved the emotional pain and stress I was feeling, but it also left something in it’s wake. Big, obvious, ugly, red scars. Crisscrossing my arms and legs. New ones would pop up every couple of days or so. A couple people would ask about it, I’d tell them it was my cat, which if you knew my cat made sense, ‘cause that little thing’s kind of a bastard, and the situation would be left alone. This went on for a while, longer than I’d like to admit, but the important thing was I got help. Help from friends who are truly invaluable to me in ways I could not possibly convey because I don’t know that many words. I’d love to say it got better immediately, and I never even thought about doing it again, but shiiiit, you know that’s not how life works. I still struggle with it to this day. I was however, on the road to healing, both physically and mentally. The problem remained though, these scars would be with me forever. You can still see them if you look close enough at my arms, and it’s been a solid ten years or so since the first major incidents. Now, as someone who already had a pretty low vision of himself, this did not help at all. I hated going outside, I hated putting myself out there in the world. I hated what people might think, might say, might point out. It was an awful ouroboros of thoughts leading to actions leading to thoughts leading to actions. I was disgusted with who I was and what I looked like. From the fat, to the scars, to the fact that I thought my head was too big, and my feet too small. Now, as a guy, you don’t know that you get to feel this way. We don’t talk about how men can obsess over their looks and how it makes them feel as much as we really do. There’s not a lot of self help books for that kind of situation, or if there is, I sure didn’t find any. Mostly 'cause I didn’t look that hard, mostly because I was afraid to ask for help, mostly because I didn’t know I was allowed too. There’s that ouroboros again.

This is where the whole nudist thing kicks in. See, my whole life, I always kinda hated clothes, getting dressed, shopping for them, gah, I just hate it. I was always more comfortable naked than anyway else. My parents on the other hand, wanted no part of anything like that. I remember as a 4 year old getting told I was too old to walk around without being fully dressed. Socks, Pants, Underwear, Shirt, the whole 9 yards. I remember bring up the subject to my mom, who was so horrified at the concept of me being a nudist she actually started yelling despite herself. We once watched a documentary where one of the characters was raise in a nudist family, there weren’t even on screen, and my parents would rally against them, talking about how it’s sick and why have these people no shame? I always gave a half-harted  affirmation, but on the inside, it was killing me. I never drank, did drugs, had underage, unprotected sex, got into fights, that wasn’t really my thing. My rebellion was being naked. Naked inside, outside, sometimes with friends, sometimes in public, for as long as humanly possible, down to the last millisecond I could. But during the rough patch, I hated how I looked so much I stayed covered up, to a ridiculous degree. I’m talking long sleeve shirts in summertime, wearing shorts in the bathtub kind of covering. It was a mess. I figured the whole thing was a phase and it was time to outgrow it. It was time to repress some feelings and urges, and get back shoving my emotions and feelings of inadequacy back down my own throat.

I know it was a stupid idea. I’m also in the future.

This went on for a while, although I can’t remember how long. I felt miserable, and couldn’t figure out why. I kept wearing increasingly baggy clothes to hide what I though deserved to be hid. But I wasn’t getting any better internally, it just looked like it. I didn’t feel any better about the way I looked, I just stopped looking. I don’t know what changed, eventually. Something did though. Maybe I just cracked through the shell I had formed around myself. But for the life of me, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I may have hated the way I looked, but I hated clothes more, I guess.

When you’re naked for a long amount of time, a few things happen. At first, you’re highly aware and tactile about every single thing around you. You’re aware of every imperfection on your body, from love handles, to acne, to scars, to weird ingrown hairs, to what you need to shave, to how dry your knees are. Everything, Every. Damn. Thing. And then? You forget about it. You focus on something else, you watch TV, you play video games, you clean the house, you check your garden, whatever it is, and you forget about what little things bug you about you. When you do it over and over again, that first part where you obsess about everything becomes shorter, and shorter, until it eventually disappears altogether. Nudity helped me come to peace with who I am, and what I look like. I may not like a lot of the things about me. But I don’t obsess, it doesn’t ruin me, it doesn’t encapsulate all I am anymore. The biggest change was seeing it happen to other people, the first time I ever went to a nude event, it was the Portland Naked Bike Ride in 2016, and you realize how diverse we all really are. I saw fat people, skinny people, trans-gendered people, men, women, children of all shapes, sizes and colours hanging out and talking to people. I was horrified about what they would think about me when I came walking in, but no one batted an eye. We talked, we laughed, we shared stories and jokes and videos about whatever. I finally realized that the only person saying these terrible things about me and they way I looked, was me.

Whenever I finally tell people that I’m a nudist, I get one of two reactions. One is always someone showing a ton of interest, but not wanting to admit it, so they ask a lot of questions, but try to do it superstitiously, and two, people who say stuff like “That’s so cool, but I could never do it myself,” and that one always bums me out. We have taught people from the time that they’re born to the time they die, that being naked is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad thing, and is only to be reserved for taking a shower no longer than ten minutes, and having sex in the missionary position only for the purposes of procreation after marriage, and for the love of all that is holy never speak of it, or practice it outside of these two times. It’s terrible to shame someone for something so simple and natural and helpful. To tell people right out of the gate that their body is shameful and should be hidden away because “No one wants to see that.” We kick their self esteem in the chest before it even has a chance to get started

I’m getting kind of soapbox-y and that’s not the point I’m trying to make. The point is, I fully believe that nudism saved my perception of myself, and I feel like people need to give it a chance. Separate it from it’s sexual connotation and invite your friends over for a naked movie night or something like that. I even ran a naked DND session once, and it went over like gangbusters. It helps folks who t think they’ll be uncomfortable for the first time focus on something else, and realize life is just that much better. Getting people naked and watching their faces go from assuming it’s going to be awkward to genuine fun and comfort is one of my favourite feelings in the world, because we stop putting so much pressure on ourselves and what we wear and what we look like, when no one has anything to hide..

[pooma-unvolunteers]

Ways to Teach Your Children a Great Work Ethic

The principle that hard work is intrinsically virtuous or worthy of reward…. is WORK ETHIC.

Why is it IMPORTANT TO HAVE A GOOD WORK ETHIC ?

Your good work ethic tells, in future what people might expect from you ...Good attendance and punctuality are two important pieces of a good work ethic –and they're easily addressed and accomplished..

IS IT A SKILL?

Good work ethic, problem solving, time management, communication skills and team work ability are all skills that can make you a great student/ employee. Leadership skills make you a candidate to be more than that.

Here are the few ways for the Parents to teach your children a great work ethic:

Just as it’s not enough to tell your slacker co-worker to work harder, it’s not enough just to tell a child about the importance of a good work ethic. No, the teaching of a good work ethic begins with good boundaries and a little one-on-one assistance.

Parents play a large role in shaping their child’s home and academic work ethic through interaction and support. By knowing how to change your expectations toward your child, you show your child how to change his outlook toward work.

1.Understand the fact that you always teach, regardless of intention:

The question when it comes to teaching at home is not “if?” but “what?” It’s important to understand that home is a natural and continuous learning environment. Everything we do instructs our children – so the question is always “What am I teaching?” and “How can teach the right lessons?"

Start Early…Lay the groundwork early. When our three-year-olds beg to peel carrots, or our four-year-olds plead to sweep the floor, our tendency is to say they’re not ready. But teach them when they’re eager and they’ll be more likely to step up to the plate later on.

2. Example, example, example:

If parents own a positive work ethic, then we’re already halfway there. This is a great opportunity for “do as I do” supporting “do as I say.” Be a Role Model…So much of who our children turn out to be is a reflection not of what we try to pour into them but of what they see in us. It’s not the big occasions our kids will remember most, but the everyday stuff that revealed what their parents were really made of – how we handled frustration, whether we were on time and kept commitments, whether we did our own work with a smile or a frown.

Know Your Children…..There’s a difference between a 5-year-old who doesn’t know that plates have backs and a 10-year-old who neglects to wash them because he’s in a hurry to play. One needs teaching, the other needs accountability.

Parents also need to know how to motivate each child. Young children are often motivated by verbal praise. Older children may need more: money or privileges.

3. Balance is job one:

Every family has their own take on how much is too much. But it’s essential that we teach our children balance in terms of work. Deliberately teach them that family time is the priority. A work ethic that sacrifices family turns out to be all work and no ethic.

4. Keep family priorities in order:

The simple, “fun after the work is done” associates relaxation with completion rather than relaxation as escape. Kids experience more satisfaction in their leisure when it is paired with satisfactory job performance.

5. Work with your children whenever possible:

Question: how is a “guide” different from a “boss”?

Answer: a boss typically barks out orders and waits for results – whereas a guide is willing to walk alongside. As dads, teaching a work ethic, our role is that of guide.

If your child wants to rake leaves, be ready to knock on doors with him. If she wants to walk dogs, help her place an ad in the paper. Be ready and willing to help your child start working, and you’ll be amazed at the life lessons she’ll learn.

6. Take your children with you when you volunteer:

Pick up garbage together on the side of the street; join a team that fixes things at the park; hook up with volunteer efforts at church or other community groups. Work associated with service is a key building block to the value of work across the board.

7. Expose them to stories about heroes who learned the value of work:

There are hundreds of great stories to reinforce this point. Movies, books, articles. Read them together and then live them, day by day.

8. Make chores at home a shared responsibility:

Every member of the family should have assigned chores on a routine basis. Change them around; help each other out; take turns with the ones no one really enjoys. Doesn’t wimp out on the chores, and don’t let your kids wimp out either. Accept What You Get. When faced with less-than-perfect results, graciously praise the effort. For example, when seven-year-old son surprised the family by cleaning the windows, her mom ignored the smudges and smears. “What hard work!” she said simply, “I love to clean windows too. Next time let’s do it together!”

9. Reward your child for productivity.

Give praise or small gifts to your child when he’s made improvements in his work ethic. Remember to ignore the guilt that naturally comes in the form of the question, “Am I bribing my child?” In fact, these are expressions of pride in him . So go ahead and push your child forward via praise, hugging and the occasional small gift. Paying children to participate in family life sends the wrong message. Work in the family is an intrinsic value and is fundamentally worthwhile.

Compliment; encourage; throw in the occasional treat. “Because you- kids, it has been so amazingly responsible week!”… Admire their good work, but don’t re-assign the value of expected work to the false value of cash.

10. Have a “chore chart” on the refrigerator: And feel free to use.

11. Establish limits:

Create boundaries that will push your child away from distractions and toward his work. For example, a child who watches television while he eats his after school snack , might lack the willpower to turn off the television after one show. In his mind, he likely knows he has homework to do but thinks, “Just one more show, and then I’ll get started.” The “one more show” might then turn into three more shows, keeping him from getting started on his homework until an hour before dinnertime. Set a limit on problematic behavior like this, such as by restricting television after 4 p.m. Follow up on limits.

Explain the reason the limits are in place, emphasizing the importance of chores and academics over playtime or other distractions. Avoid using the timeworn “because I say so” reasoning, which only tells children something they already know: You’re the one that sets the rules.

Instead, express the importance behind setting the limitation. Further emphasize this importance by explicitly stating the consequence of breaking the limit. Engage in this discussion either when you first set the limit or the first time your child breaks the limit thereby giving him a second chance with an added explanation such as, “I said no TV after 4 p.m. because school is more important than TV.

I’m disappointed that you broke this rule, and if it happens again, I’ll just unplug the TV.

Teach Delayed Gratification Establishing a pattern: we work, and then we play. You might say to your child, “I know you want to play outside. Let’s pick up all these blocks and fold the clothes and then we can go together.” Or, “Let’s get the house cleaned up and then we’ll make some popcorn and watch a movie.”

12. Help your child with his chores and homework, but don’t do them for him.

Show him the importance of planning before jumping into a room-cleaning project or study session haphazardly. Doing so shows him not only the importance of time management but also of organization in planning and studying.

For example, if your child doesn't know where to start with cleaning his room, help him devise a plan of action, listing in order the areas that should be cleaned and how to clean them. Likewise, if your child is studying for next week’s test, help him devise a study plan. Outline the areas of the text on which he’ll be tested and create a schedule with learning goals attached. Your goal should be to perform this activity with him to help him complete his academic tasks on his own, thereby relieving yourself of your job as his study planner.

First teach them to pick up their clothes, to crush the cans for recycling, or to vacuum out the car. We need to give them extra time to make them do something when we could have done it faster and better ourselves.

It’s the real life test of our everyday efforts to raise children with a work ethic. Believe me, it is not easy.

Dr. Ruth Peters, a psychology contributor to NBC’s Today show and author says: “Daily in my practice I see parents who have made the mistake of not taking the time and attention to teach their children to be workers and achievers. These kids have learned to settle for less rather than to face and challenge adversity, to become whiners rather than creative problem solvers, and to blame others for perceived slights and lack of success.”

The ability to work hard, to tolerate frustration, and to take responsibility doesn’t just happen without a push from parents.

Like all good things, building a strong work ethic in your child takes constant effort. But you’ll know it’s worth it when your child comes home from the first day of his first job looking tired and satisfied and grown-up and says something like :

“My boss said I did a good job, Mom. Thanks for everything.”

[flashhdtv]

Korean drama(18 again)engsub ep.6 Full Episodes

Watch 18 Again Season 1 Episode 6-10 1–2–3–4–5–1–7–8–9–10 Full Episode 18 Again Temporada 1 Capítulo 6 Sub English / Español 2020 ➤ http://flashserieshd.dplaytv.net/series/377956/1/6 VISIT HERE ➤➤ http://flashserieshd.dplaytv.net/series/377956/1/6

Tells the story of a husband named Hong Dae Young who is on the verge of divorce but finds himself back in his body when he was at the prime of his life 18 years ago. He ends up changing his name to Go Woo Young when he becomes 18- years-old again. Meanwhile, his wife Jung Da Jung joins the workforce as an anchorwoman later on in life after raising their 18-year-old twins.

🎬 18 Again Season 1 Episode 6 Online Free 🎬

Title : 18 Again Episode Title : Episode 6 Release Date : 06 Oct 2020 Runtime : 65 minutes Genres : Comedy , Fantasy , Romance Networks : jTBC

18 Again

Jung Da Jung is married to 37-year-old Hong Dae Young. They have have 18-year-old son and daughter. Jung Da Jung works hard as a rookie announcer and she has a warm heart. She becomes completely fed up with her husband and is unable to deal with him anymore. Hong Dae Young got fired from his job and he is looked down upon by his family. Jung Da Jung hands him divorce papers.

Meanwhile, Hong Dae Young looks at himself as an ordinary jobless middle-aged man. He regrets his life. At that moment, his body changes into that of an 18-year-old year old person, while his mind is still that of his 37-year-old self. Back in his teenage days, Hong Dae Young was an excellent basketball player and also popular. Now, with his regained 18-year-old body, he changes his name to Go Woo Young and begins to live a new life.

Show Info

Network: Korea, Republic of jTBC (2020 - now) Schedule: Mondays, Tuesdays at 21:30 (90 min) Status: Running Language: Korean Show Type: Scripted Genres: Comedy Fantasy Romance Episodes ordered: 16 episodes

With dozens of films genre being released each year, a typical one that gets overlooked by the more popular ones (action, drama, comedy, animation, etc.) is the subgenre category of religious movie. These films (sometimes called “faith-based” features) usually center around the struggles and ideas of a person (or groups) identity of a religious faith, which is, more or less, has a profound event or obstacle to overcome. While not entirely, the most commonplace religious type movies focus on the religion of Christianity, sometimes venturing back into the past in cinematic retelling classic biblical tales, including famed epic films like Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur (the original 1959 version) to some more modern endeavors from Hollywood like Risen, The Young Messiah, and Paul, Apostle of Christ. Other Christian “faith” films finds a more contemporary setting to tell its story, with some being “based on a true-life account” like the movies Unconditional, Heaven is Real, Unbroken, I Can Only Imagine, Indivisible, and Miracles from Heaven, while others might find inspiration from literary novels / fictionalized narratives like The Shack, Overcomer, War Room, and Same Kind of Different as Me. Regardless, whether finding inspiration from true life, references from the bible, or originality, these movies usually speaks on a person’s faith and the inner struggle he or she has within or one society’s views, spreading a message of belief and the understand of one’s belief. Now, after the success of 2018’s I Can Only Imagine, directors Andrew and Jon Erwin (the Erwin Brothers) and Lionsgate studios release the 2020 faith-based film / music biopic feature I Still Believe. Does the film walk a fine line between its religious aspects and cinematic entertainment or does the movie get entangled in its own faith-based preaching?

THE STORY

Its 1999 and Jeremy Camp (K.J. Apa) is a young and aspiring musician who would like nothing more than to honor his God through the power of music. Leaving his Indiana home for the warmer climate of California and a college education, Jeremy soon comes across one Melissa Henning (Britt Robertson), a fellow college student that he takes notices in the audience at a local concert. Falling for cupid’s arrow immediately, he introduces himself to her and quickly discovers that she is attracted to him too. However, Melissa holds back from forming a budding relationship as she fears it will create an awkward situation between Jeremy and their mutual friend, Jean-Luc (Nathan Parson), a fellow musician and who also has feeling for Melissa. Still, Jeremy is relentless in his pursuit of her until they eventually find themselves in a loving dating relationship. However, their youthful courtship with each other comes to a halt when life-threating news of Melissa having cancer takes center stage. The diagnosis does nothing to deter Jeremey’s love for her and the couple eventually marries shortly thereafter. Howsoever, they soon find themselves walking a fine line between a life together and suffering by her illness; with Jeremy questioning his faith in music, himself, and with God himself.

THE GOOD / THE BAD

Sorry if this sounds a bit familiar pieces from my review of I Can Only Imagine, but it definitely says what I feel about these films. While I am a devout Christian (not a crazy zealot or anything like that) for my bases of religion and my outlook beliefs in life, I’m not a huge fan of the “faith-based” feature films. That’s not to say that they’re bad or that I find them deplorable to the other more popular movie genres out there, but sometimes they can a bit preachy and corny / honky in their religious overtones and overall dramatic direction. Personally, I like the more biblical tales that Hollywood as put over, with Cecil B. Demile’s The Ten Commandments and William Wyler’s Ben-Hur; both of have proven to stand the test of time within filmmaking. Of course, Hollywood’s recent trend of put out more “remakes” movies puts an overcast on those biblical epics with 2014’s Exodus: Gods and Kings and 2016’s Ben-Hur; both of which failed to capture a sense of cinematic integrity and had a messy religious outlook in its zeal aspect. Of late, however, Hollywood as retreated more into contemporary pieces, finding narratives that are, more or less, set in a more “modern” day and age to their Christian-faithful based features. As I mentioned above, some have found success in their literary forms (being based on a book and adapted to the big screen), but most derive their inspiration from true life accounts, translating into something that’s meant to strike a chord (with moviegoers) due to its “based on a true story” aspect and nuances. Again, some are good (as I liked Unbroken and The Shack), while others kind of become a bit too preachy and let the religious overtures hamper the film, making them less-than desirable to mainstream audiences or even members of their own faiths. Thus, these religious-esque films can sometimes be problematic in their final presentation for both its viewers and in the film itself; sometimes making the movie feel like a TV channel movie rather than a theatrical feature film. This brings me around to talking about I Still Believe, a 2020 motion picture release of the Christian religious faith-based genre. As almost customary, Hollywood usually puts out two (maybe three) films of this variety movies within their yearly theatrical release lineup, with the releases usually being around spring time and / or fall respectfully. I didn’t hear much when this movie was first announced (probably got buried underneath all the popular movies news on the newsfeed). My first actual glimpse of the movie was when the film’s movie trailer was released, which looked somewhat interesting to me. Yes, it looked the movie was gonna be the typical “faith-based” vibe, but it was going to be directed by the Erwin Brothers, who directed I Can Only Imagine (a film that I did like). Plus, the trailer for I Still Believe premiered for quite some time, so I kept on seeing it a lot of time when I went to my local movie theater. You can kind of say that it was a bit “engrained in my brain”. Thus, I was a bit keen on seeing it. Fortunately, I was able to see it before the COVID-19 outbreak closed the movie theaters down (saw it during its opening night), but, due to work scheduling, I haven’t had the time to do my review for it…. until now. And what did I think of it? Well, it was pretty “meh”. While its heart is definitely in the right place and quite sincere, I Still Believe is a bit too preachy and unbalanced within its narrative execution and character developments. The religious message is clearly there, but takes too many detours and not focusing on certain aspects that weigh the feature’s presentation. As mentioned, I Still Believe is directed by the Erwin Brothers (Andrew and Jon), whose previous directorial works include such films like Moms’ Night Out, Woodlawn, and I Can Only Imagine. Given their affinity attraction religious based Christian movies, the Erwin Brothers seem like a suitable choice in bringing Jeremy Camp’s story to a cinematic representation; approaching the material with a certain type of gentleness and sincerity to the proceedings. Much like I Can Only Imagine, the Erwin Brothers shape the feature around the life of a popular Christian singer; presenting his humble beginnings and all the trials and tribulations that he must face along the way, while musical songs / performance taking importance into account of the film’s narrative story progression. That’s not to say that the movie isn’t without its heavier moments, with the Erwin, who (again) are familiar with religious overtones themes in their endeavors, frame I Still Believe compelling messages of love, loss, and redemption, which (as always) are quite fundamental to watch and experience through tragedy. This even speaks to the film’s script, which was penned by Erwin brothers playing double duty on the project, that has plenty of heartfelt dramatic moments that will certainly tug on the heartstrings of some viewers out there as well as provide to be quite an engaging tale of going through tragedy and hardship and finding a redemption arc to get out of it. This is especially made abundantly clear when dealing with a fatal illness that’s similar to what Melissa undergoes in the film, which is quite universal and reflective in everyone’s world, with the Erwin Brothers painting the painful journey that Melissa takes along with Jeremy by her side, who must learn to cope with pain of a loved one. There is a “double edge” sword to the film’s script, but I’ll mention that below. Suffice to say, the movie settles quickly into the familiar pattern of a religious faith-based feature that, while not exactly polished or original, can be quite the “comfort food” to some; projecting a wholesome message of faith, hope, and love. Personally, I didn’t know of Jeremy Camp and the story of he and Melissa Henning, so it was quite a poignant journey that was invested unfolding throughout the film’s proceedings. As a side-note, the movie is a bit a “tear jerker”, so for those who prone to crying during these dramatic heartfelt movies….get your tissues out. In terms of presentation, I Still Believe meets the industry standard of a religious faith-based motion pictures. Of course, theatrical endeavors like these don’t really have big budged production money to invest in the film’s creation. Thus, filmmakers have to spend their money wisely in bringing their cinematic tales to life on the silver screen. To that effect, the Erwin Brothers smartly utilized this knowledge in the movie’s creation; budgeting the various aspects of the background and genetic theatrical make-up that feel appropriate and genuine in the film’s narrative. So, all the various “behind the scenes” team / areas that I usually mention (i.e. production designs, set decorations, costumes, and cinematography, etc.) are all relatively good as I really don’t have much to complain (whether good or bad) about them. Again, they meet the industry standard for a faith-based movie. Additionally, the musical song parts are pretty good as well. As mentioned, I really didn’t know anything about Jeremy Camp, so I couldn’t say what songs of his were good, but the songs that are presented in the film were pretty decent enough to certain highlight points throughout the movie. Though they are somewhat short (assuming not the whole song is being played), but still effectively good and nice to listen to. Might have to check out a few of the real songs one day. Lastly, the film’s score, which was done by John Debney, fits perfect with this movie; projecting the right amount of heartfelt tenderness in some scenes and inspirational melodies of enlightenment in others. Unfortunately, not all is found to be pure and religiously cinematic in the movie as I Still Believe gets weighed down with several major points of criticism and execution in the feature. How so? For starters, the movie feels a bit incomplete in Jeremy Camp’s journey. What’s presented works (somewhat), but it doesn’t hold up, especially because the Erwin Brothers have a difficult time in nailing down the right narrative path for the film to take. Of course, the thread of Jeremy and Melissa are the main central focus (and justly so), but pretty much everything else gets completely pushed aside, including Jeremy’s musical career rise to stardom and many of the various characters and their importance (more on that below). This also causes the film to have a certain pacing issues throughout the movie, with I Still Believe runtime of 116 minutes (one hour and fifty-six minutes) feeling longer than it should be, especially with how much narrative that the Erwin Brothers skip out on (i.e. several plot chunks / fragments are left unanswered or missing). Additionally, even if a viewer doesn’t know of Jeremy Camp’s story, I Still Believe does, for better or worse, follow a fairly predictable path that’s quite customary for faith-based movie. Without even reading anything about the real lives of Jeremy and Melissa prior to seeing the feature, it’s quite clearly as to where the story is heading and what will ultimately play out (i.e. plot beats and theatrical narrative act progression). Basically, if you’ve seeing one or two Christian faith-based film, you’ll know what to expect from I Still Believe. Thus, the Erwin Brothers don’t really try to creatively do something different with the film…. instead they reinforce the idealisms of Christian and of faith in a formulaic narrative way that becomes quite conventional and almost a bit lazy. There is also the movie’s dialogue and script handling, which does become problematic in the movie’s execution, which is hampered by some wooden / forced dialogue at certain scenes (becoming very preachy and cheesy at times) as well as the feeling of the movie’s story being rather incomplete. There’s a stopping point where the Erwin Brothers settle on, but I felt that there could’ve more added, including more expansion on his music career and several other characters. Then there is the notion of the film being quite secular in its appeal, which is quite understandable, but relies too heavy on its religious thematic messages that can be a bit “off-putting” for some. It didn’t bother me as much, but after seeing several other faith-based movies prior to this (i.e. I Can Only Imagine, Overcomer, Indivisible, etc.), this particular movie doesn’t really rise to Cursed in Love and falls prey to being rather generic and flat for most of its runtime. As you can imagine, I Still Believe, while certainly sincere and meaningful in its storytelling, struggles to find a happy balance in its narrative and execution presentation; proving to be difficult in conveying the whole “big picture” of its message and Jeremey Camp’s journey. The cast in I Still Believe is a mixed bag. To me, none of the acting talents are relatively bad (some are better than others…. I admit), but their characterizations and / or involvement in the film’s story is problematic to say the least. Leading the film’s narrative are two protagonist characters of Jeremy Camp and Melissa Henning, who are played by the young talents of K.J. Apa and Britt Robertson respectfully. Of the two, Apa, known for his roles in Riverdale, The Last Summer, and The Hate U Give, is the better equipped in character development and performance as the young and aspiring musical talent of Jeremy Camp. From the get-go, Apa has a likeable charm / swagger to him, which make his portrayal of Jeremy immediately endearing from onset to conclusion. All the scenes he does are well-represented (be it character-based or dramatic) and certainly sells the journey that Jeremy undergoes in the movie. Plus, Apa can also sing, which does lend credence to many of the scene’s musical performance. For Robertson, known for her roles in Tomorrowland, Ask Me Anything, and The Space Between Us, she gets hampered by some of the film’s wooden / cheesy dialogue. True, Robertson’s performance is well-placed and well-mannered in projecting a sense of youthful and dewy-eyed admiration in Mellissa, especially since the hardships here character undergoes in the feature, but it’s hard to get passed the cringeworthy dialogue written for her. Thus, Robertson’s Melissa ends up being the weaker of the two. That being said, both Apa and Robertson do have good on-screen chemistry with each other, which certainly does sell the likeable / loving young relationship of Jeremy and Melissa. In more supporting roles, seasoned talents like actor Gary Sinise (Forest Gump and Apollo 13) and musician singer Shania Twain play Jeremey’s parents, Tom and Terry Camp. While both Sinise and Twain are suitable for their roles as a sort of small town / Midwest couple vibe, their characters are little more than window dressing for the feature’s story. Their screen presence / star power lends weigh to the project, but that’s pretty much it; offering up a few nuggets to bolster a few particular scenes here and there, which is disappointing. Everyone else, including actor Nathan Parsons (General Hospital and Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water) as musical talent and mutual friend to both Jeremy and Melissa, Jean-Luc Lajoie, young actor Reuben Dodd (The Bridge and Teachers) as Jeremy’s handicapped younger brother, Joshua Camp, and his other younger brother, Jared Camp (though I can’t find out who played him the movie), are relatively made up in smaller minor roles that, while acted fine, are reduced to little more than just underdeveloped caricatures in the film, which is a shame and disappointing.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The power of faith, love, and affinity for music take center stage in Jeremy Camp’s life story in the movie I Still Believe. Directors Andrew and Jon Erwin (the Erwin Brothers) examine the life and times of Jeremy Camp’s life story; pin-pointing his early life with his relationship Melissa Henning as they battle hardships and their enduring love for one another through difficult times. While the movie’s intent and thematic message of a person’s faith through trouble times is indeed palpable as well as the likeable musical performances, the film certainly struggles to find a cinematic footing in its execution, including a sluggish pace, fragmented pieces, predicable plot beats, too preachy / cheesy dialogue moments, over utilized religious overtones, and mismanagement of many of its secondary /supporting characters. To me, this movie was somewhere between okay and “meh”. It was definitely a Christian faith-based movie endeavor (from start to finish) and definitely had its moments, but it just failed to resonate with me; struggling to find a proper balance in its undertaking. Personally, despite the story, it could’ve been better. Thus, my recommendation for this movie is an “iffy choice” at best as some will like (nothing wrong with that), while others will not and dismiss it altogether. Whatever your stance on religious faith-based flicks, I Still Believe stands as more of a cautionary tale of sorts; demonstrating how a poignant and heartfelt story of real-life drama can be problematic when translating it to a cinematic endeavor. For me, I believe in Jeremy Camp’s story / message, but not so much the feature.

#drama #romance

[organiclifestylemagazine]

Interview With Joel Salatin, Polyface Farms

Joel Salatin is an American farmer and author. He owns Polyface Farms, which is known for its small scale unconventional farming methods. Months ago I heard Joel on a Joe Rogan podcast and was immediately blown away. It’s not very often that we hear people discuss the gut microbiome on one of the most popular podcasts in the country.

Here’s that podcast. I highly recommend listening to it if you have the time.

Along with discussing the gut microbiome, Joel talked about his farm, Polyface Farms. Polyface Farms is located in Virginia, and they do things a little differently than most. The land that is now Polyface farms was purchased by Joel’s parents in 1961. They’re all about regenerative farming through sustainable practices, like pasture-raised meat, carbon sequestration, and working in a seasonal cycle.

In short, it’s a dream come true for someone like myself who is all about organic eco-friendly agriculture, so naturally, I had to ask Joel a couple of questions.

The older generation is a big fan of talking about life when they were young. My grandfather loves to talk about the fact that he was raised on cow’s milk, and he turned out “just fine.” The difference, of course, is that the milk he was raised on was unpasteurized small scale cows milk. What encouraged you to get into small scale sustainable farming? Does it relate back to how you were raised or did you have some sort of revelation in life? Feel free to comment on how things have changed if you have any thoughts on that.

My paternal grandfather was a charter subscriber to Rodale’s Organic Gardening and Farming Magazine when it came out in the late 1940s.  He always wanted to farm but never did.  He had a very large garden, though, and sold extra produce to neighbors and corner grocers.  My dad received his no-chemical indoctrination, then, from Grandpa, so I’m the third generation in the compost tradition.  My Dad was a financial wizard and did accounting work all his life.  After flying Navy bombers in WWII, he went to Indiana University on the GI bill and then headed off to Venezuela, South America as a bilingual accountant with Texas Oil Company.  His long-range goal was a farm in a developing country and Venezuela seemed as good as any.  After about 7 years he’d saved up enough to buy 1,000 acres in the highlands of Venezuela and began farming.  The goal was dairy and broilers. My older brother and I were born during that time, and things looked bright.  But then came a junta and the ouster of Peres Jimenez and animosity toward anything American; we fled the back door as the machine guns came in the front door; lost everything and after exhausting all attempts at protection, (we) came back to the U.S. Easter Sunday 1961, landing in Philadelphia. Mom grew up in Ohio and Texas and all their family was in Ohio and Indiana, but Dad’s heart was still in Venezuela and he hoped after the political turmoil settled to be able to return to our farm.  

With that in mind, he wanted to be within a day’s drive of Washington D.C. so he could get to the Venezuelan Embassy quickly and easily to do paperwork and return. That never happened, but it’s why we ended up in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.  When I hit 41, I remember thinking: “If I lost it all, would I start over?” That’s what Dad and Mom did in 1961. I was 4.  Dad did his accounting work, and Mom was a high school health and physical ed teacher; that off-farm income paid the mortgage and within 10 years the land was paid off.  Dad combined his ecology with his economic understanding to create some broad principles: animals move; mobile infrastructure; direct marketing; carbon-driven fertility.  I had my first flock of laying hens when I was 10 years old and then added a garden.  By 14 years old, I was our main salesman at the local Curb Market, a Depression-era hold-over that foreshadowed today’s farmers’ markets.  With only 3 vendors, it struggled but after a couple of years, we had a growing and steady clientele for our pastured meats, poultry, eggs, produce, and dairy products (yogurt, butter, cottage cheese). We closed it down when I went off to college and the other two elderly matrons at the market quite as well so by the time I came home, that market and all of its wonderful grandfathered food safety exemptions were gone forever.

I’ve always said we were about 20 years ahead of our time.  Operating that market during my teen years of early 1970s as the nascent back-to-the-land hippie movement germinated was not easy, but the lessons were invaluable when I returned to the farm and started building a clientele on my own in 1980, long before modern farmers’ markets. Teresa and I married in 1980, remodeled the attic of the farmhouse, and lived there for 7 years until Mom and Dad moved out from downstairs to a mobile home parked outside the yard.  My Mom’s mother had lived there for 10 years and passed away, making that spot available.  As an investigative reporter at the local daily newspaper, I realized every business was desperate for people who would show up on time, put in a full days’ work without whining, and actually creatively think through better ways of doing things all made me highly employable.  Living on $300 a month, driving a $50 car, growing all of our own, cutting our own firewood for winter warmth, not having a TV—all these things enabled us even without a high salary to squirrel away half the paycheck.  Within a couple of years we had saved enough to live on for a year.  I walked out of that office Sept. 24, 1982, with a one-year cash nest egg and the jeering of every person I knew”  “He’s throwing his life away.”  “All that talent and he’s going to waste it on a farm.” “Don’t you know you can’t make any money farming?”

We succeeded. 

While we were watching the podcast you did with Joe Rogan, my dad and I had several “Wow!” moments listening to you. One of us would be in the kitchen, and we would run into the living room where the podcast was playing, and share a look of absolute awe. “This guy is talking about the stuff that we talk about! And he’s on Joe Rogan!” We don’t know many people who talk about gut health the way we do. How did you learn about the importance of the body’s microbiome? Is there a correlation between your knowledge of the microbiome and how you run your farm? 

Perhaps the most profound truth in life is that everything we see floats in an ocean of invisible beings.  With electronic microscopes, we can now see many of these things, but because we can’t see them with the naked eye, they are not in our momentary conscience.  It’s hard to forget the microbes floating in the air, on our skin, in our eyes, nostrils, and intestines.  Our farm’s wellness philosophy stems from Antoine Béchamp, the French contemporary and nemesis of Louis Pasteur.  While Pasteur promoted the germ theory and busied himself destroying and sterilizing, Beauchamp advanced the terrain theory and encouraged people to think about basic immunity.  Rather than sterilization, he encouraged sanitation.  He encouraged folks to get more sleep, drink more and better water (much of the water at that time was putrid) and eat better food.  Along came Sir Albert Howard half a century later adding the soil dimension to this basic wellness premise.

In general, we believe nature’s default position is fundamentally wellness and if it’s not well, we humans probably did something to mess it up.  That’s a far cry from assuming wellness is like catching lightning in a bottle, and some sort of sickness fairy hovers over the planet dropping viral stardust willy nilly.  Sickness and disease, whether in humans, plants, or animals are not the problem in and of themselves; they simply manifest weaknesses developed in the unseen world.  Every sickness or disease we’ve ever had on our farm was our fault.  We may have selected the wrong seedstock, crowded things, created incubators for pathogens.  You can stress things a lot of different ways.  But our assumption when confronted with non-wellness is not to assume we missed a vaccine or a pharmaceutical, but rather to ask “what did we do to break down the immunological function of this plant or animal?”  That leads to far more profound truth than assuming we didn’t select the right connection from the chemistry lab.

The fact that today people actually talk about the microbiome in polite company is a fantastic societal breakthrough. Hopefully, it will continue.

The current “pandemic” resulted in a total collapse of our food chain at big grocery stores. While things have since calmed down and straightened out, many people are now aware of just how weak our food supply chain is. The obvious solution- buy small- scale, buy local. The obvious problem- buying meat the right way, (small scale and local) is expensive. Here where I am in Detroit we’ve got a great meat guy, but a couple of weeks ago I found myself at the Dekalb farmers market in Atlanta. I spent $9 for one pound of organic, grass-fed ground beef. What are your thoughts for people who are concerned about the costs of shopping ethically? On a broader scale, do you have any solutions to this? 

Price; it’s one of the biggest and most common questions.  So let’s tackle it on several fronts.

1.  Whenever someone says they can’t afford our food, I grab them by the arm and say “take me to your house.” Guess what I find there? Take-out, coffee, alcohol, sometimes tobacco, Netflix, People magazine, iPhones, flat-screen TV, tickets to Disney, lottery tickets—you get the drift. Very seldom does “I can’t afford it” carry any weight. We buy what we want, and that includes many folks below the poverty line.  

2.  Buy unprocessed. That $9 ground beef is still less than a fast food meal of equal nutritional value. Domestic culinary skills are the foundation of integrity food systems, and never have we had more techno-gadgetry to make our kitchens efficient. The average American spends fewer than 15 minutes a day in their kitchen. Nearly 80 percent of Americans have no clue at 4 p.m. what’s for dinner. In fact, the new catchphrase for millennials is “what’s dinner?” not “what’s for dinner?” So cooking from scratch is the number one way to reduce costs. Right now you can buy a whole Polyface pastured broiler, world-class, for less a pound than boneless skinless breast Tyson chicken at Wal-Mart. The most expensive heirloom Peruvian blue potato at New York City green markets is less per pound than Lay’s potato chips across the street. It’s about the processing.

3.  Buy bulk. Get a freeze and buy half a beef or 20 chickens at a time.  Buy a bushel of green beans and can them.  We buy 10 bushels of apples every fall and spend two days making applesauce; it’s cheaper than watery junk at the supermarket and is real food.  That’s not a waste of time; it’s kitchen camaraderie.  On our farm, we give big price breaks for volume purchasing because it’s simply more efficient to handle a $500 transaction than 25 $20 transactions.  This means, of course, that you must have a savings plan.  Half of all Americans can’t put their hands on $400 in cash.  That’s not an expensive food problem; that’s an endemic and profound failure to plan

Q: Here at OLM we’re a big fan of systems. We also have 10,000 square foot urban farm right in our back yard and are getting chickens very soon. Developing a farm feels a bit like an optimal opportunity to create the “perfect” system. I’m curious as to how the farm is systemized to be self-sustainable. I’m wondering if the farm is carbon neutral or carbon negative? Do you let your chickens work on your compost pile? Do you monitor cow grazing for optimum carbon sequestration? What advice do you have for the many people including us, who have just started growing our food after the current crisis?

Perhaps the starting point is to think of integration rather than segregation.  How many different species of things can you hook together for symbiosis?  So we follow the cows with the laying hens in Eggmobiles to scratch through the cow dung, spread out the manure as fertilizer, and eat the fly larvae out of the cowpats (this mimics the way birds always follow herbivores in nature).  We build compost with pigs (we call them pig aerators).  We have chickens underneath rabbit cages, generating $10,000 a year in a space the size of a 2-car garage and making the most superb compost in the world.  We see trees as carbon sinks to integrate with open land; industrial commercial chippers enable us to chip crooked, diseased, and dying trees for compost carbon.  The kitchen and gardening scraps go to the chickens.  Hoop houses for rabbits, pigs, and chickens in the winter double up as vegetable production in the spring, summer, and fall, creating pathogen dead-ends for the plants and animals growing there at different times of the year.  Integration is everything.

In half a century, we’ve moved our soil organic matter from 1 percent to 8.2 percent.  I don’t know if we’re overall carbon-neutral, but we’ve done this without buying an ounce of chemical fertilizer and using 800 percent less depreciable infrastructure per gross income dollar than the average U.S. farm.  That creates resilience.  Over the years we’ve installed 8 miles of waterlines from permaculture style high ponds that catch surface run-off and gravity feed to the farmland below.  And the rocks and gullies now grow vegetation where none grew before.  This is not pride; it’s a humble acknowledgment of a Creator’s benevolent and abundant design; it’s our responsibility to caress this magnificent womb.

Interview With Joel Salatin, Polyface Farms was originally published on Organic Lifestyle Magazine

#family farms #farming #grass-fed beef #Sustainable Beef

[dirt-mccracken]

answer all the numbers

[mskathywriteswords]

Cupcakes at Midnight - Chapter 7

Nothing particularly label worthy in this chapter..

Saturday, I try and remind myself that there’s nothing fundamentally different about things and how they are now, I just maybe don’t get to have a naked lady falling asleep next to me for the moment. That thought doesn’t help, though, because now I’m thinking about a naked lady falling asleep against my body, one arm wrapped under mine, soft fingers cradling my breast and pulling me closer. 

As if she can sense my distress, Ivy texts me just one line, and it changes the flow of the weekend.

Be ready in 20 minutes.

I have no idea what she wants me to be ready for, but … I’m ready. For almost anything, other than this feeling. I need to get away, and I’ll take any of Ivy’s plans.

When she shows up, I laugh. I’m in a sensible cardigan and tank top with jeans, and she’s got on a dress with more sparkle than I’ve ever seen on anything before. Except maybe her engagement ring.

She looks at me, scolding me silently. The worst kind. She’s better at it than my own Mom. “Jane.”

My eyes go wide. “You said be ready. I’m ready.”

She narrows her eyes, pulling me inside. “For a book club meeting, maybe.”

“You didn’t say what to be ready for.”

Ivy rolls her eyes and pulls me into my bedroom. “You have to have something halfway sexy in this closet, right?”

I stifle a giggle as she moves hangers and touches what feels like every piece of clothing I own, still with her silent judging. She finally turns to look at me.

“What the fuck, Jane? Do we need to go shopping?”

I shake my head. “No, I love my clothes.”

“Why?” 

“Look at how comfortable they are,” I say, grabbing the row of jeans. “And they almost all color-coordinate or match. It’s so easy to get ready.”

“Yes,” Ivy says. “That’s the exact issue. Nothing in here has any color. It’s all shades of browns and grey with some white added in.”

“That’s what looks flattering on my body type,” I say softly. 

‘I don’t think that’s as true as you think it is… Do you even own any dresses, or only these old lady skirts?”

“Where are we even going that I need something nicer or better than this stuff?”

“I’m taking you to the club.”

I laugh so loud that I startle Cat. He immediately moves into a defensive position and that only makes me laugh harder. 

“Well, I already know it’s not book club, so … do you want to tell me exactly what kind of club it is?”

Her smile is wide, too wide, and I start to get a little scared. 

“A gay club.”

“What? Ivy. No.”

“Have you even ever been to one?” 

She has a point there, but that’s also not the point.

“Not in years, but-”

“Shh.” She puts her fingers against my lips. “Let’s go. You can still wear jeans, but you’re going to change into this top,” she says, handing me a low-cut blouse. “And you’re going to leave it as is, no safety pin in the middle. I know your tricks.”

She really does.

I change and try to find a way around the pit of discomfort in my belly. Maybe this is what I need, to be pushed outside of my comfort zone. What’s the worst that could happen?

We decide to call a car to take us to the club so that we can both drink. It’s only then that I notice Ivy’s brought an overnight bag.

“You staying over?”

“Yeah. This is what friends do, nerd. I’m going to take you out, get you wasted, and then nurse your hangover tomorrow. Maybe if you get lucky, you’ll get lucky. I can always Uber home.” She winks, and it’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. It must be what she thinks I look like when I try to wink.

I shrug. “Okay.”

When Ivy said she was taking me to a gay club, I imagined the very popular gay club downtown -- the one all the pretty people go to. The one that’s predominantly men.

Instead, she takes me to one of the few women-centric lesbian bars, and I have to laugh at the differences. This club is far less thumpy for the moment, although the drinks are just as terribly-named. There are far fewer people in this club, which I guess makes sense. I want to get lost in the music, even though I don’t dance. I swing between wanting the night to end as fast as possible, wondering how long Ivy needs to be out for this charade to end, and trying to be really present and in the moment. I’m not sure which one will end with me feeling better tomorrow. Maybe she’s right, maybe I do need some fun in my life. But also, maybe there’s something great on Netflix and my couch is so comfortable.

“Come on, I ordered us a Wet Fantasy,” Ivy says, handing me a shot glass of purple liquid.

It’s gone in one burning swirl down my throat. 

“We’re going to make one quick lap to assess the place, and then we’re coming back for another drink. Start thinking about what you want, otherwise I’m ordering you a Pink Pussy.”

I nod and she takes my hand, leading me along the edge of the wall. Ivy is usually happy to be in charge, but right now she looks like she’s on cloud 9, making demands like this. It’s kind of fun. I can let go and try to enjoy the moment a little more, knowing that she’s the one deciding.

There are all kinds of people around us - the obvious lesbian stereotype butch and femme, but there are also some very gender neutral bodies. I’m trying to take them all in, when Ivy nudges me.

“What’s your type, and why don’t I even know that?”

I want to tell her that my type is Ava. 

“You don’t know because I don’t have a type.”

“Come on, really? I mean, from what I can tell, you don’t like super girly girls. But maybe there was one in your past I don’t know about?”

I think back, sifting through memories I’d rather not. She’s not wrong; there was one particularly femme girl I fell in love with once, and I barely dare to think her name, much less say it out loud.

“There was; Julia.”

“Ooh, this sounds good. The look on your face says it all. Let’s go back, grab those drinks and you can tell me everything.”

Somehow, I realize, in the few years I’ve known Ivy, it’s always been about her. I mean, it wasn’t by accident that our friendship built that way, of course. Ivy is a typical over-sharer and I’ve been trying to run from certain things for as long as I’ve been alive. 

On one hand, I’m dreading pulling up everything from my past that Ivy seems to want to know right in this moment, but on the flip side, some part of me is eager to share myself with someone else. I’m not quite sure how my life has become so solitary, but if my time with Ava taught me anything, it’s that I’ve been lonely. Too lonely. Unnecessarily so.

“You stay at this table,” she says, almost like I’m a child who might cross the street alone at any given moment. “I’ll go get the drinks. This place is getting packed.” 

I sit and fiddle with my phone as I watch her stand in line. I’ve never really had a crush on Ivy before, but I can see what Matt sees in her. She’s kind and giving, although periodically selfish. I think, actually, the truth is that she knows what she wants and she’s not afraid to ask for what she needs. It suddenly occurs to me that I’m terrible at that. I put a pin in the thought for later, with Cindy.

As Ava walks back to the table, I take note of the people looking at her. Her beauty is so natural and radiant that nearly everyone stops to take note. A few people even look close to approaching her, but no one dares. A few look away as Ivy makes her way to the table, and then there are a few who look astonished as she sits down with me, handing me my drink. We aren’t together, but the look on their faces feeds my shame. Of course Ivy would never be with a dumpy mess like me.

My belly burns with more than just the vodka as I devour my drink quickly.

“So, who was this beautiful femme girl that broke your heart?”

I smile. “That obvious?”

Ivy only answers by taking a sip of her still mostly-full drink and batting her eyelashes at me expectantly.

“I don’t know how much there really is to say, you know? This was back when I was in college. Not really out to my parents yet, although I’m sure they always suspected. She was smarter than anyone I’d ever known, and so fucking gorgeous. And for some reason, she liked me.”

“How long did you two date?”

I thought back, pulling memories from deep inside the archives.

“About four months, which felt like an eternity back then. I thought we would live happily ever after, and then after, I thought my heart would be broken forever.”

“I like it when you tell me stories like that,” Ivy says, taking another deep sip of her pink drink. “Tell me more. Did you ever date a guy?”

I nod slowly. “Of course I did. I wanted to make sure, you know?”

“Wait.” She gasps, nearly inhaling vodka. “Did you sleep with one?”

My drink almost flies from my mouth, and I start coughing as I’m laughing.

“No, no. Not that far. Ew.”

The music is so loud and at times distracting, but I want to keep this fun connection going. 

“How about you, did you ever kiss a girl?” I ask.

Ivy looks down at the table for a quick moment, and I wonder if she’s embarrassed. When she looks back at me, I can see how amused she is. “Yeah. I was in love with one once, actually.”

My eyes go wide and I get way too loud. “What?? How the fuck, how did I not know that? You have to tell me everything. Well, not everything.”

She tells me all about the six months she dated Tash. How her family reacted (not great) and how it ended (even worse). 

“Wait, how did you think I knew about this place?” she asks.

“Google?”

We share a laugh and both of our glasses are empty. Right as I think about going home and changing into my comfy flannel pajamas, Ivy picks the glasses up and practically skips away from the table. 

My mind is still slightly blown about Ivy dating a woman; I’ve held all sorts of unfair stereotypes about her in my head for all of these years. 

“Come on, we’re going to do this shot then dance.”

Every muscle feels alcohol-soaked, and I want to move my body, for once not caring what anyone around me thinks. 

Except, I realize, I do kind of care what one person think. And I’m a little pissed that she isn’t here, too. I feel my phone buzz in my purse, and I make eye contact with Ivy.

“You need to take this,” I say, handing my phone to her without even looking at it. 

She laughs and drops the device into her tiny bag. I’m not even sure how it fits. 

We spend hours on the dance floor, sometimes across from each other, sometimes across from a stranger, and sometimes dancing with no one in particular. The music feeds my soul, and I realize I had no idea dancing could be so fun. I’ve always felt uncomfortable and awkward in my own body, afraid to move it in the ways I watched and admired other people moving. 

It’s nice when people ask me to dance; a reassurance that I’m maybe not quite as tragic as I think or feel. Ivy tries to encourage me, but there’s no way I’m going home with anyone. Everything with Ava is too fresh and I’m not in the right frame of mind to be with someone else yet. 

Instead, I end up curled up together with Ivy in my bed -- platonically. 

#wlw #original fiction #lesbian #lesfic

[justanothercinemaniac]

Epic Movie (Re)Watch #171 - X-Men: First Class

Spoilers Below

Have I seen it before: Yes

Did I like it then: Yes.

Do I remember it: Yes.

Did I see it in theaters: Yes.

Was it a movie I saw since August 22nd, 2009: Yes. #104

Format: Blu-ray

1) Poland, 1944

This film hemmed so close to the opening scene of the original X-Men film that producer Bryan Singer thought he was actually looking at the old footage. It is a smart and effective opening to the prequel, as it not only re-establishes a character who has been absent from the series for five years but also sets up his key conflict with the film. Erik is still dealing with the pain from this event in a much more key way than he is during Ian McKellen’s tenure; what he went through in the concentration camp is the driving motivation behind his actions in the film. Making this first scene all the better.

2) Young Charles & Raven.

Raven [upon first meeting Charles]: “You’re not scared of me?”

The adoptive brother/sister relationship between Charles and Raven might be totally invented for this film (as in: has no source in comic book canon which I am aware of) but I freaking love it. I’m a sucker for platonic male/female relationships and the connection these two have is in a lot of ways the beating heart of this film. Which makes it all the more tragic that they drift apart in the future (something I’m hoping will be remedied in X-Men: Dark Phoenix). The key to their relationship is that they feel safe around each other. This is the first time that either of them has realized they’re not truly alone in the world. That someone hasn’t pushed Raven away for her natural form and that Charles realizes his ability to read minds does not make him a freak. There’s a sense of ease, comfort, and community they have with each other that was totally foreign to them up until that moment. A strong foundation to a strong relationship.

3) Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw.

Bacon’s Shaw was all but glossed over in most promotional materials, making his presence in the film a pleasant surprise for first time viewers. And pleasant it is because Shaw is an absolutely wonderful villain. Bacon brings a refreshing and engaging amount of charisma/fun to the part. He’s the bad guy you love to hate with a little bit of Bond villain in him. The first thing he does when we meet him in murder Erik’s mother in front of her 12ish year old son. And then he reacts with unadulterated GLEE when that murder allows Erik to tap into his mutant powers. He’s downright giddy! In a series filled with classic bad guys like Magneto and William Stryker, Shaw is able to hold up with the best of them.

Shaw [after murdering Erik’s mom]: “We’re going to have a lot of fun together.”

4) James McAvoy as Charles Xavier.

McAvoy’s Xavier is delightfully more flawed than Stewart’s. He is much more of a cad. He is more arrogant, a bit more green, a bit more cocky, and a lot more naive. BUT he’s not just that. He’s not some douche bag who learns to be a great man. You see the greatness in him still. He is still Charles Xavier after all. When things get serious, he gets serious. He lets Moira know how important this is to him, he has hope for the future of his people and he is able to put away the womanizer we meet early on when it comes to helping people. There’s still that naivety a little but, the belief that everything will be alright after they save the world. That fear will just stop. But it’s mixed in with Xavier’s trademark hope. McAvoy is great as the character and a joy to watch.

5) Jennifer Lawrence as Raven/Mystique.

Raven is in a much different place than Rebecca Romijn’s Mystique was in the original X-Men trilogy and it’s a lot of fun to watch. There is this humor and warmth to the character that we don’t often get to see. A smile, a playfulness with Charles, but we see her develop into the more jaded warrior of Magneto’s crew. Watching that transformation is great and heartbreaking, especially as it shakes up her relationship with adopted brother Xavier. And Lawrence is great in the part. A pre Hunger Games role, I think it’s one of my favorites that she has under her belt. Many of her characters are so serious and dower these days when the actress has a wonderful heart/sense of humor she gets to show off her. It’s lost in the future installments, but that makes sense considering the path the character goes down. It’s a tragedy, but one that’s good to watch.

6) Oh Charles...

Raven: “Would you date me?”

Charles: “Of course I would. Any man would be lucky to have you, you are stunning.”

Raven: “Looking like this?”

[Charles stutters for a second then looks at Raven.]

Charles: “Blue? [Beat.] You’re my oldest friend...I’m incapable of thinking of you that way. I feel responsible for you.”

He changes from, “oh absolutely,” to, “I could never think of you like that,” REALLY fast when he realizes she’s talking about her natural form. And that’s where his naivety comes into play. He doesn’t understand what it’s like hiding who you really are in such a basic and obvious way. Not telling someone you can read their minds is fundamentally harder than having to wear a skin that isn’t your’s because you think people will reject your natural form. And that’s the key to her conflict in this film. Being mutant and proud.

7) McAvoy and Lawrence have such a wonderful natural chemistry as adopted brother & sister, must obvious in the scene above when Raven asks Charles if he’d date her. Her snuggling up to her brother while he reads her his thesis makes my heart melt.

8) Michael Fassbender as Erik/Magneto.

Honestly the casting of Erik & Charles could have been royally screwed up. This film does it perfectly. Fassbender brings a single determination and focus to his character. He is ruthless, brutal, violent, intimidating, but you still sympathize with him. Hell, you are ROOTING for him. In a lot of ways he’s even more sympathetic than Charles is. Fassbender is able to play the pain Erik has been though with much more relevance than McKellen ever got the chance to because the story allows it. He is in anger mode, with a bit of self loathing (he is what he is because a man murdered his mother, in his mind) but more with a taste for vengeance.  Fassbender is absolutely beautiful in the part and I wouldn’t ask for a different actor to play him.

9) Of course within one minute of meeting Rose Byrne’s character she is strips into her underwear because, hey, sexy women get objectified in film!

(GIF originally posted by @chirrutimwae)

Yes, I understand that the Hellfire club is like a sexy lingerie strip club thing. Yes I understand that Moira is a determined CIA agent who will do her job no matter what. And yes this is the only time Moira does this and she’s actually a pretty great character. But you know what? The Hellfire club did not NEED to be a sexy lingerie strip club. It could’ve been some elegant hoity-toity how do you do thing. And Moira didn’t need to strip down to her lingerie at all in the film. It was not needed. It does not tell us anything about her character or the story.

Ugh, living in a post Wonder Woman world is going to be a lot harder than I thought. I mean, I wasn’t exactly blind before. But I definitely needed glasses to see through the haze which is the male gaze and now I do with Wonder Woman. And now it’s just...oh boy.

10) Rose Byrne as Moira is a solidly written character that the actress plays well. The filmmakers don’t spend much time focusing on the, “Moira in her underwear,” stuff and she turns into pretty much the best government agent in the film. She is intelligent, more focused on the job than any of her coworkers (who are dogged down by fear, bigotry, and male ego), and she forms this nice relationship with Charles which yes ends up romantic but is also more based on mutual respect. I love couples with mutual respect for each other. Rose Byrne plays the part wonderfully. I love the actress now BECAUSE I was introduced to her in this film. She is capable, strong, but not pigheaded or egotistical. She’s good at her job and she knows it so she continues to be good at her job.

11) January Jones as Emma Frost.

So I know there is a lot of hate out there for January Jones as Frost, but I don’t really mind her. But I’m not going to like strongly defend her either. I put more blame on the writing than her as she works with what she is given. Emma Frost is this badass in the comics who - yes - dresses in a VERY sexual manor (because she likes to, I believe) but she is also wonderfully complex. She usually has an intense rivalry with Jean Grey, is often romantically linked to Scott Summers, is an extremely powerful telepath, reformed bad guy who is often not so reformed, and over all fascinating read. But the filmmakers sorta just latched onto the, “sexy female bad guy with diamond skin and telepathic powers.” Which would’ve been fine is Emma had been developed a bit more but she never really goes beyond that/Shaw’s hench woman.

And again, the power of Wonder Woman has me asking: why is she dressing so sexually? I mean if there’s like a legitimate reason, like the character is more comfortable with that or confident in her body, than go for it! But a reason is never given she just does that and it seems to be for the sake of the male gaze. Which is disappointing to say the least.

12) The scene which I (and Henry Jackman’s score) refers to as Frankenstein’s Monster.

This is Erik at his most brutal. He finds those two “former” Nazis (can you ever really be a former Nazi if you’re not repenting for your sins?) in a bar and engages in conversation with them. It’s incredible tense in the most wonderful sense, because Erik is enjoying screwing with these Nazis. And then he cuts them down in the most brutal and badass way possible in a wonderful (and wonderfully simple) moment of action supported by Henry Jackman’s incredible score. I am very much enjoying any and all forms of media where Nazis are absolutely wrecked so this has is even more enjoyable now than it was in 2011.

13) The blonde Charles with looked familiar to me...

Then I realized she’s Annabelle Wallis, who is in The Mummy with Tom Cruise.

As of writing I have yet to see the new Mummy film so I don’t like or dislike this actress. Just noticed it.

14) When I first saw this it took a second to sink in.

Charles [to the CIA agent who accused him of doing a magic trick]: “No agent Stryker. Although I could tell you about your son William...”

15) Oliver Platt as the Man in Black.

I enjoy Platt’s performance in this film. He’s not your typical government stooge to keep the heroes in line. He’s like a kid at Christmas. All these years he thought the impossible wasn’t so impossible and now he has proof. And he’s super excited about that and helpful because of it. He’s just a wonderful addition to the film.

16) According to IMDb:

A telepathic battle between Professor X and Emma Frost was going to be in the film, but upon the release of Inception (2010) the concept was scrapped. This was then used in X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), between Professor X and Apocalypse.

17) So let’s consider Charles and Erik’s first encounter, shall we:

Charles jumps in to save the life of a man he doesn’t know.

Charles helps Erik to calm down and find peace because he doesn’t like him to be upset.

And of course, this:

Erik: “I thought I was alone!”

Charles: “You’re not alone, Erik. You’re not alone.”

Yes this is a strong first interaction between what will be the bromantic frenemy relationship of the century, but more so than that it plays into some strong conscious gay subtext feature in the film. Like in X2 when Bobby came out to his family as a mutant, there are small but important lines between being a mutant and being gay. Two lines stand out in particular: the one above and then...

Hank [when he’s outed as a mutant]: “You didn’t ask so I didn’t tell.”

X-Men have traditional been used as a parable for those fighting for their rights in those world (specifically America). When they were first being published there was a strong line between Professor X & Martin Luther King Jr. as well as Magneto & Malcolm X. But as times have evolved, so have the X-Men. With a number of LGBTQIA actors and characters in the franchise, in the 21st century X-Men has at times strongly paralleled the issues gay people face in this world. Particularly through Hank’s, “don’t ask don’t tell,” line and Erik’s, “I thought I was alone.” Gay visibility was not as much of a thing in the 50s as it is in 2017, and it was in the 60s when things like the Stonewall Riots occurred giving gay people much more visibility. This film is set in the 60s.

18) Nicholas Hoult as Hank McCoy/Beast.

Hoult brings a lot of heart to the character originated brilliantly by Kelsey Grammer in The Last Stand (Hoult even watched early episodes of “Frasier” to see if he couldn’t emulate Grammer in any way). He features the same intellect as Grammers’ Beast but is a lot more soft spoken. He has not made peace with the animal side of himself yet or who he really is. Like Raven, he needs to learn to take pride in his status as a mutant. He just gets there in a different way than she does. This was the first film I saw with Hoult and I have to say I’m glad for it. Because I think he’s a talented actor who was able to make the role of Hank McCoy remarkably memorable.

19) There is also a notably strong chemistry between Nicholas Hoult and Jennifer Lawrence. It isn’t like Emma Stone & Andrew Garfield in Amazing Spider-Man where you can see them getting hot just by being near each other, but it’s incredibly cute and adorable. There’s a natural back and forth between the pair, a natural trust which means we as the audience are invested in their blossoming relationship as well.

20) While I personally think the relationship between Charles and Raven gives the life its heart, that is not to undersell the intense importance Charles/Erik’s relationship is.

Erik: “What do you know about me?”

Charles: “Everything.”

There is this immediate vulnerability Erik has with Charles which he is NOT comfortable with (since in the past he’s been vulnerable under the worst possible of situations), but Charles doesn’t manipulate Erik with the knowledge he has. There’s an immediate depth of feeling the future Professor X has for his new ally. He wants to make sure he’s okay and the fact that he doesn’t take advantage of Erik’s vulnerability is something Erik is not used to. Meaning Erik trusts Charles more than he has trusted anyone ever before and Charles is able to help Erik reach his full potential as Magneto.

21) I laughed SO hard at this line the first time I saw the film.

Hank [when he hooks up Charles to Cerebro]: “Are you sure we can’t shave your head?”

(GIF source is unknown [if this is your GIF please let me know].)

22) The montage where Erik and Charles find all the mutants to make up the first X-Men team is a slick way of covering a sequence which could have easily dogged down the pacing of the film. Instead, “okay, we need to find Angel and Havok and Darwin and Banshee...” they just cover it in about five minutes with upbeat music and clever pacing/editing.

23) The gay subtext in this film COULD have been much more obvious if they had kept this deleted (where Charles shows off his powers to angel):

24) This is beautiful.

(GIF originally posted by @littlerebelrabbit)

According to IMDb:

Hugh Jackman accepted the opportunity to cameo as Wolverine, when he learned he would be the only character in the film to use the word 'fuck'. He improvised the line, "Go fuck yourself," after using seven other takes to say, "Fuck off". The reaction from James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender to the different line was authentic.

My entire process while watching this scene the first time was, “Hey, that guy looks familiar. Huh, he kinda looks like Hugh Jackman. Hey wait, that IS Hugh Jackman!” This is by far one of my favorite cameos in a film EVER and his appearance makes Hugh Jackman the only actor (to date) to appear in every film with the words X-Men in the title (he didn’t appear in Deadpool so he hasn’t appeared in every X-Men universe ever).

25) I mentioned in my recap for The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen that Jason Flemyng is one of my favorite character actors because of that film. Well he fills out Azazel’s red skin quite nicely.

26) Charles and Erik’s scene at the Lincoln Memorial is very telling of their future rivalry.

Erik: “Identification: that’s how it starts.”

This is where Erik’s naivety truly shines through. He actually believes he can convince humans to not be afraid of what they don’t understand, collectively. While Erik’s output might be a little more dower it’s also a little more realistic.

27) The bonding scene between the young X-Men is great.

I’m a sucker for superheroes screwing around with their powers as a way to bond with each other (see: the party seen in Age of Ultron). There is strong humor throughout, each character is developed in simple yet unique ways and we begin to understand their relationships with each other. And it’s just a lot of fun to watch!

Note: I really like Zoe Kravitz in this film, but I think that speaks to her natural charisma more than anything else.

28) Professor Xavier is a jerk.

Charles [after he finds his new mutants comfortable with their powers, screwing around like the young people they are]: “I expected more from you.”

29) The way Erik tears through the Russian guard to get to Frost (and, by extension, Shaw eventually) shows how determined he is. He is ruthless and if anyone actively stands in his way he will tear them apart. It’s simple but powerful. The way he handles Emma also shows off this dedication, as well as the dissonance between how far he’ll go versus how far Charles WON’T go.

30) The “Children of the Atom” scene which showcases Shaw’s plan is nicely effective. It has a unique and impactful visual style and its simple enough that the audience isn’t dogged down by unnecessary exposition.

31) Shaw’s attack on the CIA is an incredibly strong turning point for the film. Outside of what’s been going on with Erik, the darkness of previous X-Men films has pretty much taken a backseat in this film. Until this moment. It’s when everything turns to shit, giving an unfortunate end to Oliver Platt’s character and showcasing Shaw’s powers in a unique and threatening way. The few issues I have with this scene are:

I wish we got more in Angel’s head about her decision to join up with Shaw; she does so then her character kind of disappears. It’s like she’s his new Emma.

Even in 2011, the black guy dies first.

32) My brother and I both made this joke the first time we saw this film, so thanks to @jakegyllenhaal for putting it in GIF form.

33) Okay, I might be about to get philosophical here.

Stryker: “In times like this, SECURITY is more important than liberty.”

(GIF source unknown [if this is your GIF please let me know].)

This is an issue in today’s modern age, but here’s the thing: liberty is more important than safety. Above all. “Give me liberty or give me death,” is a famous line that is basically one of the things this country is built on. So no, Security is NOT more important than liberty. Liberty and freedom above all. And if you have to compromise on security to do so than you should. At least, in my opinion.

34) X-Training.

This is - in a lot of ways - what I’ve missed from the X-Men series. Charles actually being a teacher. Actually seeing the X-School in work and seeing students learn to master their powers. You know why Harry Potter is so cool? In part, it’s because we like to imagine taking all the classes. And now we’ve finally get that. It shows Charles being more of a teacher and growing into his role of Professor X more which is wonderful. Also - like the recruitment scene - the montage format is great. The editing and music keep it from dragging down the film. We could easily have spent like, “okay, two minutes on Beast now two minutes on Havok now two minutes on Banshee,” etc. But the montage makes it like a music video. Easily digestible, supported by Henry Jackman’s score, and just a lot of fun. Each character’s development is also continued, making them unique individuals who’s relationships with each other and personalities we understand. It’s just really great.

35) Glad to see they’re trying to maintain SOME continuity with the series.

Hank [about Raven]: “When you’re 40 you’ll still have the looks and sights of a teenager.”

36) Rage and serenity.

This is the moment of greatest trust and vulnerability Erik has with Charles. Erik trusts Charles enough to let him go through his mind and find his most intimate memory with his mother. It’s a holiday I assume (that’s a menorah so I’m thinking Hanukkah as Erik IS Jewish) and it’s this beautiful memory of someone he misses more than anything else. And it shows Charles who Erik is. It is the strongest moment in their entire relationship and defines it’s better qualities in a lot of ways. It’s pure character and I love it for that.

37) Hank and the cure.

(GIF source unknown [if this is your GIF please let me know].)

There’s a strong juxtaposition between where Hank is with his self worth and Raven. Magneto has convinced Raven that she should be mutant and proud, that she should embrace her natural form. And she tries to do the same. It doesn’t exactly work though.

Hank: “My feet and your natural blue form will never be deemed beautiful. [Raven changes her skin back.] You’re beautiful now.”

Dude, you just said the girl you like will never be beautiful unless she looks like someone else. And I get that you’re projecting your own issues onto her, but also you’re words hurt her so much that she instinctively goes back into hiding.

Aka: the moment Hank and Raven would not get together (as of now).

38) Charles and Erik playing one last chess game before going to stop Shaw.

It is widely foreshadowing of the conflict to come between the pair and an unfortunate piece of dramatic irony for us as the audience. It is the showcase of the dissonance in their relationship at its most basic.

Charles: “Killing Shaw will not bring you peace.”

Erik: “Peace was never an option.”

That is just not applicable to Shaw for Erik, but humans as well. He’s not interested in peace with humanity, he’s interested in supremacy. As we saw in 2000′s X-Men.

39) Mystique seducing Erik always felt a little off to me. I know she’s mad at Hank and that Erik is the only guy in her life right now to make her feel totally comfortable with who she is (along with helping her be mutant and proud) but it feels a little unearned. I don’t get any sexual chemistry between them. I see a nice relationship but not a sexual one. Maybe it’s just me. But the Rebecca Romijn cameo is appreciated!

40) Hank’s gone into Beast mode.

The practical makeup to get Hoult looking like the blue beast is incredible, because it IS largely practical with a bit of CGI to help enhance some areas. You begin to see a bit more of Kelsey Grammer in Beast now which is fun, but Hoult still makes the role his own. This is what helps him accept the animalistic instincts in him and reach the status of mutant and proud. It’s a great part of the film.

41) Now I’m just thinking about the first X-Men...

42) The climax of the film not only shows the team working well together but has some nice surprises in it (mainly when the Russians blow up their own ship). It’s best seen when the team find Shaw’s submarine and Erik says he’s going in. Charles does not question or second guess his teammate’s decision but works with it and sends him back up. It’s a lot of fun to watch this team in action.

43) Erik and Shaw’s final encounter.

For most of this scene Erik is silent, just letting Shaw rail on him because it allows Erik’s telepathy to feed through. He says nothing until he’s about to be in control which takes a lot of self discipline.

Erik: “Everything you did made me stronger...That’s the truth. I’ve known it all along.”

And then what Erik says right before he kills Shaw is INCREDIBLY powerful especially when you think of the path Magneto goes down.

Erik: “I agree with every word you’ve said. We are the future. But unfortunately, you killed my mother.”

The way Erik ends up killing Shaw is so cruel and dramatic then, with the mirrored cinematography on Charles’ head (as he’s in Shaw’s mind) just driving the point home. He’s not just killing Shaw. He’s killing any kind of platonic relationship he could have with Charles too.

44) And so Erik’s transformation to Magneto is complete.

He is now the mutant leader we know from the first film, with his powers under full control. Now that he’s done with revenge he can move on to freeing his mutant brothers and sisters. He’s embraced not just his powers but his role as a leader of mutants and an enemy of mankind. And he’s tired of being vulnerable.

Charles [about the US and Russians Erik is about to kill]: “They’re just following orders!”

Erik: “I’ve been at the mercy of men just following orders.”

(GIF source unknown [if this is your GIF please let me know].)

45) The ensuing fist fight between Charles and Erik could have easily been based around powers. Charles could have used his telepathy to control Azazel or Angel or someone and send them in to fight Erik with him using his metal manipulation to throw them off. But you know what? Seeing this too just get in a freaking fist fight is much more realistic for their relationship, a lot more raw, and a lot more entertaining.

46) Well, if this isn’t a declaration of platonic (???) love I don’t know what is.

(GIF originally posted by @marveladdicts)

47) It’s nice to see Mystique not go straight for Erik to join him but to make sure that the person who is practically her brother is alright. And then Charles encourages her to go with Erik! It’s still a strong relationship even if it is in tatters.

48) Charles likes to fuck with people’s minds without consent. What he did to Jean in The Last Stand and now getting rid of Moira’s memories without even asking.

49) Oh man.

Moira [talking about things she half remembers]: “A kiss.”

[Room full of male CIA agents groan.]

CIA Agent: “Gentlemen, this is why the CIA is no place for a woman.”

(GIF originally posted by @manofsteel)

50) The ending to this film is very solid, with Erik not only embracing his role as Magneto but also the fashion choice.

(GIF originally posted by @wonho-kihyun)

X-Men: First Class is an incredible amount of fun. Matthew Vaughn’s directing style gives the series a boost of adrenaline it desperately needed. Supported by memorable characters, a strong story with strong themes, and absolutely amazing performances almost across the board, this is the reason we still have X-Men films today. An absolute treat for first time viewers and old fans alike, you all should watch it.

#X Men First Class #X Men #Michael Fassbender #James McAvoy #Jennifer Lawrence #Epic Movie (Re)Watch #Zoe Kravitz #Oliver Platt #January Jones #Rose Byrne #Nicholas Hoult #Hugh Jackman #Matthew Vaughn #Kevin Bacon #Rebecca Romijn #Jason Flemyng #Annabelle Wallis #I See What You Did There #Loading

[kansascityhappenings]

Joe’s Weather Blog: And now for something different… (FRI-3/1)

I know that sounds like an ominous title to the blog…but this is good news (for me at least and hopefully for you too). It actually has nothing to do with the actual weather…it’s more about my role at FOX 4. After doing weekend weather for almost 25 years…it’s time to try something else out for size. Starting on Monday, March 25th, I’ll be taking over the Monday through Friday evening weathercasts.

I’m excited about the new challenges that are being laid out in front of me. I’m thrilled to bring a different perspective to the “traditional” weathercast that you see nightly and I’m overjoyed about being able to bring my weather passion to our FOX 4 viewers on a daily basis.

The thing is…I’m really going to miss my former shift. I loved that shift and if the station had told me 6 weeks or so ago that they wanted me to remain on my weekend shift and do everything else that I did for another 10 years…I’d be very happy doing that too. The reality is that I’m extremely lucky. A TV station rarely keeps a weekend weather person in the same slot for almost 25 years…it’s VERY rare…maybe not unheard of but unique for sure. In the end I just like communicating weather information to our viewers and regardless of what day or time I’m on (although I don’t think I’d be very good at 4AM in the morning). The amazing thing is that I’m still making a living doing the only thing I’ve really cared about doing since the 3rd grade.

Yes the 3rd grade.

Growing up in southern New York…I distinctly remember falling in love with snow. As many of you know snow is still my favorite type of weather to try and predict. It can also be the toughest to get right for many reasons and the fact that we try to be so precise in predicting the amounts is even more challenging to me…but it all started with me liking snow and yes I know after the winter we’ve had so far some of you are rolling your eyes at me right now…I get it. I also want a few 70° afternoons (hopefully with very little wind).

Actually when I talk to my colleagues in TV, or pursuing other weather-related careers…this is not uncommon. For some…it’s severe weather…perhaps they saw a tornado when they were younger or were impacted by a significant weather occurrence growing up. For some it’s growing up and watching me or any of their favorite meteorologists do what they do every night…and just became fascinated by the job at hand. Yes I’m getting old enough now that some have gotten into the world of weather and are telling me that they remember growing up and watching me…whether it be here in KC or when I used to work in other cities.

In late 1994 when I came to KC (can you believe it’s been almost 25 years already)…I actually thought I would stay for about 3-5 years and then move along…as many in the TV world do. The thing is…between the Royals…the Chiefs…the concerts…the restaurants…the lack of terrible traffic (mostly)…the quality of life…and about a million other things…Kansas City has a way of holding on to you. When opportunities presented themselves over the years…it just didn’t “feel” right leaving…in time we just decided to stay here…there was no need to leave..KC offered my wife and I everything we could want. Did I think that I would maintain that weekend shift for almost 25 years…no…but then again I loved that shift…it “worked” for me. Somebody told me a couple of years ago that in the history of KC television…no one has consistently worked weekends as long as I have…certainly not in the history of TV weather in KC. I’m actually sort of sad that that streak will be coming to an end.

The one thing I’ve learned, if nothing else, as I’ve stuck around for so long, is that the grass may look greener on the other side…but often it isn’t…or it’s not what you think it would be like…and perhaps there’s nothing wrong with staying at a successful #1 TV station after all, where your co-workers treat you well…where you’re happy…where you’re respected…and where you’re listened too (and trust me I give my opinions from a forecasting aspect and other things too). Perhaps there’s nothing wrong with carving your niche…doing what you love…being a part of the community (about 1000 appearances over the years)…hopefully impacting your viewers in a positive way (regardless of the weather) and impacting your co-workers with more weather knowledge than they ever wanted to know in the first place…they’re eyes roll too at me sometimes when I’m getting into it. (

)

Our business is changing and will continue to change for the good, and perhaps not so great, over the next 10 to 20 years. Technology is advancing so quickly. In many cases these advancements will allow me to do my job better and different while communicating weather information to you. How those changes ripple though the rest of the industry I don’t know. I do know that as an weather industry we have to fundamentally change the way we do weathercasts to some extent. I’m not talking out of school on this subject…when I talk to groups of my colleagues at conferences I attend…to various organizations in the region that are kind enough to ask me to speak about TV weather and others on a one to one basis…this is one of my mantras.

We have to tell you, our customers, what you don’t know already. We have to tell you what you can’t find on your weather app on your phone…we have to tell you something that, in the end, you just may say to yourself…”I didn’t know that”. It can’t be JUST about temperatures on a map flashing across the screen…it has to be more. I will take this to my retirement (hopefully in 10-15 years)…YOU want to learn something…you want a “that’s pretty cool” moment. That’s my mantra with a weathercast and I try and do that each and every night. Sometimes more effectively than other times…but it’s my goal at least. Trust me, I think my bosses upstairs have heard this “mantra” from me about a dozen times already. It’s just a strong feeling I have deep to my core as a meteorologist.

If your wondering about how this affects other aspects of what I’ve been doing at FOX 4 for almost 25 years…the good news is it really doesn’t change things too much. A few alterations here and there.

The weather blog won’t change at all. Actually it may get posted even earlier in the day…preferably by 9-10AM or so on most weekdays. It’s part of who I am (regular blog readers know that). It’s an extension of me…my passion…and my desire to bring weather information to those who want a deeper dive (some might say too deep

). The blogs on quiet weekend days may get a bit more infrequent…if the weather is quiet…if not…if something important is coming…they will be there as usual. I can’t tell you the satisfaction of so many of you who have stopped me to tell me about your love of the blog. I’m humbled by the fact that the weather blog is often the #1 requested item on fox4kc.com during active weather scenarios. Snowstorms or the threat of snowstorms is a big driver in that regard. If you stop after the forecast…great…if you read into the discussion (the deeper dive part)…fabulous. I just want my readers to be just a little bit smarter at the end of the day. It really is amazing to me how many of you spend at least part of your day reading my thoughts. I’m truly humbled by that…a darn weather blog!

My popular weather segment “What Your Weather App Can’t Tell You” will remain as well for the reasons above.

Joe’s Golf Tournaments…no changes there. This unique program that helps local charities, has just been fired up again for the new golf season (assuming it warms up). If you run a charitable golf tournament go to fox4kc.com/joesgolf and submit your information on the form…I will get it into the calendar and try and promote your tournament as much as possible about 4-6 weeks before the tournament date. I can only get to so many tournaments on the air…and each year over 200 send in their information. This program is the only one of it’s kind in the country and it’s my way of giving back to the community and to the sport of golf…a game I love dearly (and makes me look so foolish).

All the other things that I usually do on the air and on FB and Twitter will remain as well. Feel free to follow along on FB at Joe Lauria Fox 4 Meteorologist and on Twitter @fox4wx.

Finally a word(s) of thanks…

To my wife who puts up with my weather obsession day in and day out. Who watches me hover over my computer morning, noon and night as the new model data comes in, especially if there is “something” happening.

To my mom and dad (now deceased) who allowed me back in high school to get on a train every weekend and take it into NYC to intern at WCBS-TV (in their weather department) for several years and learn more about what I wanted to do. Aside from the weather aspect of things I also learned how to treat my co-workers, whether on screen or behind the camera as equals-hey it’s a team effort). I’ll never forget when I told my dad that I was going to make $200/week back in the mid 80s (before taxes) after I got my first job in TV a month before college graduation. I had to ask him for $1000 dollars or so so I could afford to get some new suits for my new career.

To all my friends and colleagues at the station. So many of them came and told me of their support…I can’t list them all but thank you for all the kind words over the last few months. There are a few people at the station who perhaps were my “bigger”supporters and while I won’t embarrass them…I just want them to know how much I appreciate the honest and candidness of the journey we were going on for the last few months. I also heard from quite a few folks who are connected to KC television, one way or the other, voicing their opinions and for that I’m humbled as well.

After calling my mom and telling her the “weather” news awhile back…the next person who I wanted to let know about these changes was Mike Thompson. I called him about 3 weeks ago to let him in on the news before it got out via social media or whatever. I wanted to give him an update about what was happening and we had a great chat. No need to get into details but many of you may remember the blog I wrote when he left…and those words stand today as well. He’s doing well and is working on a new website now. Through the years Mike was a big supporter of mine as well.

Finally thanks to the 100s of you who got in touch with me via FB or other social media while the station went through this process. I appreciated your thoughts and well wishes tremendously!

Now the most important part of this at the end of the day…

Rest assured that Karli, Michelle and I will continue to guide you through the good weather days and the bad weather days. We won’t change our philosophy in any sort of manner. We won’t hype a weather event needlessly. We’ll allow Mother Nature to do the talking for us. Will we be perfect every day? Nope. We’ll do our best though as we try to predict things that often don’t exist. We do have another teammate who will be joining us at the end of the month..he’s a KC native and I’ve known him for several years…we’ve had some great talks over those years over a few beers…and I think you’ll enjoy what he’ll bring to the weekend newscasts down the road. More on that in a weather blog in a few weeks.

All these changes will start the week of March 25th. So bear with us for a few more weeks while we work through some vacations and shift changes. I’ll be on vacation next week.

I had no idea what to use for a feature picture for this “different” entry. There was no way I was going to use a picture of myself…that isn’t what this was all about…so I decided to use a picture of a sunrise from Tami Camlin…here’s to new beginnings.

          from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports https://fox4kc.com/2019/03/01/joes-weather-blog-and-now-for-something-different-fri-3-1/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2019/03/01/joes-weather-blog-and-now-for-something-different-fri-3-1/

[latitudelongitudegratitudein]

M.A.S.H at 27

M.A.S.H. 

 Mansion, Apartment, Shack and House

I don’t know any decent millennial that didn’t play MASH growing up, who wouldn’t want to predict their future on a piece of paper? In Mexico (I am a born and raised Mexican), we’d switch the apartment for a trash can because that can actually happen back home–but hey! It can happen here too, just substitute the trash can for a camping tent for two in your friendliest neighborhood, Skid Row. I remember one of the five times I’ve shit myself was when I wandered around Downtown LA in the company of me, myself and my shadow and ended up in Skid Row with 2% battery life on my phone. But, that’s a story for another day.

Back to Mexican MASH. You could end up living in a trash can, so the stakes were high as fuck. I mean we were talking about our future! Playing MASH, you find out who will you marry, the number of babies you’re gonna pop out, the kind of car you will drive, the pets you will have, and your job. Most importantly (drum roll please), the age you will be by the time you amass all those goodies. That number was everything–mine was 24. ALWAYS. I had that number engraved in my brain (finger and uterus), I was going to be happily married by 24, live in a mansion, drive a Lamborghini Diablo (yeah whatever, I was 10 years old, don’t judge me), have 7 kids, 10 dogs, be a vet/model, have the most handsome husband, and a big fucking rock on my finger to prove it. Everything by 24 because M.A.S.H said so.

Introducing Mr. and Mrs…insert record scratch. Nope that didn’t happen. I am 27 and have reached the point that the idea that I haven’t found the love of my life yet doesn’t traumatize me anymore. (I was severely traumatized, I’m talking pre-marital PTSD, as in started having panic attacks at 23 because I KNEW I had failed and would end up alone with 25 alley cats. I fucking hate cats) I wish I could time travel and tell my 20 year-old self “relax bitch” or even better, tell my 9 year old self, who is probably alive right now in some parallel universe, that MASH doesn’t mean anything. Being married at 24 doesn’t equal success and that I’d put my index finger over my luscious, prepubescent lips and tell her “hush my child”, you don’t have to worry. (If the butterfly effect is real, I may be saving her a lot of trouble).

I also remember I thinking that MASH was a commitment that I made to myself–a promise. If you know me, you know I keep all my promises. I promised I would walk down the aisle, filthy rich and happily ever after at 24. Period.

Growing up, I remember constantly thinking about being 24, I knew that in 2014 I would cross a magical threshold that would lead me straight to happiness, hand in hand with my Leonardo DiCaprio look alike husband. (That has changed too. I’m now looking for Ben Dalhaus’ doppelgänger).

In middle school and high school, I noticed my friends had superpowers, they could find boyfriends anywhere and for some reason I just didn’t. My superpower was being unboyfriendable. They were like Wonder Woman (secretly dating Superman) and I was like Catwoman doomed to remain in the shadows. (Fuck there go those cats again).

 In my mind, I thought it was because I was not pretty and there was something wrong with me (The real reason being I never gave anyone a real chance and I was to busy making out with tons of boys to prove myself I wasn’t ugly. Don’t get me wrong I did it because that was super fun too). Those days turned me into the amazing kisser that I am today.

Sidebar: It’s funny how I see pictures of me at 14 and think, “ Nope you weren’t that bad. It was just the horrors of puberty passing by and there is nothing that a hairstylist and wax strip wouldn’t have fixed”. Mind you I slicked my hair back with shit tons of gel just like Michael Corleone from the Godfather (it was a thing at my school ‘kay).

See below a picture of me at and Lorenza at 13. 

“ My glorious days as a member of the Corleone-Kahlo clan.” 

10 years later, all “grown-up” playing with fireworks. Te amo Lorenz

I eventually took matters into my own hands when my mom told me I was too young to wax my eyebrows. She’d only let me wax my uni-brow. Yep, as a proud descendant of Frida Kahlo. By taking matters in my own hands I mean freeze framing on Elisha Cuthbert while watching The Girl Next Door and copying her eyebrow shape (just a piece of advice if you are a Latina and your eyebrows are bushy as fuck don’t go copying porn star eyebrows). Really you should just imagine Bert from Sesame Street shooting for Jessica Rabbit’s eyebrows. Not good. I managed to have shaped eyebrows–squares are a shape right?

So yeah the years went and I left my days as a member of the Corleone Clan behind by high school my hair style and eyebrows recovered.

One day at 18, I felt a little better about myself and actually thought “okay maybe I can land someone”. I tried to be open to meeting someone but no one really came. It’s as if I left the bread crumbs for the guy to find me and he decided he was going no carb. I mean boys came, but not looking for something serious. I guess those were the vibes I put out, but deep down I just wanted to be asked out on a nice date, and not lured onto the dance floor for a make out sesh.

At some point I asked one of my best friends with superpowers if she thought I’d be single forever. She didn’t so but explained that nightclubs weren’t the best place to meet the kind of boys I wanted to date. That always stuck with me.

I began to understand how the clubbing scene wasn’t such an ideal place to meet someone. It’s a hub of predators ready to pounce on their prey. Let me clarify by saying that I don’t think wanting to “get some” at a club makes you a bad person (coming from the biggest predator I know), it makes you a visibly horny person. So “aha” moment–meet boys in other places.

Days as a young 20 year-old predator.  Very proud of my fake ID and my almost exposed private parts. 

Ever since then, I thought I’d meet him at a museum, frolicking at the beach, or maybe at the library (but that would mean I’d have to physically get my books instead of using The Prime). Honestly, most guys I’ve seen in public libraries either look like they just pissed their pants, are part of a gang or are serial masturbators. (Look at me judging a book by its cover…I know, I know, I’m being superficial. I’m working on my flaws). However, I do spend a lot of time at Barnes and Noble fantasizing about some guy walking up to me and striking up a conversation about the book I’m reading. Afterwards, he pins me against the bookshelves and kisses me senseless.

In all my fantasies, the guys had to HURRY THE FUCK up because I needed my ring by 24. I was held hostage by the 10 pieces of paper I saved in my third grade pencil case that read M.A.S.H.

I had another dream where a guy would show up at my door professing his love for me, but I was usually awakened by Carl asking me if I’d ordered the thin crust Hawaiian pizza from Domino’s. He is the most stable relationship I’ve had in my life and I am totally okay with that.

Enough about my fantasies and Carl (he’s mine, so don’t think about luring him to your door with an order). My point is that throughout my early 20’s I felt like the guy who ended up with me would think his luck was mediocre at best, and I that should consider myself lucky that someone would actually see some value in me. But I held on to what MASH said–that I would have my huge ass mansion and shiny things. MASH kept me distracted from focusing on myself and my non-existent self-esteem (it’s kinda sad but true). I don’t believe that anymore and I am okay with being alone because I have the privilege of my own company and newsflash I am fun as fuck.

By 27:

* I am nowhere near having a rock adorn my finger that’s okay. For the longest time I tortured myself thinking I would end up alone because there was something fundamentally wrong with me. I kept blaming myself for not being pretty enough or good enough to have a boyfriend. But, that isn't true. It took a lot of work and I changed the perception about me. Im capable of many things, there isn't anything wrong with me and I am at peace.

* The asshole depression that stole my personality and started creeping on me at 23 (aka panic attacks) is finally gone. I am not scared anymore. The panic attacks no longer seize control of my mind or my body.

* Now I see that meeting the love of your life isn’t all there is to life. Loving yourself and your life is vital to your happiness.

* I don’t get frustrated when I see all my friends getting engaged, pregnant, or married. (Not that in the past I wasn’t fucking stoked to see my friends walk down the aisle, but there were moments when I felt like “ Omg. Catwoman, you have failed, what if it’s the same story from high school played over and over again? Everyone gets married while I get drunk and make out with their younger cousins in the bathroom” Yeah it sounds amazing but after a certain age a hot mess isn’t cute anymore. There’s an expiration date for that shit). I’m getting rid of my Catwoman costume (burn baby burn).

* Turns out 27 was the magic number after all. Three years after the deadline I break a lifelong promise to my 9-year-old self and I couldn’t be freer. I can see that I am a keeper and he will come when the time is right (I believe that to be true and not just a generic line people say to sound hopeful). I used to be super bitter about it. Today, I can only work on becoming a better person.

I am actually grateful for everything I have been through because it has taught me a lot about myself and now I know I am wiser and I will choose better things for me; Including a stable relationship with a nice bro ( Sorry Carl, it’s not you, it’s me)

Funny enough the definition of Mash is:

Reducing (Something) to a uniform mass by crushing it. Thanks Wikipedia. Yeah, I got owned and crushed by it.

So yeah, I recently ripped all the M.A.S.H’s I had saved for 16 years to pieces (I save everything and no I won’t have a separate entry for compulsive hoarding).  I tore MASH a new one. And with that a new meaning came to light…

M.A.S.H. is just B.U.L.L.S.H.I.T

[ultrasfcb-blog]

Paul Pogba: Man Utd & France midfielder on his will to win & swimming with sharks

Paul Pogba: Man Utd & France midfielder on his will to win & swimming with sharks

Paul Pogba: Man Utd & France midfielder on his will to win & swimming with sharks

FA Cup: Paul Pogba on pasta, dolphins and being a Mancunian

Watch the FA Cup remaining dwell on BBC One and the BBC Sport web site, with protection beginning at 16:10 BST on Saturday and kick-off at 17:15.

Vibrant haircuts, on-trend dance strikes and social media preening – you could assume all about Paul Pogba.

However behind the extrovert is a fiercely bold footballer who needs to win all of it with Manchester United and France – earlier than exploring the oceans and swimming with sharks.

Actually.

From the Paris streets to Manchester, trophies at Juventus and again at Previous Trafford – after a then world file £89m switch deal – Pogba’s “quick and lengthy soccer journey” goes on.

The 25-year-old was an integral a part of the United crew that received the Europa League in his first season again, following an earlier stint within the academy, and he helped Jose Mourinho’s males end second within the Premier League this time period.

Nonetheless, there have been stories of a strained relationship with Mourinho, recommendations that he has been irritated at not being performed extra offensively and hypothesis he might transfer elsewhere.

Now, Pogba is making ready for an FA Cup remaining towards Chelsea on Saturday and after that the World Cup in Russia with France.

Right here, he tells the BBC’s Mark Chapman about arduous life selections, Champions League and Premier League ambitions and a dream of turning into a deep-sea explorer.

Much less ping pong, extra soccer

Paul Pogba and his mom Yeo at a promotional occasion in entrance of the Eiffel Tower in April. He nonetheless telephones her every day.

Pogba was born within the East Paris commune of Lagny-sur-Marne to Guinean mother and father in March 1993. The youngest of three brothers, he began enjoying soccer aged six for a membership known as Roissy-en-Brie, just a few miles south of his hometown, whereas additionally honing his abilities on pitches nearer his residence and in all-together totally different recreation.

My Dad was a coach and performed soccer in Guinea, my mum too – that was what she informed me. We had footballers within the household.

On Saturdays I used to be enjoying ping pong and soccer, however generally simply ping pong, and my coach stated ‘You have to cease’. So I ended ping pong however I am nonetheless good. You by no means lose it.

I believe it helped me enjoying towards older and stronger boys like my brothers.

After faculty everybody went to the little metropolis stadium and would keep up late enjoying. My mum used to name out the window ‘Paul, simply go. You have got faculty tomorrow’ and we might hold enjoying. Then, after, she’d come down and say ‘Get out of right here!’ That is the love of soccer.

Roissy was the beginning of every little thing. It is the start of this quick and lengthy journey. First I used to be a striker, a quantity 9 then I went again to a quantity 10 after which I stayed in midfield.

Set-backs and sacrifices

Pogba performs for Manchester United within the 2009 FA Youth Cup shortly after he left France to hitch the Premier League membership’s academy

Whereas at Roissy Pogba didn’t get a spot at France’s well-known Clairefontaine nationwide soccer centre and so left to hitch one other membership, Torcy, earlier than leaving there for the academy of Le Havre after which Previous Tafford. In the meantime, his brothers – twins Florentin and Mathias – additionally pursued skilled careers, with Florentin heading for Spain and Mathias going to Celta Vigo.

Whenever you’re in Paris you need to go to Clairefontaine as a result of you’ll be able to grow to be an expert. I did the take a look at and so they did not take me. I used to be so unhappy.

I went to Torcy, Roissy’s rival. The extent was larger and from there I went to Le Havre after I was 13 or 14, it was top-of-the-line academies in Europe and I used to be very blissful.

We did not dwell in an enormous home, my mum and pop made sacrifices. In life you must sacrifice some stuff.

In the identical 12 months, one son went to Celta Vigo and I went to Le Havre. I used to be daily on the cellphone with my mum, and I am nonetheless on the cellphone with my mum, all the time speaking. I am very blissful that they let me comply with my dream.

In Le Havre they have been saying ‘Do not go away, you are French, keep in France’. Lyon wished me and at first I wished to remain in Lyon. I used to be listening to my coach within the nationwide crew who stated ‘Do not go to England, it is going to be arduous’. However it’s Manchester United, it is a massive event to go and study new tradition. I solely knew issues in English like ‘hey’, ‘good morning’, all of the fundamentals.

However I did not care if my English was unhealthy, I attempted to make myself understood with hand gestures. I knew I used to be going to make errors after I spoke however that is the way you study.

I went to high school as properly. We might go to city to find out about museums and speak about issues within the metropolis just like the metro. My English improved.

Loving life and blocking out the haters

Florentin Pogba (left) stated his mom would discover it tough to observe him tackle youthful brother Paul within the 2016/17 Europa League recreation between St Etienne and Manchester United. United received 3-Zero with Yeo Pogba and her different son Mathias watching within the stands

My philosophy? What is the worst that would occur? When you’ve got the possibility, do it. By no means remorse your alternative. Do it 100%.

I’ve the possibility to make my love, my job. What extra are you able to ask?

You may’t be the identical with all people, you’ll be able to’t belief all people. You may have issues with brokers, with associates who say: ‘You have modified’, however an important factor is to consider the individuals you make blissful and who look as much as you.

Paul Pogba’s profession in numbers 58 targets 1 Europa League with Man United 323 senior appearances 1 League Cup with Man United 51 France caps 1 Fifa U-20 World Cup Three Serie A titles with Juventus 1 Fifa World Cup Finest Younger Participant 2 Coppa Italia wins with Juventus 1 Uefa Europa League participant of the season 2016-2017

We are saying this in France: ‘If individuals do not change, they’re silly’. Do one thing else. Do not eat the identical meals on a regular basis. We love pasta however should you eat pasta for a 12 months you grow to be loopy.

I modified to grow to be extra mature. I modified after I moved to England. It’s a must to assist your self and imagine in your self. It’s a must to prepare, work arduous and grow to be an expert participant for the primary crew.

World Cup dreaming and French or Manc?

Pogba with the Golden Ball award after serving to France win the FIFA U-20 World Cup in 2013

Pogba has 51 caps for his nation and is in Didier Deschamp’s squad for subsequent month’s World Cup in Russia. A proud Frenchman, he’s optimistic of their probabilities – however after spending 5 years in Manchester throughout two spells at Previous Trafford, he additionally considers himself an honorary Mancunian.

I am assured with the French squad, with the gamers that now we have. I am positive we will do one thing on this World Cup however I do not need to be over-confident.

We now have a pleasant crew however the World Cup is in your head too, it isn’t simply method. It is crew spirit, it is extra psychological than method. We now have to watch out with this.

I am assured in myself. I would like the ball, I need to play, I need to win.

Am I extra French or Mancunian? To be trustworthy, I have been what number of years outdoors France? I’m French however I am worldwide too. I’ve the passport and the French ID however the English driving licence.

I have been within the (Manchester United) academy, loving the membership – once you’re Mancunian as soon as, you are Mancunian eternally.

Champions League dream and the deep blue sea

Pogba needs to raise the Champions League trophy in future after profitable the Europa League in his first season again at Previous Trafford

Pogba was a part of the Juventus facet defeated 3-1 by Barcelona within the 2015 Champions League remaining and now his focus is to win it with the Purple Devils, however he additionally needs to see extra of the world away from the soccer pitch.

It will be good to win the Champions League and the Premier League. Very good.

For a crew, you need to win titles, you play to win. You may play the perfect soccer and it is true, we need to play and luxuriate in soccer however should you do not win a title – it is good for the eyes, it is good for the eyes – however you do not win something.

Outdoors of soccer, I might like to go within the sea and see the water world. To swim with the sharks, the dolphins and see what’s below the water.

It is very scary however I would like to do it. If I do not come again, why!

BBC Sport – Football ultras_FC_Barcelona

ultras FC Barcelona - https://ultrasfcb.com/football/4232/

#Barcelona

#Football

[ceaselessly-into-the-past]

brooklyn

Last night was pretty good.

I’ve been technologically out of commission for the last few days for a couple of reasons, the first of which is that my phone finally broke. I say ‘finally’ because for the past year the screen has slowly been parting ways with the main body and I’ve been waiting for it to fail, like how neighbors in a nowhere town wait for the local unkempt, over-the-hill drug dealer to finally be crushed by their own shady small-suburbia dealings. The second reason was that my laptop, the morning after my previous post, suddenly stopped detecting the local wifi. Had I been religious, I would’ve suspected that it was some karmic or some I-smite-thee curse from the heavens for speaking against my mother.

But no. As Old Mr. Frank Schuster was finally arrested for the possession and vending of narcotic substances by the local patrol officers the community nicknamed Jesus, Buddha and Mohammed - named so because they were never there when they were most needed - I was able to get a new, older-model phone. And the IT department found that my computer had caught the hiccups because I had recently changed the account password, leading the system into a limbo where it recognized neither my old or new passwords. No karma or godly strike-downs. Simply a small, reversible error.

The real world is sometimes so wonderfully simple.

What happened after that, though, is the actual subject of this post. The day was testing day - undergraduates were processed through schedules and cycles and small, uncomfortable rooms with small, uncomfortable people to assess their understanding of harmony, intervals, chord progressions, proficiency in piano playing. Those who were clueless and couldn’t do anything that was asked of them ironically got the best part of the deal - they simply walked in, explained that they had never taken any classes or lessons on any of this, and they were told that well, in that case, you’ll be put into Theory 1 or Ear Training 1 or Piano Fundamentals, and were sent on their way. Those who had some idea of what was on the test pages, who had a chance of skipping useless, basic material and placing in a higher-level class - that was where the competition brewed. A silent, near-subconscious energy that simmered in the testing halls and assessment rooms. How little of this can I miss? I’m sure that I remember how to conduct in 5/4 time. Remind myself of the right hand fingering for a two-octave C major scale on piano: 1-2-3-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-1-2-3-4-5, 1-2-3-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-1-2-3-4-5, 1-2-3-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-1-2-3-4-5. I heard earlier that fourth species counterpoint was centered around suspensions, but that was from that one kid who I don’t trust so really, there’s no way to verify that as truth, so I’ll leave that one blank and return to it later, when my desire to get into Theory 3 will override my disdain for them and I’ll inevitably start by writing a half rest followed by a 5-4 suspension. 

The spirit and mind ticked with quiet fury in the hours between 10 am and 3 pm, and so afterwards was our time to let them breathe. After eating, I began digging into my self-given reward by joining two friends - J.P., a composition major whom I’d met before, and the hilariously-named George Foreman, not of George Foreman grills - in finally watching Sergio Leone’s 3-hour Western epic The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. The cinematography transfixed us, the spectacle pulled us out of our consciousness and into some bubble of wonder, and Ennio Morricone’s score lifted us as if we, too, rode horses and carriages through the periphery of the Civil War, guns at our sides, mouths as smart and hearts as burnt as those of Blondie, Tuco and Angel Eyes. For me, it was an arrival: to Spaghetti Westerns, to pre-old age Clint Eastwood, to the dusty, analog 60′s epic. It wasn’t life-changing so much as satisfying that something like that is now part of my consciousness.

Afterwards, J.P. and I, as well as Dongxu, an international violin student, were called on by Sebastian, another cellist, to do the improbably foolish thing of following him into deep Brooklyn at 9 at night. Normally we most likely would’ve declined, but Sebastian had had some issues recently with some dickwad who he had used to be friends with, but had since ditched when he went off the mental deep end. The last I had heard of him, the guy had sent out a mass email around his school containing erotic fanfiction of a girl he liked - clearly, he hadn’t improved. So, given that fact, the four of us joined him, and made the journey from 65th Street to the 72nd Street station in pouring rain, perhaps walking towards something unfortunate and horrible. But we were kids. We weren’t perfect machines - we needed to taste danger to know to never walk blindly into it. But also because it was admittedly fun to do something you absolutely know you shouldn’t. I suppose it comes from the irrationality of the human intellect.

The train sighed and screeched and tunneled its way through downtown Manhattan like a mechanical snake, permitting passengers only to demonstrate its terrors and raw power coursing under their feet.

‘You know what we should do,’ J.P. said, in his paced, muted way, ‘is go see my mom’s old house.’

‘Her old house?’

‘Yeah, she grew up in Brooklyn. She lived there fifty-some years ago. It’s in a good neighborhood.’

‘Okay. Sounds good.’ Sebastian, lanky and awkward with a big pile of curled hair on his head, gave a thumbs up, clearly feeling better already. Danger can do that to a person. ‘Ask her for the address and let us know.’

‘I will once we get there, there’s no service down here.’

‘I swear to god, if it’s far away and we get killed by some crazy man I’m going to fuck you up.’ Dongxu spoke with that accent that comes to mind when you think of the Asian stereotype of the 50′s - the comical affliction that turns every English vowel into something strange that could possibly have meaning in Chinese.

‘I guess it won’t matter because one of you will be dead,’ I said.

‘Why?!’ Dongxu looked at me from across the aisle accusingly.

‘Well J.P. is white as hell. And you’re obnoxiously loud.’

We laughed. It was true - J.P. was white as hell, and Dongxu was obnoxiously loud. 

The subway crossed into Brooklyn, and in six stops we arrived at Franklin Street, where we would transfer and go for another stop. Except we didn’t, instead following Sebastian through the turnstiles.

‘You fuckup, we didn’t transfer.’ Dongxu punched Sebastian in the arm. It was still raining as we left the station.

‘It’s okay, it was only for one more stop.’ Sebastian looked around as if to find some reference as to where we were, despite never having been there. Dongxu huddled next to J.P. while he texted his mom, awaiting an update on how terrified he should be.

‘Guys, it’s a forty minute walk from here. Do you want to do this?’

‘Yeah, totally! Let’s go.’ Sebastian took the lead as we followed, umbrellas raised and shoes slapping wet against the cement sidewalk.

J.P. and I took to discussing the movie we’d watched - in particular, as one would expect, about Ennio Morricone’s score. At first we hummed the two major themes - the famous one in the opening credits, and also what I suppose was the ‘action’ theme that plays during many of the horse-riding and chase sequences - in relation to his thoughts on them from a compositional standpoint, but soon enough the conversation bled and dissolved into flat-out trying to recreate the score using our voices in the rainy, turbulent night. We scored our little walk through the dark streets of Brooklyn, overshadowed by dripping trees and washed by the light of signs and the occasional spotlight, to the strains of music meant for dashing, grit-hardened men firing revolvers from the hip, exacting revenge and struggling, competing, fighting for a trove of Confederate gold. There’s a certain charm to that grossly false equivalence.

It was about the time that the amateurish singing and vocalizing had died down that Sebastian later said that he started to feel someone follow us.

‘Ye shihfedhesds.’

‘What was that?’ We looked around. Something in the distance back down the dark street we’d come up. 

‘Cemedsgovheres.’

And then in in that distance: a figure, seemingly an old woman, haphazardly but quickly making her way towards us, hair flying grey in the scarce lamplight and limbs flopping around barely being of any use in her demonlike movement.

We ran. Dongxu found a subway station 0.62 miles away. And we went back to Manhattan never having seen J.P. mom’s old house from fifty-something years ago.

‘How about we go get some bubble tea at that place on 72nd?’ Sebastian offered.

‘That’s closed now,’ we all said. And we sat, talking little, save for Sebastian making small apologies and the rest of us excusing him. It didn’t seem to be something to fault anyone for - it simply happened.

I met Sebastian and J.P. today at a mandatory health and counseling services information session at 9:30 in the morning.

‘Hey, you tired from last night?’ I asked.

‘Yeah. But it was kinda fun, actually, wasn’t it?’ Sebastian looked at me.

I thought about it for a second.

‘Yeah, it was.’

‘Now we know not to go to Brooklyn in the middle of the night.’ Sebastian smiled.

‘Yeah, it’s good we didn’t have to learn it the hard way.’

‘No, we learned it the flaccid way.’

Sebastian and I looked over. J.P. was silently cracking up.

We laughed too.

Yeah, last night was pretty good.

#text

[invisiblenotbroken]

Gas Lighting: Searching For Chronic Illness Diagnosis in American Healthcare System (Its' funnier than it sounds and just as frustrating)

Did I get lucky! I got to make a new friend. I hope you enjoy listening to Jen. She is an amazing poet and at the end of the interview you can hear two very powerful poems. She is hilarious and strong. She has been dealing with being sick and frail even though she has made massive changes (loosing 100lbs) and has just started in on her 40's. We talk about parenting with a chronic illness, the American healthcare system (buckle up its' about to get political), the importance of art when you can't get out of bed, and how important friendships are especially when you are dealing with chronic invisible illness. 

Ms. T's Answers {More Bad Ass Than Mr. T}

Jen Toal (with her amazing poetry she did not Age 40

Conditions

PTSD, Chronic Pain, Extensive nerve injury  nerve injuries in both arms, Not Quite Fibromyalgia (is that a thing?), planters fasciitis, Anxiety/Depression

(...Hang on, maybe Ehlers-Danlos?? Amazing the things you can learn doing podcast interviews...) After watching Jen through the interview I was impressed at all of the crazy shapes she was making while stretching. She also has the swan deformity and so many other symptoms of the disorder I have.

I can remember school officials started stepping in around middle school to try to help Mom and I address my symptoms. They couldn't find much obviously wrong with me, except for some scoliosis. In high school I was given special locker accommodations each year to try to help reduce the load on my body and as an eighteen year old, our family doctor explained to me that I was experiencing the same daily pain as most eighty year olds. This was before the injuries of my twenties and thirties.

I didn't get far working with that doc because growing up means losing access to health care in our country. 

 In my early twenties I was working in tech support and saving for further college when all the nerves on both my arms were blown out by repetitive stress from typing. I spent the next several years in surgery and disabled. I got LOTS of doctor attention, but only on the subject of my work injuries. They were there to repair me from what they had done, not heal me overall. 

 The worst part of those years was being unable to draw. 

 In my thirties I found reasons to stop giving up on my life, most notably my husband, John, and our sweet child. John and I changed so many of our daily habits that together we lost three hundred pounds. 

https://www.facebook.com/shapeshifterconfessions/

 Losing 45% of my pre pregnancy body weight has done amazing things for my health, but it's not the miracle cure it *looks* like from the outside. For one thing, jumping up out of my sick bed to chase my snugly little kettle bell around gave me a wicked case of Plantar Fasiitis. It's a remarkably painful addition to my dappling of symptoms, but was acceptable collateral damage to me.

 1. Who were you before your illness became debilitating?

A child. 

 2. Is there anything you would do if you were not sick? 

There are so many things. I would have so much more of a career. I would travel. I would go out in the evenings and be around people. I would make so much more art. 

 3. What should other people know about our daily life?

That it's super easy for them to forget, but it's always there, reminding me. That it's exhausting to manage pain.

 4. What would make living and moving in the world easier for you?

Single Payer Healthcare and Universal Basic Income. 

 In my twenties I spent a lot of time with people who liked to play, "What if we won the lottery??" My answers always began with access to doctors and therapists.

 5. Life hacks?

Tennis balls are my latest favorite backpack staple. I sit and lean on them for point massage. They are especially magical for car trips, which have always been rugged for me.

My backpack itself is my favorite tool, but like many medications that come with side effects, the magic bag does sometimes get ridiculously heavy.

 6. Support from family or friends?

I married really well. My husband is marvelously supportive and encouraging. My mother would help more if she were closer. 

Friend community cares from afar, but we are all spread so perilously thin...

I saw this art show with a display that said, "We are living in an era that is testing the limits of everyone's compassion." I worry about all of us. Times are tough, and getting tougher, and I don't feel like my communities have the space to hold me up. Not because they don't care, but because they're fighting so hard to keep themselves going.

 7. Do you find that people do not believe you are sick because of your appearance? How has this affected you positive or negative?

Yes. All the time. It's horrible. I spend a bunch of time disappointing the humans around me because I look so healthy, especially after my weight loss, but I am still frustratingly limited.

 8. How has this affected your relationships?

It torpedoes them sometimes. On the other hand, it can allow for deep bonding when we understand each other.

 9. What are you afraid to tell even the people closest to you?

How bad the pain is. How pervasive it is. How scared I am of the future.

 10. Does the fact that your disease is invisible change how healthcare professionals treat you?

Yes. They often disbelieve me. I've been accused of being drug seeking. Which is pretty funny, given how much time John spends trying to convince me to take something.

 11. Best coping mechanism?

Diffuse awareness. Forgetting. Drawing.

 12. Favorite swear word?

John says if hell counts, it's hell. Lol

I have a hard time picking. Shit, fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck, godsdammit.

 13. What are you the most fearful of and what are you the most hopeful for in the future?

I'm terrified that I'll be unable to support my family in the ways they need me. I'm hopeful about the ways I have learned over the years that people make their livings with skills I totally retain access to, even as my spacesuit gets quietly wonkier...

Cardboard Decades

 when i say ricky was my best friend, what i mean is 

he was my first consensual sexual partner

i turned 5 while mom and i lived in his mother's house

he was 6

 i once pulled his little brother, fallen-comrade-style, 

across train tracks in the very nick

wouldn't know for decades how scared i should've been

 they taught me prank calling and ladybug sailing 

how to be kind to the kind doberman 

and keep my dolls far away from the angry one

 ricky and i were softness and exploration 

in an already cruel and confusing world

  i remember being 8 or so 

sun-drenched in the back of my grandmother's very nice car

i wouldn’t know for decades about love languages 

but i knew in california i was given things, but few hugs

and in texas, hugs, but few things

 i preferred hugs

 but it was well known that "daddy warbucks" 

and family had more money than made any sense

and they didn't get as much time to be affectionate

so it made sense

that they'd want me to have touchstones of affection

when i went back to my mother's wars

 how could they know?

 mom would send them letters, 

as she says, "full of things we never did. 

places we were never going to be."

 it wasn't just that we couldn't get above the poverty line

 i wouldn’t know for decades the term “human trafficking” 

 my poor mother.

 i also hadn't learned the different ways a car can sit 

that day i was walking home

with ricky

mom pulled over

countenance confusing

told me only i could get in

drove away

before telling me we'd never go back

 i would never say goodbye

 i wouldn’t know for decades

that the reason no one understands 

what i mean when i say 

we “moved a lot” when i was a kid 

is because i don't understand 

what i should be saying 

is we were homeless 

for more of my childhood

than i had realized.

 only way to explain 

we have to move whenever someone gets mad

 or

 my doll protects me from the mean girl

i share a bed with 

 or

 we take my most evil stepdad back

eleven times

 he's charming

and when he's around churches don't have to bring us things

 or

 the motels. national parks. so many places 

i stop calling where i sleep anything other than "the house"

know if i learn the path from house to grocery, it’s probably time to go

 try out different versions of my name in different schools

  sometimes compassion is a shovel to the gut

often my mother wakes up screaming

 i’ll never know how many trains she pulled us from the teeth of.

 only reluctantly came to see the damage of 

rootlessness on a childhood

 perpetual motion was our only way of survival. 

 i ran into ricky a couple years later

awkward amongst other kids

eons away from the life we had shared

 i’ve been trying to shift my relationship with cardboard

dismantling all my boxes

learning to build some belief

 i might just get to stay

 advice i am giving myself

upon meeting new soul mates

 stand solidly 

if you are able

hold your form fluid 

brace for beauty

 and the way it always 

knocks you over

 notice press of globe

up through soles

 marvel at the moments experience

and universal 

shake hands

 trade knees

 compare the roads you have run

the trees you jumped out of

the places your jeans have worn through

 skip right past groins and sex

this isn't that poem

 and connection

can be better

for being less obvious

 instead

press your belly buttons together

a meeting of absences

 shared space to frame things

 frame things

redo this if it

feels more truthful

  consider the strengths of your mat

let the space placed around

your best work

have its own things to say

 say things

out loud

 experience is meant to be shared

 and no one needs your 

perspective

more than a soul mate

 trade scars stories 

(tattoos totally count)

 tell each other tales of the ways 

the world hasn't ended

even if it left a mark

 breathe

 feel belly press belly

laugh

 you've been sucking down discord

all day

 like too little sleep

too much wireless

and a fundamental disconnect

from how our species evolved

to thrive

 agree to thrive anyway

 slice out space for each other

in the places you

forget to feel shame 

 allow yourself

and each other

forgiveness

  for everything you’ve ever believed was wrong with you.

 there’s never been anything wrong with you.

except not knowing there was nothing wrong with you.

 forgive yourself 

for lying to yourself

in order to stay small

 it’s okay to not be everything

 we are all of us everything together

and we forget we don’t have to 

do it alone

 give up the notion 

you may somehow 

be on the same page

 you’ve only just collided 

from across the cosmos

 the particular constellation 

of harmonic convergences 

your empty spaces 

express

as you pass through each other

 are not the same

as being the same

 we are stronger for our differences

 befuddling though they be

 decide this is the game

and that you are always winning.

 because you are.

#politica #friendship #chronic illness #chronic fatigue #Fibromyalgia #ehlers danlos #invisible illness #podcast #interview

[666boobiez]

mbti survey (dont even bother keep scrolling)

1. What’s your MBTI type? I am an ESTJ.

2. What’s the thing you most love about your type? I love being a Te-dom. I feel like I get so much done in comparison to other types. Anytime I talk about or read things about my MBTI type, I feel like I have my life together.

3. What’s the thing you must hate about your type? The stigma that comes with it. Unfortunately, most people connect auxiliary Si to being traditional and very past-oriented. It also doesn't help that a lot of ESTJs today are older men. So people always get the "annoying businessman authority figure" vibe and don't really deviate from that idea, when in real life ESTJs can be and often are full of personality.

4. How would you say your cognitive functions apply to your life? Te - I'm a HUGE planner. I make schedules for and map out everything I'm doing. I'm not a go-with-the-flow kind of girl, and I'm honestly very proud of myself for that. Si - When I was first trying to type myself, I was heavily relying on my Si without even knowing it. My conscious thought process when trying to figure out something is, "Okay, let's try to compare this to examples from my memory." I'm also very good at figuring out which actors in one movie played another role in a different movie, which I've heard something Si-doms and Si-auxs are very good at. Ne - I know that I am definitely an Ne-user because I get carried away with my trains of thought. I like to think of possibilities and almost start to live in them after a while. I find it difficult to know when to stop brainstorming, and how not to stay committed to one idea. Often times, my Ne morphs into Te halfway through my thought. I think about how things can turn out and what the possibilities are, and then I start to plan waaay ahead based on one or more of these possibilities. I have to consciously stop myself and come back down to reality. Fi - Honestly, I am so aware of this weakness that I immediately knew I was either an ESTJ or an ENTJ because of the inferior Fi. I have no idea how my moral compass works. I was a vegetarian for 10 years because I believed that I can get by without eating meat, and then one day I just dropped it all and dropped the cause completely. I also feel like my feelings control me more than I control them. I'm terrible at hiding how I feel, and I often end up exploding like a time bomb if I don't talk about my feelings with someone. Inferior Fi really sucks.

5. Are there any stereotypes about your type that you think are wrong? I think I addressed this already LOL.

6. Have you ever met someone who sahres the same type as you? If so, how’s your relationship with that person? I thought that my mom and I were the same type for a long time, though I later realized she's actually a very cynical ESFJ. Until then I wasn't really happy with it for a while... not that I don't like my mom, but because I'm a 3w4 enneagram, I really don't like being considered the same as someone else. I always want to be my own person, and I wanted my MBTI to myself. I guess that was in vain anyway, since ESTJ is one of the most common MBTI types.

7. If you had taken the test 10 years ago, do you think you would have scored the same? I think I wouldn't be fully developed or old enough to be able to take the test when I was 8. But I did take the test 4 or 5 years ago. I initially typed as an ENFP (boy was that one wrong). I didn't think much of it... honestly, back then I had a very idealized version of my career, and the website on which I took the test said ENFPs often make careers in media. I was happy enough about that, and didn't really care much about the specifics of Myers-Briggs.

8. In your opinion, what are the best types for your personality type? I don't know what this question means LOL.

9. How long ago did you know MBTI? I really got into MBTI about a year and a half ago. But I did know of its existence a few years before that.

10. Do you consider yourself an MBTI nerd? Of course! It's like my favorite thing to talk about.

11. If you had the chance to change your personality type, would you? If so, which type would you choose? ENTJ. Hands down. They have that intuitive spark that makes them infinitely more interesting and sexy than ESTJs. They also have that coveted Ni-aux, which allows them to accurately predict the future based on instinct rather than blindly stab at it with examples from the past. Not to mention that ENTJs are much more rare than ESTJs, which would definitely boost my ego (because of that 4-wing).

12. What’s your favorite Tumblr blog about MBTI probably yo-why-am-i-here

13. What MBTI type you get along with the best? I typically enjoy the company of Ne-doms, it seems. (ENFPs and ENTPs)

14. Which MBTI type would you date? Well, I've always heard that ISFJs make great partners for ESTJs. Before I started dating my boyfriend, I always wanted an ISFJ boy (I had crushes on Cyril from Archer and Jorah Mormont from Game of Thrones... both ISFJ characters). I also liked the bad boy vibe that ISTPs gave off too, and I remember thinking Duncan (ISTP) and Courtney (ESTJ) from Total Drama Island were the CUTEST couple growing up. Personally, though, I always had a thing for ENTPs, since I've always been fascinated by and a little jealous of intuitives and Ne-doms. And in the end, I guess that interest and attraction won me over. I'm currently dating an ENTP and the dynamic is pretty damn good! I keep him grounded and help him keep his life together; he helps me loosen up and is much better with handling my feelings and going with the flow than I am. It's a surprisingly stable and enjoyable relationship given how different our cognitive functions are.

15. Which MBTI type do you admire? ENTJs and INTJs. I LOVE rationals. And those two types just effortlessly have their shit together.

16.Which MBTI type you don’t get along with? I don't particularly like INFPs and ESFPs. INFPs tend to think they're special snowflakes... to an irritating degree. ESFPs are impulsive and I don't like their "can't-be-tied-down" attitude. Both of these types can be extremely melodramatic (I think because they share aux Fi) which tends to annoy me. Obviously I’ve seen very likable people of both types, but in theory, I tend to dislike these the most.

17. What’s your parents and siblings MBTI? I’m adding in a few other personality indicators as well, to make this more fun. My mom - ESFJ 9w8 sp/so My dad - an ENFP 3w2 so/sp who is stuck in an Ne/Te loop (it took me a long time to type him because of this) My sister - ESFP 6w7 so/sp Me - ESTJ 3w4 sp/sx

18. Do you ever just look at people and try to guess their MBTI personality? All the time.

19. Do you ever watch a movie/read a book and try to guess the character MBTI personality? Every time I start a new show, movie, or book.

20. Have you ever feel confused about your type? It took me an extremely long time to type myself actually. I considered a whole bunch of types: ENTJ, INTJ, INTP, ENFP, ISTJ, ENFJ, etc. I think my fundamental problem with typing myself was that I was extremely unhappy when I first got into MBTI, so I didn't know how I would act in ideal circumstances. I also felt like my personality didn't fit the common ESTJ personality (thanks to that wonderful stereotype). It was only until I was happy, and I discovered my 3w4 enneagram that my MBTI type finally made sense.

21. In a scale of 1 to 10, how identified you feel with your type? Probably a 7.

22. Do you talk to your family/friends/classmates/collegues about the MBTI test? All the time. They hate me for it LOL

23. Is there any cognitive function you would love to develop more? Hmm... Definitely that tertiary Ne. I don't even recognize it sometimes, and it turns into Te so fast it's barely even there. I feel like Ne is such a fun function and I want to be able to use it more.

24. What’s your position on personality? Do we born with a determined personality or we adquire our personality based on our life experiences and evironment events? Or do you believe in a little mix of both? In the whole nature vs. nurture debate, I find myself very much on the side of nurture. I think we're all mushy blobs when we're born and our circumstances shape us into the people we grow up to be. I definitely wouldn't be an ESTJ if I was raised differently or went through different things growing up.

25. Do you mix MBTI with any other personality tests? (the Horoscop also counts) Or you use it purely? Nah, I'm a hoe when it comes to personality tests. I've lately been identifying myself as an ESTJ 3w4 sp/sx gold-green choleric-sanguine type. (That's a combination of 5 personality tests.) I'm not a fan of horoscopes though... I don't think Gemini ever fit me very much.

#mbti #personality tests #survey #i am Trash #long post