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shoichee · 3 years

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Hey luv! I just got my braces off and I don’t know if I like myself with or without them cause yah girl has ✨confidence issues✨ so can you do the GoM + Kagami and Teppei thanks my savior

OH, rn i have braces too (although they’re ceramic and harder to see) but I definitely can understand the apprehension when you have them taken off after for so long;;

the amount of characters requested actually exceed the rules, but since i’ve taken a while to get to your request, i’ll still do them but they will be shorter^^ THANK YOU FOR STICKING BY THIS BLOG AND READING MY STUFF <3

[Headcanons]

Kuroko Tetsuya

right away, he notices that something was amiss with you, and asks upfront if anything was bothering you

you replied hesitantly, but while you talked you held up a hand in front of your mouth:

“Um… I don’t know if I like how I look right now…”

Kuroko stares at your nervous eyes and then looks down to your hand in front of your mouth before asking why

“Just got my braces off, and I feel a bit… weird without them? I feel like I look strange without them…”

“Do you mind if I see you?” he asks, softening his eyes at you

“W-Well… you’re not someone to judge, I know, but don’t… laugh or anything.”

“I won’t, (y/n)-san.”

he slowly brings your hand down and you slowly smile to reveal your teeth to him, and he gives you the purest smile… and that catches you off guard so badly like… YOUR TEETH GOT HIM TO SMILE LIKE THAT??? DAMN, MAYBE YOU SHOULD SMILE EVERY SECOND TO SEE SUCH A TREASURE—

“(y/n)-san, I think you look wonderful,” he muses, bringing your same hand that was in front of your mouth into his own hand with a gentle squeeze. “I’m sure everyone who sees you will think the same.”

ah Kuroko, the individual who has a knack in comforting people with his genuity (example: see Momoi)

whenever you do have those moments of self-consciousness again, he’s always there to calmly reassure you otherwise

Kise Ryouta

IMMEDIATELY sees your teeth when you talk, and freaks out like a little kid on Christmas

“(y/n)-cchi! (y/n)-cchi!!” he hoots around, pointing at his own teeth. “You got your braces off today! You look amazing!”

when you hesitate and tell him that you’re not so sure about yourself without your braces, he pinches your cheek and gives a little dramatic huff

“But (y/n)-cchi…! Come onnnn, trust me!” he says, giving a signature pout, and you laugh at his antics

“Ohhh, do that again! Do that again!” (he craves for your laughs, and he wants more)

he definitely tries to get you to smile and laugh to get you more comfortable with your braceless teeth

whether you have braces or not, he doesn’t mind so much because what he really cares about is your smile, and if he sees your teeth showing, braces or without, it means that he knows he’s doing a good job in making you comfortable and happy

while he showers you in praises every single moment, when you feel really down, he takes an extra measure or two to cuddle you gently while being much softer in delivering those compliments

always gives a daily compliment to give you a serotonin boost

Midorima Shintarou

he’s confused… why would you be upset that you got your braces off? you looked great before and even now, so does the fact of braces really change your perception of your appearance that much?

he won’t make any comment on your new appearance unless you bring it up to him and ask for his opinion/reassurance

he’s just happy for you that you have another milestone of your life, and not to mention, braces generally promote better oral health and fix misaligned bites

“Hm? What do I think of how you look? D-Don’t be ridiculous… What am I supposed to say?”

“Well, I just… think I look a little odd… I kind of… want my braces back.”

“You know you can’t do that, nanodayo,” he sighs. “So much money, effort, and care were invested into your teeth for many years. You did the most you could to take care of them and achieved the goal you set out for yourself when you first got braces, correct? That isn’t something to be ashamed of, nanodayo.”

despite his lecturing, his words do have some merit, and Midorima’s words were comforting in his own way

“But Midorima, um… sorry for annoying you,” you say, giving a chagrined smile

Midorima takes a good look at your exposed teeth for the first time and widens his eyes in a fluster before turning his eyes back to his astrology book

“I-I-It’s nothing.”

bonus: he’s definitely that one fussy parent who forces you to wear your retainers religiously, NO EXCUSES—he doesn’t want the whole process to be all for naught just because you got lazy in wearing a simple metal thing

Aomine Daiki

idiot #1

“Whoa, your teeth look different,” is something he would say tactlessly

immediately, you slapped your hands over your mouth at his words

forgive him, he usually says what’s on his mind with no filter and consideration

by then, he’d realized that the tone of his words was poorly delivered and would try to correct himself before he says anything more to dig himself a deeper grave

“Er, sorry, what I mean is… I didn’t know you were gonna have them off today…”

that actually made you more self-conscious and you try to flee from the scene

“W-Wait, hey!”

insert Aomine clumsily explaining that he didn’t mean to be tactless with his words and that he just meant that he was surprised in a good way

definitely shows you a lot more wholesome affection in addition to his usual PDA, but you wonder what he thought about your new “appearance,” so to speak

“What kinda question is that?” he scoffs. “You’re still hot and always will be.”

if there’s one sure benefit to his blunt words, it’s that his straightforwardness can easily dispel all your doubts and clear up any misunderstandings in one go

if you’re still doubtful about yourself, he’ll gladly resort to action to prove his point… perhaps makeout sessions with him would become a lot more exploratory and… just putting it out there, but we will leave this up to your imagination

anywho, he’s not afraid to give you more direct kisses to try to show you that he doesn’t care about your teeth and your lack of braces

definitely would tell out-of-pocket jokes and laugh more to get you to grow comfortable; after all, smiling is contagious right? who can resist Aomine’s smile???

if someone tried to make you uncomfortable by drawing everyone’s attention nearby in how you got your braces off, whether intentional or not, he’s scaring them away, no questions asked and he’s taking you away from the scene

Murasakibara Atsushi

“Oh…” he says with his usual drawl. “You got them off, Chibi-chin?”

it was a usual day with him tucking his own head into his arms to nap on the table when you walked up to him apprehensively, and he immediately notices your presence but lazily picks up his head to look at you when he noticed

“Er… yeah…”

he slightly tilts his head to the side like an inquisitive child to silently question what was wrong

“It’s nothing really! Just feeling tired… not in the talkative mood today.” as you said this, he noticed that you were more… tight-lipped, speaking in a quieter manner as if you were trying not to show your teeth as much as possible

he beckons a languid hand over and you reluctantly sit by his side, your face still slightly turned away

you thought he was just going to go back to sleep like he always does, but imagine your surprise when he easily picks you up from the side and placed you on his lap, face-to-face

Murasakibara then pulls your cheeks apart, revealing your pearly whites to him

“H-H-Hey!! Lert… gorw!”

“Don’t wanna.”

“I’m… serwious!”

he stares at you impassively for a few moments before he suddenly lets your cheeks go and yawns

“... you look fine, Chibi-chin,” he mumbles, and he sets you off his lap before getting up with a stretch. “Besides, now that you don’t have braces anymore, you can finally eat whatever you want right…?”

“I… guess I can…”

and he’s already reaching for your hand to tug you to the nearest takeout with a slight shine of excitement in his dark pupils

“Chibi-chin, we can finally eat those candy apples together you’ve always craved for, lots and lots…”

he’s very fixated on you eating with your braceless teeth for the next few weeks with a small smile on his face, because you enjoying the food you eat are some of the simplest joys he loves when he’s with you (and you hadn’t been able to do that because your braces forbidden you from eating a list of things)

definitely drags you out for food outings a lot more for the next few weeks

he tries his best in trying to make you not think about your teeth and your self-consciousness about them in his roundabout way (note: see his cheek pulling, distracting you with your favorite snacks, etc.)

he’s not someone to make any deal out of it because worrying over such a trivial thing is annoying to him, but nonetheless he certainly wants to make sure that nothing is bothering you because that’s the greatest inconvenience (since he doesn’t like to see you in such a state)… you being upset and worried makes him upset and worried, after all

Akashi Seijuro

he immediately understands that feeling of self-doubt/self-consciousness, but nonetheless he compliments you to let you know that he truly finds you desirable/beautiful inside and out

still, words alone sometimes don’t convince you and even when he gives physical affection to comfort you, there’s still that nagging feeling of how you felt about your teeth

and he’s totally okay with that, and he knows that feeling very well himself (regarding having inner voices that taunt him)

rather than constantly hammering in compliments because he knows that at some point they’d feel more disingenuous the more he says them, he offers you to help overcome the self-consciousness on your own terms

Akashi offers the suggestion of wearing face masks (not necessarily the surgical ones, but the cute/plain colored masks you’d see around!) if you have certain days where you feel low about your braceless teeth

he’d be quite sly and teasing all the while; whenever you wear your cute mask for the day, he’d be a lot more affectionate with the PDA and give pecks on your lips… but the mask is always in the way, preventing you from feeling actual contact with his own lips

he can tell you’d definitely get pouty when you don’t really feel those kisses and he simply laughs and walks on

“You…! I know you only try to kiss me when I have the mask on! Don’t play dumb with me!”

“Hm? Is it really a crime for me to show physical affection to the person I love?”

he eventually does help you coax you out and become comfortable, and your face masks would eventually be stored away in a drawer

he rewards you for being strong in overcoming your own doubts:

“To celebrate your strength in overcoming a huge milestone, what would you like your reward to be?”

“For starters, give me back all those kisses you tried to give me throughout all the times I wore a mask!”

“Of course,” he chuckles, moving closer to your lips. “How could I ever resist you when you’re this stunning?”

Kagami Taiga

idiot #2 (see idiot #1)

unlike idiot #1, idiot #2 doesn’t notice the change on your teeth, at all

he doesn’t know why you’re fidgeting around or acting really, really strange… were you hungry? upset at him for something he didn’t realize he did wrong?

so after a few days after you got your braces off, he finally asks:

“Is there something wrong? Did I do something to upset you?”

poor guy doesn’t know if he was at fault or if he was missing something, and he physically holds his head to try to recall EVERYTHING for the past week

you reassure him that it wasn’t anything like that, but you still had furrowed brows and you were very careful in how you were talking

Kagami thinks you haven’t eaten and offers to make dinner, but eating in front of him for some reason really didn’t sound like a good idea to you so you declined

you’ll eventually tell him that you just felt a bit self-conscious after your braces got taken off

“Huh?”

he stares at your teeth for a very long time, and you immediately regret it, not wanting to draw his attention to you like that

he snaps out of his intense daze and immediately apologizes for making you uncomfortable

“M-My bad… I just didn’t notice until you told me.”

“Really?” you ask, slightly relieved that the change wasn’t as drastic as you thought it would be

“Er, yeah…” he mumbles, scratching his cheek, “you look good, by the way…” but by the time he finished his compliment, it came out as a cough

you can only laugh in relief, knowing that everything he says is always earnest and sincere

Kiyoshi Teppei

definitely noticed that your braces were off, but pretends to not notice until you bring it up yourself because he’s quite sharp and in tune with other people’s emotions

so he treats you like he always does, being the sweet “airhead” that he is, and he waits until you bring it up yourself (because he knows how self-conscious you were about your lack of braces)

you yourself are confused… like… was Teppei actually dense? was your whole inner dilemma not a big deal like your mind thought it would be?

you tug on his sleeve one day and ask him if he noticed your teeth, pointing to them all the while

and he immediately chastises himself (“silly me”) for not noticing, and he tells you that you were beautiful either way, and whether you had braces or not didn’t change that inherent fact (and that was his “reason” for not noticing to reassure you)

all while giving his easy going chuckles and ruffling your hair

laughs at your shyness at his words, not because it’s funny or anything but he truly finds you adorable

once you get comfortable without giving a second thought about your braces gone, he just drops the truth bomb on you so casually like:

“Ahhhh (y/n)-san,” he sighs in nostalgia. “You were really cute when you were so shy about getting them off, you know that?”

“Now wait a second…”

“Hm?”

“What did you say?”

“That you’re really cute.”

“No, no, the other part.”

“Whenever you get shy.”

“That is not what I mean and you know that—”

“Aww, you’re being really cute right now, (y/n)-san. Don’t tempt me to carry you around when I just finished with my physical therapy.”

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twiststreet · 3 years

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I'd be curious for more of your thoughts on that Hibbs piece. I've read him for years and often find him insightful, but this one seems very reactionary in a very typical retailer way ("blinkered" was a good word Kim O'Connor used). Particularly, he seems to pretend that Diamond is just fine as is and that DC had no reason to want to switch distribution. I recently swore off DC, but I've noticed since the switch that those comics have been on time at my lcs each week. Diamond, not so much.

Yeah, I don’t really agree with that (I missed whatever Kim said), though I really don’t know what’s going on at a retail level. I haven’t gone regularly to a comic shop in years.

(Setting aside the health stuff, which is the most striking thing in there:) Hibbs is a retailer writing from a retailer perspective, so wishing that he was saying something else”... I mean, we know what we’re signing up for when we read it; we know how to slot it into our own personal worldviews. I’m not to going to complain that Hibbs isn’t going to tell me how long to cook a steak for, or that he’s not yelling that the Direct Market should be dismantled because if those were what I was looking to read, the egg should be on my face for pulling him up to begin with.

The question with Hibbs I think I always have is “how representative is he of retailers generally, as a store in San Francisco.” (And I think people slightly overstate how non-representative he is because if you hear him talk about his operations, he makes clear he operates differently for different retail audiences, when he had that second store going-- I don’t know if that’s still a thing, but. And also: I don’t fucking know what it means to be San Francisco anymore because what is that city even...). But generally, you know, you take that data point into consideration but still try to get at what you’ve signed up for, when you read what he says-- where are retailers’ heads at... You know, you go “well if Hibbs is at 8 then even adjusting -2 for factors x y and z, that mean Joe Median-Store might be at 6 and 6 is great / isn’t great, etc.”

Hibbs has always erred slightly worried, on the spectrum of human reactions, so you know, (even though I personally tend to be drawn to that more than optimism), I’m not sitting here going “I bet DC’s going to license all their characters tomorrow because he says so” because it’s not like the first time I’ve heard that-- though it remains entirely possible, possibly a good idea for the suits (though probably not for anyone else), who even knows. (Though if you’ve been listening to Rob Liefeld talk on Robservations about Heroes Reborn you’ll already know a significant challenge that would face-- that if they do a trial balloon, the people who already entrenched will do whatever they can to poison the trial balloon so as to make the case for not doing it and remaining entrenched...)(that becomes tougher after multiple waves of layoffs, though).

But what he’s talking about-- DC just did its own Heroes World...? As soon as I heard all that to begin with (and I didn’t pay close attention because the world was happening), my first reaction was “oh shit, Heroes World!” So a comic retailers saying “this is looking the same after __ months in these specific ways” ... I’m going to pay attention to that. I just remember how spectacularly unlikely it was that comics cleaned up the mess they’d made of themselves in the 90′s. It was a ridiculously unlikely set of events that turned things around, and I don’t think you can reasonably expect those events to happen again. (Especially after the “we learned a lesson from the 90′s” part turned out to be a lie, which is something I know I was yelling and screaming about for years and I was getting called like “ungrateful” or something by the Serious Comic Voices of Seriousness for it, there were entire CBR blog posts about how I didn’t understand how great things were now, etc, etc, etc... I don’t think they pull that “we learned not to rip people off” lie again, not this batch of assholes. Though who knows, maybe....)

I mean, sure there are criticisms of Diamond to be had, of trad retail to be had. And there’s the giant black box of “how desperate are people right now” that hasn’t been reported on. There was a time in ‘02-’04 or so when a book distributor or somebody like that went down, and it almost took out Fantagraphics with it. And this seems worse than that! Where’s the money flowing here and whose debts are getting paid first? I don’t have any idea. There’s all these systems in play that have been knocked out by COVID, and who knows who’s owed how much money or how much product is sitting in a warehouse collecting warehouse fees, etc., like this is all a fucking disaster and there’s no reporting on it (comic reporters are too busy encouraging Damon Lindelof to make Watchmen TV shows) and there’s ... DC is a black box in a black box in a black box (he said, having waited for 3 years for DC to answer an easy question once).

But even if DC had good reason to do whatever it did? It doesn’t seem to matter much if the rest of the comic market’s built around Diamond and if no one has the health of the Direct Market on its radar. And DC doesn’t if they fucking fired everyone who understands the health of the Direct Market as even being a fucking concept to begin with, which is extremely likely at this point. Or ... I don’t know-- it’s the old comic problem of people wanting to argue that “the thing is bad an we need to replace the thing.” Diamond’s bad and we need to replace it. Okay. With what? And with comics, the answer is usually “moonbeams and hopes and hugs.” There’s just a lot of wishful thinking out there that a Better Answer just shows up. I don’t know about that...

Comic retail’s built around selling Batman. For DC’s moves to be this impactful, that’s a problem at the core of the system. The undoing was in the origin. So i get that criticism, and it’s well taken (except to the extent there’s an entirely speculative argument built around it that either (a) there would be some other system that’d exist but-for and (b) there’d be some flourishing of human creativity but-for). But that’s still a lot of people and a lot of human energy that’s at issue. And the few life rafts that are out there, you’re not going to get a lot of people on them. Digital is a joke (according to me, a digital comic publisher! hahaha)-- hibbs if anything overstates the possibilities there because as a retailer, he doesn’t want to bring up that we’re in the Golden Age of Comic Piracy. (And ... I like being a digital comic publisher! I’m having fun. But). And bookstores-- bookstores are great, provided your readership expectation are 10-14 year old girls. Which might be better for comics if that became the default comic as compared to 35-50 year old bachelors that’s the DM’s bread and butter, but... I think you probably have to be okay with a lot fewer people having gigs. Bookstores can’t even remotely support the same level of human activity that comic shops can, by the look of things. (You know at some point you have a larger cultural heat death going on, that’s the part I find interesting, but...)

I don’t know. Hibbs might be to an extreme. I might be to an extreme. But having seen people voting for Biden and then going “wait, he’s going to hire racist industry-controlled centrists?? we got nothing for our vote? we’ve been betrayed!”... having seen people talk about what a great human being George Bush was (I saw a tweet fucking today that was like “George Bush was underrated because he was nice to a trans person once”)... I’ve become very cynical about the human memory or ability to learn lessons. I don’t think people remember 1995-1999 in comics, and just... how ridiculous it was when that got turned around. It was like watching them pull off a fucking heist to turn things around last time... Comics are selling-- people are buying comics. So it’s not as bad as last time. It’s nowhere close. But... People overestimate how structured the industry is, and obviously the DC layoffs suggest that the people looking purely at the bottom line don’t understand and didn’t account for the unique levels of institutional knowledge required for the industry... Other media, you don’t hear about hand-selling as much. When have you ever seen a movie because the guy who owns the theater told you it was good?? Or because you saw the director standing over a flea market table looking like they were about to cry...? Like... I don’t know.

I do know for me, I want to start thinking about a next project, and I’ve been looking again at what the Big Hit Books have been these last couple years (I kind of avoided new stuff when I was working on my things) and... You know, part of what changed things in the early 00′s was there were new voices with a new style ready to come in. Now? Jesus, I don’t know. At first blush, everybody’s writing books nearly identically, and it’s just this massive level of bombast and confidence (good for them!) and huge splash pages and hyper-emotional narration and... it all just is this blockbuster schmear that’s very impressive but entirely skippable anyways. None of it’s as a bezerk or strange or just weirdly interesting to me as 10 seconds of a Metal Gear Solid video essay... it’s a lot of big splash pages of Thanos or Thanos-for-creator-owned-comics... But it all seems like halls of mirrors-- none of it seems very outward looking... You know, Kojima did halls of mirrors by the 4th game, too, but in Death Stranding, he had like Amazon deliverypeople, and you’d play the game and go “oh shit, this gig economy is making my formaldehyde-baby cry” and like... he had something besides the hall of mirrors to him. (And I mean, the 4th game is a criticism of the hall of mirrors, according to a video essay I saw, but...). Or you know, it’s like the thing that Rebuild of Evangelion 3 is criticizing, they’re doing unironically... I don’t know. It’s weird; the books are weird; I keep wanting to ask like “what should I be reading here” because I’m mostly ignorant besides a Hulk or a Long Con or Sink or ... I never saw the end of Seeds but I thought Seeds had something...

Sorry to ramble.

#Worst Hobby or Worstest Hobby?

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myeclecticjourney · 4 years

Text

Magic Plants

Hi guys! I wanted to share with you a few flowers and plants that I found in my parent’s backyard. I collected a few samples, couldn’t resist. Long post with pictures

So my mom has this stone kid, lol. She calls him “Hugo” like the 1969 movie “The book of stone” maybe he’s the reason her garden is so pretty and full of magical properties haha. Have you seen the movie? It’s actually pretty creepy.

Nevertheless, I made some research about all of the plants and found some amazing properties in each. I want to share this post with you, because maybe you also have this plants in your backyard or near your home, and you don’t really know you can use them in your craft.

TI PLANT

Originally called “Ki” was a sacred plant to the Hawaiian God, Lono, and the Goddess of the Hula, Laka. It meant “divine power”, and later on was recalled “Ti Plant”. Legend has it, it’s also the incarnation of Apollo. This plant releases positive energy, brings luck, happiness and resists evil souls and spirits. That’s why many people decide to have them in their homes.

CROSSANDRA

One of the most chosen variety flowers for folk medicine. Is a well known medicinal plant in various religions in India. It has amazing healing properties. You can use it for fever, headaches, physical wounds, and overall pain. Use it in your craft to attract health. Also you can use it in potions.

CROWN OF THORNS

Don’t let this beautiful and attractive to the eye flower fools you, it’s highly toxic and dangerous. It comes in a variety of colors. Its milky juice contains a toxin called “Phorbol Easter” which can irritate skin and cause severe stomach pain if it has contact with the skin. It might cause vision loss or even blindness if it reaches your eyes. Many believe that its thorns were used to make the crown made by the Romans to Jesus. You can use this plant in shadow work or in directed spells and rituals. Just remember being careful. Keep your pets away from it.

GOLDEN DEWDROPS

Many believed this grass weed was useless, until it bloomed. Its name was given thanks to the beautiful grapes and flowers that blooms from it. Under the sunlight they have a glittery and translucent color like dewdrops. As it belongs to the family of Vervain, the Golden Dewdrops symbolizes evil and witchcraft. Both, flowers and leaves can be used in talismans and amulets to bring protection and peace. Also it’s perfect for rituals.

PETRA CROTON

As most of their family, the Croton is a toxic plant for humans and animals when ingested, tho is not the most poisonous. Got its name thanks to the variety of foliage it has in nature. It’s used in gardens, bedrooms, hotels, and many places to bring color and life to a space. It was once used as a purgative plant, tho nowadays it’s mostly used aesthetically. It represents change, and new beginnings. You can use it in spells, talismans or amulets. Don’t eat it.

FIRECRACKER PLANT

Its tubular, most commonly red, flowers give it its name. Making it showy and appealing to humans. It grows and expands as rapidly as Bamboo, so keep in mind your garden space. It attracts bees, butterflies, hummingbirds and other pollinators. It was used by Native Americans to treat spider and snake bites, stomach pain, backache, and burns. As it represents life and growth, you can use it to attract not only those properties, but also healing.

MADAGASCAR PALM

At least 12 species of palms were used in African medicinal and spiritual rituals over the years. The seeds are used as oracles, the leaves and flowers as offerings. In other cases the extracted oil was used as a healing mixture. As many believe, when a person got sick, it wasn’t only a physical sickness, but more spiritually. It was related to witches, sorcerers, broken taboos, or displeased ancestors spirits or deities, so the palms where used to cleanse the spirit and alleviate the patient from the suffering. You can use seeds, flowers and leaves as oracles, offerings in your altars, or use them in rituals and spells to attract protection and spiritual healing.

AFRICAN VIOLET

The original seed was discovered in 1892 by German Baron Paul, in an African colony. He then sent it to Germany where first appeared in a flower show and recalled as one of the most interesting plants. Part of the succulent family it helps purify indoor air quality, improving one’s mood and relieving stress. It was used in traditional herbal incense. You can use it in talismans and amulets to bring protection and promote spirituality. Or in spells and rituals. Won’t recommend ingesting it tho.

XANADU

Many humans are attracted to this plant because of the odd shape of its leaves, but be careful it’s another toxic plant, tho much more less. It’s commonly known as “Little Angel” and believe it’s a fairy. Its vivid and lively leaves, bring happiness and joy to a home and its fairy spirit causes a romantic and poetic soul. Use it in your craft for romantic spells or amulets. Remember not to eat it.

BRAZILIAN JOYWEED

Also called “Ruby Leaf”, “Bloodleaf” or “Metal Weed”. Another amazing medicinal plant used during centuries. This Joyweed is known in Brazil as Penicillin, go figure. It grows easily in dry and deforested soil. It’s commonly used against inflammation, cough, and diarrhea. You can use it in your spells, and potions to attract health.

FALSE HEATHER

Also know as “Mexican heather” or “Elfin Herb”, this type of Heather does not relate to the Scotch common one you probably know. Its name comes precisely from that, imitating the Heather. By itself, the False Heather has amazing antioxidant healing properties, it has been used to treat high cholesterol, or colds and chills by tea infusions. Many believe it has antitumor and anti cancerous spread properties. It also brings good luck, admiration and solitude. You can use it in potions, talismans or amulets to attract not only those properties but also health.

Those where some of the most interesting and beautiful plants my parents have in their garden. Do you have one of these as well? Have you used them before in your craft?

I really hope you liked this blog

Image source: my camera 📸

Blessed be,

-May xo.

Bibliography

- Gruca, M., van Andel, T. R., & Balslev, H. (2014, July 23). Ritual uses of palms in traditional medicine in sub-Saharan Africa: a review. Retrieved April 13, 2020, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4222890/

- John, L. S., & Tilley, D. (2002, September). Firecracker Penstemon . Retrieved April 13, 2020, from https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_PLANTMATERIALS/publications/idpmcpg10756.pdf

- Croton Plant Care: An Ultimate Guide: Ambius US. (n.d.). Retrieved April 13, 2020, from https://www.ambius.com/indoor-plants/ultimate-guide-croton-plant-care/#what-are-the-benefits-of-croton-plants

- 7 Powerful Vervain Magical Properties [For Love and Protection]. (n.d.). Retrieved April 13, 2020, from https://www.google.com.mx/amp/s/magickalspot.com/vervain-magical-properties/amp/

- Spiritual significance of flowers = Golden Dewdrops. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.aurobindo.ru/images/flowers/316_e.htm

- Flower: African Violet. (n.d.). Retrieved April 13, 2020, from https://www.google.com.mx/amp/s/threehundredandsixtysix.wordpress.com/2013/02/14/flower-african-violet/amp/

- Antinociceptive Activity Of Methanolic Extract Of Leaves Of Alternanthera Brasiliana Kuntz. (2009). Retrieved from https://pharmacologyonline.silae.it/files/archives/2009/vol3/005.

- Anticancer Research. (n.d.). Retrieved April 13, 2020, from http://www.stuartxchange.org/Kupea

- App: PictureThis

#witch #plants #flowers #herbs #magic #wicca #spells #potions #rituals

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alittleyellowdinosaur · 4 years

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TUA Thought Experiment

So last night I started thinking, what would the Umbrella Academy be like with alternate powers? Still a massive fuck up? Obviously. But how would their personalities change? I got a little invested in the thought experiment, so I decided, I want to write a fic about this. I want one that follows the show as closely as possible, but very different at the same time. And I thought I’d share my thought process on how I got their powers and how I got the changes to personality that would come with those. So... Enjoy! (This gets long, js)

The Powers

To pick what powers they’d have, I wanted to do something directly opposite to their current powers... Only to realize that, for everyone but Luther, Five and Klaus, I was stumped on how to do that. Is there a direct opposite to throwing shit good? no, no there isn’t. So I decided, let’s start in an opposite-like direction, and go from there. Here’s what I decided:

Luther: Super speed. I think that’s a fairly easy leap from super strength.

Diego: i started with, okay, he can throw good, so maybe he can... catch good? But that’s not so much a power, just a baseball player. To make it a bit more power-y, I decided, okay, he’s got magnetism, but only for already magnetic things (like not just all metal like Magneto. I’m not making Diego all powerful guys.) So he can like, call magnetic objects to him sort of thing. i’ll make it work.

Allison: Changing reality with her voice doesn’t have a clear opposite, which sucked. I thought about cancelling things with her voice, but she can do that already so it’s not alternate powers enough. In the end I decided mind reading. Since I do want the fic to follow the main story closely (to a point), I figure being able to read minds will get a similar enough backstory for Allison to work with (ie her manipulative personality)

Klaus: Klaus was easy. If he can see dead people, then the opposite would be to prevent dead people. So he can heal people. This caused problems with Ben, but I’ll get to him in a minute. I thought about having opposites of his comics powers (levitation and telekinesis), but that got too complicated so he’s just going to have healing abilities.

Five: Five can time travel, so what’s sort of the opposite of that? Stopping time, a la the Handler. This then posed the problem of ‘where did he go for all those years and how does he know the future?’ so I added clairvoyance into the mix, which I’ll explain later. If Klaus can canonically (in the comics) have multiple powers, Five can to. Fuck off.

Ben: Here’s the tricky one. I wanted Ben to still be a part of the story, but if Klaus can heal then he can’t see Ben’s ghost. I thought about Klaus being able to see the dead people he couldn’t heal, but that’s too similar to canon. So then, maybe Klaus healed him before he died? But then he wouldn’t hang out with Klaus all the time and it’d change too much. I considered making Ben’s powers allow him to be present, maybe able to appear in dreams or instead of having an eldritch monster in him, he was an eldritch monster (hence this going here in the post, not later). In the end, I decided that Ben would still be dead, Klaus wouldn’t be able to see him, and for powers he’d keep the tentacles. Since he’s not a real player in the story himself, I didn’t feel the need to change that.

Vanya: I wasn’t sure what powers to give Vanya, as apocalyptic telekinesis doesn’t have a clear opposite, and I still want it to be apocalypse causing. In the end, I decided she could get earth powers. Yes i know, kind of basic and ambiguous, but I was trying to think of “how can she destroy the earth/the moon” and well, the moon is rock, the earth is rock, she gets to control rocks. I’m still going to have sound/music center it, because the violin is just too central to Vanya’s character for me to fuck with it.

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The Effects

So we’ve got the new powers, great, great, but how do they affect the characters? How do their backstories change? As I mentioned with Allison, I’m trying to keep this similiar-ish to the canon (so Klaus is still going to be a depressing disaster, just a major trigger warning for him). Obviously things changed, but we’re going to keep it as close to the same as possible.

Luther: Luther is probably the most similar to canon, in that nothing really changes. He still gets the leader complex, still gets turned into a buff monkey (since I think that was mostly the serum not his powers at play), only with that bit he becomes much more clumsy and shit because he’s not used to running with that bulk. He still gets sent to the moon too. Woo hoo.

Diego: Again Diego is fairly similar. Stutter, rivalry with Luther, mommy’s boy, all the same. Still goes to the police academy and meets Eudora and fights crime in kink gear. Only difference I see obvious is he probably uses a magnetized knife or bullets or something to fight since he can call it back/manipulate it’s path.

Allison: She still got really manipulative as a kid, always knowing what people were thinking and such. Since I headcannon that Reginald trained her into thinking she can only change reality with “i heard a rumor” even though she could do it anyways, as like a way to control her, I think he likely did the same with mind reading. So say, now she can only do it when touching someone even if she technically doesn’t need to. She still likely got to be a super star by always knowing what they were looking for/blackmailing, snagged Patrick by being everything he ever wanted in a girlfriend, and manipulated her daughter leading to the divorce and losing custody. Now she wears gloves and long sleeves to prevent touching someone since she doesn’t want to read minds anymore.

Klaus: Again, trigger warning, this one gets dark. Since he could heal, and his family was being put into dangerous situation when they were like, 10, he probably had immense pressure put on him from family, Reggie, and himself. I imagine for training, Reggie would bring him to hospitals where he’d have to see and heal domestic violence victims, terminally ill children, attempted suicides, burn victims, etc, just horrible things from the time he was young. Reggie probably also hurt him to see if he could heal himself, possibly Grace helping as she could cause pain without permanent damage, and possibly also hurt his siblings for added punishment/’motivation.’ With the pressure and the memories of those he couldn’t save and his siblings suffering, he turned to self harm and self destructive tendencies rather than drugs, as ‘punishment’ for failing. When Ben died and Klaus was unable to save him, he tried to kill himself, only for it not to work as his healing ability kicked in before he could die (see your bitch still got that immortality in there!) Instead he turned to really terrible self destructive tendencies. He wound up in mental health hospitals a LOT which just made things worse as he was surrounded by depressed people who he couldn’t help since he can’t heal mental illness, but he’s still got that ‘i must save everyone or i am worthless’ mindset Reggie gave him. I’ve got more for him, but I kind of want to save some of it for the fic, as he will be the POV character (obvi.)

Five: Got a vision of the future apocalypse that he tried convince Reginald to take seriously, but he didn’t since Five didn’t get many details except the date (which as we know Reggie already knew). Since Reggie was no help, he left to find out more and stop it on his own, got picked up by the Commission pretty soon after leaving (do you think they WOULDN’T want a person who could stop time/see how different deaths would affect the timeline without long math problems/was crazy smart and excellent at killing? No, they’d swoop him up as soon as he was away from Reggie). He’d eventually come back when he figured out how to tamper with the briefcase they gave him to make it untraceable. Problem was he messed part of it up and it turned him young again (though he was never as old as he got in the series). Delores was another person at the Commission who helped him out. No mannequin fucking in my good Christian household today you hear me?

Ben: Dead. Torn apart by the tentacles and unable to be healed by Klaus because it’s hard to reattach shredded bodies even with powers. Luther pressured him into using his powers that day, but everyone told him it was okay, so they all feel like they share the blame. I think Klaus probably had a feeling it wouldn’t be...

Vanya: Caused an earthquake as a kiddo when she had to eat oatmeal. Reggie got annoyed because how dare a four year old have a temper tantrum and put her on medication. She got ignored except for by Ben and Five. So about the same.

The Fic

I haven’t actually started writing the fic yet, again this was just the brainstorming/thought experiment I had at... midnight? one am? Somewhere around then. If you are interested in the idea of this fic, or have any ideas on their powers/plot ideas, please please please leave me a reply or send an ask!! I’d love some feedback and ideas. Whenever I start posting I’ll post the link here as well as on my writing blog @elliot-orion. Thanks for reading!

#the umbrella academy #tua #klaus hargreeves #five hargreeves #vanya hargreeves #diego hargreeves #fanfiction #fanfic #brainstorm #ao3 #gerard way

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createdbybadhands · 4 years

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My story

So, here goes. I don’t have a clue what I’m doing but, for some reason, this morning when I woke up I felt the need to anonymously share what my story is. I don’t tend to talk about the experience I have had or how it’s led me to what I’m currently doing, because I don’t know how people will react.

So maybe I should drop the whole I’m mentally ill bomb.

I’m mentally ill.

There it’s dropped.

This post will feature details of peri-natal mental health.

So on December 14th 2018 I found out that I was pregnant. My then fiance, now husband, was recovering from a back operation and that moment of showing him the pee stick, with joyful tears streaming down my face, he awkwardly pulled himself from the chair and slowly made his way to me so that we could share a hug in the moment.

Sadly my pregnancy was awful, the above is probably the happiest moment that would resemble a hallmark gift card we had. Before you get pregnant, you imagine it will be this amazing, I feel so special, experience. The pressure to be constantly giddy was extreme. Obviously, I knew about the not so nice parts, morning sickness, the need pee...constantly and suddenly hating what was my favourite foods and drinks.

Also, the coffee withdrawal was real.

But I didn’t know that you could be depressed and so anxious that you can’t leave the house alone.

It crept up on me, week by week the feelings got heavier, the anxiety took over. I stopped driving because I was so scared that I would crash, or how and where do I park? (the works car park was insane at this time). As March came up, my husband realised that I wasn’t myself. I couldn’t go to uni anymore (I was doing a masters in design), especially if I knew friends was working from home. I used to get the train to Bristol to go to uni, but it became this metal beast that induced heart palpitations and just the thought of boarding it. My husband encouraged me to seek help. Thankfully, my appointment was with the best GP I have ever met, he was kind, understanding and listened without judgement. He explained that hormones really can mess you up and signed me off work.

All this seemed temporary, but, blimey, it most certainly wasn’t. As time went by I got iller, I went onto anti-depressants and went to counselling, but I wasn’t making progress. My midwife, an amazing woman who went above and beyond for me, she referred me onto mental health services, which eventually meant I was taking on by the perinatal mental health team. And I was so fortunate to have this support. I was also going to classes for expectant mums who may be struggling in some way, they were also so amazing, I can’t tell you how amazing they really were. I was suddenly surrounded by people who understood that little bit more. My friends, they tried, and some were brilliant, but others stuck their foot in it, accidentally, but still... awkward. I couldn’t handle the comparisons from what I was going through to what they thought I was going through. Being told I was just stressed because I took too much on, some how blaming me for the failings of the hormones in my body. Like I chose to be ill.

As time went on I differed my final year at uni, I wasn’t able to do the work. I tried to go back to work, but couldn’t. I also had a wedding to plan (just to clarify, not a shotgun wedding we booked the date way before I found out I was pregnant) but my husband had to take on a lot of the wedding planning, bless him, he took on a lot.

So fast forwarding a bit, this time was a lot of crying, sitting and eating, it wasn’t a pretty sight. I tried to prep for baby coming, but every time we went to buy something I had a panic attack, even just looking at clothes, because it had to be perfect, I had to be perfect but didn’t know how to be.

I should quickly clarify, a lot of my thoughts weren’t about not wanting a baby, it was about me not being good enough for her and she’d be better off if I wasn’t here.

So a little more fast forwarding, despite having such amazing support, my mental health deteriorated further and at 35 weeks pregnant I voluntarily went into a Mother and Baby Unit (MBU).

For those who don’t know, MBU’s are mental health wards for mothers who are suffering from perinatal mental health illness. At the time, I was talked into going, because I didn’t want to be away from my husband. The closest MBU is still an hours drive away in a different town.

I didn’t think I would be there long, maybe a couple of weeks. I was very wrong. I found out that the average stay is 6 weeks (I was actually there for 3 months), this meant I would have my baby there, which I hated the idea of.

Again, the people who worked with me were so brilliant and so caring. They saved my life. I am fortunate to have met them all (even the one person who worked there that wound me up, and had very poor tv choice ha). It’s strange looking back at the MBU. I have a fondness for the staff, but a hatred for having to be there. It’s odd. You felt constantly watched, because you was. I had my own room but they would come look through a little window to make sure your ok, every hour, even through the night. It’s bizarre how used to it you become. You also had baby monitors in your room, in case you needed help with the baby, but it also felt weird to know I could be heard (I could switch it off when with visitors or on the phone, they weren’t that nosey).

Last night I had the weirdest feeling, I was in bed in the dark, alone and suddenly I felt like I was there again, like they were going to look through the window and I should hide that I was awake because I didn’t want to talk to anyone. Sometimes when you saw the torch shine through so they could look at you I would hide my phone or what ever I was doing, not because I was doing anything wrong but because I didn’t want to talk about why I was still awake, even with sleeping tablets.

Oh my this post has got long, fair play if you’re still reading.

So what this long rambling is saying is that, my motherhood journey so far hasn’t been your usual run of the mill. After leaving hospital I received my diagnosis, one of them was post-natal psychosis. They never explained this diagnosis to me, I didn’t know about it until this letter was sent, so I have no idea what part of me was that, presumably the belief that my daughter hated me and I shouldn’t be here. I was also diagnosed with severe reoccurring depression and anxiety, fun right?

Now this get to the creative stuff, so before all of the above happened I was studying a masters in design, my practice was a little uncertain. I very much worked with 3D printing, electronics and coding. I just hadn’t nailed the direction I wanted to go in. I also lacked some finalisation in my work. During my last year I was doing a really fun project with automation and character, making ways to interact with your surroundings (such as a light switch) by remote and a character, e.g. an astronaut, would complete it.

The idea was to turn any room into a smart room in a temporary, cost effective way.

Things have changed since then, a side to me no one knew existed was awakened. When I was in the MBU I was taught how to crochet, now everyone was surprised I took this on. I never had any inclination to do this before, but I loved it. I made a Yoda, who doesn’t love a Yoda. Everyone said I picked it up really quickly and how good I was doing. I didn’t actually enjoy the other craft activities much because I had a sense of perfection that I couldn’t escape, but because crochet was new I could let go of this perfectionism.

I have carried on with this thought process into other crafts, I went to (pre lockdown) some workshops for mums with mental health trouble and learnt some more crafts. The biggest shocker was sewing, just ask my mum I have always HATED sewing, now I love it. I have learnt how to do embroidery and making my daughter a quilt. It’s freeing. And now I feel like a better designer because I allow myself to fail, which has always been my problem and held me back. I always wanted to acheive the best straight off the bat, it’s nice to let go of that.

This blog is going to be me being brutally honest, I’ve been through a lot and want a platform to be honest. I know no one is really going to read it but hey ho. It’s also going to be my creative journey.

Also, no one talks about MBUs and mental health during pregnancy. The only thing I had seen about it was an awful episode of the good doctor where a mother took medication for her mental health to then have a sickly child, of which the blame is placed on her for taking the meds. That’s not the whole episode, there is some other interjections in there but that’s what I saw, whilst being pregnant taking medication, a tad unhelpful.

Don’t worry this post is coming to an end, mainly as my baby has woken from her nap, so for today toodles.

#pregnancy #mental health #perinatal mental health #postnatal depression #postnatal physchosis #creative #mystory #crochet #design #designer #hospital #motherandbabyunit #baby #mum #confused mum

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theritualofourexistence · 4 years

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Pitted dates.

It’s a pun.

Here it is! The dating apps blog post you’ve been waiting for! Although, it’s not exactly about dating apps. It’s also not exactly about dating. It’s a tree with a lot of branches and no coherent thru-plot but all of these things do feel at least a little bit related so buckle up.

To start: a brief background.

I am nearly thirty. I identify as ace or aspec (asexuality spectrum). I am not hetero... if pressed, I’d probably call myself queer... but generally speaking “not hetero” seems to cover that part of things adequately. I’ve had a handful of long-term relationships and partners. I’ve been single since my last relationship of over three years ended abruptly in 2015. I haven’t dated since then. I’ve gone on a handful of dates in that time, but no repeats and no relationships.

It took me a long time to move past my last relationship. I probably didn’t even consider dating apps for a whole year. I’m not very socially outgoing and I don’t have much of a friend group in my town so I don’t go out to the bars or anything... which means dating apps are one of the only ways for me to actually start exploring options.

I started with OkCupid and eventually worked my way to Bumble. I can’t afford to pay for anything more involved so I’ve never tried Match or anything like that... and Tinder was never particularly appealing to me either because I have no interest in hook-ups.

I’ve posted on and off about being single over the years. There were plenty of times, early on, when I hated being single. I felt alone and broken and it wasn’t a good place to be. Gradually I became more comfortable, however. I explored labels a bit more. I learned a lot about myself. I’m at a place now where, though I am lonely sometimes, for the most part I feel like my needs can be met by the people in my life... even though I’m not romantically involved with any of them.

In response to a blog post from a few years ago, a woman a generation or two older than me sent me a message implying that she was sure I’d settle down and find someone who could make me happy if I just lowered my standards a bit.

Then, that sort of made me blind with rage.

Generally, now, it still does.

I’ve thought a lot about this message and its implication over the years. There are times when I can see how someone might think my standards are too lofty. But what’s the difference between standards, even high standards, and simply knowing what you are and aren’t compatible with?

I’ve dated enough and been single enough to be VERY confident about some things.

And yes, there are certainly some deal-breakers.

It’s possible that there are more deal-breakers than “deal-makers” so to speak, but I still think that’s probably not the worst thing in the world. Especially for someone who is relatively comfortable being single and also relatively busy with work. Dating takes time. And here at almost-thirty, I don’t feel like spending time on someone who I am pretty sure I won’t be compatible with.

It’s not so much that I’m judging the others, either. When on a dating app, I’m pretty careful to only swipe right for guys I think would also be compatible with me.

If you use the word “spontaneous” in your bio and at least one of your pictures is you sky-diving... you’re probably not right for me.

If you put in your bio that you’re only interested in women who prioritize dogs and fitness... I’m probably not right for you.

Is that tied to lofty expectations? Or am I simply being realistic and saving both myself and the other party time and effort?

I certainly have a type. And I’m sure there are potential partners out there for me that are not that type. I’m not averse to being surprised or trying something a little unexpected. What I do know, however, is that I will never jump out of a plane. And I will also probably never kiss a dog on the mouth.

My “standards” are basically generated from my knowledge of myself. So, sure, call them lofty. But I’m pretty proud of the effort I’ve put in to understanding myself, and when it comes to dating, there is value in utilizing that knowledge. Here are some things I know about me and the associated “standard.”

I am not a partier. I don’t do drugs. I rarely drink. If you are visibly drunk or stoned in the majority of your pictures, we probably aren’t super compatible.

My politics lean FAR left. I don’t even like referring to myself as a “democrat.” I care deeply about social justice issues. If you voted for Trump, we probably aren’t super compatible.

I am extremely anti-gun. I grew up in a rural area and understand both the sport and value of hunting. I know that I will never hunt though. Could I be compatible with a hunter? Yes, definitely. But could I be compatible with someone who is waving around various guns in 3 out of their 4 pictures? Probably not.

I am a cat person. Though I don’t HATE dogs, I certainly prefer cats. I have a very low tolerance for small dogs and, in general, I don’t like the way dogs smell. I’ve made friends with a handful of dogs in my life and certainly could again. But if you say that you hate cats in your profile, we probably aren’t compatible.

I work a lot and I make no money. As a result, I’m tired a lot. I spend a lot of my very limited down time doing extremely low-key activities like reading or art or watching TV. I can’t afford to travel much. Part of the reason I work a lot is because I’m actively trying to hit certain career milestones. I feel like I’m a bit behind. But more than that, I’m very passionate about my work. If you expect to take the place of my long-term career goals, we probably aren’t compatible. If you expect me to hop on the next plane to Europe or Asia or Africa, we probably aren’t compatible... unless you’re covering the costs.

I’m a feminist. If you’re a fundamentalist Christian or someone who believes a woman’s place is in the home, we probably aren’t compatible.

I believe black lives matter. If you currently display or have ever displayed the confederate flag, we probably aren’t compatible.

I’m committed to learning. Not necessarily in school, but from everything in the world around me. If you don’t share that perspective, we may not be compatible.

I am looking for someone who shares some of my interests.

I’m looking for someone who has other human beings in the pictures they post in their profile... instead of six different versions of the same poorly lit selfie from an unflattering angle. I think I’m probably looking for that last thing so that I’m not raped, stalked, or murdered if we’re being honest.

I’ve already said that I identify on the asexuality spectrum. As such, there’s very little that I’m naturally attracted to... if I find that, and it’s very rare, that person and I almost never “match.” If we do match and you ask about my labels and I explain them and your instant response is that I must be ace because I’ve just never had good sex, we definitely aren’t compatible.

I don’t know, all written out, maybe this is a lot.

But I still don’t think it is.

For the most part, every guy on dating apps seems to be looking for the same woman.

She’s thin and into fitness, she has a dog, she hikes a lot, she loves going to concerts and traveling the world and she works hard but parties harder.

That woman can’t possibly exist in enough quantities to please all the men on Bumble. In fact, I doubt that woman exists at all because I don’t understand how you have the time or money to even do half those things.

So yeah, I may have high-ish standards... but are MY standards even the issue?

If no one on Bumble has any interest in a fat brunette with a lot of tattoos who reads a lot and wears sweatpants more than any other clothes... well, what I want isn’t going to matter a whole lot anyway.

I want someone who loves me for me... who works to understand me... who raises me up but who also respects my independent nature. I don’t think I do well if I feel too needed. I want someone who respects my politics, my philosophy, my dietary/health choices, my mental health journey, my career aspirations, my sexuality... and hell, if that’s too much to ask, I’d probably rather just be on my own.

I had a big “ah-ha” moment a few years ago when it occurred to me that if I want to have a child, I can do so on my own. I can choose a donor, I can carry a baby or I can use a surrogate; if those things don’t work, I can adopt. My family and friends are a safety net forged in the strongest flexible metal in the known and unknown worlds and I have no question that they would be enough to guide me in that journey.

Now, if I go that direction, it’s still many years away. But I know I could do it. And that’s enough to wipe away the creeping fear of the biological clock.

I am not in a hurry. But I don’t have time to waste. I have a never-ending list of books to read and a finite number of years to read them so yeah, I’d rather sit on the couch with my mom and my cat than go on a date with someone I know I won’t be compatible with.

Are my standards too high? I truly don’t think that shit matters at all.

There are times when I’m lonely, but I am not alone. And I know that’s also a common occurrence for many people who are dating or married or polyamorous or ace or divorced or whatever. I’m pretty sure loneliness is just a part of the human condition.

And, most importantly, my needs are largely being met. Browsing dating apps is entertaining at times, even if it doesn’t lead to dates. There are times when I want to be told I’m beautiful, I want to be told I’m powerful generous kind loving passionate giving funny sexy smart creative. Just because I’m not dating someone, however, does not mean I don’t have someone to tell me those things. It’s a wonder what friends and family can do... all you have to do is ask. And sometimes you don’t even need to do that!

Would I like a partner to walk with me through the rest of the world? Sure. But, at the same time, no partner will ever know me the way my best friend does. The way my family does. They may know me in a different way and a valuable way, but no one will know me like the people who have watched me become who I am... through trauma and time and growth and failure and success. And sure, we are always growing and changing and experiencing new failure and success... but I just don’t know. The more I age and the more I think about it, the more I’m pretty sure I don’t *need* a significant other. And that’s a comforting thing, not a sad thing.

I don’t think there’s ONE person out there for you. I don’t think some all-knowing deity designed your perfect “other half.” You are a whole ass person and that is enough for my god. Even more so, implying you can only be completed by one other human person means you’ll miss out on what you could gain from so many other beautiful people along the way.

I think it’s okay for me to be honest if I’m not interested in going on a date with a thirty-year-old basement troll. I think it’s okay for me to be honest if I’m not interested in going on a date with a suit-wearing globe-trotter who spends his weekends blowing his income/inheritance with a drink in hand. I can sure as hell promise you that I’m never going to be Sarah who weighs a trim 120 and has a long blond braid and hikes with her dog on the weekends when she’s not tanning on a beach in Spain or tailgating/day-drinking for eight hours at a time.

Is it my standards or their standards or is it something completely different?

I think it’s human to want to be enough.

I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel that way.

But the more time and energy I spend on loving and understanding myself, the more confident I am that I *am* enough. I’m not defining “enough” by what a spouse or partner sees/wants/needs. I’m defining “enough” for myself. And if I’m enough for me, maybe that is all I really need.

Maybe, in time, I will find someone to share my life with in a romantic way.

Or maybe I won’t.

And honestly, I would just like to believe that I’ll be okay no matter what.

#single #lonely #dating apps #dating #dating woes #ace #aspec #queer #i am enough #self love

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juniperseeker · 5 years

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Hair Blog

I know nobody asked for it but here's a list of thing I've learned from doing my own hair.

1. If you have frizzy hair, you don't have to get fancy with it, you can use a small amount of moisturizer (leave in conditioner, hair oil, or hair serum) to tame flyaways.

2. Less is more. Many hair products have multiple uses and you don't need a gazillion different things to for each hair problem. This may be trickier for people with curly hair because it can be unpredictable but you don't need much more than your wavy and straight haired peers. Just keep your hair healthy and you'll find you have more good hair days than when you didn't think about it. Once you find what works for you give away what doesn't. One person's trash may be another person's hack.

3. If you're vegetarian/vegan Don't assume your hair products are too. I know it can be exhausting looking for things your trying to avoid in every single thing you buy and it's okay if you slip up but if you ever get curious be ready to handle that can of worms. This is where DIYing comes in handy and you can just mix your basic ingredients and see if a simpler approach works for you. (Don't forget honey is not vegan)

4. Some of you have already heard but washing your hair every day isn't exactly good for it. However if you're prone to greasiness and can't stand skipping a day or too you can save your hair by making sure you moisturize properly.

5. Which leads to my next point. Slapping oil on your damaged dry hair isn't helping. Sure it doesn't hurt much but oil locks in moisturize rather than actually moisturizing. Your best bet is to use hair oil right after you wash it while it's still wet. This will lock in moisture and prevent it from getting too dry as it dries. This is also a good way to protect your hair before blow drying.

6. Speaking of blow drying, yeah yeah we all know it's bad, so maybe save your hair washing days for when you have the time to let it dry naturally.

7. If your hair is long and not super curly you can speed up the natural drying process by running your fingers through your hair(while shaking your hand) and flip it back and forth on each side from time to time as it dries to help air get to it. (Ps, this makes for a good stim and can be fun while watching tv, taking a walk, listening to music, etc)

7 1/2. For those of us with tight curly hair, idk what to tell you, maybe ask for advice from other curly haired friends who know better than me.

8. Your hair stylist doesn't always know best. I know there are a lot of professionals out there who really know their stuff and get the job done but there are also a lot who are in a rush and don't care about the health of your hair. All of them will say "Don't cut and color your hair yourself at home" and yes that's a good warning but... Think about it this way, when a hair stylist messes up your hair you get a bad mood indefinitely and are often just out the money but if you learn to do it yourself what you lose in risk you gain in experience.

9. Cutting and coloring your own hair can be devastating if you don't allow yourself to make mistakes. When you DIY your own style you're definitely going to mess it up so if you decide to go that route learn in baby steps. Pros of going to a pro-you'll probably get what you asked for, pros of learning yourself, you'll be able to rock styles that the professionals don't do. I used to get asked to cut everyone's hair when scene hair was the thing because they weren't satisfied with the professionals who couldn't bring themselves to make it choppy enough. Now scene hair is really a good DIY hairstyle anyway because it was probably started by DIYers and is meant to look messy, just like hair bands in the 80s. So I guess my point is, there are a lot of retro styles you can try while learning to cut your own hair. You'll save a lot of money and you'll always have more time to perfect your style.

9 1/2. There are probably more pros to finding a really good professional and I'm sure it's a good option for those of us who can actually find one but that wasn't the case for me.

10. Don't use a razor on your hair. Maybe, just maybe, an good professional can do it properly but I still wouldn't trust it. Razors slice open the hair cuticle and cause split ends. If you look at the anatomy of a hair strand you'll see that your hair grows within itself (like a tree) and slicing open the outer layer will cause it to fray away from the inner layer causing the split. The razor doesn't cut it off to a blunt end, like scissors do, where the hair can grow through itself the way it naturally would. Unfortunately, razors can easily slice down the strands exposing the inner layers. The only way to get rid of split ends is to cut them off so don't let a razor touch your hair. All it really does is give it the appearance of it not being freshly cut (unless a pro is using it as a lazy cheat to cut lots of layers fast) and the look doesn't last long before the cuticle curls away from the inner layer. If you like the look that much and get your hair cut every six weeks on the dot it can be fine with a trusted professional but otherwise I don't see it ever being a good idea to razor your hair.

11. Ok, on to coloring. Whether you're going to a professional or doing it at home, coloring can be fun or it can be messy. Remember that lifting (bleaching "lifting color") is more damaging than depositing (darkening) but any permanent dye will give you damage. Although depositing can be more damaging if you change your mind and want to go lighter because it's so much harder to lift colored hair than it is to lift virgin hair. If you're not ready to commit to your color until it grows out and gets cut off maybe try a direct dye (one that you don't mix with peroxide- overtone, manic panic, arctic fox{which, I'm pretty sure are all vegan so yay🙌})

12. But remember that all color is permanent to some extent as it is a chemical change to your hair. Even the direct dyes that work more like stain, you'll never be able to get it out 100%. That's why they ask for virgin hair if you're looking to get paid to donate it.

13. If you're bleaching!! Always be careful not to bleach hair that's already been bleached, especially if it's already pale yellow. It's not going to lift more; you've got to tone it to get it lighter. When touching up your roots don't be messy and put the bleach on the parts that are already blond because once it's had enough your hair WILL break off. This is why it's suggested that you separate your hair into sections beforehand. It's a lot easier to control where you put the color if the other sections are out of the way. That being said, bleaching can be fun and not scary if you do your research and don't make the same mistakes of others who bleach over and over and over again. I have medium/dark brown hair and I've bleached it tons of times and have never had enough breakage to notice much of a difference in volume. But we all have slightly different hair chemistry so if your hair has never been bleached before you should do a hair strand test. some people's hair just isn't as resilient as others. (You can check out GuyTang for advice on coloring hair, he's one of the good professionals I've been talking about and even better because he's not afraid to talk about how things work for the DIYers)

14. You can check if your hair is breaking by checking the stretchiness before washing it out. If my hair started to get stretchy I always washed it out immediately. I'd rather have to wait a week or so to let my hair recover with a yucky orange/yellow than to have my hair break off. There is a point of no return but you won't know until you let it dry completely and deep condition it(on dry hair) so don't assume it's doomed and chop it all off just yet. Along with a deep conditioning mask you can also use a cholesterol or keratin moisturizer too that helps replenish protein in the hair and you can really save it if you've fried it. Just give it time and rest and lots of love.

15. You can also treat virgin hair as if it's as fragile as bleached hair if it's being really stubborn and isn't growing all that well. All of the moisturizing and letting it rest from hot tools and daily shampoo can help it get the boost it needs to grow.

16. Don't bleach hair that you're trying to grow out. I know it can take years but if you want super long blond hair let it grow first then dye it and root touch up (CAREFULLY) after it's the desired length.

17. For long hair, wear a hair cap to sleep in. It will keep your hair our of the way while you toss and turn and it'll minimize breakage. Once you get used to it you won't be able to sleep without it. It's like being able to have short hair while you sleep but it's still long when you want to show it off.

18. If you're starting to see gray hair, maybe learn to love it. Change your attitude because this ageist world isn't going to let you feel good about it but that doesn't mean you have to let that negativity make you feel bad for something we all will face one day. Besides if it's coarse and unruly dying it isn't going to change that. Focus on nourishing it rather than hiding it. Also this isn't to shame people who just would rather put in the effort to keep their once natural color because sometimes you just need to hold on to something that gives you a sense of identity but if you're hating on the color because "it makes you look old" then stop it. Your hair doesn't deserve the hate and being old isn't a hurting anyone so don't be a bully. You wouldn't tell your parents or grandparents to be ashamed of rocking the gray so don't say it to yourself.

(And if you would, then maybe just stop being an ageist asshole)

19. Some other common things you might read if you search for lists like this is, avoid hair ties because they can cause breakage and frizziness (you can use a clip or try to only buy the kind that doesn't have the metal part). Your hair is fragile when wet so don't tug on it or rub it roughly with a towel. Instead pat or squeeze lightly from with a towel. Sometimes you'll find suggestions to wrap it in a t-shirt instead of a towel? Idk my poor ass has the cheapo towels that are probably made from the same material as a t-shirt but if you plan or wrapping it up for a few hours you can try that or a hair cap made for that. If you're growing your hair out don't cut it too frequently. A quarter of an inch once a year is plenty enough to keep the ends strong and healthy (depending on the person but a good window is 6-18 months{whoa big window, just whatever works for you}) Take vitamins... That's just good advice no matter what you're doing. (Look for vegan vitamins if you're vegan) Drink water lol, get enough sleep LOL.

Hey, add to it if there's something I missed, and as always thanks for reading my ramble 💖

#hair #diy hair #hair advice #hair adventures #writing #list #crafty #ageism

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pllandcompany · 6 years

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Out Loud (Part Two)

Summary: Hospital!AU. The aftermath.

Warnings: talk of gun violence/injuries, mention of blood, mention of medical procedures, life or death situations, mention of anxiety, depression and past suicidal thoughts, mention of past addiction and drug use, flashbacks/PTSD symptoms

Pairings: QPP Moxiety and budding romantic Logince

Tagged: @ziallwarrior @thefallendog @jakesmolbean @a-ghosts @band-be-boss-blog @thecatchat @flyingfreeyt @apologieslogan

Notes: The cliffhanger meets its resolution! (I know, I was evil for that, I’m kind of sorry.) I figured the boys have been tortured enough; let’s let them heal…mostly. The end does get a little intense. Also, I made use of a certain slow-voiced short character....wink wink! As always, please heed the warnings and enjoy!

Roman shifted uncomfortably in the chair across from the therapist’s desk. His bruised ribs were still sore from the surgery to remove the small piece of metal that threatened to take his life. He shifted again, welcoming the pain that came with each movement.

It was a reminder that he won. A reminder that he was still alive.

“Dr. Courtland? Are you all right?” Roman shook his head, the voice jolting him out of his thoughts. “Of course, Nate. I’m here, I’m with you.”

The psychiatrist smiled gently at his colleague. “Now, Dr. Courtland, I know we know each other but you know that here I’m Dr. Christopher,” he intoned in that slow, gentle baritone that seemed to instantly put anyone at ease.

“But that’s such a mouthful,” Roman joked blandly. His affect had been intensely dulled as of late but that didn’t seem to off put the friendly therapist. “Well,” he began, “I suppose we can drop the formality for now. This is our third session. I’m glad you chose to come back in.”

“I’m a neurologist. Of course I value the importance of mental health. And we as a hospital went through a highly traumatic experience so it’s important to talk about how we’re feeling. I fully respect that, Nate.”

Dr. Christopher nodded, slow and thoughtful. “And how are you feeling, Roman? Are you respecting your emotions?”

Roman paused, the question catching him off guard. “I’m definitely feeling. Can’t speak on exactly what judgments I’m making on those feelings though.”

“And what do you feel?”

“Surprised, honestly. After getting the green light here, I was expecting to be antsy about getting fully cleared for surgery but I’m perfectly willing to wait for my physical.” Nate scribbled down a quick note before looking up. “Right, yes, that's the last step for you. Anything else?”

“I’m worried about Logan. Uh, Dr. Taylor, I mean.”

“I understand that you two have been seeing each other lately.” Roman tensed again, wincing when his ribs screamed at him. “Don’t worry, Roman. Patient-doctor confidentiality, remember?”

Roman allowed his features to fall into a gentle smile. “Yeah, we…we have. It’s part of why I’ve kept coming back even after you cleared me. I hoped that if he saw me healing in every sense of the word he’d be…motivated to do the same.”

“Do you think he’s not healing?

“He’s certainly not talking about it! To me, to anyone.”

“Well, he’s not known to be overly public about much of anything. Maybe he’s just the type that heals privately?”

“I’d be inclined to agree with you but he also won’t let anyone clear him for surgery. He just hides in the skills lab all day until his shift is done, maybe he’ll come out for a consult.” Roman sounded slightly panicked now. The astute therapist quickly sensed his distress and signaled him to breathe which Roman complied with willingly. Non-verbal communication of self-care seemed to work best with the neurosurgeon as verbal orders occasionally made him feel patronized. Nate had learned this the hard way in session one and since then they developed a system of sorts that helped Roman to manage his rapidly shifting emotions. Taking his cue from Roman, Nate continued to speak. “I understand your concern. And yes, it does worry me that he’s refusing to operate but as hard as it is, you have to focus on you even when someone you love is hurting. Heal yourself first then you can help him. So I’ll ask again: How are you feeling?”

Roman swallowed thickly, nerves coiling in his belly. He couldn’t avoid the question now, it was too direct. He cleared his throat and shifted once again, the pain jolting through him like lightning. “How do I feel, Nate? I…I’m terrified…all of the time. Someone moves too fast next to me and I jump out my skin. Yesterday, Virgil dropped a chart and I hit the floor. I walk into a patient’s room and if I see their family there, my heart starts pounding out of my chest because I’m afraid to make even the slightest mistake in front of them lest they suddenly pull out a gun. I am a surgeon, I am supposed to be composed and-and strong and dependable but lately I am just…scared. So tell me, Nate,” he leaned in glaring at the therapist, “how do I fix that?” Nate leaned in, clasping both hands in front of him, a sign that he was considering his words carefully.

“It takes time but the first step to healing? You name it. You call the demon by its name. And Roman? You just did that.”

Roman slowly sat back, his glare fading into something much gentler, a fragile and silent hope blossoming in his heart for the first time in weeks.

****

“Virgil Davidson? Patton Parker?” The two doctors’ heads swiveled around in unison, causing Dr. Christopher to chuckle. They walked in hands intertwined, a symbol of both their combined trust and trepidation of this upcoming session. Nate gestured for the two to sit which they did while still conjoined, an action unmissed by the observant doctor. “Well, doctors, it’s good to see you both here.”

Patton chimed in first. “Um, not that I’m complaining but why are we both here? Virgil wouldn’t say much about it.”

Nate smiled reassuringly. “May I?” he asked, indicating towards Virgil who nodded, slow and small. “Well, Dr. Parker, in our last session Dr. Davidson expressed that there is something he’s wanted to ask you for a while but he hasn’t known how to articulate it. I suggested he bring you here to a safe space where we could work through any potential issues that arose.”

Patton turned to look at Virgil, concern and hurt etched into his brow. “Virgil…you know you can talk to me about anything. Not that I mind being here but you don’t have to bring me to therapy to confront me.”

“Is there something you’re concerned would come up in therapy? Something you may not want to confront?” Nate read between the lines of Patton’s reassurance like a book. Patton froze momentarily before breaking into a brilliant grin. “No, of course not! I’m an open book, Dr. Chris.” Nate nodded his face impassive while he notated the stilted manner of Patton’s speech. “Dr. Davidson, whenever you’re ready.”

Virgil took several calming breaths before he actually opened his mouth. “Pat…I wanted to ask you…if you were okay after…you know, after everything that’s happened.” Patton scrunched up his face in confusion. “Of course I am, Virge. You know that. You see me every day.”

“I know but…I’m worried. We haven’t slept with the light off since-“

“I know, Virgil.” Patton sounded suddenly defensive. Nate noted that he had dropped Virgil’s hand. “You know where I was.”

“I do, Patton. But…do you know who you are?”

“What? Virgil, you’re not making sense.” Patton was shaking his leg now, a rare signal of anxiety creeping in.

“Just hear me out, Pat. You delivered a baby by the light of a cellphone. You developed a system of silent communication on the fly. You calmed a panicking resident and saved the lives of everyone in that room. By all accounts, you are a hero. But the way you’ve been acting when you think no one’s looking…it makes me wonder if you think anything of yourself at all.”

The bouncing ceased to a halt. “I…I don’t know what to say, Virgil. I’m sorry.”

Virgil shook his head forcefully. “You don’t have to apologize. Just listen. You told me something afterwards. When that…man banged on the door to your room, you said that there was a point where you thought you would have to give yourself up.”

“Stop it, I don’t want to talk about that.” Virgil looked over at Nate in panic but the therapist simply nodded calmly to keep going. He then grounded himself once more and started again. "Pat, just hear me out, please. I only bring it up because I'm scared of how easily you could even consider giving up your life. I mean, did you even think of me?"

Patton's head turned back to the younger man on a swivel. "How could you say something like that? Of course I thought of you. Every second I thought of you. It would not have been an easy choice to make."

"But before-"

"That's not what this is about." Patton turned to Dr. Chris who seemed to be asking a silent question. "Dr. Chris, Virgil is referencing my first couple of years in med school. I struggled with depression and had some...scary thoughts. Never attempted anything and with help, I pulled myself out of it. That dark period...shaped me into the doctor that I am today. It made me value human life so much more, including my own. So no, Virgil, on this one, you're wrong. It's not that."

"Then what is it, Pat?!" The words exploded out of him before he could refine into something gentler. "I mean...I know it's something. You've held me together these past few weeks, sat with me through countless nightmares and anxiety attacks. But anytime I try to do the same for you or talk about what happened, you shut down and pretend that everything is fine when it's not. So please, talk to me. Why are you running from this?"

"Because I don't know how to do this, Virgil!" Patton shouted.

"Do what, Pat?"

"Any of this! I mean, depression I get but this...this fear? This anger, I do not understand how to deal with it at all." Nate perked up at the last thing Patton said. "Talk to me about the anger, Dr. Parker. Tell me the truth of what you're feeling."

There was a long, pregnant pause before the fetal surgeon started again, his voice raising with every word he spoke. "I...am angry for Melody! This was her first child, one she finally got to have after years of sacrificing her desires for her career. It was supposed to be one of the best times of her life but instead she now has this permanent and horrifying memory. I'm angry that her baby was born into violence when they should have been born into a world that's safe for them. I'm angry that some...person with an axe to grind decided to take the lives of thirteen of our friends and colleagues and leave the rest of us terrified for our lives! I'm angry that I'm so scared that I can't sleep without the lights on, that Virgil can't make it through the night without a nightmare, that Roman got shot and almost died, that Logan...I just...I hate what that man has done to our family! I hate him! And I hate myself for becoming the kind of person that hates people but I do and it makes me sick so I don't talk about it. I'm supposed to be grateful. I'm supposed appreciate human life but his life? The shooter? Well...I'm glad he's dead." Patton looked physically ill at that last admission. He turned to Virgil with a look of defeat on his face. "There. I said it. Happy now?"

Virgil sighed, actually looking relieved. He cuddled Patton's cheekbone with his hand and wiped his thumb across his lower eyelid. "Oh thank God," he breathed, "you're finally crying." Patton blinked a few times before he realized the magnitude of what he'd been holding in and finally chose to let go. Nate quickly conjured a box of tissues from the desk behind him and waited for the two doctors to compose themselves. "Damn it Virge," Patton chuckled through his tears, "you're brilliant, you know that?" Virgil shifted uncomfortably. It didn't go unnoticed by Patton. "Honey...were we maybe projecting when you said I didn't think much of myself?" Silence. "Virgil..you helped save Roman as much as Logan did, you know. You kept him alive and safe until he got there. You're a hero too."

"But if I had been able to help him more, Logan wouldn't have had to come at all and he wouldn't have had to go through-"

"Stop." Patton cradled Virgil's face in his hands. "What happened to Logan is not your fault. It is that man's fault. You did nothing wrong. You did everything you could and Roman is so grateful to you for it. You are good, Virge. You're so good. Believe me when I say that, okay?" Virgil nodded, blinking his own tears. Nate chuckled, drawing the attention of both doctors. "Well, you two are so good together, it seems like you hardly need me."

That day, both doctors walked with yellow slips marked with a "cleared" stamp.

****

In hindsight, maybe directly after a shooting wasn't the best time to start a relationship. Roman hadn't been able to resist the raven-haired surgeon who had been by his side since he operated on him, hoping beyond hope for him to wake up. When his eyes finally met with Logan's gaze of tearful relief, the sight broke Roman's defenses down and he'd ended up confessing the depth of his feelings right then and there. He would never forget Logan's earnest reply before the soft, passionate kiss they'd shared: "I don't ever want to be without you." It was the romantic's ultimate dream fulfilled, a beautiful moment born out of such unspeakable tragedy.

Such a shame that honeymoons always have to end.

Roman hadn't anticipated just how unspeakable their shared tragedy had become for his lover. He walked into the foyer of Logan's apartment, greeted by the same heavy silence that had prevailed over these past few weeks. "Logan?" He entered the bedroom to find the cardiologist still under his comforter with his back towards the door, obviously not having moved in quite some time. "You didn't go into work today." A statement, not a question. "I had no consults today. Didn't see much of a point." The monotone response only served to sink Roman's heart further. He sat on the opposite side of the bed from Logan, fighting the urge to deflate and join him. No, he would not sink into the encroaching darkness. He was going to help pull Logan out of it. "I had my physical today. I'm officially fully cleared for surgery.

Silence. Overwhelming silence.

Roman cleared his throat, his voice barely above a whisper. "I'm scared to operate too. But we have to try. It's who we are."

"Thirteen people." It was barely audible but Roman caught it instantly. "Logan..."

"Thirteen people are dead because of the last time I operated."

"The last time you operated, one person lived." Roman was fighting back anger now; it wasn't fair for Logan to hurt like this. To hurt so much he couldn't see the good anymore. "You are not a killer. The man who shot those people is the murderer, not you."

"His name," Logan said listlessly, shifting to get up and walk to the bathroom, "is David Bacall." The door closed with such a finality that Roman barely fought the urge to scream. Instead, he sat there helpless, choking on the thickness of his inability to help console his partner. "I'll make us dinner," he said to no one in particular, leaving the room just as empty as he felt inside.

Once Logan entered the bathroom, he braced himself on the sink as the flashbacks began. He looked in the mirror at hollow eyes and sunken cheeks that morphed into the stone faced features of David Bacall in the background, a cold metal gun so close to his face his eyes crossed slightly to focus on the end of it.

"Mr. Bacall. You don't have to do this."

"I didn't want to do this. I came here for two people, not over a dozen. But it was brought to my attention that your beloved Chief Thomas was away on conference and I got...angry."

"Killing people doesn't solve anything. It doesn't help the anger. And it doesn't bring your wife back."

"YOU WOULD KNOW, WOULDN'T YOU?!" He shook the gun wildly, sending Logan's body into internal convulsions from the fear. His face didn't betray him, though, he remained visibly calm and collected. He had to if he had any shot of diffusing the situation. "I am not a killer," he whispered, "I am a doctor. I work to save lives, not end them."

"Oh really? And I quote. '33 year old Lauren Bacall came into Sanders-Stokes Memorial presenting with cardiac symptoms due to a complication from a heart defect. Protocol indicated a long but mostly effective procedure which I initially determined as the surgical plan. However, the chief of surgery took an interest in the case. Upon further research, he found a new protocol being tested at Baylor for the same defect. Recovery and operating times were shorter but the procedure was more complex and risky. The chief strongly recommended that I do the new procedure as he believed it was in favor of the patient. I agreed and adjusted my plan accordingly. Unfortunately, upon attempting the new protocol, the patient became unstable and subsquently died from cardiac failure.' That's exactly what you said at the deposition. And those sharks sided with you. But that's not the whole story, is it? You didn't tell them how you had reservations about the surgery, how you and Chief Thomas fought in your office over it."

"You shouldn't have overheard that."

"Admit it, Dr. Taylor. You didn't want to do the procedure."

"I agreed-"

"Against your better judgment, you chose to the procedure that killed my wife! And now you're responsible for all of this! Admit it! You did this! ADMIT IT! NOW!"

"I am not responsible-"

"YES! YOU ARE! YOU HAD A CHOICE AND YOU CHOSE WRONG! ADMIT IT!"

Logan couldn't find the words over the deafening sound of the safety clicking. Bacall's hands shook violently and Logan couldn't tell if it was from fear or determination. The tears choking his tone indicated both.

"You...killed my wife. Your hands...murdered her."

"No," Logan said weakly. "Her heart was too weak. She could have died regardless of what I did-"

"DON'T YOU DARE BLAME HER FOR THIS! YOU KILLED HER!" Bacall panted, breaths rushing from his lips like an angry dragon. Tears and sweat mixed together and ran down his face. He was unraveling; Logan knew it was any minute now before he snapped completely. Without warning, Bacall's face twisted into a sinister sneer, a look that unnerved Logan to his core. "Dr. Taylor...do you know else you've killed?"

"I have not killed anyone-"

"The thirteen people that were shot here today. You wanna know how you killed them? You see, the day my wife died...I died too. I stopped living. I stopped breathing. I became a shell and the only thing I could focus on was making things right. I had one mission: evening the score. Taking out the people responsible for the death of the best thing that ever happened to me. But there were so many...obstacles and I was so...angry because I couldn't find either one of you...until now. And now I have you right where I want you." Bacall calmly lifted the gun that was wildly gesticulating seconds prior, his grip steady and his aim true. Logan closed his eyes, acceptance breaking his heart into pieces. "So this...this is for Lauren."

A shot rang out in the air and Logan felt something warm spray across his face. He couldn't bear to open his eyes and see the damage Bacall had inflicted. Instead he sensed desperately for the blinding pain at the point of entry. Maybe he didn't fatally wound him, maybe he could get to Virgil...the pain never came. Was he already...no, that's his heartbeat, he's still alive. But why?

"Sir. Sir, are you all right?" Who was that? "Sir, are you hurt? We have to evacuate this part of the building, can you walk or do you need assistance?" Police. He was surrounded by police. He was alive. But why? And who's blood...? He slowly opened his eyes. Bacall's.

"Sir, can you walk? We have to move." Logan stammered before he finally found his voice. "N-no, I can't leave! My coworker is very hurt and I'm the only surgeon on the unit who can save him!"

"You know where he is? I'll escort you to him." Logan nodded and began running in the direction towards Roman, trying to shut out the sight of Bacall's lifeless body as he stepped over the growing pool of blood...

He blinked twice and was back in the bathroom. He touched his face, expecting his fingers to come away bloody. Instead, he found tears that turned into quiet, painful sobs, suppressing the sound with sternum-crushing force. The guilt swiftly stole his voice while the never-ending questions pounded against his brain, demanding answers. Why did he survive? Why didn't Bacall just shoot him? Why didn't he just do the other procedure? Why did he let the chief talk him into the risky surgery? Thirteen people would maybe still be alive if he had any sort of a spine and defended his plan. Thirteen people are dead because of him. He was responsible, he was guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty-

He couldn't take it anymore.

Frantically, Logan swung open the bottom cabinet and searched at the back of his cleaning supplies, finally producing a bottle of pills. He stared at the medicine for a indefinite amount of time, the inner debate growing inside his brain. Sacrificing years of sobriety for temporary relief from pain wasn't worth it. It wouldn't solve anything. He knew this all too well.

It didn't stop him from pouring three pills onto his hand and swallowing them whole.

#sanders sides #ss surgeon au #moxiety #logince #logan sanders #roman sanders #patton sanders #virgil sanders #angst #tw:/addiction #tw:/violence #my writing #sanders sides surgeon au

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psychedelictrashpanda · 3 years

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It’s been awhile, weird old blog with unspecified direction. How about more of me me me?

I finally did DMT again, and WOW. It’s been at least a full decade since the last time. I still didn’t quite “break through” enough to “meet the entities” again but mein GOTT was it healing. Speaking of God, we’ll get to that soon... But before smoking the dimitri, I was beginning to sustain a mania in slow motion with dissociatives again. Not to any extreme like I did with PCP long ago (btw, glancing at my Eyehategod poster, I realize that horror/metal fest when I was blasted on PCP the entire time was all the way back in 2013! It seems to much more recent, but the way these drugs interact with memory is very peculiar. or maybe it was the traumatizing effect of it and other things at the time that makes me block out and thus distort the time signature of the memory... I digress). And I don’t have the destructive tendencies I did in the past anyway, so I’ve never been apt to push it as far as I was when I was shooting up 3-meo-pcp and blacking out for days at a time. I mean, I did push it I suppose. For the main George Floyd protests I was loading up on a combination of things. Can’t even remember if that was my sober window between methadone detox and the suboxone I’m on now. But, I was combining bits of weird PCP offshoots with opiate offshoots (4-map iirc) and/or kratom with maybe a drop of benzo... straddling the line between going overboard and a “party dose” for lack of a better descriptor; between recreation and desperation. In retrospect, I was summoning the courage to act like my old self used to in these sorts of situations. That is, giving it my all, being novel about it, idk, summoning the spirit of Dr Gonzo I suppose (who, after reading his two books, was more slimey of a jerk than he’s presented in Hunter’s stories. well, I need to finish the Cockroach People book, he started getting into his attraction to underage girls as a young 20-something man himself and ugh, gross). My true wild & adventurous spirit has been hampered, weighed down with anxiety and depression and all manner of undiagnosed mental illness. Who knows if it’s more the drugs or the environmental factors that trigger drug use, but the spirit is tortured like Griffith in the torture dungeon, the heart is wrapped in a black grime guarded by the Beast of Darkness, the will is subordinated to authoritarian capitalist hegemony...

Where was I? Oh so I started suboxone for the second time in my life innnn... February I want to say. Last time I did it I was able to detox myself simply buying subs off the street, but I did it too quick. That’s been one problem, every time I detox rapidly it’s too harsh a push back into reality and I succumb to relapse less then a year into sobriety. The reason reality is harsh is the same reason my stance on anti depressants has been further cemented. I’ve articulated it better lately... Basically I believe it’s a weird solution to depression to force your chemical makeup into the right position to function properly in the same environment that caused it in the first place. “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” One of my conversations with a young college friend really illuminated why many don’t even consider this position. She was insistent there’s no cause of depression, you’re just born with a fucked up mind. Now sure, hereditary disposition is a thing, as a drug addicted child of an addict I should know. But for example she pointed to another friend with hard depression and was like “his life seems fine what explanation could there be?” But I put forth maybe his childhood of having to closet his homosexuality in a hard conservative family that had the possibility of disowning him if they knew about it contributed to that “natural chemical imbalance,” as it’s implied. YES, some people NEED it. But for the most part, it really seems to me to be what I’m gonna call the thyroid phenomenon. That is to say, a medical explanation for a small fraction of severely affected patients is used as a broad brush by the public to diagnose themselves. Forewarning: I am not fat shaming here, forgive the example. Dietary practices are a personal thing so my feelings are stronger as well. Anyway, it seems to me as soon as this thyroid malfunction became a hard biological explanation for obesity beyond the psychological, suddenly everyone was a candidate. It’s fine to think “maybe I have it” but when a growing and significant portion of the obese crowd started screaming they all had thyroid problems and can’t help themselves, when a teensy percentage actually do... well it sort of touches on the “addiction as a disease” narrative that’s never sat well with me. Addicts use the disease reasoning to skirt personal responsibility. I'm not denying it is a disease, but I believe calling it as such in the public discourse isn’t terribly constructive. (Okay, you’re seeing an opinion change in real time here... I changed my mind.) I was vehemently against the narrative, but I need to readjust to simply make people WARY of the narrative. As an addict, I could easily see myself using the excuse of it being a disease as a fatalist function; that is to say giving in, relinquishing personal control over my fate. Hereditary disposition, Rat Park, addiction as a disease... there’s also a severe lack of control it all conjures. Paradoxically, drugs can used to meticulously control your state of mind. I can’t control my desire to control myself?

God where was I going with this... Oh! God! May as well mention I’ve been warming up more and more to the spirit of monotheism beyond it’s structural and institutional dimensions. I could get deep into my recent past of not believing in the idea of a spirit, soul, etc. How the pendulum of my ideology swings between cold rationalism and loose spirituality, especially as I go through phases of rebellion against perceived oppressors. Growing up in a red state with a lot of Christian ideals, society around me was always telling me everything I seemed to like was the work of Satan. Naturally, I started reading into Satanism. I never self identified with occult-esque belief structures, except maybe chaos magick because it’s whole idea is to merge whatever practices work into something of your own, but I did staunchly identify as anti christian. Not a hard thing to do when you’re already a metal head, which definitely fueled the trajectory. Not to mention metal helped goad me into DXM use (thanks Velvet Cacoon ya bunch of goons), the first real psychedelic journeys I had. Because I never gave real consideration to myself having depression, I moulded my personal ideology around the symptoms it causes. Which is why for awhile after coming to terms with depression as a problem I probably have, I was only able to identify it in retrospect. I never felt it in real time because it was so old-coat to me, I adapted to it like an addict adapts to their drug of choice and ti becomes their world. So I would decide to skip social events, let my room get messy, watch only old comfort shows, etc... but only AFTER emerging from that state was I able to immediately look back and think “wait... I was doing all those things because I was depressed.” In the moment, it’s rationalized as “I don’t want to see these people for these reasons” or “I want to watch spongebob because it’s fun and an old favorite.” Rationalization, the concept of the west, serves as a detriment to the individual in a number of manners. This is one. I was a MASTER at rationalizing away my drug use. Statistically, more people die from this this and that, why be worried that I’m on this drug instead? Statistics quelled the perceived danger. It was also a formative tool in my skills of justification. I always felt I had to justify every action I took, but that’s getting back into family matters...

But why not bring that up? it’s a sore spot. I feel like the tables have flipped from my dad always saying “you all just think I’m an asshole!” to me thinking I’m the asshole. It’s too much to get into but I’ll touch on a couple important things... I’ve learned a major source of my anxiety is not being able to draw the boundaries between business and family and myself, because they’re not properly defined. When I’m told by my bossfather after explaining the distress I feel simply thinking about the family company, and he goes typically all-or-nothing when I touch on crucial issue and says “if you want out just tell me you want out”, I can’t separate between whether he’s saying it as a father or as a boss in the moment. He would say, “of course I just mean the company”, but where does company end and family begin? It’s also an intense pressure, maybe shame, simply typing this and thinking in the back of my head about someone who might read and think “what a spoiled brat, has a family company and blah blah.” But who put all that in my head? He says he’s changed from the days of putting immense pressure on me with the sort of sentiments that cause that shit in my head like always telling me how great I have it and all the opportunities, shit, I’m feeling it right now, the frustration and I can’t even identify these emotions. At least I am aware of them, that’s a huge milestone for me. But the only thing that’s changed is he sees me as a the broken mother fucker I am and treats me as such. Sometimes it’s nice, and sincere sympathy, other times his frustration with having to check his language all the time is palpable so it does no good to do so. The immense pressure, the intense urgency, the confusing complexity, all those market pressures haven’t changed. This is evident when we were driving somewhere and I suggested not worrying about the fastest route on the map because one minute isn’t a big deal and he insisted that one minute IS a big deal. Sweating one fucking minute indicates a mountain of reputational pressure. In a way, that one minute is putting business ahead of family, but I feel harsh saying it because as he’s pounded into my head the business is what allows the family to survive. Not to mention why put the crack head of the family above that one minute (not literal crack, but it was obvious as soon as he saw I was “fucking around” on ketamine he decided to not take me as seriously) Still, I’ve made my decision that survival reasoning is fucking bullshit already. He’s the one that wants a mansion and wants enough mailbox money for us not to have to worry ever again, so he’s the one deliberately creating the pressure. Maybe he hasn’t considered how hardened he’s become to those feelings after a lifetime in the street and in prison. I really feel for mom. She’s okay now, but her spirit... It’s part of the reason I can’t relax myself at home. He has always painted her as dead weight in the past, never getting a job, sitting watching TV, but he’s unable to connect the dots psychologically because we’re all layman that part of the reason she’s like that is because her actions have been demonized already so who the fuck she got to prove herself to? Same reason I fell into relapse sometimes. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t sort of deal. The damned if I don’t being the reputation of yourself you have to live with after getting sober. He says “don’t worry about it” but I couldn’t accept that because the reason he doesn’t trust me (never mind respect, that’s even further away) is informed by my past. I can’t complain that he never allowed me to contribute to a crucial decision like choosing the building for the dispensary, talking about whether we want a certain investor or not, etc, is because that’s not something to entrust to a druggie. I’ve always felt he let me play make-believe CEO and gave me an allowance for it, while telling me otherwise. He’d say “this is all for you” but he’s making the decisions that truly move mountains and then putting it on us. Which is why I have a hard time saying “I want out”, he can be a baby about things just as much as I am, and I fear he’d let his entrepreneurial drive be affected by my departure. Sigh, this is already getting to be a headache to think about... He’s tired. I’m tired.

There was also something I wanted to say regarding the role social constructs play in all this, but it’s getting long enough already. Suffice to say I’ve been getting into psychoanalysis lately and it’s scratching the right itch for knowledge and wisdom. I can see why Zizek is enamored with Lacan, and why it’s so important to mix it with Marxism. And not to toot my own horn, but what the hell... There are a lot of lofty ideas I’ve been coming across that are already parallel to ideas I’ve developed through my own life experience, and it makes me think I’m meant for this sort of stuff. If I’m lucky in my pursuits (not to put too much weight on the luck aspect), I’ll be a journalist of some sort. Articles, video essays, whatever. Need to rein in my indecisiveness and dispel FOMO tho.

Back to DMT. But not really. Earlier in the summer I got some straight Ketamine and it was also immensely healing. But it has a great abuse potential, especially for me, so it’s harder to “hang up the phone” after I get the message as TmK would say. It made me feel again, and start to understand what love is. Partly because it conjured all these lost feels I had for Kat. She’s great people though, I think I’d just stress her out too much. Idk. Whatever. My love life is a total mess. Anyway after I ran out I wanted more of course and stumbled on some DCK, a somewhat rare ketamine offshoot. Coupled with my increasing propensity to trip acid more than once a week, they started building on each other. I was happier and happier at home, but at work/fam was getting more and more distressed about my place in that whole show. In his show. Simply thinking about the company, especially after having read that article about procrastination and how much it resonated with me, caused me unnecessary levels of distress. Normally as quickly as I can feel that, my mind will tuck it away and bottle it up somewhere so I can go about my day. The problem with drugs is they cause you to act instead. So he was doing the usual “it’s so easy! you’ll have it made!” and I interrupted with this torrent of shit I’ve been holding back forever, and he would not yield on his “you didn’t let me finish...” Incidentally, has he really never picked up on every time I interrupt I already know what he’s talking about? I said as much, something like “it’s not the labor” and he keeps saying “no you’re not listening” as though a frivolous detail changed the main thrust of the fact he’s always trying to make it easier for me. I wish he could simply let me go off and have the strength to take it a little less seriously, but considering how often I take things personally I shouldn’t be surprised he does to. On top of this, his brother/my uncle was in the hospital for some serious shit. But another reason I picked this time is because I only feel safe even confronting him when non-involved parties are around. He doesn’t care that I don’t feel safe confronting him though, he says “don’t worry about me” so maybe I shouldn’t. I feel like such an asshole about it, but that feeling is conjured by the ideological structure he helped to create. Where does my shame end with him being the causation and start with my personal ideology? How much can a person create their own ideology, truly? It’s about as small a window as free will, I imagine.

SO after feeling awful for going off after having all this stuff build up in my mind, I felt awful and went home to drug up some more. Again, not recklessly to the extent I used to be. But I did a fat line of DCK while on a couple hits of LSD and a smidgen of Zolpidem (a wholly underrated substance). Everything was getting to me all at once. A perfect storm of my problems. All the while another doubt caused by ideology from without (society and family both) was making me think it’s all the drugs. But the developments I’ve made are huge strides, I’ve matured so much from it all. And I realized every time I do this, those developments are wiped clean because the validity of them is rendered null due to both the general social stigma of drugs and my history with them. And maybe that’s a major trigger fo rmy relapse in the past. I’m not suppose to be on drugs, but I dabble, have incredible experiences and make strides of maturity, but because it’s drugs the exact opposite effect is percieved from the outside; the experiences are simple chemical euphoria, the strides of maturity are false delusions. It triggers a sharp roll back down hill. I wish someone respected me for who I am, I feel so alone sometimes.

Drugs as an umbrella term, drugs as a vice for the worst dregs of society. There are so many problems in our world regarding drugs. I could write a book. But how much I’ve written here touches on another pressure I feel. IS it simply him again? When he asks “you’re gonna be gone in a few days right?” is that what’s making me feel like this is a waste of time? I’ve got to get out of here. It’s so hard though. I simply have to be strong. The strength is in me to take the massive cut to pay and benefits when I move. Maybe I’ll get a portion of my strugglers card back and shit heads like Blasey Shomas can’t simply say “why don’t you take care of yourself instead of daddy taking are of you?” anymore. Part of me wants to say he says that because he’s driven by his own emotions and not smart enough to directly debate my claims, his insults should hold no weight. Another part of me is truly trying to be... I don’t know a proper term for it without sounding egotistical, but “enlightened”? This is why monotheism is sounding more interesting to me. Jesus’ position about those dregs of society. I’ve always tried to be a trusting person, understanding of people’s struggles, the ideologies they function under that make them lash out or otherwise act the way they do, etc. I even changed my wording there from “I’ve always been” to “I’ve always tried to be.” Not so much for my usual reasons of dodging a committing claim (which I’m working on -- instead of “I think ___” just say what I believe to give the claim more sense of authority so as to be taken more seriously), but trying to be more humble. And not to think lowly and use myself as a punching bag like I used to... ugh, whatever. This post is messy enough.

So that night after having done DCK every day for a couple weeks and tripping every other night on acid, I was at my wits end on what to do, where to go next, everything. The outside world is crumbling, the inside world is lost. I finally whipped out that DMT I’ve had for a long while, something inside told me it was time. Oh duh it was the wits end part, I had no other chemical recourse. I sat in my bed with a foil sculpture loosely resembling a pipe, repeated to myself “it’s okay, just let it happen to you, it will be okay.” A part of me even had a small fear based on those rare reports of those interdimensional beings mentally raping some people, but I don’t know what to make of those experiences, seem like flukes. I took my three deep hits and set the pipe aside as soon as the rusb began and laid back. It wasn’t enough to break through, so I need to get a proper pipe, but it was enough for a “being” (which I am convinced is a part of your mind, not from another dimension or otherwise external source) to appear before me. At least I think. Whatever it was slowly came closer, reassuring me that I’d be okay. The most profound part was an overwhelming sense of all these puzzle pieces suddenly falling perfectly into place where they should be. As though the answers to all my struggles obvious and within me the whole time. For example as soon as I came back I adjusted my posture, as that’s something that I’ve been wanting to work on, and because I was reminded of that just now I adjusted my posture in my seat while writing this. I felt an overwhelming sense of forgiveness toward myself, I think. Amazingly, the inebriation I felt before the trip was largely dissolved, as though the stuff I was on somehow all lost it’s potency. The distresses melted away. At least, the power behind them was nulled. I’m still facing the same problems, but there’s a zen(?) quality to my thinking when they come up in my mind. No longer will a pin drop trigger everything I’m feeling all at once. When I came-to completely, I started BAWLING. In being overwhelmingly consoled by the trip, I became inconsolable. Tears of joy. Tears of healing. And that was the main takeaway. The loudest words of the experience were “Now the healing can truly begin.” At the same time, now the real work also begins.

Balance is key

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project-sour-grapes · 3 years

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Computer Science and Neurology as Magic

As I was getting the hang of computer science and software development over the years, I realized how simple and practical it is compared to the impression that non-tech people have about it. People look at their phones and laptops and, due to having no idea how they work, see them as kind of magic pieces of plastic and metal. This is illustrated when a frustrated user gets an error and screams that the computer "SHOULD JUST KNOW." No, the computer cannot just know. The computer is just a flowchart of things to do created by a few humans who tried to anticipate what you would want out of it. There is no computer that "knows." (Before you bring up machine learning and AI, know that those are just fancier, more convoluted flowcharts made to predict what the heck you want.)

My guess is it is the same with neurology, psychology, and neuroscience. These behaviors that we see out of humans and other beings on earth seem like magic. In Dr. John Sarno's work, he would speak about the human emotional experience with wonderment, like the sort of reverence you see when people talk about their religion. It's a sort of "I don't know how we got from X system to Y result, therefor I will credit some unknowable force in and around me and possibly bigger than myself." This could still be true. There may be truths of the universe that humans will never understand, since existing in the universe doesn't mean you can grasp everything about it. Dogs don't understand calculus, but that doesn't make calculus false. However, the layers between the chemical reactions happening at the microscopic level and the apparent "magic" that is consciousness are probably simpler and more practical than we think. Or maybe it's dangerous to our mental health to even think this way, to see oneself as a collection of unfeeling, indifferent reactions. That seems like it would break the motivation and identity parts of the brain. Those parts of the brain are probably not made to function under such beliefs. Humans didn't have to contend with knowing such damning, soulless facts for hundreds of thousands of years. Or maybe we can both accept this and use "quantum physics" as an existential safe harbor. We can double dip into truth and enjoy the practicality of the sense of self. I might ditch this mindset just because it is not practical and it definitely doesn't feel good to think of myself as a collection of chemicals colliding with each other in a complex enough manner to produce "the human experience." So I'll set this thought aside for now.

I write these rambles more or less as a way to both explore goofy thoughts and to illustrate that I do think things through. A few important people in my life have implied over the past couple of years that I live in my own head, I live in a bubble, or I don't "get" things. My grandmother, who used to consider me her golden grandchild, has now started calling me to berate me for being a loser with no direction in life. She says I've never tried anything difficult in my life, that I'm going nowhere, and that I don't pay attention to others around me. I am one of the most successful people in my family, both in my career, in my friendships, and in my sense of self. I have accomplished so much (and yet I have so much more that I'm dying to do, thus this blog). As far as having "never tried anything difficult" in my life, I transitioned from female to male at age 18, something that most people don't have the balls to do. And that's just one shitty, difficult thing that I've overcome. So as much as I ramble and go off on ADHD-fueled tangents (another fun obstacle for me), I don't necessarily care enough to delete the gargantuan paragraphs or trailing thoughts, because part of the goal is to show that I do pay attention. I want to share the patterns that I see in the human experience. I am thinking things through, even though I may come off as a flat-faced space cadet or as withdrawn. I'm a goofball, but I didn't arrive at my disposition out of stupidity or carelessness (in fact, I'd argue that my quirks are due to excessive care and conscientiousness). I arrived here by thinking and caring. And my motivations are really about being a healthy person and taking care of others. This got off topic for CS and neuro stuff, but hey go figure. That's my brain dump for right now. Ciao.

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happymetalgirl · 4 years

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April 2020

WELL! I have been gone awhile, very busy, and look what happens when I slow down writing about metal: the world starts to fucking fall apart. But no, in all seriousness. I’m writing this part now at the beginning of June after an already tumultuous April and May, and now I’m just making myself sit down and do this because, well, honestly, it’s been pretty hard to justify spending my time writing about music with all the fuck shit going on right now. (I can’t wait to see what July throws at us.) But again, in all seriousness, I’m not looking for any pity or sympathy for my relatively mild circumstances at all because in all honesty, my white privilege has allowed my life to be pretty okay and proceed mostly uninterrupted in the midst of everything going on.

I’m probably going to repost this part in its own post, but I feel like I have to get this out of the way before I write any more about music. I’ll start by disseminating any ambiguity on what I’ll be talking about in these paragraphs that I am intentionally bolding.

As I write this in the midst of a fucking respiratory virus pandemic, another epidemic (possibly pandemic) of racist police brutality that has always existed in a culture of unhinged toxic masculinity in my increasingly embarrassing country has exploded to unbelievable and disgusting levels against Black people and peaceful protesters in the United States, ironically in wake of protests against fucking police violence, all of which is only emboldened and encouraged by local and federal leadership that is showcasing its oppressive, totalitarian ambitions in its unprecedented attempted revocations of its citizens constitutional and human rights.

I’ll make the necessary side note that this increasingly oligarchical government subservient to the will of military and prison industry has already shown its complete disregard for human rights for decades upon decades now through its violation of human rights through offensive wars and sanctions against other countries and its dehumanization of the refugees and immigrants who its actions create.

If you haven’t already checked out of this from all the political correctness breaching your conservative bubble (good job not being that person), but you’re upset because tHiS iS sUpPoSeD tO bE a MuSiC bLoG, uh, you’re on the wrong website buddy, and the potential tipping point of a long-awaited revolution in the midst of an economic depression, a viral pandemic, and a dual crisis of grotesque police violence and evolutionary transformation of proto-fascism into fascist dictatorship is no time to go about business as usual.

BUT HOLY SHIT, ENOUGH INTRODUCTION AND ENOUGH ABOUT ME! The point of this is to spotlight what to do in the wake of all of this. First of all, I don’t have all the answers and my perspective is as limited as any person’s, so if you’re an expert on any of these matters or if you have insight from having experiences that I as a white cis male have not had, if anything I’m bringing up here could be better in any way, feel absolutely free (but not obligated) to let me know.

Okay, so lots of problems at hand. The big, all-encompassing one facing all of humanity of course is the ecological disruption caused by industrially driven human-catalyzed climate change, and the rot of everything crystallizing at this current moment feeds into exacerbating that catastrophe, the next wide-reaching issue being capitalism, whose prioritization of profit and short-term gains is incredibly ill-equipped to handle a slow emergency like climate change or a more acute emergency like a global pandemic. Here in the U.S. we have a federal government so infested with corporate corruption to maximize capital profits for the country’s most wealthy that they couldn’t even choose the obvious solution of pausing the economy and providing for its people for the duration of the pandemic in the interest of public health over the appallingly quick choice of protecting the financial interests of the corporate “donors” that help them hold their positions of power, at the risk of maybe closing the gap a tiny bit between the truly despicably wealthy and the growing number of hopelessly impoverished. So while the wealthy get protection of their assets from the slow-down of business (you know, ‘cause the pandemic), the people in most need of help because of that slow-down and plunged into spiking unemployment get shit from the people meant to represent them. And that’s just the corporate rot that rears its head as a result of a pandemic!

Even in “normal” times, capitalism in this country has built its foundation on slave labor and justifying the use of slavery through racism (even after it became illegal to outright own people as slaves). That cornerstone of free/cheap labor that this country’s economy is built on whose role was served by slavery was filled by outsourcing to countries with an easily exploitable lower class (whose conditions are often exacerbated by U.S. meddling on behalf of business interests) and prison labor made possible by mass incarceration that has targeted similarly vulnerable people and communities of color through strategic, racially profiled over-policing of minority communities trapped in poverty through historic systemic racism.

The study of that global climate change I mentioned earlier is referred to as a crisis study because there isn’t an unlimited time to do something about it, and the ever-changing conditions and pivotal events of the world effect what needs to be done to combat it (and what it is too late to do). This current crisis of police brutality is one of those types of critical moments, for climate change and social justice. Police brutality didn’t become an issue when George Floyd was murdered on May 25th 2020; it’s been an ugly facet of this multifactedly ugly country for a long time now, but its being brought to light has instigated an uprising the likes of which has not been seen in a long while, and with it, an especially insidious aggression toward it by the increasingly fascist government and its authoritarian figurehead (to the point of threatening institution of martial law and suspending first amendment rights and habeas corpus) that at this point serves only to maintain complacency for the benefit of the ruling class and to the detriment of the disproportionately non-white lower working class (treated as a slave class). Consequently this is a pivotal time that obligates widespread action and ceasing of silence from privileged people like me who have been able to get away with writing about music largely apolitically for years. This is a time when we either plunge unfathomably further into the depths of fascism at the hands of the ruling class and the silence of the less-effected or we consolidate in this moment of broad energizing to both enact substantive change on the critical issue of police brutality and set a precedent and build momentum to achieve justice for LGBTQIA+ folk, other racial minorities and marginalized groups, and make the critical changes need to avoid civilizational dissolution in the face of the imperative to mitigate our impact on global warming.

Speaking of that change and the actions that this moment implores of us all to contribute our energy to: the most immediately critical issue at our feet, to both save human lives from being taken unjustly at the hands of police brutality and to galvanize this revolution to be able to demand further justice and critical social transformation, is ending police brutality. Being an institution born out of rounding up escaped slaves and given the state-supported monopoly on violence that attracts largely those seeking to satiate sadism with the license to that monopolized violence, police culture is inherently toxic and not worth even preserving for the sake of transforming structurally. While abolishing the police is obviously too ambitious of an immediate goal, there are a lot of proposed steps to defunding and largely dismantling the police as a whole. The project Campaign Zero outlines and pushes for ten tangible reforms that would (some of which have recently been proposed in Colorado) decrease police violence, especially in the majority-Black communities that suffer from it the most. The “8 Can’t Wait” proposal that has been making rounds lately is part of Campaign Zero, and donations to these projects are of course, quite helpful and a good start for this blossoming movement. Furthermore, donations to local bail funds is especially important at this time with police making wanton arrests of peaceful protests (and also just random Black people not making any disruption) to support the people going out and protesting. Because this money of course gets siphoned into the courts, and then partially to law enforcement, it’s important to also direct funds to organizations where that money will not later be used against us, but again, keeping people able to protest is of utmost importance, since that it what is driving positive change in this moment.

Also helpful is direct support of the people on the frontlines of these protests. It is a time for privileged people to take action in solidarity and support, but not one for privileged groups to take over or “lead” the movement. Right now, this is about who is hurting the most and who is being oppressed the most, and right now that is Black people, by police, hence BLACK LIVES MATTER. Now is not a time for even underprivileged white people to use these protests’ likelihood of escalating to indulge in venting frustrations against the system by inciting police violence that puts Black people disproportionately in more danger in such situations. Now is the time to use that privilege of being less prone to racism police violence to whatever extent possible to protect the people of color protesting. And again, this isn’t about being white saviors or martyrs, this is about supporting people in the way they wish, so don’t listen to my advice over the insight and requests of what Black people and the Black community have. And by all means, fucking listen to them! Read from them! Engage in good-faith conversation with them (though don’t expect any individual Black person to give you a seminar on racism, there are ample resources that don’t demand someone devoting their precious time to you)! Learn where the limits of your perspective fail you! And for fuck’s sake, don’t just cherry pick the word of one token Black friend that happens to have some class privilege to conveniently discount the testimonies of other Black people!

Lastly, on a personal note to the metalheads that read this blog, I think this is a particularly important time for the metal community, not to center itself, but to bring itself alongside social justice in a more complete way than it has in the past. Former Opeth and current Soen drummer Martín López said last year in an interview published in Blabbermouth that the metal community is very behind the curve on sociopolitical issues, and the response to his saying that from the metal community that floods Blabbermouth comment sections basically just made the case for the exact point he was making. And it’s a shame because I think such a huge part of metal is about standing up to injustice as part of or in support of the oppressed, or at least such a huge part of the metal I gravitate toward is. Without sounding too spiritual or cheesy because I’m not a really spiritual person, I feel like when I see the injustice going on, I feel that spirit of metal in all of it on the side of the oppressed. I feel like all the grindcore and deathcore and thrash and death metal I’ve been binging lately is in the spirit of the protesters standing up to and, when they have to, fighting back against the unjustified aggression of the police, and looking back at old, certified classic albums like ...And Justice for All, Toxicity, and Chaos A.D. and more recent albums like Machine Head’s The Blackening, and Thy Art Is Murder’s Human Target, and Venom Prison’s Samsara, it’s always been about standing up to this kind of bullshit. So I think if there ever was a time since Sabbath birthed it for metal to prove that it’s as important as it makes itself out to be and as important as it is to everyone who listens to it in such a way that they read an obscure blog about it, now is that time to show that it’s not just about being an angry white guy. Now is the time to make Martín López happy by proving him wrong.

Well, in typical Happymetalboy fashion, I can’t seem to make anything brief. So, with that said, let’s talk about the metal music that came out in the good ol’ days of April 2020. Wow.

Well, April was a pretty big month. Lots of albums coming out, the whole music industry still the throes of the pandemic, it’s a damn shame we got what might be the best album I’ve ever reviewed on this blog in the midst of all this soul-crushing stagnance and financial despair in the music world. I mean, I’m certainly very glad to be getting such a great album among other great albums at a time when music is definitely helping me to keep going as well. It just sucks knowing these artists aren’t going to be able to tour in celebration of their great artistic achievements, and the first one on this list definitely deserves to celebrate.

Oranssi Pazuzu - Mestarin Kynsi

I already reviewed the Finnish band’s fifth full-length in great detail, which I highly suggest checking out because I wrote a lot about that album and I wrote it quite enthusiastically. It feels weird in a way to make the rest of the albums on this list follow my recount of an album that I already detailed in great length to be one of the best albums I have heard in years, quite possibly the best album I’ve reviewed in this blog’s existence, but I have to make sure that it doesn’t get lost at the end of this undoubtedly long-ass post. Anyway, Oranssi Pazuzu have fucking outdone themselves on this one and in many ways, black metal in general. The band have been building their synthy, psychedelic sound for over a decade now, but Mestarin Kynsi is the crystallization of everything the band has been working toward, which I think last year’s Waste of Space Orchestra collaboration played a big part in catalyzing. The album is so immersive and in so many ways feels like it has a soul of its own, made possible by the band’s absolute chemistry and dedication to ego-lessly channeling this album’s transcendent ethos as a team rather than elevating themselves individually, and what they conjure on here is such a leap up from their already heady psychedelic black metal and out of this fucking world. Mestarin Kynsi is the kind of terrifying, yet transfixing light that pulls you in even as you know of its malevolence, because it is just too goddamn beautiful and compelling to resist. The score should be such a big deal, but I know that any time this kind of score is thrown out there it prompts all sorts of distracting question regarding the flaws of the album, but I stand by my original score. I love this album, and I don’t see anything about it that makes me think it’s any less.

10/10

Okay, now on to the unfortunate rest of April’s releases that had to follow this up.

Testament - Titans of Creation

Testament rode a pretty vibrant comeback wave with Chuck Billy’s beating cancer on 2008’s The Formation of Damnation and 2012’s Dark Roots of the Earth, but that hot steak came to an end on the rather droll effort they put out in 2016, Brotherhood of the Snake. Back when concerts were a thing, I caught them when they opened up for the rest of the stacked lineup of Slayer’s farewell tour; they put on a great show, and I was reminded of what made them, still, such a prominent force in thrash, hopeful for a rejuvenation on whatever record came next. And as much as I wish I liked this new album of theirs more, I just can’t get into it all that much for so many of the same reasons I couldn’t get into its predecessor. I’d say it has much brighter moments, but it suffers from much of the same recycling of thrash compositional tropes (with not enough elaboration) that Brotherhood of the Snake did. It’s the kind of album that at first listen will seem flavorful and engaging, but it loses it pretty quickly like a snack that isn’t that filling or easy to keep eating due to it’s overwhelming taste, despite its empty calories.

5/10

Abysmal Dawn - Phylogenesis

After six years during which I had thought they might have disbanded or been dropped from Relapse Records, Abysmal Dawn return from the shadows on Season of Mist with the tight, concise brand of modestly technical modern death metal that made them such a sell in the first place on their fifth record, Phylogenesis. Not deviating at all from what they know they do well, Abysmal Dawn stick to a direct death metal attack with no bells and whistles, relying on their speed and agility to guide them, and their strengths serve them well as they manage to highlight what makes death metal so appealing at its core.

8/10

WVRM - Colony Collapse

While not listening to Oranssi Pazuzu or straight-up depressive shit, I have had a massive hankering for filthy grindcore that has been graciously satiated in part by WVRM’s Colony Collapse. Airing heavily on the hardcore side of the genre, incorporating some slower slamming grooves and deep, dirty gutteral vocals into their otherwise true-to-the-genre grindcore, WVRM do indeed put forth a more intense slab of grindcore than your usual twenty-something minute LP, which is made possible largely by the dynamic that they inject with their willingness to incorporate so much tasty, hardcore riffage and nasty sludge.

7/10

Red - Declaration

After what I’ve now come to see as their worst album, 2017′s Gone, Red immediately bounce back onto the positive trajectory that Of Beauty and Rage set them on and back to the symphonic 2000′s alternative metal that they built their early reputation on, with their shortest, possibly most direct album to date, comprised of just ten tight tracks that focus their cathartic brand of alternative metal into surprisingly dense packages that undoubtedly include some of the best of the band’s whole career, like “All for You”, “The Evening Hate”, and the especially cathartic “The War We Made”. I can only hope every band that has stumbled so hard lately can pick themselves back up as quickly and convincingly as Red has on their aptly named seventh LP here.

8/10

August Burns Red - Guardians

I have to say, despite being a pretty standard slab of melodic 2010’s metalcore, this album has kind of grown on me a bit in the past few weeks of listening to it. The album shows that the band are doing well to keep an eye on what’s going on in metalcore, stylistically spanning old and new pretty well. And while we sometimes get cheesy Hot Topic melodicism on songs like “Lighthouse”, other tracks encapsulate old and new in the space of a single song with respectable tact. The track “Defender” for example features two metalcore breakdowns, the first of which is generic as fuck from the 2000’s, but the second is distinctly more creative and forward-thinking, showing that the band are aware of the genre’s evolution and their trajectory alongside it. I also have to point out the highlight “Dismembered Memory” is in the track list with its emotive, Gothenburg-style guitar melody mixed with some distinct Architects-inspired vocal melodies. The closing track, “Three Fountains”, also ends the album on a strong note with its powerful melodic vocals in particular. Again, most of this project is pretty unsurprising metalcore, but the band at least shows some sense of awareness of how to progress their sound, and the strength of the highlights here makes the album worth at least checking out to find them.

6/10

Benighted - Obscene Repressed

While it is a well-performed, well-produced offering, Obscene Repressed is little more than a competent modern horror/brutal death metal album whose campiness in its shots for grotesqueness and creepiness can actually end up working against it. It’s a fun enough death metal album for while it’s on with some impressive flashes of percussion in particular, but it’s memorable mostly for its goofy moments and much less for its songwriting.

6/10

Aborted - La Grande Mascarade

Well, three more songs of relentless modern brutal death metal from Aborted is surely hard to get worked up about, and that goes in the positive and negative direction. On the EP’s three tracks, the band basically just goes through the motions in a way that makes me question what the point of putting these tracks out on this EP as opposed to keeping them for the next album (and potentially grooming them further) was. I mean, I can’t complain too much, the band are solid on these cuts in all the ways we come to expect them to be, but what makes these songs unfit for the next album or really demands they be released on this EP?

6/10

Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts V: Together & Ghosts VI: Locusts

I don’t want to knock Nine Inch Nails’ more ambient works, as I do think Trent Reznor has proven he has the chops to thrive in dark ambiance, but I just couldn’t get too excited about this watered down three hours worth of dark ambiance that he put out this year. It certainly works on the baseline level that all dark ambient music operates on an generally seeks to achieve, but it really doesn’t go above and beyond anywhere and it just kind of settles for the passing grade. At the most charitable, both are the kinds of ambient albums that exist solely to provide an eerie, droning sonic background with a few notable shifts coming from song to song, but that’s not enough to get me excited for either of them.

5/10 & 6/10

The Black Dahlia Murder - Verminous

I have to say, I’ve kind of softened in my earlier perception The Black Dahlia Murder being overrated, and Verminous is an album that really helps their case. Its name is pretty apt for the band’s blackened style of melodeath in general, but the dynamic between their delicious melodic side and their muscularly heavy side on Verminous is quite possibly at its most comprehensively displayed. I know that the band’s fans don’t really see them as having any misses in their catalog, though there seems to be some consistent favoritism toward Nocturnal, but I would wager that Verminous has captured their composition at its most advanced and their sound its most savory.

8/10

MASTER BOOT RECORD - Floppy Disk Overdrive

I’ve not been keeping up too closely with the prolific MASTER BOOT RECORD project, but I do regret missing and not covering the dynamic Internet Protocol EP that was released last year. Floppy Disk Overdrive, aptly named, is a bit more of the usual overload of synthetically instrumental, chiptune-seasoned death metal that keeps me from getting too excited about new MASTER BOOT RECORD releases. Once again, the focus is on solid production of the instruments and minor tricks with the sonic aesthetic, but composition again seems to fall by the wayside, and there isn’t enough intriguing stylistic diversity to make up for it.

5/10

Caustic Wound - Death Posture

More delicious, nasty grindcore to ravage my ears with in between listens to Oranssi Pazuzu and Okkervil River. The debut album by the Seattle-based supergroup of sorts is as pummeling as I would expect given the pedigree of the members involved. Death Posture is nasty, gutteral, and relentless in all the ways anyone could want their grindcore to be. The monstrously bellowing growls in particular make me feel like I’m listening to Primitive Man playing grindcore (which is a good thing). While I have been in quite the grindcore binge lately, Death Posture is more than just your standard, straight-line-through grindcore record, taking an old-school death metal knack for dynamic accents, tasty isolated bass lines, bursts of speed, bursts of thickened walls of sound, and wailing solos. It sounds sort of like if Morbid Angel was directing Primitive Man’s deathgrind adventure, also a good thing. I definitely love this one, probably my favorite grindcore album so far this year.

8/10

Khemmis - Doomed Heavy Metal

While we (if not just I) eagerly await the Colorado act’s forthcoming Nuclear Blast debut (and follow-up to 2018′s perfect Desolation), the band offers a little compilation EP to hold us over until then. Of the six tracks, only the first is new material (and it’s a cover song), two are songs from previous non-album releases, and the other three are live tracks. The band’s cover of Dio’s “Rainbow in the Dark” transposes the iconic keyboard part onto guitar in classic Khemmis fashion, and the vocal and guitar harmonies give the already inspiring song a new sense of melancholic triumph that I have come to love so much from Khemmis. It’s definitely worth checking out for the fresh take it offers to the Dio classic. As for the rest of the EP, the one-off single “Empty Throne” feels rather B-side-level by the band’s lofty standards, as does their odd, but enjoyable melodic doom rendition of the folk tune “A Conversation with Death”. The sampling of live cuts gets one great song from each of the band’s previous LPs, and the band sounds pretty true to their studio form for the most part, the vocals on “Bloodletting” being noticeably rough though.

Compilation in the Dark/10

Me and That Man - New Man, New Songs, Same Shit, Vol. 1

The second album from Nergal’s folky satanic rock side project comes with a pretty star-studded line-up, and honestly it’s a pretty fun time and I don’t have many complaints about the concise, catchy tunes that Nergal and company are churning out. “Run with the Devil” is a brilliantly composed opener, “Burning Churches” is a catchy-as-fuck pub-type tune, and guests Ihsahn, Corey Taylor, and especially Matt Heafy showcase the versatility of their vocal styles on their respective features. It’s more a fun heresy-laden time explicitly not overthought than the usual heady blackened death metal that Behemoth pedals.

7/10

Medico Peste - ב :The Black Bile

Taking very apparent cues from black metal’s (and experimental metal’s) more esoteric figures like Deathspell Omega and even Tool, Medico Peste comes through with an at least very aesthetically intriguing listen, even if some of the compositions run kind of long without enough in the way of substantive musical ideas to last quite as long as they’re intended to. While the influences the band wears on their sleeve are at least quite respectably sonically pervasive, it can get occasionally uncanny. The main riff of “All Too Human” sounds like it could have come straight from the Ænema recording sessions, and “Numinous Catastrophe” even sounds like it pulls from Oranssi Pazuzu. But despite the influences on its sleeves, ב :The Black Bile is unique and diverse enough as a whole to sustain an exciting listen and one that I have enjoyed returning to.

7/10

Omega Infinity - Solar Spectre

I had not heard of Omega Infinity until this album, and out of the gate it really sounded like some cliché ambient black metal, but as the album unfolds, it really does reveal itself to be so much more than that. Hard to capture in a single word, the cosmos-themed album definitely captures the wide, chilling vastness of space through instrumental and compositional techniques that provide a fittingly alien, but not explicitly sci-fi, twist on the usual elements of ambient black metal, and it works wonderfully.

8/10

Black Curse - Endless Wound

I heard a good bit of hype over this project, but I’m honestly having a hard time hearing what’s supposed to be such a big deal. We’ve got some solid performances and the occasional compositional flash of brilliance, but for the most part, Endless Wound is very standard blackened death metal with meek ambitions. Like don’t get me wrong, it’s not awful, and I don’t hate it. It just doesn’t depart nearly enough from the beaten, and crowded, path or really stand above the crowd on that path enough to get me excited. I kind of wish the band would delve more into the slower, sludgier, more savory sections of they dip their toes in, like that of “Enraptured by Decay” and the more eccentric takes on black metal dark ritualism on “Seared Eyes”. But until they really commit more to things they can do to get their head above the death metal crowd, it’s going to be hard to get excited about another Black Curse project in the near future.

5/10

Vermicide Violence - The Praxis of Prophylaxis

It was only a matter of time until the pandemic delivered unto us an at least partially coronavirus-themed medical deathcore album, which I am of course not complaining about the obnoxious, ridiculous prospect of. There is a lot of silly, gimmicky deathcore (and metal in general) out there that is pretty superficial, but also plenty that makes a lot of great use of whatever gimmick it’s applying. In this case, the natural grotesquery (if that’s a word) of medical practice does give Vermicide Violence just that little bit of extra tangibility and realness to the nasty deathcore they’re pedaling. From breakdown lines of “vaccinate your fucking kids” and “you only hear once so just buy fucking plugs” (a twist on Suicide Silence’s “You Only Live Once”) to songs about asthmatic asphyxiation, coronavirus infection, West Nile virus, and breast cancer, it’s at the very least somewhat lyrically fresh and fun for any medical metalheads to have a good time nerding out with.

6/10

Vatican Falling - WAR

So I found out about Vatican Falling through the deathcoredads meme page, don’t judge me, but I’m glad I did, because this album, WAR, is some deliciously disgusting deathcore with lots of different flavors. They’re not exactly pushing any boundaries for the genre, but WAR certainly does branch out into melodic territory more boldly and successfully than your average deathcore album, and with good results. It has its low points where some of the experimentation doesn’t work, like the annoyingly repetitive clean vocal sample on the title track, but for the most part, the band’s use of more tangible, cleaner melodies goes over well and supplements the music nicely with a sense of raised stakes. If anything, I wish they did more in that vein because the band’s deathcore grooves at the core aren’t as above average on their own. That being said, songs like “King of Vermin” and “Kill All Humans” show that the band can really raise their game at the base deathcore front and outcompete their contemporaries if they need to.

6/10

Ulcerate - Stare into Death and Be Still

Stare into Death and Be Still is the sixth album from sonically ambitious New Zealanders, Ulcerate. Continuing to push their brand of atmospheric, blackened technical death metal to further reaches of the unknown, guitarist Michael Hoggard’s fluid, multi-faceted melodic work continues to play a pivotal role in steering the atmospheric tone of the album, while Jamie Saint Merat’s impressive following of the music’s odd time signature shifts boosts the album’s energy with tasteful technicality while simultaneously not being too obnoxiously flashy and showcasing some flavorful technical drumming chops. The guitar work takes on so many different shapes and styles, but probably most often reminds me of the winding angularity of Portal with the primal humanness and ritual catharsis of later/current Behemoth, with some more ambient detours taken here and there that hearken to Isis and even more doom-oriented projects like Bell Witch. The swirling together of influences here is so seamless and immersive, and honestly some of Ulcerate’s best. This is not to discount Paul Kelland’s contributions of emotively harmonious bass lines and consistently bestial, yet also somehow soulful, death metal bellowing to the album’s sound; I think his contributions in particular are what help this album feel meaningful and human and not just like some soulless piece of experimental art with a little too much of its head up its ass. For an hour, this album feels like listening to the best aspects of several different styles of cutting-edge death metal, black metal, and doom metal rolled into one masterful super-album that still manages to strike a dreadful chord all its own. Yeah, this is a pretty damn great album.

9/10

Katatonia - City Burials

Honestly, the vast majority of this album feels like Katatonia going through the motions and just playing it safe, never really committing to any really bold performance or composition moves, just coasting off The Fall of Hearts. It certainly passes by the usual Katatonia rubric, but it certainly won’t be going down as one of the band’s most revered.

5/10

Trivium - What the Dead Men Say

I somehow missed out on the entire first half of this album being released as singles, but I sure caught all the hype surrounding the band’s ninth album leading up to its release and all the preemptive praise it was receiving, and I’m kind of glad I got to experience it as a whole without the experience of the singles because I feel like I can honestly soberly assess it and say that it’s definitely not the masterpiece it’s being hyped up to be. The band definitely have found their groove in the various melodic, proggy, thrashy alternative metal styles they play, but this album really just feels like the band are just feeling themselves, in the sense that they’re kind of playing it safe, but bold enough with what they know they do well to kind of mask that. The band’s ninth album is pretty noticeably a continuation of their eighth, The Sin and the Sentence, which had some of Trivium’s most potent alternative metalcore bangers to date, but also some of their most confusingly tepid compositions on the other side of their spectrum. What the Dead Men Say kind of just maintains the band’s trajectory on their previous album and narrows that range from high to low. The low points, like “Bleed into Me” and (to a lesser extent) “The Catastrophist”, aren’t as low, but the high points aren’t as high, and I don’t think I’ll be returning to the better parts of this album, like “The Defiant”, “Amongst the Shadows and the Stones”, and “Sickness Unto You” as much as I will the plethora of highlights from The Sin and the Sentence. Overall, it kind of just feels like Trivium coasting a bit, but the band is genuinely at that level of evolution in their sound where they have made a lot of gradual refinements over time to get here but haven’t just repeated themselves, so they can kind of get away with it. Even if it’s not my favorite Trivium album, it’s sure a hell of a lot better than anything Trapt has ever released.

7/10

#Oranssi Pazuzu #Trivium #Ulcerate #Red #Katatonia #August Burns Red #Omega Infinity #Khemmis #Caustic Wound #Abysmal Dawn #WVRM

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betsynagler · 5 years

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Ten Things I Did This Week That Prove I Have Learned Nothing in 50 Years

1. Forgot to move my car and got a street cleaning ticket.

I know, those of you who don't live in New York may not know what this is or why it's embarrassing, but here we have something called alternate side of the street parking, and it's how car owners organize their lives. You know that you'll have to move your car once or twice a week, depending where you park it, and so you must plan for this every time you take your car out – or don’t. Because there have been times I chose not to drive somewhere because I knew I'd have a hell of a time parking when I got home from work at midnight on a Monday — Monday night being the worst in my neighborhood of Tuesday, Wednesday, Tuesday-Thursday, and Monday-Thursday spots — so I decided, instead, to take the subway, even thought it added an hour to my commute (I know I'm lucky to have a decent public transportation option when a lot of people don't, and I do try to use it whenever possible. It's just that when getting to Greenpoint at 5 am can be either a 20 minute car ride or a 1.5-hour odyssey on the train if everything goes according to plan, and these days it rarely does, one does tend to opt for using the fossil fuels. I'm sorry). You also become obsessed with spots. Even when you're walking around like a normal New Yorker, you'll just notice a really juicy one and think, “Ooh, that's a good spot!” After all those nights of driving in circles and scanning the streets while having to keep your eyes propped open because you've already been awake for 16 hours, is it any wonder that your mind becomes trained in this way?

Which is why it's so ridiculous that I was fifteen minutes late to move my car on Wednesday. I mean, I know all the moves — the temporary double park, the fifteen minute car sit (I actually know people who plan to sit in their cars for the full 1.5 hours of street cleaning twice a week), I even have all the technology, deploying the Best Parking app for both lots and spots, setting alerts for this shit on my calendar, texting my husband to ask/remind him to move it when I'm not there (he finds it funny when I say I'm “reminding” him and it's the first time he's heard of it), and the fact that I managed to forget to ask him on this particular Tuesday, but then actually remembered when we got home at 10 pm, despite having had two beet martinis, then made the critical decision to get up at 8 am to move the car before the 9:30 am street clean, instead of doing the desperate night crawl, then completely forgot when I woke up the next day, is just not something that should happen. It's been a few years since I got a ticket for this, which I guess means I'm doing something right, but as someone who's lived in NYC for going on 29 years, and had a car for about half that time, it’s still sad.

2. Ate a lot of cheese and ice cream, even though I'm lactose intolerant.

Because turning 50 sucks, and they are delicious. And because I’m lucky to have a spouse who is very understanding.

3. Forgot to bring my mouse to work at my editing job, then bought a mouse and returned it the same day.

Part one – being that forgetful – sounds like something I shouldn’t really be doing for another ten or 15 years. Part two sounds like something I should have stopped doing in my teens, around the time when I learned how dumb it was to try calling the high school office claiming to be my mother to get back my confiscated Walkman (they didn’t buy it for a second).

For the record, I took very good care of the mouse. I didn’t even eat while working the way I usually do.

4. Walked into one of those huge maps encased in metal and glass on the subway platform while reading my phone. Again.

I first did this some time in 2018, hitting myself squarely in the forehead. This time, I looked up just as I was about to hit the thing, so I hit it with my hand instead. It still hurt. It still felt stupid.

I can say for a fact that this isn’t just about phone addiction, because I was reading the New Yorker on my phone at the time, and as a kid, I used to try and read books while walking to and from school. So this is really more about love of reading, or perhaps the use of reading as a means of escape, which I absolutely still do. I feel like maybe that’s somehow less immature than walking into something stationary while checking my Instagram for likes or taking a selfie. (For the record, I never take selfies, unless they’re of me reflected in something interesting, where my reflection is just one element of an attempt at being artsy. So there’s that.)

Yesterday, my hand was hurting and I couldn’t remember why. This is the great thing about being old and immature at the same time.

5. Lost to my husband at ping pong and Asteroids, but I did beat him at foosball.

My degree of skill at playing games that require good reflexes is pretty much the same as always: completely random. I often start off doing surprisingly well, then my opponent gets better as playing goes on, because that’s what’s supposed to happen when you remember how to do something, while, if anything, I get worse, because I lose focus and get distracted. If anything, my attention span has gotten shorter as I’ve gotten older, like most of us, because of how technology encourages that. I can’t get through writing this piece without checking my email and text messages and oh look that’s a notification that it’s my turn in Carcassonne…None of this applies to strategy games, oddly enough, which I do seem to improve at over time. Maybe it’s because I don’t have to use my brain and my body at the same time.

You might think the bigger question is, Why were you playing ping pong, Asteroids and foosball on your birthday (because that’s when we played these games)? But at this point you might not, since it kind of fits in with the whole narrative I’m building here.

6. Drank too much.

When I was younger, drinking too much meant getting sick or getting a hangover (rarely, because I was one of those lucky people who had to drink a lot to get either hungover or throw up. I’ve only been sick from drinking or hungover maybe twice each in my life), or, more likely, making an idiot out of myself. That was pretty much the worst thing that happened to me in my younger drinking years, because while I liked being relieved of my inhibitions, of which I have many because I’m a control freak, I very much don’t enjoy the idea of people noticing that I am relieved of my inhibitions, because I’m a control freak. But I can’t even get to any of those points these days, because now, drinking too much means just getting to the point of my acid reflux acting up, which, sadly, or not, happens after far fewer drinks than any of that other stuff. It’s also cumulative: if I drink four days during the week, I can probably get away with feeling okay on the first or second day, but by the fourth day, the jig is definitely up. Of course, this being the week of my 50th birthday, I went out four nights and drank on all of them, and now I feel pretty crappy. Maybe this doesn’t really count for this list, though, since I’ve only had the acid reflux thing for about five years. My body keeps changing as I get older and I’m constantly having to learn new rules about how it’s going to react to stuff. So it’s not 50 years, but five also does seem long enough to have figured this shit out by now.

7. Spent way too much time applying for something I know I’m not going to get (and may not actually want).

When I was younger, I applied to big writing and screenwriting competitions, the kind that everyone applies to, like the Nicholl Fellowship. I never won anything. Then I started getting more scientific about it, and started at what specific contests looked for, and looking for smaller competitions, like at smaller literary magazines, or competitions only for women, or only for women over 40, and started applying for those. I made it to one quarterfinal, and got a couple of nice rejection letters, and I did get some of my essays published in online magazines. I didn’t stop writing (blogging in particular did give me a small amount of instant gratification so I wasn’t going to quit doing that), but when it came to sending my writing out, I felt like I had better ways to spend my time. One of them was making documentaries — but that, of course, meant applying for grants and festivals. I got a few, and, more importantly, got some finished films out of that process that I was proud of, whereas the screenplays never got made, and so that seemed like progress. Then in the past few years I started trying to change careers and applying for editing and teaching jobs. Out of countless applications over several years, I’ve gotten maybe six interviews, but I’ve learned to streamline the process and only do applications that aren’t crazy complicated — especially because it seems like all of the editing jobs want recent college grads who are willing to work stupid hours for $40K a year and don’t care if they have health insurance.

For some reason, recently, I started adding the screenwriting applications back in. I don’t really know why. Maybe I’m hoping the world is actually changing and that people are now going to be more interested in the stuff I write, which is mostly about women, and I do see more women with writing and directing jobs in TV. But you can’t streamline an application that has 42 questions and requires you to upload a completed screenplay and a video of yourself (those of you who are aspiring screenwriters probably know the application I’m talking about because you also spent an absurd amount of time on it). And the worst part is that I probably spent as much time trying to decide whether or not to apply as I did on the actual application. Because I’m just that good at wasting time. And if I did by some miracle get this thing, I’d have to stand up and pitch my project in front of a room full of people, which is basically my worst nightmare — especially now that I’ve experienced a preview of that in the 12 takes I did of the video, and seen every little thing wrong with my word choice, and that annoying thing I do with my chin, and oh my God why can’t I stop blinking?

8. Repeatedly replayed several conversations I’ve had in the past week in my head, thinking about the stupid things I said and what I should have said instead.

I will point out that I did not do this with every conversation I’ve had in the past week, so, again, progress! But since one of those conversations was a Facebook argument about something political, I’m breaking even on this one at best.

9. Decided to write a blog called “Ten Things I Did This Week That Prove I Have Learned Nothing in 50 Years,” and then only came up with eight.

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musical-chick-13 · 7 years

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In which I live-blog Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

Okay. Here we go.

Can I get more Heather and Valencia this episode? Please?

Oh, Rebecca. So many unresolved father issues.

Wait? Paula made that veil? What a gem. What a fantastic human.

Rebecca, I know you’re SO HAPPY but this wedding CANNOT happen.

I mean, this wedding isn’t going to happen, right?

RIGHT?!?!

YES A DEATH METAL NUMBER THIS IS EVERYTHING I EVER WANTED FROM THIS SHOW

You know Josh, you’re not the brightest, but thank you for recognizing something’s up and that Rebecca’s has done a complete 180 in regard to her newfound idealized vision of her relationship with her father.

You still shouldn’t marry Rebecca, though.

Stop being cute. I refuse to ship this.

Oh, God; she’s said her life is practically perfect. She’s happy. How is this all going to fall apart?

Hmmm…

Oh, God.

Josh is a stand-in for her dad.

No, not like that.

Just that she had abandonment issues regarding her father and that Josh is her way of fixing that. Like, by him sticking with her, she can mentally erase what happened with her dad by making Josh the primary male figure in her life. Just like “A Boy Band Made Up of Four Joshes” in season one suggested-that every guy she dates is just a stand-in for her dad.

This show, guys. It’s so good.

Robert? Who tf is Robert? Was she engaged before? Interesting…

Darryl’s in the stag party, God bless.

REJOSHECCA CHABUNCH DID I MENTION HOW MUCH I LOVE DARRYL

Looks like Rebecca’s not the only one with an unhealthy relationship with her opposite-sex parent. (Lookin’ at you, Hector.)

White Josh is right; last two people who should get married.

WiJo is not into marriage; of course. Kids, yes, marriage, no-Darryl is going to be so upset.

But, you know, actual conflict that couples have to deal with is good, so props on that. I’m excited to see where their storyline goes. And, you know, I think there’s something to be said for not having to “legitimize” a relationship by getting married.

But I also really want them to get married at some point, so…

But, you know, it’s fine. Because I trust the creative team on this show-I trust them in whatever decisions they decide to make.

Wow, I have literally never said that about a show before. Good, job, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Team. (This show is the best, you guys.)

I love Father Brah. Like, legitimately so much.

Shut up, Naomi; Valencia is great.

“Hootenany.” I’m so glad Valencia’s vocabulary is this way.

All of these guests, but no Trent? I was promised Trent. Where is Trent?

Did she just…pop her foot while hugging her dad? WTF?

Aw, Scott and Paula went together. As much as I don’t like infidelity plots, I’m glad they’re working things out.

Naomi is dishing. It. Out. I wasn’t aware how much I loved her before this episode.

NATHANIEL IS HERE

WHY

WHY IS NATHANIEL HERE AND NOT TRENT

Is he trying to be a Nice Guy ™? Or does he just want approval because he also has father-based self-esteem issues? In either case, he really needs to shut up.

Hmm…accepted to Harvard, Robert happened, went to Yale instead? GIVE ME ANSWERS

Yeah, she’s an enigma because she kept one obviously traumatic event from you, Josh.

He thought….

The dance instructor thinks Rebecca is marrying her dad. Wow. And she finds it funny instead of being freaked out (presumably because a stranger sees an emotional connection between them and she’ll take anything she can get at this point)? Can this show get any more blatant?

My poor, little problematic protagonist.

I NEED. TO BORROW. SOME CASH. WOOOOOOOOOOOW. What a fucking jerk.

No wonder Rebeca has so many issues. Her own parental unit only came to her wedding in order to ask her for some fucking money. God, I hate this show.

(That’s a lie; I love this show with every single atom in my body.)

Thank you, Doctor Akopian. Dr. Akopian is the hero we all need. #AkopianforPresident

Oh shit, Robert the mysterious ex-boyfriend was her TEACHER?! (I mean, she said “I dropped out of your class” and “You said you’d leave your wife,” so I assume…)

Oh, no, Rebecca. You did not drive your father away, you were eleven. You were not a needy child. Someone give this poor woman a hug.

Forget about the past? I do not like this. I don’t trust you, Silas. I’ve got both my eyes on you.

YES TRENT FINALLY

PLEASE SAVE US WITH YOUR MORALLY UNSOUND PLOTS

So, this wedding can’t happen, but I don’t want Josh to be the one to call it off because I know that will utterly break Rebecca.

But I also don’t want Josh to be sad because he’s trying his best.

Yes, communication is good. Thank you, Father Brah.

This conversation is going to be a time.

A REPRISE OF YOU STUPID BITCH

AND VILLAIN IN MY OWN STORY

IT’S A MEDLEY

Okay, this show wins all the awards. All of them. Everyone else can go home.

NO JOSH A GIRL CANNOT FIX ALL YOUR PROBLEMS

YES JOSH RECOGNIZING YOUR ISSUES AND CALLING YOURSELF OUT I KNEW YOU HAD IT IN YOU

Please, talk to each other. I don’t ship you, but you need to have this conversation.

I am actually legitimately scared; I have no idea what is going to happen.

This friendship is so important. Paula and Rebecca, I mean.

HAHAHAHAHA DON’T ASK ME I’M JUST A DUMB COWBOY WHO LIKES WEDDINGS Darryl is my favorite. Like, actual favorite on this show.

WiJo, maybe you shouldn’t argue about it, but you should talk. Discussing where your relationship will go is important for couples everywhere.

Heather’s directness and honesty is everything to me.

JOSH WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING

DARRYL DARRYLDARRYLDARRYL IT IS FAR TOO EARLY IN YOUR RELATIONSHIP TO CONSIDER HAVING A BABY YOU GUYS ARE PRECIOUS BUT PLEASE THINK ABOUT THIS

Why is this show like this? Why did I sell my soul?

…I hate this.

Josh, no. Don’t just leave. You need to talk to Rebecca. Trust me, it will hurt her less than if you just don’t show up without an explanation.

I am so here for all of Rebecca’s friends being willing to rip Josh apart for abandoning her.

“With someone else, but it’s not what you think?” Is he dead?

WHAT

JOSH IS JOINING THE MINISTRY

…Because Father Brah said it was the answer to all of his questions about life and Josh thinks this will solve his serial monogamy problem.

I…honestly didn’t see that coming.

Oh, no. Rebecca is thinking about jumping. I can’t do this. I cannot do this. I asked for a silly musical show that deconstructed romantic comedies, and I did NOT ask for this.

Aw, she admitted she loved Greg while he was here. This makes my heart happy. They were not good for each other and shouldn’t get back together, but I’m glad she acknowledged his importance.

Okay. So, Robert was her teacher, he broke up with her, she tried to burn his stuff and got tried for arson, and the judge agreed to strike it from her record if she sought mental health counseling. She went to a mental institution and did the whole drug cocktail thing, and that explains why she was on so much medication at the beginning of the show and couldn’t feel anything.

That…makes a lot of sense, actually.

YES PAULA

Oh, God, this is so important. Everyone in Rebecca’s life left her because of their stuff, not because of her. And it all starts with her father walking out.

YES YOU TELL HIM REBECCA

Oh, thank GOD.

“You’re crazy.” “Little bit.”

REBECCA OWNING HERSELF AND ACKNOWLEDGING HER ISSUES HOW LONG I HAVE WAITED FOR THIS DAY

“Have fun flying coach, dick.” Oh, Nathaniel. You know, I just might come to like you.

Destroying Josh Chan. What is she planning?

WAIT WHAT NO

YOU CAN’T JUST END IT THERE NO

I CAN’T WAIT ANOTHER 8 MONTHS FOR A RESOLUTION TO THIS

GIVE ME MORE

Well, at least we got renewed for season 3.

I look forward to it.

And, I gotta say: Rebecca hating Josh is a new dynamic I am beyond excited to explore.

Peace out. This has been a Liveblog No One Will Read.

#liveblog #crazy ex girlfriend #crazy ex girlfriend spoilers #stream of consciousness #long post #cxgf talk

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shirleyarcher · 4 years

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How to Prevent the Corona Virus (COVID-19): What You Can Do Today

EVIDENCE BASED

HOW TO PREVENT THE CORONA VIRUS (COVID-19)

Your best defense against this new infectious disease is a strong offense—practices that boost your immunity and optimize hygiene. In the course of my research, I turned up a few critical facts. Read on to learn what is COVID-19, how you can protect yourself and your family and where you can get latest updates.

WHAT IS THE CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19)?

Coronaviruses are a family of viruses that include both the common cold and SARS (aka the bird flu). COVID-19, named by the World Health Organization, first appeared in Wuhan, China, from, as of date of publication, an unidentified animal. Previously unseen in humans, we have no immunities against it.

The only transmission method is human-to-human via mucosal secretions (ie saliva or a runny nose) from an infected person to another person’s eyes, nose or mouth. The good news is that you do not seem to be able to get it from cooked food (unless someone sneezed on it), sweat, sexual fluids or the air.

Scientists continue to evaluate the transmission rate (how many people an infected person can infect), the infection rate (what percent of people exposed become infected) and the mortality rate (what percent of people die). On one hand, the disease appears highly contagious. On the other hand, it presents a high risk of mortality primarily to older people (60+), people with health conditions like heart disease, diabetes, COPD, etc or those who have weakened immune systems such as people with auto-immune conditions, those battling cancer, people with transplants or newborn infants. In a new study from Lancet based on data in Wuhan, those at highest risk of death were older, had high blood pressure and diabetes and showed signs of sepsis upon hospital admission.

One of the challenges is that the virus incubates inside a person for up to two weeks before causing any symptoms. As a result, many people infect others through ‘viral shedding’ before they know they have it. Some individuals carry the virus without experiencing symptoms. And, new research shows that some individuals who recovered from the virus may continue to infect others up to four weeks (longest recorded viral shedding in a survivor was 37 days!). Therefore, you simply cannot tell who may infect you.

Studies indicate that you get it through direct contact with an infected person’s respiratory droplets when they cough or exhale or by touching a surface where an infected person left secretions, for example by coughing on it or touching it with their hand after they coughed into it.

Bad news: it’s unclear how long it may last upon a surface. Recent research shows that some coronaviruses can survive up to 9 days on an undisturbed glass, metal or plastic surface.

Good news: it can be efficiently inactivated by surface disinfection procedures with 62–71% ethanol, 0.5% hydrogen peroxide or 0.1% sodium hypochlorite within 1 minute. Keep in mind, it matters what formulation of disinfectant you use, so check labels.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM COVID-19

If COVID-19 is in your community, these are best practices from the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and other respected public health leaders.

Wash hands frequently: Transmission can occur if you touch a ‘dirty’ surface and then touch your face. Frequent hand washing is your first defense. Proper washing technique consists of using soap and water and scrubbing thoroughly (between fingers, under nails, on top) for 20 seconds—the time it takes to sing Happy Birthday twice. Here’s instruction on effective hand washing.

If you do not use soap and water, using a hand dryer will NOT kill the germs. if you use a hand rub, it must contain at least 60% alcohol. Less is ineffective. Check hand sanitizer product labels for potency. Here’s a list of EPA approved sanitizer brands with strength to kill germs. Make your own hand spray with pure isopropyl alcohol (my personal doctor’s recommendation), if products are sold out in your area, or you can create your own 60% blend.

Avoid face touching: Practice mindfulness to notice how often you touch your face. As your awareness increases, you will be able to stop. If you notice you’re a frequent face toucher (the typical person touches their face 23x/hour), try wearing a glove as a prop to heighten awareness. You can also simply wear gloves each time you go out in public places. When you return home, wash hands as soon as you remove them. Wash your gloves in hot water as noted below.

Do social distancing: Keep a distance of at least 3 feet (1 meter) between you and other people. If a person is coughing, keep a distance of 6 feet (2 meters).

Avoid sharing food and personal items: Even at home, use your own towels, glasses, eating utensils, etc. Do not eat out of shared bowls.

Follow cough/sneeze etiquette: If you cough or sneeze, use a tissue or an elbow. Used tissues should be disposed of immediately in closed receptacles.

Limit contact: Avoid close contact with people who are sick. If you’re sick, stay home. If you have a high fever, extreme fatigue and/or experience difficulty breathing, contact a health care provider. Limit contact with other family members and even pets. The impact of COVID-19 on animals is not yet confirmed. Here are steps to follow if you’re sick.

Boost your natural immunity: Your strongest defense is to optimize your health by boosting your immune system so you can resist the virus or if you become infected, you can fight its effects successfully. See this blog post for my top 9 tips for a strong immune system.

What to do about face masks? The primary benefit of a face mask, if you’re not sick, is that it prevents you from touching your face. A paper mask has openings on the side and respiratory droplets can still enter. A health care provider’s N95 mask has a protective seal against these droplets, but there’s a shortage globally and health care providers need these most. If you’re sick, the face mask is valuable to reduce your chances of infecting others.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO PROTECT YOUR HOME

Disinfect high-touch surfaces: Use an approved surface disinfectant as noted above. If you cannot find ready-made products, make your own bleach solution with ⅓ cup bleach in one gallon of water (80 ml in 6.3 liters), but do not use this for hand cleaning, only for surfaces. High touch surfaces include door handles, doors, handrails, light switches, handles, faucets, sinks, toilets, showers, computers, keyboards, phones, remote controls, desks and table tops. If everyone washes their hands as soon as they return home, the only areas of concern will be in the entry way and bathroom used for hand washing.

Keep hand sanitizer by the front door: Make it easy for everyone to clean their hands as soon as they return home by keeping a sensor dispenser with hand sanitizer by the door. If that’s not possible, remind everyone to wash hands as soon as they arrive home.

Remove shoes: Shoes carry a lot of germs. While they don’t carry the COVID-19 virus, they can carry other viruses and bacteria and you can limit your germ load at home.

Wash clothes, towels in hottest water possible: Viruses can live on soft surfaces, but cannot withstand high temperatures. Wash outerwear that has been worn in public, particularly if anyone near you appeared sick. Wash towels, particularly those for hand drying, in hot water (60˚ C+, 140˚+ F). Disinfect hampers where dirty laundry has been, including the laundry bag and the hamper.

Diffuse essential oils: While this is not proven against the virus that causes COVID-19, essential oils like cedar have proven antiviral properties. They also smell beautifully. See this blog post for more natural ways to reduce risk of viruses in your home.

Get happy and go outside: Growing research supports that chronic stress undermines your immune system and that being happy and calm boosts your immune system’s functioning. (I will write much more on this later.)

For example, several studies demonstrate that meditators experience less sickness and produce a stronger antibody response to a vaccine. In addition, growing evidence supports the health benefits of time spent enjoying direct contact with nature. Forest bathing (shinrin-yoku) boosts your immune system functioning, in one study immune system natural killer cells increased by as much as 56%. Read more about the powerful effects of spending time outdoors in my blog post here. Learn more about forest bathing here.

You can protect yourself, your family and your home. Armed with accurate information and actionable tips, you can proactively protect yourself, your family and your home from the threat of COVID-19. I know I feel much more relaxed when I have a clear action plan. Practice good hygiene and prep your home with natural virus protection tips, then relax: go outdoors; enjoy some family, friends or solo time in quieter activities with fewer people; get moving with moderate exercise, maybe try forest bathing or meditation, boost your health with these 9 tips and savor a good night’s sleep.

Get UPDATES HERE

What I’ve shared is based on best practices known to date. Much about the virus that causes COVID-19, named SARS-CoV-2, is still unknown. For updates from public health organizations, check the links below.

CDC. Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)

WHO. COVID-2019 Daily situation reports.

EPA. EPA’s registered antimicrobial products for use against novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, the cause of COVID-19

Learn about how to start a meditation practice here:

Visit my YouTube channel for more videos on happiness, mindfulness, the mind-body connection and more. While you're there, please subscribe. New videos are added every Thursday.

If you need to remind yourself to make more time for self-care, use the Power of the Pause Workbook for tips on how and why. Download your free copy here.

If you have ANY questions, please feel free to send me an email. If these tips helped you, I’d love for you to please SHARE with friends and followers on social media—just click on the SHARE button below. Thank you!

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Includes indoor and outdoor walking workouts, stretching and toning exercises and instructions for a hill walk, nature walk, forest walk, breath-awareness walk, meditation walk and much more. 50 ways!

#Happiness #Self Love #How to be happier #how to be more happy #self care #inflammation #inflammaging #anti-inflammation #healthy lifestyle tips #coronavirus #COVID-19 #boost immunity

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