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the-voice-of-hell · 4 years

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The Septagram

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***

Jason rolled the Prius down Beacon Avenue South, heading toward the old Veteran’s Administration building. It was famously owned by Amazon for a minute, but was surely derelict once again. It wasn’t his destination, specifically, when he set out. But he didn’t find those police.

And cruising at a low speed, the drive was a chance to clear his mind. He had the windows down and the fan on. The air smelled smoky, but he thought it was probably from Eastern Washington burning again, and it didn’t alarm him much.

And the place began to grow in his mind. He couldn’t see it past the wall of trees lining the roadside, but he thought about it, pictured it. He knew the trees, like most of the trees in the Puget Sound area, were a thin facade to conceal a barren concrete land, promote the healthy verdant image that helped the state boom and sucker in tourists. Beyond them there were homeless camps, ramshackle derelict homes two minutes from being cleared for condos. And at the end of that strip of hillside, that mighty old art deco hospital building.

Maybe he could just stroll right in. The power was on. Maybe he could use the elevator, get out on the floors Bezos used to walk, get a view of the whole city.

“Movin’ on up, Jase old boy. Movin’ on up.”

Then he was there. He pulled into the driveway in front of the building and just parked there, because why not? The sky was still blue. He smiled at the building. Why was it so pleasing to him at the moment? He didn’t know. Looking up at the big double door though, he saw chains looped through the handles. But just ten feet from that laying in the grass, there was a shovel.

“It’s goddamn kismet.”

He broke and he entered, yet again.

There was a short stairwell up to a fancy landing. The interior had been remodeled extensively to accommodate modern corporate sensibilities. There were organically shaped floating walls paneled in stainless steel like giant lizard scales, concealing modern bathrooms. Only minimal lights were on in side halls. The atrium was dim but for the blue daylight spilling in from the giant windows on a higher level. Long thin wires supported boring ultramodern light fixtures that remained unlit. He wasn’t about to fish for the light switch in the convoluted walls that encircled the area.

He found an elevator and gave it a go. It reached a high floor and he stepped out but he wasn’t convinced he was at the pinnacle yet. He hunted the dully lit corridors for a stairwell. It didn’t take long. The central, highest part of the building didn’t have a very large floor plan.

There it was. A floor paneled in shimmering darkness, the hall leading to one room. A lucite booth stood outside it like an incongruous phone booth, or Roald Dahl’s Great Glass Elevator. What was that for? And beyond it, the room.

He tried the knob and got irate that it was locked. Why? The billionaire had left the building, and surely taken everything that could be anything to anybody with him.

Jason kicked the door a few times uselessly. Then leaning against the wall, he noticed the phone booth was ajar. He looked inside and saw a selection of buttons. He tried pressing them, and soon a clicking sound came from the big man’s door.

He hopped out of the booth in a hurry, hoping it wouldn’t time out on him, and his foot snagged on something. Glancing back for just a moment, he saw a box of “.45 ACP” bullets sitting on the floor.

He ignored it and went inside. Behold, glory. The most important office in the world. Tall brass-plated walls, stained glass above, giant windows below. Jason walked slowly toward them, only a single black desk and tall chair stood between him and the view.

The chair started to spin slowly in place. He jumped a little.

A man sat there, nailed in place with great spikes, stripped to the waist, bleeding in streams, mouth open in a silent wheezing scream, eyes fish-like behind great globs of tears. A little monster like Jabba the Hutt’s pet sat in the man’s lap, zapping his face with a taser until it noticed Jason, and whipped around to offer a happy face.

“Oh god! What the hell is going on her… Is that him? Is that Mr. Bezos?”

The little thing nodded proudly. “Hell is for sinners, bro!”

***

The anarchists couldn’t bring themselves to move. They sat in a circle around Waxy Maxy. He was dead - impaled with an oversized drumstick. Every time someone suggested they get up and move, they just sat back down and cried some more. They had accepted the mark for fear of death. What was left for them? How could they escape from Hell now?

Two women on bicycles rolled to a stop by them. The blonde with glasses looked to be in better spirits and spoke on their behalf. “Hey boys. It’s time to blow this popsicle farm. Come with us and I’ll keep you safe.”

Radical Huang said, “Huh?”

“I’m special, guys. I can do it. Tell ‘em, Rosie.”

“I saw her kill one of them. She’s a freak, dudes.”

They didn’t know what to say, looking at each other, looking at their arms bleeding lightly from the occult symbols pressed into them.

“It’ll be great. Us on our bikes, you on your boards. Let’s get everyone who stayed behind, give ‘em another shot at evacuation. Whaddya say?”

Colin Guts was the first to snap out of the trance of sorrow. “Shit. Shit, you’re right. C’mon dudes! Let’s get the fuck out of here before those things come around.”

“They said we’d be safe,” Duke said.

“After they killed Maxy! Don’t be a bootlicker. We gotta go!”

They started to stand up, to grab their skateboards. Rosemarie looked down at the impaled guy, shuddering. Jennifer slapped her on the arm.

“Hey, pal. You don’t wanna end up like that, right? Let’s burn rubber!”

“Yeah.”

In her heart, Rosemarie felt they had been telling the truth. If she stayed, she could have lived safely as a subject of their queen. But what would that entail? She raised the kickstand and started rolling.

She glanced up to the sky and saw something odd. The wind was blowing, whipping tiny bits of detritus near the tops of the low rise buildings. And through the sky directly above a flock of pigeons flew - single file. They were beak to tail, dozens of birds long, flightpath wiggling like a giant snake.

A fleck of white splattered across her cheek. “Ugh, shit!”

***

A sexy fair man stood in the road, sunglasses concealing his eyes. One could guess he was east asian, or more likely, not human. He wore a long red coat with gold and silver appointments over pure black clothing, his black hair was long on top, waving gently in the gathering breeze. Dusk was drawing in. The suburban street was one eternal strip mall by the name of Covington. Everything from the dentists to the Fred Meyers to the accountants to the combination Pizza Hut and Kentucky Fried Chicken seemed to lean in his direction, praying to their new master.

He sipped a Dairy Queen Oreo Blizzard through a straw, waved the fingers of his free hand in the air, conducting powerful magic. The demons around him were enchanted with invisibility, but it only worked fully when they sat still, and the hyperactive things danced to the sounds of Poison on a bluetooth speaker that sat in the gutter. The song was “Nothin’ but a Good Time.” The things shimmered like heat waves all around him.

A caravan approached - what was left of it after a few of the heavy vehicles ran out of gas along the way. The occupants of those crowded into the remainder, reducing their already pitiful gas mileage. The roofs, sideboards, and hoods were crowded with goat angels and starlings. The lead angel sat on the hood of the lead vehicle - a yellow civilian hummer splattered with blood and gore. He used his hands to prop up his broken wings, thus gesturing for the caravan to stop. Then he hopped down and strolled toward the scene.

“Master Bybaal. I offer servants to your great cause.”

“Have they been pressed with the Queen’s mark?”

“No. Rather your own.”

“You have done well. Marshal them for me.”

He turned around, snake tail arching over his shoulder with intense glowing light in its eyes, his halo fire burned brighter, and his voice boomed. “PRESENT YOURSELVES TO HIM.”

He picked up his standard from where he’d lodged it in the car’s grill and strolled to make room for the goblins. They all piled out of the caravan like it was clown cars and bumbled to stand before their new god.

Bybaal tilted his head, letting the shades slide to the end of his nose, and regarded the motley horde.

“Unworthy creatures. Even the death shield would only serve to have them cut down faster. Resach, what would you do with them?”

“Mm, my wisdom is as far below thee as my station.”

“The evidence stands before me.”

Big Donny nearly hyperventilated, afraid he wouldn’t make the cut. Like being picked last for dodgeball. He was shrieking inside. Let us matter! We are alive! He was drenched in sweat, fast running out of the fluid necessary to continue living.

Resach spoke. “Still, you must be able to empower them in some way.”

“Perhaps. For now stow them in the apartment building down in Tukwila. The one by my dove farm, marked with fire?”

“I can find it. Thank you for allowing me to serve you, my liege.”

“You are welcome. Bear these goblins from my sight.”

“I shall.”

Bybaal returned to his magic chores. He was one of the wheels of Bymaan, broken angels of the highest orders. For now he wove spells at her command. Perhaps soon this wheel would turn another way.

***

A group of survivors huddled in the garage of their apartment building, contemplating escape, unsure of what to do. They all claimed to each other that they hadn’t accepted the mark, but no one was showing their arms. A young man was promising to lead them to safety, but it was hard to make themselves move.

At last they all piled into cars and formed up in a line all the way to the gate. It had been left open. The young man led them out into the street. The idea was to take I-5 all the way to Canada, or possibly divert to State Route 9 to avoid the cities along the way.

They all got out of the parking garage and headed the right way. It was a promising start. But then the road split and a wall of pinkish light beamed into the sky like a curtain, so bright you could see it in the waning daylight. There were multiple low speed collisions and people screaming.

The street ahead began to lift. The whole area of Denny was rising like a step pyramid - the surface chunks staying horizontally level as they rose, the center reaching higher and higher.

Something swam out of the crack in the ground - a white worm-like thing at least dozens of feet long. It smashed its face through the lead car’s windshield and pulled out the young man, lofting him into the air inside its warped jaws. It started to hork him down.

Suddenly it jerked and spat the man back out. He banged sloppy on his car’s roof. The monster was twisting in pain. A human-sized shape whipped around it, stabbing and moving, leaping out of the way whenever it tried to recover.

The people started to leap out of their cars and hustle away from the destruction. A handsome lithe black man with a bald head and close-fitting dark black clothes tried to get their attention. “Don’t run that way! Get away from tall buildings!” He gestured to a parking lot not far away and they complied.

Then the man looked to the battle and came as close as he dared. “CLARK! What are you doing?!”

The blur slowed down long enough to do a little plie and bow. It was an old man in dance shoes, the toes of which were yellow-white with the worm-thing’s ichor. “I’m saving the day. It’s fabulous!”

The worm took advantage, tried to swallow him up, but Clark was too quick. He did a triangle kick off the young man’s car and landed with a sharp toe in the thing’s eye-like area. It flew back, bounced off the concrete, and slipped back into the abyss from whence it came.

The young man weakly propped himself up, looking at the distinguished gentlemen. “What happened?”

“I happened, my boy.”

Thurston shook his head. “Look at this destruction! It might yet cause some buildings to collapse. We need to get to safety.” He helped the young guy down from his car.

The guy said, “We need to get everybody safe. There’s more people in town here, I know it. I don’t want anybody to hafta stay here.”

Clark cocked an eyebrow. “Well let’s see what we can do about that.”

***

Jamie Infante couldn’t take religion as seriously as his parents did. It was too full of bad ideas, cruel beliefs. But now he saw that the world was indeed a cruel game set in motion by an insane God.

He wondered, there in the darkness, the horrible shocks of the hummer jolting him with every bit of grit that passed beneath the thing, he wondered if Jesus was the way. Jesus didn’t bother with condemning gay people, seemed kind and cruel in relatable ways. If Jesus was apiece with the God that created this situation, he must’ve been the sane part.

“Jesus, set me free. In God’s name I will set this world right.”

Killing that fallen angel in Hilltop had probably given him delusions of grandeur. What reason did he have to be so proud, in the trunk of some goblin’s overcompensation machine?

They came to a stop and he braced himself. Any move was an opportunity to break free. It was like the trunk shot from early in Pulp Fiction, the camera looking out at Sam Jackson and John Travolta. But instead it was Infante looking up at two goat-angel soldiers. One looked like a man but for the top of his head being far too small, horns growing where most of his brain should have been. The other had a face like a baby goat - just too small for the human-like body it was attached too - and puffy black and red emo hair spilling out of its basket-like wire helmet.

They were stronger than the goblins, and maybe they understood they’d need strength to deal with this man. Or it could be that the goblins would have killed him outright, but the angels had some other purpose in mind for him.

He looked around, tested himself with a few spasms of the body. No, his legs were bound as well as his hands. No running away yet. He looked around, tried to get as much intel as he could. There were fewer cars. Same number of goblins and demons though. The lead goblin begged for some word of favor from the lead angel and it set him in motion with a flick of the wrist.

Then it turned its attention to him. The goats hauled him closer. The fallen angel said, “You might get to know me better while we are together. I am Resach, a squire in the legions of Bybaal. A sergeant, if you will.”

“Because we’re both sergeants? I’m supposed to like you now?”

“It was worth a try. Jamie Infante? You may not bend your knee to our Queen, but you are a prize nonetheless. If you will just see that your power belongs among ours.”

“Go back to hell, cabrón!”

“Hell, Heaven, Earth. They’re all the same.”

“Then go! Leave us alone.”

The guards bleated laughter.

“That’s how God works. We wouldn’t be so cruel. Come along, Jamie.”

The creature walked up the steps to the shoddy old brick apartment building and his goatmen hauled Infante along behind him.

***

Park was inside his own skull again, in a pool of water-thinned blood. Or was it blood-thickened water? He looked up at the vault of his cranial dome. The fontanelle was closed again. But where was that light coming from?

He felt a shooting pain on the back of his head, clutched it, and looked up to the back of his skull. It was cracked open - must have been from hitting it on the highway. Light poured in, washed over him. He felt the soft thumps of the Greeks walking atop his skull. He pawed around in the pool, tried to find purchase.

Closer now to the crack. He reached into it, tried to look out. But he couldn’t fit his head far enough through it. He pulled, trying to get it to part just a little more. Then the pain in the back of his head became too much to bear and he fell back into the bloody water.

Light, still. More light was spilling in from behind. He spun about in the water and looked up to his eye sockets. The light from the back of his skull was hitting his eye sockets. It burned.

He saw Infante, not shirtless yet like in the future vision. He was still in his bulletproof vest, bound at hands and feet. A naked man sat beside him, big broken wings swept back. A serpent grew out from above the man’s buttocks and curled around, going closer to the cop as he struggled.

It bit his thigh and started pumping venom into his body. He screamed.

The naked man was that angel from the bridge. Goat bleats and laughs surrounded him. Bricks surrounded them. A building like a flaming tombstone in a concrete cemetery - a neighborhood of Tukwila that should have been nothing but business, bearing one sad reminder of a residential past. Park spun in place. The sun was in the east.

He woke to see Iphigenia leaning against a rocky grass hill, his backpack under her head as a pillow. He felt cardboard beneath his hands, his arms. That had been his bed. The world was a vivid dark blue, but was that after dusk or before dawn?

“Iphigenia!”

She stirred and wrinkled her nose at him. “I never told you that.”

“It’s the light. I hate it… But it showed me I was wrong. You’re not going to find Infante. I am.”

“What light? I can’t see anything here, and more importantly, that fuckin’ minotaur can’t either. It’s still alive, you know.”

“Doesn’t matter. What time is it?”

She took out her cell phone. She’d put it on super power saver mode a few days ago and it was still working. “Nine fifty.”

“Whuh? Oh. Good. At dawn the serpent will bite him. We have time.”

“The light. I heard someone else say they had it. She didn’t seem to think the future could be changed… Well, aside from one thing.”

“I need to go. Need to...”

“Fine, I’ll help you. But there’s plenty of time before dawn, so we should get a bite to eat and new bikes.” She helped pull him to his feet.

Where there arms gripped each other’s, he felt something strange. Maybe the light was still with him. She felt powerful, like she was skinny but covered in reedy steel-hard muscles. For that her weight wasn’t much of a balance, and she had to go back on her heels to get him off the ground. But he knew that she was powerful in a way he was not. Where she touched him, he was soft and yielding under her touch. Where he touched her, she was as firm as a metal pole. He wasn’t a weak man, but he knew her strength was profound. It meant something.

But she let him go. He nearly swooned, and forgot about the moment. It was going to be an effort just to keep walking. Maybe the food would help but he felt nauseous.

He had to keep going.

They walked around the edge of the building. Park forced himself to not lean against it. Move like you’re well, maybe you can fake it ‘til you make it. Iphigenia moved past him with shorter but faster strides. He hustled as fast as he could go without blacking out or vomiting. It was a struggle.

Bright lights. They were in an abandoned grocery store. A lot had been looted, but far from everything. More people wanted to evacuate than hole up. Park slumped into a chair at the deli area.

“You jus’... get whatever. I’ll see you when you get back.”

She was already out of sight, but then quickly returned with some food, drinks, and medicine. Or had she been slow and he just passed out for it?

“Cheese? I’m lactose intolerant.”

“Me too. That’s why this bottle.” A lactase pill.

“Those don’t work for me either.”

“You need protein and fat. I wouldn’t trust much of the meat here. Might still be some jerky hiding somewhere, but all the spots I saw got robbed.”

“Protein bars?”

“All gone.”

“Shit.”

He tried to get some energy back with what he could, and took whatever pills she put in front of him. Best not to think about it too hard.

Park considered his reluctant comrade. “You were saying something before about the light, the future. What was that?”

“Old lady in Elijah’s house. She said she saw the future.”

“What did she see?”

“I’m gonna kill all the murderers.”

“Just you?”

“I dunno. You want in?”

“I guess I do. They got my...”

“Infant. I heard you. But you don’t look like you’re ready to fight.”

“I’ll do whatever it takes.”

“Saving Private Ryan.”

“Sergeant Infante.”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, maybe when he gets free he’ll be better at fighting than you are.”

“Hey, I killed a freakin’ minotaur.”

“You shot it. I told you it was still alive. Pay attention.”

He grumbled and ate quietly. All too soon, it was time to shamble on.

***

Jason apologized to Mr. Bezos and backed away. The monster was a little thing, but what could he do? It might be that demon magic was the only thing keeping him alive, forcing him to feel that pain. He’d probably bleed out if Jason freed him.

A great rumbling shook the building and he heard glass starting to splinter. He bolted for the stairs, moving as fast as he dared. Part of him remembered in an earthquake one is supposed to stand in a doorway or get under a desk. He couldn’t make himself do either of those things. Well, maybe if the building collapsed, it would happen to do it while he was passing through a doorway. You never know.

At the bottom floor he looked back to the atrium with the high windows. They were filled with pink light. Turning back to the door and hustling out that way, he saw the light again. It was everywhere.

The ground was coming apart, raising in tiers, like Beacon Hill was trying to remake itself into a Q*bert level. The festive glow of hell slipped through the cracks in the ground, creating curtains of light.

Jason made like Q*bert and started leaping between the blocks of earth. At the outer limits, just past the parking lot, he broke into a sprint. At last, several blocks away, lungs bursting with the exertion, he let himself look back, tripped, and collapsed.

The shaking had stopped, and the fancy old building was now taller. Had it changed? It seemed more like a fantastic brass castle - like that Disney logo redesigned for the demonic set. One change was more clear - the ground below it had raised like a pedestal of black stone, hundreds of feet above the rest of the hill.

He let himself just lay there in the street, trying to recover from the damage the little action scene had dealt him. If something came for him then, would he even fight it?

At last, he dragged himself to his feet, only slightly out of breath. His throat felt bloody raw from the exertion. But he had recovered enough to move - and just in time. He saw headlights coming down the road.

He wanted to believe it was the missing cops, but hid in the tree line just the same. As the cars passed by, he saw that it was three convertibles - wait, no, three cars with the roofs ripped off. They were being driven by a bunch of freaks that looked part goat, part man. Maybe the vandalism was just to accommodate the polearms they held up in the air. They bleated and laughed. Apparently, life was good for goat boys.

Jason started hiking back toward his mother’s house. It was going to be a long trip.

***

It was a night of great movements. Seven points throughout Seattle thrust into the sky as great citadels, forming a very irregular constellation of pink light. Where there had already been great structures - as on Beacon Hill - they became crowns for greater structures. Where there had been none - as in the Denny Regrade - there was instead a castle of earth and asphalt, brutal and foreboding.

And as the earth moved, those who had remained in the region during the evacuation were forced from their complacence. Many had sworn an oath they could barely comprehend to this new Kingdom, but now they felt the full measure of its power - and wanted out.

They gathered in caravans and on foot - even on bicycles - by whatever means they had to hand. They rolled along barren concrete strips, north or south - whichever way had them moving away from Seattle. All the while they couldn’t forget the other movement that was sure to come.

For while some sparse demonic forces had stayed behind to recruit mortal subjects, that first wave that had set out with the orchestra was much larger - and they would surely be returning at some point.

Monsters moved as well. The miasma of the changing world had them shimmying, lurking, screaming, wallowing in the night. Some were born of the creatures unnatural to the land - imported flora and fauna from cattle to birds to blackberry bushes. Some crawled directly out of hell where the land broke.

The Queen’s realm was taking shape. She had to admit, it made her a little horny. Humans were her sexual ideal, succumbing to their allure part of the reason she was cast out of Heaven. In the warm haze of her reawakening desire, she thought of them - and it altered her shape.

She was a broken angel like the rest - her body a savage blend of the features of human, lioness, and cow - eternally dripping with the blood of her wounds. Her four great eagle wings had long ago been torn to stumps bearing feather scraps. Her four heads all sprang impossibly from the same neck, overlapping in space, making her quite eerie to behold - a woman, a cow, an eagle, a lioness. Where once a proper halo had made her impossible for mortals to look upon with its brilliance, now pinkish flames licked through her hair and feathers, snaking as tendrils around her massive silver crown.

But that lust for human flesh pulsed from her fiery heart, crept down her limbs, subsumed feather and fur under voluptuous white skin. She stretched on the stone floor of her throne room, recently upthrust high above the north end of Capitol Hill. Pigeons flapped about, psychically driven by her aura to a mad orgy of their own, cooing and chasing each other about the floor.

Bymaan was splayed out on the ground like a cat. No way to dignify her fresh human visage. But she luxuriated in the sensation of the coarse stones on her bare skin, rolled in place and giggled. Red hair fell over her face. The giggles turned into peals of maniacal laughter, then subsided again into moans. She rubbed herself up and down before finally reaching her labia with plump elegant fingers. She gripped the thick red hair there and slipped one finger between the lips, cooing to herself.

“Damn, it’s good to have a human pussy again. You ever try that, Abalaam?”

“I have felt them from the inside, Your Majesty. Quite pleasant.”

“How about it, then? I don’t have the time to properly seduce a mortal man at the moment.”

The pigeons had mostly sorted themselves into pairings, some male and female, many homosexual as well. They shuffled about the floor like amorous feather dusters, trilling and cooing.

Abalaam stepped among them, still in his broken angelic form, a towering beast. The little birds bounced off his hooves, oblivious. The great eye-covered wheel in his back spun in agitation at this arousal, unable to complete a circle for its broken shape, whacking up and down in place. Eyes bled in anger.

He hated his Queen as much as his brother Bybaal did, but her power was impressive. Her lust compelled him, reminded him of his own ancient lust for the human form. But he saw an opportunity to annoy her and took it.

“Mm, you are most comely to behold, my Queen. Yet you may have difficulty drawing out the love of a man.”

“No! Why would you say this? Even in their fear of me, they may find something arousing.”

“You have changed your form to one arousing indeed.” He underscored the point with a slight shift of his hips. “But you did not have a human at hand to judge scale. By my reckoning, you are twice the height and eightfold the weight they expect of their women.”

“No!” Her word send a blast of sound through the room, causing all the pigeons to roll and bounce away in confusion. She folded up her huge legs, draped her arms over her knees, and pouted. “Most vexatious.”

***

Infante lay on his side, felt like he was dying. The angel had stripped naked for some reason, lay down beside him. It had the form of a sexy man, muscular but not dehydrated like those lubricated beef jerky sticks on fitness magazines. Did the thing know he was gay? Was it taunting him? It didn’t arouse him in the slightest, given the circumstances - the smell of blood, stifling dust, sweat. The mortal terror, the monstrous details attached to the beautiful being.

But it smiled at him and made him wonder how far inside his mind it could reach. It said, “This is an exciting time, Jamie. Nobody knows what’s going to happen.”

“Somebody knows.”

“The oracles and sibyls, but who can hear them? At any rate, I don’t know what’s going to happen. You don’t know what’s going to happen. Isn’t that interesting?”

“No.”

“This edifice is infused with dark energies. Occultists convened here over a century ago. I can smell it. I can see it, in the violet flames that dance across its crown.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Magic is possibility. Things can happen within these walls that nobody can anticipate… Well, I guess the poetry of it is lost on you.”

“Oh yeah, you can shove your poetry up your dickhole.”

“You should open your mind. You could be so much more important to us than our other subjects. These empty-headed murderers, or those cowards with her mark, hiding in these stone warrens like so many rabbits.”

“Why?” He didn’t want to break, but a tear rolled down his face.

The devil smiled. “Open your mind. You’ll find out.”

***

#The Septagram

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giantbandgeeks · 7 years

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kath @busynothings tagged me to do this super cool author themed question thing on my other blog but i’m doing it on this one because i want to. cool? cool

Jane Austen: Who was your first love?

my first love was the son of my dad’s best friend. we weren’t good for each other

Ray Bradbury: What is your favourite book?

can i say all seven harry potter books? if not... the kite runner owns a piece of my soul. there are so many other books i love though. this question is absolutely impossible.

Charles Darwin: What is your favourite animal?

koalas, giraffes, and turtles are my top three.

Alice Walker: What is your favourite color?

sunset orange and dusty pink!

Kurt Vonnegut: What is your favourite breakfast cereal?

i’m really, really lame. raisin bran.

J.D. Salinger: What was your favourite subject in school?

it was english all the way up until my sophomore year of high school when i had a terrible teacher that destroyed my self esteem and i moved onto history, which had always been a close second to english

J.K. Rowling: What is your favourite magical creature?

do mermaids count because mermaids

Neil Gaiman: What religion are you?

i was raised as a catholic but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Oscar Wilde: What is your vice?

i’m going to have to steal kath’s answer and say books. i have no control when it comes to buying books

Julia Child: What is the best meal you’ve ever eaten?

the first time i had thai food was a religious experience

Stephen King: What was your last Halloween costume?

i had two costumes this past halloween. my family dressed up as the characters from Charlie Brown for our family friend’s party, and i was lucy. on actual halloween i was a ravenclaw student

Harper Lee: Who was your childhood best friend?

i had the same best friend from kindergarten to my senior year of high school, but despite going to the same university we just made different choices and different friends and drifted apart. we still hang out, but it we aren’t as close as we once were.

Brothers Grimm: What is your favourite fairytale?

i’ve always had a thing for the little mermaid

F. Scott Fitzgerald: What is the best party you ever attended?

i don’t really do parties.

George R. R. Martin: Summer or winter?

summer, but Bay Area style

Mark Twain: What was your favourite thing to do as a kid?

i’ve always loved to read. i know i loved summer as a kid because that meant swimming lessons and i would take any excuse to go swimming. we used to have these super fun “progressive dinners” with our group of family friends where we would have appetizers at one house, dinner at another, and dessert at a third, with a different game or activity at each house. now we just go camping over labor day weekend and have the halloween party i mentioned above

Edgar Allan Poe: What scares you the most?

i have an irrational fear of thunder and lightning

Herman Melville: Beach or mountains?

both. don’t make me choose

Roald Dahl: What is your favourite candy?

chocolate!!!

Jack Kerouac: Where do you want to travel?

Ireland is, and always be, my number one. Greece. Mexico. England. Scotland. Canada. Thailand. everywhere.

#this was fun!#me

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instantdeerlover · 4 years

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The Seattle (Quarantine) Dinner & A Movie Guide added to Google Docs

The Seattle (Quarantine) Dinner & A Movie Guide

Dinner and a movie is a timeless combination. And while you can’t exactly leave your house at the moment, you don’t really have to - there’s plenty to watch at home, and even more to order for delivery or takeout. So we’re here to make sure you’re doing dinner and a movie right. Below, you’ll find our picks for great delivery, and which classic movie you should pair it with. We’ll be updating regularly, but for now, here are 11 combinations to keep your quarantine nights feeling fun, and hopefully, just a bit more normal.

All restaurants featured on The Infatuation are selected by our editorial team. The Seattle (Quarantine) Dinner & A Movie Guide is presented by Uber Eats. In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, supporting our local restaurant community has never been more important. Uber Eats customers can now give directly to the restaurants they love at checkout. 100% will go to the restaurant. Order now to support. See app for details.

THE SPOTS Taurus Ox $ $ $ $ Laotian in Capitol Hill $$$$ 1523 E Madison St Not

Rated

Yet

Movie Pairing: Camp (Prime)

“Around ten years before Pitch Perfect ruined the reputation of collegiate a cappella (riff-offs are not a thing), Anna Kendrick got her start in Camp, a film that provides a marginally more realistic look into a world I’m also quite familiar with: theatre camp. If you, too, were a drama nerd in 2003, this movie was your bible, and if you weren’t, you probably had no idea it existed. Every time this ragtag group of absolute weirdos open their mouths to sing, the sound that comes out just makes your whole soul feel good. Which is why I’d replicate that feeling with a huge spread from Taurus Ox. Just like the cast, this Laotian counter on Capitol Hill isn’t afraid to be colorful and a little bit funky, with dishes like beef jerky and sticky rice, pad Lao topped with pickled radishes and crispy chicken cracklins, and an incredible double smashburger with provolone to bring you back to your childhood summers.” - Aimee

Dough Zone Dumpling House $ $ $ $ Chinese , Dim Sum in International District $$$$ 504 5th Ave S Ste 109 8.1 /10

Movie Pairing: Vertigo (Prime)

“In Vertigo, Jimmy Stewart plays a sad, broken, and slightly creepy man, sort of like if his character from It’s A Wonderful Life lost his bank, got divorced, and decided to start over in San Francisco. This is a tough movie to summarize, but just know that it’s about a man who falls in love with a woman who looks like this one person he used to know (who thought she was possessed by her great grandmother). Sort of. I glossed over a few things. It’s a long, complicated story, and you’re going to want to continuously fill your mouth with small bites of food while you try to figure out what’s going on. Get a bunch of dumplings, wontons, pork buns, and pancake rolls from Dough Zone.” - Bryan

Ezell's Famous Chicken $ $ $ $ American , Southern in Central District $$$$ 501 23rd Ave Not

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Yet

Movie Pairing: Men In Black 1, 2, & 3 (Prime)

“I don’t know how many times I’ve seen all three Men In Black movies (I refuse to acknowledge MIB International), but I never get sick of them. They’re some of the best buddy cop movies ever made, except that Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones aren’t policemen really - they work for a highly-funded, yet unofficial government agency that monitors extraterrestrial life on Earth. Similarly, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve eaten Ezell’s spicy fried chicken. For me, there’s nothing better than going to town on a pound of tenders and some freshly-baked rolls while watching a Men In Black movie. Even if Will Smith neuralyzed me (which WOW what an honor!), I’m convinced I’d somehow find my way back to Ezell’s - erased memory and all.” - Carlo

Vendemmia $ $ $ $ Pasta , Italian in Madrona $$$$ 1126 34th Ave Not

Rated

Yet

Movie Pairing: Tampopo (Youtube)

“The last movie that made me laugh - like really, really laugh, was Tampopo - a Japanese parody on the American Western. On the surface, it’s about a cook who tries to perfect her ramen recipe, but really it’s about death, sex, and food - and it’s hilarious. One chef apologizes to the pork in his bowl, another trains like Rocky to find her strength behind the ramen counter. But I live for the ‘spaghetti scene.’ To know what I’m talking about, order yourself a plate of spicy spaghetti from Vendemmia, queue up the movie, and get ready to slurp along with a table full of women who have never had spaghetti before.” - Arden

Cafe Con Leche $ $ $ $ Sandwiches , Cuban in SoDo $$$$ 2901 1st Ave S Not

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Movie Pairing: Chef (Prime)

“Surprise, surprise. A food writer recommending Chef. I understand that the ‘cool thing’ now is to groan at all 115 minutes of Hollywood actors feigning fake passion for food, but it deserves a watch because we’re all missing restaurants right now - and at least it’s not Burnt. If this movie opened my eyes to one thing (aside from spaghetti aglio e olio’s ultimate sex appeal), it’s that Cubanos are the perfect sandwich. Unfortunately, Seattle is the farthest major city from Miami in the contiguous United States. But when all you want is a classic pressed mess of ham, roasted pork, melty swiss, pickles, and yellow mustard, nothing but Cafe Con Leche will do. I like getting a side of fries and some of their cilantro-y green sauce for dipping, too - it makes for a perfect spread while watching Jon Favreau completely rip a snooty restaurant critic (that’s not me) a new one.” - Aimee

Order delivery Homer $ $ $ $ Mediterranean in Beacon Hill $$$$ 3013 Beacon Ave S 8.4 /10

Movie Pairing: Kramer vs. Kramer (Prime)

“In Kramer vs. Kramer, Dustin Hoffman’s wife (played by a 30-year-old Meryl Streep) leaves him to raise their child by himself. And, at first, he’s pretty terrible at it. Which is to say, this is a deeply relatable film. (I, personally, don’t have any children, but I imagine I’d be a pretty poor father.) During one memorable scene, Dustin Hoffman’s son tries (unsuccessfully) to eat ice cream for dinner - and that’s where Homer comes in. In addition to wine, pantry items, and takeout meals, this Beacon Hill restaurant is also selling their soft-serve to go. You need this, because A) it’s amazing (the current flavors are matcha and vegan salt roasted banana), and B) there is, most likely, no one at your house who’s going to stop you from eating soft serve for dinner.” - Bryan

DeLaurenti Food & Wine $ $ $ $ Pizza , Cafe/Bakery , Italian in Downtown , Pike Place Market $$$$ 1435 1st Ave Not

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Yet

Movie Pairing: Goodfellas (Netflix)

“The best part of Goodfellas (besides when Joe Pesci starts yelling at people) is the prison scene. We’ve got Paulie slicing garlic with a razor blade, Vinnie throwing too many onions in the sauce, and Henry coming in with a bag of the good stuff - bread, peppers and onions, salami, prosciutto, cheese, and red wine. Placing a DeLaurenti order feels like the equivalent of Henry bribing the guards to let him smuggle in a bunch of Italian specialties, except you don’t need to participate in organized crime to get the goods - all you need to do is go to their website. You can even get their charcuterie plates, cheeses, tons of pantry staples, and wine delivered on the same day, which is a luxury even those wiseguys don’t have.” - Carlo

Deru Market $ $ $ $ American , Pizza , Sandwiches in Kirkland $$$$ 723 9th Ave Ste D 8.5 /10

Movie Pairing: Maltilda (Prime)

“We all remember the first time we watched this Roald Dahl adaptation and wished desperately for psychokinetic abilities - and even more desperately for Miss Honey to be our teacher. But the most iconic moment has to be when Trunchbull forces Bruce to eat an entire chocolate cake that’s the size of a manhole cover. Call me crazy for saying this, but even though that scene is meant to ruin chocolate cake, it kinda makes me want a big slice of it. Is that bad? Deru’s version with layers of salted peanut butter frosting is just as decadent as you’d imagine frail old Cookie’s creation would be in real life. Order a big piece (along with some wood-fired pizzas and rosemary pecorino fries), and enjoy some of Danny DeVito’s best work. And because it’s impossible not to also associate Matilda with baby carrots flying around, you better add Deru’s incredible farm salad with roasted carrots, feta, herbs, and pepitas.” - Aimee

Korean Bamboo $$$$ 2236 3rd Ave

Movie Pairing: Enter the Dragon (Prime)

“Back in the 90s, when VHS was still a thing, I used to go to Blockbuster and rent Bruce Lee movies. Sorry, that was misleading. My father would rent them for me. I was far too young to use money or negotiate the rental of films featuring excessive violence. Anyway, Enter The Dragon was always a favorite, and we’d pretty much always eat some Korean food before we watched it, because, um, we’re Korean. So while you watch Bruce Lee travel to an island fortress and participate in a deadly martial arts tournament, it’s important to me that you order from Korean Bamboo in Belltown. My sister and I eat there every time I’m home, and I strongly suggest their bulgogi, tofu soup, and jajangmyeon. (I live in New York now, by the way.)” - Bryan

Un Bien $ $ $ $ Sandwiches , Caribbean in Ballard $$$$ 6226 Seaview Ave NW 8.8 /10

Movie Pairing: Bad Education (HBO)

“I don’t know about you, but I could watch Alison Janney read a phone book. But in the case of Bad Education, we get to watch her siphon off $11 million from the Long Island public school system, and feed Hugh Jackman a sandwich on some high school bleachers. Stream it on HBO, order a roast pork sandwich from Un Bien, and feed your quarantine buddy the perfect synergy of bread-crunch, juicy meat, and aioli while this true story of the largest public school embezzlement in history unfolds.” - Arden

Ristorante Machiavelli $ $ $ $ Pasta , Italian in Capitol Hill $$$$ 1215 Pine St Not

Rated

Yet

Movie Pairing: Hitch (Netflix)

“If you can tell anything about me by my captions in this guide, it’s that I’m super Italian and really like Will Smith movies. Which is why Machiavelli and Hitch are both guilty pleasures for me. Hitch is basically your everyday rom-com, and it’s no The Pursuit Of Happiness, but dammit, I love watching Will Smith sing Earth, Wind & Fire as he’s drinking cough syrup like a juice box. Similarly, even though Machiavelli’s carbonara includes bacon, garlic, and chiles (which my extremely Italian family would disapprove of), it’s still a delicious plate of pasta you can get for under $20. I would happily order this pasta for takeout any day of the week - even if doing so would get me uninvited from my Uncle Gino’s yearly Feast of the Seven Fishes.” - Carlo

via The Infatuation Feed https://www.theinfatuation.com/seattle/guides/dinner-and-movie-delivery-takeout-seattle Nhà hàng Hương Sen chuyên buffet hải sản cao cấp✅ Tổ chức tiệc cưới✅ Hội nghị, hội thảo✅ Tiệc lưu động✅ Sự kiện mang tầm cỡ quốc gia 52 Phố Miếu Đầm, Mễ Trì, Nam Từ Liêm, Hà Nội http://huongsen.vn/ 0904988999 http://huongsen.vn/to-chuc-tiec-hoi-nghi/ https://trello.com/userhuongsen

Created May 2, 2020 at 04:59AM /huong sen View Google Doc Nhà hàng Hương Sen chuyên buffet hải sản cao cấp✅ Tổ chức tiệc cưới✅ Hội nghị, hội thảo✅ Tiệc lưu động✅ Sự kiện mang tầm cỡ quốc gia 52 Phố Miếu Đầm, Mễ Trì, Nam Từ Liêm, Hà Nội http://huongsen.vn/ 0904988999 http://huongsen.vn/to-chuc-tiec-hoi-nghi/ https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1xa6sRugRZk4MDSyctcqusGYBv1lXYkrF

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bluesyemre · 4 years

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The €101m Forum building is part library, part meeting space, part science museum and part recreational hangout. Photograph: Oliver Balch

The Forum complex in the Dutch city Groningen is trying to show that town centres don’t need to sell to survive…

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Four-year-old Joris Niekus hops excitedly in front of a wall-sized flatscreen as his dad loads up an interactive version of Roald Dahl’s BFG (known as GVR in Dutch).

Seconds later, face beaming, his digitised silhouette is bopping across the screen together with Dahl’s gangly giant.

It’s just one of many experiences on offer at a new downtown development in the Dutch city of Groningen that is seeking to reinvent urban hubs for the post-consumer age.

The €101m, trapezoid Forum building is part library, part meeting space, part science museum and part recreational hangout – a 10-storey “multi-space” designed to resonate with citizens who know that shopping is not necessarily the answer. It’s a new-look department store that doesn’t actually sell very much.

But with high streets feeling the pinch across the developed world, with shops shuttered and town centres wondering what they are for any more, the Groningen experiment is being closely watched.

Nowhere is that truer than in the UK, where more than 16,000 retail stores closed last year at the cost of more than 143,000 jobs. The picture in the US is similar, with more than 9,300 shops going to the wall in 2019 as shoppers increasingly move online.

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In Europe, city centres are being emptied of life as skyrocketing rental costs push low-income residents out to the peripheries. In cities such as Paris, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Luxembourg, for instance, 80% of citizens say affordable housing is hard to find.

It’s early days, but the Forum certainly feels like it is working. More than 700,000 people – three times the city’s total population – have visited the library since it opened late last year. So, what’s the big draw?

There are books galore (92,000 in total), but they are for rent, not sale, distributed liberally across multiple mezzanine floors with a joyous disregard for Dewey decimal discipline. Geography on one floor, history on another, mathematics … somewhere, presumably.

For the non-bookish, there’s plenty besides: a six-screen cinema, two exhibition halls, a couple of cafes, a museum (about comics, no less), a 250-seater auditorium, and a hip (but not overly hip) top-floor restaurant and bar. Oh, plus a rooftop “market square” with panoramic views over the whole of Groningen.

“Every day when I pick him up from school, he asks to come to the Forum. He just finds it so much fun,” says Joris’s dad, Marcel, an archaeologist, who cuts his working day short every Tuesday to accommodate his son’s request.

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Right to roam

The comment is music to the ears of Dirk Nijdam, the Forum’s director, who readily admits that lending out books has never been his priority. Instead, what’s driven his thinking since he took on the project six years ago is the idea of creating a space where anyone and everyone can wander in, kick back and collectively feel at home.

“If people walk in and say, ‘Wow, Groningen has got a new library’, then we’ll have failed,” he says. “If you want to come in and just hang out, you should feel just as welcome as if you’re going to an exhibition or taking out a book.”

This notion of “hanging out” gets to the real function of Groningen’s artful new creation: namely, helping fellow citizens mix and mingle and – who knows? – perhaps even taste that nebulous yet ever-necessary thing called “community”.

It’s a mission born, in part, out of Groningen’s struggling city centre. The hope is that the Forum will revitalise the main market square, which, after the German occupation during the second world war was home to a dingy car park for decades.

At the same time, the project marks a bold riposte to the effects of modern-day capitalist society: first, in its promotion of an individualistic society; and second, in its commercialisation of public space (ie with malls and coffee bars gradually replacing libraries and community centres).

Four-year-old Joris Niekus and his father, Marcel, use an iPad in the Forum in Groningen. Photograph: Oliver Balch

The Forum is a splendid example of form following function. Clean and contemporary, the final design shouts anything but library. Hotel lobby, perhaps? Department store, even? From the luminous circular information desk, to the free-floating elevators, to the immense, cathedral-esque atrium. It’s all quite discombobulating and really rather marvellous.

Once through the door, the challenge is to make people stay. It’s all about “the experience”, says Nijdam, borrowing from big retail’s mantra de jour. So no security beefs on the door, no blaring Tannoy announcements, no endless queuing. Instead, it’s all soft furnishings, mood lighting and make-yourself-at-home courtesy.

Signposts are also kept to a minimum. Exploration, not explanation, is the building’s guiding motif, says Kamiel Klaasse co-founder of NL Architects, an upstart Amsterdam-based firm that beat off an all-star list (including the late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid) to win the design contract way back in 2006.

“The brief talked as much about searching as about finding and we interpreted that as an incentive to let people roam,” Klaasse says.

Community connector

The Groningen resident and social activist Ritzo ten Cate is an early cheerleader for the project. Describing the Forum as “one big welcome gesture to us as citizens”, he points to the diversity of the building’s users as proof of its communitarian qualities.

The evidence seems solid. On any given day, you’ll find students working at their laptops, mums with their toddlers, school kids on assignment and grannies reading newspapers. All of them together, under one roof, seemingly as one.

Nor is it just Groningen’s well-heeled citizens who make use of the space. On his many visits, Ten Cate regularly spots friends from the city’s homeless community. Some come to read or use the free internet, while others are after a warm corner to kill time or take a nap.

“The Forum only opened a few months ago, but it’s already doing its job as a connector,” says Ten Cate, who has plans to run a large-scale hackathon there in June.

Two men playing chess in the Forum in Groningen city centre. Photograph: Oliver Balch

But as much as the Forum brings people together, is it serving to create community.

For Paul de Rook, an alderman on Groningen city council, it’s a crucial question. More than just shared physical space, genuine community is about a shared understanding of one another, he argues. “That’s why it’s really valuable to create spaces where people … can see what is going on in other people’s lives.”

In a nod to this reality, the Forum seeks to orient all its cultural activities around a common thread. Whether it’s the current exhibition on artificial intelligence (recently on show at the Barbican in London) or Spike Jonze’s futuristic film Her at the cinema, everyone is collectively inching towards the same page (“optimism about the future”, in the Forum’s case).

Dr Ward Rauws admires the sentiment but harbours doubts. An assistant professor of spatial planning at the University of Groningen, he notes that the core building blocks of community – social capital, civic culture, place identity and so forth – start first at a street-by-street level and expand out from there.

Even so, he remains a big fan of Groningen’s Forum because of its role in helping foster “familiarity”. Echoing De Rook, he defines the term as a state of awareness that “other kinds of citizens exist who might think differently or look different, but who are part of the same community”. It’s a salient point for a university town such as Groningen, where town-gown tensions are a feature of daily life.

Groningen’s audacious experiment in urban planning isn’t without its detractors, most of whom gripe about the final price-tag. Joris’s mum is in that camp. Her son begs to differ. Done with the BFG, he’s now playing a spelling game on one of the library’s iPads. His dad watches on patiently, albeit with half an eye on the upstairs cafe. “Afterwards,” he whispers, “we go for cake.”

https://forum.nl/en

https://www.dezeen.com/2020/01/19/forum-groningen-nl-architects-cultural-centre/

https://www.archdaily.com/930102/forum-groningen-multifunctional-building-nl-architects

https://www.rug.nl/education/student-blog/a-students-review-of-the-groninger-forum-17-01-2020

https://www.stylepark.com/en/news/nl-architects-forum-groningen

https://www.visitgroningen.nl/en/location/482052751/groninger-forum-library-art-house-movie-theatre-events

https://www10.aeccafe.com/blogs/arch-showcase/2020/01/15/forum-groningen-in-the-netherlands-by-nl-architects/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/11/dutch-mall-groningen-netherlands-forum-urban-hub

#ForumGroningen (The new-look shopping mall that doesn’t sell stuff) The €101m Forum building is part library, part meeting space, part science museum and part recreational hangout.

#forum groningen #holland #library architecture #library buildings #library design #shopping malls #The Netherlands

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what-soul · 7 years

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My life story

I was born November 10, 1995 at 2:03 AM in Baltimore, Maryland. From what I can remember from my dad's "birthday story", nothing too significant happened. My parents were in their early 20s and I'm fairly sure they weren't prepared for the financial responsibility, because I've been told they sold my mom's CD collection and we ate PB&J and other filler staple foods. I'm pretty sure that's why I can't stand the idea of a PB&J sandwich - I had too many as a kid. We lived in Ducketts Lane in Elkridge, soon joined by some of my cousins who I grew up with. I remember a nasty, broken toilet in a basement with wood paneling and willow trees off in the corner. There was only 3-story townhouses there.

Ginny was born, and my dad realized that if he wanted to be in the military, he had to join before he had more than 2 kids. So he was at training camp when Katie was born, doing crazy stuff like swimming with 50 lb backpacks and running through chemical fumes without a mask. We moved around during this time, I think to Tennessee and Kentucky? I have no memories beyond a pre-K daycare (where I made a scarecrow with brads for joints) and the neighbors having those electric kid-sized cars.

In Kindergarten I went to Rockburn Elementary at 4, due to Maryland's strange age cutoff at the time. All I remember was that our class was near the entrance, the room was big and empty in the middle, and a caterpillar once pooped on my hand while I was admiring it on the playground. I don't remember anyone from the class. First grade is a blank, but second grade...

The second grade area was a bunch of dynamic classrooms with vibrantly colored sliding walls and a larger central area where we could buy lunch. They offered either a special that day or pizza, but I usually brought a packed lunch. I remember playing mandala with a tomboy of a black girl who scraped her knee once and showed us how it was getting puss. That's where I met Nicholas Eagles, who was my best friend for the year. I'd go over to his house every week or two where we played the pokemon card game and some Nintendo games. He had a pogo stick, but I couldn't figure out how to use it. At one point, we climbed up the big evergreens in his front yard and I fell, getting caught by branches a couple feet below. He once admitted that he thought I was gross when he first met me, though I don't know why.

Then we moved to Pennsylvania for my third year in school. I don't remember our house but I remember the area. It was next to a small pond with cattails and the backyard led to a huge patch of undeveloped land. We found some kids playing there far away, and I became friends with the older brother who enjoyed hacking together weird electronics. There I got into Yugioh. Ginny's hermit crab died and we had a fancy funeral for it, complete with a coffin made of mud bricks molded from legos. Our parents bought a wooden playground, I think?

I don't remember much from school, just some event snippets. Bits of hallways filled with seasonal candles in bags, monthly school events like a Jim Henson style play about how drugs are bad, an uninviting cafeteria... I know I was called "booger boy" for picking my nose, but I've lost the emotional context. According to my parents, I had problems with my teachers because the Pennsylvania 3rd grade curriculum was the same as the Maryland 2nd grade curriculum, and I liked to be the teacher's pet. I'd raise my hand for every question because I always knew the answer and wanted to say it, which annoyed the teachers because they wanted the other kids to have a chance. School was apparently bad enough that we moved at the end of the year to West Virginia.

I had started the gifted program in 2nd grade, but I remember absolutely nothing from then. For 3rd grade, I remember I was called out of class some days of the week to go to a room for a gifted class, but don't remember anything. For 4th grade, all I remember was the room we went to and that I had a very hard time with math and remembering the names of shapes.

It was Shepherdstown Elementary School, and we mostly did stuff in the 4th-5th grade hallway, which I remember very well. The walls were lined with lockers and there were... 6? classes total. In 4th grade I only remember an older teacher I had for English, in which we read Roald Dahl books. I think she was a hardass but I have no especially bad memories of her.

In 5th grade I had M(r)s. Lawrence at least, and Mr. Ebersol for gifted. I remember my friends better for this time than in 4th, even though they're probably the same. They were all in gifted for some reason. There was Levi Spickler, who was more of a rival than a friend. Sam Yates, a girl with bushy brown hair who hated chocolate and loved zucchini bread. Arlo, he was best friends with Levi and a very funny and sociable kid. His hair was perpetually messy, like a big brown afro almost. The only thing I distinctly remember from him was a joke he started saying "je veux une omelette du fromage", which is French for "I want a cheese omelette". No idea why that was funny, if it was. Then there was Merideth, an athletic girl who was a bit of an early bloomer.

Most of my memories were from the gifted class. We once acted out commercials, including one, "Don't be sad, get GLAD for all your kitchen garbage needs!" We would enact plays such as A Midsummer Night's Dream. Or even write our own plays; one Levi wrote included a joke that flew completely over my head about a girl being "rapped on the head", to which everyone started knocking on the table with their knuckles.

In Ms. Lawrence's class we once made our own peanut butter chocolate candies for Halloween... That's all I got.

From 6th to 8th I was in Sheperdstown Middle School, less than a mile away from the Elementary School. I remember the layout of the building fairly well, but there are some fuzzy areas. It was mostly one long hallway going left and right from the entrance with some hallways jutting out from the forward direction. I remember Ms. Carter, a science teacher who adored me. She was a very large red-head who liked to wear excessive make-up and had a Ms. Frizzle vibe to her teaching methods. By this point I loved science, so I relished in raising my hand for every question. She eventually made a running joke out of it, saying she needed to call "1-800 dial a Robert!"

Next to Ms. Carter's room was a ramp down into a secluded area with a few classrooms, one of which was my... history class, and somewhere in that area was my sign language class. Or was it English? Gifted class was in a hallway directly in front of the entrance with Mrs. Wagner across the hall from the touch typing classroom. I mostly remember learning English, particularly the roots of words.

Then there was Mr... Marcin? An older science teacher who had a very dry, even cynical sense of humor but seemed to genuinely care about his job. And Mrs... Tracey? The 8th grade science teacher. I remember the cafeteria very well, as well as the gym - it was burned into my brain by the Pacers, an exercise we did twice a week where we'd run from one side of the gym to the other with increasing frequency.

In the 7th grade, my parents divorced. From what I can gather, my mom had caught my dad cheating multiple times, and then my dad caught her cheating with my stepdad. Of course, these were symptoms and the official explanation. Underlying that were personality incompatibilities, my mom's stress from generalized anxiety disorder without medication and raising 4 kids vs my dad's stress working a billion minimunm wage jobs just to support us. Abandonment issues, personal insecurities, projection, the works.

I know that when they announced it, they sat us all on the couch and told us about it very seriously. I barely remember it, but the memory paints it as feeling like a dream. From there, my mom moved into the basement while she found work (she was laid off) and housing while my dad bought a dog (Zoey) to fill the void. Eventually my mom moved to a rinky-dink apartment and later to a nice townhouse, and we went to each parent's house in shifts over the week.

9th grade... Was at Shepherdstown Highschool. I remember the cafeteria, a taller guy I was friends with, the entrance being near the library. That's all.

At this point my dad was laid off from his job as a professor at some university. In searching for another professor position, he had the option of going to New Mexico or Wyoming; he chose the former. After a few months of convincing, I decided to move out with him over the Summer for the opportunity of going to a good school and good college.

The time I spent from 10-12th grade blurs together. I remember quite a few teachers and classmates, but not when and where I knew them. The teachers I remember are my Spanish teacher (native speaker), Ms. McCoy (art teacher), Mr. B? (Chemistry teacher, very eccentric), Mr. Smith (science and CS teacher), Mr. DeWitt (AP Biology, he had extreme standards), and the dreaded Mr. Evans. Hello, yes? He tried to fail me out of high school by demanding that I not be allowed to take a replacement English class to substitute the grade I got in his.

The people I knew, I knew only some names and the rest were archetypes. Al of course, Ryan Sun (an asian guy who took it upon himself to become my rival, which unintentionally became a kind of bullying as I was too depressed to cope). For some reason I remember Kim Wong, another asian girl who was always near the top of the class. And Stephanie, I think her last name was something like Dijkstra, who I think was even better at programming than I was. Beyond them, the archetypes I remember were * a crazy-fun drug supplier who had some issues with her parents * a larger hispanic guy who had a very negative vibe and introduced me to Johnny the Homicidal Maniac * one girl from art who was like 7 feet tall but had normal proportions, so she looked like a mini-giant

At the same time, I was going to UNM for dual-enrollment, mostly math. My relationship with my dad was deteriorating; teen angst, stress from moving, depression, and lack of mutual understanding. Eventually he relented to getting me a therapist, which ended up being a (late) PhD child psychologist. I stopped seeing her when I turned 18 and went into college. To get away from my dad, I moved into the UNM dorms.

Sometime around here was when I got my first job as a student worker. First a temp job moving boxes, then as an IT admin assistant, and finally data entry and call redirection. Over the Summer I got a job with one of my mom's coworkers helping him research hobby electronics so he could make the most of his free time. All of these were full of shame because I didn't feel like I was working hard enough to justify the pay, and they all ended in ways I took personally. At the time they confirmed to myself all of my personal failings and screamed back that I was a loser who couldn't do anything right.

I think this is around the time my mom married my stepdad, and my dad married Kaya for tax reasons. Eventually they separated and Lindsey came in; they married a couple years later. I liked both stepmoms, and had no problem with remarrying. My stepdad however, I didn't dislike, but I found a very large disconnect with him. He clearly didn't enjoy children, and had a difficult time expressing emotions which made him extremely intimidating. There were even some interactions which unintentionally shattered my confidence, as he was a programmer and I thought I could talk to him about that.

College was a blur. I met up with Al again in a sociology class we shared, and through him and his sister Sarah, I made two more friends: Ariel and Tristan. They were the best friends I remember having, though it was mostly through Al. We shitposted about My Little Pony and Arnold Palmer tea. The first semester I passed, barely. I think I failed the next semester and planned to kill myself at the end because I thought my life was ruined. I exploded and told my dad that I hadn't taken any of my antidepressants. I ended up moving back in with my dad. My sisters had moved in by that time. Our relationship only strained more, and I exploded at him telling him "fuck you", to which he kicked me out. I moved in with Tristan.

There my depression stewed. My eczema got especially bad without my topical steroid, and I isolated more and more. Tristan's dad talked to me often about stoicism, philosophy, and project management. He pursued stoicism as his best virtue, taking on all the burdens of the world. When I talked to him, it always felt like he was a diamond under immense pressure that would shatter if the pressure was relieved. It seemed like he was using my stay as an extra mouth to feed to increase the stress he was under on purpose, so I eventually worked up the courage to go back to college.

I think I did one semester, passing barely again. Then at some point, Al realized I was taking the group's sarcastic jibes personally and was codependent on them. He told me he didn't want to be responsible for giving me pain and that we shouldn't be friends. From there, I avoided everyone from that group, going so far as to make large detours to avoid spotting them. I was too afraid to face them any longer. The next semester, I went to the first few classes, then became a hikikomori for the rest of the semester, only leaving my room for food and the bathroom. I didn't want to live, but I didn't have the will to kill myself either.

That state broke when it was revealed that I had failed all my classes. My dad took me back in, with similar tensions. I visited my mom for the Summer and saw a therapist/psychiatrist named Dr. Goodman. She had my half-sister Marlena.

By sheer luck, I got a job as a administration assistant at a company my cousin Alex worked at, Engage. He presented it in terms of reprogramming their database stack, but I knew I wasn't there for that. Still, I insisted on writing scripts to do the extremely tedious job of pressing buttons in the right sequence to print the mailing labels by the thousands. At some point I accidentally managed to fuck up not once, but twice. The first was caught, but the second made it all the way to the post office where they charged a fee for every incorrectly labeled mail, probably costing thousands of dollars. I was let go soon after for personality conflicts and because I wasn't taking my time, doing things too fast so mistakes were easy to make.

I was offered a replacement job in the data entry department, which I was very reluctant to take because I wanted to run away from the whole thing and forget the wild emotions. I got it, learned the ropes, and did that for a couple months during the 2016 election (which made lots of mail), all the while getting less and less stable as I began to see the job as a symbol of my failure as a person. As I saw it, it was the job I was moved to out of pity because any hobo off the streets could deliver identical work, and yet I was still struggling and felt ashamed because no one else had any problems. I ran out of my medications and that spiral plummeted and I felt the need to quit because what work I did on the clock was terrible and I frequently had to clock out to keep from clawing my eyes out. Every day I went in was sheer agony, which I'd compare to mentally tearing off each fingernail one by one. It was exploding with shame, panic, anxiety, fear, self-hatred, and tedium.

Unfortunately no one in my family saw it that way. Everyone seemed to think I just didn't want to do my job because I "didn't like it". I tried to tell them that I "just couldn't" go in anymore, but all I got back was that I have to. I didn't. More shame. It doubly confirmed the fears I already had, that the job was more important than I was. I suffered this pain every day and yet it was more important that I bear it and lose my mind rather than lose the job. Talk about worthless.

Eventually it came to a point where Goodman seemed to think I wasn't depressed and was manipulating my parents into giving me a free ride. My parents expressed their fear that "if I dropped him off at a shelter, I'd never see him again", which stung. I didn't want to live and everyone around me wanted me to work to live no matter the cost. I would thoughtlessly mention euthanization as a viable option. So, she was right to fear that. More shame from being such a failure as to put such responsibility and pain on my parents. That day I spent an hour seriously thinking about killing myself despite my hesitation, reasoning that I was a parasite on my family and the only way to relieve them of my burden was to relieve them of me. Whatever pain I caused by dying would pale in comparison to the pain I'd cause by living. I wondered if any excuse I had against this plan was a selfish desire to continue living in spite of the pain of others. I never went much farther beyond that, though.

Eventually my parents convinced Goodman to send me to Sierra Tucson. There, I learned about trauma, the distinction between shame and guilt, codependency, and the importance of friendship. I felt awakened, as if from a coma, and first time in my life, I enjoyed living for its own sake. I was transferred to Crownview Co-Occurring Institute for Intensive Out-Patient, where I regressed some due to it being a less supportive environment. Still, I learned how to deal with adversity in reality, particularly overcoming my issues with authority, defensiveness, a need to be right all the time, and how to take criticism without taking it personally.

During recovery, Katie had my niece Aurora. Most of the effect of that was from watching how other people reacted and interpreting the underlying reasons. I believe Katie refused an abortion/adoption because she intended to use Aurora to assert her maturity and capacity to be responsible to my dad and Lindsey, who had a tendency to micromanage her which led to teenage rebellion. What's sad about that is I think she lacks self-care emotionally and mentally, and now she won't ever have an opportunity to work on herself because she'll be working on her kid. In trying to appear more mature, she destroyed any chance of reaching maturity healthily. Now she's still struggling to break free of them, seeing all of their "suggestions" (which, to be fair, are stated more as commands) as personal attacks, saying she isn't capable of taking care of her symbol of adulthood.

And now I'm in R&R. I don't know where I'm going from here.

#life story

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