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byoungernj · 8 months

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Berlin Training & Life Changes

I’ve been in the Denver airport now for 5 hours. My flight was suppose to take off on time. We waited for a few passengers who had delayed connections. Then we waited 45 minutes for their bags. We finally pull away from the airport and a light comes on in the cockpit. We deplaned, re-boarded a new plane and waited for all of the bags/cargo to be moved over. I have my fingers crossed that these will be the only travel hiccups I experienced in the next 48 hours because I am Berlin bound tomorrow!

To avoid an 8 or 9 month delay again I’m taking this time to recap my training for Berlin because a lot of life happened in these past 20 weeks. This spring I took my time coming back from that nagging knee pain/injury I had in the fall during my NYC build. After a number of weeks off and no change in pain I decided to say f it and power forward. I would be in SC for 2 months for a clinical so maybe the change of scenery would help. (Apparently it did because I’m happy to report I’ve been pain free for months) I started studying for my PT boards while in SC and felt instantly behind. Everyone’s advise was to stick to the school provided review book but I felt very under prepared. Worse, my final clinical at home wasn’t the best. It required 3, 15 hour days with a commute and clinic hours, plus another 7 hour day. It was tough to balance clinical, studying, and working part time. Our family had some personal stress occurring during this time as well that made free time very important to spend together. Heading into April I was stressed beyond my limits. To put a cherry on top, a week before my exam I found out someone has my SSN. The first week of May I was back in Slip for graduation week. Needless to say I sweat through a few shirts the days the results were predicted to come out and when they did, oh boy were there tears of joy. I think I laid on the floor for a solid 45 minutes catching my breath. I capped off the first week of May with graduation and had a dream job ready for me in Portland, OR. To add some spice to my life, I adopted a puppy. And not just any puppy, a baked potato, bread loaf, fluffy flipping CORGI who is so perfect he can’t be real.

Dream job in the one place I have been dreaming about living in for years, check.

Dream pup I had wanted since I went to grad school the first time, check.

Start training the week after graduation for my first international marathon, now loading.

I spent just about the first half of my build in NJ, with a 2 week stint in Colorado while I volunteered at the Oly Training Center. I decided to test myself this go around. After I broke 3 hours I struggled with what would be next. I’ve already achieved my overarching goal, let’s see what these legs could do. I had been training to run 6:50 pace for a long time. So you know what would be a good challenge, trying to run 6:40 pace. I would take old workouts and add a mile here or there. I didn’t want to overwhelm myself with mileage but I wanted to start trying more.

The most humbling workout was at the hand of altitude. I had 800s planned while in Colorado Springs. I’ve never done internals at altitude. The tempos I had done the week before went well but this was an entirely new monster. My first 200 meters would be perfect and every rep, like clock work, at 240 meters my legs would burn. I mean FIRE. And it wouldn’t just be in my legs, coming through the 400 my arms would burn. Never in my life have I experienced muscle burn in the water pistols I call arms. My times were not great. They were not bad. But I got my butt handed to me 8 times.

The first real test was the week I was set to move. The goat himself Craig-a-roo joined me for 2x5 mile at MP. With his perfect sherpa pacing we cruised through right on pace. It was exactly what I needed heading into the second half of my build. I spent 6.5 days on the road, with a 4 month old puppy. While on the road my first stop was in Slip for a wedding, which was a nice send off. I ran in a teeny tiny town south of Chicago, along the Iowa/Nebraska border, in Cheyenne Wyoming and Ogden Utah. Wyoming was my least favorite state to drive through, it’s what I imagine the bottom of the ocean to look like minus the water. Driving along the gorge separating Oregon and Washington on the final day was beautiful, with a quick stop by the Multnomah Falls. I was able to run each day but had to trash my workout. I had planned to do so the first morning in Portland. But when I set off I had found the hilly-est route in Beaverton. I scrapped it, made it a fartlek, and called it a recovery week. I swapped that workout a few weeks later and it went just fine. A week after the change, I crushed a workout on the track. I quickly considered myself back on track…pun intended.

Training Oregon has been a dream. There is ZERO humidity. Well, maybe there is a little but when I’m used to 90% and in the upper 70s-80s out, low humidity and 60s feels magical. With recommendations from my new boss, I found these beauty of a trail that is 22 miles long and mostly shaded by beautiful green PNW foliage. Along the Willamette is Sauvie Island, which is a runners paradise made famous by Shalane herself. It’s an island sandwiched between the 2 sides of Portland, filled with farms, no traffic lights, no disruptions, and flat as a pancake. Once my tempos got into the double digits I would head over the bridge to Sauvie as the sun would come up. Gosh have all of those miles been magical. I’ve been amazed at my legs ability to hit paces. The only workout I laced up the super shoes for was a 12 mile tempo that turned in a half marathon PB. I’ve closed workouts with volumes of 10+ miles with sub 6:10 miles. I’ve been excited to push myself in ways I haven’t felt before. Even my worst workout 2 weeks ago, I shrugged off because I know the effort didn’t hinder my prep. This new found ‘do what I can’ attitude is pretty nice.

Berlin is now 5 days away. Will I attempt to run 6:40s for the whole thing? No actually. I’ve found I’m pushing a bit too hard to sustain that pace for all 26.2. But 6:45-6:50 is doable. And that would still be a PB. Have I also accepted that I am traveling to a country I’ve never been to before and if life happens then okay. Just get to the finish line and get your fourth star. These past 4-5 months have held big life changes, all for the better. I’ve fallen deeper in love with marathon training. Life is happening and I’m here for it. But first, a quick pit stop in Jersey.

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nikkisnonsense-blog1 · 4 years

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To Myself... Three Months Ago

Dear Nikki,

Hey girl, I come to you not bearing the greatest of news. These next few months are going to be some of the hardest of your life so far. I really hate to be the one to tell you this but I feel like we’re close enough that we can be honest with each other. Well I’m not gonna waste anymore time because there’s a lot I need to get you up to speed on. Let’s make this a list of 8 things for organization sake.

1. The musical you’ve been directing for the past few months will not be happening

You and your friend/ music director, Joe have been wearing out the phrase “I can’t believe the show is happening!” for the past few months. Sadly, that’s not the case. Sure, sometimes you wanted to rip your hair out due to frustration or cried in your car because you didn’t think you were doing a good enough job. But underneath it all, I know you had put more work into this show than you have for anything else in your life. You knew the possibility of the show being canceled was there but it was only something that you joked about in rehearsal with your cast. It could never become a reality. The day you find out, you won’t cry much. Which is weird. If anything you don’t feel much at all. The next day your cast will do an amazing concert style performance of the show instead which people will rave to you about and it genuinely makes you feel good for a moment. But it isn’t until after that’s over that it actually begins to set in. When everyone else starts to move on You’ll stare at the box of props that sits in your kitchen for months and feel a weird form of uneasiness. You were told by everyone that any frustration you feel would be worth it when the curtain opens. But what do you do when the curtain never opens? You’re forced to sit with the disappointment and sadness of an unfinished project. You think about all of the fun things you would have gotten to do with your cast and crew and how proud of yourself you would have been after the shows. That’s when you cry.

2. The second half of your last college semester will be taken away

Besides the Musical, you will also be missing out on plenty of other events at school. Your spring concert, trip to NYC, your roommate’s senior art show, your girlfriend’s comedy show, any theatre in the area, drunken nights with your friends, and most importantly, Graduation. Ah yes, the very thing that your entire life has been waiting on. At least that’s how it feels. You remember when you were little and traveled to upstate New York and Boston for your cousins’ graduations and how big of a deal they were. Or watching your parents tear up at your sister’s graduation. Not having been the best student in school, you were shocked you even made it this far. A day that was going to be a monumental experience for you and so many others has just been pushed to a further date. Like a dentist appointment. That day hurts the most. When I tell my parents how upset I am, they assure me “You’ll still have a graduation!” but you know it won’t be the same. You get mad at the world because of it and feel like stomping your feet on the ground and yelling “It’s not fair!” like a child. But you know that wouldn’t do any good.

3. You’re going to gain weight

As someone who has had body images their whole life, I know this sounds like an absolute nightmare. And it kind of is. It’s kind of inevitable wen you can’t leave your house anymore, you rely on Door Dash a little too much, The gym is closed, and you really have no motivation to do anything. Stretch marks will appear in new places, shirts that once fit perfectly will be snug, and certain clothes you used to feels sexy in, just make you feel like a fool. It’s so important to remind yourself that your body is changing because your lifestyle is changing. It’s going to drive you wild for a while but I promise you it is not the end of the world. Also your girlfriend assures you she still finds you beautiful in any state.

4. You move back in with your parents

You’re fortunate enough to have the last 2 months in your apartment to quarantine with your roommates and your girlfriend which is like a weird stretch of time where there are no rules and you feel like a Sim without a task. Then before you know it, your lease is up and your parents come up and help move you out of your apartment. Now I know you’re thinking that sounds like a nightmare but living with Mom and Dad is not as awful as you imagined. They treat you like an adult, give you your space, and dad only makes you watch one video he finds online a day as opposed to his usual 5. Theres also a bulk size container of cheese sticks from Costco so you decide this place isn’t too bad. Moving home is surprisingly the best you’ve felt all year. Your mental health is getting better which is a god sent considering how miserable you’ve been. So there is a silver lining

5. Finding work is IMPOSSIBLE

You’ll find yourself comparing yourself to when your sister finished college and found work and an apartment almost immediately. Even though she’s in a different field and graduated 3 years ago when the world was a much different place, you still compare yourself. Indeed and Ziprecruiter become your best friends but they clearly don’t like you back very much because your responses are limited. The closest you get to a job is an insurance agency that would offer you $65,000- $85,000 a year. Maybe it’s just the Jew in you, but those numbers got you very excited, so you apply. They decide they’re interested in you and schedule you for a virtual interview. You’ve also read the job description 100 times and still have no god damn idea what you would be doing. During the Interview, the man asks you if you have any doubts and you say “maybe a few due to my lack of experience” but in your head you’re thinking “What the fuck am I doing. I have a degree in Theatre and I’m trying to get a job selling insurance. Would this job even make me the tiniest bit happy besides the paycheck?” The man tells you that he would like to offer you the job to which you graciously say thank you. As soon as you hang up the zoom call, you immediately burst into tears. Frustrated and sad that the only job you have gotten close to is one you don’t even want. The jobs you do want, in the arts and media, are not hiring right now and if they are it’s for people with 5+ years of experience. You’ve applied to over 50 jobs at this point and the only ones that have gotten back to you sound dreadful. You learn that no paycheck is worth a lifetime of sadness. You email the man back saying thank you, but you cannot accept the job.

6. The world is full of awful people

This may seem like an exaggeration at first especially because I- uh I mean you, are generally a pretty optimistic person. You may have severe depression, but you still usually see the glass half full. But even the blindest of optimists can’t deny the world looks pretty shit right now. Besides the pandemic, Black people are being murdered left and right by police for no reason. Something that certainly isn’t a new phenomenon but has now been amplified to new heights and has brought out the rage in people. You do what you can to help in these times. Protesting, donating, sharing online, signing petitions but it never feels like enough. You will continue to raise your voice about Black Lives Mattering and hope for change. Acknowledging your white privilege and trying to listen to the voices of others. As much as you personally try to help out, you end up seeing the ugly that comes out as well. Especially in your 92.9% white small town.

7. Pride will be different this year

The yearly celebration of going to Pride in Philadelphia with rainbow shadow on your eyes, glitter in your hair, and a water bottle full of vodka and gatorade have now been replace with anger and a yearning for justice. The LGBT community would be nothing without Black activists backing it. The Stonewall Riots were led by a Black Trans Woman. So you do your part to amplify black voices as a part of pride. Because right now is not the time to take shots and dance to Whitney Houston.

8. You’re not the only one feeling this way

Even though life is a bit of a shit show right now, it’s so important to remind yourself that you are not the only one experiencing these things. None of your friends know what the hell they’re doing either. Everyone is just scared shitless of the state of the world and is trying their best. Please take some of the pressure off yourself. You are only a person and it’s unrealistic to put these standards on yourself. The world today is a completely different world than it was 3 months ago. As for the months to come, I have absolutely no idea what to expect. You’d have to ask 6 months from now Nikki but I haven’t met her yet. The world will not be the same as it was before but I promise you, there is a new normal somewhere beyond the horizon.

Take care of yourself,

Present Day Nikki

Ps. You are going to adopt a baby tortoise named Harley and he will be the light of your life. He will make life just a bit more bearable.

Pss.

Here are links to help the Black Lives Matter movement

#blog #lgbt #college grad #college #personal #nikkis nonsense

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diarrheaofthekeyboard · 4 years

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Confluence of Updates

7.26.2020

Writing on Writing

In addition to weekly therapy since November, I have been watching School of Life videos on YouTube. The latest video I watched helped confirm for me that I’m on the right path. I’m never going to eliminate my Inner Critic or ever feel completely comfortable with myself. I think if I did, that would be something extra-human. Neither are realistic goals. This particular video’s intent was to get people to write a journal. In a nutshell, you can’t keep it all in. Give yourself a daily mental outlet where you can release your thoughts and you’ll have less mental anguish. Well, here we are! Glad I’m on the right path.

This may be the reason Sunday nights have recently become the most difficult for me. Brain won’t turn off, but it’s because I haven’t had what I’m trying to turn into my daily routine of walking in the morning and writing at night. The out I’m giving myself is this is all new and it takes some growing pains to get it right.

Writing on Walking

I try not to spend money these days but any new venture is going to have some startup costs. My sneakers should be good for another month or so if I stick with it. I’ve been keeping my mask in my pocket, but that makes it difficult to pull it out when I actually see people, so I bought some neck gaiters I can pull up to be a mask. But the two big things were new headphones and shirts.

The headphones are a big deal because of “the thud of footsteps”. As you may have figured out by now, I actually listen to music. It’s not just a beat or a background to keep me going. I’m actually interested in hearing it, reacting to it emotionally, having my own internal dialog about it, and just plain enjoying it. I can’t do that while walking because I hear the thud of my own footsteps with my headphones on. Happens with my Amazon Basics on-ear headphones, which are actually super awesome Monoprice headphones, and it also happens with my Sony earbuds I bought for phone calls. Turns out the Amazon ones are on-ear, closed back. And with the way earbuds have been redesigned, they create a closed back type effect.

So I made an educated guess and took a chance on some KOSS open air, on ear headphones. Remember the shitty headphones that came with your Walkman? Those were open air, on ear headphones. Those are the ones I used to listen to Megadeth at top volume on in the back seat of my parents’ car so I didn’t have to listen to their shitty lite-fm radio. I found some good ones from KOSS that won’t make my ears hurt after listening to them for 30 minutes and they arrived today. Put them on, took three steps, no thud. Yeah, you can hear the music if you really get close to me. But it’s not like I’m crammed onto a subway around here. Monday will be the real test but so far it seems like $30 in Amazon points well spent.

Now you may ask yourself, “why are new shirts a big deal?” I think it’s about self worth and there’s a bunch going on here.

To this point, I’ve been wearing whatever t-shirt I want to walk. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with them. But they’re yer basic men’s printed band shirt or otherwise printed shirt. So they trend kinda heavy and not too comfortable. But you’ll be able to wear them through armageddon. Some of them are 10 to 20 years old. So there’s a lot of personal history and/or bullshit associated with them. Not only because of whatever is printed on them that I obviously liked. But also because of where/when I’ve worn them and how they’ve been associated with certain places. I don’t want to get rid of them or necessarily stop wearing them. But I do kinda just want to put them in a box at the bottom of my closet and start over.

Then there’s the deserving part. I have more than enough varying degrees of uncomfortable shirts, I should just wear them and be done with it. I’m not good enough for new shirts. Especially some new shirts that are obviously designed for workouts and sports. I’m about 40 pounds overweight. I need to lose half that weight first and really get into a routine before I’m approaching good enough for new shirts. Otherwise, I’m just some pudgy poser.

And I’ve been listening to this bullshit from my internal dialog for the past month, as I have been walking around my neighborhood. Well, we’re almost at the end of the month and I’m still going. And as I’m putting them in the cart and buying them, a 14 year old memory trying to get me to stop pops up.

From ‘05 to ‘08 I played guitar in an off-off-off Broadway production of Oedipus. We actually did all three plays during that time. And the best way I can describe the production is “What would happen if George Orwell wrote Oedipus, and it played out on American Idol?” In 2006, we played for a week at the Fringe Festival in Brisbane, Australia. My anxiety nearly fucked me on getting a passport, but I was able to get over that. What really fucked me was the NYC blackout of that year, which hit my area for an extended period of time.

One of the wonderful things about NYC is the laundromats have drop off service and will do your laundry for you. So I dropped off my laundry a few days before I was going to leave for Australia. Well, the fucking blackout took out the laundromat, with my clothes still inside. So I left for Australia with my guitar equipment and an empty suitcase. For some reason, I had insisted I wanted to fly JetBlue from NYC to LA, which meant I needed to take a cab to LAX. This turned into a blessing in disguise because the driver agreed to stop at Target while I ran around the store and bought whatever I thought might look ok.

The black shirt I bought to wear onstage was an activewear shirt. It was kinda stretchy, but I figured it would hang loose. And of course it didn’t and we’re about to get onstage and I look like a fucking Ring Ding shoved into a muscle shirt. Everyone in the entire cast laughed at me. Finally, the drummer was nice enough to change shirts with me and he wore it. Later on that trip, he gave me the worst purple nurple ever. So this is what’s going through my mind in fucking Costco, and why I didn’t deserve new shirts. But I bought them anyway as a fuck you to that memory.

And you know what? I took them out of the package and they smelled like chemicals. So I washed them and the neck gaiters and left them out to dry. Then I changed into one of the shirts to play pickleball with my kid yesterday afternoon. AND IT WAS PERFECTLY FINE. Yeah, I’m probably dumb for buying black shirts and I should have bought the white ones. But that’s toxic “oh black looks harder than white” for you/all band shirts are black/get ripped in a year and wear them onstage too.

To top it off, we went to the pool this afternoon and after I showered, I put on one of my regular t-shirts. And it kinda felt constricting. I can’t wear the black shirts everywhere because they’ll smell like BO in 30 seconds. But I’m going to wear them a lot, and not be embarrassed about them. It’s ok to be comfortable.

Whither, Music.

Unsurprisingly, Bernstein’s lectures have led me to bite off more than I can chew. I haven’t been walking on weekends, so I haven’t been listening to him. But I did find a bunch of books I’ve either read too many times or not read enough, and pulled them out. They are:

Aaron Copland - What to Listen for in Music

Howard Goodall - The Story of Music

Glenn Kurtz - Practicing

Philip Toshio Sudo - Zen Guitar

Pat Pattison - Writing Better Lyrics

I haven’t really read anything other than news for a long time. Or I buy books, read some, and never finish them. This is obviously detrimental to my mental health. So like with walking and with writing, I’m going with what interests me. I’m not trying to be busy all the time, but I definitely want to keep from punishing myself like I have done historically.

I started on Copland’s book last night. I read 25 pages, and that was only the Forward and Preface. So tonight I’m looking to get into at least the first chapter.

I’ve also been watching some other YouTube videos, particularly “Now Hear This” which is a PBS show about classical music, and another series I found about “how to listen to classical music” from a channel called Inside the Score. Last night I got my Ford Prefect on, and listened to Beethoven’s 5th. Today, I’m listening to Holst’s “The Planets”, which of course is the Leonard Bernstein version. I gotta say, these new headphones sound pretty good.

Lastly, I’m waiting on the book to Bernstein’s Harvard Lectures, which I will pick out every last piece he talks about, find it on Apple Music, and create a giant playlist. I hope the runners on the American River trail like classical music. They’re gonna hear a lot of it in passing.

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orenonahaichigoda · 5 years

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I had a rough day, and came to a realisation. I will say a bit about my own experience, and then, after having to lay the groundwork of explaining 400 things about Japan because American schools and media think the whole world is the US, Western Europe, and places to blow up, making explaining necessary, will tie it to Ichigo, or at least how I portray him.

I'm Post Dankai Juniors, growing up in Japan. So's Kubo, actually. The boundaries of this Japanese generation are roughly '75 to '85, Yutori, the following generation that's always translated and localised as Millennial, pretty solidly set as beginning at '86. These things are always fuzzy because you can't vivisect living brains and find the part that likes char siu buns and the part that likes jazz fusion. I *majored* in Social Science. You'll have teachers who say "it is absolute that we date people who are similar to us because we're all actually narcists." (It *might* be because they're like our beloved family or community. Narcistic Personality is not universal) But it really just is fuzzy, and that teacher/book author is an idiot. Anyway, Yutori is always translated as Millennial. I don't know the end boundary. Post Dankai Juniors covers almost totally a debated throe for Germanic nations (I know Britain, Germany, and Nederland use the same generations as America, and their languages are Germanic) because of how fuzzy it all is, though.

Anyway, so since coming to the US, my interactions with other Asians, again, how is this defined when China, Mongolia, Japan all border Russia and West Asia includes Jordan and Saudi Arabia, South Asia is India's area, Southeast Asia is Laos, Thailand's area, I mean, find the Arabic kanji. I don't think Thailand even uses soy sauce. What the heck IS Asia, really? (Or "Middle East" when half of that's Africa and the other half shares plate with Europe? )

Anyway, my experience with Asians that are Boomer ages tends to be people who immigrated as adults, who more identity with a generation like "Dankai" or "Sirake." My experiences with Latinos older than me... I've never actually asked if the generational labels are even the same.

The thing about that is that when the name is the same, it means enough cultural traits are shared.

My biggest experience with people who grew up under the term "Boomer" are Black and white.

I've noticed a unifying trait.

If they're something oppressed (Black, gay), their attitude tends to be"it is mandatory to stand up for *my* demograph...but kicking the person behind me on the ladder in the teeth is wholesome, pure, and fun."

Outing me to large groups and saying I "speak Asian" seem to be the most common two. Calling me "Chinese" long after I've cleared this up for them is a close third.

I mean, don't get me wrong--my experience with Italian Americans past GI generation has been that now acquiring the "white" label, just like biphobic/aphobic/transphobic cisgays, they're more often staunch priveledge defenders than cishet people of Anglo descent! And it's just as true for X and Y as it is for Boomer (for the latter, one need only look at NYC destroyer and trump defender Giuliani) I actually don't really identify with my Italian side at all because I was kinda locked out of making any meaningful connection.

But back to my point that even in so-leftist-it's-almost-not-America Bay Area, Boomers are still like this!

The kind of stuff that flows out a X/Y TERF's mouth, or the mouth of an X/Y person with a Confederate flag on his wall, American-raised Boomers say with ease regardless of their alignment! It's banananas.

(Please note that I also just have not met a whole lot of Native Americans, period, nor enough people significantly older than me from any one place in Africa, that was an omission of lacking data, not intended as erasure)

How I tie it to Ichigo--

So Kubo avoids specifying birth years for anyone.

When I see something like this, I generally assume date of publication, as do most people in most fandoms (which of course gets screwy when you have something endlessly rebooted like Superman or Batman or something eternally unchanging like Detective Conan)

Anyway, the first Bleach something published was the comic in '01.

I generally assume it was supposed to be the start of a new school year, as Ichigo doesn't know many of his classmates until at least the first test scores come out. So it's probably April or something.

If Ichigo was 15 then, he'd also be Post Dankai Juniors, just barely. If Ichigo TURNED 15 shortly after, during his adventure, he'd be undebatably Millennial.

Now, there is still something up with Dankai and Sirake. PM Abe is the latter, b. 1954. A lot of his age-peers are behind him. This is the guy who supports remilitarisation and was caught funding a private militarist/fascist high(?) school that teaches that people from countries Japan conquered during its brief phase of trying to beat colonial Europe are less than dogs.

Now, I left there as a teen. Clinton was US president. Scandals still got people kicked out of public office in Japan. I hadn't figured or come out yet. Sure, I got bullied for being mixed, but kids will pick if you like different singers than the "cool" ones. They'll pick based on what's in your lunch. That data is sausage.

I'm not 100% sure what Ichigo would face day-to-day sociopolitically as he grew up/aged. I haven't had living family since'95 there, and friendships don't get deep enough to ever last distance until at least high school. For me, adulthood.

But I've kept/caught up enough (you try keeping up in the South before the internet was more than ten University sites!) that I know he'd face fascists (c'mon, the guy takes on a martial law government to save a new friend--that's anarchist, he just doesn't seem anarchist in his own world. He only fights humans in defence) I'm not sure how he'd feel about the JSDF, but he only fought the sinigami's war out of feeling like it was his responsibility because the adults around him kinda made it so. I super don't see him being for *starting* wars. In a human war, I see him actually being like Sugihara Chiune, a historical figure who died when I was a kid who I majorly admire. He worked at a Japanese embassy in Nazi territory, and when the embassy was evacuated,he continued throwing passports to Jewish people to go to Japan from the train he was departing on,and is hidden from Americans in the same spirit that Martin Luther King is...pulled the teeth out of. (PS, speaking of,go Google Steven Kiyosi Kuromiya)

Also, Ichigo's whole schtick is defending those worse off than him. He's not someone I see defending Yamato Japanese priveledge. Heck, I could see him joining Uchinanchu efforts to get Parliament and the US base to leave them alone. I can easily see him sticking up for a Filipino domestic worker he met thirty seconds ago.

To this end, I think regardless of what he is, he'd have a large rub with Japan's equivalents of Boomers.

Not to mention that Abe supporters tend to be very sexist and queerphobic, which isn't even homegrown but imported from Américanisation. I mean, there were female warriors--assasins, which is what Yoruichi and Soi-Fon are styled after, and go look at some Ukiyoe, like Utagawa Kitamaro. Quite a few artists in the 200-ish years of the Edo period depicted life in the queer districts. I've also had people posit that Noh might've been a welcoming draw for trans people the same way drag was all over the US in the twentieth century and still is in rural areas, where there's less cisgay gatekeeping. But this isn't something I can reasonably research without access to plenty of older and not well known dusty documents, and lots of time, and I live in the US many years now. And do you know how much round trip airfare alone is!? Also, the language changed so much and I can't read anything before Meiji without dropping words. Rukia, Byakuya, Yoruichi all have made for TV old-sounding Japanese like period dramas. Actual 18th Century Japanese would be unintelligible to the unspecialised.

So this stuff isn't really native, but Abe and a lot of people his age support all these -isms.

I super don't see Ichigo being happy about this.

(I also feel like Issin's old enough to remember before these -isms, but that's my own thing. In my project, he was in those districts, but that's me)

At the same time, I'm still writing this through my own lens. Also, not still being there, I just don't have enough data on Yutori in adulthood, or the grown Yutori lens. Honestly, even most other immigrants I meet are older than that. Or older than that and their adorable three year old children. So I have no clue.

In the early 2000s, I got myself from the South to CA and began to reconnect, but began to is the key phrase. I can tell you right now that Abe is as much of a second phase of Nakasone as trump is of Nakasone's buddy Regean. But what shifted when, I can't say. I'm not entirely sure how Koizumi ran the ship, as it were. I know some things, but not enough to say.

But whenever things shifted however, and whichever year Ichigo was born, I just cannot imagine him being any more on board with current events than really anyone in my area not born between 1946-1964 and raised in America.

I feel like he'd probably be too tired or self-effacing to fight for himself, but he'd take on, loud and proud, any bigotry against *others.*

I...also can't really say I'm much different, except my joints are held together by the power of wishes, so I'm more like "get the victim to safety" than "give the attacker plenty of regret." So, I can only do anything in limited ways.

Ichigo is also entirely fuelled by the power of love. Lost his ability to protect and feels like his sinigami friends ditched him? Mondo depressed, however much he wants no one to notice--which most do a great job of ignoring! Everyone in his world turned against him for a guy who has attacked people close to him? Terrified, and murder can now be an answer. (Fullbring Arc)

I was going somewhere with that. I've forgotten, but I'll leave it.

But anyway, I feel like he really only comes close to fighting for himself when others are taken away from him in a way that's also wronging them.

So yeah, I super don't see him happy with current events or Sirake gen.

I'm not sure how much I see him fighting for himself as mixed panromantic grey-ace. I mean, we know he fights people who are about to punch his face in for his looks, but what else can you reasonably do at that point? Get your head bashed in? I'm not sure how much I see him fighting hateful words pointed at him versus resigning himself to "people are the worst." I mean, when he talks about being picked on, he kinda seems resigned, or at least like it's a fact, like shoes being for outside or something.

I guess I tied it to Ichigo a lot better than I thought!

But also, the struggle against people born just after the war is not just you, and not just America. It's a major problem.

And it's likely that Ichigo would agree.

#out of body #musings #baby boomers #generation x #millennials #Japanese generations #Japanese politics #queerphobia #colonialism #moritomo gakuen scandal #sugihara chiune #japanese history #yoruichi shihouin #edo period

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malloryrunsthis · 6 years

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Race Recap: Glass City Marathon

When I look back at this marathon, most of what I remember is the before and the after.

As we all know--because I have nattered on about it ENDLESSLY--I went into this race feeling under trained and injured. I took off from running for three full weeks to let my hip heal up. I ran six miles the Thursday before and then another three on Friday. I spent endless hours at the pool and in spin class to try to keep my fitness up. In the end, it sort of worked? You tell me.

Because I went in not feeling like I was 100% even going to run, I took a pretty lackadaisical approach to the whole weekend. I barely looked up anything in Toledo other than the address of the airbnb, I sort of threw random running gear into my bag the night before my flight and realized that I had lost my Body Glide and water bottles.”Oh well,” I thought, “I’m sure the expo will have some,” Thank God I had thought to buy gels, “just in case.”

Basically, I turned from a type-A into a type-Z person in the space of 24 hours and it was very weird.

I flew into Detroit on Saturday morning and ubered up to @elkay723‘s parents’ house where I met the lovely @er1nruns and @goaldengoats! Unfortunately for them, I was sort of tired from my early flight so I think I was in a little bit of zombie mode.

We headed out to Toledo in the early afternoon and over to the expo. It was small and cozy but luckily there was a vendor selling Body Glide and a little magnetic bottle I could attach to my running belt! I was saved! It was at the expo where I really decided, “okay, I’m going to do this and just see what happens.” I mean, I was there already, right? And people have run marathons on way less training (so I told myself).

After the expo, we grabbed lunch at a brewery and then headed to the airbnb.

Oh the airbnb. I am shamed, I can never book a place again. It ended up being in a not-great neighborhood which was unnerving. Additionally, the third bedroom had replaced it’s “queen bed” with an air mattress. Which I thought was going to be fine until I tried sleeping on it. Reader, it was not fine. It was COLD and very uncomfortable.

So basically, I ended up compounding a little sleep deprivation from the night before with a LOT of sleep deprivation. But I did get about four hours of sleep before it was time to get up and GO!

I had brought some throwaways with me that I wore to the starting line, including a pair of knee high socks to wear as arm warmers. I ended up dropping my pants and sweatshirt before the race even started and the socks got thrown during my first mile. It wasn’t warm yet but it wasn’t cold enough either.

My race plan was to stick with the 3:30 pacer until I couldn’t anymore. I had trained for a 3:20 but I knew that was totally out of the question given the condition I felt I was in. Even a 3:30 was going to be pushing it but I figured I could at least try to hit somewhere around there and be happy.

The first few miles passed quickly. The pace group I was in was VERY chatty. It was a good distraction although I did wonder if those people were so good they could keep that up all race or if they would eventually stop. I started feeling tired in mile three which was annoying but it was better than feeling hurt!

It was around mile 7, I think, that the split for the half marathon runners came up. I debated with myself if I should take it or keep going. My body was feeling okay though, and I had my phone on my in case I dropped out later, so I kept going.

The course was flat and wound around the nicer neighborhoods before going into a park. Inside the park, we hit a split that said Lap 1 and pointed right with Lap 2 pointing left so I knew that I was going to come through the area again. After the park, around mile 10, we hit an open road and that’s where the headwinds started. It wasn’t bad but it was noticeably harder to keep my pace up which was discouraging as I felt mile 10 was way too early for me to feel like this was hard.

By mile 16 the chatter around me had stopped but I hit a sort of second wind which was nice. I also told myself, just one hard tempo run left! At this point, I felt pretty good, if tired, and thought that I might actually pull off a little bit of a miracle.

Alas, it was not to be. When we entered the park again we hit some sort of slats and did a sort of zig-zagging and that’s when I started fading. By mile 21, my legs were starting to feel really sore and that’s when I knew I wasn’t going to be able to keep up with the pace group anymore.

Those last five miles were some of the longest and hardest miles I think I’ve run in a long time. But I knew, if I stopped, I wouldn’t be able to keep going. I tried walking through aid stations and almost toppled over at one point. So I just had to shuffle along.

The last mile and a half wind you through the University of Toledo’s campus to the finish at the stadium. Of course, you can HEAR the finish line the entire time. I literally considered cutting the parking lot just to be done (I KNOW. I DIDN’T).

As we came up towards the stadium. I did my best to punch up the run a little. Then I heard someone who was already wearing a medal say something like: “don’t try to go faster, you’re almost done, you can’t do anything anymore.” or similar. WTF DUDE. Thanks for your TERRIBLE and really condescending advice?

Finally, finally, I came up into the stadium, heard the announcer say my name and did my best to not walk until I was over the finish line. Erin and Sarah came down cheering and screaming my name and I don’t think I could even talk to them. My legs were stiff as boards and every. single. part. of my body hurt. I just tried to walk it off as best as I could. I forced myself to drink some water but there was no way I could eat.

Unfortunately, my death hobble around made me miss @elkay723‘s PR FINISH! INCREDIBLE! Both she and @er1nruns got to ring the PR bell that day!

(stolen from @goaldengoats)

Once we had all recovered somewhat, we headed to the airbnb to shower and get the hell outta there. Brunch was when I regained my appetite--probably helped by the delicious avocado toast I had there.

Then, the social part of the weekend wound down. Erin and Sarah had to fly back home and I was dropped off at the airport hotel.

After all that, I think I went to bed around 8:30. I had a 4am wake up anyways because of course, I am a masochist and had to make sure I could work a full day the next morning.

It literally took me a full five days to walk like a normal human again. I made my boyfriend carry my luggage up the stairs to the bedroom. I have NEVER been so sore in my life.

In the end, I’m both really proud and disappointed in myself. On the one hand. I can’t believe I pulled off not even my worst marathon time but also a tiny BQ! On the other hand, that was not the experience or time that I had trained for and unfortunately, my time is not going to get me into Boston in 2019.

I don’t want to try to PR again this year. I think NYC is going to be too crowded for a PR and I don’t want to run three marathons in one year. So, the goal is to stop getting injured and try again next year.

Here are the stats!

#glass city marathon #race report #running #runblr

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eldritchsurveys · 6 years

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o27.

// Random Survey Questions // By: @x-hallie-x // What was the last thing you spent a lot of time thinking about? >> Keahi, my Watcher (player character) in the Pillars of Eternity series. I was just imagining the differences between em in the first game and em in the second game, and also imagining em being sexy-flirtatious with Xoti (a character in the second game), because I’m a thot.

What do you think about astrology/the zodiac? If you used to believe/not believe in it, what changed your mind? >> I think astrology is neat. I used to hate it because all I knew about it were people saying that Geminis are two-faced and manipulative and all this other shit, and I got tired of hearing insults about me based on some arbitrary star shit (as I thought at the time). But one of my friends got me into astrology by telling me about the cool shit like natal charts and gradually I got into it. Now I’m like “don’t talk to me unless you did your birth chart ;D ;D” (honestly it’s just FUN and I really relate to what my own birth chart tells me, and I’m not going to let fun-sucking people ruin it for me).

What is one conspiracy you believe in? Or one you think is total crap? >> I don’t know... I don’t really believe in any, per se, like whole-heartedly. I just think a lot of them are interesting. I also don’t know much about any, because I never did much research into them. The geo-engineering thing sounded interesting to me because that reminds me of terraforming in science fiction and stuff, and also the X-Files-esque idea of alien conspiracies as coverups for more insidious experiments and what not? That’s pretty cool. I just think conspiracies are cool from a, like... storytelling perspective, if that makes sense.

Where was the last place you traveled to and what did you do/who did you go with? >> I went to Chicago for my birthday weekend at the end of May, with Sparrow. I went to the Shedd Aquarium, the Adler Planetarium, and the Museum of Science and Industry, and Navy Pier, and I also ate a lot of food and drank a lot of cocktails. And I got to meet my friend Loki in person after being mutuals for years! It was great.

Where was the last place you didn’t want to go but had to anyway? >> I can’t remember.

If you could be doing anything right now, what would it be? >> I mean, I’m pretty happy doing what I’m doing right now, and I don’t want to poke at that too hard and make myself dissatisfied for no reason.

What made you pick up the last book you read? Are you glad you did? >> The last book I finished was Dune Messiah, and I picked it up because I’d read the first book and wanted to keep going. Yeah, I’m glad, it’s an interesting series.

When was the last time you yelled/screamed and why? >> I don’t remember, I rarely do that.

Why is your greatest fear your greatest fear? >> I’m not sure. I think I went todash one too many times and I came back with a set of anxieties as a souvenir. I never used to get all up in my brain about death, in fact I never understood people who were anxious about it at all. And now it’s my thing. I don’t like it, but I guess I have to live with it, and I’m doing my shitting best.

What was the last big decision you made? Do you think you made the right choice? >> I’m not sure? I have a hard time remembering stuff like this.

If you could have any animal as a pet (in a magic universe where wild animals can be tame or something!) what animal would you choose? >> A DRAGON. A WHOLE ASS DRAGON. Fuck it.

What Hogwarts house are you in? What do you think about the “stereotypes” regarding your house? >> I’m a Slytherclaw! I used to get annoyed at unnecessarily negative Slytherin stereotypes but like... meh, whatever. The whole House system is based on stereotypes in the first place, so that’s to be expected.

What is your favorite song to sing? How about dance to? Do the DO to? >> I’m going to pick random favourites since I don’t have just ONE favourite anything, haha. To sing: Some Time Ago... by Dethklok To dance to: This Corrosion by Sisters of Mercy To get freaknasty to: Some Kind of Stranger by Sisters of Mercy

What is something you want to do, but you don’t think you’ll ever be able to? >> I’d like to live in a community, like a real community where people know and support one another, and share things, and look out for each other’s children, and make you feel like you belong to them. I just... I don’t know. I don’t know if I’ll ever have that.

Have you ever given something up for another person? >> Sure, I mean, I can’t think of any examples right off the top of my head, but I’m pretty sure that’s happened before.

What was wrong with you the last time you felt sick? >> Drank too much, probably.

What is something about your personality that you hope never changes? >> I hope I’m always curious about things and eager to learn.

If you could be famous/known for something, what would you want it to be? >> I really don’t know.

Do you prefer to watch movies with other people or by yourself? >> I like watching movies with other people! But sometimes people’s movie rules don’t match up with mine (like, I don’t mind people talking during movies unless they’re really deep ones and I need to concentrate... but a lot of people don’t want any talking at all, and that’s too much for me). And sometimes people are like... just no fun to watch movies with, you know the kind of person, where they complain about everything or say “that looks so fake lol” or stuff like that? Buzzkills. Fuck that. But! other than that, sure, I like to watch with other people. It’s fun.

What, if anything, are you trying to change about yourself? >> I’m not really trying to change anything, more trying to adapt to myself and be kinder and more patient to myself. Trying to live by example, yanno. And also I’m just tired of struggling with myself, lmao.

How would you describe your soul (old, young, wise, like some sort of animal, flower, etc)? >> I’m a Singularity! The infinite fathomless unknown core of a supermassive black hole, which could be anything from a single point of pure light to a silent void to an entire universe in its own right. The fact that we (humanity) don’t know what’s inside of a black hole makes it an infinity of possibilities (and I think that’s what it is anyway, not just ONE THING or THIS OTHER THING, but all things -- the Prim, the primordial soup, taking shapes when observed but otherwise purely infinite), and that’s me!

Where were you when you first listened to your favorite song? Did it become a favorite immediately or later on? >> Hmm... well, I know I was in New Orleans when I first heard Volbeat’s A Broken Man and the Dawn, which is one of my favourite songs. It did become a favourite immediately.

When was the last time you were embarrassed? >> I don’t remember. It’s not something that sticks, which is what I tell myself when I do get embarrassed -- I’m literally going to forget about it in a day, so no point dwelling on it. ...I think that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, though. If I don’t dwell on it, then I don’t form memory anchors, which is why I forget about it in a day. Ha! Brain: HACKED

When was the last time you felt especially good about yourself? >> Probably either the last time Hallie said something nice about me :’) or the last time Can Calah said something about his observations of me over time.

What was the last thing you ate? Would you have preferred something else? If so, what? >> I ate a veggie burger with spinach on it, and sweet maui onion chips. Also, it took me like four tries just now to remember how to spell “maui”, for some reason, lmfao. And nah, I was cool with that.

The last time you drank alcohol, what were you doing/who were you with? >> I drank a glass of Rosé yesterday because it was World Rosé Day. That’s an improvement, because usually I just drink the bottle lmfao but nope, just that one glass, and it took me like 2 hours to finish it! This is going better than I expected. I have decided not to drink again until Wednesday (because Wednesday, yanno), and I already set out what I’m going to drink that day and I’m not going to deviate from it. If you want to help hold me accountable, here’s what I chose: one (1) bottle of Backwoods Bastard and one (1) glass of 1000 Stories wine. That’s my limit! Anyway, back to the actual question -- I was just hanging out at home with Sparrow tumblin’ and watching Parts Unknown.

What kind of a drunk are you? >> A... talkative one? A giggly one? A maudlin one, oftentimes. I know the big thing is that people drink to forget their emotional stuff, but I drink to access it.

What’s the most fun you’ve ever had on a drug/trip? >> Oh, man, I don’t even know. There have been a lot of fun trips. So many. One time we took dex and went walking around the Upper West Side and ran into this band performing on the street and they said if you give them a word they’ll make up a song about it on the spot and Sigma said “otters” and Crystal said “threesomes” and so they made up a song about otter threesomes. I’ve seen and felt so much of the pure ridiculous amazingness of NYC while tripping that I can’t even process it all.

What’s the most dangerous or risky thing you’ve ever done? Did you enjoy it or regret it? >> I guess the times I’ve shipped myself across state lines to live with people I’d met online and never before seen in person until then. Like, you know, you hear the horror stories. But nothing close to that has ever happened to me.

From how far up have you fallen/jumped before? >> I threw myself down a flight of stairs once. On purpose. I was also todash, so. (I was completely fine after, physically. Yeah, I don’t know how, either.)

Other than this survey, what was the last thing to get on your nerves? >> THIS SURVEY IS BOMB WHAT DO YOU MEAN Uh... hmm. I don’t remember. :/a

What was the last thing to make you laugh? >> I don’t remember but I also just thought about BZONKED and started laughing again.

What is an inside joke you have between you and a friend/etc? >> Well there’s BZONKED and HOT GATORADE and also hey Hallie remember skagit... >:3

What was the last new thing you learned? >> I don’t remember.

How would you describe your blog content? Do you only reblog specific things or does anything go? >> My personal blog is just... stuff I love, I guess, and stuff I care about. But like, there’s stuff I love that I have other blogs for, specifically -- oedonvevo is for memes and shitposts and fandom overflow (stuff that I like but don’t necessarily want to clog my main blog with); and oedon is for my RPG fandom stuff, my OCs and headcanons; and fuzzbones is for cute shit. And this, of course, is for surveys.

When was the last time you left somewhere for forever (or at least don’t plan on returning)? >> I guess when I moved out of New York two years ago.

What is the most destructive thing you’ve done? >> I’m not sure.

What was the last big decision you made? Do you think you made the right choice? >> Psst this one’s a repeat question! ;D

What video game are you playing now? Do you prefer to play alone or with others/multiplayer games/online games? >> I’m playing like 48479837 at once, tbh. Nah, actually, right now I have World of Warcraft, Elder Scrolls Online, Final Fantasy XIV, Guild Wars 2, Pillars of Eternity, and Mass Effect Andromeda (which I feel like I’m NEVER going to finish) going. I also have save files on Torchlight II, Skyrim, Oblivion, Torment: Tides of Numenera, and a couple of others that I sometimes go back and poke around on. I just really love my video games, lmao. And I prefer to play by myself, because I have a low sense of confidence in my ability to play well with others. But as you can see, I also play four different MMOs, so I’m slowly learning how to get over my lack of confidence and just... ignore the assholes and look for the friendly people.

What was the last thing you found? >> MY SANITY yeah just kidding that’s still lost and I ain’t lookin for it

When will you be going out again and where? >> I’m not sure, actually.

Do you prefer to stay at home or do you like to be out and about? Where are your favorite places to go? >> I love to go out and about, but I... really don’t like where I live, unfortunately, so it’s a real downer. I spend a lot of time beating myself up about it, and I’m trying to stop, but you know... old habits. Also, like, I’m used to living in a big city, a big multicultural city, lived in one for most of my adult life, and it’s a hard adjustment, still. I don’t know how to meet people or do things here, nothing makes sense to me. And I feel culturally alienated as fuck. So, you know. I mostly just stay home. :/

Generally (or specificially, hell idc) what would you like your dream life to look like? >> I don’t really have a dream life, I just know I would like to live in a city again -- ideally New Orleans. And I want to have meatspace friends along with my internet friends! And I want to have money to travel.

When was the last time something about your life changed drastically/what happened? >> I guess the biggest recent change is getting back with Hallie, although like... you know how sometimes a big change happens and it should feel more strange, but it... isn’t? Like, I don’t want to diminish how big of a thing this is, but it also kind of just feels... comfortable enough that it doesn’t shake up my life a whole lot. There are things to adjust to, but they’re not like SUPER HARD OMG adjustments or anything, in fact they’re probably pretty helpful to my growth as a person, so I’m cool with them.

What is one talent you wish you had? What about one you are working on? >> Hmm. I’m not sure. I like the skills I have. :3 I guess I’m constantly working on my gaming skills, and I tend to think that I’m not improving but if you look back over the past 6 or so years, I have definitely improved. I can’t even deny that to myself. So that’s good!

What makes you feel “not good enough”? >> Thinking about employment.

What was the last thing you quit? >> I didn’t quit drinking, but I quit drinking the way I was drinking.

What is one drug you want to try? With who/where? >> Shrooms, but I’m also... well, you know, after all the going-todash and whatnot, I’m understandably anxious about it. But I’d like to try it with a friend who is experienced with them and will do them with me, and a friend who will be sober and kinda just looking out for us (me especially lmao). That would be the ideal situation.

Has any movie totally freaked you out? What’s the craziest movie you’ve ever watched? >> District 9 did, but that was because I had been up for 4 days straight and my understanding of reality was starting to shit itself anyway. The craziest movie I’ve seen is probably Antichrist, or A Serbian Film, for two different reasons. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus was also pretty wild, and so was Mirrormask. And let’s not discount Sunshine...

What is something you don’t like to do alone? >> Drugs.

What about something you only like to do alone (like, something besides the expected things)? >> I’m not sure. It’s really just the expected things. Most things I don’t like to do with just anyone, but that doesn’t mean I only want to do them by myself, either.

What is something you find difficult that many others do not? >> Employment.

When was the last time you smiled and why? >> I don’t remember. I don’t really notice when I do, all the time.

Do you like to help people? How about animals? Which would you rather help, if it applies? >> I guess so, yeah. Like, it’s not a huge impulse of mine or anything, but generally I’d prefer to be helpful than to be apathetic or hurtful. Although sometimes those other two things happen too, since I’m... a whole person and not just an archetype of one. Anyway, I’m probably biased towards humans, because... I am one, I guess. I don’t know. I like animals and I respect them, but what little affective empathy I have is reserved for people. It’s not an infinite resource, unfortunately.

What was the last thing you wasted? >> I don’t remember. Probably water, like running the faucet or something.

What was your last purchase? >> The two Zeal & Ardor albums off Amazon!

As an adult, what is the most & least you’ve weighed? >> 145, I’d say, and 110.

Who was the last person to leave your life and what caused this to happen, if anything? >> Sigma. It’s... well, it really is a long story, and I’m guessing it’ll get told in pieces over the course of survey-taking, but telling it in one shot is nigh impossible. There’s a lot of fucking shit to unpack.

What was the last compliment you recieved? Insult? >> The last compliment... probably from Hallie, in a survey, haha. I don’t remember the last insult.

What did you order at the last restaurant you went to? >> The last place I ordered food at was Wendy’s and I got a chicken sandwich and fries.

When you are sad/etc, what kinds of things help you feel less shitty? >> Funny/cute TV shows, music, stuffed animals (stim therapy in general, like wrapping up in a blanket or finding a way to pressure-stim or doing repetitive motion), people doing silly shit or memes (that depends, though, sometimes it doesn’t get through to me but sometimes it does!), sitting outside on a sunny quiet day for a little bit, watching animals doing animal things, eating a good food (especially if someone brought it for me).

What’s the latest you’ve stayed up this past week? Latest you slept in? >> I haven’t stayed up late at all! I’ve been going to bed at midnight and it’s been working pretty well so far. The latest I’ve slept was to about 10a but that was also because I got woken up in the middle of my sleep so my REM cycle and shit was all thrown off.

Is there anything you feel like you have to do every single day or its not complete? >> Hmm... a survey ;D lmao I don’t know

What was the last chore you did? >> I don’t remember.

What is causing the most stress/anxiety in your life right now? Will this situation end/resolve soon? >> Nothing specific, just like... feelings of personal doom and stuff like that, nothing logical, just... todash leftovers, I guess. I hope it resolves soon, but I’m afraid I might just have to... live like this. :T I wonder if there’s a like... chill anti-anxiety med I can take sometimes or something.

When you think about outer space, what thoughts/feelings come to mind? >> !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What is the most immature thing you do (or laugh at)? >> I laugh at stupid sex jokes all the time. Like, the stupider the better. “hurr hurr bone” that sort of thing.

Have you ever intentionally hurt someone? >> Yeah. I’m a sadist and I’ve known at least one masochist, soooo.... ;p But if you mean like.... in a mean nonconsensual way, maybe? I don’t remember any specific times, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t ever.

What was the last lie you told? Did anyone notice? Did you feel bad? >> I don’t remember. I don’t really have much use for lies.

When was the last time you went to the doctor? >> February or so.

Have you ever been in therapy? If so, what did you think of the experiences? >> Yes, and now I’ve got all this NEW trauma to unpack! THANKS, THERAPY!!!

What kinds of clothing do you like to wear? >> Oh, a bunch. I just don’t feel like... comfortable in everything, you know? Like even stuff I like! I like it on other people, or I like it in the store, but when I put it on it’s just Wrong. I’m either the wrong height or the wrong weight or my features don’t fit the look or I’m too ungainly in it or... I don’t know. Meh.

What is something you like that no one else you know likes too? >> I mean, I know a lot of people (online lol), so... yeah, I don’t think there’s anything like this.

What is something you don’t like that everyone seems to like? >> Napoleon Dynamite. I just didn’t like it, but it’s not like... a big deal or anything. Sometimes you just don’t like things. I just think it’s funny that I can’t think of anyone else who doesn’t like it.

Do you judge other people based on the foods they eat? >> Nah. Life is short, brah. Eat up (or don’t? hehe).

Do you follow a particular diet/meal-plan/ethic? >> No, I think the closest thing to a “diet” that I’d like to follow is the Mediterranean diet, but that’s because I love Mediterranean food and the whole food culture and everything. It’s really just about what makes me feel good to eat, what I enjoy seeing on a plate, what just speaks to me, and that’s it.

Are you involved in politics or do you tend to avoid them? Is there a reason for this? >> I tend to avoid them, because I don’t know shit about shit and while I care about specific things (like, I think I should be able to live without facing violence because of some aspect of my identity, yanno), I don’t.... I don’t really have enough rage to like... be an activist or anything. I support people who are fighting for these things! I just... it’s not my thing. And actual politics, like who’s in government? I just assume they’re all corrupt -- not because they’re bad people, but because they’re caught in this sticky web of a system where you’re forced to be ruthless and conniving and two-faced and like... after a while it becomes normal for you. I would hate to be a politician, because no matter how you start out, you either end up dying or living long enough to see yourself become the villain. That’s just how it is. :c

What is a subject you tend to avoid with other people, for whatever reason? >> Religion. Because inevitably someone’s going to start talking about how all religion is bad, and then I’ll have to leave. (But like, my friends and SOs are fine! I actually love talking about religion with people that are into it the way I am, like it’s a big special interest of mine and I am so excited when I run into people who enjoy talking about religion and culture and mythology and how important it all is to being human. I even like talking to people who have become disillusioned with organised religion and have ideas about how they’d like it to be, or even just people who have the same religious traumas I have and are trying to cope. But like... well, you know. Some People, lmao. Can’t talk about shit with them.)

When was the last time you changed your mind about something? What made things change? >> I don’t remember, but listen, I’m a Gemini, I change my mind all the time.

If there was a colony on Mars and you could actually feasibly go live there, would you want to? >> HELL YEAH WTF THAT’D BE DOPE AS SHIT but like can I have dual citizenship because I also love Earth and I wouldn’t want to leave it forever-forever :’(

What kinds of things make you homesick, or do you get homesick very much? >> Photos of Jackson Square or the Mississippi River, zydeco music, certain foods and smells, a bag of Zapp’s from Potbelly, Purple Haze beer, certain songs in my library... and yeah, I get homesick all the time. It’s a real problem.

What is the longest (or most involved) thing you’ve ever written? >> I wrote a story that’s still up on deviantART, called Once Thought Damned, and it’s basically really derivative of the kind of books I was into back then (paranormal erotic romance), but I also still really love those characters and the stories I was trying to tell in my fumbling “haven’t found my voice yet” sort of way, and I still think about them all the time. But yeah, I think it’s... at least 50k words long, and took me a few years to finish. So I’m proud of that.

If you could choose, would you be yourself or someone else? >> I don’t know what it’s like to be anyone but me, so how could I choose? Hell, selfhood is weird enough as it is without this question messin me up xD

What is something you really like - it could be anything - just gush! >> Oh, I would gush, but also I need to conserve my energy, this is a long survey! ;D

What about something you just can’t stand, a pet peeve, a resentment, etc? >> I really don’t like when people make fun of people for being excited about things. It doesn’t matter what the thing is. I just... I really don’t like that. You don’t have to like whatever it is, but just... don’t fucking piss on their parade, okay? No one asked for your downer ass opinion anyway.

What is the highest elevation you’ve been to? >> I don’t know! I guess it was probably someplace in Colorado, though.

What do you think of love? >> I think it’s fascinating. I think I don’t understand it most of the time, and that’s okay too. I think sometimes that love is the exact nature of the willful force that shapes reality. I think it’s something science should leave to the poets and mystics, although science never will, because that’s the nature of science, and that’s... actually okay, too.

What is one food you used to like but no longer do? >> Cosmic Brownies. I used to eat them a lot because they’re cheap and calorie-dense and when you’re on food stamps that’s pretty great. But... god. GOD. I could gag just thinking about them, now.

How would you describe your eating habits? >> I don’t know that I can! I try to eat as well as possible but I also try not to give into neurosis about it (that uh... orthorexia? is that what it’s called? that’s a hole that’s really fuckin easy to fall into). I try to enjoy what I eat. I try to go for variety and colour and fun arrangements and weird combinations. I try to show love for myself by eating things that make me feel good.

Do you prefer to live with others or by yourself? Why is this? >> I prefer to live with others because I’m crazy, and I spiral downwards really quickly by myself. I depend on others to keep me grounded, because I’m not exactly fully... In Reality(tm). I also have a lot of, uh... like, weird autistic issues like the idea of cleaning bathrooms making me want to scream and claw my skin off, so it’s nice to live with someone who doesn’t have those issues and is willing to do it for me. Also, I literally cannot afford to live by myself, so, you know.

What scares you about getting older? >> The idea of infirmity isn’t a fun one. I’ve been spoiled by having a healthy body all these years, the idea of the slow decline is therefore unnerving. But I think I can handle that, realistically, I just... fear(tm). Also, of course, I’m afraid I’ll never stop being anxious about death. I want to know that I’ll have enough time to come to terms with it.

What is one thing you find attractive? >> Vulnerability. (Which is probably at the root of a lot of my kinks, like desperation and shit.)

Who did you last tell a secret to? Or just sensitive info? >> lmao I told Hallie who the person was that I had a crush on but didn’t want to mention in the survey I’d taken. :p

What kind of blogs do you follow? >> Man I follow almost 900 blogs, I don’t even know where to begin. (I used to follow around 1200, so that’s actually a conservative number for me.)

Have you made any good friends online? How long have you known them? >> Sure, I suppose I could say that. I’ve had some mutuals for anywhere from 6 months to like 4+ years. And there’s Elle, who I’ve known since my VF days, so since 2009. Almost ten years!

What is something really weird/embarrassing that you’ve done? >> I tried to use one of those menstrual cup things once and then I couldn’t get it out and I had a meltdown in the bathroom and Sigma had to come take it out for me. That’s the first thing that came to mind, lmao. I fucking hate those things with a violent passion and I will never use one again.

What about something you’ve done that sounds too wild to believe? >> I had a one-night stand with Aur-elio Vol/taire. (I put the slash and dash in to keep his name out of searches, lmao.)

What does it mean to you to trust someone? >> I guess that I give them the tools to hurt me with the faith that they won’t use those tools in that way (not intentionally anyway -- so I also have the faith that if they do hurt me, it’s probably unintentional and I should at least give them a chance to explain themselves). Or something like that.

What was the last thing you drank? >> Water.

What’s the weather doing where you are? >> It’s cool and cloudy.

What was the last thing to go completely wrong? >> Oh man I tried to make this fuckin flapjack cup microwave thing last week sometime and I put water in it instead of milk by accident and it just came out so bad. (It says water OR milk but let me tell you, it means JUST MILK, anything else is GROSS)

What kinds of things do you like to talk about? >> I can’t think of too many things I don’t like to talk about. I just don’t like to talk about some things with just anyone.

What was the last thing someone made fun of you for? >> I don’t remember. Probably Sparrow making fun of me for being a thirsty binch.

Name a book or movie from childhood that holds a special place in your heart? >> The Phantom Tollbooth.

What are some of your favorite words/word meanings? >> My mind is starting to melt lmao I don’t want to think this hard

When was the last time you procrastinated something? >> I procrastinated vacuuming and then I just straight up forgot to do it at all.

What mood/attitude do you tend to have when taking surveys, or does it vary? >> Usually I’m just... chill, like I usually am.

Has another survey-taker ever bitched you out for one of your answers? >> Probably, in the past when the survey-taking crowd was a little more incestuous.

Have you ever bitched anyone out for theirs? >> No, that’s just rude.

How did you celebrate the most recent holiday? >> I don’t celebrate Memorial Day lmao fuck that it was MY BIRTHDAY and THAT’S IT

How does your birthday make you feel? >> Pretty good, usually.

How would you describe your relationship with your parents? Has it always been this way? >> I never knew my mother (she tried to visit a few times but she didn’t seem to want to know who I was, really, and I’m pretty sure at least one of those visits was just a ploy to try to get back in bed with my dad or something), and my relationship with my father has been tempestuous and not entirely great at times because he was not very compassionate and I was a seething bundle of traumas and emotional neglect but I still love and appreciate him. Unfortunately I’ve lost contact with him and I don’t know how to regain it, so that’s that, I guess.

What is the longest amount of time you’ve spent alone (or mostly alone, since this is the age of the internet and all, hah)? >> I’m not sure. I mean, I lived alone for almost a year (2009) with minimal outside contact and that was... hell... but like... normally I’m never alone for that long.

What was the last thing you asked for help with? >> I don’t remember. But I finished this survey! It was very good. c:

#surveys #survey #random survey

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theliterateape · 6 years

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From the Archives: Unpacking Branson: A Thanksgiving Improbability

By Don Hall

For Thanksgiving in 2012, I was single and Mom decided that I should come out to my step-sister's place in Branson, Missouri for a good old-fashioned country Thanksgiving. The carrot was family. The stick was Missouri.

In the late 1960s it was pretty much a tiny city in the Ozarks known for roadside stands peddling wares that proliferated the hillbilly stereotype. And, sure enough, there are still today roadside stands that exist only to continue to make fun of that stereotype. It's an odd thing to walk into a business in the middle of the Ozarks that sells you the stereotype it tries to escape from. Like buying a taxi cab medallion from an East Indian store or an “I’m a Wetback” T-shirt in a store that sells Mexican merchandise.

It is said you cannot judge a book by its cover.

This is true most of the time, but there are some things you can judge immediately by its cover and pretty much know what your getting.

An Ann Coulter book. Sean Hannity. A FOX News broadcast. Great America. Applebee's.

I assumed that Branson, Missouri would fall into this latter category. I was right and wrong. And the complexities made it a real trip to remember.

Branson is where the Beverly Hillbillies came from before moving to California.

A winding series of roads littered with signs and theaters and restaurants. Lots of bumper stickers that declare “I’d Rather Be Dead Than SOCIALIST” and random tributes to past GOP glory. In the three days we trucked around the city, I counted perhaps one hundred people of color the entire time — I didn't start the trip by calculating this but after a bit, it was hard to escape. Thousands of old white people with canes and wheelchairs abounded but that doesn't really look that much different than Navy Pier or the audience at Chicago Shakes — old white people like to be tourists and Branson is, after all, a haven of tourism.

My step-sister, Hannah, tells me that the crack business booms among the residents of Branson and there is evidence around if you’re looking for it. The place is slightly schizophrenic in its place as a home to rednecks and hillbillies while trying desperately to distance itself from that by appealing to the tourist trade. There are places that stink of what one expects in Ozarks — a biker bar called the Hawg Trough that even my pro-GOP brother-in-law avoids and a Smoke Shop that doesn't sell cigarettes and has a pit bull guarding the door. But there are surprises that popped up during my three-day Thanksgiving vacation that defied my pre-judged expectations.

The surprises came in weird ways. When I arrived, we ate at a place called the Rowdy Beaver — a place with T-shirts that trumpeted “I Like Bald Beaver” and “That's A Mighty Nice Beaver” and had washboard walls. The thing that surprised was that the food was out of this world. It was delicious and well prepared and not at all what I expected. “Our chef prepares everything from fresh ingredients,” trumpeted our waitress who seemed completely fine with her job at a place filled with such juvenile innuendo.

The Hollywood Wax Museum was fun but the wax figures left me a bit wanting — a frequent refrain of our visit was my niece saying “Who's that?” and me doing my best to figure it out. I tried to convince my family to go to Silver Dollar City so I could find and steal a urinal cake but it was $60 per person and even I couldn't argue that $300 was reasonable for me to complete a toilet cookie tale. We had tickets to a magic show billed as the World's Largest (by the way, every attraction in Branson is billed as “Show of the Year,” “The Most Amazing in the World,” and “Mindblowing”) but the show was cancelled due to illness. Turns out Kirby VanBurch’s greatest trick is to take your money and disappear.

Our replacement show for the afternoon was going to be either Jim Stafford (I desperately wanted to see this) or SIX (the nieces had heard it was awesome). Stafford only did an 8 p.m. show, so SIX at the Mickey Gilley Theater it was.

SIX is six middle-aged brothers who debuted on the Donnie and Marie Show and have fashioned themselves as sort of an older version of an a cappella boy band. As soon as they started with a cheeseball version of Don’t Stop Believin’, Hannah and I turned to each other with a look of pained resignation. These guys had pretty good voices and the arrangements were fine but the self-consciously hip pose and cornball attempts at cool banter was unbearable. I learned that wanting to see an awful Branson show and actually sitting through one are two different things. I also learned that I will never, as a middle-aged white guy, ever use the words “homie” or “peeps” ever again. To be fair, the second act was better — a selection of Christmas songs and a tribute to their dead mother. Apparently this tiny woman had ten children, all boys, and I suspect she isn't dead but just got the fuck out of there before having to bear an eleventh kid. But the damage of the first act left me scarred and a little terrified of that evening’s show — Legends at the Dick Clark American Bandstand Theater.

Legends is a show that debuted in Vegas and moved to Branson. It is a rotating cast of celebrity impersonators ranging from Barry White, Marilynn Monroe and Tim McGraw to the staples of Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson. Our bill was George Strait, Whitney Houston, the Blues Brothers, Liberace and Elvis. As we entered and sat down, once again surrounded by octogenarians, I steeled myself. This was going to be fucking awful.

And it wasn’t.

Really. In fact, it was a blast. The Whitney Houston knocked it out of the park, Liberace was funny but completely inappropriate in a callback to the dark days of The Gay Closet and the Elvis impersonator was so fucking good, if we had been sitting in the nose bleeds it would’ve been like actually seeing Elvis live. My mom, a huge Elvis fan from when he was alive, commented that he was the best Elvis impersonator she had ever seen. Hell, even my teenaged nieces enjoyed the show.

But we saved the best, most Branson-y show for Saturday. Yakov Smirnoff. Holy shit. I couldn’t wait. I was absolutely certain it would embody everything I expected Branson to be — cheesy, cloying, the very portrait of a has-been celebrity stretching out his 15 minutes of fame as paper thin as he could in the heart of the Vegas of the Ozarks. We were greeted by a giant Yakov head making awful jokes about... the size of his head! Inside, it turned out that Yakov was a painter and had his paintings for sale!

The beginning of the show was the longest version of the national anthem I’ve ever heard (who know there were, like, nine verses?) and then I was hit with another fucking surprise. On the video screens came an old Paul Harvey “The Rest of the Story” about a painter known as Jacob who painted and commissioned a painting in tribute to the fallen at Ground Zero in NYC following the Attacks of 9/11. Painted on the side of a building overlooking the rubble, it was the backdrop to the first anniversary of the attacks. The painter was an anonymous Yakov Smirnoff. He paid for the commission out of his own pocket.

Some of his show was what I expected: a revisitation of his “What a Country!” schtick from the ’80s—a sketch of him as the president answering questions from the audience, and he actually quoted the Lee Greenwood God Bless the U.S.A. as a closer. But other parts were not at all what I anticipated. Turns out that Yakov went out and got a Master's Degree in psychology and decided that his show could also serve as a relationship counseling session as well. Sort of like Defending the Caveman meets a less arrogant Dr. Phill with the takeaway being that we begin relationships laughing and giving each other little gifts and that, if we simply return to giving each other gifts and finding laughter in our relationships, we’ll be happier, healthier people.

Was it a great show? Not really. The dancers were cheesy and only there to fill time, the jokes were funny in a “Yeah, I remember that one” sort of way, the political stuff was tame (although at one point, Yakov asked the audience who was happy with the results of the latest election — a smattering of applause that included my mother and I enthusiastically cheering — and who was ticked off by it — a thundering, slightly ugly ovation — with the Russian comic commenting “Yeah, that's about even...”) and the recurring pro-America stuff was hard to hear after a while. But the thing is... I liked him.

I mean, I really liked the guy. He was so overwhelmingly sincere and genuine. Christ, I wanted to hug him. And, while his show is corny and inoffensive and gentle and perfect for the Branson tourist crowd, this is a guy who lives in Branson, Missouri suggesting that people spend time laughing and loving one another instead of being shitbags.

Prejudice is a funny thing. Judging books by their covers is what we do as people. I imagine it’s a hard drive instinct. But, as I am often heard saying, while we are all unique and precious snowflakes and each of us is completely distinct, we are all made of fucking snow. We all are simply people trying our best to get along in the world. Yes, that means that our baser, uglier instincts come to play like ordinary people rioting in a Walmart on Black Friday to get a discount on a portable DVD player. It also means that our better, more generous nature comes into play, and sometimes it's nice to be reminded that even in Red State Hell, Yakov Smirnoff is telling thousands of people every week to just be fucking nicer to each other.

On Thanksgiving, the point is to be with friends or family and celebrate those things in our lives we are (or should be) thankful for. Sure, the holiday is laden with cultural markers that include the genocide of the Native Americans and our national quest to bequeath every American with diabetes but the point is gratitude. Gratitude can come from a lot of places and I’m thankful to remember the lessons I learned in Branson.

#Jim Stafford #Branson #Thanksgiving #Silver Dollar City #Missouri #SIX #Yakov Smirnoff

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literaryfaeriecorner · 3 years

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01/18/21: The Feeling, 2021, and a Bad Date

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January 18th, 2021

I've been trying to start (and maintain) a blog/online journal since I was ten or eleven years old. I have no idea why I think I'll actually maintain one now besides the fact that I actually believe that 2021 is going to be the start of some kind of serious change in my life? I don't know why I truly feel that this year is different. I tell myself that when I have a specific type of feeling it's not just me being weird, it's the universe or God or who/whatever telling me that something is definitely going to be different. So we'll see. I guess. And I guess I should be documenting it.

I'm a writer but, naturally, I don't write. So I should be doing that, too. Ideally. I have a goal for myself. I need to have three chapter of my main-WIP done by the end of January. Currently, I have literally nothing down yet since I've decided that it's no longer a YA fantasy and I'm switching the entire tone of the novel and I'm tackling bigger ideas like colonialism/gentrification. It's a faerie tale, naturally. Anyway, my goal is to have the entire manuscript done by the end of this year since I've been sitting on this story idea since sophomore year of college and it's time to finally get it out? Since I want to be a NYT bestselling author I should probably... do that? And another goal of mine is to write short(er) stories and essays and start submitting them to applications.

I've already started on that goal though. Late 2020 I entered a essay writing scholarship contest to officially start submitting original work. I haven't heard anything back since but I'm not (that) upset because I guess I'm not always going to hear a "no"/"we don't really like this," and I can't be a crybaby about it, I guess. Even though I definitely am a huge crybaby. But I'd rather get comfortable with rejection quick so that I am ready for the writing hurdles ahead. And rejection isn't nearly as bad as you imagine it (unless you're talking about love.........).

Speaking of rejection... I went on a date last Tuesday and it was ok, I guess? It was actually less than ok but...? It's probably what I deserve for going out on a date during a pandemic but, like... I guess I should explain why it was just 'ok?' I actually don't know. I mean, I do know but I'm not sure it really matters? First of all, he kind of turned me off before we even met. He asked me if I had a snapchat and I was like... "yes, but I don't use it?" He proceeded to ask for it anyway so I gave it to him and he sent me so many messages trying to get me to answer him (after I told him I didn't use it) and he irritated me so bad I ignored him for an entire day. I hate when men don't listen and they're overbearing before you even really know them. Like... dude, chill? Shut the fuck up and leave me alone. It was so irritating I'm getting annoyed just thinking about it. And every time I take too long to respond (I guess) he uses the iMessage message reacts on all of my previous messages to signal that I need to respond or something and it's so annoying. Like, I'm a grown ass woman. Don't do that to me. I'm either working or sleeping or ignoring you, take the fucking hint. Jesus, fuck.

He's also not a gentleman? He asked me about kinks???? Like... not even a week into texting? I know that's ok for some people but it's not ok with me and that's fine. We're not on the same wavelength because I do not want to date a man who jumps into sex talks before even knowing my fucking favorite color... Like, that's not gentlemanly at all. Please. I actually don't care if I sound old-fashioned or lame. I'm over pretending that I want/like things that I definitely do not.... He's also like not well-read at all... He didn't know who Toni Morrison was and, like... come on, bro. Toni Morrison? You don't know who Toni Morrison is??? Jesus, fuck. He's just all around not someone I would date seriously...

So why did I go on the date?

I am in love with a boy across the country and it's been literally killing me for three years at this point and I'm tired of being lame and weird over it and obviously getting over a guy takes more than going on bad dates with annoying men but please give me a break, I've got a lot going on... And to be honest I don't actually want to get over him? Remember when I was talking about the feeling I feel like..... He's my person. And I don't feel that this feeling is one-sided. Even though he hasn't said the feeling is mutual........ I think his story has to be an entirely different blog post because it's just three years of nonsense and how could I summarize it in half a paragraph??? I can't. So. Anyway, all you need to know right now is that I'm in love with a boy aaaaaaall the way across the fucking country and I think about him 24/7 and I want to be with him and know everything about him and live in his skin but I'm tired of letting this feeling stop me from being a fun, twenty-something in NYC so I'm trying to... stop the feeling? Ugh. Ok. So anyway. That's why I went on the stupid fucking date all the way in fucking Brooklyn that cost me $80 there and back that I regret with every fucking fiber of my fucking being. Fuck.

The date itself was not the issue. If the date had ended where it began, with the average Mexican food place, it probably would've been fine and I might have considered a second date. He's not bad with conversation and he was fun to flirt with and the date was no pressure and I felt really cool and sexy and I haven't felt like that in forever because fuck the pandemic. I mean, he wasn't as hot as his insta pics would leave one to believe but I think that's because I literally am disgusted with facial hair on most men and he was breaking out super badly. I know that's, like, really shallow but I don't know. Whatever. I'm being honest on my own blog. Sue me. Anyway, the thing I regret is after the date..... UGH. First... I never ever do anything sexual on first dates. Not because I'm morally against it or anything, I just am not comfortable. Like... I have to be completely comfortable with men to do anything beyond kissing and heavy petting usually. Anyway, he asked me if I wanted to see his super-cool, totally-Brooklyn, super-brand-new studio apartment that's also like a fucking art gallery... And I should've said no but... I'm literally a fucking idiot.

Anyway, we get there and the apartment is super fucking cool. And we're vibing with music or whatever and we're having this fake argument over... something. And we start kissing... that's fine. I really love kissing. I don't mind it... But then... oh my fucking God, he hikes my shorts up SO far (SN: yes, I was wearing shorts in the dead of NYC wintertime but they were really hot leather shorts and I had knee-high boots on so... it was hot) and starts fingering me????? FIRST, I DIDN'T GIVE HIM PERMISSION SO WHAT THE ENTIRE FUCK and second, I WAS NOT WET AT ALLLLLLL YET SO HE LITERALLY JAMMED HIS FINGERS INTO MY PUSSY COMPLETELY DRY AND IT LITERALLY WAS SO PAINFUL AND HE DIDN'T KNOW WHAT HE WAS DOING. IT WAS SO FUCKING ANNOYING, PLEASEEEEEEE. And,THIRD, HE DIDN'T DISINFECT OR WASH HIS FUCKING HANDS FIRST! LIKE, PLEASE, ARE YOU TRYING TO GIVE MY PUSSY CORONA? FUCK. FUUUUUUUUUCK! It was ridiculous.

So I tell him to stop and he doesn't immediately. He's still sticking around in there for like five seconds more. And I'm like, MOVE, YOU ASS. And it sucks. It REALLY sucks... And since I'm a huge idiot (and also drunk) I don't immediately leave. We make out a bit more and he start randomly choking me and I'm like...... PLEASE STOP? First of all, I'm not a BDSM kind of gal but isn't that a thing that you DISCUSS before doing? Shit. And, also, I'm never gonna be a rough sex type of gal. Honestly. I like to be praised and petted and adored and touched sweetly. I'm not with all that rough-house shit. Blah blah vanilla blah blah, don't care. I don't like being roughed up in bed or anywhere else. So at this point, I'm like.... dude, you're fucking annoying.

Anyway, guys are fucking dumb and he apologized a lot and walked me out or whatever but I was over it. And now that that happened I'm definitely, for sure, not into him. He asked me to go back over to his place this weekend.... And I didn't immediately feel like having the "we should definitely not ever see each other again" talk so I told him I was in Philly with friends. He texted me today and I just ignored it... I'll send him a text in the morning I guess but I hate having that talk with men. I'd rather just ghost. But it's 2021 now and I don't want bad romantic karma... God knows I have enough of that.

Anyway... I'm actually super exhausted and I have... [shivers] work tomorrow. From home. In my bed... But it's still exhausting, believe it or not. God. Anyway, this was very therapeutic so I'll probably do this again definitely. Either way, I will be forcing myself to write here regularly because that's how you build good habits??? I wouldn't know anything about that. That's just what I've read.

#first post #stream of conscious #bad date #pandemic drama #new start #new year

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a-m00d · 4 years

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hi... i think i should start writing.

i wanted to create a separate journal of sorts to write down my feels about the breakup. but as i’m writing this, i feel ashamed and embarrassed to give so much importance to this failure of a situation. as if he would somehow find these words and think so highly of himself. as if i look back later and say, ‘wow, i needed a whole tumblr blog just to get over him?’. i want to make the disclaimer to myself first and foremost: this journal is perhaps not due to his importance in my life but because of my own life’s importance so to speak. He was important in my life, but i don’t need a journal to get over him more than i needed with any other guy. I need one (or want one) because I want to start to sort out all my conflicting thoughts, therapy is expensive (though maybe i will seek out a therapist soon), i want an organized and private space for this, and i always do better with typing rather than writing (for longer periods of writing) because I can easily find the writing later. I felt the same when thinking about buying a new notebook just to write these thoughts down — I felt that it would be giving him too much credit for my emotions. Now, like I said, I’m feeling this way with starting a whole new tumblr blog just for this. But. I know that I don’t want him to take credit for any of my feelings, I do want to bask in them myself and revel and wail over what is going on inside of my head and heart right now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

my emotions have been insane over the past few days. obvious statement of the year. i also teeter between numbness/forgetfulness and utter sadness (mostly due to having to act normal for work and other obligations), but i feel somehow there is a healthy balance of that going on right now, and i’m very lucky i don’t have to be in the office right now. i’ll take that over the emptiness of being isolated and alone. my thoughts have been changing like the fucking tides. and the place i’m in right now is deciding if/when to let go of this relationship100%.

everything seemed slow last week, but then happened so fast at once. the breakup was triggered by our fight 1.5 weeks ago, on the weekend. our third time not being able to even walk with each other and cheer each other up in this disaster of a time. As I walked away from him (or as he lagged behind) i had the gut feeling it was time to end things for good. I’ve said and done this 100000x. This time was slightly different. I felt like i was finally able to surrender. Not 100% of course, but it was different than ever before. It was just a little bit more. Shortly after, he texted me, with a tone that i knew was half trying to make up and half trying to evoke me and blame me. I told myself that i shouldn’t go back to talk to him at that moment, but I did (just like every time). We met up and he made things worse. We both did. Feeding off each other like always. He kept on provoking (like always), and it got to the point I felt it was finally enough to end things. I could never handle when he went on and on about ‘why the hell are we together?’, ‘what are you (me) doing?’ ‘we hate each other’, etc. etc. He was the most ungrateful bastard, living in my house for free and treating me like this. I knew things wouldn’t change anytime soon with him, and I stood strong with my feeling on that walk, that there was no other solution I could think of. there was nothing more i could hold onto. sometimes things don’t work out, and you don’t have the answer. I couldn’t look for the answer anymore. I’m battling my own health issues, major stress, career decisions, and, of course, the quarantine. I let him go. He freaked out, obviously. He didn’t believe me for the next few days even. First he was a dick, then that was followed by him being anxious and frantically figuring out what he was going to do (mind you, with no money for NYC rent, no job, and nowhere to stay temporarily in the middle of quarantine), then endless crying and begging to me. I was able to stick strong with that feeling i had felt on the walk. I was sad, shocked, disappointed and relieved all myself, but I knew I didn’t have any other solution.

The rest of the weekend was filled with loneliness, sadness, drinking and eating in bed, sad yoga, ignoring each other, him making me feel bad (and actually feeling bad) for “kicking him out”. We had some more talks earlier in the week, when he finally asked if i wanted this for good. They were calm talks and I was able to stick with my decision. Later on in the week we started hanging out a little bit more, still distant, but enjoying each other’s company in the night time and not ignoring each other. I knew it became too much when even on friday night we got in a stupid yelling fight about... (and i’m sorry but i really need to write these details down)... him wanting me to play guitar hero right as i had called up my friends to chat, and came off the phone 20 minutes later (cut them off so i could play with him) and he refuses to play, saying he was tired and his feelings were hurt. saying he wanted to play 20/30 minutes ago but not anymore. I was absolutely furious. He might have even had the chance to sleep on my bed that night but i sent him straight to the floor and even threatened to kick him out right then and there. I had planned for us to have a good weekend together, and I was completely crushed when this fight happened. Maybe I was relieved to know i made the right decision, but just so sad to know our relationship had gotten this awful.

The next morning, he embraced me sweetly and I accepted. I know 100% that I would not have accepted this embrace otherwise, but it was our last weekend together, possibly forever, and I couldn’t let myself not at least try to enjoy our time together and bask in how good the good times made me feel. Even though I had some moments of internal disappointment about him and us, it was a relatively magical weekend (for a weekend spent in quarantine). We walked and talked forever, bringing his stuff into storage, picking up food (first time during quarantine for me, so, a treat), walking and driving to our old favorite places all day and night, making margaritas, and two nights of great physical intimacy (maybe not our best/longest ever, but eons better than we had experienced in over 6 months). I was very afraid of this physical intimacy, I was afraid of the cuddling and all the things he kinda pried me to do all week...but I couldn’t have been happier that I gave in, however hard it may make this time period for me right now, and regardless of if he was just manipulating me or not. Because on that night I realized I do really love him, and we love each other. Despite all the shit in our relationship, and whether or not we should be with each other, we share a real love for each other, and I feel that my heart has opened even just a little bit more. I don’t know what he is feeling, but I know that when he left on Monday I felt a giant, gaping hole in the center of my chest. I truly felt like I lost my best friend. Many times over the past few days when we were together (I don’t remember the conversation now) we talked about the possibility of being together again or hanging out as friends, and I kindof just knew that things would never be the same, and didn’t know how this would ever work out. But I knew that I would never want myself to forget this moment and feeling of love. As much as his love has killed me and ruined me it’s made me grow in ways I never knew I wanted to. I realized how every break up I’ve been through I’ve hid the emotions from others and myself, even from the partner. This time, I’m realizing I’m able to finally feel these things, and I know for the first time what it feels like (not to lose someone you love, but to be this open about it with yourself or others).

A few minutes before we walked out on monday we were crying looking at each other and I thought to myself ‘I really, truly love him’. It took me a few beats to kick the words out of my mouth (fear of rejection, judgement of my own feelings), but I knew I would be crushed if I hadn’t. Not even for him but for me. I decided I didn’t care in that moment if he felt the same way as me, I knew I needed to tell him that, there was no other time. The entire weekend I felt extremely vulnerable crying with him loving him and laughing with him after I had broken up with him...but this is an experience I’ve never had. There’s usually a lot of bad blood and repressed anger, maybe some brief break up sex followed by fighting at the end of a relationship....but (unfortunately) this was already the norm in our relationship....so the ending was truly just a letting go of it all and being happy with each other. Even for only 2.5 days, we really wanted to spend every waking second with each other. And the part that makes me most sad is knowing the familiarity of his face, scent, voice, etc. so well, and now having it vanish in thin air, forever.

I still don’t think I’ve processed everything 100%. I went to bed moderately fine last night, then woke up today bawling crying because I am usually woken up by him and this morning I wasn’t and it felt so odd and different, and I thought...this is going to be my life for a very long time now.

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stephhannes · 5 years

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is march madness the same thing as seasonal depression?

most days are normal, i function. i wash my hair, i go to the grocery store, i have conversations without forgetting what i was saying in the middle of a sentence. i accomplish the tasks i need to do without struggle, i go to bed at a reasonable time, and i sleep for a normal amount of hours.

and some days i’m paralyzed. i’m too sad to move. i look at old pictures for hours and i read through old conversations until my eyes are blurry and i play the same voicemail on repeat. on the worst of these days, i sleep so long that i get texts from people asking if i’m still alive.

one-third of the year, persephone has to return to hades. one-third of the time i just, disappear.

nathan used to describe my depression as a “disappearing act” so maybe i did learn something from working at a magic show, after all.

every once and awhile i’d have a handful of days where i’d have just enough good energy to go to work, and anything more than that was too emotionally taxing, i was too exhausted to be a functional person. i never realized that it was obvious to other people when i was really struggling- but as soon i’d start to snap out of it, nathan would always say, “wow welcome back, i missed you.”

there’s a scene in it’s always sunny in philadelphia when a timeshare salesman asks dennis if he’s ever been to florida, and he responds with, “been there? ….not physically.” we had a version of that joke at the theatre- were we at work? well, physically yes, but mentally we were all astral projecting to a place with less magicians.

that was me on the bad days. physically i’d be at the apartment, but mentally i was astral projecting to a place where i was less depressed. i still have days like that, the only problem is that now i don’t have anyone around that notices and i’ve caught myself sometimes losing like a week to my depression. but for the most part, i don’t have the really bad days anymore.

it’s a step up from when i felt like a visitor in my own body almost full-time.

i never posted a blog about what my february looked like, mostly because i did nothing for the entire month. i stepped foot out of my home three times. my step counter will tell you that i averaged 159 steps the entire month, and there were actually 6 days where i took 0 steps. there were only three days where i took more than 80 steps. here’s the graph to prove it-

+++

it feels weird to finally have an answer. months ago, when nathan’s autopsy initially came back inconclusive, i had resolved that we probably just wouldn’t know what happened. and 12 weeks after that when toxicology came back clean, i was even more steadfast in my belief that we wouldn’t get a clear-cut answer. realistically, there was a part of me that knew there has to be some kind of answer- but i was completely okay with never actually getting it. and then we got it.

i’ve always really hated when someone dies and then everyone’s reaction is “oh be sure to hug the people you love! u never know when something could happen!” it’s like how i hate the people who use valentine’s day as an excuse to make up for the other 364 days a year they don’t do anything nice for their partner. i’ve always been very intentional in my relationships, making it abundantly clear how i feel about people constantly. i always write dumb love letters to my friends, i’ve always been the person who gets drunk and is immediately like HEY I LOVE YOU to every person in the room with me. i think a lot of times when someone dies, people feel a specific regret of “oh i wish i had told (person) how much i love them” but like, it was borderline disgusting how affectionate nathan and i were.

he’d leave for class and then 30 minutes later he’d text me and be like, “hey i miss you.” or like, he’d fall asleep and i’d text him some dramatic ass paragraph about how much i love him, like this one from august 2nd- “hi you’re asleep right now but even though you keep snoring real loud i love you a lot. thanks for asking me to marry you. i know that neither of us were really the type to even like consider marriage in the past but i’m really glad that we get to do this. you’re my favorite person and getting to spend the rest of my life with you (with the added tax benefits) is really all i’ve ever wanted. so far you’ve been a pretty great fiancé, so i guess i’ll keep you for at least a lil longer. i am so glad that i’m yours because you’re such an incredible partner. anyways, i’m sorry that i’ve been gone a lot lately, i’ve missed you a lot but hopefully soon things will be back to normal and i’ll be back to snoring in your ear all night. ok goodnight i love you i’m excited to hang out with you this weekend.”

so on one hand, i feel great because even though i have like 5 new suitcases of baggage- at least i won’t have to check the “shoulda been more open about my feelings” bag. but on the other hand, after finding out what had happened i still had an existential crisis/panic attack when i was reminded that “oh life is fleeting and can just be taken away randomly and nothing truly matters and what am i doing here and why did this happen all i’ve ever done is be a good person but that doesn’t even matter and death is imminent please send help”

one night when i was drunk, i remember telling one of my friends that i feel like i’m immortal. but not in the cool, “i’m a 7000 year old witch,” way but in the “i’m plagued by the curse of immortality where i have to watch everyone else that i love die,” way. i remember feeling like this after my dad died, but now i’m just convinced.

+++

the best thing about march is that it’s truck month. the worst thing about march is that when it’s over, truck month ends and april starts. i’ve been dreading april for the last seven months. the 10th is nathan’s birthday, the 26th is mine, the 30th is our anniversary and it’ll also be the 1 year anniversary of our engagement. i knew that going to new york was something that i needed to do at some point during april. and luckily the only window where it’s reasonably priced to fly there falls at the end of april. so from the 23rd to may 7th, i’ll be back. it’s partially because cody’s been begging me to come back and i miss her but also because i can’t imagine being anywhere else during that time. the last time i was in nyc was back in november, and i was still in a pretty bad place then. so i’m excited to return now that i’m significantly less of a shell and more of a person. i’m setting my expectations for myself very low: if i make it through the two weeks without crying in public, it’s a success.

+++

you know that inspirational quote that’s (definitely not factually true) something like “Every single cell in the human body replaces itself over a period of seven years. That means there's not even the smallest part of you now that was part of you seven years ago.”?

i think that’s me- but with dyeing my hair blue. like clockwork, somehow, basically every 7 years i dye my hair blue. and it’s always marked some Life Change. the first time i did it, i was 10 years old- that was the first time i’d ever dyed my hair. we used a semi-permanent dye and it got all over everything, including my skin, and i looked like a smurf for a week. the second time was eight years later, the day after high school graduation. and the most recent time was the other day, six years later.

i don’t know what it means, but if i was more of a romantic i’m sure i could come up with some deep metaphor. i’ll just stick with the fact that i put off dyeing my hair blue because of how hard it is to maintain, how it gets everywhere, and how hard it is to get rid of.

+++

i feel like the tone of this was overwhelmingly bleak, but i promise i’ve been doing better. i’ve even started applying for jobs recently. it’s almost like i’m trying to get my shit together! i got rejected for a job as a copywriter at bumble, and then a day later one of my tweets got like 300 likes so i’m sure they’re really regretting turning me down now. it’s fine, i’m not bitter.

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5hfanfiction · 7 years

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FROM AFAR - CHAPTER 7

We had to wake up at four am that day in order to catch the first bus heading to New York City. It was almost mid october and the cold air wasn’t having any mercy on us while we were waiting in front of that bus terminal. Despite me wanting to rip out my eyeballs because it was fucking five in the morning now and my fingers were fucking frozen, the excitement about going to one of the most beautiful places in the world for the first time gave me chills.

Or maybe it was just the weather.

As usual, Normani and the boys couldn’t come with us, they usually made separate plans. Although I wish we could all be together, especially in moments like these where we’d hopefully make beautiful memories and remember it for the rest of our lives, they weren’t there but at least I had my girls with me and I couldn’t choose best company for myself even if I wanted to.

It was around nine when we arrived at the Port Authority Bus Terminal. We were sleeping there for one night only because hotels in NY were expensive, and staying there just for the day wouldn’t allow us to see much. We had our cellphones in hand with the google maps app open, walking through the streets trying to find the hotel. Luckily for us it was located just a few blocks away from Times Square, which is one of the main places that tourists usually want to see, and so did we.

After long minutes walking around with our suitcases I was glad to enter the warm hotel lobby. It wasn’t even that cold anymore but I couldn’t stop shaking since I got out of the bus. I was embarrassed that new yorkers seemed just fine while I had my coat, gloves and winter hat on, but hey, better embarrassed than freezing. We checked in and put our bags in the room to proceed to the sight seeing, we couldn’t afford wasting any minute only because we had two days to see everything, which of course was impossible to accomplish, so we just had to see everything we could fit in less than forty eight hours. Also, we had booked a room with two double beds because it was the cheapest we could find. Well, I hadn’t found anything ‘cause planning trips it’s just not my thing, I just pay what I have to pay, go and bless people with my presence - but not really. Lucky me to have had Dinah and Ally around to do that kind of stuff.

Our first stop, of course, was the Times Square. I’ve always had a soft spot for NY. If you’d asked younger Camila if she could pick a city to live in the entire world she would definitely choose the big apple, even though she had never been there before. Something about the architecture and that big city vibe, the constant sea of people and cars roaming around, tourists everywhere and different languages spoken around you, it looked like I was inside a movie. To me, not even the lovely Paris would beat NY, but I had never been there either. The truth is that I am a sucker for big cities, and it’s not that I don’t appreciate other environments, just like everybody else I crave calmness and isolation too sometimes, but I’ve always been a big city girl to the core and New York seemed like the perfect place to fulfill my fantasies. I really didn’t care about the dirty and noisy streets and the bumping of shoulders when you walk around. Maybe the endless movement seemed to make me feel less lonely, the idea of having people around me all the time and different options of places to go and things to do and see was the perfect combination for my heart and mind.

For the entire day we were walking around between subway stations and posing for pictures, sending our brand new memories to our parents at home, it was New York after all. Big part of our time was spent in the Central Park and inside the Times Square chaos. The plan was to rest a little bit in the hotel after a day walking around non stop and do something later at night. The four am was starting to kick in and so was the craving for a shower and a bed.

We got ourselves ready to go eat at night, McDonald’s of course, because we had to live the college life to the fullest - or maybe we just didn’t have money to eat something else - and then proceed to see Times Square again, since it was the nearest place. We were too tired to try to find a party or a bar, so we decided to buy a couple of beers or something we could drink in the room.

On the way back to the hotel Lauren seemed to be pretty close to me. We ended up staying next to each other in almost every group picture, almost making it seem like our little group were composed of two couples, Dinah and Ally, Lauren and I. She was also eager to take pictures of me by myself too.

“Hey Camz, let’s take a picture together," Lauren stopped me in the middle of the sidewalk because apparently she decided to take a selfie with me out of nowhere. I remember one time one of my high school teachers said that if a person asks you to take a picture with them, it’s because you mean something to that person. Even if you’re not best friends or lovers, or even family, that person has enough affection for you to the point that they want to freeze that moment and have a visual memory of you together. He had said that on our last week in school, where we were saying goodbye to our friends and preparing for the nostalgia feeling that comes after you finish a big chapter of your life. That really stuck with me because I had identified myself with what he had said. I remember asking for pictures with some of my classmates during our farewell dinner, we were not best friends or not even very close for that matter, but I felt the need to have them with me in a picture just because I liked them enough, and since then I’ve never forgotten his speech. Now, a few years later, I was in the middle of Manhattan with Lauren asking me to take that photo with her and an instantly smile appeared on my face.

We took a couple selfies and they looked pretty decent. Lauren was satisfied with it and I was glad to have that memory with her now. She probably sent it to her parents and I sent it to mine too.

We decided to eat our sandwiches in the hotel room, yeah we were that tired. Nobody was in the mood to drink what we had bought too, so we were just chilling with our big macs and fries. I was sharing my bed with Lauren since we were kind of closer now, Ally and Dinah sharing the other one. We’d always sit together in the bus too. Lauren’s back was hurting a bit due to the long walks we had during the day, and probably because of the cold too. We had to stop at a drugstore to buy something for her, a pain relieving cream being the best option. We were lying on the bed and an idea popped up in my mind.

"Do you want me to do a massage, maybe it will make you feel better,” I don’t want to sound cocky but I was really good with my massages, at least that’s what my friends always tell me, because unlike them I actually do it when they ask me to. And I wanted Lauren to enjoy it. If I could choose only one person in that moment to enjoy my massage, that person would be Lauren Jauregui. I had planned on using my massage skills on Ally back when I was crushing on her, but she was very ticklish and that ruined my plans. Straight Ally wasn’t making it easy for me.

“Sure, I could really use a massage," And at that moment I swear I was screaming inside. I really had to step up my game on this one.

We finished eating our meals and prepared to sleep. The room lights were off and the tv was on, we were all making small talk but I was afraid that Lauren had forgotten about the massage.

"Do you want me to do it or not?” I had to remember her, or maybe she was just too shy to remind me. Little did she know that I wanted that more than her, that’s a certain.

“Yes please, get that cream”

Yep, that was it. The tv was off now, we were just talking while Lauren pulled up her shirt a little bit to expose her back. I was too afraid to sit on top of her so I just leaned on my side to make it more comfortable. I didn’t want to scare Lauren and it would be really weird to sit on Lauren’s butt with the girls there, not that it would have a sexual connotation for them, but it definitely had in my mind.

They didn’t need to know that.

I was really trying to make it pleasurable for her as in giving my best, and of course I did not stick to just the place of her pain, Lauren was getting a full back massage because you don’t just waste that kind of opportunity in life. We’ve been there for a long time because the girls wouldn’t shut up while me and Lauren were really quiet.

“Why are you still doing it? For fucks sake just stop and go to sleep,” I had to suppress the urge to punch Dinah in the face because of that comment. What did she have to do with it? It was Lauren’s back and it was my massage, so Dinah can mind her own business.

We stayed mute instead, it was like Dinah wasn’t even there, much less the existence if that comment.

A few minutes after that I stopped because I didn’t want to look very suspicious too. I positioned myself on the bed to finally rest after a long day. I had my back against Lauren when I felt her snuggling closer to me. She didn’t do more than staying closer than necessary. It was not like we were in the dorms on a single bed with limited space. It was a king size bed and still Lauren decided to sleep close to me. “Should I make a big deal out of it?” was the last thought I had before drifting off to sleep.

We woke up later than we had planned, but the day went smoothly while we visited museums and saw a different side of Central Park. It was a lot warmer too and for that I was happy. We were leaving the Grand Central Station when the back topic came to surface during our conversation. Of course we had to relive that iconic first episode of Gossip Girl where Serena arrived in NYC on that same station. Not to mention Chuck and Blair’s wedding in the Park.

“Is your back any better? Did the massage make any difference?" That was my way of trying to know how much she had enjoyed it.

"Oh yeah, I feel so much better today, it definitely made a difference. Thank you by the way”

“You’re welcome! I’m just glad to help, don’t hesitate to ask if you need it again,” smooth Camila arising.

Unfortunately the day was coming to an end and we needed to take the bus back to our routine. New York had been everything that I had expected and a bit more. We would be back for sure to see the other things, since we still had ten months to come back and see whatever we wanted. The only problem was that it wasn’t cheap, otherwise I’d be there every weekend. Those forty eight hours had also given me more moments with Lauren than I was expecting and that made me excited for what was going to happen next.

#UPDATE #series #AU #slash #camren #dinally #romance fluff #submission #FROM AFAR

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zikitti · 4 years

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[late] reflections from 2018

i’ve decided that rather than finish my formal verification proof that i’m supposed to be working on (i’m doing code transformations in go), i will take a moment to reflect on one of my worst years. i hope that by the end of this reflection, i’ll have a better understanding of who i was at the time and the reasons things turned out the way they have.

may: visited sf for an event hosted at a venture fund! met some really cool people, was a bit optimistic about applying to accelerators. accepted an internship offer for a company in somerville (had reasons i couldn’t go to san diego that summer but in hindsight wish i had).

jun: i went to acadia with my ex’s family. joined a summer theater group and started teaching a summer coding camp. biked a ton around the boston area.

jul: saw the boston pops perform on the 4th. went to haymarket for the first time, a couple of bbqs around somerville. toured the factory of new balance.

aug: def con! literally lifechanging - met a bunch of my idols, learned about honey pots and nmap, bought some no starch press books, lock picked and social engineered. probably one of the best weeks of my life. plus vegas was gorgeous and want to live in the desert.

sep: went camping in nh and western mass. did some ctfs and hackmit. felt really alienated from everyone i knew.

oct: began work at lincoln lab, hacked a bunch with people from the security club, did a bunch of makerspace workshops. worked on an energy project with a university from guatemala.

nov: doing a lot of part-time work with hackathons, joined the pika mealplan (honestly a highlight). had a fun time at the wayfair datathon, made a short film, joined the film club. felt even more alienated.

dec: don’t remember much, but i really loved my film class and took fencing. rode in a cessna for the first time.

jan: got a security externship in nyc. i felt like my project was pretty over my head - manjaro and binary ninja were pretty difficult, and i wasn’t familiar with syscalls and os architecture. did a radio and radar course.

feb: got my harvard id and hung out at harvard square with friends a bunch. took a nanoengineering course and started working at mit nano. missed an opera show out of depression and started going to therapy.

mar: went to costa rica with friends! highlight of the semester - i loved the fresh fruit, the sunshine, the warm water, the friendly people, the biodiversity and worked as a ta for an embedded systems class.

apr: i was honestly ready for the year to be over at this point. i was going to therapy daily, getting recommended to do inpatient :/ and had to drop a class because of how much time the treatment was taking me. managed to maintain my macros somehow.

may: went to nashville for ncwit! had so much fun square dancing and meeting women in cs from around the country. finalized my study abroad and jet off to sf, saying goodbye to cambridge at last.

i suppose the easiest way to put this year was living in someone else’s shoes. somehow i’d gotten in my head that i might be able to apply for goldwater or one of the big fellowships, so i wanted to finally take my research seriously. i kept having a bad time working on research and switching labs (media lab, csail, lincoln lab, nano) and never finding what i wanted.

some upperclassmen advised me that they just did what people around them were doing. so, i decided to go hardcore into hardware + building - i did a bunch of makeathons, posted my projects online, took EE classes. and i found myself more unhappy than i’d ever been. i guess i should’ve known that if this field didn’t interest me in hs, it wasn’t going to magically interest me now.

mit’s counterculture has a few strange elements:

1) there’s a culture of alumni sticking around - there’s even a word for it, “cruft”. i know i don’t plan on sticking around the university for life. my philosophy is that school is meant to establish a network, give you time to work on projects, and help you build skills. and then you’re released out of the nest. the school itself isn’t your life, it should be the friendships and experiences that propel you forward.

2) there’s a stigma again cs and “selling out.” taken to the extreme, it’s like any job that makes a decent living or isn’t directly related to engineering or science is shunned. as a writing + cs student, i felt like my entire identity was constantly being scrutinized for the worst and in order to fit in i had to pretend i was a hardcore pro-tech hacker type.

i was surprised - i’ve been an advocate for diversity for so long, but only when i was feeling marginalized did it truly hit home for me what it feels to be in those situations. just like while i’ve been supporting universal healthcare for years, only when my family is affected do i suddenly see just how important social safety nets truly are.

3) mit celebrates pure technical skills above all else. at least, from where i stood that’s how it seemed. during the nyc pre-frosh meetup, an alum said that you graduate mit with someone that you’re uniquely skilled at. i kept trying to find this, and i felt like my artistic interests weren’t being acknowledged. i basically ignored my artistic desires, trying so hard to improve my technical abilities and found myself worse off for that.

other schools celebrates different traits - harvard, social skills and charisma; stanford, entrepreneurship (i’m less familiar with other schools). i think the version of myself who wanted to be really good at math and physics early on thought that technical skills were really all you needed, but i want more. i want to tell stories, to create, to cry, to appreciate beauty, to be curious.

i really do wish i’d done this year differently - done a cs + writing degree, worked more on my creative writing, traveled more, made friends within the art community. i think what i’m supposed to say is that i’m glad that the challenges brought me to where i am today, but i really do wish i didn’t have to go through all of that pain and isolation. at a place where i was told i would be accepted for who i was, i felt like no one accepted me for me.

i suppose the silver lining to all of this is that i got to experience some crazy things i only ever read about or saw in movies. one of my goals in college was to get out of my comfort zone and experience adventures i would be able to use to fuel my stories in the years to come. so in some ways, my college experience really has been the school of life.

#mit #school

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kaseyspeaks · 4 years

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It seems like just yesterday I was running around the streets of NYC trying to make it to all the shows I could for last season’s New York Fashion Week. But some months have passed, the temperature has definitely dropped…which can only mean one thing – NYFW 2020 is officially here!

I decided to take this season a little slow because I’ve been so exhausted killing myself for the past 5 years and 10 seasons of NYFW. I only wanted to attend a couple of shows and events each day that I really wanted to go to. Although I took it easier, my assistant and I did get to attend some fantastic events. From presentations to runway shows, the first couple of days were some I will never forget.

With that being said, let’s get into some of my looks!

NYFW 2020 Look 1: Valentine’s Day Theme with a Red Faux Leather Skirt and a Pink Plunge Top

DAY 1

I started off Day 1 of NYFW 2020 at the Bowery Hotel attending the L’AGENCE Fall ‘2020 Presentation. The presentation was absolutely gorgeous, and the Bowery Hotel was the perfect place to host it. Right when I walked in, there was a beautiful flower arrangement and curtain with the L’AGENCE logo on it where we could take photos. Then, when you rounded the corner, I could see models posing on the fancy couches wearing the stunning new L’AGENCE collection.

After the L’AGENCE event, my assistant and I had some time to kill, so we had to fill our belly with some delicious Thai Food. The hustle never stops even during NYFW, so we had to connect to hotspots while getting some last-minute work done on our laptop.

Next up, we had the Tula Skincare Event at Mister French! Tula is absolutely one of my favorite skincare lines to date. Their products contain probiotics, which help restore healthy bacteria on your face, and always leave my skin feeling so nice. They can’t claim this officially, but their skincare has helped reduce the number of breakouts on my face entirely! My assistant and I had such a blast at the event and were so happy to be able to celebrate Tula’s products with them. The food and drinks were delicious, and we even got cute little charm bracelets made and customized for us. It was such a great ending to Day 1 of NYFW 2020!

The Look

This look was inspired by Valentine’s Day coming up. I’ve always loved the mix of pink and red together, and I wanted to create a layered look that made a statement. I decided to wear a deep plunge pink long sleeve shirt (Shop similar HERE, HERE, and HERE) layered on top of a gorgeous red lace bralette (Shop similar HERE, HERE, and HERE) to add a touch of sexiness. The bralette peeked out just enough to add a statement and it matched perfectly with the red leather faux skirt (Shop similar HERE, HERE, and HERE) I wore. To add some warmth, I topped off the look with one of my favorite Shein teddy coats. Teddy coats have been all the rage, and this one from Shein does not disappoint. To get 15% off of Shein.com, use code SVD125 until March 31st!

Accessories

To make the look really pop, I had to add in some of my favorite accessories. For jewelry, I layered two of my go-to necklaces from Sequin Jewelry. Sequin has such incredible layering pieces so I paired the Miami Link Gold Choker with the Moon and Star Talisman. For earrings, I wore my Shoptiques Gold Star Hoop Earrings. I was also so happy to wear Jet Set Candy’s wanderlust gold cuff bracelet (Shop Similar HERE and HERE). Last but not least, I finished off the accessories by adding the most adorable clear Jeff Wan Pineapple Bag.

Shoes

For shoes, I chose some classic Michael Kors brown riding boots (Shop Similar HERE, HERE, and HERE). These kept me warm and chic throughout the day, while still providing comfort.

DAY 2

I was so exhausted from the long night I had before, so I sent my assistant to go to the shows and events for me this day of NYFW 2020. First up on Annie’s schedule was to attend the Fashion Hong Kong Runway Show at Spring Studios. After attending the show, she quickly made her way over to the Arlo Hotel to see Jeff Wan’s newest collection. As a huge fan of Jeff Wan, I was so happy to see all of the adorable designs and new colors. I definitely can’t wait to get my hands on another bag!

Next up, Annie went to the John Frieda event and celebrated the launch of the Detox & Repair collection. The event was themed completely around detoxing and she got to enjoy a matcha latte while chilling out to a zen nasal oxygen mask infused with calming aromas.

After the John Frieda Event was the Fashion Hong Kong After Party. This After Party was located at Mr. Purple on the Lower East Side of NYC and was so much fun! Apparently, Annie got to go and take some footage of the event (stay tuned for the YouTube video!), and eat some of the “most delicious hors d’oeuvres she has ever had”.

NYFW 2020 Look 2: Edgy Ripped Jeans and a Sheer Top with a Bold Statement

Day 3

This day of NYFW 2020 started with my participation in the panel for Skinfix at the WWD Style Dimension Event. I was so happy when Skinfix asked me to do this as I am such a huge fan of the brand (see my segment with them on Good Morning America HERE). That afternoon, I arrived at the Dream Downtown Hotel and went straight to the green room to get my microphone on. There, I met with the Skinfix team to discuss the panel and logistics. The panel started off as a discussion with Amy Risley (Founder of Skinfix). Next, they brought out Paget Bolotin (Executive Director of Marketing at Skinfix) and myself to discuss the products. Paget then did a demonstration on my face to show the audience how beautiful the Skinfix products apply to the skin. The panel was such a success – and I was so grateful to be a part of it!

Shows & Events

After the panel, my assistant and I had to rush to the Vivienne Hu Runway Show, where we wore masks with “DON’T ASSUME” written across the front. It’s no secret that everyone is freaking out about the Corona Virus right now. And me being Chinese, I could not believe the blatant racism I have faced in person and seen online to other Asian Americans. I decided that enough was enough and wanted to take a stand for all my Asian Americans throughout that day during NYFW! Overall, the masks were a hit, and we got our picture taken many times by the photographers waiting outside the Shows. Hopefully, the message sticks this time around. See my Instagram post about my silent protest HERE.

Up next was the Son Jung Wan 2020 Runway Show. This show is one that I look forward to every season, and I was so excited that I was able to attend again this year. The collection was absolutely gorgeous, and I had a fantastic time at the show.

The last event we went to was the WWD Style Dimension VIP party back at the Dream Hotel Downtown. It was so amazing to be able to reunite with many of my blogger friends and celebrate the success of the panel with Skinfix and WWD. Plus, the music was so good and we had so much fun dancing the night away!

The Look

For this look, I wanted to go super edgy. I wore a pair of these amazing baggy ripped jeans from Shein and paired it with a Shein Sheer Star Shirt. To add some layers, I wore the same red bralette (shop similar HERE, HERE, and HERE) from the last look under my shirt. Because this day was so cold, I had to layer up even more with a couple of coats. I added this navy faux fur hooded bomber jacket (shop similar HERE, HERE, and HERE) and a longer, simple, wool grey coat (shop similar HERE, HERE, and HERE) for warmth.

Accessories

Even though my outfit was pretty edgy already, I knew I wanted to spice it up even more with some equally edgy accessories. I added this super cool geometric statement necklace (shop similar HERE and HERE) to add a touch of silver. For my bag, I carried this knockoff immitation Issey Miyake black backpack (shop similar HERE and HERE) that I got when I was in Hong Kong. But really, the main accessory I wanted to showcase was my mask. It was so important to me to make a statement, especially one that affected the lives of every Asian American walking the streets in American right now.

Shoes

For shoes, I wore a pair of my absolute favorite Cecelia New York shoes, The Navy Trekker Combat Boots. The pom’s on these shoes absolutely took my look to the next level. I was so excited to finally wear them out and feel like a badd*ss.

And there you have it. I hope you guys enjoyed my first two looks of NYFW 2020 :-). Stay tuned for my next two looks, and don’t forget to shop my looks below!

Xoxo,

Kasey

Shop My New York Fashion Week 2020 Look 1 Below!

[show_shopthepost_widget id=”3909465″]

Pink Plunge Long Sleeve Top: Shop Similar HERE, HERE, and HERE

Red Faux Leather Skirt: Shop Similar HERE, HERE, and HERE

Red Bralette: Shop Similar HERE, HERE, and HERE

Michael Kors Riding Boots: Shop Similar HERE, HERE, and HERE

Shein Brown Teddy Coat: Shop Exact HERE

Jeff Wan Clear Pineapple Toat: Shop Exact HERE

Sequin Miami Link Choker: Shop Exact HERE

Sequin Moon & Star Talisman: Shop Exact HERE

Wanderlust Bracelet: Shop Similar HERE and HERE

Shoptiques Gold Star Hoop Earrings: Shop Exact HERE

Shop My New York Fashion Week 2020 Look 2 Below!

[show_shopthepost_widget id=”3909471″]

Sheer Star Mesh Top: Shop Exact HERE

Ripped Jeans with Chain: Shop Exact HERE

Faux Fur Collared Bomber: Shop Similar HERE, HERE, and HERE

Long Grey Coat: Shop Similar HERE, HERE, and HERE

Red Bralette: Shop Similar HERE, HERE, and HERE

Geometric Statement Necklace: Shop Similar HERE and HERE

Cecelia NY Trekker Boots: Shop Exact HERE

Knockoff Immitation Issey Miyake Black Backpack: Shop Similar HERE and HERE

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NYFW 2020 Looks 1 & 2: Red + Pink for Valentine’s Day & Confronting Ignorance About The Coronavirus Pink Plunge Long Sleeve Top | Red Faux Leather Skirt | Red Bralette | Michael Kors Riding Boots…

#Cecelia boots #Cecelia NY #Fashion Hong Kong #fashion week #Jeff Wan #John Frieda #L&039;AGENCE #Miami Link Choker #Michael Kors #Mister French #Mr. Purple #nyc #NYFW #NYFW2020 #sequin #sequin jewelry #shein #Taxi #tula

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lorrainecparker · 6 years

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ART OF THE SHOT: Buddy Squires, ASC Talks About Shooting Ken Burn and Lynn Novick’s “The Vietnam War”

He has shot more than 200 films and is a frequent collaborator with Ken Burns. Buddy Squires, ASC is an Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning Director of Photography. If you have seen a great documentary lately than more than likely it was shot by Buddy. He is known for his work on The National Parks, The Civil War, The Vietnam War, Salinger, and The Central Park Five.

If you are in the New York City area you can hear Buddy talk at the Manhattan Edit Workshop “Sight, Sound, and Story.” This December 6th, the Manhattan Edit Workshop’s acclaimed speaker series continues with an evening devoted to the art of cinematography. At the workshop, MEW will honor the craft of visual storytelling by talking to the masters behind the camera. Tickets for the afternoon/evening event only cost $45 and audience members will also hear from Joan Churchill ASC, Igor Martinovi, and Martin Algren. If, however, you cannot make it to NYC to listen to Buddy in person PVC had the opportunity to talk to him this week for this edition of “Art of the Shot.”

How did you get into the film business?

Wow, so any answers to that question. I started making short when I was in high school. I asked my teachers if I could make small films instead of writing certain papers. So I made a kind of early music video to the Who’s Baba O’Riley. I grew up in Cleveland and spent my summers in Colorado. In addition to films on teen angst, I made environmental films dealing with the burning Cuyahoga River and backpacking films in the Rockies. I had an interest in filmmaking and documentary work from a very early age. I then spent a bit of time in Berkeley and ended up at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. At Hampshire I was fortunate to work with some great professors including the brilliant photographer Jerome Liebling who remained my dear friend and mentor until his death in 2011. Jerry and another professor named Elaine Mayes introduced me to the world of Walker Evans, Dorthea Lange, Jacob Riis, Helen Levitt, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Lewis Hine, Diane Arbus and so many others. While in college I met people I continue to work with today including Ken Burns, Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon.

What is it about documentary filmmaking. Why are you sticking with documentary film.

I love documentary filmmaking because I’m really interested in the history being made every day. I am endlessly curious about what’s going on in the world around me. This can be emergency medical workers responding to mass casualties in Afghanistan, the landscape work in The National Parks, or filming Chimpanzees in Africa with Jane Goodall. I love to be out exploring the world. Making documentaries gives me an excuse to examine every aspect of the human experience. For example, I am completing a long-term project about Pulitzer Prize winning war photographer Yannis Behrakis. In August I accompanied Yannis to the waters off coast of Libya to document the migrant crisis. I worked on The Central Park Five, an amazing film about social justice. Documentary filmmaking is a passport into the most dynamic and interesting part of people’s lives and the world we live in.

Let me ask you this is it and I kind of this is maybe more for me and I mean this is more for shooters I guess. How do you add your personal style to a documentary like your own cinematography style?

I think any visual artist is essentially reorganizing the world in front of them in a way that makes the most sense to the individual artist. When I’m shooting a scene I’m breaking down the scene into the elements I find the most interesting and figuring out how can I communicate what I see to others. It’s really just a process of translation and it doesn’t really matter if one is a painter or still photographer or cinematographer, one is always really rebuilding the world in a way that makes sense to oneself. That is what I do all the time.

Do you know you have your sequence you can say how do you know you got what you need.

Shooting a scene is telling a short story, and if I can create a short story that makes sense to me, then I feel that scene is complete. Some stories have a beginning middle and end while others simply thrust the viewer into the middle of a particularly dynamic moment. There’s no one rule about what makes a scene. Sometimes a scene is a continuously evolving shot that lasts for two minutes. Other times 12 shots will make up a one minute sequence. It really just depends on the scene and what most truthfully, insightfully, and clearly tells the stories that I see.

What’s been your favorite project today?

Oh gosh, there are so many favorite projects. Thereʼs really no… they just run the gamut. I’ve been really fortunate to have a huge number of amazing experiences in my life. I spent three weeks with Jane Goodall filming in the hills of Gombe National Park in Tanznia. Several years ago I worked with the Dalai Lama on a film called “Compassion in Exile,” and then I worked with him again on a new film just finished this year called “The Last Dalai Lama.” I am now working on a film with prisoners earning first-rate college degrees behind bars. For The National Parks series, I spent months in the some of the most beautiful places on earth and had incredible access to those places. So sometimes it’s people, sometimes it’s events, sometimes it’s places. They’re all pretty incredible.

How do you connect to a subject like the Dalai Lama for example? Do you… I understand there’s an intimacy if youʼre with him for a while. How do you make it work

Well, working with the Dalai Lama is quite easy because he’s a genuinely open and compassionate soul. I almost want to use the word loving, but it feels trite. I think that one connects by being open, by being open to the situation in front of oneself, by being open to the people one encounters and by not clinging to preconceived notions. In verite situations, one seeks to be a witness, to probe, to ask questions and to observe without getting in the way. It’s critical to be very present and to listen. One sees that with great people in all realms. I spent time with President Bill Clinton. One sees he’s how present he is in the moment. Barak Obama does the same thing. And so I try to bring that same aspect of being really engaged and really present with whatever people, situations, or places I find myself.

You worked with Ken Burns multiple times, what’s the benefit of repeat partnerships?

Ken and I have been working together since college. A big benefit to working with people one knows well is that one develops a shorthand, one has a language and a shared history of experiences. I love working with Ken. He is a tremendously talented, innovative and creative filmmaker. Of course, Ken is a wonderful storyteller. He knows how to see and frame a story faster than anyone I know. It is really a great joy to work with Ken and the entire Florentine Films team. Ken’s films consistently go out into the world and touch a lot of people. The Vietnam War is an extraordinary filmmaking achievement. The series reinvigorates a national discussion about the many complex meanings of that war. And, the film brings us back into the drama and trauma of that singular moment in a very powerful way.

Do you ever get emotional during these interviews? Especially when one former Vietnam Vet talked about being shot in the chest. Do you ever get emotional or are you so worried by the picture and the technical that it’s hard to be connected?

I definitely get engaged with the people that I’m filming and with the stories they are telling. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten emotional to the point where I could no longer work, but I’ve been close to tears many times. You are talking about John Musgrave – that was a very powerful interview.

Yes, I am.

Being with John Musgrave is in some ways its like being with the Dalai Lama. John is just such a thoughtful, open, and genuine spirit that it is deeply moving to be with him. Listening to his stories, feeling him going back to those dark places that were so potent for him, so terrifying for him, so revealing for him… what a honor to help bring his Vietnam war to all of us.

I’m always listening – whether I’m doing verite work, whether I’m doing interviews any kind of work that involving humans talking. The most important thing I do is listen. Listening tells me where the story is. It tells me how to understand where I want to be in a given moment. – whether I want to be paying attention to the person talking or to someone receiving information. I am interested in the interactions between people. Perhaps I want to see how something is playing out on a bystander’s face. All of these things are guided by listening. Sure technical concerns are always there, technique is always a piece of it.

It is similar to playing music. If one puts in the time, one can develop a solid command of an instrument. Mostly, however, one has to trust oneself to be fluent enough with one’s instrument, or one’s camera in this case, to be able to be present in the moment and not to be distracted by the technical. Yes, filmmaking is a highly technical art form and one key to good work is getting all the technical prep stuff out of the way before one starts shooting.

How do you approach lighting an interview?

It really depends on the subject and the context within a given film. I like to approach each interview with an understanding of how the interview is going to be used. I film interviews about the Civil War differently than a currently incarcerated person talking about the importance education in their life. Does the setting reflect or tell us something about the person in that moment? Do I want know that I am in a prison cell, is that an important piece of the story? Or do I want to make the present location go away and just create an intimate space for a conversation between the person speaking and the viewer? Does the setting reflect something about the story being told or do I want that setting to get out of the way and tell a different story? Is the mood dark and mysterious as in the Donner Party, or is it lighter and optimistic? Is the lighting natural or stylized? All these things effect how the story is going to play out. Once one knows the kind of mood and feeling one wants to portray, then the rest of it is relatively easy. Lighting becomes a matter of trying things out to see what works and what doesn’t work. It’s a process of looking at every single piece of the frame and deciding if this piece of the frame is doing what I want it to do. Does this frame have the qualities of lightness, darkness, color, shape, focus or lack of focus that lets this person come through best, that lets their story come through with the most power.

How do you stay motivated?

I love what I do. I love being with people. I love having access to them. I’m doing a film right now with Gustavo Dudamel, the Venezuelan conductor of both the LA Philharmonic and the Simon Bolivar Orchestra of Venezuela. Often in rehearsals, I get to be five feet from the conductor, crouched down somewhere between the violas and the cellos in the middle of an orchestra bringing Beethoven to life. That’s an amazing experience. Nobody gets to be there, even other members of the orchestra. I can be inches away from the conductor at the start on the downbeat, then move to the winds, the percussion, a row of first violins. I can go into the audience and experience the music as an audience member. I have free reign to be inside of a piece of Beethoven with one of the greatest conductors in the world and one of the greatest orchestras in the world. That’s very exciting.

How do you balance your work life and personal life?

I love my work and I love my family even more. Every moment I am not working, I spend with my family. I don’t believe in doing anything half way. It’s full on commitment on all fronts. Making films can be hard on family life. I travel a great deal and work very long hours, but the moment I come home I engage 100% with my family. I love being with my wife and sons and I give them as much as I possibly can.

If you werenʼt a filmmaking what would you be?

I would probably be a journalist of some sort, which is kind of the same thing. My interests have to do with understanding my own reaction to the world outside of myself. I seek that in lots of different ways. If I was not making films, I would probably find some way to be out in the mountains climbing or skiing, exploring in some way.

That sounds actually like a lot of fun. And then this would be the last question unless Iʼm forgetting anything. What would you tell your 20-year-old self? Now you could go back when this all started. What would you say?

I would tell my 20-year-old self not to waste time, to trust myself, to follow my passion.

The post ART OF THE SHOT: Buddy Squires, ASC Talks About Shooting Ken Burn and Lynn Novick’s “The Vietnam War” appeared first on ProVideo Coalition.

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theliterateape · 7 years

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Unpacking Branson: A Thanksgiving Improbability

By Don Hall

In the late 1960s it was pretty much a tiny city in the Ozarks known for roadside stands peddling wares that proliferated the hillbilly stereotype. And, sure enough, there are still today roadside stands that exist only to continue to make fun of that stereotype. It's an odd thing to walk into a business in the middle of the Ozarks that sells you the stereotype it tries to escape from. Like buying a taxi cab medallion from an East Indian store or an "I'm a Wetback" t-shirt in a store that sells Mexican merchandise.

It is said you cannot judge a book by its cover.

This is true most of the time, but there are some things you can judge immediately by its cover and pretty much know what your getting.

An Ann Coulter book. Sean Hannity. A FOX News broadcast. Great America. Applebee's.

I assumed that Branson, Missouri would fall into this latter category. I was right and wrong. And the complexities made it a real trip to remember.

Branson is where the Beverly Hillbillies came from before moving to California.

A winding series of roads littered with signs and theaters and restaurants. Lots of bumper stickers that declare "I'd Rather Be Dead Than SOCIALIST" and random tributes to past GOP glory. In the three days we trucked around the city, I counted perhaps one hundred people of color the entire time—I didn't start the trip by calculating this but after a bit, it was hard to escape. Thousands of old white people with canes and wheelchairs abounded but that doesn't really look that much different than Navy Pier or the audience at Chicago Shakes—old white people like to be tourists and Branson is, after all, a haven of tourism.

My step-sister, Hannah, tells me that the crack business booms among the residents of Branson and there is evidence around if you're looking for it. The place is slightly schizophrenic in its place as a home to rednecks and hillbillies while trying desperately to distance itself from that by appealing to the tourist trade. There are places that stink of what one expects in Ozarks—a biker bar called the Hawg Trough that even my pro-GOP brother-in-law avoids and a Smoke Shop that doesn't sell cigarettes and has a pit bull guarding the door. But there are surprises that popped up during my three-day Thanksgiving vacation that defied my pre-judged expectations.

The surprises came in weird ways. When I arrived, we ate at a place called the Rowdy Beaver—a place with t-shirts that trumpeted "I Like Bald Beaver" and "That's A Mighty Nice Beaver" and had washboard walls. The thing that surprised was that the food was out of this world. It was delicious and well prepared and not at all what I expected. "Our chef prepares everything from fresh ingredients," trumpeted our waitress who seemed completely fine with her job at a place filled with such juvenile innuendo.

The Hollywood Wax Museum was fun but the wax figures left me a bit wanting—a frequent refrain of our visit was my niece saying "Who's that?" and me doing my best to figure it out. I tried to convince my family to go to Silver Dollar City so I could find and steal a urinal cake but it was $60 per person and even I couldn't argue that $300 was reasonable for me to complete a toilet cookie tale. We had tickets to a magic show billed as the World's Largest (by the way, every attraction in Branson is billed as "Show of the Year," "The Most Amazing in the World," and "Mindblowing") but the show was cancelled due to illness. Turns out Kirby VanBurch's greatest trick is to take your money and disappear.

SIX is six middle-aged brothers who debuted on the Donnie and Marie Show and have fashioned themselves as sort of an older version of an a cappella boy band. As soon as they started with a cheeseball version of Don't Stop Believin', Hannah and I turned to each other with a look of pained resignation. These guys had pretty good voices and the arrangements were fine but the self-consciously hip pose and cornball attempts at cool banter was unbearable. I learned that wanting to see an awful Branson show and actually sitting through one are two different things. I also learned that I will never, as a middle-aged white guy, ever use the words "homie" or "peeps" ever again. To be fair, the second act was better—a selection of Christmas songs and a tribute to their dead mother. Apparently this tiny woman had ten children, all boys, and I suspect she isn't dead but just got the fuck out of there before having to bear an eleventh kid. But the damage of the first act left me scarred and a little terrified of that evening's show—Legends at the Dick Clark American Bandstand Theater.

And it wasn't.

Really. In fact, it was a blast. The Whitney Houston knocked it out of the park, Liberace was funny but completely inappropriate in a callback to the dark days of The Gay Closet and the Elvis impersonator was so fucking good, if we had been sitting in the nose bleeds it would've been like actually seeing Elvis live. My mom, a huge Elvis fan from when he was alive, commented that he was the best Elvis impersonator she had ever seen. Hell, even my teenaged nieces enjoyed the show.

But we saved the best, most Branson-y show for Saturday. Yakov Smirnoff. Holy shit. I couldn't wait. I was absolutely certain it would embody everything I expected Branson to be—cheesy, cloying, the very portrait of a has-been celebrity stretching out his 15 minutes of fame as paper thin as he could in the heart of the Vegas of the Ozarks. We were greeted by a giant Yakov head making awful jokes about... the size of his head! Inside, it turned out that Yakov was a painter and had his paintings for sale!

The beginning of the show was the longest version of the national anthem I've ever heard (who know there were, like, nine verses?) and then I was hit with another fucking surprise. On the video screens came an old Paul Harvey "The Rest of the Story" about a painter known as Jacob who painted and commissioned a painting in tribute to the fallen at Ground Zero in NYC following the Attacks of 9/11. Painted on the side of a building overlooking the rubble, it was the backdrop to the first anniversary of the attacks. The painter was an anonymous Yakov Smirnoff. He paid for the commission out of his own pocket.

Some of his show was what I expected: a revisitation of his "What a Country!" schtick from the '80s—a sketch of him as the president answering questions from the audience, and he actually quoted the Lee Greenwood God Bless the U.S.A. as a closer. But other parts were not at all what I anticipated. Turns out that Yakov went out and got a Master's Degree in psychology and decided that his show could also serve as a relationship counseling session as well. Sort of like Defending the Caveman meets a less arrogant Dr. Phill with the takeaway being that we begin relationships laughing and giving each other little gifts and that, if we simply return to giving each other gifts and finding laughter in our relationships, we'll be happier, healthier people.

Was it a great show? Not really. The dancers were cheesy and only there to fill time, the jokes were funny in a "Yeah, I remember that one" sort of way, the political stuff was tame (although at one point, Yakov asked the audience who was happy with the results of the latest election—a smattering of applause that included my mother and I enthusiastically cheering—and who was ticked off by it—a thundering, slightly ugly ovation—with the Russian comic commenting "Yeah, that's about even...") and the recurring pro-America stuff was hard to hear after a while. But the thing is... I liked him.

Prejudice is a funny thing. Judging books by their covers is what we do as people. I imagine it's a hard drive instinct. But, as I am often heard saying, while we are all unique and precious snowflakes and each of us is completely distinct, we are all made of fucking snow. We all are simply people trying our best to get along in the world. Yes, that means that our baser, uglier instincts come to play like ordinary people rioting in a Walmart on Black Friday to get a discount on a portable DVD player. It also means that our better, more generous nature comes into play, and sometimes it's nice to be reminded that even in Red State Hell, Yakov Smirnoff is telling thousands of people every week to just be fucking nicer to each other.

#Jim Stafford #Branson #Thanksgiving #Silver Dollar City #Missouri #SIX #Yakov Smirnoff

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