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repurpose-yourself · 2 years

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Cutting Through Static

“Man, it seemed like a good idea a few months ago but you’re a damn slob,” Dante said to no one in particular, “Sure, I needed a roommate. But I meant like college roommate, not some 40-year-old guy who can’t keep a steady job.”

Dante opened the washing machine’s lid and reached in, taking hold of a clump of clothing. He yanked it out, dropping it onto the dryer. Without much thought, he shook out each article and tossed it into the dryer.

“Things were fine at first. But fuck, man, you’re a disaster!” Dante remarked, tossing more clothing into the half filled dryer, “And you just couldn’t take a hint. You’re subletting from me. I am the renter of this place. What I want goes and since you didn’t agree...”

The last article of clothing was thrown in. Dante picked up a small dryer sheet from the top of the machine, carefully unfolding it before throwing it into the metal drum too.

“Maybe there are better things to turn you into,” Dante said with a shrug, “But it just happens I am out of dryer sheets. I guess it’s poetic justice, in a way. My slob of a roommate becomes the source of clean for my clothing. Not bad.”

The door was slammed and Dante’s former roommate was plunged into darkness. The thin, living dryer sheet rested upon a pile of shirts, shorts, socks, boxers and towels - cold and damp. If the living object could shiver, it would have. All its pleading stayed confined within its woven fibers, a trapped voice never to be heard again.

Fear struck the dryer sheet profoundly. It didn’t know what to expect. Sure, the former human had done laundry many times and understood the function of a dryer sheet. But to be stuck as one, going from human to something meant to reduce static and make things smell good, was a significant departure.

What would a drying cycle be like? Will it hurt? Will it burn? What happens afterwards? All these questions the dryer sheet had were about to be answered as Dante turned the timer to 70 minutes and pushed the power button.

‘Dante!’ the dryer sheet pleaded internally as the drum started to turn.

The machine began humming, filling the interior with cold air at first. But slowly the electric heater increased the temperature. Now the dryer sheet found itself frantically trying to remember how hot dryers ran. It could be deadly to a human being, if one were to get caught inside. But a dryer sheet? The living object just couldn’t fathom an answer.

By now Dante’s clothing had tumbled enough that the former human was completely intertwined in the damp cloth. The dryer sheet was thankful to be covered in clean clothing. Though, this situation itself wasn’t ideal. It amounted more towards humiliation and complete disregard for the life within the dryer.

As seconds transitioned into minutes, the heat infiltrated every fiber of the dryer sheet. It burned slightly, although the white exterior remained just that. Spinning constantly also added to the misery. The experience reminded the living object of a hot, humid day at the fair.

Unable to do anything beyond simply exist, the living dryer sheet suffered immensely as Dante’s clothing dried slowly. Rotation after rotation left the former human nearly permanently dizzy, even though it didn’t have a brain. Becoming so overwhelmed by simply a dryer running, even the loud buzzer was lost upon the former human.

Dante walked over the machine and pulled the door open. A few items fell out onto the floor, uncovering the dryer sheet. The young man smiled looking in. He reached inside and grabbed a bunch of clothing, pulling the dryer sheet into the mix. Unfortunately, as Dante stood up, the living object fell onto the floor. It watched the giant man walk away, still recoiling from the horrendous experience.

The college student returned from the bedroom, ready to grab more clothing. As Dante walked, the dryer sheet yelled out as the young man’s broad foot loomed overhead. It crashed down upon the living object, causing it to become stuck to Dante’s sole. A few foot steps later Dante stopped and looked down at the floor.

“There you are. You must have fallen,” Dante smirked, bending down and yanking the dryer sheet from his foot, “Let’s put you where you belong.”

Dante’s remark didn’t instill hope in the dryer sheet.

“My clothes smell good, amazingly,” Dante said as he rounded a corner into the kitchen, “So thank you for that.”

His barefoot stomped down on the trash can step, causing the lid to flip open.

‘Dante! Please!’ the dryer sheet screamed.

“You’re all used up now,” Dante said in a matter-of-fact tone, “And unlike you, I know where garbage goes.”

Dante released the living dryer sheet over the trash can. It dropped slowly into the bag, sliding down the clean plastic sides to the bottom. Overhead, the lid shut gently, returning the living object to a familiar darkness like before.

But this time, there would be no heat. There would be no spinning. There would only be regret and sadness, waiting for the trash can to be filled up and inevitably thrown out. No one would know what happened to the former roommate. No one would come looking in a trash bag.

Just alone, afraid and nothing more but garbage...

#inanimate object #inanimate transformation #inanimate tf #dryer sheet tf #nonconsensual tf #revenge tf

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esselley · 6 years

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Happy birthday @allykat023! I’m so glad I snuck into your DMs all those months ago <333 LOVE YOU LOTS!

[Now on AO3!]

[*clears throat* the context for this fic is that Oikawa is a psychic single dad trying to raise two annoying ghost kids, and the ghosts are winning]

It is beginning to become clear to Tooru that there is, in fact, some absolute bullshit going on, and he is definitely not amused by any of it.

This is the fifth time in a little over a month he’s had to have a plumber come to look at his apartment—he’s even had to reschedule tarot readings—and yet, as far as anyone can tell, plumber included… nothing seems to be the problem.

Which means that the only problem, then, is the bright and unabiding torch Tooru seems to be unable to set down, in regards to the plumber himself.

“So…” the man says, wiping his hands dry on a towel in his belt loop. Tooru has to tear his eyes away from the prominent flex of his biceps as he does so, the swell of his pecs beneath his uniform polo shirt. The name tag on it reads Iwaizumi. “Can you walk me through what happened again?”

Tooru almost offers to walk him wherever he wants to go, up to and including the bedroom. He clenches his jaw shut so the words don’t escape. Now is not the time to be thirsty—he doesn’t even have running water.

“I was in the shower,” he says, and feels his cheeks go distinctly pink just from the suggestion of nakedness, and forces himself to look at the man. Mistake. He finds his gaze being met by a pair of serious, attentive green eyes; Tooru feels like he’s baring his soul, not recapping the issues with his faulty water line. He clears his throat, hoping Iwaizumi has not noticed the unnecessarily long pause while he gathers himself. “I was… showering, when the water started to feel—strange? I don’t know how to describe it. And when I looked, it was… purple.”

“Purple,” Iwaizumi repeats, deadpan.

“Yes.”

“Well,” Iwaizumi says, turning the shower knob to the side. Out the water comes, clear as usual. “It’s not now.”

“I can see that,” Tooru sniffs. It’s one thing to have a crush; it’s another thing to have a crush on someone who clearly thinks he’s an idiot.

“Just like,” the distressingly attractive handyman continues, and oh, no, Tooru can see what’s coming next, “last week, when not only did the water not run cold when you tried to turn it hot, but the toilet also flushed the correct way. Which is to say—”

“Down, yes, I know,” Tooru cuts him off, feeling increasingly mortified. Last week had really been a nightmare—frigid water every time he tried to shower, and toilet geysers every which way he looked. “Look, I’m just as confused as you are! One of your colleagues who came the… second time, was it? He said it could be something to do with the pipes. Mold, or something!” He shudders at the thought. “Maybe he could give a second opinion?”

Iwaizumi scoffs. “He’s not coming back. Why do you think I’ve been here four times already?”

“I don’t… know?” Tooru says. “I figured—scheduling?”

“Yeah, he’s been scheduling himself other jobs so he doesn’t have to come here,” Iwaizumi says. “He’s superstitious. All your weird, mystical stuff, it freaked him out.”

“What—” Tooru can’t believe this. “But it’s not dangerous!”

“You try telling him that,” Iwaizumi says, shaking his head. “He kept telling me he felt a presence.”

“But I would have felt it, too,” Tooru insists. He knows people tend to take one of two routes with this: skittish, like the other plumber. Or skeptical, like Iwaizumi. But he seriously needs his house fixed, or he’s going to lose it. “There’s no other presences here, besides me and—”

He trails off. Wait just a fucking second.

“That’s what I tried to tell him, but he wouldn’t bite. So, good luck getting him back here…” Iwaizumi shrugs. “Looks like you’re stuck with me.”

Tooru waves a hand vaguely. “Oh, I don’t mind that.” He peers around the room, turning in a slow circle.

“You… don’t?” Iwaizumi asks, eyebrows raising in surprise. When Tooru doesn’t answer, he glances around the room suspiciously, too. “What are you doing?”

“Shhh...” Tooru says, holding up a hand. “I’m divining for spirits.”

“Are you serious,” Iwaizumi says flatly. “Listen, I’m gonna pack up and head out—I won’t bill you for today, I barely—”

“Shhhhh!” Tooru hisses, silencing him. The air in the room feels very still, to him—still and pitched high, like a tuning fork being struck although in reality, all is quiet.

He spots movement at the edges of his vision and whips his head sharply to the side, where he sees them—two wide, floating pairs of eyes in the bathroom mirror, not a reflection, but an impression. One pair deep and dark, the other sparking and bright. Two little souls, bound to him by choice.

He flings out a hand and points dramatically at the mirror. “It’s been YOUUUU!” he howls, startling Iwaizumi, and both pairs of eyes dance about in silent panic before blipping out of existence. Only they’re still there, he knows, just hiding.

“What the fuck—” Iwaizumi says, but very unfortunately, Tooru doesn’t have time to devote to him anymore—he needs to figure out how to murder someone who is already dead. An exorcism is too good for these little shits.

“Sorry, Iwa-chan, but I'll have to say bye for today—” Tooru tells him as he rolls his sleeves up menacingly.

“Iwa-chan?”

“The spirits have turned against me!” Tooru yells, shoving him towards the door. “This is no place for a normal person, quickly, escape!”

“Wait a second—”

“I'll be fine!” Tooru insists, before he bodily shoved Iwaizumi out into the hallway. It's not easy—Iwaizumi is solid. “Forget what you saw here today,” Tooru hisses ominously at him through the crack in the door, before slamming it shut in his stunned face.

Now. To deal with his little ghoulish problem.

He yanks the plush tablecloth and all his seance equipment off his dining room table and locates a piece of ordinary chalk. After several moments of frantic scribbling, it is covered in the symbols and sigils of a powerful summoning circle. He places candles around the edges, and begins to chant a binding ritual ominously. The candle flames flicker, and his hair blows in the gathering breeze inside his living room.

A noise begins to build as well, a terrible, scraping, screaming noise, filled with agony and tumult. It gets louder as he chants, and as it grows, so too do two indistinct shapes in the center of the summoning circle. They writhe and tremble, shapes at once frightening and pitiable, carving to his whim at the same time that they fight it with all their might. The flames suddenly surge upwards, bursting to life, and Tooru slams his hands down on the tabletop.

“Would you give it a rest with that?” he says crossly, and the unearthly screeching stops at once. “The neighbors are going to complain again!”

“Why couldn't you just call us normally?” Kageyama asks him. His ghostly form bubbles sulkily, like seething, purplish-blue lava.

“Because,” Tooru says, pointing an accusatory finger at him, “you two never come out when you know you're in trouble, you just make me follow your traces all over the apartment—”

“Are we in trouble?” Hinata asks. He is light made solid, a fizzing sine wave of glinting gold.

“Obviously!” Tooru says, and both ghosts wobble flinchingly. “What on earth are you two trying to do? Do you know how much money I've spent on repair company appraisals that all lead nowhere?”

Honestly, even he isn’t sure what they’re up to. It's not like them—they aren't poltergeists, they're not malicious. For all that Tooru pretends it's a chore having them around, he's constantly surprised by how little he actually does mind. Since the two of them unceremoniously crashed his life as an (extremely) eligible bachelor and practicing psychic, they've been content to just keep each other company and learn how to be better ghosts. Unfortunately, this seems to have included manifesting the ability to haunt his plumbing.

He shakes his head. “This isn't like you two. I'm… frankly, I'm disappointed.”

The candles flicker morosely and the chandelier directly overhead sways in remorse.

“We… we just wanted to help,” Hinata says eventually.

“Help with what?” Tooru asks, blankly.

“You just seemed lonely!”

“He’s gonna get mad…” Kageyama warns.

“I seemed lonely?” Tooru repeats, sputtering. That's preposterous, to say the least. “I'm certainly not. I could never be lonely with you two—” he catches himself just in time, “—with you two constantly pestering me!”

“It's not the same!” Hinata says.

“Trust me, Shouyou-chan—”

“We noticed the way you stare at the repairman,” Kageyama interjects.

Tooru's mouth falls open. He cannot believe he is being set up with his plumber by two dead idiots who still haven't realized they are in love with each other.

“Have you, Tobio-chan?” he replies, with a silken smile. “Recognize the feeling, do you?”

Kageyama must realize the danger he's in, because he stops trying to argue. Tooru drops his smile.

“You two,” he says, “are going to stay in the circle for awhile and think about your actions. Also, there is to be no possessing of any household objects for one whole week, effective immediately.”

Kageyama and Hinata both whine something awful at this, and Tooru crosses his arms and basks in their misery for a few glorious moments. They love racing each other to possess things right before Tooru uses them, but they’ve never try to make anything malfunction before, so he allows it. Hinata's favorite is the teapot, because it tickles when it starts to boil. Kageyama likes the aging washing machine. He's never said why, but Tooru suspects it's because the old thing sounds nearly as grumpy as Kageyama himself does when it really gets going on its spin cycle.

“Keep it up,” he sings, as the candles start to turn an odd shade of green, “and it's gonna be two weeks.”

The whining stops, but Kageyama does throw a “You know we're right,” at him as he leaves them there in the summoning circle. Tooru does not deign to respond.

“How long before we can come out?” Hinata calls after him.

“Until I say you can,” Tooru replies. He ignores their ghostly wailing for the rest of the afternoon, until they have settled down and started to play I, Spy with each other. He refuses to admit that he finds it adorable when they get along, even if it's mostly because they're plotting against him together.

Unfortunately, the plotting does not end there. A few days pass without incident, and Tooru is lulled into a false sense of security. The week comes and goes; Friday arrives in a leisurely fashion. So leisurely, in fact, that Tooru decides to take a luxurious bubble bath to pamper himself. He spends a long time soaking in the tub, and is slightly surprised to see no signs of his two ghosts anywhere—normally, they would get into a game of Bubble Wars while Tooru relaxed, watching the massive orange and blue soap bubbles floating around the bathroom, trying to ram each other to see who would pop first. Today, all is quiet, and so Tooru enjoys a glass of wine in peace.

He finishes his bath and lets the tub drain, wrapping towels around his waist and his wet hair. He will need to blow dry it and make sure it looks appropriately dashing before his evening client appointment, and he’s about to dig the hairdryer out from under the sink when there’s an odd rumbling sound from behind him. He turns, frowning, to look at the toilet.

Naturally, this is the point at which the toilet attempts to murder him.

“WHY?!” he shrieks, devoid of anything else to say in his panic, as twisting tendrils of water burst from the bowl, latching around his arms and legs, dragging him towards it. Try as he might, he can’t break free, and as he is wrenched closer and closer, the entire opening of the toilet seems to yawn, wide—he can see blackness and light swirling in its depths, and he realizes, shit, spirit portal— “Tobio-chan?! Shouyou?!”

The entire bathroom is flooding with water. There’s a horrible, slurping, shloomp-ing sound as Tooru hits the rim of the bowl and starts to get sucked inside of it. He can feel the vacuum of empty space seizing onto him, an unstoppable force.

“You little shits, I’m going to make you corporeal long enough to punch you both in the face—”

He hears a loud banging from far away, and wonders, what now, but then comes the sound of something splintering, and a moment later a voice bellows, “OIKAWA?”

Tooru gasps. “I-Iwa-chan?!”

He hears someone running, and then Iwaizumi—how is he here, Tooru wonders—bursts onto the scene, framed in the doorway, bearing a stunning resemblance to an angry bull. He takes in the sight before him quickly—the toilet, the spirit portal, Tooru’s hair in a towel cone—and leaps into action. He wades through the flood, reaching out, and Tooru stretches out his hands—Iwaizumi grabs his arms and heaves, and Tooru begins, ever so slowly, to pull free of the portal.

“GRAB ON, STUPID!” Iwaizumi shouts at him, and Tooru throws caution to the winds and flings his arms around his neck, and Iwaizumi seizes him around the waist and yells bloody murder as he leans all the way backwards—and then they’re falling free, onto the bathroom floor, Tooru crushed to Iwaizumi’s extremely firm and noticeably broad chest. There’s a howling, rushing noise, and all the water on the floor recedes whiplash fast, suctioned back into the toilet, which then closes its lid with a sassy and decisive snap.

For a moment, neither Tooru, nor Iwaizumi moves. They just lay there, panting and exhausted. Iwaizumi lets out a slow breath.

“Holy shit,” he says, “your apartment is haunted.”

Tooru sighs. “It’s not haunted. It’s being visited by spirits.”

“That literally is what haunted means,” Iwaizumi points out.

“We’re not visiting, we live here!” Tobio’s ghostly voice shouts in Tooru’s ear.

“I’m evicting you!” Tooru shouts back, incensed.

“Are you talking to the—” Iwaizumi says, before sitting up abruptly, causing Tooru to roll off of him. He hastily readjusts the towel around his waist—he’s lucky it stayed on at all. Iwaizumi swats at the air. “Hey! You fucking ghosts! What the hell is your problem?!”

“They’re trying to get me to—” Tooru pinches his lips shut, irritably. He settles on redirecting the conversation. “Why… how did you know I was in trouble?”

“I didn’t,” Iwaizumi says. “I mean, not until I heard you screaming.”

“Screaming seems like an exaggeration—”

“I thought it was the fire alarm at first,” Iwaizumi says. He is ruthless. Tooru likes it.

“Okay,” he concedes, “but that doesn’t explain why you were here.”

“Ah,” Iwaizumi says, “well… the days have been alternating.” When Tooru continues to look confused, he elaborates. “The first time you called us was on a Monday. Then Thursday of that same week. Then the next week, Friday. Then last week, back to Monday, then Thursday. Now it’s Friday, so I just thought…”

“Of course.” Tooru snaps his fingers in realization. “Spirits can’t tell the flow of time like you or I, so often, they’ll develop certain predictable paths of behavior… you must be sensitive to their ways in order to have seen that!”

Iwaizumi stares at him. “Or… I’m just better at pattern recognition than you are?”

Tooru waves a hand. “Whatever. Second question: did you break my door down?”

Iwaizumi’s expression turns slightly shifty. “Kicked it off its hinges, actually… I can fix it.”

Tooru only wishes he'd been there to witness it. Iwaizumi stands, and Tooru allows himself to be helped to his feet, Iwaizumi’s strong, sturdy arms steadying him after he pulls Tooru off the floor. He notices, then, two fuzzy gazes peering out of the mirror at him, and scowls at them. He can’t decide how angry he is yet. On the one hand, having Iwaizumi come daringly to his rescue is hardly the worst thing that could be happening to him on a Friday afternoon. On the other hand, he’d been stuck inside of a toilet when it had happened; not quite the stuff of romance novels.

Iwaizumi notices him staring, and turns to look curiously at the mirror. “You don’t act like they’re evil.”

“They’re not,” Tooru says, rolling his eyes. “They’re just meddlesome and stupid.”

“Hey!” Hinata yelps.

“Well, you are.”

Iwaizumi’s lips twitch. “So… mind telling me what they were meddling for?”

“Um…” Tooru does mind—but unfortuately, it doesn’t seem as though this is going to stop unless he does something drastic. Like telling Iwaizumi the truth. And so, because he doesn’t want some innocent civilian constantly being pulled into the affairs of ghosts, he says glumly, “They want me to ask you out.”

There. Now, Iwaizumi will reject him, and Kageyama and Hinata will finally get out of his business.

“Well, why don’t you?” Iwaizumi asks.

“Why don’t I what?”

“Why don’t you ask me out?”

Tooru opens his mouth to explain why he’s not going to ask Iwaizumi out, when his synapses finish firing properly. He blinks. “...I thought you’d say no.”

“Okay…” Iwaizumi says, and though his expression is completely serious, Tooru swears his dark eyes are gleaming a bit in amusement. “Why would I say no?”

“Because I’m weird,” Tooru tells him. Is he being made fun of?

Iwaizumi shrugs. “Everyone’s a little weird,” he says. “You talk to ghosts. I get crushes on idiots who can talk to ghosts. While I’m trying to fix their haunted toilet.”

“You—have a—” Tooru splutters. “On—on me?”

“Yeah, so, I may not have been totally honest before?” Iwaizumi confesses. “You did freak my colleague out, but I offered to take the house calls from you… I was pretty curious.”

Tooru gapes at him for a few more seconds, before composing himself. He attempts to sweep his hair back, but just ends up knocking the towel off his head. He acts like this was intentional.

“Well, then,” he says, “I’m glad that’s been resolved.” He turns to address the room at large. “You hear that, you monsters? I told you I’d take care of it, so you can stop being the worst, now.” Oh, my god, Iwaizumi is into him.

“You didn’t take care of jack shit,” Kageyama says.

“Language, Tobio-chan!”

“You swear all the time!”

“What… are their names again?” Iwaizumi asks.

“The stupid one is Shouyou,” Tooru says, ignoring Hinata’s continued protesting. “And the stupider one is Tobio.” Tobio joins in.

Iwaizumi tries unsuccessfully to bite back a grin. “Okay. Well… Shouyou, Tobio, I’m Hajime. It’s, uh—nice to meet you?”

The discarded towel suddenly lifts at the corners, like it’s waving at Iwaizumi. He takes a reflexive step backwards, before laughing, somewhat in shock. He waves back.

It makes Tooru feel terribly fond, which he hates; not just because he's only spoken to Iwaizumi five times so far in his life, but also because Hinata and Kageyama deserve an exorcism, not an introduction. But Tooru thinks he will let it slide, this once.

“Would you like a cup of coffee?” he asks Iwaizumi.

“I would…” Iwaizumi says, “but I should probably head home to shower…”

“Stay,” Tooru says lightly, even though his heart is pounding, just a little. “And use mine?”

Iwaizumi grins. “Might as well. I’m pretty familiar with it already.”

This is actually a continuation of a previous ghost!KageHina fic I wrote, which can be read here! And has a sequel here~

[For easy-to-find updates on fic, I have a writing-only blog: @esselle-hq!]

#haikyuu!!#iwaoi #oikawa tooru #iwaizumi hajime #kagehina #kageyama tobio #hinata shouyou #kagehina fanfiction #haikyuu!! fanfiction #esselle writes #tumblr fic #the haunting of oikawa tooru #essie's hq fic

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lolablackwrites · 7 years

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Wanderlust, Part 8 - Zig x MC

Summary: The time has come and Zig can’t wait any longer to ask MC (Lydia) the question he’s been dying to ask.

Notes: Only one more installment of this series to go (which will be released on Monday)! Thank you so much to everyone for reading, I love you all so much :-) If you’re new to this series, you can catch up here: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7

Fanfic Master List

The German morning was clear and bright as Zig and Lydia made their way towards the center of the village. Lydia couldn’t stop marveling at the buildings as they walked.

“Don’t you think this whole place looks like a postcard?” she asked as she took his hand in hers. She paused, waiting for him to speak, but Zig said nothing. Lydia frowned slightly, but didn’t comment on it. Zig had been acting so strangely all morning, so preoccupied with his own thoughts. He’d always been kind of in his own head, but not quite to this extent and certainly not on this trip. Zig had been so engaged in the moment, so present with her, but today . . . Lydia didn’t know what was going on, but she felt like she couldn’t quite reach him. She tried to shake it off; everyone had off days. She knew she did. Maybe today was just an off day. After all, they’d basically been going non-stop since they’d arrived in Europe weeks ago. They were due to fly back to the states from Berlin in a few days, maybe he was just feeling burnt out from all the constant action of the trip.

Maybe I’ll set up a staycation when we get back Lydia thought, half-smiling to herself. A vacation from our vacation. We’ll just camp out in our apartment, cook together, and watch movies.

An uninvited thought suddenly appeared in the back of her mind. Maybe he was distant because he was having second thoughts . . . No, that can’t be it Lydia assured herself. They’d been together for years, they were living together, they’d talked about starting a business together--Zig hadn’t given any indication of wanting to slow down. In fact, Lydia had thought that maybe he . . . no, she couldn’t think about that right now. She was afraid she’d jinx it.

When they reached the center of town, Lydia gasped. She couldn’t believe what she saw. In the middle of the square was a large fountain surrounded by a cobblestone walkway and planters filled with bright red poppies. The flowers were so colorful they almost hurt Lydia’s eyes to look at them. The whole thing looked just like an illustration.

“That’s so beautiful!” Lydia exclaimed, tugging Zig’s hand and pulling him closer to the fountain.

“Hmm?” Zig asked, pulled back out of his own thoughts. “Oh. Yeah, it is,” he agreed, seeming to notice the fountain for the first time. “It looks like an illustration or something.”

Lydia smiled at him.

“This whole town reminds me so much of a fairytale,” she said as she blushed. “Maybe this is a little childish, but I’ve always loved fairytales. The magic, the romance,” she glanced at Zig and squeezed his hand. “The true love.”

Zig suddenly stepped away from her and dropped her hand. Lydia’s smile fell and her stomach dropped. Oh god. Did I say the wrong thing?

“Is . . . something wrong?” she asked tentatively, the blood rushing in her ears.

“Sit down for a minute,” Zig said, gently touching her elbow as he led her over to the fountain where they sat on the stone edge together. Lydia noticed her hands were shaking and she folded them tightly in her lap.

“I . . . okay, I don’t know how to say what I have to say,” Zig said, swallowing hard. “So I’m just going to say it.”

Lydia waited, her heart beating like hummingbird wings. He finally met her eyes and closed his hands over hers.

“Lydia . . . I don’t know the right way to say this. You’re the one who’s good with words, not me,” he paused, licking his dry lips. “I’m not perfect. I’m far from perfect. I mean, you live with me, you already know that. I leave my towels on the floor, I forget about leftovers in the fridge, and I constantly forget about clothes I left in the washing machine.”

“You’re not the only one guilty of the washing machine thing, we both do that,” Lydia interjected. Zig laughed nervously and she felt a flutter of hope inside her stomach.

“But,” he continued, “despite all of my imperfections, our love is the most perfect thing I’ve ever known. I love you more than anyone or anything else in my life and I want to spend the rest of my life trying to make you as happy as you make me.”

Lydia watched as Zig dug his wallet out of his pocket and he removed a white gold ring from it. Her head swam in disbelief and she couldn’t quite believe that what she was seeing was real. Zig slid off of the fountain ledge and lowered himself down onto one knee.

“Lydia . . . will you marry me?”

She stared at the ring until tears blurred her vision and Zig and the ring swam before her. Time stilled for a moment as she took in what was happening. Lydia had imagined this moment for so long but to finally see it before her . . . it was so much better than any fantasy she’d ever had.

Lydia realized she hadn’t said anything yet and Zig was staring at her imploringly, the crease between his eyes growing deeper.

“Yes! Yes, of course!” Lydia exclaimed, the tears falling down her cheeks. Zig’s face broke into a grin and he grabbed her and kissed her, his lips trembling against hers. When they pulled apart, Lydia saw the tears that were shining on his own face. She gently wiped them away with her thumbs before kissing his cheeks, the remnants salty against her lips.

Zig stood up and picked her up, spinning her beside the fountain.

“I love you so much,” he said, his face buried in her neck.

“I love you more,” Lydia said as she inhaled the scent of him.

“Impossible.” Zig pulled back a little, grinning at her. “Hey, so, I think this is yours.” He held up the ring. Lydia held out her hand, unable to suppress her smile. Zig slid the ring on her finger and she held it up, admiring the way the diamond caught the sunlight.

“So, you know what this means, right?” Lydia asked.

“It means we’re getting married?” Zig asked tentatively. She laughed.

“Yes, that,” Lydia agreed. “But it also means that our laundry is going to be screwed if neither of us can remember it’s in the washing machine.”

“Tell you what,” Zig said. “When our coffee shop becomes wildly successful, we’ll send our laundry out. How’s that sound?”

“Perfect,” Lydia said. Then she leaned forward and kissed her fiancé beside a fountain, decorated with bright red poppies, in a fairytale town in Germany.

#playchoices #choices stories you play #pixelberry #fanfic #Zig Ortega #Zig #Zig Ortega x MC #Zig x MC #Germany #proposal #The Freshman #The Sophomore

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letsprayitwritesitself · 7 years

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cut you a piece

(warning for fic and song: mention of character death and car accident)

Davey never beat him home. And they never forgot to switch the light off. So when Jack got home from the studio to see a thin sliver of light escaping under their door, his stomach sank and he had to take a minute or so to prepare himself before going back into the apartment he shared with the love of his life.

He held his keys in his pocket, rested his forehead on the door, and let out a long, quiet, sigh.

Rewind to that morning. 8am. It was Monday, and both of their first days back after the accident. Any day would have felt too soon, they knew that, but that morning, trying to return to the actions they'd been able to do so unconsciously just a couple of weeks before - Davey's alarm waking them both up, Jack hitting the shower while Davey made them both coffee, then Jack making breakfast while Davey showered and the coffee cooled - seemed impossible. Today Davey had almost managed the coffee, dedicating himself as much as he could to at least the motions of normalcy, albeit adapting them a little to include standing at the sink staring out the window for five minutes while the water ran over his coffee cup until Jack, warm and damp and solid, usually Davey's favourite vision in a white fluffy towel, came up behind him, kissed him lightly on the back of his neck, turned off the tap and whispered to Davey not to worry about it.

Out of the shower Davey returned to the kitchen where one plate of toast sat on the table between two cups of coffee.

'I really can't eat anything,' Jack confessed as Davey sat down, gripping the still too hot coffee cup tight. Davey nodded, knowing that if he tried to force any food down past the lump in his throat into his constantly twisted stomach, he'd probably throw up.

They ran through their days - Jack out at a couple of shoots that morning before an afternoon spent developing prints, and then maybe picking up some food for the two of them that evening. Davey the usual, work at the paper from eight thirty til six, home by six thirty, hopefully. Almost back to normal.

Because they had even managed to laugh that weekend, something that had once been unthinkable. It was at a dumb inside joke that had surprised them both. That had happened a couple of times since Spot's funeral, only a couple, and each time they were struck silently horrified and ripped apart by guilt at the idea that they could fathom lightheartedness in such a time.

'He would be glad that we're able to laugh,' Jack had murmured into the darkness where they lay next to each other, chasing sleep the night before.

'He would say that he'd be angry. If he knew what was going to happen he'd say... y'know. If you guys don't cry for weeks or whatever I'll haunt the fuck out of you.'

'I know he would. But you know that he wouldn't mean a word of it. And if it had happened to - to anyone else, he'd... not make 'em laugh, let's not go crazy, but... he'd tell them that however they felt, however long it had or hadn't been after the thing - the way they felt was exactly okay. Including finding laughter in the weeks afterwards. Can't predict this, can we? Any of it.' And Davey had nodded then let out a huge deep shuddering sob, staying quiet and shaking against where Jack now held him to his chest.

Clearly things weren't quite back to how they were before, and obviously could never be. It might get easier, but it may not ever go away. The air was still full of enough grief to make them choke if they thought about the wrong thing, but it was a pollution they were finding incrementally easier to navigate each day.

So back to work, because compassionate leave only stretched so far. Jack, a photographer, had cancelled a couple of weeks of shoots, but the paid gigs wouldn't always wait for him, and at least through his camera lens he had control of what happened. Davey, a section editor at a local magazine, at least had paid leave, but also a team of people to instruct, and about eighteen separate deadlines looming. He had fired off the odd work email but he could tell that his colleagues initially impassioned "Don't worry about us until you feel better" replies were getting sparser and less emotive, and after too long a boss who was going through a terrible time just became something of a nuisance, and he didn't need that guilt on top of everything else.

Still, he did not want to go in.

They sat silent, opposite one another, and Davey felt conflicted in needing to reach out and hold Jack, but knowing that if Jack so much as glanced at him kindly, he'd implode.

'Right.' He pushed the cup away. 'I guess I need to - go.' He stood up, heading over to the front door in a trance, and Jack followed, handing Davey his bag and pulling him in by the lapels of his coat.

'I'll see you tonight.'

'See you tonight.'

'I love you.'

'I love you too -' He punctuated his reply by grabbing Jack in a hug, hiding his face in his neck. Jack brought a hand up to the back of Davey's head, holding him there, stroking his hair, waiting.

The night before, Davey had continued their conversation with 'The thing is... I'm - I'm almost reluctant to let go of the pain. Do you know what I mean? It hurts, and I feel it every second, and I can't focus on anything else, but when it starts to go... am I losing him all over again?'

'He's not there in that pain, babe, you know that. He's in your head, your memories. Your inside jokes.' Jack had stammered out the words into the top of Davey's head, almost inclined as per usual to agree with his boyfriend's infallible if depressing logic.

'How do you always know what to say?' Davey rolled to the side so he could look at Jack, and as Jack answered he wiped the tears from under Davey's eyes with a fingertip.

'Learned it from you, didn't I?' He rested his hand on Davey's cheek. 'Dave. Please, if you want to laugh, don't push it down cuz you think that's what you need to do. Spot won't mind! You... You light up the whole room when you laugh. And we could use that.'

Back in the hall the next morning Davey stepped out of the hug, shaking his head, clearing his throat. 'Jeez. Not even out the door yet! Swear to god, if anyone at work is any nicer than normal I'll have a fucking... emotional breakdown or something.'

'If what you've told me about them is right then I'm sure you got nothing to worry about.' Jack wrapped a scarf round Davey's neck and pulled him in for a kiss. 'See you tonight.'

'Bye.'

So it wasn't that he didn't want to see Davey. Coming home to their place, their tiny one-bed with its beautiful ugly wallpaper and constant familiar smell of paint and laundry detergent - the tiny hallway and its side table where they kept keys, mail, all the little bits of shit that Davey wrote and Jack drew throughout the day, a safe place for the little things that meant everything - coming home to this apartment was a daily reminder of how lucky they both were, and how much they had going for them. If Jack had had a bad day, heck, even if they were fighting, this sanctuary had always been an instant comfort.

And then Spot died.

And all the good leaked out of the world.

Because up until that point... Everything had been going great. And not even the uncomfortable kind of great where they were sort of waiting for something to go wrong. Just. Good. When they got the call on a crisp Saturday afternoon in January, Jack and Davey had been at the movies doing all the awful couple stuff, holding hands, whispering in each other's ears, making out in the back row. They emerged squinting into the daylight to dozens of missed calls between them. Unease settling over him, Davey had called Skittery back, unconsciously reaching out for Jack's hand as he was delivered the news of Spot in a cab plus a drunk driver and really not much time at all before complete unresponsiveness.

The question of how Race was doing was too huge to contemplate.

His suffuse underlying happiness was always clear in the months leading up to the accident, because even though he and Spot barely called each other anything - boyfriends, partners, whatever - they were inextricably bound, no question. In the bar not too long after it happened Race had muttered to Jack that 'I didn't know if we were ever gonna... You know. Marriage, whatever. He's probably watching me say this now and cringing at me for acting so gay. But like. It was never any question whether or not we were in it for life. He was my person. Still is.'

The hardest part, then, was figuring out how they were supposed to keep going, how the world was just going to keep spinning despite the fact that something like this had happened. It wasn't ideal, hanging out in their apartment the whole time, letting themselves do nothing but think about Spot and how god damn unfair it was, but any time they attempted something else it would without fail end up in them reverting to that. Davey sitting in front of the washing machine, three folded t-shirts in his lap, one half done in his hands, himself totally lost in staring into the void of the drum trying to remember the last words he and Spot said to each other. Jack standing at the counter, one hand on the vegetable peeler and the other on a carrot, his attention utterly stolen by the contemplation of who was going to use Spot's Rangers tickets and why couldn't Spot have just fucking stayed alive. Time had helped, as it does, and let them relearn slowly how to keep living, but neither of them had lost a friend before. Grandparents, pets, sure. But wasn't a twenty three year old meant to be indestructible? How were they meant to go on?

The resistance Jack was feeling as he stood outside their door, both of them had felt when it came to Race. They knew as they visited him that they were walking in on someone whose very existence was in turmoil, and whose devastation underlay even his most innocuous chat, but they also knew that Race and Spot were a pair, so why the fuck was Race on his own. But they had to, so they did, and it had allowed them to start to shakily discover this new normal together - not being scared to smile for fear they weren't mourning enough, because they all knew too god damn well that they were all carrying black holes inside.

Yet, two weeks against the life of Spot Conlon was nothing

Jack opened the door slowly and entered the apartment. Davey's bag sat abandoned by the couch, his coat slung over the back. The lamp in the hall was the only light on, and through its hushed glow Jack could see that their bedroom door was ajar. He walked through.

The dim glow of the moon outside their window let him see that Davey lay face down on the bed, head resting on folded arms. His shoes were still on.

'Dave.' He had no idea how long he'd been there so muted his voice, not keen on scaring him. He took a couple of steps towards the bed, trying to figure out if his love was asleep, or didn't hear, or was ignoring him. When he reached the foot of the bed he pulled Davey's shoes off for him, dropping them on the floor and climbing on the bed, steadying himself with a gentle hand on Davey's thigh.

'Davey.'

He lay down on his side, head propped up on one hand, the other reaching out to rub Davey's back. Finally, finally Davey moved, shifting slowly back into Jack's embrace so Jack's chest was flush and warm against his back, Jack's arm effortlessly circling round to find his hand and clasp it against his heart.

'I'm. I'm broken.'

Jack squeezed him close, nuzzling his nose into the mess of hair at the back of Davey's head.

'You're not.'

'I can't do anything.'

'You can, Dave. You did.'

'I didn't. I left.'

'When?'

'Four.'

'That doesn't count! That's not leaving, Dave, that's...'

'Leaving?'

'What happened?'

'I was... fine. Kind of. If I focused really hard. I thought... If I acted normally, they'd treat me normally.'

'Did they?'

'Yeah. And no. Some of them seemed to think... that I'd been on vacation.' He cleared his throat, voice trembling a little. 'That I'd used the Spot thing to - you know? But I thought - like, it's fine. I don't care, let them think whatever. But then Oscar, that guy - seemed to have saved up all his energy from the last two weeks, and at about three forty five just lay it all on me. Really kind of - stuff he didn't need to say. About how he stepped up while I was gone. What needed to be done today. How at first I'd let them down by disappearing but um... How they'd ultimately been fine. Started listing all this stuff that he would have taken care of, he said, but wasn't senior enough, talking and talking, slamming pieces of paper on my desk, and I - left. While he was talking.'

'You left?'

'Yeah.'

‘While he was talking?’

‘Yeah...’

'Babe, I'm so proud of you!'

'It was - fuck, so cowardly.'

'No, shut up. Tell me more.'

'I just. I couldn't physically face another second of his shit. Jack, I think I need help. Professional help.'

'We can find some.'

'I can't find meaning in anything outside of this apartment. I can't, and I don't think that's how I'm supposed to be.'

'Look, the Spot thing - it really puts everything in perspective, right? I am so so proud of you for being a big shot editor, but all that shit. It's not important if you don't want it to be.'

'That's it. I just looked at him and I kind of - like... he has no idea. And I didn't feel like explaining.'

'You don't have to.'

'I know.' Davey sniffed and kissed the back of Jack's hand before shifting round to face him. 'Shit. How was your day?'

'It was a day. It was fine. I got a little wavy when - I was doing this headshot session uptown and we passed a building that almost kinda looked like where Spot used to live which, it turns out, is enough to get me going. But it was... Fine.' He ran a fingertip down Davey's cheek, over his lips, off his chin, surveying the sullen, pale skin of his face. 'It's gonna get a little easier every day. But we need to get through the shit ones first.'

'I love you, Jack.'

'Love you too, kid.' He kissed Davey on the forehead, then the tip of his nose, then his lips, slow and quiet and long. 'What do you wanna do now?'

'I wanna... Say one more thing. If that's okay. Then we can stop lying here in the dark.'

'Of course it's okay.'

'It sounds so, so selfish, when I try and say it out loud. But I've been thinking that however I feel now, and in the near future, and fuck it, even the distant future - it's never ever going to feel right. I'm always going to find something wrong with how I react. So then if everything is wrong anyway, can I just do what feels right at the time?'

'Yeah. Yes, of course, Dave.'

'Because - this isn't about us, this whole sorry situation, it's not ours - but it is. Because I love you. Because I realised since Spot went, that you... are... a part of me. Whenever you leave the house, or you're at work late, or even in the bathroom when we're at a restaurant - I feel you gone. Inside. I cut you a piece of me. And when I'm with you, even lying here, touching you, I'm terrified that I could lose you, in a year, or in ten years, or in sixty. I never thought that you could be half a person until I found you, and found the rest of me. And it would be easier not to think that, but here we are.'

He cupped Jack's cheek with a shaky hand, wiping away the tears that had started rolling down Jack's face with the pad of his thumb, before continuing:

'When I was at work today, and all that meaningless shit was happening right in front of me - all I could think about was how I hoped you knew. I know tomorrow or the next half hour or whatever isn't guaranteed. And I feel like I'm never going to find the right time to do this, not so soon after Spot dying, but then - it's how I feel, so I just need to say it, because its what's important right now - fuck. Jack, will you marry me?'

Jack's eyes widened momentarily, then scrunched shut as he bit his lip and fought back moretears. He nodded frantically, covering Davey's hand with his and leaning in so their foreheads rested against each other.

'We don't have to tell anyone just yet - and maybe we shouldn't - but I just think - I need you to know, that - you're everything. Jack, you're everything -' His words were muffled as Jack pulled him in for a searing kiss, and he laughed into Jack's mouth, surprisingly, horribly giddy, but riding it this time rather than trying to send it away.

'Of course I'll marry you, Dave, god - I'll marry you tomorrow, or yesterday, fuckin - get our marriage back dated to the day we met. God damn it. I love you.'

'I don't have a ring.' He was crying too now, of course, but full of a soaring joy, and overwhelming sorrow, and sheer love and affection and god, he was so glad he could lay all his broken parts out for Jack to see. 'Or champagne. Or anything, I just thought - words. As long as you know. And we can do the rest later.'

'Later.' Jack nodded, stroking a fingertip over the last joint of Davey's ring finger. 'I'll give you the whole rest of my life, Dave. We've got forever.'

#newsies fic #newsies #jack kelly #davey jacobs #javid #hey its me guess whos been working on groundhog dave not #jk ive started it but i was sosososos keen to write this after seeing 35mm #i am also working on a make me happy one but i thought do sad one first then cheer ppl up!!!!!#anyway i'm super bummed out now but i hope you like this

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ledenews · 4 years

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Viral Potpourri

As a devoted hypochondriac I have been the proverbial nervous wreck during this COVID-19 pandemic, and some of the things I do to avoid getting the virus drive my poor wife crazy. For example, if we absolutely have to go out in the car, I wear a mask, and take one of my large containers of Lysol. (I bought 200 cans of it from Amazon when the virus first hit.) I like to drive with the window down, and so I steer with my right hand and spray a steady stream of Lysol out the window with my left. This way the disinfectant constantly blows back into my face so that I’m always breathing uncontaminated air. Yes I know the virus is not supposed to be carried on the air, but one can never be too careful. And what if I pass a motorist who happens sneeze to out the window just as I happen by? BUT I DRAW THE LINE AT INJECTING MYSELF WITH ANY TYPE OF CLEANING FLUID OR DISINFECTANT. Although she tolerates the Lysol-out-the-window bit, my wife did draw the line the other day when she caught me dumping a bag of groceries into the washing machine. I argued that each item had its own wrapper, and thus this was much quicker than wiping down things separately. She ultimately persuaded me not to push the “heavy wash” cycle button when she pointed out that the wash agitator probably would crush the eggs and that an egg and Tide omelet didn’t sound particularly appetizing. She also perceptively noted that the spin cycle would sap all the juice out of the English roast of beef. Oh well, you win some, and you lose some.

Hand sanitizer is being used now more than ever.

Opening Up?

In addition to perpetuating an obsession for cleanliness, this pandemic has elicited some unusual behavior that borders on insanity. One of the main things we are supposed to be doing in order to get a harness on this damn virus is practice social distancing – stay at least six feet away from other people at all times. So what do we see coming out of Virginia, Michigan, and Minnesota, but pictures of people protesting the stay-at-home orders, and in doing so they were not practicing social distancing. And who was cheering on these protesters via tweets calling for the liberation of those states? President Donald Trump, whose guidelines called for social distancing. And an example of what I consider terminal stupidity occurred last week in Georgia, where Gov. Brian Kemp said he was partially reopening the state by allowing bowling alleys, fitness centers, tattoo parlors, barbers, hairstyling salons, and massage therapy places to open their doors again. Can you imagine getting a haircut in a barbershop practicing social distancing? I can foresee all manner of horrible accidents occurring while the barbers attempt to master using six-foot long scissors. And just picture the needles tattoo artists would have to use! Merely thinking about them gives me chills. Now Georgia also has several large amusement parks, but I didn’t see anything about whether or not they would be open. Just think how hard it would be to practice social distancing there. Roller coasters would have one person to a car, and couples wishing to go into the tunnel of love would have to enter one at a time. And wouldn’t it be fun to ride the bumper cars without being able to run into anyone? Incidentally, at this writing the state of Georgia had more than 21,491 confirmed cases of COVID-19 on a steadily increasing rate. With those statistics in mind, it’s difficult to understand Kemp’s desire to begin reopening his state.

The Beach?

Here’s just one more question to ponder: How in the hell do you practice social distancing on a beach? Here’s how. The beaches are open at only certain hours of the day, and the lifeguards will be responsible for enforcing various guidelines that include no coolers, chairs, blankets, towels, or grills. It’s okay to swim and surf, but sunbathing is prohibited. This means that I can go in and bounce around in the ocean, but when I come out, I won’t be allowed to eat or drink anything, I’ll have no place to sit down, and the sun and wind will need to dry me off. Doesn’t sound like much of a day at the beach to me, but the clips I’ve seen on the news showed beaches without much evidence of social distancing. From what I’ve read, a number of people in Georgia think returning to work this soon is a bad idea. On the other hand, the protesters and beachgoers don’t seem to care about potentially exacerbating the spread of COVID-19 by ignoring social distancing. The more I read, hear, and see, the more I wonder whether I’m one of the few (including my family and a handful of friends) people of sound mind left in the world or whether everyone else has more fun throwing caution to the wind. (Sorry for the cliché, but it really fit there.) I’ve never been much of a protester, and although I’ve had a lifelong love affair with the beach, I wouldn’t go near one right now. Instead I’ll opt to stay home until I can be damn sure it’s safe to leave, and I’ll keep always at my side my faithful companion – a can of Lysol. Stay home. Wash your hands. Don’t touch your face. If you absolutely must go out in public, wear a mask and practice social distancing. And stay well! Read the full article

#CenterforDiseaseControl #coronavirus #COVID19 #Georgia #Lysol

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nichetraveldesign · 6 years

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Ok. Each of you Americans out there – I want you to stop what you are doing and go hug your dryer. Personally I never thought about my dryer before moving to Europe. It was just another appliance. There was the occasional story about a family whose house caught on fire due to too much lint in the vent, and I’d stop and think,”how awful” and “what a tragedy” and I would make a mental note to clean out my venting tube. And then I’d forget about it again. Then we moved to Italy.

In Italy, most people line dry their laundry. Dryers are available, but we were told they are expensive to run since electricity is costly there. It is not uncommon to see laundry hanging on lines outside apartments and houses. It is also not uncommon to visit a friend’s home and see laundry drying in various places. It is not rude. It is simply a way of life. In fact, it is one of the things that Americans find charming when they visit. It can be beautiful and colorful. It evokes a simpler time. Days gone by.

When we first arrived in Italy and were in temporary housing Joe told me that the washing cycle took about 2 hours. I scoffed. Surely he must not have understood the instructions. Turns out, he understood better than I did. After all, he had been living there for 6 months. The wash cycle at the temporary housing did indeed take 2 hours. Thus, when we were looking for a washing machine to buy, I wanted the largest load capacity that we could find. If it was going to take 2 hours per load I wanted to wash as many things as I could in one cycle. And we found a big one! Unfortunately, it had to be returned. It was too big to fit up our narrow Italian stairs. Eventually, we found one that fit and could run a load in 1 hour. We were making progress.We were fortunate enough to have a large laundry room so we had the space to line dry laundry out of sight. And, there was the environmental impact. I knew that if you line dry your clothes HALF OF THE TIME you will save 1150 pounds of CO2 emissions . . . the work of 23 trees! I felt good about that. Plus, I was in Italy and as they say, “when in Rome” . . . I was committed to line drying.

What I didn’t realize is that depending on the season, clothes don’t always dry quickly. And, while the laundry room was large, it had no ventilation. In fact, many times the dampness of the laundry room left the clothes smelling musty and moldy and I would have to wash them all over again. I then had to place towels and jeans strategically on radiators all over the house since they take a particularly long time to dry. And all the other items in the living room in front of an open window – even when it was cold out – letting all the warm air escape. So much for energy efficiency.

In some cases, when you combined the length of time that it took to run a load of laundry, with hanging clothes, the actual drying process, then taking them off the hangers, then folding it and putting it away – one load of laundry would take up to three days from start to finish. I was constantly checking laundry. In the winter, if I had to rewash a load, it would be a 4 – 5 day process for each load. We had a few mishaps. “Mom, I am out of jeans to wear.” Ooops. One cannot magically run a load of laundry and guarantee that they’d be dry overnight. Laundry became a strategy. A lifestyle.

While I did feel good about reducing our carbon footprint by line drying,* I grew weary of the process and the resulting crunchy clothing and towels. Italians have these big industrial sized steam irons they use to soften up crunchy clothes. Yup, they iron their towels, sheets, socks, underwear and jeans to make them soft again. The thing was, I was already spending a significant part of my day, every day, on laundry. I did not want to add steam ironing into the mix. Besides, after using a towel once or twice or wearing your jeans for a day, they soften up . . . a bit.

So anyway, imagine my delight when we moved into our house in Sweden and I went down to the basement and discovered that our rental included a dryer! I ran a load of laundry (30 minutes! Let’s hear it for Swedish efficiency!) and placed it in the dryer.

Now, calling it a dryer is a bit of a misnomer. It doesn’t dry the clothing with heated air producing fluffy warm clothes, towels and sheets. It works by spinning the clothes and wicking the water out into a container at the bottom of the machine. I set it for 90 minutes. I returned 90 minutes later only to realize it had not completed its cycle. The laundry was still soaking wet. I fumbled about trying to figure out why and realized that the machine stops once the container at the bottom is full of water. I emptied the container. The machine started up again. When I checked on it again 30 minutes later, again, the container was full and the cycle had once again stopped. I emptied the container and started the machine again.

This went on for about 3 more hours. I could have taken them out and just line dried them, however, at this point I was in the middle of an experiment. I wanted to find out how long this was going to take. The next morning (yes you heard me correctly) I set it for another 90 minutes. Surely, there could not be enough water left in the clothes to fill the container again. OMG! I was wrong. After 2 more 90 minute cycles including breaks for emptying the water container, the clothes were dry. That particular load took 30 hours start to finish. I guess 30 hours is better than 48 or 72. I don’t know if our dryer is an old crappy one or this is the norm, but I have now resigned myself to line drying the clothes and placing towels and jeans strategically on radiators again. I am back to saving the planet.

And while saving the planet feels good, I have a confession to make . . . truth be told, I miss being able to dry jeans, sweatshirts and towels in a heated wonderland. So my American brethren, heed my tale of woe. Go hug your dryer. Clean its venting tube, its lint trap and wipe down the exterior. Treat it like the appliance it is. And give it a kiss from me.

* http://www.simpleecology.com/eco/clothesline.html

Do You Iron Your Jeans and Underwear? How To Do Laundry In Italy Ok. Each of you Americans out there - I want you to stop what you are doing and go hug your dryer.

#abroad #Americans #americans abroad #european travel #ex-pat #ex-pat reality #Italy #laundry #Parma #travel

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thejournallingsolarpunk · 6 years

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Make an Impact by not Making an Impact

With the way our world is going downhill, everyone needs to start working towards keeping it from dying completely. If enough people make small changes, we can make a big difference.

I admit that I don’t know everything, and I haven’t researched all of the tips I’m going to give in this series. If anyone has any corrections to make or ideas to add, I’d love to hear them! I also can’t say that I utilize all of these all of the time, but I do try to do as many of them as often as possible.

Let’s start out with the three R’s: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!

Reduce: Waste

Here are some tips for reducing daily waste in your life.

Grocery bags: Most grocery stores now sell reusable grocery bags. There are often a few different options, from ones that are just more durable plastic than regular disposable bags, to heavy-duty plastic ones with fabric handles, to cooler bags. Some places have multiple sizes of bags, and some have bags in other materials, like regular fabric. Trader Joe’s has fantastic, huge jute bags--I have one that I absolutely love. A quick search of “reusable grocery bags” on Amazon turns up a ton of results!

My personal favorites are the heavy-duty plastic bags you can get from most grocery stores, my big Trader Joe’s jute bag, and a couple of folding bags from Blue Avocado (which I’ll bring up again later) that I can’t seem to find on their site.

Bonus: A lot of stores, like Target and Giant (at least in my area), will give a $.05 discount for each reusable bag you use for your items! Target only gives you up to $.10 per purchase, but that adds up!

Produce bags: Lots of different types of mesh produce bags are available on Amazon, and aren’t super expensive! Earthwise has a set of 9 for $10.99, and Purifyou has a set of 18 for $13. The Purifyou set has three different sizes of bags, and they even donate a portion of each sale to promoting sustainable living! These bags are machine-washable, and also help save plastic bag waste!

Reusable water bottles: Reusable water bottles are one of the easiest ways to help reduce plastic waste, and there are tons of different options out there in all price ranges. Camelbak has some water bottles for as low as $7 (if you have Amazon Prime), Nalgene 32-oz. bottles are as low as $6 with Prime, and the S’ip by S’well metal water bottles are about $25 (but you can sometimes find them on sale on Amazon or at Target!). Many of these water bottles are dishwashable, and the S’ip bottles can also hold hot liquids!

My brother and I use our Nalgenes constantly. I have a wide-mouth and a narrow-mouth, and I much prefer the narrow-mouth (because I have a tendency to dump the water in the wide-mouth down my shirt), but he likes the wide-mouth. Nalgenes are great because you can also get replacement lids if yours breaks! I’m not a fan of Camelbaks because I find the straw/mouthpiece too hard to clean. I got a S’ip by S’well recently, and I absolutely adore it. It keeps my water nice and cool for a long time, but doesn’t condensate. I haven’t tried it with a hot drink yet, but I have a feeling it would be good at keeping that nice and toasty; the only downside is that S’ips can’t be run through the dishwasher, so they’re a little tricky to clean, but since they don’t have small parts or straws, it’s not too bad.

Reusable coffee cups: Reusable coffee cups and thermoses are available literally all over the place. They cut down on the waste from paper or styrofoam cups (and the plastic lids), and a lot of coffee shops will give you a discount for using them! Tervis tumblers are the best double-walled cups I’ve ever used, although they’re a little pricy (but they’re definitely worth it!). They do come in different sizes, though, and can be used for cold or hot drinks.

I adore my Tervis; I’ve had it for like 5 years and use it pretty often. My mom has two of the really big ones, and uses them literally every day (instead of water bottles). They really do keep hots hot and colds cold, as long as the sliding lid is shut!

Straws: Plastic straws are a huge source of waste, and are a major landfill problem, because they can’t be recycled. Reusable plastic ones are easy to find in stores, and are pretty inexpensive! This set of plastic straws comes with 25 straws and is only $7.99 with Prime. You can also get silicone straws, like this set of 6 for $8.99, stainless steel, like this set of 4 for $5.95, or titanium, like this set of 4 for $16.99.

My mom swears by titanium straws, because she likes that they’re tasteless and odorless (she hates drinking out of metal because of the taste it tends to give the beverage). I’m fine with just plastic ones, but they do wear out over time.

Silverware: Instead of using plastic cutlery, just stick to your regular metal utensils! Plastic cutlery is not accepted by many recycling programs, but this article gives some tips for reusing them if you absolutely have to get them in the first place. Amazon also has a lot of different options for biodegradable cutlery, most of which is wooden (but, hey! If it works for chopsticks, why not other cutlery).

Dishes: Just like silverware, if you use your regular dishes instead of paper plates, it will save a lot of waste. Paper plates cannot be recycled if they’ve had food on them, but uncoated ones that don’t have food residue on them can be used as dry material in a compost bin. However, your greenest option is to stick with ceramic dishes, or, if you absolutely need disposable plates, biodegradable ones like these.

Reduce: Energy Consumption

Again, energy consumption can be pretty simple to do little by little--and saves you money in the long run!

Energy-efficient light bulbs: There are several different options for energy-efficient lightbulbs, described much better than I ever could in this article from energy.gov. ‘Nuff said.

Air-dry your clothes: Okay, bear with me here. While air-drying your clothes, whether on a clothesline, rack, or simply hung from a suspension bar/shower curtain rod/etc, isn’t quite as convenient as using a machine dryer, it can both save you money and help your clothes last longer (I don’t actually know if that’s true or just an urban myth, but it makes sense to me that less exposure to high heat will protect your clothes). It can leave clothes a little stiff, but a good shake before folding will solve that. A lot of heavy sweaters, or anything hand-knit, should be air-dried anyways, so if you’re already air-drying those, why not just hang everything else too? If you’re worried about wrinkly clothes, putting them in the dryer for just 10-15 minutes before hanging them (or hanging them in the bathroom while you take a hot shower) will effectively steam them, preventing wrinkles. Amazon (and most stores) have lots of different options for clotheslines, some of which have built-in clothespins/clips, or are twisted so that you only have to tuck the clothes between the twists. This retractable clothesline is designed for the indoors, this classic spinning clothesline has tons of space for drying, and this clothesline has built-in clips for your clothes. There are also lots of options for drying racks; some are bigger or smaller than others, some are wood instead of metal, and some are “gull-wing”.

I swear by my metal drying rack. I got it at Target a few years ago, and I love it so much. It saved me from having to use communal dryers that were never cleaned and always in high demand in college, and it folded up and slipped in the side of my wardrobe or behind my desk when not in use.

Caveat: Towels and bedding are not necessarily the best things to air-dry. Towels and washcloths get, for lack of a better word, weird if they’re air-dried, and bedding is just too bulky and big to practically do so, unless you have a really long clothesline high off the ground.

Turn off and Unplug: Turning off lights and appliances when you leave the room for longer than a trip to the bathroom is pretty much a habit for most people by now, but a gentle reminder never hurts! Also, turn off power strips when the things plugged into them aren’t being used (especially for things like TVs and gaming systems). Unplugging chargers when they’re not actually charging things is another way to prevent unnecessary energy drain.

Mini/Portable solar panels: Solar battery packs (like this one) can be purchased from Amazon, and range widely in price, starting around $20. Based on my understanding, they can power anything that connects through a USB, so they can charge a phone or tablet, or even power a USB diffuser. Not only does this cut out the energy drain from charging these things from a wall outlet, the panels can be charged anywhere that there is sun, and are portable! Solar garden lights can be used creatively as well, mostly in outdoor spaces.

Wash your clothes on cold: If your washer has temperature settings for the water, set it to “cold” or “tap cold”, if available. This way, you don’t use heated water, and save on the energy used to heat that water. The lack of heat in the water should also help extend the life of your clothes, and can help prevent shrinking.

Air-dry your hair: If you style your hair a lot, using hair dryers, straighteners, hot curlers, or curling rods, this can be an energy drain! Maybe consider not using heat treatments like this on the weekends, or letting your hair dry naturally at least one day a week. This can also protect your hair from damage, making it a win-win!

Reduce: Pollution

Carpool: By sharing a car ride with one or more people, that’s one or more cars that aren’t being used, saving fuel (and money!) and keeping that much less carbon pollution out of the atmosphere. At this point in time, we’ve probably reached a point where this won’t actually do much, but it can’t actually hurt to do.

Don’t drive: take at least one day out of your week to not drive. Try to walk, bike, or use public transportation (if available) everywhere you need to go. This is really only practical if you live in a city, or at least a town, or anywhere else where the places you might need to go are within walking/biking distance.

Reduce: Water consumption

Only run your washer and dishwasher when they’re full. Since these appliances don’t usually have settings based on the size of a load, they use the full amount of water no matter how full they are, which can be wasteful.

Turn off the water while you brush your teeth. I’ve been hearing this since I was a kid, and it’s a habit that has always stuck with me. The unused running water that goes down the drain while you brush your teeth is a waste, so turn off the water and save some drops!

Keep your showers short. Don’t stay in the shower longer than you have to. And, while you’re at it, don’t shower every day! We don’t actually need to shower every day (unless you’re sweating a lot, like in the summer, if you’re an athlete, or work a heavy labor job, and smell), and doing so can actually dry out your skin. If you do shower every day, try not washing your hair every other day (or however long it takes for your hair to actually get dirty). Again, this can damage your hair, since the natural oils of your scalp don’t have a chance to actually treat your hair.

Collect rainwater: Collected rainwater can be used for a variety of purposes, but the most practical application I can think of is to use it to water a garden, lawn, or other outdoor (or even indoor!) plants. This can be as simple as setting your plants outside in the rain, or actually building a rainwater collection system.

Use leftover water from plastic water bottles. If you do use plastic water bottles and don’t finish the water, instead of dumping it down the drain, use it to water plants! And then make sure to recycle the bottles!!!

That’s all I can think of for now; let me know if y’all have any other ideas to add, corrections to what I’ve listed up above, or anything else, I’d love to hear it! And always be creative in your conservation efforts; the more creative, the better!!!

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