#the beach trip with my friend last weekend probably inspired me more to write this fic so :> | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

quiteaweirdworld · 4 years

Text

Eastside- JJ x Reader

(not my gif)

snapshots of your life growing up with JJ always by your side

Requested: nope (send me requests!!)

Inspired: the ask from @yellowclara for a Halsey fic, I wrote one with @spilledtee (go check it out) and also wanted to write my own

Warnings: none!

Contains: fluff, soft JJ, growing up

Words: 1.6K

When I was young, I fell in love

We used to hold hands, man, that was enough

You and JJ had been friends since third grade, the same year that he met John B. You remember meeting him at recess, when the boys were playing kickball. He was a scrawny little thing, with messy blonde hair and a loud voice that everyone listened to. You were the only girl who wanted to join in, and were getting a hard time for it. The girls were turning up their noses at the dirt and the boys were all saying how you couldn’t be any good. JJ finally called out

“Let her have a shot, and if she makes it around, she can play”

You made it all the way around, and JJ grabbed your hand and held it up in celebration. After school he came up and introduced himself and John B, and ever since then, it was you and the boys. When Pope later joined the group he also became part of your little family, but you were always closest with JJ. Although he didn’t tell you then, that was when JJ fell in love with you, the little girl who wasn’t afraid to be with the boys and go for what she wants.

Then we grew up, started to touch

Used to kiss underneath the light on the back of the bus

When middle school came around and he grew so much that he was now a good four inches taller than you, he became more protective of you as well. You never grew out of your tom-boy ways but JJ didn’t seem to mind.

Your most clear memory was a trip to the beach in eigth grade. Your entire class rode the bus from school to the beach, even though some of you, like you, JJ, and John B, spent more time at the beach anyway. When you got there, most of the girls went straight to the sun to tan and sit around but you were most excited to hang with the boys in the waves. After spending all morning teaming up with JJ to splash John B (Pope declared himself neutral), you headed into shore for lunch. As you were getting your coke, one of the girls spilled theirs on you, saying

“Oops! But it’s ok, boys like to get messy anyway”

You were mortified, just because you didn’t like girly things didn’t make you any less of a girl. Before you could fully react, JJ poured his own water on the girl with an

“Oops! But it’s ok, you’re at the beach anyway” and tucked you under his arm. When you got back to the group you started to move away but his strong arm around you didn’t let you. You spent the rest of the trip pressed against his side, and right before you were about to leave you felt a tug at your arm while JJ led you around a corner.

“JJ, wh-” you started but he cut you off with a tiny kiss, your first kiss. He stepped back and looked at you with those big blue eyes and blushed as he was nervous, but you reassured him that there was nothing wrong when you tucked yourself back into his chest and smiled. If he made Pope sit with John B in front of you two so you could go for a small second kiss on the bus on the way back, that’s a different story.

I know your daddy didn't like me much

And he didn't believe me when I said you were the one

Oh, every day, she found a way out of the window to sneak out late

Your dad was never the biggest fan of JJ, and it only got worse once you started dating after that beach day. It wasn’t that you were a kook, in fact you were far from it and your family definitely understood the struggle of being a pogue, it’s that your dad wanted more for you. Like Pope’s dad, your dad wanted you to have a bright future and thought that JJ would stand in the way of that.

You didn’t care.

You always found a way to hang out with your group, and once Kiara joined the summer after eighth grade you were happy to have another girl. Kiara was always the pretty girl, the one who acted like the other girls and wore girly tops. You were always a bit self conscious that Kiara was prettier than you, but JJ said that he liked it when you wore his shirts so you taught yourself not to care anymore.

When you slipped out your window and ran to your spot on the beach every weekend, JJ greeted you with a soft

“Hey Y/N”. You weren’t ones for pet names, leaving that for John B and whichever girl he had his eye on that week, but you showed your affection with little casual touches, with his hand in yours or your head tucked into his chest. You were still a lot shorter than him, but had to admit you didn’t mind because it was that much better for cuddling. Your group wasn’t partying yet, but would always sit a bit away on the beach and watch, ready for when it was your turn to party throughout the night.

My love is yours if you're willing to take it

Give me your heart 'cause I ain't gonna break it

The first time you said “I love you” to JJ, it was the first week of ninth grade.

Kiara was at Kook Academy and that left you without any girl friends. You had been picked on all week for hanging out with the boys and though you wouldn’t have it any other way, you wished the names didn’t hurt so much. It was Friday afternoon, and you just got out of English, the only class you didn’t have with JJ. You had heard whispering behind you all class about how it was a shame that you had to hang out with the boys because none of the girls liked you. Although you’d take hanging out with your boyfriend over those fake girls anyway, you still had to focus so hard on not crying that you ran right into him. JJ took one look at your face and signalled to John B that he had to go, and walked with you all the way past your house and back to the beach.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, and you quickly explained all your insecurities about how you’re bad at being a girl, and everyone hated you for it.

“Y/N, I don’t care if you’re bad at being a girl, because you’re great at being my girl”

You laughed at that, and looked up into his blue eyes.

“I love you” you whispered

He froze, looking at you

“I love you too”

So come away, starting today

Start a new life together in a different place

The summer after ninth grade, you all had to get new jobs. Kiara was still working at her folk’s restaurant, but you joined the boys in delivering for Heyward. You worked well with the boys, them carrying everything and you actually being the face of the delivery because you always got the best tips. JJ always bragged that his girl was the best saleswomen in the world, before pulling you in close. At the end of every long day you always ended up at that beach where you shared so many moments together. You were finally old enough to join the parties, and were always up for dancing with JJ. One night as you were both drunk and sitting in your spot a little ways up the beach, he whispered in your ear

“You and me, always” “Always” you promised back.

It was like something new had sparked that night on the beach. You started looking at JJ differently, and imagining your life with him forever. You quite liked the visions that you came up with, and spent the rest of the year envisioning a life together with JJ.

Seventeen and we got a dream to have a family

A house, and everything in between

Even though every adult since eighth grade had told you that your relationship probably wouldn’t last, you and JJ were still going strong Senior year. You were his comfort when things got rough with his dad, and he always protected you from any harsh words flung your way.

One night at 2am, you woke up to something knocking at your window. You saw that it was JJ, and hurriedly unlocked it so he could tumble in. “JJ, what happened?” you asked as you saw his face purple with bruises.

He started crying, one of the few times he ever cried in front of you, and you quickly wrapped him in your arms. This was your JJ, your strong boy who had protected you for five years and who always made you feel better. You did the same for him, rocking slightly as he cried against your neck, whispering promises of the future where nothing bad could ever happen. You were listing all of your promises, and were describing your future house in a calm voice when he calmed down.

“You and me, always?” he asked? “Always”, you reassured.

And so it was.

#here it is!#so much #fluff #i hope y'all like this #obx #outer banks #jj #jj maybank #jj imagine #jj maybank imagine #jj x reader #jj maybank x reader #outer banks imagine #this makes me realize how lonely I am #:)#halsey #i love halsey so much #eastside

718 notes · View notes

lideria · 4 years

Text

Loverboy. | YangYang

Request: hiiii i wanna request something bc i had inspiration but i dont really write things, something with yangyang being your brother’s best friend and your family goes swimming with him along but he’s really awkward around you because he likes you? i just find that really cute 😭

Author’s Note: I really like this? And I love the love YangYang’s getting? I have another request for YangYang and wow that makes me happy? Also keep in mind I’m an only child so I tried my best based on what I’ve seen lmao

Warnings: Swear words, mentions of drinking, not proofread I’m sorry I’m really bad at it. English is my second language so if there are any errors please excuse me! I think that should be it? Let me know if there is more!

Word Count: 3.832 kinda long

Genre: Fluff, sprinkles of Crack and Angst, yet another college!au but not dominantly I’d say, friends!au, whof*ckingknowshowtheyendup!au

Hope you enjoy it loves! Have a good morning/day/afternoon/evening/night, I’m heading off to sleep lol 💚

“YangYang, why don’t you come with us this time?”

There is a dead silence that occurs after your father speaks. The three of you had been hanging out— lounging around on the couches since the weather is too hot to do anything else— as you always do in the living room while your parents were outside grocery shopping for the coming trip, and this happened to be their greeting when they stepped into the house. Your father’s suggestion is lighthearted with a smile on his face, which is making the silence more unbearable than it has to be. “We’re just staying for the weekend. I think your parents would be okay with it, don’t you think?”

“Um, I don’t know,” YangYang answers quickly and rather awkwardly. He looks to his side when your brother nudges (more like jokingly kicks) his leg with his foot. “Just say yes man.”

You do not bother to look up from your phone at the conversation that is going on, because this conversation has been repeating itself for a couple of years now. The answer had always been no at the end— since YangYang had to work at the dance studio, in his defense. Two years ago was hectic because of all the college businesses that had to be taken care of, document work and moving in and what not, and last year had been the same because of your admission to college.

As far as you and your brother knows he does not have an excuse this time. Plus, the three of you do not have the chance to hang out as much anymore as all of your schools’ schedules fall on different times, so this could be one of the last times you get to hang out freely until next year.

You hear the subject of the question laugh slightly. “I guess my sister could use a little break from me,” It is then that you hear a shuffle, a more audible hit, and a grunt that follows from your brother’s best friend. “It’s literally three letters, you’re making things harder than they need to be.”

“It’s not like you don’t sleep over at ours anyway, what makes it different if it’s someplace else?” You ask, and the two boys turn to look at you. Lifting your finger to your temple and tapping it several times you smile at YangYang, knowing the peer pressure must get to him at this point— not to mention the very drunken sleepovers he had had in college he had told you guys about in apartments he had not known the residents of. Both your brother and you could play that card any time.

YangYang seems to recognize that. “When are we leaving, then?”

The next day, five in the morning. You put your luggages one by one into the car, having to place a couple of them in front of the backseats since the stuff you had taken for only three days had already occupied most of the space. YangYang looks surprisingly awake, more awake than you and your brother could ever look waking up at that time.

And as if it is not bad enough that you are awake at this time after barely an hour’s sleep last night (as you had procrastinated getting ready until you absolutely had to), your brother opens the back door and nods his head towards the seats. “C’mon. You’re sitting in the middle.”

“Why do you hate me so much?” The whine is one of desperation since on top of everything you also have to sit on the tightest and hardest seat. But your brother does not give into it. “I don’t hate you, we just need more leg room than you do.” Which is right, but annoying.

You are the first to sit down at your seat, your brother and YangYang following suit. The three of you sit in silence as your parents and YangYang’s speak to each other outside, laughing. You can hardly keep your eyes open but when you are about to put your earphones on and lay your head back to try and sleep, your brother decides to start speaking. He starts going on and on about his plans for the upcoming two and a half days as if he would have the time to do them all, and at one point he starts speaking of someone you know all too well.

When he does, you shoot your eyes open and turn to face him. “You’re gonna hang out with who?”

“Didn’t you hear? Was I not loud enough?” He raises his voice, which makes both you and YangYang hiss a little at his antic because it really is too early for whatever he is doing. “Fuck you, okay? I don’t care. Just don’t have your tongues down each other’s throats around me. That’s disgusting.”

“I apologized for that and it wasn’t even my fault.” He says just as your parents open the doors to their seats, prompting you to shut your mouths up. It annoyed you to all extents imaginable that he would be hanging out with his summer fling once again— not that you did not like them, but the fact that they would never commit to a full on relationship was incredibly annoying considering they do whatever they do every single summer.

He mumbles something about you being upset you are lonely as your mother starts the car and starts driving, and you elbow him in the side, eliciting a silent groan from him as YangYang chuckles at you two. You lay your head back, your neck incredibly uncomfortable— so you give up on it instantly and turn to YangYang.

“Can I lay my head on your shoulder? I’ll share my earphones with you.”

It takes him a while to respond, which is weird, but it is still too early in the morning after all. In the end, though, he gulps a little and nods saying of course. So you lay your head down on his shoulder that is arguably not any more comfortable than the headrest is but at least your head is laid at a reasonable angle. YangYang accepts the earphone you hand out to him, and places his elbow against the window, leaning his cheek against his knuckles as he starts watching the changing scenery.

You fall asleep within a few minutes.

The drive lasted only about four hours long, so when you arrived at the little baby blue cottage near the beach none of you were really awake. But that matter had to be thrown to some non-visitable place in your brain as there was much cleaning to do before any of you could even imagine walking down to the beach.

Your brother vacuums and YangYang mops the floors as you dust around and clean the windows, your parents take care of the groceries and switch the water and electricity on. Luckily the cottage is really small, barely a living room with a sofa and a love-seat pushed close to each other, a small and old TV, open-plan kitchen with little counter space, two small bedrooms— yours with a couple pull out couches— and a small bathroom with very limited space that could only fit one person at a time.

But it still holds a warm feeling to it not counting the heat outside. The kind that makes you feel all warm and lovely inside.

Even though the cottage is small, cleaning it up takes some time. It is already the afternoon by the time you are finished, which is really sad considering today is Saturday, and you would already be on your way back by Monday afternoon.

But you forget about it when YangYang walks into the bedroom the three of you would be staying in, seeing you cleaning the windows. He drops his bag on a couch before turning back at you. “I’m done with mopping.”

“That’s great.” You say, spraying more of the cleaning liquid to the glass before getting back to trying to get a stubborn stain off. “I can help you, if you’d like.”

“Ah,” The cloth drops to your leg as you huff because wow it is really hot. “I mean I think I’ll be done soon. You guys can get ready to go out I guess.”

Silence. The awkward kind, but the kind of awkward where you know he is hesitant to tell you something. Only one thing comes to your mind. “Did he—?” You cannot finish the sentence because of how damn angry the possibility makes you that your brother ditched you and his best friend from the first minute. “He said they’re only gonna greet each other and he’ll be meeting us at the beach.”

With a dramatic roll of your eyes, you get back to wiping. “If he’s so in love, why wouldn’t he just ask them out I swear this happens all the fucking time—“

YangYang starts laughing as you rant, and you join him after a while, half because your response to feeling pissed off is laughing and half because his low laugh is pretty damn contagious. After your laughs subside you throw the cloth on the windowsill because to all hell with that— if your brother gets to vacuum and immediately storm out, you get to go outside without taking the stain off the window. “Let’s just get ready.”

The beach is not crowded when you walk down, most probably because it is not the season yet for most people.

The waves are ginormous but you do not really care, the sea was mostly like this rather than not. Which is why you just put down your towel without so much as a glance at its way. YangYang does the same as you, helping you with the umbrella and making sure it would not budge in the wind. “Are you really not mad at my brother?” You ask as you put the last stone at the corner of your towel to secure it in place.

“Why would I be?” He looks completely unbothered, which kind of answers your question. “I don’t know, bros before hoes and all that,” You huff. “I’d be mad at him— I am mad at him.”

“We both know he’s kind of really head over heels. Doesn’t faze me,” YangYang chuckles as you bunch up some sand in your hand. “Plus, he was the one that asked your father to come here.”

“He was?” The sheer shock that you seem to show makes him laugh, eyes tracing over your face as he leans on his hand. “You didn’t know?”

“I didn’t,” You confirm, shaking your head side to side. “Why— no offense, but why would he encourage you to come along then?”

YangYang clears his throat a little and shrugs. “Emotional support if things go wrong, I guess.”

You laugh, shaking your head again. Then it hits you. “Wait, so he’s actually gonna ask them out?”

“Yeah, I mean they’d been kind of trying the long distance thing out this year. So I don’t even know if he has to ask them out.” There is a pause before he smiles. “I’m happy for him. At least one of us gets to have the relationship they want, even if it’s hard to have it.”

Your head snaps at him at that, a wide grin on your face. “Aw, you have someone you like?”

The question seems to fluster him immediately. He gets uncomfortable, you can feel it, as he shifts in his place and sniffs. He is all smiley when he turns his gaze towards the sea. “I do. But I don’t think it’ll happen.”

“Why is that? Tell me about them,” Your words only seem to corner him further, but you frankly cannot care. Knees close to your chest, you hug them closer, placing your chin on top of your knee. He looks at you briefly before letting out an airy chuckle and turning his gaze back to where it had been. “They’re just.. amazing. Witty and playful but also grounded. Good thing is we’re close, but yet we’re so far. That’s all I can say, really.”

You want to nag him about it, but he cuts you off before you can, his head perking up. “Oh, your parents are coming.”

He gets surprised when you spring up onto your feet urging him to do the same with your hand. He gets up too, and you take your beach attire as quickly as you can which prompts an all awkward cough from him, tugging at his t-shirt before taking your own piece of clothing off your neck. “If you don’t want to be interviewed for the next several hours we have to go swimming right now.” You explain, knowing your parents would keep him as a hostage for some conversation— topic most likely being how college is, if he is doing good in his classes, if he is happy with his life, what does he want to do in the future, any hopes and dreams; the topics were endless.

The two of you only say hello to your parents before rushing to the sea, jumping in without much preparation as the waves would have hit you first if you had not done it.

The water is really cold because of the current, but you still have your fun.

YangYang and you both help your parents cook that night after taking your showers, and even as you are eating, your brother does not return. After you finish your dinner and the two of you have some coffee, you start talking about how dancing is going for YangYang, and your brother does not return.

Even when you drag YangYang outside by his wrist, walking to the square filled with stands and shops, saying “I need enough ice cream to make me regret being born.” and eat said enough amount, regret ever bracing the surface of this earth as your companion does the same, and come back— your brother does not return.

Instead, he returns after YangYang and you prepare his bed for him on the ground and change into your pajamas one by one. To be exact, he returns when the two of you are having your final glasses of water before going to sleep.

YangYang and you had agreed on doing something for when he did return, so even as you are caught by surprise as you are sipping on your water, you force it down before starting to applaud your brother. His friend beside you lets out a laugh at you before joining. Your brother looks something between surprised and confused.

“You found your way home!” You shout, making your parents laugh all the way from their room (which is not that far from the kitchen given the cottage’s size). “You’ve grown so much, you can find directions on your own without us having to pick you up.” You place your hand on your chest for dramatic measures. “I’m so proud.”

“Shut up.” Although his voice comes out annoyed, your brother has a smile on his face that makes you happy. You lean on the counter as he walks over and fills up a glass of water for himself, looking up at him curiously— and a bit mischievously. With your elbow you nudge YangYang a bit, encouraging him to ask.

He does. “So, how’d it go?”

“It went so bad that I had to take a walk that ended up lasting a few hours— it went good. We missed each other.” As always with your brother, he has to be annoying while answering the question. He leaves to get ready for bed leaving the two of you behind.

You and YangYang only look at each other in annoyance, and you make him break in laughter when you mock your brother’s it went good, we missed each other.

The three of you are out the door the moment you finish your breakfast next morning.

You gather your towels, the umbrella, the volleyball and the frisbee for your full day at beach that you must make the most of before going back home the next day.

The waves seem more acceptable today although they are nowhere near calm, but again, you do not care. You place the towels down, YangYang helps with the umbrella again, and your brother sets up the snacks you had brought along. The small cooler sits in between the towels and under the umbrella’s shadow.

The three of you all decide that playing some volleyball and ultimate frisbee before getting into the water is a smart choice, so you play around for who knows how long. Sun shining bright and strong on your heads, sand burning the bottoms of your feet, the sea breeze hitting your faces; sometimes you laugh, sometimes you scream in frustration, sometimes you scream just because you want to. All three of you have your fair share of sand in your mouths and on your face after dipping countless times for the volleyball and the frisbee. You get a couple of sand burns on your feet, and YangYang scratches the side of his hand when he falls down after catching the frisbee and landing on a random piece of log that had washed up to the shore— most likely after a forest fire that brought the content with the sea current.

But you definitely have a burnout at some point and have a swim in the sea, a swim of unnecessary splash wars considering how big the waves are. The two boys keep dunking each other’s heads into the sea, having their own fun from time to time, being silly. The mood is up there the whole time as you join their competition on who will hold their handstand for the longest time which is weird as the waves knock you all over so it really depends on how far the wave is when you start your handstand.

And it only hits you just how much time has passed when all of you go back and wrap yourselves in towels and sit down to have a few snacks along with some beer that was packed in the cooler.

“It’s so hot,” YangYang complains, and upon placing a hand on his shoulder you can indeed say he is hot. Probably too hot. The best solution you have at that moment is holding the cold beer bottle against his back. Which makes him jump in his place, and gets you laughing. “That feels so good but it’s so cold!” He basically screams, and you urge your brother to do the same as what you are doing, reaching out for the ice in the cooler.

You notice how pink or rather red his back is when you put the ice in his t-shirt in an attempt to make an ice bag out of it. “You’ve burned,” You let out with a laugh. “That’s gonna peel for sure.” And you place the makeshift bag on his back.

When you get back to the house your brother is the first to take a shower since he has a special someone he needs to see once more before he leaves for home and for another year of college.

YangYang sits on the lounge chair out on the porch with you stood behind him, putting on aloe vera burn cream on his burnt upper back. He groans sometimes but tries to hide it by laughing, and honestly you are grateful for that— because it really looks like it must be hurting a whole lot, and you do not like seeing people in pain. “You messed up big time loverboy.”

He chokes on his spit. “What?”

“What, what? You messed up because you didn’t put enough sunscreen, and you are crushing on someone— hence the loverboy.”

“Ah, yeah,” He mumbles. “True.”

Everyone is asleep.

At least everyone should be, but you are not.

Instead you are sat out on the porch, and on the lounge chair, with only a glass of water in your hands and your earphones placed on your ears as songs of all kinds play. The midnight breeze had been too inviting for you to not stay up, hearing the angry waves of the sea crash to the shore. In the distance there is a cargo ship (ships were frequent in the off-season and at nights since the beach was not much used), the only light source in sight.

The sky is already only ever so slightly turning into a brighter grey, signaling the coming of the morning. You still had half a day before having to return back to sitting at your middle seat for the four hour drive, then doing the laundry, and then slowly but surely getting back to chores and schoolwork, preparing for your return to the campus in the upcoming weeks.

But right now, you want to stay in this moment forever. This moment where everything is so silent and so peaceful without worry of school or work or anything, this moment where your parents still do not have to get back to work, this moment where your brother is still close to the person who he loves.

It feels selfish for you to even think of it, though. Because you know YangYang is not truly all that happy at this moment. He is still crushing on someone, someone who he knows he does not have much chance of being together with. And on top of that, he is doing it with a pretty bad burn on his back.

Maybe time must move on for him, then. Maybe as time moves on everything can fall in place a bit better.

But you definitely want time to stop again when someone pulls an earphone out of your ear. You jump a little in your seat, trying to make out the face in the dark before they speak. “Hey,” YangYang whispers. “You weren’t sleeping were you?”

“No,” You say as your heart beats, no signs of slowing. “You couldn’t sleep?”

He chuckles at the answer that will get repeated, and at the question that addresses the obvious. “No,” And he sits down on the seat you open up for him, the two of you sitting side to side, arms touching. “I’ve been thinking.”

“About?” He sighs, and you can tell it is shaky, but not in the sad way. You do not remember ever seeing him sad, for that matter. “About my feelings.”

“What about your feelings?” There is a huff that leaves him that is full of uncertainty, but it is less shaky than his sigh. Bravery, maybe. His eyes that are fixed on the ship turn to you, a smile on his face, and he has to take one more breath before he speaks, eyes once again trailing all over your face before landing on yours.

“I really like you. Have been for a long time. I just thought you should know.”

#nct imagines #nct scenarios #wayv imagines #wayv scenarios #nct x reader #wayv x reader #yangyang #liu yangyang #yangyang imagines #i hope everyone enjoys it i love you guys :')))))#this literally gives me a purpose in quarantine i'm so grateful for every request #and i can only hope i give you guys what you want #but i know i could never give you what you deserve #mwah #i love yous

87 notes · View notes

seven-oomen · 4 years

Text

I’m sorry you’re still feeling exhausted. I hope work wasn’t too terrible today, and that the weekend lets you rest up a bit (if you get normal weekends. working in retail I try not to assume.) Also, this is likely to just be a short(-ish) collection of unconnected musings, but I felt like sharing them anyway, and really you should be used to that from me at this point. XD So, first off that tree painting is GORGEOUS. I mean, I tend to be kinda partial to that whole tree silhouette type aesthetic, so I’m probably slightly biased. But still. (And the background shading… <3 ) Also, ngl, the backlit keyboard keeps making me think of that video of Henry Cavill assembling his new computer that’s making the rounds. That is not meant as a complaint of any sort, mind you, merely an observation.

Speaking of hot scruffy dudes who are actually massive dorks, did you SEE Ian’s most recent Insta pic?! (the non-cowboy hat one) Omg, I don’t know why he keeps complaining about how it’s starting to look like TW Season One hair like it’s some sort of bad thing. (The longer the hair, the better the grip you can get. […uh…wait, what?… ’>.> ]) That pic just screams OUAT sequel to me. Out here looking all shaggy and windblown and peaceful and content. Proud Alpha Dad Peter spending quality time with his family/pack. How very dare he spring this on an unsuspecting public with no warning? I was not prepared. (Also, Sinqua and Holland commenting on it just ups the adorable factor that much more.)

Also, was looking at a few sites lately in consideration of ordering a few more masks for work, found this print on one of them and almost laughed myself absolutely stupid. I don’t know why it was just so funny to me, but I hope it cheers you as much as it did me. Btw, it’s available on an impressive variety of items, including two types of notebooks, t-shirts, mugs, blankets, pillows, beach towels, shower curtains, rugs, bath mats, several styles of bags, phone cases, and assorted types of wall art (sadly not on a mask, however. I was deeply disappointed.) I can see any number of items ending up in the Haleargentski household, bought by assorted non-wolf members for assorted wolf members, because they are a family of assholes. (I feel like the first gift was a travel mug to Peter from his darling husbands, then a t-shirt [on black ofc] from Peter to Derek, and then it just all snowballed from there.)

Today’s literally-just-appeared-out-of-nowhere-wtf-brain thought is (much like the French maid thing) definitely of the nsfw variety, so consider yourself duly warned if you have a shift today. Because I mean we talked about Chris and Noah using toys on each other, but why should Peter get left out of the fun? There are plenty of ways for him to enjoy them, too. Like, pretty much the initial spontaneous thought was “Peter getting pulled into someone’s lap and being pegged within an inch of his life until he comes screaming down the throat of whichever one is going down on him at the same time." And I was just like "not sure what this has to do with this video of how to make a ukelele out of colored pencils, but continue." But like, no really. Peter being knotted in one of them while the other uses beads or a (vibrating) plug on him? (Which one is the asshole who momentarily turns the vibration up high enough that they BOTH can feel it?) Or using those, or some kind of prostate massager, while he’s tied up and watching them with each other? Bonus points in that situation for anything remote controlled. See just how good his control really is. Equal opportunity toy usage is what I’m saying, basically.

Also had a thought inspired by a pregnant friend and her fiance raving about a local pizza place’s monthly special, which is a pickle pizza (no really). I may or may not have asked her if she had it with ice cream (I totally did, but apparently she’s past that point.) So I was wondering about any weird or specific cravings the boys have while pregnant. I remember Chris having a thing about chocolate pudding in the flashbacks. Was it only a certain type of pudding, or would any kind do? Were there any others he had? Did he have the same ones with Ben or different? What about Noah? What sort of cravings did he get, if any? And did they vary between sets of twins? Did anybody go the aforementioned pickles and ice cream route? Anybody dipping fries in Nutella? Onion straws in peanut butter? Doritos in cottage cheese? Anybody eat salsa straight out of the jar? Did anybody get any sudden absolute need for a specific fast food at two in the morning? Or suddenly want a type of snack food only carried at one truck stop halfway past the next town? Anybody spend several days eating nothing but veggie trays, including ones they normally can’t stand? Anybody develop a temporary aversion to certain things, like coffee (feels like it would be a terrible thing for either of them)? Did Peter cater to their every whim in any and all of these situations? (I already know that answer.) Did either one ever get demanding about it, or did they go the more passively-wistful-won’t-stop-mentioning-it route? Side note; did anyone (not family) ever catch the wrong end of hormones now backed by even more combat and/or magical ability? (Debbie at the bake sale best step off or she gonna regret a number of her life choices.)

Uh…I think that was the last of the random swirling questions/musings/headcanons for now… I hope you feel a bit better today, and that the time off (I think you mentioned some time off?) is helpful. Enjoy your time with your friend (that was this weekend, right?). If you’ve got ideas for writing stuff, but are having trouble getting them down, would making quick notes/reminders, or voice recordings, for later help? Like, so you don’t worry about losing them, but aren’t forcing yourself to do something you don’t feel up for at the time? Either way, congrats on keeping up with the journaling (and the pretty, pretty art), and I hope tracking everything proves helpful. And remember, other people’s bullshit issues and hang-ups are in no way your fault (no matter what they try to tell you), and you deserve all the good things. Take care! *Hugs to both of you!*

Yeah, honestly I think I hit that point in my life again where my battery is drained and I can’t restart it. Which is how I got my burn out at first and working towards another one. Heh but I also don’t want to give up now and just keep working for a little longer because my contract expires at the end of September and yeah..

Stress.

Aww gosh thank you, yeah I really like how that one turned out! It was better than expected.

Btw if you’re into Zombie apocalypse stories (I am) you should definitely check out The girl with all the gifts. It’s so brutal but also interesting, I definitely enjoyed that. (And it was research for my own book)

Lol I love this keyboard and this laptop, really, it was the most expensive thing I ever bought but it’s so worth it. Still runs super smooth after 2 years. I don’t think I’ve seen that video of Henry though.

And omg yes I did and it’s the best thing. he looks so SOFT omg. I def got OUAT S2 vibes from that. And OUAT vibes. Also that pic of him with Colton, omg. Those were the best!

THAT PRINT!!!! I nearly snorted coffee out of my nose this morning but managed to swallow it down just in time. My work computer would have suffered caffeine damage otherwise XD.

But yeah, that becomes a running gag for sure!

Because I mean we talked about Chris and Noah using toys on each other, but why should Peter get left out of the fun? There are plenty of ways for him to enjoy them, too. Like, pretty much the initial spontaneous thought was “Peter getting pulled into someone’s lap and being pegged within an inch of his life until he comes screaming down the throat of whichever one is going down on him at the same time."

*cheff’s kiss*

Yes.

Oh the images are so good. Remind me to write them out in detail tomorrow after the zoo trip.

Also parking the pregnancy cravings to answer tomorrow since it’s past midnight and I should catch some sleep before I need to be up again. But I will definitely type that HC out.

Side note; did anyone (not family) ever catch the wrong end of hormones now backed by even more combat and/or magical ability? (Debbie at the bake sale best step off or she gonna regret a number of her life choices.)

Ohhh Debbie’s toast. Because yes, Noah’s magic is that much stronger when it’s fueled by pregnancy hormones and Chris turns into a very protective hormonal fighting machine. Low center of gravity has advantages when you’re in a squabble with the Karens.

And yeah, I have four days off right now. Which means I don’t have to work until Thursday again. Which is awesome!

But yeah work wasn’t too bad, I had to do one bad news conversation which fucking sucked since there was nothing I could do and nobody I could get a hold off to fix the problem for that customer and it was just a waiting game. I hate those conversations. I honestly do.

Most of it was quiet though and I got to leave an hour earlier due to the quiet day. So that was good. And I watched a movie while being paid (The girl with all the gifts) so that was pretty fun too XD

I actually voice record a lot already. I find it really helps with clearing my mind and I write a lot of stuff down. But I appreciate the tip!

Lots of cuddles from me and Mo and I hope your day went by well. <3

#ben says stuff #once upon a time comments #my convos with anon #submission

1 note · View note

lovemesomesurveys · 4 years

Text

Have you ever done a craft that you found on Pinterest? I did dabble with some water painting a few years ago during Christmastime, actually. I made a few different Christmas poster things inspired by ones I saw on there. Like, they had different Christmasy quotes or song lyrics and some had pictures of Christmas trees or something. Do you get scrapbooking layout ideas from anywhere? I don’t do scrapbooking. What do you do to wipe off the dust from ordinary life? I’m always cleaning under the keys on my laptop. Are you content with mystery, or do you wish you knew everything? Uhh. I wouldn’t want to know everything. I like continuing to learn and discover new things. There’s also things I never want to know. I also like mystery in the sense of surprises. Like, I hate spoilers and I don’t want to know what any presents are before I open them. What do you do when someone irritates you on Facebook? If I see an annoying or stupid post I just keep scrolling.

Do you think your hair looks better natural or dyed? I think it looks much better dyed red. Do your parents disrespect you? My parents are respectful, pretty chill people. I mean, we get in disagreements and bicker sometimes, who doesn’t, but I wouldn’t say they disrespect me. Have you found that love covers over a multitude of sins? I mean, you can love someone but that doesn’t excuse their toxic, bad behaviors. It doesn’t mean people can treat you or others cruelly just because you love them. What was the last Grand Opening you went to? Hm. I don’t know if I’ve ever been to a grand opening. Not that I can think of at the moment. Do you have anything coming up tomorrow? Nope. What’s one thing that makes your stomach hurt? I’m lactose intolerant, so having dairy will definitely do that. Otherwise, I just have stomach issues and get stomachaches and pains for whatever reason. Ever had a living nightmare? These past few years in particular. Do you have a lot of haters? Ha. I’m so irrelevant. I’m sure I’m not even on anyone’s radar for them to feel that strongly about me. Outside of my family, I feel people are indifferent to me. I don’t make a big impression.

Do you think successful people always come with a pack of haters? Yes. There are people who can’t stand to see successful, happy people. They want to try and tear them down. There’s also just a lot of trolls who think it’s fun to hate on people. Do you have supernatural abilities? Uh, no. Do you kick yourself when you make mistakes? Do you say, “I wish I would have” a lot? All the damn time. There’s so much I wish I did and didn’t do and I’m always kicking myself so to speak for it. Are you doing the most you can with your life? Not even. I’ve completely let these past few years pass me by as I just waste away. Do you let people walk on you? I’ve had it happen in the past. Are you ok? I always just wanna start belting out to MCR when a question like this comes up. Do you have a friend you miss right now? Former friend, yeah. Do you ever write snail mail to your friends? I don’t have any friends anymore, but nah dude. I’ll send you a text or hit you up on social media if I need to reach you, ha. Do you make your life look better than it is on Facebook? I guess in a way because I don’t post personal shit. I used to post like sad quotes and lyrics and images back in the day, but I stopped doing that years ago. I very rarely post anything anymore and when I do, it’s something funny or #relatable that I saw and shared to my timeline. Or a check-in to somewhere if I think it’s of interest. Mostly; though, I’m just on there scrolling through my feed and “liking” things here and there. Do you feel God’s presence regularly? Yes. Do you experience chronic pain? Yes. Do you believe God loves you and is rooting for you? I know He does. Have you ever dreamt that you were falling? Ugh, yes. Worst feeling. I hate that feeling of jolting awake. What would your dream career be? I have no idea. Are you a daydreamer? ”You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.” Do you daydream so much that you wonder if there’s anyone who doesn’t? Uhh, I wouldn’t say that. My daydreaming is more me zoning out and dwelling about things from the past, thinking about current things, or imagining up scenarios. Do you ever just sit and daydream for awhile? My mind just wanders off like that. Is the snow falling where you are right now? It doesn’t snow here. :( What is your favorite part of nature? The beach, particularly the ocean. Though, we all know I’m not about getting into the ocean. That deep water and the creatures that dwell down there aren’t for me. Just thinking about that... :O I do love looking out at the ocean and just watch/listen to the waves crash in and out. It’s very, very calming. I let my thoughts get swept away with the waves. I also love the cool, ocean air and smell. Do you wish you could be a world traveler? Yes. Do you wish you could live in another city for a year? Ooh. That would be nice. I actually want to move to another city permanently. What city would you like to visit? There’s countless places I want to visit. What has been your favorite city that you’ve visited? Various ones in California. If you had kids, would you take them to Disney World? Pfft, I’d go now if I could. I don’t need kids for that, ha. I’m the big kid. I love Disneyland, so I’m sure I’d love Disney World as well. Have you ever stood in line to get a Disney character’s autograph? Yeah. As a kid and as an adult, haha. My favorite was a few years ago when we got pictures with Chewbacca and Darth Vader. Do you own a birthday crown? No. How long does it usually take your hair to dry? Do you dry it naturally or blow-dry it? I just let it air dry. It takes forever, though. Do you straighten your hair? Not anymore. I used to. Do you sleep with a teddy bear? I have a few stuffed animals on my bed that always just sit on my bed. Would you consider yourself a free spirit? No. Do you need to clean out your closet? I actually just did that a couple weekends ago. Do you watch YouTube videos regularly? Yep, everyday. What’s your favorite coffee shop? Starbucks. Is your Pinterest page cluttered? I have a few pinned things, but I don’t use Pinterest much for that. I use it to find and save photos for my phone background, typically. Do you want to start a collection? I have a few collections. Are you a role model? Would you consider yourself a good example? No. Are you a leader or a follower? I feel like I’m just sitting on the sidelines watching the crowd go by. Who’s your favorite person? Not a person, but my doggo. (: Who have been your favorite American Idol contestants? I liked a few from the first few seasons like Adam Lambert, David Archuleta, Tim Urban, and of course, Kelly Clarkson. Did you used to name your Barbies? Yep. What unnatural hair color looks best on you? I love dyeing my hair red. Is your life boring? ”I need another story, something to get off my chest. My life is kind of boring, need something that I can confess.” Do you usually feel better around people or alone? Depends. I like spending time with my family, but I also need my alone time. Is there a broken relationship in your life that you want to fix? Oh, like the friendships I ruined a few years ago because I’m a shitty person? I wouldn’t even know where to begin at this point. Like...what could I even say. I know they’re hurt and probably hate me, and I don’t blame them at all. They deserved more than I what I gave them. The more time goes by, the worse it is. I still don’t feel like I’m in the right headspace to try and fix things. Like...I don’t think things would change and we’d end up in the same spot because I’m still a mess. And I feel horrible for feeling this way, but there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to. :X I wish I went about things differently, most definitely, but having some people out of my life now is the worst thing.... Do you ever think about Heaven? Yes. Are you ready for Heaven yet? I pray it’s not my time, yet. Are you afraid of where you’re going to go? I pray I go to heaven when it is my time. Do you have a tree outside your window? Yes. Do you feel better now than you did last night? I feel the same, really. Is your sleep schedule messed up? Ohhhh yeah. It has been for years. It switches up, though. Still all bad, but different. Like, currently my bedtime is like 5, sometimes 6, in the morning and I sleep until 1. Does your body have any problems with it? It has a lot wrong with it. Are you doing ok spiritually? I’m working on strengthening my relationship with God. Have you taken any huge risks lately? No. Silence or songs? I don’t like complete silence ever. I need something, whether it be the TV, YouTube, or music. I sleep with the TV on for that reason (and for some light because I can’t have it completely dark either). Tea or coffee? Coffeeeee. Books or movies? I enjoy both. Do you ever watch your favorite movies from when you were a kid? Disney movies are timeless. ^If you were going to do that, what would you watch? Something Disney. Do you ignore rude people or do you call them out? I’ll talk shit about them to myself or someone I’m close with like my mom, ha. I don’t confront people. Well, unless it’s someone I’m close to who says or does something rude. Do you have trouble staying organized? With my life, yes. It’s showing externally now; though, too. My room has gotten cluttery and I hate it. It never used to be that way. What has been your most favorite adventure? All the trips I’ve taken. What has been your greatest mistake? I’ve made a long list of ‘em. Are you happy with your life right now? No. Do you take anything to make your feel better? ”I take prescriptions to make me feel a-okay I know it’s all in my head.” Sorry, ya’ll know I’m always breaking out into song. Anyway, I currently don’t take any anti-depressants or anti-anxiety pills. Are your parents still together? Yes. What color socks do you have on? White. Are you under a blanket right now? I have one wrapped around me. Are you hopeful? :/

#personal #text #survey #surveys

6 notes · View notes

welovelofi · 5 years

Photo

Loves Me / Loves Me Not

another round must commence <3

Magon - Third Dimensional Love

youtube

Lovely slacker progressive from mainland France. It’s been a while since I’ve heard this nice use of drone-y slacker. I see a lot of diy-made ‘homevideo’ style music videos out there, like 95% of them fail, Magon does not. It’s equal parts lovely akward and “bad” taste. The French have always had a good eye for aesthetics. Check out the older movies by Jean-Pierre Jeunet - City of the Lost Children, Delicatessen etc and you’ll know what I mean.

Next time I’m going to my imaginary garden to pick flowers for a late night tea-party this is the track I’ll be blasting out the speakers, me and my butterflies will love it equallty.

Dead Little Penny - Dead Together

youtube

I’ve missed bands like this, it’s proper revival of all that was good about the late 80s and early 90s before Cobain decided to leave us which unfortunately made way to a crusade of bad rip-off and watered down “grunge” bands. Maybe Dead Little Penny is here to signal a new round of good taste, or maybe it’s just a reminder that there still are great bands out there who can master a dirty sound with pleasant melodies without seeming to be too full of themselves. The band is from Australia - how I wish they would come to Europe for a tour - I’d be the first to help them out with lodning and local venue contacts <3 please.

Cool Sounds - Digi Dog

https://open.spotify.com/track/7CzlShBUaCWT2iAHFOhfBH

It’s a good time for Australian acts apparently and I will be the last to complaint - if it wasn’t for that the trip from Europe is quite the distance. I apologize for only having a spotify link for you on this on, but it doesn’t make the track less chill. There’s nothing fancy about this tune, it’s thumbing ahead like a lofi version of War on Drugs, which in itself sounds like something I would get on board with. This is a nice track for the mornings when you’re not really sure what you’re supposed to be doing - you can always play the tune a second time around.

Callum Pitt - L.Lane

https://soundcloud.com/callum-pitt/l-lane

Callum on the other hand is very much into War on Drugs I am quite certain - most problems for bands trying to copy the sound of the band is that they just don’t have good enough songs for such a pleasurable vibe in the production. So it just becomes dull songs without a purpose. Callum’s different - he clearly knows how to write good songs - which is probably also why he is signed to the same label as the gents of the War on Drugs.

If this is the level Callum insists on putting forward and he can keep it up, I’m pretty sure he’s walking towards a bright future, I would surely keep my eye on him. If I had a ranch and was taking daily walks checking up one some stray animals and just gazing over whatever you have on a ranch, this is what I’d be putting on my boom-box that I’ll be dragging along in my wooden cart. I’d naturally only have the cart along for the boombox, which would only be along because this track would fit such a walk tremendously - I don’t own a ranch obviously, but I do like this song.

Maybird - Montreal

youtube

I LOVE the vocals on the singer of this! There’s something in this that reminds me of The Growlers - a band that it’s almost impossible not to like or love for at least a few reasons.

It’s a pretty short song, the good thing about that is you definitely would want to listen to more songs - where do I get them, when do I get them? There’s not much to know, but in this day and age of convenience and ‘having everything you way’ it’s quite healthy having to go out and catch your music yourself, just a little effort? If someone bought me any type of old car, I would give them a recording of this and take a ride together <3

Sons of Zöku - Dead Poets

https://soundcloud.com/sonsofzoku/dead-poets/s-4zFzN

If you’re ever sad that you were born too late for the grandest of days with the Beatles - now is your time! And it could possibly be pretty fucking epic! Never have I heard many good tunes inspired by the trippier times of the Brits - with the exception of the first couple of Tame Impala records!

SO - once more the problem for us is that these guys are ALSO in Australia - WHAT THE F IS UP with Australia these days? And why aren’t somebody starting a record label to put out all these goodies! Anyhow, if I ever were to become a booking agent I might as well start a company and sign the Aussie bands in this post - anyone thinking of doing the same out there I’m open to teaming up <3 Go listen to this track, go do whatever you feel like - this will fit anything you could ever consider spending your day on today, scouts honor.

JW Francis - Lofi

https://soundcloud.com/jw_francis/lo-fi/s-4TlV5

We’re going to end on a chill and lovely note. JW Francis is a pal I’m happy to know exists in this world - I’m pretty sure he’s put here to brighten our days. He sounds like the kind of guy I’d want to go hang out at the beach with, he would bring his guitar, he’d have a friend who has a small rowing boat. We’d row out into the water, he would have already packed a nice lunch basket with grapes, maybe some wine. It’s not some kind of secret gay romance I’m harbouring - though I’m pretty sure any partner ending up with JW would be smiling when he’s writing songs in the opposing room or the kitchen, I know I would.

I don’t know much about JW Francis, but I know he’s got good taste and I know he knows how to put a song and mix together that has just the right bits of aesthetic sense to make it pleasurable almost no matter what kind of music you’re into - put this on if you have a boat, if you don’t have a boat just go buy that todler swimming-pool, fill it with a couple of liters of water and lay down - you deserve it <3

Until next time, hope you have a pleasant weekend everyone.

#loves me loves me not #Magon #Third Dimensional Love #Callum Pitt #L.Lane #Cool Sounds #Digi Dog #Dead Little Penny #Dead Together #maybird #montreal #Sons of Zöku #Dead Poets

1 note · View note

thepropertylovers · 6 years

Text

Feature Friday with Benjamin Katz

Happy Friday! On this week’s Feature Friday, Benjamin talks about what it was like growing up in a very orthodox Jewish community. He discusses how he felt constantly having to hide his sexuality, what he would say to those who believe homosexuality is a sin, and how free he feels today now that he can finally be his true self. His words really moved us, and we found ourselves inspired multiple times while getting to know him, taking in every word. We wanted more! Maybe he should write a book? Take a look below to see what we mean and to learn about Benjamin’s story…

Where are you from? I am from Long Island, New York.

Where do you live? I still currently live on Long Island but attend college in Pennsylvania.

Instagram handle? My Instagram handle is benj_katz

Age: I am 19 years old.

On traveling to South Africa: Traveling is one of my favorite things to do. I must say that South Africa was probably the coolest place I’ve ever been to so far. While the flight is not easy, it was definitely worth it. Aside from the safari that I went on, which was so incredibly special, Cape Town was a different experience in of itself. The beach is breathtaking, the food is delicious, and the people are so kind. My experience in South Africa was everything that a vacation should be. I highly recommend making it out there if you can!

On growing up in an orthodox Jewish community: Before I begin to explain my experience growing up in a modern orthodox Jewish community, it is important for me to disclose that my experience is not indicative of Judaism as a whole. Like all religions, there are sects that follow a very rigid, conservative, set of values. The community I grew up in was exactly that. On that note, growing up in my community was similar to seeing how long you can hold your breath for. Sure, there were aspects that were nice. Every weekend was Shabbat, and the whole family gathered around the table for dinner. We would walk to temple for services, at which my friends and I would run around and play handball, or something to that extent. However, the atmosphere was heavy, and saturated with ignorance. From a very young age I was told to pray from the Siddur (which means bible in Hebrew), how to act, be dressed, and speak. There was little to no room for individuality. Observance of all Jewish holidays and events were a must. If you did not observe, you were looked down upon. If there was any facet of your life that was seen as ‘too secular’ then you were shunned, gossiped about, and the entire town would not let you live it down. So, while the community I grew up in did have positive aspects, the overarching notion was that of unacceptance. You had to conform.

“…growing up in my community was similar to seeing how long you can hold your breath for.”

On going to a Jewish school: Gosh, to this day I don’t know why I chose that. My parents even encouraged me to transfer to a public school after we left my town, but I insisted that I stay. I like to look at things in two different perspectives. On one hand I do think that attending my modern orthodox private school instilled important values, secular and religious. However, on the other hand, I do strongly believe I was continually pushed to conform. I know of only three people, in my school’s entire history, that came out as queer. The first one was openly bullied, and almost kicked out of the school because of it. He was about 6 years before my time at my school. The second person was only a year ahead of me, and he came out just before his senior graduation. He was able to get out quick enough, as to not suffer any consequences. Then, the third person was a girl a year behind me. She came out and added her own individuality to her forced conformity. It was amazing. I was so inspired by her. However, on the other side of things, people I used to call my friends, bashed them. Just for being themselves. It was a constant battle in my school. Kids just did not mind their own business. It was such a different way of life back then. There is one situation in particular that sticks out to me when recounting my experience as a closeted queer man in my high school. There was an app called Whisper. I don’t know if it is still popular. However, it was in my school for a point in time. One kid I was friends with, who was also queer, used it to ask how he should come out to his best friend. For those who don’t know, Whisper allows people to anonymously post questions to your high school page. He told me, and showed me proof, not that I needed to see any, that people were blowing up his phone asking who he was. They were dying to know just who this queer kid could be. Long story short, they found out. One of them posed as another queer closeted guy and found out who he was. They then outed him to the entire school and he was the new talking point for everyone. That didn’t stop until the summer came. It was the winter when this happened. This kind of ridicule swept the school like a plague, and every time I heard about it, my heart sank, worrying that I could be next.

On his religious beliefs today: I am not religious anymore. I grew up in a modern orthodox household, but around middle school I stopped observing modern orthodoxy along with my immediate family. Since then, I’ve been more traditional. The appropriate term for my level of observance is known as conservative Judaism.

On people who say homosexuality is a sin: I’ve experienced this kind of rhetoric many times, both inside and outside of the classroom. At first, I was never sure how to approach it, and that partially was because a part of me believed it was a sin. I always used to think I was broken somehow. However, I’ve grown since then, and to anybody who says that being myself is a sin, well, I feel sorry for them. In the moment I would question them. Maybe it’s because of their upbringing, which because of what I witnessed firsthand, I can’t blame, but I definitely would not pursue a conversation with somebody who can’t accept people different from themselves. If there is one thing I’ve learned from my time dealing with religious individuals, who are stubborn in their beliefs, it is to pick your battles, because you definitely cannot win them all.

On coming out: I came out a year ago, so 18 years old. Until I arrived on my college campus, I had believed that no matter where I went, I would not be accepted. It wasn’t even until a few months into my college career that I realized being queer, being myself, was okay, and treated normally, at least on my college campus. My best friend had known about me since high school, I couldn’t keep myself from telling him. However, when I arrived at college, I made some incredible friends. I was in an environment unlike my high school. There was genuine acceptance. It’s quite funny actually. At first, I couldn’t believe it, I was in denial. My good friend kept telling me, “dude no one cares here, seriously.” No matter how many times I heard that from him, I could not accept it. I was stuck in the mentality that everyone was out to get me. Coming out was known to be social suicide at my last school. Why would this one be any different? I came to realize that my friend was right. I needed to be myself, and the more I thought about staying closeted, the more it started to chip away at my well-being. So, I took that incredibly anxiety riddled step of not caring. I say it like this because I did not come out in the way most people do. I didn’t post about it on social media, nor did I tell the world. I just simply let go. I stopped caring, and when/if people asked me about my sexual orientation, I stopped lying. I stopped giving excuses for why I was texting a boy I thought was cute. I stopped killing myself over if I was ‘straight enough’ or not. I just let it all go. To my surprise, it went extremely well. Of course, there were a few instances of push back, but nothing major. I was genuinely surprised at how well my friends and family took it. The most common response I got was “okay that’s cool.” Since then, I have been the happiest I’ve ever been.

“I learned a lot about myself, and part of me thinks that’s because until I came out, I didn’t really know who I was in the first place. My life revolved around making sure my secret didn’t get out. However, after I was out, my life became about me.”

On making his life about him: I learned a lot about myself, and part of me thinks that’s because until I came out, I didn’t really know who I was in the first place. My life revolved around making sure my secret didn’t get out. However, after I was out, my life became about me. Which felt completely unnatural, but because I was finally living in my own skin, and not the façade I had put up, I learned so much about myself. I obtained a newfound passion for the outdoors. I’m currently the Vice President of the outdoors club at my college and attend all kinds of weekly trips. There’s just something about that breath of fresh air that gets me, whether it be down rapids, or on the peak of a valley, I can’t get enough. I also found myself smiling more. I know this sounds so cliché, but finally being able to walk around in your own skin does something miraculous to the soul. I was in a constant state of worry, looking over my shoulder, and all of sudden I wasn’t. It takes courage to be yourself, and that was something I also learned about myself. I was never brave as a kid. I grew up being the cautious one, the one who never wanted to go out on an adventure, but now, I crave adventure. I started to seek out those adventures, those new friends, the unknown. Coming out feels a lot more rewarding then most people think.

On his advice to those struggling to come out: My biggest piece of advice is that your story is for you and you only. It is your information to share and should be on your own grounds and no one else’s. Never let anyone strip you of your identity. Don’t let anyone else tell you who you are, or that your undeserving in any shape or form. No matter what you’re going through, always know that there are other people who have been there, and we are with you every step of the way!

On his unfinished bucket list: I love the water and beaches, I could lay out on one all day. With that being said, I’ve always wanted to go to Catalina Island off the coast of California.

On his biggest inspiration: I honestly don’t have one particular person that I look up to as an inspiration. There are so many strong and brave people that I am inspired by. I am inspired by all the fearless souls who stand up for what is right. Every single day I aspire to be like them.

6 notes · View notes

weekendwarriorblog · 3 years

Text

The Weekend Warrior 3/19/21: SXSW, Zack Snyder’s Justice League,The Courier, City of Lies, Happily and More!

Remember a couple weeks back when I stated the plan was to bring back the Weekend Warrior as a regular weekly series again? Yeah, well if you looked for a column last week and wondered what happened, I just didn’t have time to write one. And I also just haven’t been able to get back on the ball in terms of writing reviews. It just takes a lot of time to watch all the movies let alone review them the way I did last year. I honestly have no idea how I did it last year, but things have been busier than ever at Below the Line, which does throw a bit of a spanner into any extracurricular plans.

The big event this week is the annual SXSW Film Festival, which I’ll be taking part in virtually, and somewhat tangentially, watching as much as I can while still doing other things. It’s been a while since I’ve attended SXSW in person, but it tends to have great docs, especially music docs. In fact, this year’s Opening Night Film is the documentary, Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil, about Demi Lovato’s drug overdose from 2018 and its aftermath. Other music docs of interest include Poly Styrene: I Am A Cliché, about the late frontwoman from early punk band X-Ray Spex through the eyes of her daughter; Mary Wharton’s doc Tom Petty, Somewhere You Feel Free made from archival footage of the late singer making his 1994 record “Wildflowers”; Alone Together about Charlie XCX’s pandemic record; Under the Volcano about George Martin’s AIR Studios Montserrat; and it gives another chance to see Edgar Wright’s excellent, The Sparks Brothers, which was picked up by Focus Features after Sundance. There’s also an amazing doc about Selma Blair’s fight with MS, Introducing, Selma Blair, which is equal parts heartbreaking and inspirational.

SXSW also has pretty solid Midnighters, and there’s a number of those I’m also looking forward to, including Travis Stevens’ Jakob’s Wife, starring horror legends Larry Fassenden and Barbara Crampton, who were so great in my buddy Ted Geoghegan’s We Are Still Here. (No coincidence since Stevens produced that movie.) And I hope to watch a few others like Lee Haven Jones’ The Feast, Jacob Gentry’s Broadcast Signal Intrusion, and Alex Noyer’s Sound of Violence. We’ll see how much I get to see this week, cause it’s a lot of movies over only a couple days, basically from Tuesday through Saturday.

Closer to home at the Metrograph, the still-closed movie theater is doing a virtual series called “Bill Murray X6” which has already shown Lost in Translation and What about Bob? With Rushmore screening until Thursday, and then The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou available through Friday. Become a digital member for just $5 a month! This past weekend I saw a really amazing 7-part doc series called Untitled Pizza Movie by David Shapiro. In fact, I stayed up late on Sunday to watch the whole thing since it was leaving the digital screeners, but it’s a very entertaining, intriguing and personal story about the director, his friend and partner in crime Leeds, who he went around to different NYC pizza shops in the ‘90s trying to find the perfect slice, and then they come across pizzaman Andrew Belluci at the world-famous Lombardi’s in Soho. The project that took over 20 years to make follows what happened to the three men, but mainly Leeds and Belluci as they have ups and downs that ultimately leads to Belluci starting his own pizza joint in Queens. Everything that happens in between is quite fascinating.

I saw a couple other movies this past weekend including Robin Wright’s Land, which I quite enjoyed, and the rom-com Long Weekend, which came out last Friday but I totally missed. Land is a pretty amazing directorial debut that’s mostly a one-woman show with her character alone in the wilderness until she runs into trouble and meets Demian Bichir’s kindly Samaritan and they become friends. Directed by Stephen Basilone, Long Weekend stars Finn Wittrock and Zoe Chao in what starts as a meet cute rom-com and turns into something much deeper with a couple sci-fi-tinged twists, a bit like Palm Springs, but much more grounded. I loved the two leads and how Basilone made a romantic comedy that actually was romantic and very funny, as well. Both movies I recommend.

Getting into some of the streamer offerings this week, ZACK SNYDER’s JUSTICE LEAGUE will hit HBO Max on Thursday, so we can finally see whether or not that extra money and work paid off. I’ll be reviewing this over at Below the Line, so won’t spend too much time here. I figure that anyone who has been waiting for this will watch it, as will anyone who has been curious about it. As you can read from my review, I was quite impressed by the film as an achievement in finishing what is clearly a far superior film to the 2017 theatrical release. Some of the highlights include great stuff between Ray Fisher’s Cyborg and his father, a far more fun introduction to The Flash that was cut from the 2017 release and just some insanely crazy good action. I can’t wait to watch the movie again.

Kicking off on Friday is the anticipated Marvel Studios series, THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER (Disney), bringing back the title characters played by Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan, who were introduced in one of the MCU’s better movies, Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I was sent the first episode and unfortunately, there’s an embargo until Thursday afternoon, but I do think that MCU fans are gonna be thrilled with the first episode, especially with the Falcon’s opening action sequence, which is like something right out of the movies.

Okay, fine, so let’s get to some new movies and some real reviews…

Probably the movie with the widest release this weekend will be THE COURIER (Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions), starring Benedict Cumberbatch, which I’m guessing will be in 1,000 or so theaters. The movie premiered at Sundance way back in 2020 under the significantly worse title of “Ironbark” with plans to release it later in the year, but then COVID happened. I’m not sure if Roadside Attractions planned for this to be an awards movie, but after a few delays, releasing it in mid-March just days after the Oscar nominations, I’m guessing probably not?

Directed by Dominic Cooke (On Chesil Beach) from a screenplay by Tom O’Connor (The Hitman’s Bodyguard… wait, WHAT?), this Cold War spy thriller set in the early ‘60s stars Cumberbatch as Greville Wynne, a British businessman who is coerced by agents from MI6 and the CIA (repped by Rachel Brosnahan) to smuggle Russian secrets from military man Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze). Greville’s trips to Moscow start getting more and more dangerous under the shadow of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and his wife (the always great Jessie Buckley) wants him to stop taking the trips. It all leads up to a pretty exciting second act as the KGB starts to figure out what Greville and Oleg have been up to and work to put a stop to it.

I have to admit that as much as I enjoy a good spy-thriller, a lot of this reminded me of Cumberbatch’s earlier film Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – yes, the John Le Caree adaptation, which I was never a particularly big fan of. This has similarities in that it starts out fairly slow, making me think this might be one of those well-made, well-acted movies that are just plain boring cause the subject doesn’t interest me. I’m sure when this was greenlit, there was probably more relevance to the situation between the U.S. and Russia, although this is obviously a British production and maybe something better to watch on the Beeb than in a movie theater.

In general, the stuff with the two men and their families tends to be the best part of the movie. I wasn’t familiar with Merab Ninidze beforehand, but he’s a really good actor who holds his own in scenes with Cumberbatch. Although Cumberbatch’s performance is significantly better here than in The Mauritanian, that’s definitely a better movie, so even in the last act which sees Wynne in a Russian jail, it just doesn’t compare. This is the second film with Rachel Brosnahan in which she didn’t really impress me much after hearing how great she is on Mrs. Maisel. Even so, the movie did make me want to go back and rewatch the beginning again to see if maybe I wasn’t as focused on it, as it should be.

As far as box office, I don’t have much hope for this making more than $2 or 3 million this weekend, since it seems more like a prestige platform release that would have to build audiences from rave reviews or positive word-of-mouth. Coming out so long after its festival debut (kinda like that Thomas Edison movie a few years back) may have helped people forget about the midling festival reviews. Even so, this movie just doesn’t have much buzz or interest from #FilmTwitter who has had its tongue so far up the superhero movie ass this week between Zack Snyder’s Justice League and Marvel’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier to pay much attention to this. (Hey, facts is facts!)

Johnny Depp and Forrest Whitaker star in Brad Furman’s crime-thriller CITY OF LIES (Saban Films), which is about the real-life search for the killer of the Notorious B.I.G. aka Biggie Smalls with Depp playing Detective Russell Poole, who ended up on the case in 1997, and Whitaker playing reporter Jack Jackson, doing a story on Smalls for the 20thanniversary of the unsolved murder.

Based on the book “Labyrinth” (the movie’s original title), it’s a story that takes place in two time periods, Los Angeles in the ‘90s after the Rodney King beating and L.A. riots and how it’s made the criminal element that surrounds rap mogul Suge Night. It begins with Poole investigating the death of a black police officer named Gaines, shot by a white police officer (Shea Whigham) in what is seemingly a road rage incident. As Poole investigates, he learns about police corruption in the force including a number of officers tied directly to Knight.

As Jackson interviews Poole to try and find out who killed Biggie, we flashback to Poole’s investigation and interaction with some of those corrupt cops and being put into extremely dangerous situations. The movie isn’t bad, especially the scenes between Whitaker and Depp, who gives a far more grounded performance than we’ve seen from him in recent years. Even so, the performance that really impressed me was Toby Huss as Poole’s superior, who just brings something new to the tough head detective role we haven’t really seen.

Regardless of what you think of Depp’s activities off-camera, this is a fairly solid crime thriller (as was Scott Cooper’s Black Mass), and though you never actually get to see Biggie, Tupac or Suge Night, it’s an interesting examination into a period in L.A. that seems so long ago but still rings true to what’s been going on in the last year.

BenDavid Grabinski’s HAPPILY (Saban/Paramount) is a dark comedy-thriller starring Joel McHale and Kerry Bishé as Tom and Janet, a happily married couple who annoy their friends by still having sex on the regular whenever they possibly can. In fact, their friends decide to uninvite Tom and Janet to their planned couples’ weekend because they’re so annoyed by them. One day, a mysterious man (played by Stephen Root) shows up at Tom and Janet’s house, one thing leads to another and they kill and bury him. Thinking that the man’s visit might be part of a friend’s prank, they go to the planned couples’ trip, trying to figure out if the prankster has gotten suspicious about what they’ve done.

For the sake of transparency, I met Grabinski at my very first Sundance ever as he was friends with some of my colleagues, but I never spent a ton of time talking to him. This film impressed me, since it’s a prtty strong debut from him, one that benefits greatly from a strong cast that includes Paul Scheer, Breckin Meyer (who I didn’t even recognize!), Charlyne Yi, Natalie Morales and more, making for a really solid ensemble dark comedy that reminded me of the tone of last year’s The Hunt or Ike Barinholtz’s The Oath or a great lesser-seen movie from last year, Robert Schwartzman’s The Argument. Dark comedy isn’t for everyone, and this is definitely a little mean-spirited at times, but more importantly, it’s very funny and tends to get crazier and crazier as it goes along.

More importantly, I loved Grabinski’s musical choices from Devo’s “Working in a Coal Mine” to not one but two OMD songs, and great use of Public Image Limited as well. The way Grabinski puts this together comes across like a hipper and fresher Hitchcock, and while it might not be for everyone, I could totally see this killing at a genre fest like Fantastic Fest or even this week’s SXSW. It’s clever and original and rather intriguing how Grabinski puts all the various pieces together.

Hitting Shudder on Thursday is Elza Kephart’s horror-comedy SLAXX (Shudder) about a possessed pair of jeans brought to life to punish the practices of a trendy clothing company, which it does by terrorizing the staff locked in overnight. Didn’t get to watch this before getting bogged down in SXSW but definitely looking forward to it.

Another horror film coming out this week is the horror anthology PHOBIAS (Vertical), exec. produced by the filmmaking team “Radio Silence” (Ready or Not) with segments directed by Camilla Belle, Maritte Lee Go, Joe Sill, Jess Varley and Chris von Hoffman. The stories follow five dangerous patients suffering from extreme phobias at a government facility with a crazed doctor trying to weaponize their fears.

Jeremy Piven stars in Paolo Pilladi’s LAST CALL (IFC Films) playing real estate developer Mick, who returns to his old Philly neighborhood and must decide whether to resurrect his family bar or raze it. I actually watched a few minutes of this, but apparently, IFC Films isn’t allowing reviews, so I have nothing more to say about the movie beyond the fact that it’s coming out on Friday.

Opening at the newly reopened Film Forum – currently doing a hybrid of in-person and virtual cinema – is Chris McKim’s doc WOJNAROWICZ: F**K YOU F*GGOT F**KER (Kino Lorber), premiering virtually on Friday. It’s about David Wojnarowicz, one of the loudest voices in the ACT-Up movement during the ‘80s who died of AIDS himself in 1992. (Correction: Film Forum actually isn’t reopening until April 2.)

A few other things this week include Aengus James’ doc AFTER THE DEATH OF ALBERT LIMA hitting Crackle about Paul Lima, a son obsessed with capturing his father’s murderer who has remained at large in Honduras due to a failed legal system. Because of this, Paul travels to the Honduras with two bounty hunters to find and capture the killer.

Lastly, streaming on Topic Thursday, there’s Parliament, directed by Elilie Noblet and Jeremie Sein, about a young man named Samy who arrives in Brussels after the Brexit vote trying to get a job into the European Parliament without really knowing how it works.

That’s all for this week. It might be a while before I can get The Weekend Warrior back into some sort of fighting weekly shape, but I’m doing the best I can right now, so let me know if you’re reading any of this.

#TheWeekendWarrior #TheCourier #Movies #Reviews #BoxOffice #ZackSnyderJusticeLeague #Happily #CityOfLies

0 notes

punk-rock-pixie · 6 years

Note

1-85

1. Are looks important in a relationship?

I mean, I won’t lie and say it gives some personal points, but like I won’t date you if you’re a douche, no matter if you look good or not.

2. Are relationships ever worth it?

I mean, you don’t NEED to be in one, but it is nice to have someone care for you

3. Are you a virgin?

yup

4. Are you in a relationship?

I am yes

5. Are you in love?

I think?

6. Are you single this year?

Well for like the first month I was

7. Can you commit to one person?

Yeah. Even if I’m polyamorous, I won’t act on it if they’re not cool with it

8. Describe your crush

They love birds and also is a witch. We love a lotta the same stuff.

9. Describe your perfect mate

A storyteller, share at least a few interests. Someone I could talk non-stop to or just become a total tree stump. They understand to a good extent how I work and put the same effort in that I do. On the superficial side, I’m partial to the more butch/masc presenting people and possibly taller.

That being said the person I am dating is actually a few inches shorter than me lmao

10. Do you believe in love at first sight?

Not really, but I feel like there can be a connection, but love takes time.

11. Do you ever want to get married?

I dunno. I haven’t given it much thought.

12. Do you forgive betrayal?

Depends on the extent????

13. Do you get jealous easily?

I’m kinda jealous, but idk

14. Do you have a crush on anyone?

I mean,,,,, yeah???

15. Do you have any piercings?

Just my ears

16. Do you have any tattoos?

Nope

17. Do you like kissing in public?

Only like small pecks. I’m not much on PDA more than like hugging or hand-holding

20. Do you shower every day?

every other day

21. Do you think someone has feelings for you?

I should hope they do????

22. Do you think someone is thinking about you right now?

Maybe

23. Do you think you can last in a relationship for 6 months and not cheat?

I mean, duh?

24. Do you think you’ll be married in 5 years?

25. Do you want to be in a relationship this year?

I’m happy with it yeah.

26. Has anyone told you they don’t want to ever lose you?

Yes

27. Has someone ever written a song or poem for you?

Not that I know of???

28. Have you ever been cheated on?

YUP. THEY MANAGED 5 PEOPLE IN THE ONE MONTH OF DATING

29. Have you ever cheated on someone?

30. Have you ever considered plastic surgery? If so, what would you change about your body?

I wanna make myself look more masc

31. Have you ever cried over a guy/girl?

Oh yeah. I’m not someone to cry a lot but like?? I’ve had my days

32. Have you ever experienced unrequited love?

mhm

33. Have you ever had sex with a man?

HHHH

34. Have you ever had sex with a woman?

BUDDY

35. Have you ever kissed someone older than you?

Most people I’ve kissed are older than me

36. Have you ever liked one of your best friends?

Yup. Ended poorly

37. Have you ever liked someone who your friends hated?

Yup

38. Have you ever liked someone you didn’t expect to?

Yeah.

39. Have you ever wanted someone you couldn’t have?

Yeah

40. Have you ever written a song or poem for someone?

41. Have you had sex so far this year?

Didn’t I say I was a virgin literally in the first few questions

42. How long can you just kiss until your hands start to wander?

Depends on the mood I guess

43. How long was your longest relationship?

6 months and they left me for someone else

44. How many boyfriends/girlfriends have you had?

6???

45. How many people did you kiss in 2012/2013?

I didn’t have my first kiss until 2014

46. How many times did you have sex last year?

BOI

47. How old are you?

Old enough to have chronic back pain and complain about technology apparently.

48. If the person you like says they like someone else, what would you say?

I mean I’m sad, but like…. I’m not gonna try to manipulate them?

49. If you have a boyfriend/girlfriend, what is your favorite thing about him/her?

They understand my emotions and are wildly compassionate. NOT TO MENTION HOW TALENTED THEY ARE AT MAKEUP AND UKULELE?

50. If your first true love knocked on your door with apology and presents, would you accept?

Maybe, but I wouldn’t really let them back into my life?

51. Is there a boy/girl who you would do absolutely everything for?

I don’t think I’d do EVERYTHING for someone, but there is someone I’d do a lot for.

52. Is there anyone you’ve given up on? Why?

Some friends I dropped recently. We brought out the worst in one another, and I felt like it was time to leave and try to put more energy into other people. I don’t think the friendship was a waste of time at all. We just grew into very different people and did more fighting than being friends, and I wasn’t gonna stay in a friendship like that.

53. Is there someone mad because you’re dating/talking to the person you are?

So far they haven’t voiced it so??? I don’t think so?

54. Is there someone you will never forget?

Absolutely

55. Share a relationship story.

We were in a long distance thing a few years back. We started off as friends and I realized I had feelings, but we waited until the con we met at to make things official. As I was leaving he asked if he could write something about me and he wrote a full 8 pages. Additionally, at our next con, I was super sick (we didn’t know until later I had mono) and almost fainted. He stayed with me the whole time, and, even though I told him it was possible I had mono, he risked it and still kissed me.

I don’t blame him for not having feelings for me after that. I think we rushed in and were caught up in the obsession, which lasts about 4 months. I was sure of my emotions, and he wasn’t. It’s ok. We knew what we were getting ourselves into to an extent. We’re still distant friends, I think? No hard feelings.

56. State 8 facts about your body

1. I hate it

2. It manages to put away food like it is no one’s business

3. I can wiggle my ears

4. I am very lactose intolerant and get bad stomach aches, but don’t care

5. I can crack my wrist on command

6. Somehow I can get 3 hours of sleep and still function

7. He a tired man

8. My hair and nails grow fucking fast

57. Things you want to say to an ex

Wherever you are, hope you’re doin okay. Sorry things didn’t work out

58. What are five ways to win your heart?

1. Common grounds of interests/morals

2. Be ok with my mood swings and fickleness when it comes to affection

3. Being a storyteller. I love creativity so much?

4. Passion. Someone who is passionate about something (IE hobbies, special interests, etc) is just??? really attractive????

5. I have a thing for people taller than me? Idk

59. What do you look like? (Post a picture!)

Check my “pixie pics” tag (and maybe like or reblog lmaooo)

60. What is the biggest age difference between you and any of your partners?

a year and a half???

61. What is the first thing you notice in someone?

Usually eyes and their hair

62. What is the sexiest thing someone could ever do for/to you?

Being creative and make a project like inspired by me I guess? Idk. Do something unusual. Of course, I am all for cliche, but like being unusual is really cool.

63. What is your definition of “having sex”?

Consensual stimulation of sex organs? Idk

64. What is your definition of cheating?

Being with someone without you’re partner’s/partners’ knowledge and consent

65. What is your favourite foreplay routine?

WHat?

66. What is your favourite roleplay?

Fuckin long-ass paragraphs STORYTELLING

67. What is your idea of the perfect date?

Like I said, I love the cliche. Take me to a museum or the park, but even like staying home (If we’ve been seeing one another for a while) and hanging out is cool too. If it’s a first date, something where we can get to talk and know one another

68. What is your sexual orientation?

Probably on the ace spectrum. As for romantic pref?? FLUID AS FUUUUCK

69. What turns you off?

Being rude???

70. What turns you on?

CREATIVITY MAN. IT IS GREAT

71. What was your kinkiest wet dream?

Fuckin???? I don’t remember my dreams sometimes. Most of them are pretty tame

72. What words do you like to hear during sex?

BUDDY NEVER HAD SEX

73. What’s something sweet you’d like someone to do for you?

Writing a poem or song is super cute??? Or like when I’m feeling as depressed as I am now, just showing up to my house and kidnapping me for a bit for like a trip to the beach? (Shoutout to my friend Cici who has been a big help all weekend and did just that today??)

74. What’s the most superficial characteristic you look for?

Being taller than me and also eye color/hair idk.

75. What’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for you?

Refer to 73 where my friend Cici came to my house today WITH ROSES AND FOOD and drove me to the beach and treated me to a few hours of escapism and dinner. She’s a real one. She as well as my sister and my s/o have been helping me through this terrible month.

76. What’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever done for someone?

I stayed up all night with someone to help them through a tough time

77. What’s your opinion on age differences in relationships?

If you’re under 18 be careful. If you’re over 18 as two consenting adults, you’re pretty much fine. If you’re a pedophile, fuck right off, mate.

78. What’s your dirtiest secret?

I think I literally ate dirt as a child???

79. When was the last time you felt jealous? Why?

A lotta my friends are getting signed on for top surgery and possible HRT, and like, I am very happy for them, and also I feel like garbage because this is something I’ve wanted for YEARS

80. When was the last time you told someone you loved them?

I told my sister today

81. Who are five people you find attractive?

Pj Liguori, Ethan Nestor, Chris Evans, Hugh Jackman, and Amy Nelson

82. Who is the last person you hugged?

My sister

83. Who was your first kiss with?

Someone I was friends with a while ago at my first Fanime. My first real kiss was with my ex girlfriend

84. Why did your last relationship fail?

He sexually harassed his other boyfriend (I was friends with this other guy and we almost saw one another after we broke up with our ex fun fact)

85. Would you ever date someone off of the Internet?

Yeah probably

#pixie interrogation #punkrockpixie #anonymous

1 note · View note

db4fit · 5 years

Text

April Highlighted Member of the Month- Thomas Reed

Name- Thomas Reed Hometown- Bear, DE Occupation- I am a contracted employee at DuPont (it's like a temp but long term). I also work at Go Ape on the weekends as an instructor and shift manager. Gym member (how long)- I think it's been almost six and a half months now. I started in early/mid September. Sports (growing up/now)- Growing up I played a lot of sports. Like basketball, soccer, baseball as a kid. I competitively ran cross country my sophomore year of high school and went to states. I swam competitively my senior year of high school and went to states. I played lacrosse all four years of high school. In college I was going to play lacrosse still, but I had to stop practicing early on in my first semester because I was starting to fail classes. So then I played rec sports and pick-up games with friends mainly and I played club ultimate frisbee for 2 years my junior and senior year. Hobbies- I rock climb over at the Delaware Rock Gym. I also enjoy reading when I have the time. I write every so often too, my main writing at the moment is planning out an RPG game for my friends and I to play. Favorite Holiday- Christmas. But the reason I like it is not just because the positive message it is supposed to represent. I really like the classic Christmas music because it's mostly crooners. Favorite Movie- Empire Strikes Back Favorite Song- If I HAVE to pick just one, it is called “Stupid Deep” by Jon Bellion. It's one of those songs that I heard at a time in my life where I needed to hear it. And then every time I've gone back and listened to it I've found new meaning to it every time. It is also a very unique musical style that takes influences from pop music but isn't quite pop music. If you could have a super hero power- I would like to have the ability to look at a person and read their mind. I studied psychology and we were taught how to get people to talk to us and how to read through their answers and watch body language. But sometimes when I am talking to people I wish I could just cut out the middleman and read their mind. If you could play a professional sport- I would want to play professional lacrosse. It's a sport that I have loved every aspect of since I started playing in high school. I've even coached it at my high school for a year too. But it isn't the most popular professional sport and I like that. I don't necessarily like the idea of being rich and famous, even if I had to fight tooth and nail to get it, it's just not my style. But lacrosse is a very physically involved and intricately technical sport that is not popular enough with the public for me to be a superstar athlete. Also it's just a great sport. Favorite Kids show growing up? Scooby doo, Where are you! Most proud moment at the gym? I mean, the whole open really. But specifically 19.6. Watching my whole team come together (which was a feat by itself) and then crush an insane workout was something awesome to be apart of. The support from my teammates pushing each other to go for that extra rep because we know it can be done, then jumping in when we knew someone needed a break, and finally being able to figure out how to do a wall ball. It really helped to solidify our friendships and boost our chemistry as a team and was a very exciting thing to be apart of.

Fitness Goals Long Term & Life Goals: 2019 Fitness Goals- I want to start getting back into running, and my aim is to be able to run an average time 10k by the end of the year. Other than that I want to work on learning some skills like the double under, muscle up, handstand everything, and improving the others that I have started to get down. I am also looking to increase my weight and improve my technique on all the bar lifts. What are your thoughts about the open now that it's over? I love it and I hate it. It's a great way to test limits, more so than a gym workout because there is that extra level of competitiveness and all the support from everyone. I also like how it brings us closer as a community as well. But man it also forces me to realize how much work I still have to do. Double unders, muscle ups, handstand everything. seeing those announcements and realizing I couldn't rx workouts was the worst because I have made a lot of progress since I joined but I was forced to realize that it wasn't quite enough yet. What motivates you at the gym? The other people around me are my motivation. Sometimes it is as simple as seeing someone and thinking “they are my fitness goals” and other times it's the quick words of support in the middle of a WOD from whoever is next to me that give me that boost to finish strong. I also have a couple of people in the gym that I feel competitive with, even if I don't say it, and that helps me to push myself and strive to always be better. Something/Someone that Inspired(s) you at the gym- When I first started Chelsea was one of the main people that inspired me at the gym. Since my first day she was a role model and mentor for me. Always friendly when I would come in and always supportive, even during my worst WODs. Since then I have quickly become part of the awesome community we have and I am inspired every week by everyone who is a part of it. Everyone comes in and works hard even on their worst days. And other come and help pick them up, sometimes literally, when it is needed. It is such a great thing to be a part of. Favorite (specific) wod we have ever done- that would be 19.2. I scaled because I didn't have double unders, but I made it so much farther than I thought I would. It helped me to break through what I thought my limits were and then find new ones. I know I was out of time and only three reps short of completion but I didn't think I would even make it to the last round. Everyone in the gym was was super supportive, even Casey who was still workout out right next to me was yelling at me, and my judge Lissy was definitely more excited than I was as I got those last few reps in. Least favorite wod: 19.1. Freaking wall balls man. If I could have hit the dang wall I would have been at least a round farther than I ended up on. And then, just a few days later, during 19.6 I hit every single wall balls I attempted. It is so frustrating. But I'm going to do it again, and maybe again, to see what happens. One thing most people don’t know about you- I am a musician. I've played instruments since I was six years old. I played all the way through college. And I hope to play again sometime after I figure my life and my schedule out a little bit more because I miss it. What is a guilty pleasure you have? I people watch a lot, which isn't that bad, but I also like to figure out what people's quirks are. Everyone has quirks but sometimes there are ones that are more subtle. Usually it ends up that someone does something kind of odd like rock back and forth on their feet from heel to toe when they are talking to someone (don't worry, nobody at our gym does this it's just an example). But then I'll want and see if it's with a specific person or not or if they do it during different situations, or even when they aren't talking to people. People are just so interesting and fun to figure out. Somewhere you would love to travel to? Kalalau beach in Hawaii. I went to the island of Kauai my senior year of college for a winter session class. I love that island. We backpacked for three weeks without any technology with us except a sat phone for emergencies. But when we got to Kalalau beach it was an experience. There was an positive energy about that place that wouldn't really let you feel tired or angry or anxious. And also on the trip my friends and I did a lot of emotional healing there too which makes it even more of a special place to me. Favorite Beverage: water. Except that's kind of cliche I guess. I do enjoy a good gin or tequila. I usually take it straight, no chaser. Something that is silly you can’t live without- A pair of headphones. I use them for everything: work, working out, avoiding awkward interactions, tuning the world out, and really just diving into a good song. Favorite Gym memory- Watching people get their first muscle ups during 19.4. Name a pet peeve of yours- At the gym or in general? At the gym, taking over someone’s equipment or workout space even though they're setting up their stuff or they're already set up. In general, chewing with your mouth open. It's not just unbecoming to look at, the sound is awful. Design the perfect wod-

Bench press

12 (maybe 15?) Squat cleans (115/idk what for women)

20 V-Ups

100 singles

10 (15?) Hand-release push-ups

5 strict pull-ups

What would you tell someone that is thinking of joining our gym?

There are two things that makes joining a gym hard for me. Every now and then you have days where you don't want to go or you make excuses to not go, especially if you're joining a new gym. But on those days, you've probably got so much going on in your head that you need to get to the gym to just take a break from yourself for a bit. The other thing that I find hard is talking to people. I am shy and awkward when I am in new groups of people so it feels weird trying to join a community of people. My advice is to not think about trying to join a community, just try to meet one person. Go in and find me or someone else to introduce yourself to and we will all be happy to show you around, walk you through things, and answer all the questions we can. And then by the end of the first day, you're already starting to become part of the community.

0 notes

gsquaredweddings · 5 years

Text

Port Gamble Weddings is now one of our absolute FAVORITE wedding venues in the state of Washington.

We absolutely adored Ashley & Drew from the moment we met them (ok, technically we met Ashley when we photographed one of her best friend’s weddings, but we loved her then, too!) … and knew this day was going to be amazing. We had no idea HOW amazing, and we were blown away when we arrived. The stunning details and floral, the beautiful personal touches throughout the day, and the way every person there felt the presence of Ashley’s father all day long.

One of my favorite moments on this wedding day was a surprise that Drew and his Dad had planned for the reception. As Ashley’s father had passed, there was no father/daughter dance planned – and they’d have none of that.

I’m sorry, I’m sitting here sobbing as I type this.

Drew’s Dad asked important men in Ashley’s life to share a dance with her as a tribute to him and how they’d watched over her in his place. When it was Drew’s Dad’s turn, you could hear him whisper that he will always be here for her in her ear as they spun around the floor. It was a moment I don’t think I will ever forget.

My second favorite moment was when we did first look and coordinated a surprise NERF gun war for Ashley & Drew… and I’m thrilled to say that Ashley won. Patience pays off! Pro-tip: Don’t empty your entire clip within the first minute 😉

Now on to the fun stuff: Drew & Ashley took turns answering a few questions for me about how they met, the proposal, and their Port Gamble Wedding day – and don’t forget to scroll to the end, we included Ashley’s “Real Bride” review.

How did the two of you meet? From Drew’s perspective: We met on eHarmony, I had only been on the site for a couple weeks when I was matched with this cute girl from Puyallup WA on October 6, 2017. One of her profile pictures was of her trying on a taco costume at target and her tagline was that she loved movies, building blanket forts, pizza and fake British accents. I was hooked! I had to get to know this girl. So instead of using the canned questions provided, I decided to write up three questions of my own. I nervously re-read them a ton of times wanting them to be good ones and then sent them off! She made me wait a whole day before she replied, and from there we just clicked! After a week of messaging it was Ashley who blindsided me with suggesting that we meet! I freaked, but said yes! That Saturday October the 15th we met for the very first time at Mox Boarding House in Bellevue. Its a really cool restaurant and board game store where you can play games while you eat! When I saw her walk across that parking lot as I waited to meet her, I was floored and knew I wanted to keep this girl in my life for a long time! There’s a funny story about this day that Ashley insists I tell over and over… So a few weeks before the date, I had cracked a tooth on an M&M blizzard. Well on the day of the date, the remaining piece of tooth that was still there decided to come a little loose. I was super nervous about it heading into the date. So we picked out our board games, then sat and ordered food. I, being nervous, just ordered the same thing as her, a club sandwich. Well unbeknownst to me, this sandwich was to come on the crispiest bread known to man. It was delicious, but no joke, first bite I feel a “POP” and then tasted blood in my mouth. I thought I was sweating before… now I was downright pouring. Without her noticing, I grabbed my napkin, and said, “that’s really crusty bread” and spit out the bread and tooth, then transferred it to my pocket. Ashley didn’t even notice, I continued to have to deal with the bleeding in the mouth while keeping my composure through the date. I must have been doing well because we continued to laugh and play games. We then headed over to Starbucks for some London Fog lattes and talked for hours until the coffee shop closed. From that day on, we continued to grow as best friends.

Tell me all the awesome proposal details. From Drew’s perspective: It actually started back in November of 2018, due to work I was not going to be able to fly back to Colorado with Ashley for thanksgiving with her family and she was really bummed out about it since i was able to go the year previous. Without her knowing, I wanted to fly back to ask her mom and sister for her hand in marriage in person. It just was important to me to do so. Ash had been kinda pushing me to just call her mom but in person was the only way to do it. Well the last week of October I was up late looking to see if I could find a flight and up popped a crazy deal for a flight and rental car for a quick 2 day trip! I quickly booked it and then a week before thanksgiving I flew out to see them. I arranged for Ash to think I was working an insane amount of overtime and that our usual communication would be cut short. I preplanned snapchat pictures to make it look like I was at work and had some solid alibis should the need arise! It was a great time and I got to hike and work with Mama Spooner while asking to marry her daughter. I then had to ask them to do the hardest thing ever! Wait and not tell Ashley anything until I proposed! I didn’t give them the date I was gonna do it, they had one heck of a time keeping that big of a secret! I kept up the rouse of wanting to ask mama in person and still not having done it through the holidays. But I had it all planned out! I was going to do it on new years day! The year previous we had spent the day driving to our favorite beach out on the Peninsula, Kalaloch Beach 4 and read our promises and prayers for the next year together. This beach is a magical place, you can see nothing but horizon for miles, the waves are huge and crashing, the sunsets last forever and the sky is painted with colors that are so beautiful that you’d swear you were looking a a painting. This is where I wanted to propose, I knew it the first time she took me there, and with every trip we took out there I just knew that this was the spot! So I planned another day trip out there on new years day. That day I was a mess… I was nervous the entire 4 hour drive out there, cracking dumb jokes. Tapping goofy beats on the steering wheel, randomly honking the horn. I couldn’t really keep a decent conversation and was sweating like crazy. I had the ring (from the 1930s which her mother had given to me from her Great Great Aunt, I had another band added to the set) tucked in my pocket as we got to the beach parking lot. I had to be sly, to keep her from seeing the box shaped lump in my pocket as we hiked down the trail to the beach. At the bottom of the trail there is this driftwood bridge that spans a little stream to the beach. To was at the end of this bridge I knew I was gonna pop the question. We got down and it couldn’t have been more perfect! We had the bridge and the beach all to ourselves! We sat down at the end of the bridge to listen to the waves and take in the beauty of it all. I was still a nervous wreck, trying to piece all the words together in my head and praying that I wouldn’t drop the ring when I asked her. Then the moment came, she stood up and dusted herself off and asked “Hey love what do you want to do next? Sit here some more or hike up the beach?” I reached into my pocket, and dropped to one knee and said “Actually, I want to do this…” and pulled out the ring. I honestly don’t remember much of what was said after that, I do know I asked her to marry me, and then the waterworks started for both of us. I remember the look of absolute joy and shock on her face and then her saying YES! followed by her saying… “Wait! Is that my great great aunt’s ring?!? How’d you get that?!?” I then had to come clean about asking her mama. We then walked the beach for what seemed like only minutes but was actually a couple hours, we watched the sunset and talked about how excited about the future we were! we laughed lots and cried lots and I was honestly in my opinion the best day ever!

Is there a reason you chose your Port Gamble Wedding venue? We went to a wedding expo early on in our engagement which really overwhelmed us with venue options. We were open to most ideas, but we both had always kind of wanted to get married in a cute little church. When we came across Port Gamble, we got really excited and arranged a visit for the following weekend. The historical nature of the town is so charming and the little church is just a dream. The water-side pavilion is a gorgeous bonus too!

What inspired your clothing choices for your Port Gamble wedding? We chose our color scheme because we thought everyone would look good in navy and gray, and the colors will go well against the lighter blue wall at the front of the ceremony space. We added whites and pinks to soften the navy and gray a little bit. We were aiming for timeless and classic.

What special moments do you have planned for the ceremony? We will have a portion of remembrance towards the beginning of the ceremony. Ashley’s dad passed away 6 years ago, and after her mom walks her down the aisle, our officiant (one of Ashley’s dad’s best friends) will lead the congregation through a special moment to acknowledge his absence. We are both strong in faith and will have two moments with worship songs, one at the opening of the ceremony and then another after the changing of vows when we take first communion. There will also be a reading of a passage from the book Les Miserables by family member of Drew’s. The walk out song will be fun and upbeat.

What are your most anticipated moments of your wedding day? Drew- Mine would be two actually, Since we are doing a first look before the ceremony, I can’t wait to see Ashley for that first time in her dress. And the second will be that moment she comes down the aisle. The song she picked out, is probably gonna have me crying like a baby, and that’s when it all becomes very real. That the beginning this journey together is about to take flight! Ash- I am so excited to do our first look pictures, to have an intimate and private few moments to ourselves before the chaos of the day escalates. I am looking forward to every aspect of the ceremony, then I’m so excited to dance with my family and friends to celebrate!

If we ran in to you on a relaxed weekend, what would you be doing? If we are at home, you are likely to find us watching a favorite show (The great Rritish baking show, Friends, West Wing) a movie or playing a board game, maybe cooking or grilling. If we are feeling adventurous we are usually on the road headed for a new hike in the mountains, on the peninsula, or on an island reached by ferry.

Port Gamble Wedding Vendor Team

Venue: Port Gamble Weddings & Events

Coordinator: Amy, cousin of the bride

Officiant: Tom Moore, family friend

Ceremony Musician: Jack Moore

DJ: Raines Media

Baker: La Liath Bakery

Bartending: Tipsy Gypsy Bartending

Catering: True North Catering

Wedding Dress: For The Luv of Bridal

Groomswear: The Black Tux

Photography: GSquared Weddings Photography

Port Gamble Wedding Vendor Team

Venue: Port Gamble Weddings & Events

Coordinator: Amy, cousin of the bride

Officiant: Tom Moore, family friend

Ceremony Musician: Jack Moore

DJ: Raines Media

Baker: La Liath Bakery

Bartending: Tipsy Gypsy Bartending

Catering: True North Catering

Wedding Dress: For The Luv of Bridal

Groomswear: The Black Tux

Photography: GSquared Weddings Photography

Elegance, NERF & Dinosaurs | A Port Gamble Wedding Port Gamble Weddings is now one of our absolute FAVORITE wedding venues in the state of Washington.

#dinosaur #first look #NERF guns #olympic peninsula #pnw wedding #port gamble #port gamble wedding #waterfront

0 notes

meyanderings · 6 years

Text

Time for change

I’m not that adventurous.

Yes, looking back, I’ve done some things which I can happily say might have been a bit crazy: book a quick trip somewhere in the middle of the week when I’m broke and have no off days (I’m a teacher) or lug around four pieces of luggage from Umbria to Emilia Romagna to Veneto about five years ago, when my shoulders (and boyfriend) didn’t complain about the weight.. but, generally, that’s the sort of thing that would be qualified under spontaneous (or irresponsible or stupid, if we’re being brutally honest), never “adventurous”, per se’. Making it work is always fun though. The thrill of getting away with something that you probably shouldn’t have done in the first place always makes things that much sweeter when they do work out the end.

But I can’t call myself adventurous.

I wanted to get some blue highlights in my hair when I was fourteen, but my hairdresser talked me out of it. I wanted to work on a cruise ship after I finished my undergrad degree, but my brand new relationship with my soon-husband made the timing absolutely wrong, so I never did go. Instead, I got some burgundy put in, which first didn’t show much, then had three weeks of amazing purple, and then turned copper. I was soon fed up of the whole colour in my hair thing, and have since learnt that my natural hair colour is not as ordinary as I always thought it was. Instead, I moved to Rome with David, and have been seeing as much of Italy as I can, in between teaching conditional structures and trying to gauge just how ridiculous I’d sound if I were to say “ammazz’ao”.

Occasionally, when I find myself recommending a trattoria, or a visit to some medieval town to an Italian, I sort of glimpse some adventure in my life. But it lasts only until the next time I decide to stay home with a mug of tea on Saturday night, or remember that I chose to go to Madrid for its art museums rather than Ibiza for its clubs. And, of course, every time I opt for giving my curls a big trim over asking the hairdresser for the bolder, shorter style I’ve been pinning on Pinterest since I hit twenty.

Nonetheless, I’m a firm believer that change is generally good.

And, with this in mind, I’ve come to the conclusion that #mydailyRome is due for a change or two. The project started out as a blog three Septembers ago, a means to keep me sane while looking for a job and trying to get used to life in Rome, making sure that I did not get lost in the negative thoughts that form an intrinsic part of the risk involved in moving country and starting over. But spending more time with people in real life meant I had a lot less time to devote to writing. Feeling a bit less likely to lose myself, #mydailyRome evolved into a veritable picture journal of the places, moments and things I did not want to get lost in the momentum of daily life. The novelty of being in a big city, away from the sea and my friends and family, felt like something to be chronicled.

And now I find that, slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, the novelty started to ebb into familiarity. While I might never get used to the beauty of the pink sunsets over the Basilica of Santa Croce (I can’t help taking a picture from my bedroom window every time I happen to catch one!), (or the Coliseum, or Piazza Navona), most other things about Rome have become signs of “home”. Which is not to say that I am immune; what before used to inspire wide-eyed wonder now elicits more of a wonderful comfort. Perhaps this also became noticeable because, almost four years into our relationship, three into our love affair with Italy, me and David ventured out of Italy for our holidays. And so, #mydailyRome started getting #holidays and #nameofplaces, not to mention #malta every time we hopped over to our beautiful island for Christmas and summer, a wedding, a special celebration or simply to spend some time with our families.

I didn’t really mind at the beginning, but someone recently pointed out that it’s been something like six weeks since we moved back to Rome after summer holidays in Malta, and yet it seems as if I have barely spent any time in Rome at all. Which is actually true: first weekend back, we were already in Madrid, and that was followed by a weekend of laundry and lesson-planning at home, then a trip to nearby Marino for the Sagra del Uva (a wine festival which I’m not sure I’m such a fan of), followed by one to the beach in Ardea for a friend’s birthday, and finally, a weekend in Caserta and Naples for David’s birthday. The frequency of the #place made me realise that, maybe, it’s time for #mydailyRome to get a new name that reflects better what it’s become, leaving space for both daily life in Rome and also moments outside of it. My meanderings, if you will.

#meanderings #mydailyrome #travelblog #philosophy #musings #blogpost

0 notes

bigmouthbadsleeper · 6 years

Text

Mascara Tears.

The year is 1996 and I am twelve years old. I have just started junior high, and my mother has just allowed me to go to the movies alone. “Alone” meaning my friend, one year my senior, and me got dropped off by my mom and her sky blue Oldsmobile and picked up by her mom and her sage green mini van. The movie we saw was Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet. It was kind of a big deal because it was the first movie I saw in a theater on my own, with no grown-ups present. I had no idea what Romeo + Juliet was really about. I knew it was about romance. I knew that Romeo and Juliet were “star cross’d”, but I had no idea what that phrase meant. I was, after all, twelve years old. All I really knew about the film was that the advertising campaign had dominated my YM and TEEN magazines the entire summer prior to its release. It was a genius marketing campaign, for the record. They had stuck postcards in every issue of every teen-oriented magazine on the stands. If you collected them all they pieced together, like a puzzle, to spell words and connect scenes from the movie. I think this goes without saying, but I had all of them.

At the time, the most confusing thing to me about this film was not the ending, although it haunted and upset me for weeks, if not months after. I was confused from the second the movie started, and those of you who’ve seen it know what I’m talking about. It was set in present day, but the language was old-timey. They called their guns “swords”? Romeo took drugs??? I have to add all the question marks here. The first ten minutes alone are enough to make a person feel insane. But then the fight between the two families breaks, and the music softens, and we see Romeo. We see Romeo aka a baby faced Leonardo DiCaprio, and we hear Radiohead, and everything feels warm and good. Everything makes sense.

(honestly cigarettes are gross except in this movie. I don't make the rules.)

I remember sitting there in the dark theater after the movie ended, listening to “Exit Music For A Film”, one of my favorite Radiohead songs, which was written specifically for the end credits of this film. I remember being confused and angry. I remember my friend crying, and complaining about her mascara running. I remember being jealous because I didn’t wear mascara regularly. I only wore it when my mother received a free sample in her Lancôme gift with purchase. Looking back on it, some of my anger probably came from the fact that I was robbed of the dramatics of those black streams running down my face. I wanted not only to feel sad, but to look sad too. Feeling sad without really looking sad just felt like lying.

(all the cool girls had this mascara in their backpacks. I died of happiness every time my mom would give me one.)

I came home to find my mother in her room.

“Have you seen that movie before? I mean have you read that play??”, I demanded.

“Yes.” She replied while folding laundry. She was more interested about sock matches, I could tell.

“Well do you know that they DIE at the end??” I said, too loudly, for shock factor. I wanted her to know how seriously I took this.

“Yes. It’s Shakespeare.” She picked up a sock, matched it with its sister and tossed it in the pile.

My eyes widened. I almost couldn’t believe she was so cavalier about it all.

“Well what was all that then? I thought this story was like about true love and stuff!”

“Well it’s a love story, but not all love stories are happy stories.”

Preach, mom. Preach.

I always had a liking for sadder movies over happy movies. My favorite movie as a kid was Beaches, followed by Untamed Heart, both devastatingly sad, and my favorites only got sadder as I got older. But before Romeo + Juliet, I don’t know that I saw the beauty in sadness. I think about that movie experience often, especially when I'm feeling sad. It evoked a lot of strong emotions in me that i had never felt at the same time before. The perfect mixture of sadness and anger, sprinkled with beauty throughout, a deadly cocktail of emotions. The ironic thing, maybe, is that the only kind of love stories I wanted to watch after that one were tragic love stories. Some of my favorite movies today are tragic love stories, and I watch them over and over again. Though the stories are often different, at the core, the emotional cocktail is the same. The only difference now is that I wear mascara when I watch them. You know, for proof.

Why am I telling you about the experience I had watching this movie that you have probably never heard of? What's the point of sharing my sadness and anger over some film that doesn't really affect my life at all? It's because being a teenager is hard. When I was one, I thought it was the hardest thing ever. False. Being an adult is hard too sometimes. Turns out life is just hard no matter what! What fresh nonsense is this? It turns out that despite being difficult and sad at times, life is also really beautiful. One way to contribute to that beauty is to create art from the pain you're feeling. Think about it: if everyone always felt included, if no one was different, if the world were a perfect place, how much art would we have? How many songs or books would never be written? How many of our favorite paintings or movies wouldn't exist? All forms of art have always been a huge part of my recovery from depression and anxiety. I often found solace in film and television, music and books, and in turn I created art of my own. I wrote in journals every day from the ages of 13 to 25 (when I got older I blogged on a computer rather than wrote in a journal) which resulted in me being a good writer and speaker. That trip to the movies back in 1996 inspired me to write this piece for you, and hopefully help you feel a little better about yourself, and maybe learn something too.

When I was 13 I took a strong liking to makeup and hair color. I would babysit most weekends to make money, and then turn around and buy makeup and music with it (I have never been a good saver). I would come home from babysitting and sit in front of the mirror in my bedroom and consider my face; what was pleasant about it (my eye color), what needed work (my brows, always my brows). I started to rip pages out of my mom's fashion magazines that contained makeup looks that I loved, and on these weekend nights I would put music on and try to recreate these looks on myself. My music choices ranged everywhere from Janice Kapp Perry's “The Light Within” to Alanis Morissette's “Jagged Little Pill”. My likes have always been a bit of a contradiction to themselves. All this practice on my own face led to me being good at doing makeup on others which led me to being a successful makeup artist for the last fifteen years. I have been blessed with the ability to see the beauty in others, and in turn helping them see it in themselves. Makeup is such a fun way to be able to do that for people. I'm so happy to make someone feel good about themselves, in some small way. Makeup is a fun way to express myself and to make myself look better sometimes, but I know that real beauty is on the inside, and no amount of makeup can cover up an ugly soul or a mean spirit. The Lord looks at our insides to judge us, not our outsides. He doesn't care what you weigh, or if you know how to highlight and contour. He doesn't even care if your brows are uneven! How's that for unconditional love?

When you turn your pain into art, you can inspire others, and that is a beautiful thing. Art in some form has always inspired me to see the light in dark times. I am so grateful that suffering isn't always in vain. If we can find something beautiful in our journey, we should share it with others. Paint. Sing. Write. Act. Take a ceramics class at school! All of those things have helped me at one point in my life, with the exception of ceramics, because I actually FAILED that class my senior year and had to take a correspondence self-help class in order to graduate. Well guess what Mr. B?? That self help class was actually really great and way more helpful than your ceramics class ever was! I may not know how to throw a pot but I do know that if you want to have enough time for everything, you must put your big rocks in the mason jar before you put your pebbles in. If you are confused, see: Steven R. Covey's “Seven Habits for Highly Effective Teens” for more on the rocks in the mason jar object lesson. It's a classic.

This concludes somewhat messy, very heartfelt guide on how to survive your teen years. I actually could write for months on this subject, and I have over the years on my old blogs. Its kind of difficult to fit all of my thoughts into shorter, cohesive pieces of writing, so I apologize if I didn't do a great job. I have to confess I was nervous to contribute to this website because I know how many young people it reaches. I actually had a harder time writing these pieces than I have writing anything else, and I have written for blogs before. It was hard for me to pin down what I wanted you young girls to know most. And because I have a big mouth, and I never know when to stop talking, I will leave you with a few (more) pieces of advice before I go. I think the thing thing I wish so badly that I had worked harder on long ago when I was just a young girl, back before I heard anyone say I was gross, is loving myself, and being grateful for the body I have. I think it still would have been hard to hear those words because words like that are never easy to hear, but if I had known how beautiful I was, and that my body was something to be celebrated, I wouldn't have spent so much time telling myself that boy was right. I still struggle with body image. Sometimes I think about what it was like before I came to earth, and how what I wanted more than anything was a body. Now that I have one, I am mean to it, and I say that I hate it too often when I should be celebrating all the amazing wonderful things it can do. I can run and hike and tell jokes. I can see beautiful things and hear amazing music. I can touch furry cats and hold hands with people I love. My legs carry me around Disneyland. So much to be thankful for, yet I waste time tearing myself apart and listing all the ways that I fall short. It's such a shame.

Figure out what makes you unique and celebrate those things, don't hide them. Tell yourself you are beautiful every day because you are. Makeup and clothes and hairstyles are fun to experiment with but they aren't what leads to true happiness or beauty. Beauty on the outside cannot compensate for ugliness on the inside. If you ever find yourself in a position with anyone where you are campaigning for them to like or love you, get out immediately. Real love and friendship does not have to be bargained for. Protect your words and your kisses; don't give either away too easily. The boy who loves you most is the one who believes that your insides are beautiful, who looks at you the same whether you are fat, skinny, happy, or sad. True love isn't based on superficial things. Money can't buy happiness but it can solve a lot of problems, so set aside some money now so that one day you can help build a life for yourself. Know that your worth is not based on how many boys like you, or when you get your first boyfriend, but on how the savior sees you. He sees you for all that you are and all that you can be. He truly knows what you are capable of. You have a father in heaven who loves you and has a plan for you. Look to Him in times of trial or confusion and he will guide you in the best direction.

There's a hill about twenty minutes from my house that I used to drive up every weekend. I would put on some of my favorite songs and sing (and cry) along to the lyrics. I would park my car at the top of this hill and look out at the thousands of twinkling lights and try to pick out anything familiar from my drive. Sometimes I would recognize a building or spot an intersection, but mostly all the lights just twinkled together like glitter in the sun. Every time I looked at those lights it baffled me that an entire city existed within them. Houses, shopping centers, gas stations, happy people, sad people, lonely people... they all exist there in that sea of lights. Yet I can't see them. Stop lights and buildings that moments ago towered over me in my car are now invisible. I can't tell one from the next. Our lives are like cities; busy and lonely, full of hard stuff and happy stuff, and ultimately one big beautiful glitter bomb. How lucky are we to know that there is someone on the hill who can see every hard and beautiful thing? It's someone who loves us and wants nothing more than for us to make it back to Him one day. As you follow guidance from your Heavenly Father, believe in yourself. Know your worth. Trust in your talents and abilities. Speak kindly of yourself and others. Be a friend. And don't over-tweeze your eyebrows. Trust me on that one. You'll thank me one day.

#romeo and juliet #movies #sad #love

0 notes

kidsviral-blog · 6 years

Text

The Strange, Isolated Life Of A Tuberculosis Patient In The 21st Century

New Post has been published on https://kidsviral.info/the-strange-isolated-life-of-a-tuberculosis-patient-in-the-21st-century/

The Strange, Isolated Life Of A Tuberculosis Patient In The 21st Century

While volunteering for the Peace Corps in Ukraine in 2010, I contracted a severe version of drug-resistant tuberculosis. Two years of painful, isolating treatment taught me the vital role social media may play in finally eradicating this disease.

One of the loneliest nights of my life was when I masturbated for an Australian stranger on the only webcam chat site that would load on the shitty hospital Wi-Fi. He didn’t want to show his face on camera, and I didn’t care whether it was because he was famous, married, or ugly. The internet was so slow that the sound stalled, so the dirty talk had to be typed.

It was a terse, space-economizing raunch, pounded out letter by letter with his left index finger, since his dominant hand was busy. I WANT TO VERB YOUR NOUN. But the artlessness was a relief. The more work it took to type, the less likely he’d waste time asking about my hospital bed and IV rack. If I didn’t mind him being headless and talking like a filthy grown-up “see spot run,” couldn’t he handle a naked stranger in a tuberculosis sanatorium?

Nor did he mention the armband, which hid the nozzle nurses screwed to dripping sacks of drugs during infusions. Three times a week, amikacin seeped down the skinny 2-foot-long tube inside and up my arm, leading behind my collarbone to splash into a big fat artery over my heart.

Just please don’t fucking ask, I thought. It was exhausting to explain. Screw this guy. Wouldn’t it be weirder if he had inferred a medical emergency, but resolved not to let it ruin his hard-on? Do virtual strangers without heads even have cognition? What the hell was wrong with this guy’s face, anyway?

Who cares? I had been in that room in Denver for almost a month. I was days away from lung surgery to remove my upper right lobe, where the bulk of the disease was headquartered. This was the last goddamned time I’d ever get to show my tits to a stranger without any scars. And it was the skinniest I’d ever been.

I had contracted extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, or XDR-TB (a severe version of multidrug-resistant, or MDR tuberculosis), while serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ukraine. The National Jewish Health Center is no longer a sanatorium, but it is still one of the country’s top TB research facilities, staffed by worldwide mycobacteria experts and equipped with properly ventilated rooms for the infrequent consumptives who turn up there.

When I was admitted to the hospital, the state of Colorado dispatched a guy to my hospital room to read me my legal quarantine order. I’d be in isolation for however long I was contagious.

During my stay, I started a two-year course of harsh antibiotics, including an IV drip. I had two surgeries, which flanked a blood transfusion and peskily recollapsing lung. I lost 12 pounds and half my blood, which have been replaced, and the upper lobe of my right lung, which hasn’t. I wish I could be more inspiring. But I didn’t use that time to write a novel, learn yoga, or even plow through a beach read. Falling into a trance and getting off strangers was all I felt capable of.

Objectifying? Sure. So is being sick.

Such isolation — both physical and emotional — takes a serious toll on TB patients. From the 18th century glory days up to the modern rise of MDR, tuberculosis went from being a relatively universal human experience to being a profoundly lonely one. Isolation and stigma make long treatments even harder to endure and inhibit public consciousness that could lead to more meaningful progress. But we may be approaching a new historical moment: Social media makes it easier than ever for patients to find and support one another. These connections can improve patient morale and treatment outcomes and ultimately raise the profile of MDR-TB in global health policy.

Because I was never as alone as I thought: Five thousand miles away in Siberia, a woman my age named Ksenia Shchenina was also suffering. So are patients in dozens of other countries, and more and more of them are beginning to use the internet to combat the solitude that has long not only defined the disease and its treatment, but kept it from being eradicated for good.

View this image ›

Most people don’t spend much time thinking about tuberculosis. If pressed, they might make a few basic generalizations. It was a very serious disease in the olden days. It killed your great-great-grandfather, all of the Brontës, and Nicole Kidman’s character in Moulin Rouge. But then it was cured. It doesn’t exist anymore. So we’ll all just have to get Ewan McGregor’s attention some other way and die of something else.

Tuberculosis has been on the scene since ancient times, but it only reached menace status in filthy, urbanizing mid-17th century Europe. It went on to dominate the continent’s “cause of death” list for over two centuries. This makes sense, if you know how germs work. Poverty and bad sanitation — e.g., the Industrial Revolution’s toxic work conditions and shantytowns — made toppling immune systems a cinch. Before germ theory caught on, some people even saw TB as a sort of moral retribution for the sins of modernity.

Even the disease’s classic name — consumption — implied a physical and spiritual connection. It consumed you; it devoured you from within. Before the scientific consensus on how an infectious disease was transmitted, many people assumed a person could be predisposed to consumption. (They caught on to genetics before they unraveled epidemiology.) An entire family of consumptives probably meant they were ill because they had all inherited the proper preconditions for the illness — not because they lived together and coughed fatal microbes into one another’s food. Similarly, researchers couldn’t help but notice that consumption disproportionately seized writers and artists, whose lifestyle was practically synonymous with urban poverty. But when it was still assumed that the disease grew from within, many scientists searched for a link between consumption and genius. This is the kind of factoid that makes you feel smug when modern doctors are really, really surprised that you got this.

The jig was up in 1882. A German bacteriologist named Robert Koch zeroed in on the Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterial cause of consumption. It spread from person to person by air.

View this image ›

Robert Koch Ann Ronan Pictures / Getty Images

Koch’s early attempts to develop a vaccine failed, but his efforts did yield a valuable diagnostic tool: the tuberculin skin test. It’s a shot that scans for TB antibodies. If you’ve been exposed to the disease, the injection site on your forearm will flare up into a BRIGHT RED SKIN MOUNTAIN. The test is still part of routine checkups today among grade-schoolers, teachers, cops, and — as I would learn — Peace Corps volunteers.

There is a photo of me on Facebook from early 2010, lodged between a handful of party shots with fellow volunteers. We had traveled to Kiev from across Ukraine to make a weekend out of our mid-service medical checkups. I’m 23, hamming it up in melodramatic distress, and twisting my left elbow up over my head to show off the swollen red splotch on my forearm.

A positive skin test usually doesn’t mean you have TB — less than than 10% of people with positive skin tests ever develop an active case, because healthy immune systems can usually defeat the bacterial intruder. Several volunteers each year end up with the telltale red blotch; it was really nothing to worry about. We’d need a follow-up X-ray, but an active case was highly unlikely. So I cracked a few jokes and went back to pounding flat Chernigivske beers with my friends.

I had been in Ukraine since September 2008, after studying Russian in college. I volunteered at a school in an eastern mining town called Antratsyt. The town borrows its name from anthracite coal. The region is flat, but you can see hills in the distance — they’re “slag heaps,” or piles of debris extracted from mines. The town only runs water for a few hours a day to protect the mines from mudslides or collapse. But life wasn’t as bleak as it sounds. I had students who were so excited to practice their English that they would chat with me after school, perched in a row on the edge of a Soviet-era fountain long-since bone-dry. I struck up friendships with their parents and my fellow teachers. I toasted my colleagues over champagne and chocolate on Ukrainian holidays. One time, I even gave a thickly accented speech on international education at a school assembly that ended up on the TV news. I was happy.

My follow-up X-ray was two weeks later, in Kiev. Taking yet another 17-hour train trip felt like an epic hassle. Is there a word that means the opposite of hypochondriac? There should be, because that’s what I am. In hindsight, of course I had symptoms – I just wrote them off to other things. I had a bad cough, because I was a smoker at the time. I’d lost weight, because there was no American junk food to lose my will power around. I was run-down and sluggish, because it was the Ukrainian winter!

I got a ride with Dr. Sasha, one of the Peace Corps’ Ukrainian staffers, to my screening at a tuberculosis dispensary — tubdispensar — on the edge of the city. He spoke the sort of English that made me self-conscious about my Russian. He carried my Peace Corps medical history file on his lap. The most dramatic thing in it was an allergy to mangoes. (Not exactly a significant handicap in Ukraine.)

I was X-rayed in a machine that looked like an iron colossus. In the waiting room, I tried to distract myself with a biography of John Adams. (His son, John Quincy, spent years in the Russian Empire as Ambassador and managed to stay consumption-free.) Soviet-era medical facilities are much more dimly lit than their Walmart-bright American counterparts. To see the page, I had to squint.

The head TB doctor finally called me into the office. He explained the X-ray results and prognosis to Dr. Sasha, who relayed them in English to me. But when Dr. Sasha asked a follow-up question, they flipped back to Russian and cut me out of the triangle. My Russian was good – but not “unfamiliar medical jargon” good. But this wasn’t a conversation I could stand to be excluded from. I was on the brink of a tantrum.

“Goddamn it!” I wanted to shriek at the TB doc. “Don’t say it in his Russian. Say it in mine.”

My face must have looked like a cartoon teakettle. So he slowed down and turned toward the image pinned to the light board.

“Classic pulmonary TB,” he said to me. (Words like pulmonary and tuberculosis are cognates.) “It’s strange that it advanced so quickly. Especially for a healthy young girl.”

“Are you sure?” I asked. “I heard you guys muttering about bronchitis or pneumonia before. Could it be one of those?”

“No. We assumed it could have been at first, but this is a clear case. See, on an X-ray, healthy lungs should look solid black. See the contrast down by the lower ribs? But now look up on the right. See the [blahblahblah]? The [blahblahblah] is the tuberculosis.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t get that word. What part is the tuberculosis?”

He sighed. It would have been easier to let Dr. Sasha translate. Now he had to dumb down his lexicon for a rattled American.

“Up there. Upper right. Well, left on here. That white spot? The part that looks like a ghost.”

That night, I started treatment in a studio apartment the Peace Corps rented for me in Kiev. My prognosis was good. For two weeks, I took pills, got X-rayed, and hocked up sputum — a polite word for loogies — into sterile plastic cups for lab work. One set stayed in Ukraine; the other was shipped according to special biohazard protocol to an American facility to better coordinate my care at home.

Eight weeks later, just as life was settling down back in Chicago, I was surprised to find an ominous number of missed calls on my phone: from the diagnostic lab, my mom, my American pulmonologist, my mom, the Cook County Department of Public Health, my mom, my mom, the Cook County Department of Public Health Epidemiology Unit, my mom, my mom, my mom, my mom, my mom.

Those loogies had yielded bad news. I had XDR-TB. The bad kind.

Effective immediately, I was placed under an isolation order. I was told to stay home whenever possible — I could go outside sparingly, but any other indoor space was off-limits until I was noninfectious. A few months, at least. The police could get involved if I didn’t comply.

A month into my quarantine, my Chicago doctors were stumped. They’d rarely seen anything like this.

So I set off on a journey not unlike those taken by consumptives a century before. I left my bustling, industrial Midwestern city and headed west, to the National Jewish Health Center in Denver.

It was the National Jewish Hospital for Consumptives back then. In 1899, the brand-new philanthropic institution was brimming with needy patients. In 2010, I was the only one.

I told almost no one where I was going. I had already been avoiding friends who tried to contact me. It is exhausting to have your life flipped around by something people know nothing about. You get so damn sick of telling the story. Weird caveats demand exposition. Here is what I have. Here is why it’s bad. Here is why I had to evacuate Ukraine and leave the Peace Corps early. Here is why I can’t be in public or see anyone for the foreseeable future. Here is why I am going to some hospital in Denver for a long time. Here is why they chopped off a big chunk of my lung. Here is why I have this IV armband thing for nine months. Here is why I puke a lot. Here is why food tastes all wrong. Here is why my hearing got warped. Here is why I can’t feel my toes. Here is why I am not supposed to drink any alcohol. Here is why I’m still going to anyway.

Since I was on the no-fly list, we drove the 15 hours by car. I wore a mask the whole time so I wouldn’t infect my parents.

View this image ›

National Jewish Hospital for Consumptives c. 1920

Basic infection control, like isolating the sick and using protective gear to lower transmission risk, may seem primitive compared with modern medicine. But the truth is, public health measures like quarantine and mouth covering did more to eradicate tuberculosis than drugs did. We never did figure out a great way to cure TB; we just got better at preventing it. That is, until it caught up with us.

After Dr. Koch’s splashy 1882 debut of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the medical community was certain a surefire solution was close behind. But they were disappointed. No cure came.

Forty years later, a new vaccine — Bacillus Calmette-Guerin, or BCG — entered human testing. But BCG was never that good. Most researchers believe that adults are just as likely to wind up with TB whether they get BCG or not. It also suffered a major PR setback as the center of one of the worst vaccination disasters in history. In 1930, 73 babies died of tuberculosis meningitis after being injected with BCG in Lubeck, Germany. The vaccines had been contaminated after getting mixed up with a virulent live TB strain back at the lab. (Life hack: Always be sure your doctor has a label maker.)

It wasn’t until 1943 that a team at Rutgers University pinpointed streptomycin, the world’s first antibiotic effective against tuberculosis. TB’s staggering cultural legacy made the discovery a shoo-in for the Nobel Prize, but streptomycin was nonetheless terribly flawed. It was toxic, and patients quickly developed antibodies that resisted the drug. The only solution was to scrape around for more options and blitzkrieg every case of TB with several so-so drugs at once. The first-line regimen has hardly been tweaked in nearly 50 years. It was never a secret that such a long and tedious course of antibiotics would, like a Shakespearean hero, engineer its own demise.

But that hardly seemed to matter. By the time streptomycin ‘n’ friends showed up, barely anyone even needed them. Throughout the 20th century, people gradually stopped getting TB in the first place. We got healthier, cleaner, and smarter. We could contain disease and catch it early. It nearly disappeared.

Then, in the early 1990s, it bounced back. Two global crises — the rise of HIV/AIDS and the fall of the Soviet Union — helped resurrect the scourge of the 19th century. The World Health Organization declared a worldwide TB emergency in 1993. (It just goes to show: Don’t count your eradicated diseases before they hatch.)

AIDS was even harder on human bodies than the Industrial Revolution had been, and millions of centuries-won immune systems were suddenly wide open to infection anew. TB remains the leading cause of death among AIDS patients.

The collapse of the USSR spread TB in even more complicated ways. The year 1991 saw the traumatic birth of 15 brand-new post-Soviet republics. Each of these new countries was in economic and social turmoil. They were broke. They had no central government or public health system. Before their independence, everything had more or less filtered through Moscow. In some places, there were few to no supplies or institutional infrastructure, let alone money for health care workers. Alcoholism and malnourishment soared. People lost their savings. Rampant crime stuffed the prisons — notorious hotbeds of TB — to well over capacity. Released inmates carted these germs back to their communities. By the time the 15 new countries had smoothed things out, they already had a new old epidemic to battle.

Even as the immediate post-Soviet crisis improved, other factors played into treatment interruption and new infections. These have been beautifully documented by experts like Dr. Lee Reichman in his 2001 book Timebomb and are easily rattled off by every post-Soviet MDR expert I’ve come across. Treatment in prisons has been badly underfunded, so for years people didn’t get the meds they needed. There is often subpar follow-up for ill prisoners after they’re released. Infected migratory workers are tough to treat and track. The Soviet-era mentality of medical specialization has made the region slow to coordinate HIV and TB care. Both illnesses are also correlated with substance abuse, and addicts often turn out to be less-than-diligent patients. In sum, the long, hard treatment places economic, social, and physical strain on patients.

Antibiotic treatment is an all-or-nothing game. Patients need to take every dose by the book, or germs acquire resistance. Getting it done right depends on stupendous public health programs, not to mention stupendous patients. Once a strain does acquire resistance, it can’t be undone — and the stronger, harder-to-treat germ is passed on to others, like me. If the best drugs don’t work, doctors are forced to use drugs that are even harder on the body. All of these factors collude to paint a grim reality. In former Soviet countries, only around 60% of patients who begin tuberculosis treatment ever successfully finish it. The rest of them flee, slip through the cracks, fail to respond to treatment, or die before they are cured.

So it is no surprise that the region has the highest rates of MDR-TB in the world — as many as 30% of all newly detected cases are impervious to first-line drugs. (The global average is reportedly less than 5%, but statistics are widely believed to be low, especially in resource-poor countries. In the U.S., there were fewer than 100 cases of MDR in 2013.) Even in optimal conditions, the difference between a case of run-of-the-mill TB and MDR can be the difference between a moderate inconvenience and a life-threatening catastrophe. A standard case can be cured for less than $100 with a daily dose of four different drugs for six to nine months. My treatment cost taxpayers seven figures and lasted well over two years.

On paper, many of these problems have already been fixed. A decade ago, Tracy Kidder’s best-seller Mountains Beyond Mountains lauded the achievements of Dr. Paul Farmer’s Partners in Health and other global health organizations in revolutionizing worldwide MDR-TB care. The region’s TB programs are now relatively well-organized and padded with funding from global health mammoths like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. There are detailed and standardized treatment guidelines. TB drugs are fully subsidized. So why are so many patients still failing their treatments?

Without an effective vaccine or better drugs, efforts to curb MDR-TB face a serious paradox. As a strain becomes more resistant, it becomes simultaneously more painful and more urgent to treat it. Many countries have responded by adopting stringent patient monitoring policies, which improve cure rates but are nonetheless no small imposition in patients’ lives. Public safety overrides patient agency, which is a tough pill for victims to swallow (and they’ve already got plenty of those to worry about).

View this image ›

A patient receives the TB vaccine in 1949 Cornell Capa / The LIFE Picture Collection / Getty Images

During my treatment, I felt sick for two years. Nausea became my baseline. Sometimes the drugs make you puke, or give you the kind of diarrhea that makes you need a nap. One screws with your nervous system, and I permanently lost most of the feeling in my feet. I’ve tracked blood across kitchen floors because I can’t tell if I’ve stepped on shattered glass.

And I had it lucky. I had no comorbidities like HIV or diabetes, which make everything even worse. Being on amikacin cost me some low-frequency hearing, but it has caused deafness in others. And I got to take it by IV drip, instead of the painful upper-thigh injections that leave some patients too sore to sit up. And while cycloserine — a drug nicknamed “psychoserine” for its notorious mental and behavioral effects — makes some patients hallucinate and scream, I got away with confusion. I had trouble with reading, organization, and paperwork. It’s an especially tough break if you’re dealing with a workers’ comp claim for a medical disaster. I couldn’t keep it all straight, and walloped my credit.

Even worse, most patients in former Soviet countries and across the world get practically no social support during the crisis. They get little help with side effects, and suffer serious social and economic strain. Many of them have no way to make up for lost wages over the course of their treatments. Some even face lasting discrimination. In 2011, an undercover Ukrainian journalist wrote an exposé about being iced out by hiring managers after casually mentioning a past bout of TB.

The reason why boils down to one key factor: Tuberculosis remains highly stigmatized throughout the world. In the former Soviet Union, people associate it with painful memories of the lawless, chaotic ‘90s. Having it means you’re a crook, a junkie, a drunk, a bum, or a sewer rat.

Stigma makes epidemics worse — it gives people a reason not to be seen walking into a clearly labeled TB clinic to see a doctor when they should. Loneliness and despair can convince someone that health doesn’t matter, so why take these pills? And stigma shuts people up, so they’ll never organize, influence funding, or change minds about TB. Stigma means more stigma.

When patients are silenced and isolated from one another and their communities, it stymies progress against the disease. The WHO estimates more than a $1.3 billion worldwide funding gap in TB research and development, and the number threatens to grow. Even though investment in new drug research is one obvious way to improve treatment, AstraZeneca, Novartis, and Pfizer recently pulled a combined $50 million out of the fight. According to an email from the Treatment Action Group, a TB and HIV advocacy nonprofit, this steep loss amounts to a full third of private-sector TB investment since 2011.

Erasing stigma, combating TB’s chronic underfunding, and promoting new research and drug development are incredibly lofty goals. But similar barriers have been conquered before in diseases like breast cancer and HIV/AIDS, where passionate activism made incredible inroads in raising awareness and influencing policy. If former and current TB patients joined together, could they build the first real advocacy movement centered on patients?

View this image ›

llustration by Ashley Mackenzie for BuzzFeed

Tuberculosis patients haven’t always felt so alone.

After leaving Denver, I read The Magic Mountain, Thomas Mann’s sprawling 1924 classic novel about a Swiss sanatorium. I forced myself to finish it, but it’s the most boring book I’ve ever read. It’s the story of a total wiener named Hans Castorp who goes on a trip to hang out in the Alps and visit his TB-stricken cousin. Then Hans ends up sticking around and living there for seven years even though he doesn’t really have tuberculosis, just so he can do stupid crap like spend 70 pages talking about the nature of consciousness.

Ugh, I’m still so mad at him. But maybe it’s because I’m a tiny bit jealous. So what if he’s a fake person with fake tuberculosis? It would have been so nice to have someone to be sick with.

Sanatoriums, like National Jewish and the one atop The Magic Mountain, bridged the gap between the mid-19th century and the 1940s discovery of streptomycin. With no cure in sight, the ill had long made do with an iffy array of treatment options. Some doctors stuffed people’s windpipes with vacuum contraptions to simulate lazy lung capillaries. Cottage industries of miracle cures gorged on ad space in periodicals, sandwiched among serial installments of now beloved classics. (If you liked Great Expectations, you’ll love Daffy & Son’s Natural Miracle Multi-Purpose Health Elixir! Available wherever fancy wool top hats and snuff boxes are sold!!!) But the White Plague seemed to beat them all.

Tuberculosis did have one semi-formidable opponent, though — one hope that physicians agreed on. It wasn’t a cure; it wasn’t a given. The idea came from an 1840 pamphlet written by Dr. George Bodington, a British family doctor who covered a large area by making his house calls on horseback. His essay was based on a simple observation: that consumptives in wide-open spaces fared better than those packed tightly in cities.

But Dr. Bodington drew a further conclusion: It must have been the country air that healed them. Their bodies need pure, unsoiled air, shared with as few people as possible. Depending on the severity of their case, they might need months or years of it. In the disease’s final stages, Mycobacterium tuberculosis finally chews through the lung tissue, resulting in the bloody cough that famously beckoned death (but, curiously, couldn’t stop the heroines of Les Misérables, La Bohème, and La Traviata from singing). If combated early with the right dose of air, the process could drag to a halt.

And where could patients find such magic air? The best stuff was nippy, clean, and thin. Way up high, where no one can spoil it with industrial factory smog. And so, for the next 100 years, sick city-dwellers left their crowded hubs by the thousands and set off for specialized tuberculosis hospitals in the mountains. These sanatoriums treated patients with Dr. Bodington’s “rest cure” — medical observation, a generous binge diet, and hours a day in rows of canopied outdoor beds. In The Magic Mountain, characters traveled to Switzerland from places like England, Italy, and Poland. For months or years at a time, consumptives at sanatoriums lived and breathed together far away from real life, in their own little communities up in the sky.

Denver — the Mile High City, full of its own magic mountains — thus became America’s magnet for the dying who wanted to live. In the late 19th century, nearly a third of Colorado’s population suffered from tuberculosis, after journeying west for the air that might save them. At the National Jewish Hospital for Consumptives, they slept two by two, tucked into each of its dozens of bunk beds.

By the time I showed up, the bunk beds were long gone. There were no pretty canopies or breezy napping patios. And all that oh-so-edifying “virgin air” stuff? Turned out to be bunk. The bump in survival rates among patients who spent all that time outdoors wasn’t because of the air; it was the sun. Vitamin D is good for the immune system. They could have gotten the same effect on the roof of a tenement house. Or by taking sunshine stuffed into Vitamin D pills, like I did, supplemented by the UV light in my hospital room. (In a 21st century American city, you don’t just let a case of active tuberculosis run around outside.) Other times, patients’ health improved simply because sanatoriums gave them a badly needed break from lives of poverty and labor.

Still, the sanatorium era continues to be considered a public health success. Not because sanatoriums ever did much to help “lungers.” But because they kept them away from healthy people. By shooing contagious patients off to remote treatment complexes, Dr. Bodington had inadvertently pioneered the concept of infection control. Keeping sick people away from vulnerable populations seems so obvious now. But back then, would the idea of germs — invisible, flying disease pods — have sounded any less silly than magic air?

View this image ›

Tuberculosis treatment in 1942 D. Hess / Fox Photos / Getty Images

I tried seeing a therapist after my quarantine order was finally lifted. My mom made the appointment. I didn’t really want to go; I’ve never liked therapy.

But I hated doing this to my mom. This wasn’t just my crisis; it was my family’s too. And it was harder on my mom than anyone. She’d just spent 10 days next to me on a cot in the Denver ICU after my first lung surgery went wrong. She’d held my hand when the stiff chest tube draining blood from my lungs made breathing hurt so badly I got tunnel vision. She’d lost so much weight and was thinner than I’d ever seen her. So when she kept insisting that I talk to someone, I figured I could force myself to muster an hour of sincerity. And if I didn’t like it, I could lie, quit, and just find my own answers in some book.

I got to the office and we made our introductions. Then I broke the ice.

“Has anyone ever told you that you look like Laura Linney?” I asked.

She paused. For too long.“No. I’ve actually never gotten that.”

“No. I’ve actually never gotten that.”

BULLSHIT. She looks exactly like Laura Linney.

“I spoke to your mother on the phone. She said you contracted tuberculosis while you were in the Peace Corps in Russia?”

“No, I was in Ukraine. But yes. I mean, it was the Far East. The Russian-speaking part.”

“And so you’re going through chemo now? How long is that?”

“Well, I was hospitalized in Denver and got the part of my lung removed with the TB on it last month. So now I’m on chemo. It’s the IV drip. None of the radiation stuff. And I never lost my hair. So I don’t know if it even counts. I have nine months of that, and a total of two years or so on everything else.”

OK, it’s not like I’m uniquely hyperaware of Laura Linney or something. There’s no way I could be the first person to notice.

“And then…it goes away?” she asked.

Wait, is she pissed? Why? It’s a compliment, right? Hold on. Does she just, like, hate Laura Linney?

“Knock on wood. It can come back, hypothetically,” I recited. “That’s why they treat it so aggressively. They just want to make sure that it’s really, really dead. But they can’t, like, promise you anything.”

I went back once or twice for additional sessions. I tried to explain that I wasn’t scared about dying or anything. By then, doctors seemed confident that I wouldn’t. But I had this anxiety I couldn’t shake. I wanted closure in Ukraine, and the people in my town. I wanted to be moving toward something. I tried to convert the emotional fallout into a momentum that more closely resembled psychosis. I took 36 practice LSATs but was hospitalized the day of the test. But panic was a problem I couldn’t obsess my way out of. I’d pick up a book but just hold it in my lap and forget what the hell it was for. I had no job and no idea what to do with myself. I lived with my parents, who at that moment seemed to be trying to keep me alive by never letting me out of their sight. I felt timid and stuck. I felt cheated out of that rosy immortality my friends had. All those toxic meds made me feel like someone else. I was very, very tired. And I felt like I was failing. I wanted my sense of control back. I was so damn sad.

My mom picked that therapist because she specializes in treating patients with life-interrupting illnesses, like MS or cancer.

“It can be hard for people to lose their control,” the therapist told me. “Here’s something I suggest that people can do to feel like they have some power over everything. Next time you go for an infusion, try to close your eyes and think of the chemicals in the drugs coursing through you, attacking all of the bad cells. And concentrate on them, and really see them. Then, envision the chemo forcing them out of your body. Picture them floating away.”

I skipped my next appointment and never rescheduled. It wasn’t a therapist that I wanted. I wanted to connect with other patients like me.

View this image ›

llustration by Ashley Mackenzie for BuzzFeed

I’m not the only person to conclude that TB patients may be uniquely equipped to help each other. In 1907, a Boston-area internist named Dr. Joseph Pratt had the same idea while searching for innovative treatment alternatives for TB patients who couldn’t afford faraway sanatoriums. He had the hippy-dippy idea that bringing patients together could replicate the revitalizing effects of places like the National Jewish Hospital for Consumptives, and help patients heal. Couldn’t they guide each other through the experience better than any doctor could?

Pratt tested his hunch with a trial of a dozen patients. Modern medicine’s first recorded support group was deemed a success. Moral support really did help combat tuberculosis. His destitute patients had made do without the magic air that wasn’t really magic and replaced it with something that was.

That’s one thing the sanatorium era got right that today’s TB control programs get wrong: the need for community. Today, the sanatorium era is thought of as a relic of medical quackery rendered moot by modern science. But to mock it in favor of enlightened antibiotic cures is to dismiss the lived experience of patients. For all their problems, sanatoriums were designed to heal patients. Today, treatment is primarily concerned with limiting threats posed to others. Patients’ lives are collateral damage.

View this image ›

I showed up at the radiology department of George Washington University Hospital in Washington, D.C., for my final chest X-ray in late spring of 2012. I stood in the yellow foot outlines and assumed the TSA body scan position without even waiting for the technician’s spiel.

“Oh, you’re an old pro, then!” he said from the processing room. “OK, deep breath and hold it… Good… Now let’s just make sure that… Whoa, you’re missing a big part of your lung! Sorry, wasn’t expecting that!” That makes two of us.

But the Mycobacterium tuberculosis had indeed been destroyed. What was left of my lungs showed up as solid black — just as a healthy X-ray is supposed to be.

But somehow, it wasn’t as satisfying as I’d hoped. Once again, I wanted to share the moment with someone who understood what it meant. Moral support is nice for the good stuff too.

I began to find out how many patients felt the same way in June 2013, when I finally went back to Ukraine. I made a ring around the country to gather data for my master’s thesis: I traveled to Kiev, Lviv, Crimea, Mariupol, Kharkhiv, Lugansk, Donetsk, and my beloved Antratsyt. I visited hospitals, clinics, and met doctors, health care and nonprofit workers, and, of course, patients. No matter who they were, tuberculosis had a profound impact on their lives. Many had lost friends or even family members over their illness, or felt forced to keep the experience secret. Loneliness and shame were practically the default.

For as long as I’d spent surviving and learning about tuberculosis, one big question stuck in the back of my mind. I posed it to Oksana Viktorovna, a training coordinator for the Stop TB in Ukraine initiative in Donetsk. Why, I asked her, is there so little communication and coordination within the TB patient community, and so much of it — working successfully, by the way — in other diseases?

“You’re right,” she told me. “People are ashamed to be associated with the fringe. And even though TB is curable, the stigma makes them think it would be better to have cancer.” And perhaps, she continued, people who survive TB are ready to forget it and move on.

But, this might be changing, Oksana said. Lately, she’d noticed a few groups pop up online, on Russian networking sites like LiveJournal and VKontakte. Some people even created entirely new accounts to be able to discuss their lives with tuberculosis anonymously. “They write about their experience, their worries, their questions,” Oksana told me. “It seems to increase their optimism. I think it helps them get better.”

The clandestine online TB clubs were easy to find. As soon as I started poking through them, I found someone my age from Khabarovsk, Russia, whom I felt like I already knew.

View this image ›

The Kyiv Tubdispensar or Tuberculosis Dispensary Photograph by Natalie Shure

I finally met Ksenia Shchenina face-to-face in Moscow this past spring. Even in the tourist-thick crowd by the famous Tretyakov Gallery, she wasn’t hard to spot. By now we’d already spent hours of our lives talking on Skype.

Ksenia maintains a patient-centered website about TB, as well as pages in English and Russian across several social media platforms. Her project’s slogan, “Being ill isn’t shameful,” challenges the negative cultural narratives about TB and the people who have it. Visitors can read the blog she kept during her treatment and her interviews with doctors and survivors. She regularly interacts with new patients from all over the world.

Social media has the potential to finally address the long-standing need for support among TB patients. Last month, Doctors Without Borders published a study that identified serious benefits for users of these online platforms, including TB & Me, the organization’s own blogging portal. Social media, they conclude, helps MDR patients adhere to treatment, gain back a sense of control, fight feelings of despair and solitude, and educate health care providers and the public. After treatment, survivors like Ksenia can continue to serve as mentors and advocates for the global patient community.

I strolled with Ksenia across the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge, along the edge of Red Square, and up the fabled Arbat Street. We drifted between languages and talked about being sick. I told her how badly I wished I knew people like her back when I was diagnosed.

“I can’t find the words in English to explain how much I agree with you,” she said.

I’m not sure I could have, either. But then, it hit me: “I’ve spent years researching tuberculosis. I’ve toured hospitals, read books and articles, conducted dozens of interviews. But this is the first time I’ve ever told my story to another patient.”

How magical to find her in a world with 5,000 miles, two screens, and three healthy lungs between us.

View this image ›

llustration by Ashley Mackenzie for BuzzFeed

Want to read more stories like this? Sign up for our Sunday features newsletter, and we’ll send you a curated list of great things to read every week!

View this embed ›

Read more: http://www.buzzfeed.com/natalieshure/you-never-think-about-tuberculosis-until-you-lose-two-years

#consumption #MDR-TB #National Jewish Health Center #National Jewish Hospital for Consumptives #peace corps #Robert Koch #russia #sanatorium #social media #soviet union #ukraine #XDR-TB

0 notes

americanfrolic · 6 years

Photo

Photo by Mallory Culbert

I was fortunate enough to meet Travis, Lauren and their road captain George back in the early spring of 2014. They had set up shop at my work and I was immediately drawn to their vintage camper and all the amazing artwork,vintage,makers and designers they had packed into that beautiful Airstream. I was able to have a quick conversation with both Travis and Lauren and I picked their brain a little bit just about life on the road and how they make things work while living on the road for the past few years. It was kinda crap weather in Chicago while they were here so they didn't get to stay open as much as they wanted and they left a day or two after we spoke, I figured that was probably the last time I would see them or we might cross paths somewhere down the line.

At this point and time, Stef and I had been talking about leaving Chicago and finding a home in another state. Southern California was an option, Long Beach to be exact, and we were actually both kind of excited about it. As the summer pushed on and we thought more and more about it we came up with the grand idea to take a road trip to figure out exactly where we wanted to live and that ended up snowballing into finding a camper trailer that we could live in, travel, and search for dream destination to live. A few months after I had met Small Room Collective we had found the Frolic and we couldn't be more excited to get in and get to work on it!

A few short days after we got our camper I heard news that Travis, Lauren, and George were back in town and posted up at our sister restaurant a few miles away. I think I was supposed to meet up with Stef when I had gotten off work that day but I completely spaced it do to the fact I was filled with complete joy that Small Room Collective was back in town. I had to see them and tell them our master plan, I had to ask them a million stupid questions on how they make it work, I had to know exactly what Stef and I were getting ourselves into first hand from people that have been doing this for two years now!!! I probably rode my bike way faster than I should have over there and might have made a complete fool of myself acting like a little school girl but they were both very sweet and were genuinely excited for Stef and I once I told them our plan. I remember texting Stef that she had to come over and meet them if it was the last thing she did, she now understood why I wasn't answering my phone and really wasn't that mad at me. After a few beers on the patio Stef arrived and the 4 of us sat there and talked for some time,it was amazing just hearing their stories and all the valuable information they have collected after being on the road for so long. It was getting late so we decided that we were going to take off and before we left Travis and I exchanged numbers, I don't think he intended for me to use that number as much as I have with my million questions I've asked over the past 9 months but Stef and I very grateful for all their help and support over these last few months. Travis and I now talk every few days now that we are about 1 month away from being in the camper and we have made some good plans to meet up this July and do a little bit of traveling together on the east coast. We are very fortunate to call Travis, Lauren and George our friends with only have actually hung out twice in our lives, haha. But that's what is so special about this whole community of full-time travelers,rvers,weekend warriors or whatever you want to call us. Every person we have met (or have never actually met in person) has been more than supportive and some of the sweetest humans I have ever come in contact with.

Here's a quick interview Stef came up with for Travis and Lauren, just a couple questions that racked our brains leading up to our departure and that we found might be helpful to our readers. So thank you guys very much for taking the time out of your very busy schedule to answer our questions and we look forward to seeing you very soon!

What is your background or education?

Travis:

Grew up in Georgia, became an orphan at 16. He went on to study product design at Georgia Tech, enrolling his final year of high school. After working in various roles launching medical & consumer products, as well as exhibits, , he moved to Los Angeles and obtained an MA in Theology and the Arts. He then worked a short stint in the IT world in Los Angeles, meeting Lauren and then moving to Mobile, AL. Then we got hitched and after living 2 years in Austin doing Design, we left and to travel. He built out the trailer in a couple weeks and continues to be our logistical captain.

Lauren:

Grew up in Texas and was a tomboy who liked the color pink. Her favorite babysitters were old women who lived on her block named Rosemary and Sue Ellen, plus Madeline who did not live on her block. You could commonly find her on a rope swing over a creek, with her basset hound Henrietta, running out in some field, or dressed up in a costume. She left Texas to study creative writing in California and then decided that she would go to nursing school in Alabama. She now is a travel nurse part of the year, does some freelance and personal writing, and co-runs Small Room Collective. She is a hair-brained-scheme type of person that likes to break it down on the dance floor and loves a good adventure.

George:

Found on the streets of Pflugerville, TX (just north of Austin), George came in our lives like a lightning bolt upon finding him at Town Lake Animal Shelter (now Austin Pets Alive). He loves deeply and sleeps even more so, but he's a hard working shop dog that loves every bit of attention he receives.

What inspires your work?

We're always looking for the transcendent or grandiose in the miniscule. Knowing that the smallest of things have value, and we hope to connect and promote that. The opportunity to constantly discover. So many gems out there

George, Travis and Laurens 10 1/2 lab hound mix co-pilot.

What does your camper look like?

Its like a large shiny piece of aluminum with wheels. A chrome exhaust pipe with wheels! :)

What do you pull it with?

Sprinter Van 2500 - 144" wheelbase.

How do you guys get your mail?

Mail has been tricky for us. Lots of difficulty, especially with tolls and those kinds of things. Lauren's mom sends it to us in bulk a few times a year.

Do you belong to any camper or RV organizations?

We're only official members of Harvest Hosts. However we've found such a community of travelers out there. We're not organized, but if we had to pick a leader I think Dan of @malimishairstream is the mayor.

Whats your favorite place to camp?

Coastal, desert and any where free, including friends' driveways, farms, wineries, etc. Getting off the beaten path and boondocking in the middle of nowhere is awesome. But because we find ourselves in urban areas a lot for setting up the shop/gallery, we love being in the middle of metropoli with Bob (the trailer) and George anywhere we can fit (without people complaining).

How do you make a living?

Through our Small Room Collective Road Emporium which is a mobile Shop/Gallery+ our other pursuits. Lauren writes,Travis does design work of all kinds. Lauren also works as a RN on a contract, typically in the winter.

Lauren, or what i tell Travis he should call her, "The Boss"

What do you use for Wifi, phone, insurance?

We have a hotstpot with Verizon. We have 2 phones on that plan as well. Insurance we have an agreed upon value with Nationwide for the Airstream. The Healthcare exchanges, despite our hopes,was a bust. It has been a mess and we opt not to participate anymore.

How long have you been doing this?

With the trailer, we are just starting our 3rd year. We've been traveling for 4.5 years.

Describe the hardest day you have had on the road.

Hmmm. Boy, we've had some tough ones for sure.... trying to get into NYC became a 5 hour ordeal due to having propane tanks on the trailer and not being able to cross certain tunnels and bridges only on the top level--instead of a 30 minute ordeal which is what Google maps indicated;when George got bitten by several ticks and got really sick last summer, and we had to coordinate vet appointments with moving from city to city; being on the toad and learning that we've lost people we love. Lots of hard moments, but that happens in life. Luckily we are adaptable and somehow figure out how to keep the wheels spinning.

Describe the most rewarding day you have had on the road

Everyday we meet cool people, and we know its an especially good day when going to sleep we feelit and know, "this is why we do this".

Who travels with you?

Just us, our 10.5 year old lab hound mix George & around 70 makers + shakers (via their good and art work).

Travis,Lauren,George and there 1963 Airstream.

You can visit thier website at www.smallroomcollective.com or give them a follow on Twitter and Instagram @smallroomcollective. Also Travis has an amazing company out of the camper he calls his "Mobile Motorcycle Exploratorium" called Hardy Bros Moto. Check them out atwww.hardybrosmotoworks.com and Instagram @hardybrosmotoworks and Twitter @hardybrosmoto

#small room collective

0 notes

weekendwarriorblog · 5 years

Text

WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND August 9, 2019 - ONE CHILD NATION, VISION PORTRAITS, PEANUT BUTTER FALCON and lots more!

For this week’s column, I’m going to put a little more focus on two excellent documentaries out this week, even though there’s a few narratives worth checking out, as well..

The first doc I want to talk about is Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang’s ONE CHILD NATION (Amazon Studios), an amazing look at the edict by the Chinese government in the ‘80s -- one that ran right up until fairly recently -- which pushed for families to only have one child in order to help the country’s struggling economy. The idea is that the less children to feed, the further resources can be spread. This “suggestion” was one that became a huge problem for families as young women were being kidnapped and sterilized after having one child and some families had to give up their second child for adoption, often against their own desires... though they were also given much needed money and food. It’s an edict that becomes even more nefarious when you consider that women are having important personal decisions about having children being made for them by the government. (Sound familiar?) The running storyline through the movie involves a teen girl, whose twin was taken away for adoption when she was very young, as the filmmakers help her reconnect with her now-teen twin in America. Her story is so moving that if the two of them were actually reunited in the film, I probably would have broken down and had one of the ugliest cries I’ve ever had during a movie. As it it, it’s already a heartbreaking and emotional film with the situation so well portrayed by the two filmmakers, and it’s a movie I connected to from my osmosis having lived in Chinatown for 26 years.

I imagine it will be on Amazon relatively soon, but if you’re a fan of great documentary filmmaking, you might want to seek this out in New York (at the Film Forum), Boston, L.A. and other cities this weekend.

I next want to talk about Rodney Evans’ VISION PORTRAITS (Stimulus Pictures), which opens exclusively at the Metrograph following its premiere at SXSW earlier this year.

Not many people know this but a little over a year ago, I was dealing with my own vision problems where I had a scratched retina from shingles, but I was also having trouble with deteriorating vision in both eyes. I’m actually surprised that more of my editors didn’t ask me about why most of the pieces I submitted were zoomed in 175-250% as my eyesight got worse, but it was getting to the point where I wouldn’t be able to read any black writing on white background and had trouble reading some comics when letterers got a bit too creative with the word balloons. It got pretty serious until last year when an opthomologist suggested I get cataract surgery.

Filmmaker Rodney Evans has been dealing with his eyesight problems for years, but they had been getting worse as his filmmaking career progress. In a moment of introspection, he decided to interview other artists with vision impairment to see how they deal with it while making their art. These include dancer/choreographer Kayla Hamilton, writer Ryan Knighton and photograph John Dugdale, as the film also follows Evans own path in order to get a procedure to help alleviate his blindness.

The film is fascinating, especially the idea of “passing” as sighted, something I had to deal with during my own declining eyesight. (BTW, I’m fine now as I had that cataract surgery and I now wear reading glasses for most computer/phone activities.)

Evans will be at the Metrograph all weekend doing QnAs for his film with a number of special guests (including Winter’s Bone director Debra Granik on Sunday!) so if you’re interested in knowing more about how those with vision problems can still be creative artists, this is worth checking out. It’s not a sexy movie, but it’s an important one. It will open in L.A. at the Laemmle Royal on August 23.

youtube

I also want to mention that Garret Price’s doc Love, Antosha will open in New York at the Quad Cinema on Friday, and if you were ever a fan of actor Anton Yelchin, then this amazing doc with interviews with so many of the filmmakers and other actors he’s worked with is heartbreaking but essential. It’s an amazing list that even includes Nicolas Cage reading letters from Anton to his mother – brilliantly, no less -- but it’s also wonderful to hear such wonderful things about Yelchin from those who worked with him and called him friend.

Also, if you haven’t had a chance to see Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, now’s a good time to learn more about this amazing author who passed away earlier this week. It’s still playing in select cities but hopefully Magnolia Pictures will be able to get it out to more theaters with her passing.

There’s a LOT of wide releases this week, and it’s a pretty mixed bag. I’ve seen three of the movies, and one of the ones I liked I can say that I liked it – the other one is under embargo. I guess it might be more obvious which is which when my reviews turn up at The Beat later this week.

I will say that I enjoyed Tom Shadyac’s BRIAN BANKS (Bleecker Street), starring Aldis Hodges and Greg Kinnear, quite a bit, since I have friends in prison who have dealt with the broken justice system where it’s easier to make a plea deal and prevent many hours in court with lawyer hours billed. Banks was a Long Beach, California high school football star who was accused of rape. Although the allegations were false, he takes a deal and gets thrown in jail for eleven years, destroying his dreams of being in the NFL. Out on probation, Banks tries to get his football career going again but discovers that the limitations of his probation and a GPS ankle bracelet makes it impossible, as well as impossible to get a job. He turns to a lawyer with a group who works on getting those falsely accused exonerated and begins an uphill battle against the California justice system. The movie is quite meaningful and inspirational to watch Banks’ story being told with Hodges giving an excellent performance as the football player. I never knew about Banks, so I was fascinated by the film, although I’m sure there will be cynical people out there who feel that this is a cooking cutter legal film that doesn’t have the dramatic fireworks of other such films. I actually liked that Shadyac, who had nearly retired from the business after making low-brow comedies like Ace Ventura, Bruce Almighty and Evan Almighty, would return to tell something that’s more meaningful and important. I’m just not sure if anyone will want to pay to see this in theaters, so its wide release is fairly risky, but it’s a worthwhile venture for sure.

I’m not sure I’ll ever get around to seeing Paramount’s DORA AND THE LOST CITY OF GOLD, just ‘cause I’ve never watched the Nickelodeon cartoon, although it certainly looks cute, and I always love seeing Michael Peña (Ant-Man) and Isabela Moner was amazing in last year’s Instant Family. I guess I’ll see if I can get to this eventually, but it’s not a priority for me.

While I can’t say much about the Guillermo del Toro-produced André Øvredal-directed SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK (CBS Films/Lionsgate) due to a review embargo, it’s based on the (apparently controversial) young adult horror novel series of the ‘80s, featuring a cast of younger newcomers like Zoe Colletti, Michael Garza, Gabriel Rush and Austin Zajur. I guess I can say that fans of old school horror films will probably like the use of practical FX in creating the creatures of urban legend, giving the movie a nostalgia factor we don’t frequently see in modern horror films.

I’ll have an interview with Øvredal later in the week, as well as a review, both over at The Beat.

I never read the Vertigo Comics series THE KITCHEN (New Line) when it was first published in 2014, but it offers an interesting premise of women taking over the Irish mob in 1978 Hell’s Kitchen, New York with three fantastic actors in Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish and Elisabeth Moss. You’ll have to wait for my review later today to see if it works or not, but you can read my interview with filmmaker Andrea Berloff right here.

I also haven’t read the novel THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN, which has been adapted by Fox starring Amanda Seyfried, Milo Ventimiglia with Kevin Costner voicing a dog, but I haven’t seen any of the dog movies this year, so this one won’t be the exception.

You can read my thoughts on the box office of the five movies above over at The Beat.

LIMITED RELEASES

Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz’s PEANUT BUTTER FALCON (Roadside Attractions/Armory Films/Endevor Content) was a nice surprise that premiered at the SXSW Film Festival. The idea of Shia Labeouf and Dakota Johnson (from the “50 Shades” movies) on a road trip with a young man with Downs’ Sydrome (breakout star Zack Gottsagen) sounds like it could be absolutely horrifying, so imagine my surprise when this turned out to be fairly warm and wonderful and actually quite funny. A lot of that comes from Gottsagen who is quite funny, and the movie allows you to laugh with him rather than at him, which is sometimes the case with movies involving mental disabilities. It’s a very enjoyable film that might have some appeal to wrestling fans – the title of the movie is Zack’s wrestling name and his goal is to get to a wrestling school run by Thomas Hayden Church. But there are some fun wrestling cameos in the movie as well. Maybe it’s no surprise that it actually won the Audience Award at this year’s SXSW Film Festival, as well.

It’s opening in New York, L.A. and a couple other cities like Austin, Dallas and others on Friday. For transparency, my friend Susan McPhail has a small role in the movie…but I liked the movie anyway :)

I was definitely intrigued by Bart Freundlich’s AFTER THE WEDDING (Sony Pictures Classics), which premiered at Sundance and starred Michelle Williams and Freundlich’s wife Julianne Moore in a gender-twist on the Susanne Bier movie of the same name from 2006, which starred Mads Mikkelsen, who was excellent in the movie. Williams and Moore are also very good in this movie which has Williams as a woman working with underprivileged orphans in India who travels to New York to meet with the CEO of a business looking to invest money in the program. Once there, she’s invited to a wedding, only to learn that the father of the groom is a former boyfriend (played by Billy Crudup). I’m not sure how much more I can say about the developments that occur, because they might be somewhat surprising if you haven’t seen the original movie but it leads to some high drama with Freundlich continuing his streak from the underrated Wolves a few years back. This opens in New York and L.A. this Friday.

Casey Affleck’s third movie as a director, LIGHT OF MY LIFE, might have gotten a festival release or a better theatrical release than the one normally given by Saban Films, but the allegations against him and the whole #MeToo movement has probably made it harder to sell the movie, especially with the filmmaker/star not doing interviews.

Tom Donahue’s doc THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING (Good Deed Entertainment),o opening at the IFC Center and in L.A., features some of the prominent female voices in Hollywood talking about the underrepresentation (and underpayment) of women in the movie industry. The film includes an amazing roster includes Geena Davis, also one of the film’s exec. producers, Marisa Tomei, Jessica Chastain, Meryl Streep, Rashida Jones and many, many more, and hearing what they have to say about their experiences in the industry is very enlightening and important.

Hari Sama’s THIS IS NOT BERLIN (Samuel Goldwyn), opening in New York at the IFC Center this Friday and in L.A. on August 23 is an intriguing coming of age film set in 1986 Mexico City, which harks back to Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma last year. It involves a seventeen-year old named Carlos (played by Xabiani Ponce de Léon) who doesn’t fit in but starts finding himself when he gets involved in the post-punk scene at a nightclub, although his best friend Gera (José Antonio Toledano) has trouble adjusting, causing fiction in the friendship.

In many ways, this remined more of Cuaron’s earlier film Y Tu Mama Tambien, although it’s a little more erratic in terms of tone, as well as being somewhat predictable about where things might go wrong. What’s especially interesting is the exploration of sexuality by the two friends in the movie and how that is affected as they go further down a rabbit hole of drugs and depravity. The movie also stars Roma’s Marina de Tavira as Carlos’ mother, and while it probably won’t be for everyone, Sama offers a great new voice on the international filmmaking circuit.

Martin Freeman and Morena Baccarin (Deadpool) star in Jason Winer’s rom-com ODE TO JOY (IFC Films), which opens in select cities and On Demand this Friday. In it, Freeman plays a man suffering from narcolepsy who tries to overcome it when he falls in love. Also starring Melissa Rauch, Jake Lacy, Jane Curtin and more.

Lastly, Robi Michael’s psychological thriller Every Time I Die (Gravitas Ventures) stars Drew Fonteiro as a man who is murdered at a lake sending his consciousness travelling through the bodies of friends to warn them of the killer. Very high concept indeed...

STREAMING AND CABLE

As far as Netflix this week, I am looking forward to seeing the new crime and martial arts series WU ASSASSINS, starring Iko Uwais from The Raid and more recently, Stuber, which will debut on Thursday. There’s a lot of great martial arts talent in the movie including Mark Dacascos as well as Summer Glau from Firefly, so this should be a fun show. I’m even MORE excited for return of the series GLOW for its third season this Friday with Geena Davis being added to the mix. I love this show, maybe because I remember watching GLOW so fondly in the ‘80s.

REPERTORY

METROGRAPH (NYC):

As part of the ongoing Juraj Herz, retrospective of the Czech genre filmmaker, the Metrograph is premiering a new 4k restoration of his 1969 black and film The Cremator starting Friday, although the series will end on Thursday. This week, the Metrograph is also starting a new month-long series called “Godard/Karina Late Nights,” showing four of the collaborations between the French New Wave master and his muse Anna Karina. This Friday and Saturday, the series will screen the 1964 classic Band of Outsiders. This week’s Late Nites at Metrograph is Seijun Suzuki’s 1966 Yakuza crime-thriller Tokyo Drifterand the weekend’s Playtime: Family Matinees is Joe Johnston’s 1989 Disney family comedy Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, starring Rick Moranis. Also this Thursday is the latest installment of The Academy at Metrograph with the Oscar-nominated Mexican film Like Water from Chocolate (1992) with director Alfonso Arau in person. There are still some seats available but it might be sold out by the time you read this.

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

Tarantino’s rep theater continues to mostly be booked up with mostly sold out shows of his ninth film Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood, although the Weds matinee is the Rock Hudson/Doris Day classic Pillow Talk (1959)and the weekend’s KIDDEE MATINEE is Norman Tokar’s Sammy, the Way Out Seal from 1963. Saturday morning is also the latest installment of the Bev’s “Cartoon Club.” Monday’s matinee is Francis Ford Coppola’s The Outsidersfrom 1983.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

The premiere downtown NY arthouse continues its impressive “Burt Lancaster” series this week with a lot of fantastic films including John Sturges’ Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957) on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and Robert Aldrich’s Ulzanna’s Raid (1972) on Thursday, Saturday is also John Frankenheimer’s Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) and Seven Days in May (1964), then on Sunday, Run Silent Run Deep (1958), plus the Forum will also screen the 1968 film The Swimmer, Elmer Gantry (1960) and MUCH more! In other words, this series is a bonanza of Lancaster riches, and next week begins another great repertory series!

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

This weekend’s series is “Rutger Hauer Remembered” with a screening of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) on Thursday, a 35mm double feature of Ladyhawke and Flesh + Blood (both from 1985) on Friday, a TRIPLE feature of The Hitchhiker (1986), Nighthawks (1981) and the more recent Hobo with a Shotgun (2011) on Saturday, and then The Blood of Heroes and Blind Fury on Sunday.

AERO (LA):

The AERO gets in on the retrospective bandwagon of one of Iran’s most respected filmmakers with “A Taste of Kiarostami,” beginning on Thursday with the late filmmaker’s recent films Like Someone in Love (2012) and 24 Frames (2017), Friday’s double feature is Taste of Cherry (1997) and Ten (2002) and then Saturday is Close-Up (1990) and The Wind Will Carry Us (1999) – most of these include a short, as well. The series concludes on Sunday with a triple feature of Abbas Kiarostami’s Koker Trilogy: Where is My Friend’s House? (1987), And Life Goes On (1992) and Through the Olive Trees (1994). I’ll be perfectly honest that my knowledge of Kiarostami is not what it should be, but hopefully those in L.A. will check out some of these movies even if they don’t get the amazing Godfrey Cheshire hosting them.

Wednesday’s installment of the “Greg Proops Film Club” is a screening of Babette’s Feast and the AERO is getting in on the midnight movie craze on Friday night by showing David Lynch’s 1977 Eraserhead in conjunction with “Cinematic Void.”

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

The Quad begins an impressive new series called “Beach Reads: From Sun to Screen” with a number of classic movie adaptations of some classic novels, including Airport (1970), The Deep (1977), Arthur Hailey’s Hotel (1967), Mark Robson’s Valley of the Dolls (1967) – just cited in Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood – John Sturges’ Ice Station Zebra (1968) and many more classics. In conjunction with the New York premiere of the doc Love, Antosha, the Quad will also be showing two of Anton Yelchin’s latter-day films, that doc’s exec. producer Drake Doremus’ Like Crazy(2011) and Jeremy Saulnier’s Green Room (2015), both which are excellent and worth seeing. (And another major oops from last week is that I forgot to mention the Joan the Maid 4k Restorations showing at the Quad, so hopefully they’ll continue through the weekend.)

IFC CENTER (NYC)

Weekend Classics: Staff Picks Summer 2019 is Caroline’s pick of Louis Malle’s 1958 thriller Elevator to the Gallows, showing Friday through Sunday at 11AM. Waverly Midnights: Staff Picks Summer 2019, chosen by Shelby, is Harmony Korine’s Julien Donkey-Boy (1999) starring Eewen Bremner, and Late Night Favorites: Summer 2019 is Gore Verbinski’s The Ring from 2002. Also playing through the weekend is the IFC’s 60thanniversary 4k restoration of Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest, starring Cary Grant, which will play most days in the early evening.

BAM CINEMATEK (NYC):

BAM’s new series “Punks, Poets & Valley Girls: Women Filmmkers” begins on Wednesday with Penelope Spheeris’ Suburbia (1983), which will be followed on Thursdsay by two more amazing music docs, The Decline of Western Civilization and The Decline of Western Civilization: The Metal Years. The series also includes Susan Seidelman’s Smithereens (1982) and Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), Bette Gordon’s Variety and lots more as it runs through August 20.

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

The “Summer Matinees: Fantastic Worlds” series continues this week with the Oscar-winning Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse… in 3D! playing Weds. through Sunday at noon. MOMI will also have a 30thAnniversary screening of Spike Lee’sDo the Right Thing on Friday night, plus “See It Big! 70mm” continues with screenings of Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma (also from last year) as well as one or two more screenings of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

FILM OF LINCOLN CENTER (NYC):

Michel Gondry’s swill get a FREE screening at Governors Island’s Parade Ground on Friday night starting at 7pm. I missed this last week (what else is new?) but FilmLinc’s “Another Country: Outsider Visions of America” continues with a cinematic look at the immigrant experience.

ROXY CINEMA (NYC)

This week’s rep stuff includes the 1967 film Personaon Weds. and Saturday, and the 1963 Jean-Luc Godard film Contempt, starring Brigitte Bardot, Michael Picoli, Jack Palance and Fritz Lang as himself.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART (LA):

This week’s midnight offering is a weird one… DreamWorks Animation’s Shrek (2001)!

#WhatToWatchThisWeekend OneChildNation PeanutButterFalcon BrianBanks VisionPortraits Movies Reviews TheKitchen ScaryStories

0 notes