I signed up to ‘Virgin Red’ using a referral link on the last promo they were running to get a free 1,000 points and go on a Greggs shopping spree after my first purchase, and it turned out to be ALOT easier than I thought it would be.
The way in which Virgin Red functions is that you get points as cashback for each qualifying purchase you make with one of their partnered retailers (there’s quite a few!) and then you can redeem those points against vouchers and discounts on other products.
They are for a limited time offering 1,000 points to new sign ups who create an account using this link and make any qualifying purchase (of any amount!) through a partnered retailer
I just made a purchase on Ebay, which i was going to make anyway!!! (Just make an eBay purchase of £1/+ and it will work!!!)

You can also then get another 10,000 points by referring 10 friends :)!

Examples of what you can spend your points on:

Greggs Sausage Roll - 200 points each
Greggs salad or Gourmet baguette - 500 points each
£5 Costa coffee gift card - 1,000 points each
Vue cinema ticket - 1,350 points each
£20 Pizza express gift card - 4,000 points each
Virgin Wines £25 gift voucher - 5,000 points (So you could potentially get 2 crates if you refer 9 people after you sign up)
Nike £30 gift card - 6,000 points each
You can also redeem points against flights taken on Virgin Airlines.

Free 1,000 points

^{non ref}

Very often less is indeed more.
In the opening scene of Dune: Messiah conspirators convene to plot against MuadDib. It marked the first time Herbert brought out a Spacing Guild steersman in the series. Holding him out for the course of the original novel subtly infused a reader with a flair imposing a figure of ominous presence, nebulous shape and unbounded cunningness.
Instead, we got quite the opposite. It is as if Herbert deliberately tugged all antagonists but one one level down. His honesty adds a zest in that he admits it by projecting his intent onto the thoughts of Scytale, a Tleilaxu mentat, who Herbert seemingly made his talking head.

Scytale smiled, passing a benign gaze over his companions. They were as he’d been led to expect. The old Reverend Mother wielded her emotions like a scythe. Irulan had been well trained for a task at which she had failed, a flawed Bene Gesserit creation.

Reverend Mother throwing a tantrum by "wielding her emotions like a scythe"?
So much for Irulan, whose input to the decision-making was roughly one per cent, however, at one point in the meeting, Reverend Mother resorted to no less than calling Jessica "a bitch". That's a loss of style and bad optics, especially if the one is at the head of a secret centuries-old influential society, a mental school shaping the landscape of the Universe. What about "the Bene Gesserit way"? The problem is that such a veneer hardly agrees with the aura we were led to believe in "Dune".
Do you imagine the actress who played Gaius Helen Mohiam in Lynch's movie fitting the impression of a laywoman shouting "a bitch!"?
Likewise, the supposedly critical leader of the Spacing Guild was relegated to the backstage and ridicule ("The pontificating fool was their major weakness"). Why did you make him a pontificating fool, in the first place? Herbert gave out his name, Edric. "Edric" alludes to the Nordic legends but does not belong in the Dune Universe. To add insult to injury, "Edric was no more (and no less) than the magician’s hand: he might conceal and distract". Not much.
So far, Lynch was the first and, until the TV miniseries, the only one who added something new to the cinematography of Dune: he showed us the Navigators, something that even Herbert did not, in a way that it felt as a natural extension of the novel.
The bizarre rugged creature with a beak-like hole instead of a mouth, swimming inside a cask, capable of "seeing plans within plans", and the secluded members of its suite emanating the stink of a dead body, imposing weird associations on a viewer – all for nothing? It doesn't connote foolishness.
Herbert was a productive author with an array of brilliant ideas. However, a good writer he was not. He wasn't a master of a word and composition, which his writing betrays. He didn't possess the understanding, often innate, of the sound of words put together. It, sometimes, made his text bulky, entrapped in parasite words, such as "data", and "well", overabundant in certain places, and sunk in unnecessary details. Some constructions reek of a crude and chaotic approach.
Chapter One of Dune: Messiah is a glaring example of this. Twelve years had passed since the Arrakis Revolt before the actors decided on action. Why wait for so long? Even if we consider the seriousness of the premise of the twelve years respite, their remarks would equally fit in the context of one year after the Revolt or zero years.
The scene purports to show us their scheming against Paul as much as against one another. Yet, the way it was executed made their appearance look cartoonish and their characters with no rhyme or reason. The phrase "Edric took this moment to pop a melange pill into his mouth" is a caricature. The parts
"Idaho’s dead,” Irulan said. “Paul has mourned the loss often in my
presence. He saw Idaho killed by my father’s Sardaukar.”
and
" the spice heightened a Steersman’s prescience, gave him the power to guide a Guild heighliner across space at translight speeds. With spice awareness, he found that line of the ship’s future which avoided peril"
are superfluous because we've already been informed by reading the preceding book.
I'd take a step further and claim that this chapter is superfluous. It's out of place because it nullifies the intrigue. Just like "Dune" started in Paul's quarters in the Calandan Palace, this part should've taken place in Paul's quarters in the Arrakeen Palace. The meeting of the co-conspirators should've never been included. The actions and words of those involved should've gradually unveiled their motives and personas.
And if Herbert couldn't do without him he should've shrouded the physical attributes of the Steersman in mystery, replacing him with a special representative or councillor, similar to how he did this in "Dune", revealing him at the end of Messiah for a length of a glimpse.
These drawbacks disrupt the integrity of the story and are disappointing.

Hello beautiful ball people and thanks in advance.
I am fairly new to having enough money to buy hobby boxes.
I would love suggestions on which sets might best fit my interests.
I like baseball cards for the cool pictures, variations in cards, and the writing on the back. I read every card. I'll keep a base set if its got a cool picture or story to it.
For that reason I don't love the artifacts or some of the chrome with their wallpaper backgrounds. I like the base sets but would love something with a bit more variation in the types of cards?
Any suggestions? Also, this is my hobby not my investment.

A few weeks ago, someone posted a link to one of Don’s rants and I went through and commented on each of the points. I can't find that post, but I had copied it over here: https://www.reddit.com/perpetualeducation/comments/1c7k9re/donthedeveloper_on_a_rant_about_how_aspiring/
We had a chat about it. Here’s the video/podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHmqZkC3LqU&lc
Don titled it: There's a MASSIVE Skill Gap Among New Developers
I'll attempt to write a bit about that - (even though we went over many other topics - and I'm having a hard time grouping them)
It’s easy to simplify this into “the market” or “the boot camp” or “the tech stack” or "what's fair" or "the resume" - but I think people are missing the various multidimensional aspects at play. Is it:
Is it all of those things - and more? (Yes). And it's "the student" too." We're all different (cue reading rainbow moment). But it's true. Some of us are slower. Some of us are faster but miss the details. Some of us have a background that alignes neatly with tech. Some of us already know what job we want and why - and other people just want to make a good bet on a stable career. No matter what zone you're in, we still have to face the music - and deal with (trigger alert) - the truth.
The market is real. Companies aren't aggressively hireing random barely capable developers right now (like they have in the past). They're scared and holding on to their money. They also kinda realized they were spending more money on middle management and probably developers too - and are going to need some time to figure out how to make profitable businesses (or how to keep getting more VC funding to burn through).
But if there's a huge gap between your skills/experience and what it takes to do the job you're applying for, none of the other factors matter.
Many people choose a coding boot camp based on superficial factors like the price, the timeline, the website design, and the sales pitch. They often don't consider other important aspects because they simply don't know better. This isn’t unlike any other product or service or school.
Some people pick out a boot camp and learn a bunch of awesome stuff and they go out there and start a new career and for some reason, they don’t come back to Reddit to tell us about it. There are some legit colleges and boot camps and other alternative learning paths out there - that are really great. It's just a fact.
If you read the bootcamp marketing, paid your tuition, went through the steps they lined out, and came out the other end unable to get that job they promised you, well - that’s awkward. Maybe for you, it’s that simple. If you feel like you got a raw deal, I’m sorry. There are some businesses that should be ashamed of themselves - but they won't be. All you can do is warn other people. That’s over now. We can only work with the present.
For people who really want to work in this industry - they'll keep moving forward: at the end of the day, this is the playing field. So, if you want to get off the bench, we’re going to have to design a path to that – and you might need to rethink some of your assumptions.
It could certainly be said that new developers are now expected to know about–and have experience with–a lot more things.
Are the expectations that someone brand new to development is going to be able to get a job unreasonable? Well, does it matter what someone’s opinion about that is? You either want the job - or you don’t. And you need to know how to do the job, or no one will hire you. Do you need to know everything on this huge list to get an entry level position https://roadmap.sh/javascript ? (no) (in fact - close that - and don’t ever look at it again)
When I started (at the age of ~30) (in ~2011), you needed to know HTML, CSS, (Probably some PhotoShop to get your assets), maybe a little PHP (and likely HTTP and more about URLs and request types and forms), FTP and DNS to get your site hosted, and maybe some JavaScript. You might have used jQuery to help out or Knockout.js. And you had to know how to hook up a database and MySQL and probably a CMS or some sort. And maybe your code was a mess or maybe it adhered to some common patterns. But that was life. Not everyone needed to know all those things. Some people would focus more on getting the mockup into the HTML and CSS. Other people might focus on the server and the PHP or Perl or Java. There were all sorts of jobs and some of them were done by people with a formal education in Computer Science studies and other people just figured it out as needed. There was a lot of work to be done. Lots of custom stuff to build and maintain. And it was just normal to learn more incrementally as the years went by. You could totally get a job knowing just HTML and CSS (and you still can BTW). There was still an infinite amount of things you could know. But it seemed to ramp up naturally because we were closer to the grain of The Web.
So, what do people learn now? (Generally) They rush through some HTML and CSS really quick (which actually teaches them more bad habits than good). They rarely learn about DNS or FTP because a tutorial showed them how to type a few random things into a terminal to have their site on a free service and they don’t buy a domain name because there’s a free subdomain. Apparently paying for anything is for suckers and companies that don't give you things for free are evil capitalistic pigs who should be shut down. New devs don’t know much about servers because their text editor is actually running an advanced web application behind the scenes that starts a virtual server and runs all sorts of other things they don’t understand outside of that context - like connecting to version control, opening a terminal pane, SSH, code completion and typeahead, autoimport completion, AI suggestions and other additional layers like typescript and many other linters to tell them where all their errors are. If they couldn't use VSCode - they might be dead in the water. It can feel like you’re just a bag of meat being yelled at by VSCode as you try and solve the errors and remove all the red lines. And we do all of these - to put the training wheels in place.
And I’m not saying that a LAMP stack doesn’t have it’s own level of black-box and mysteries with how Apache handles your HTTP requests and MySQL starts up it’s own server - but we have to be comfortable with some level of abstraction or we’d be writing all ones and zeros at the machine code level.
So, the new developer is manning this huge stack of tools unknowingly, but they do get a lot of benefits. We can spin up a pretty complex web application with a front-end to make requests, a server to talk to a database and other third-party systems and respond back to the client/front-end, and an auth layer to make sure people are properly signing in and only seeing what they need to see. There are abstractions for HTML and CSS and JS that put that template logic and controller logic into a neat little component file (which is great) and that component file is properly registered based on file name conventions and everything gets set up in this larger system of conventions that all happen behind the scenes in the framework architecture. So, as a new developer - you can really ride the framework and know hardly anything about how it works - as long as you know the language to speak to this layer of the abstraction (the API).
These aren't just arbitrary add-ons that people made to complicate things. They solve real-world problems. The new dev won't really understand what they are - but I'm not saying we should just get rid of them. They allow us to move faster and to build interfaces and business logic without having to write tons of behind the scenes repeated structural code by hand. And with those training wheels, we have more time on our hands. We can also add in the chance to further define our programs with safety measures and plan automated testing routines, and built-in documentation of our code base. We can keep adding layers and layers or pull in more and more third-party tools. It’s pretty amazing. But what people end up learning is how to maintain that configuration - and there’s only so much time - and so, they end up learning 10% of all the things you used to need/want to know. And some jobs have a path for that. But there's likely going to be a long-term cost for you.
Arguably - it doesn’t matter how much “code” you know - and making things is what matters. And that’s true. That’s what matters to the business that pays you. And to the school that wants you to feel good about your progress. But I think you should protect your learning journey. It’s for you. It’s going to be what you carry on throughout the years and it’s a seed.
Getting proficient with a popular tech stack - when the market is booming proved to be a great decision for boot camps and their students. And I'd bet that the majority of people mean well.
But when it's not booming, students are in it for the wrong reasons, schools have tightened up and moved online, the market has plenty of devs who already have 5+ years working with that framework/stack -- then all of the sudden - the surface-level fake-it-till-you-make-it path (as much as I respect that) doesn't work as well. You're going to have to put in some more energy.
When it's obvious that you can't build an HTML page with semantic markup, that's accessible, and has a universally pleasurable experience, and you can't write CSS without a UI framework or do anything custom, it's obvious. You should be aware of that gap. When you've never owned a domain name or setup a deployment pipeline, you should be aware of that gap. When your personal website looks like your boot camp gave it to you, you should be aware of how that looks. When you can't take a server-side scripting language like Python or Go or PHP and build out a little personal website framework - you should be aware of that gap. When you can't plan a project and don't have experience with diagrams and explaining things, you need to be aware of that gap. When you've never written about your process or created any case-studies to explain your projects, you should be aware of that gap. When you're only proof of work is the class assignments, you should be aware of that gap. When your github history goes dead after the last day of class, you should be aware that we'll see that. When you claim to no nothing about visual design and that's for someone else on the team - you should be aware of that gap. If you refuse to turn on your camera and just want to be left alone, you should be aware of that huge gap. If you can't build a little prototype app without React, they you probably don't JavaScript, and you should be aware of that gap. And there will ALWAYS be a gap. There's always more to learn. So - it's an important skill to know what to learn and why - and when. You can't learn everything. And if you're having a hard time finding work right now, then get clear on your goal. Stop applying for general "Software engineer" jobs you aren't ready for. Narrow your scope. Figure out a job that you think you can do confidently. Get clear on how big your gap is and what you need to learn to get centered and confident with your toolset. Ideally, it's fun. Try and ignore all the doom and gloom and focus on your own personal goal.
It's not just the market. Too many people are applying for jobs they aren't anywhere near qualified to do. And it probably doesn't feel good. But luckily - you can learn the things and get back on track.

I might have made a (tiny) shift to here before my account was even created.
Ok, first of all, apologies for yet another long-ass novel from me, and for not posting this with a clear takeaway in mind. I don't find small unintentional shift posts like "my carpet changed color!!" the most exhilarating either, but it's my turn! Hopefully I manage to put enough substance into it with my words, I just had to share this asap.
So come today, I'm with family and a specific "number" comes up in conversation. I don't want to mention what this is due to privacy something-something - but, this number is something that's pretty significant for me. Someone in my family gets this number wrong. I very gracefully correct them... but they double-down on it. This is where red flags start going off in my head, so I just deflect the conversation and say I might be going crazy (and consider that possibility myself lol). Now, I have to reiterate, this number is pretty significant, and has been reinforced throughout my whole life, it relates to something, it's not just an abstract number in a password or something. Like imagine the months of the year changing order. All of a sudden, I find out that I'm all alone in this battle. Everyone else is singing the same note and I'm tonedeaf. That number has actually changed in reality, for no one else but me.
Ok, as I established, forgetting or brain fog is out of the question. The other possibility except for shifting, is actually going nuts, and I feel surprisingly sane for a crazy person. Although I guess that's what every crazy person thinks, so dear voices in my head, please confirm I'm not crazy in the comments haha. Anyways, so all of this got me thinking, when would the shift had happened? When was the last time this number got "tested" in front of my eyes like this and came out correct? And did something out of the ordinary happen in that time frame, besides me falling asleep in the middle of a method every night lol.
And this leads me into sidestory time. I've mentioned this story before, but this might have reinforced it. You see, before I made this account I was a pure lurker. I wasn't necessarily writing off shifting, more like I was still in a consideration phase - is this something I want in my life, what would I do with it, and is it worth becoming active in the community, having yet another distaction to adhd over, etc. (yes). That was my status quo, until a pretty complicated incident happened in my close circle. Again, sorry for leaving it up to the imagination, but when something involves someone else I'm close to, I'm a private person. What it boiled down to in the end was that I was forced to choose between actions that didn't feel like me, and that idea was stressing me out to infinity.
That very night is when all considerations went out the window, I had come into a new potential avenue to solve my unsolvable issues - shifting - and I was taking out all the brakes off the rollercoaster. I just fell asleep in utter desperation, repeating something along the lines of "I really don't need this to happen rn, I'll just shift to change it and never even know". Why the "never even know"? I still regret that part, but I guess it was because I was still in the consideration period back then. I was worried that shifting might potentially make life more meaningless somehow, like make life and free will feel more fake. So unfortunately, as much as I go on to retroactively prove to myself it worked, I'll never really know that it did. I set myself up. But yeah, if it wasn't clear, the next day I found out that voila - I had actually really misunderstood the incident and everything turns out trivial. Wow, another case where everyone else is in agreement on reality and I'm the only one out of order lol. What led me to this story, is that the last time I can remember comparing that previously mentioned number in my head, with itself in the external world, happened before that shifting incident. So I have a hunch I may not have unintentionally shifted, but that number changing is just a side product of that night. Why it changed or what it means? Still can't answer, that mystery isn't getting solved.
TL:DR; A huge thing changed for me. And it's possibly not even an unintentional shift, but connected to a desperate attempt to shift before I was even interested in shifting or had this account. In that attempt I cucked present-self not to know I shifted, so I might just have brain worms.
But anyways, what are the takeaways from this, what can be done with this information? The question isn't rhetorical, I'm really curious to hear your thoughts. As with everything, there must be a way to utilize the awareness of small or unintentional shifts.
What I could come up with was: First, the most obvious one - to reinforce the ideas behind LOA. After a successful shift, logically LOA becomes more natural to the shifter. Although unintentional/unbeknownst to me in this case, it still gives some rise to the idea. And this doesn't have to apply only to me, hopefully by reading this post, another tiny crack opens up in your own doubts too.
The other thing I'm considering, is whether I should try changing this number back. It's already bugging me anyways and it hasn't even been a day. My memories of my entire aware life were of a different number. So maybe it's possible that shifting will come to me easier if I just tried to change this one thing back before I'm used to it, rather than going for an entirely different reality first? I honestly want to hear someone more experienced's opinion on this, has it been more effortless for anyone to make smaller changes? Leave aside the fact that it's technically manifestation at that point, or that technically in my case I might have already shifted intentionally before.
And that's all I have in mind for now. Again, sorry for long, I tried to jerk my funny bone a little bit so hopefully that makes up for it 🍀

In 2019 I was working for a trucking company based out of Houston Texas. To keep it brief... The company was owned by a big time Pastor out of Houston. He hired a man who had multiple million dollar contracts, but he didn't have the trucks or the drivers to fill those contracts. The contract holder was also leasing a truck/trailer at the time, but pretending as though it was his own.
Company owner =FR
Truck owner=WC
Middle man=KT
KT is a long time conman/criminal out of the south. He was in and out of jail for several years when he decided to start truck driving. After a while however he needed more money. He wanted to run his own loads, but needed a truck/trailer. That's when he partnered with WC. WC owns multiple tractor trailer setups and he leases them to many individuals all over the country. He met KT and without prying too much into his past, he leased him a tractor trailer. WC would make a percentage of every load which kept him happy for around 8 months. That's around the time KT met FR at a party or some type of event. He was given an email for contact and in early 2019 he sent his first email to FR's company asking to become a partner, or to make a percentage for every contract he gave to FR, considering he didn't have the trucks or drivers to perform all the contracts he had. FR with dollar signs in his eyes agreed and made him a partner by April 2019.
The contract between them was officially made by FR's company Lawyer and signed in late September 2019. KT started using all of FR's company details, emails, business logos in all of his interactions from then on out. He had a problem however. He was still needing to make money to pay for his contract with WC. He would assign loads to WC's truck and find drivers through craigslist. After a few weeks to a few months of non payment however, all drivers would abandon the truck and he would have to find a new driver. Eventually that became me in October 2019.
I posted a craigslist ad looking for Repower work and KT's secretary emailed me the details. I received a phone call the next morning and I was off from Denver to pick up a loaded tractor trailer sitting in the Cheyenne WY Regional Airport parking lot. I was told the driver had a family emergency and the load was already late so I would be paid a handsome amount to deliver asap. I spent 9 days in the truck delivering 3 loads from Washington state, Boise Idaho, to Salt Lake City and then eventually going down to Gallup New Mexico to hit the I40 to drive the truck back to Houston, where I was told I would meet KT, get paid and be on a paid flight back to Denver. I was eager to get home.
On October 29th 2019 I was asleep in the back of the truck at the Pilot Travel Center in Gallup, New Mexico when I was awoken by a pounding on the passenger door. I was dressed in multiple layers as the truck had run out of fuel the day before. The Comdata Cards weren't working to put fuel in, and I was told it would be solved the following day. It was around 8 degrees outside. I was in a tshirt with my hoodie laying on me, and a pair of sweatpants under my blue jeans to keep warm. When I finally crawled to the front of the truck to open the door I was greeted by a Glock pointing at my head and told to slowly exit the truck keeping my hands up. I did as the Trooper commanded. After a brief search of the truck for damage (I had the key fob), and after showing the Bill of Ladings printed with my name and signature on them I was informed I was receiving a Felony for Possession of a Stolen Vehicle. After being "Frozen Out" to admit fault (I was ordered to stand in front of the Troopers cruiser for 2 hours in 8 degrees as he was trying to get me to admit to stealing the vehicle) I was then cuffed and brought back to the sub station for further questioning and filing. I was told everything from how stupid I was for taking the job after telling my side of the story, all the way to how I should've made my father (a 33 year retired officer) run the plate on the truck to check if it was reported stolen before getting in. Which doesn't make sense, when the truck was reported stolen THAT NIGHT.
WC was getting worried about his equipment not being insured by him, but by FR's company. He demanded his truck back on October 27th and was told by KT and FR they had NO KNOWLEDGE of any such truck. He reported it stolen the afternoon of the 29th and it was tracked by on star to my location where I was arrested. After being interrogated at the sub station and sitting handcuffed to a bench in a cell for 2 hours while the Trooper wrote his report (which just spoke about how he received a call, went directly to me, arrested me and had me in custody now.) I was then transported to McKinley Country Correctional Facility where I spent a hellish 42 hours locked in with 33 other inmates. The toilet system would backup and flood the cell soaking everyone laying on our mats with feces and urine. The food provided was absolute garbage not fit for any living person. A new inmate stole cuffs off an officer and showed everyone after a couple hours and threatened people. We also had an inmate come down from the pods (a convicted murderer there for another trial) after threatening to kill a known Ped upstairs. He was found strangling him and until they figured things out he was transported down to us. He laid down right behind me. I couldn't eat the food so I gave it to him having tupperware. He actually gave me my only phone call using his key code for the phone in the cell. My Dad told me they were bailing me out very shortly.
My bailbondsman arrived at 11pm Halloween night after taking his kids to get candy. I was taken to a motel room down the street. We stopped for my first real meal... taco bell. I was just happy to be out of there, but I ended up throwing up several time in my room and I couldn't sleep for a few days.
-Fast forward to December. My case was dismissed in pretrial.
-Fast forward to May 2020 the lawyer who took my case in Gallup in December to help me sue the State Troopers dropped me. You can see his bill boards EVERYWHERE in Gallup, NM.
-I found a new lawyer in Denver who believed me and started filing.
-We received correspondence from FR's lawyer saying he never met KT, has no knowledge of WC or the truck in question and to leave him alone.
-2 years later (FR is still saying he never knew anyone) in August 2022 we received partial discovery. FR's email. He was ordered to type in KT's name in the history bar and over 200 emails popped up. Everything from their contract created by FR's lawyer to emails such as...
"KT! You're a very very smart man. Now let's make you a VERY VERY RICH MAN!"
-Early 2023 WC settles with us and says he would be a witness for me in trial. The State Trooper received Qualified Immunity. KT still hasn't been found. FR offers a 10k settlement. We decide to go to trial.
-late 2023 we have another meeting in Houston, Tx to discuss a settlement at the court house. I am met by FR himself who was not supposed to be there. He's limping on a cane. Never made an apology. They up their settlement to 100k. I'm still wanting to go to trial, but the mediator who is the 2nd judge at the courthouse all but tells me I won't win a GD thing if I go, because of the "Good ole' boy" system in Houston. He said no matter how I feel about what happened, I'm a white veteran truck driver who got arrested... Nobody gives a sh*t and they are going to see to that.
-After 6 hours and being literally counted down by the mediator from 10 to 0 I accepted the offer.
-I started making Reno911 style Bodycam footage to help me get over things mentally. Some have received over a million views. I now live in Long Beach California.
-KT was and still has never been found. FR is still a pastor at a major church in Houston. I don't know anything about WC. The state trooper is in the news almost every other week for arresting DUI drivers in Gallup.
AMA

I've started seeing a girl recently and we've really hit it off and she obviously likes me a lot, but I'm struggling to accept how much more money she makes than me. I work full-time at a job I hate for little more than minimum wage and my life is ruled by my low income; she has a manager role in the field I've been trying to enter for years. When she talks to me about her job or things related to her higher income, it makes me feel terrible. When she found out I've been trying to find a career in her field, she half-jokingly said she'd offer me a position if one was open and I don't think she really unstands what that would mean for me. When I talk to her, it's hard not to dwell on feeling like a loser, feeling like she lives in a different world to me, and like there's no way I'm good enough for her I guess. None of this is her fault and I'm ashamed I feel this way. I feel physically ill about it sometimes.
What can I do? Can anyone recommend some kind of mental exercise or paradigm shift I could consider to help this affect me less?
TL;DR I'm broke and my new girlfriend makes a very comfortable living with a job I wish I had. How can I not ruin this by being a jealous loser?

This is the first time I have written something of this length, and is more of an exercise in self-therapy than anything else. Disclaimer: This story contains conversations about child abuse. Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy it.
Nathan’s number appeared on my phone screen. I debated whether or not to answer it. We hadn’t been on speaking terms for a while, and while we did keep in touch sporadically, it was usually because of important family issues. I didn’t know of anything happening with mom or dad, nor with Talia or Rio, so I let it go to voicemail. I could always call him back later. I placed the phone back in my pocket, and returned to cleaning my camera. The phone buzzed again. A text message came through. I read the preview line from the home screen. “The city declared eminent domain on the house” I unlocked my phone, read the full text message, and dialed my brother.
I wasn't able to get any closer to the house than a few blocks. Most of the area was blocked off with chain link fencing and construction equipment in preparation for the demolition that was supposed to take place within the coming days. The barriers didn’t prevent people from walking in to the neighborhood, but it hindered scrappers from coming in and stripping the houses of copper wiring and plumbing.
I grabbed my camera bag out of the trunk of my car along with my tripod. I shouldered it and hooked the tripod to my bag. I pulled my water bottle out of the center console and shut the door. I stood next to my car surveying the neighborhood. 12 city blocks of old single family homes comprised the neighborhood where I grew up. Some of the houses had been empty for months, others for years. There was an eerie silence that permeated the still air. I could not hear the familiar sounds of people, pets, or cars. I locked the car and put my keys in my pocket. I patted my jacket down to ensure I had what I needed. After a quick check, I started my walk.
The sidewalk of the old neighborhood streets still bore the familiar cracks and grind marks from years of buckling and remedy. Leaves dropped by the trees still lay scattered all along the pathways and sidewalk. Korina’s house was the first house I encountered as I made my way through a gap in the fence. The yard was overgrown with tall grass and thistle. I could see the faded blue paint of the old house contrasting the green and browns of the lawn. The chain link fence that marked off the corner property was nearly invisible through the thick brush. As I continued walking west towards 110th, I started to feel something was off. The streets seemed wider than I remembered. It took me longer than I’d like to admit, but eventually I realized what was different. There were no cars.
The streets here typically had cars lined bumper to bumper in any spot available, and were visible from block to block. The absence of all these vehicles made me realize just how deserted the neighborhood really was. House after house, yard after yard, the telltale signs of desertion reinforced what I could see from the moment I passed the construction fence: This was no longer my neighborhood. There were no signs of life, and no one I could expect to find still here. Abandonment was the new normal here. I continued on, glancing at houses and recalling memories of summer bike rides, and daily walks with dogs I used to have. I remembered walks home from school, and chasing after ice cream trucks when they passed our houses. I smiled a bit as I remembered more and more of my years spent here. I don’t quite know just why I was smiling. There were plenty of bad memories here too. Fights, yelling, being beat up, being robbed. I could remember failed friendships, lost loves, and bitter feelings of failures too.
Still, I felt a certain amount of nostalgia despite the weight of these negative feelings. I almost wanted to experience everything again, although I wasn't sure why I was feeling this way. Concrete, asphalt, billboards and liquor stores were the normal vistas of everyday life. Occasionally, after a good rainstorm, the grey haze of smog would lift, and the mountains would be visible to the north. At least, they would be visible until mid-morning when the exhaust from a million cars covered them behind a veil of pollution.
It wasn’t until the first time I travelled out of the city that I realized there was more to see. Traveling up the coast north along the Pacific Coast Highway introduced me to scenes of deep blue ocean water spanning the width of my vision. Driving up Highway 3 introduced me to the permeating scent of Pine and Fir trees. The two-lane stretch of highway from Portland to Tillamook introduced me to lush green forests that I had only ever read about. When I came home to the same old dirty, dusty concrete and boiling summer asphalt, I had made up my mind. I would do everything it took to leave this place. I would not spend another day longer than was necessary living in cramped quarters and fighting for parking space.
I arrived to the house, and paused at the gate. The house sat in contrast of what the rest of the neighborhood looked like. Instead of overgrown grass and tall weeds all over the place, the landscaping showed signs of relatively recent work. The guava tree in the front lawn still had some fruit ready to be picked, and the avocado tree on the other side of the pathway was still weighed down by its own fruit. Flowers still bloomed in the raised bed in front of the house. My brother had clearly tried to keep up on things until the last possible moment. The house, too, looked better than what I expected after walking up 4 blocks and seeing nothing but dilapidated houses and unkempt yards. I opened the gate and walked up to the small porch. The metal gate that enclosed it was gone having been removed by my brother when he took over the property. It looked nice to see it open instead of the cage it once felt like.
I turned the knob on the door, but it didn't give. Ever a creature of habit, my brother had locked the door when he left. Of course, he did. I sighed and prepared to find another way in when I remembered my parents hiding a spare key. I wasn’t sure if it would still be there, but after running my hands along the back side of the gutter downspout, I was rewarded for my efforts. I unlocked the front door and stepped into the front living room, the sounds of my footsteps and the closing door echoing in the empty space. The room felt both larger and smaller than I remembered it. I suppose it was lack of furniture that made it feel larger, but it still felt smaller than I remember. The result of growing taller throughout the years I suppose. I slowly walked along the slate tile floor towards the central hallway that connected the front of the house to the back bedrooms. I wasn't entirely sure that just because the front door was locked, that there wasn't some squatter looking for a little temporary shelter within the back rooms. I carefully and silently crept step by step towards what used to be the bedroom shared by my sister and me. I stuck my head in and gave the room a cursory glance. It was empty, thankfully. I moved back into the hallway and peered into the bedroom across the hall. This is where both of my brothers had shared a room. It too, was empty save for a few boxes holding hardware and doorknobs from the closet doors of the bedroom. I walked back towards the back of the house where my parent's bedroom was. The walls in the hallway bore the dusty signs where picture once hung. The bedroom door was open. I stepped inside, and looked around. The old avocado paint that my mom had picked out years ago still adorned the walls. Walking further towards the addition that was the small room my grandma and grandpa lived in showed that there was no one here. I breathed a sigh of relief as I set my bag down and set up my tripod. I reached into my bag a pulled out an envelope of old photos. These were old snapshots that we had all taken at some point in time in the house. There were pictures of all of us sitting at the dining room table playing a game of Monopoly. There was a picture of my brother and sister sitting on a couch in the front living room. There was a picture of me hanging on the bars of the front porch. I looked through them all and held them in place in front of me as if I were holding a window to the past.
Each picture made the lump in my throat grow as I started to struggle to control my emotions. There was history here, and soon it would all be gone. This is the place where my parents had raised four kids. They had taken care of my grandparents in their twilight years here. My Aunt and my grandmother had both died in this house. Birthdays, graduation parties, and anniversaries had been celebrated here. The echoes of life had reverberated within the walls of this place. Now, the house sat silent. It would never again know happy screams of kids having a water-balloon war out in the front yard, nor would it hear the cries of anguish as the matriarch of the family passed away surrounded by her family. What once was a home full of life was now just an empty house made of drywall and paint. I sat there for a moment contemplating just how much family history was actually made here. As I thought hard about my siblings and my parents, I felt pained at the thought of our strained relationships. We had all scattered once we had the opportunity to be free of each other. My oldest brother had married and moved away as soon as possible. My sister now lived in northern California. My parents too had moved away. I was now living in Utah. Only my older brother had remained behind. The lump grew larger in my throat as tears welled up in my eyes. I held back sobs of anger and pain. Why was I hurting? Hadn’t I dealt with these issues already? I walked back to my old bedroom and sat down under the window. I pulled my head down into my knees and cried. I could hear yelling and screaming in my head. Shouting matches between siblings and parents, brothers and sister, rattled inside my brain, making the pain grow. I sat there and cried. I hadn’t cried like this in a long time. Eventually I ran out of tears and tired gasps of sorrow and regret washed over me as a blanket of drowsiness enveloped me. I leaned my head back and fell asleep.
I woke up to the sound of footsteps. It took me a moment to realize what I was hearing and hurriedly stood up. Had someone followed me? I knew the police were patrolling the area sporadically. Had they seen me enter the house? I knew there would be a possibility of getting a trespassing citation, but I figured I could either talk my way out of it seeing as to how I was a former resident, or I could probably fight the citation in court if the judge knew why I was there in the first place. Ultimately, passing through the gate had been a calculated risk that I was willing to take for the sake of my art. I got up from my corner of the room and moved towards the door. If there was someone in the house, I needed to know. I didn’t want my gear to stolen, and if there was a cop in the house, I wanted to ensure I didn’t get shot.
I was greeted by the sight of a startled chubby boy standing on the other side of the door. His round cherubic face was crowned by a head of short curly hair. His hazel green eyes stared widely back at me. He clearly didn’t expect someone to be here in the house. His body recoiled in fear as he cowered back towards the hallway. “Wait, what are you doing here?” I asked as non-threateningly as I could. The boy muttered something that I couldn’t quite make out. “What did you say? I couldn’t hear you” I replied. “Are you here to rob us?” he timidly responded. “Rob you? What are you talking about?” I asked as confusion set in. “What are you doing here?” It was his turn to be confused. “Uh…I….live here?” he replied. “What do you mean you live here? No one lives-“I stopped midsentence. I hadn’t noticed in my initial shock but the room wasn’t the same. A familiar blue couch caught the corner of my eye. In front of that was an old console TV with a partially broken antenna hanging on the wall behind it. I walked further in to the living room to notice wood paneling on the walls. A large mirror hung on the wall to my left. Familiar yellow lamps sat on round drop-leaf tables on either side of the couch. A large hutch sat in one corner, a collection of letters and bills, mail advertisements, and a phone book covered scattered over it. “What just happened?” I asked out loud to no one in particular. I was thoroughly mystified by what my eyes were seeing. I had walked into the house from the front door and had stepped into an empty white room with slate floor tiles, but somehow now found myself in a furnished room with brown carpet that was all so familiar to me, yet was nothing but a distant faded memory. I turned to look at the boy still startled by the intrusion of a strange man looking wildly around the room in total shock.
“You can take what you want, just please let me go. I don’t want problems.” He stated his voice still shrill with anxiety. I blinked a few times as I tried to process just what the heck was going on. I gathered my thoughts as best I could and tried to reassure him. “Kid, I’m not here to rob anyone. I was just-“I shook my head “Where the hell am I? Am I having a dream?” I asked myself. “I must be dreaming. I’m just tired and still sleeping. This is all a dream. Yeah, that’s it.” I needed to sit down. Being back in the old house must have overtaxed my senses, I told myself. I’d having a dream about an old memory. I walked over to the chair next to the couch and sat down. I sunk into it and rested my head back towards the wall.
The boy kept his distance, but sensed I wasn’t there to hurt him. He looked me over with anxious curiosity. He stood at the far end of the couch, examining me while he played out scenarios in his head in preparation for a quick exit. “Why are you in my house?” he asked me. “Dude, this is all just a dream I’m having. I’m not really here.” He reached over to the couch and picked up a pillow. He reared his arm and threw it at me. It landed in my lap. “I don’t know, man. You sure seem to be here.” He said to me. I opened my eyes, startled. I looked down at the pillow he tossed and examined it. I ran my hand over the fabric and felt its texture. I remember this pillow. This was the pillow I would roll under my head as I lay on the couch and watched TV as a kid. A sudden realization hit me as I looked around the room with fresh eyes. No longer was I blinded by the fog of confusion. I knew exactly where I was.
I was home.
I looked at the boy still standing at the edge of the couch. I looked him over and realized who he actually was. I stared in disbelief as I smiled and tried to put him at ease. “It’s ok Johnny. I’m not here to hurt you. No one is going to hurt you. Please, sit down” I told him. I motioned to his end of the couch. “Who are you, and why are you here?” he asked me.
“This will be hard to believe, but I’m you” I said with an incredulous tone, “I’m not sure how I ended up here, but I’m here.” He looked at me as I had grown a second head. “That doesn’t make any sense. How could you be me? Did we invent time travel? Oh! Are we secret government agents with the CIA?”
I chuckled. “Wait, wait, wait. Let’s start at the beginning. I’m you at 38 years old. You’re…what, 11… 12 years old? It makes sense. I fell asleep under the window in my- our old bedroom. I didn’t come here on purpose or in a machine. And no, I’m not a government agent.” His face contorted to display understanding, disappointment and finally suspicion. His eyes narrowed as he leaned in towards me. “How do I know you’re really me?” he asked. I thought about it for a moment. How could I prove to him that I was who I said I was? A few seconds of silence settled between us. I stroked my chin, thinking of a solution.
“I have a better idea. Ask me questions that only you know the answers to.” “Okay” he responded. He glanced around the room trying to come up with something. His eyes fixated on the Nintendo sitting under the TV cabinet. “What game do me and Nathan have a map of?” I looked over at the NES. I hadn’t thought about this for years, but I knew instantly what he was asking. “YOU don’t have anything. Nathan is the one that made the map for Section Z” His jaw dropped. He tried to trick me, but his plan failed. He knew well and good that Nathan never let him play. It was always ‘I’ll let you play when I die’ or, ‘you can play when I’m done’. The problem was that he never followed through. Usually by the time Nathan was done, the NES was overheated, and the game would no longer load until it cooled down. By that point, it was time for bed.
“How do you know that?” he asked in astonishment. “I know these things because I’m you. Just like I know that you wear t-shirts to the pool because you’re embarrassed by what others will think of your body. I know that you used to think that people that die off in movies were prisoners that were set to be executed from death row, so they used them for making movies. I know all about you because I’m you”
Johnny sat on the end of the couch in bewilderment, his mouth slightly agape. He had never told anyone any of this. He didn’t have any close friends to talk to about such things, and those friends he did have were more acquaintances than friends. There was only one way he could possibly know these things. He was talking to his future self.
I could see Johnny’s mind completely explode. There lay endless possibility and the answers to a million questions he could ask about his own future. He started to ask a question, only to stop, close his mouth, and try asking another. I knew if he kept this up he would have a stroke or something. “Dude, calm yourself. Let’s talk this out rationally, otherwise you’ll end up stroking out or something.” I told him. He took a deep breath and I could hear him muttering quietly. I knew he was trying to form a coherent sentence before he actually spoke it. I did it all the time. “Ok, first of all, are we rich?” he asked with tempered expectation. I chuckled and grinned back at him. “No, not at all. If I was rich, would I be dressed like this?” I replied as I motioned to my beat up brown Vans and worn out jeans and T-shirt. “We-, I – make enough to get by. I’m not poor, but I earn enough to pay the bills.” His face grew a smirk as he commented “Yeah, I figured. What do I do for work? I mean, what do you do for work?” I thought about it for a second. I wondered how much information I should divulge to a younger me. I still didn’t think this whole situation was really happening, but if it was, I probably should proceed with caution. “Well, it’s complicated. I do a little bit of everything. You know how you’re constantly taking things apart? Let’s just say that it’s good to put them back together in order to keep them working. Take good notes on paper if you need to, and make sure you have a clean work area so you can keep track of all the parts.” He gave me a sheepish look. He knew exactly what I was talking about. I had spent countless hours sneaking dad’s tools to my room so I could figure out how something was built and try to figure out how it worked. I had gotten myself into some pretty bad trouble with dad over a drill, his timing light, and other stuff I had taken from his room. His belt had become quite familiar with my butt cheeks.
I gave him a knowing smile. “What else do you want to know?” He thought about it for a second. “Do we have a girlfriend?” I laughed, probably a little more than I should have because his face contorted into a sour frown. “You don’t need to be a jerk about it” he scowled. I continued to chuckle. “Yeah we have a girlfriend. We have more than a girlfriend” I could tell he was irritated with my vague indirect answers. I knew what he was asking. I remember the crush I had on my neighbor across the street. We had been friends since kindergarten, and had been classmates for 1st, 2nd, and 4th grades. We got along really well, and I knew from around 12 or 13 that I wanted to be her boyfriend. Unfortunately, things never progressed beyond the ‘just friends’ stage of things. It wasn’t from lack of effort on my part. We had just grown up together most of our lives that she didn’t see me as anything more than a brother and friend. “Dude, look. You just started to go through changes and you are starting to notice girls, but that doesn’t mean that you need to love every girl that shows you a little kindness or subtle interest. You need to slow down and let things happen naturally. You can’t force a relationship with someone.” Johnny pondered these words for a moment. I sat back and put my feet up on the coffee table. I looked around the room some more while I waited for another question. There was so much I had forgotten, but being back here had unlocked more and more memories that continued to wash over me. I was trying to hold on to my cool as not all those churned up recollections were pleasant. I stood up and walked over to the front door to peer outside the small central window embedded into the center of it. I could see the old neighborhood as I remembered it all those years ago. The lot across the street that served as a parking area for those that worked at the wheel works at the end of the block was empty of cars. I furrowed my brow as I thought for a moment. An empty lot meant it was afterhours or the weekend.
The gears in my own head started turning. “Wait, where is everyone?” I asked Johnny. Johnny turned to look at me still processing my last response. “Uh..oh, Mom and dad are out of town. They took a trip east this time. I think Rio said they are in Arizona right now. Rio and Nathan went out to get some food and to rent some movies from Video Showcase. Knowing them they’ll eat out first. Talia is staying over at Tia Rosie’s place today with her friends.” I grunted at his response. My mind was wandering as he mentioned Talia and Tia Rosie.
A sudden sharp pain pieced my heart. The pain of a thousand memories now unsealed spilled out from the box I had locked them away in. Tears welled in the corners of my eyes as I turned back to look at Johnny. He felt it too. He stared at the floor with an intensity that made me think it would burst into flames at any moment. I walked back over to him and sat next to him. He didn’t move. I placed my hand on his shoulder, and he threw himself into me. I could feel the tears dripping onto me as he sobbed intensely. “Hey man, its ok. It’s going to be ok.” I said as my own tears started to flow uncontrollably. I pulled him close and draped my other arm around him.
I knew the pain he was feeling. It was such a heavy burden, and I knew there was no one he felt he could talk to. I remembered it all so vividly. We sat there for what seemed to be an eternity. When we finally stopped sobbing, and our noses ran dry, we tried to breathe our way through to calmness. I got up and knelt in front of him. “Johnny, listen to me and remember what it is that I’m about to say to you. You are stronger than you think. You are stronger than you believe. NO ONE should ever have to go through this. Just because it happened to Talia, doesn’t mean you have to put up with it any longer. I know you didn’t think it was wrong, but I’m telling you that what she is doing to you is wrong. Talking to mom and dad isn’t going to make them hate you. You are not doing this to her, she is doing it to you. I’m not making excuses for her, but she is also more damaged than anyone realizes, and she is also dealing with the same level of pain you are. Remember that we do unto others what has been done to us. That doesn’t mean we need to continue the cycle of abuse” The lump in my throat grew immense at my own statement. I swallowed it as best I could and continued “You are going to deal with this pain a little bit at a time, and you’ll slowly get over this. It’s like a broken bone. When it happens, you don’t realize how bad the pain is until the adrenaline wears off, but then the immense pain is there. Just remember that this will pass. Just like a broken bone, you will heal over time, and one day, you will realize that the pain is gone and the bone is no longer broken. You’ll remember the pain, but it won’t hurt anymore.”
Johnny sat there in stunned silence. I knew he didn’t have anyone to help him through this. He couldn’t talk to Rio or Nathan about what was going on. Mom and Dad were constantly working to keep the family fed and sheltered and while they provided materially for their kids, emotional help was less available. Perhaps it was due to their energies being divided into 4 kids, a mortgage and multiple jobs, or perhaps it was also the culture of not talking about problems. Either way, they needed to know what was happening. They wouldn’t be able to fix it otherwise. “They’re going to be mad at me” he finally said after a few moments of silence. “No they won’t be. They love us all. I know you’re not used to hearing it, but they do love you. Everything they do is because of their love for us. This isn’t your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. Telling them isn’t going to cause them to be angry.” I thought for a moment to find a good analogy. “You love Odie and Lady, right?” He nodded in agreement. “Ok, how would you feel if you knew someone you trusted was coming to the house and beating up our dogs when we weren’t around?” He thought about it for a second before his face changed to anger. “I’d want to kill them!” “Yes, but would you also feel sad that you weren’t there to try to protect them?” I reasoned. His face changed again. He understood what I was saying. Mom and Dad would be angry, but not necessarily at him. They would also feel a great sadness knowing that someone was hurting their child.
I smiled at him. He understood. I nodded. “Dude…You’re going to come to understand that life is not what you think it will be. Life is messy and can change in an instant. The plans you make today may not make it to next week. A lifelong goal can be derailed because of something out of your control. Mom and dad have spent their life protecting us with the goal of keeping us safe, but circumstances out of their control have affected their kids, and now we- you all have to deal with the fallout. Just remember that you are not the culprit. Yes, mom and dad will be hurt and angry, but not at you. Trust them. They don’t do things to hurt us” Johnny hugged me. I- He didn’t have many people he could trust and open up to. He liked to talk a lot about everything going on in his life, no matter how trivial. Everything, except this. This was a shameful topic, and he didn’t feel like anyone would understand why he didn’t go to an adult sooner. The problem was simple. He simply didn’t understand that it was wrong. Now that he had an adult that he could talk to, himself no less, he wanted to lift this burden off his shoulders. He was happy to have found someone and he hugged me tightly. I hugged him back just at tightly. It wasn’t every day that I could meet my younger self and help to comfort them. “Thank you” he said to me.
The world darkened, and everything faded to black.
I lifted my head out of my knees and looked around. I was sitting under the window in my old bedroom again. Had I fallen asleep? I pulled my phone out of my pocket and checked the time. I was emotionally drained and incredibly tired. I hadn’t had sleep like that in years. I got to my feet and looked around the room briefly before walking out to mom and dad’s old room. I grabbed my camera and slowly walked the house, snapping picture after picture. The only sound to be heard was the sound of the camera shutter and my soft footsteps. I thought about my dream as I took pictures.
Upon entering my room, a random memory hit me.
The stash.
I was pretty sure I had taken the hidden box when I moved out all those years ago, but since I was here, I should double check. Heading into the closet, I pushed the panel that led to the attic space out of the way and peered in. I couldn’t see anything, so I reached up there to feel around. The box was indeed gone. I felt around for a few more seconds and was surprised to feel what felt like a thick envelope. I didn’t remember leaving anything up there, but after pulling it down and giving it a cursory glance, I figured it was an old envelope of lost love letters. It wasn’t until I blew off the thick layer of dust that I realized what I was holding. It was a letter. Not just any letter. It was addressed to me.
Under the now semi-cleared layer of dust were the words “To be opened by future me”. I looked at it for a few moments before opening it. I couldn’t remember making this at all, much less storing it up in my secret hiding spot. If ever I hid something, it was in the stash box. My hands shook a bit as I started to open the envelope and pulled out the yellowed pages inside. I started reading.
"Dear Future John. I have spent the last few years remembering a dream I had when I was younger. Life was…difficult at that time, and I spent a lot of time escaping my reality by reading a lot of books and watching a lot of TV. On the off-chance that what I think is a dream really happened. I wanted to write some things down in an effort to give you my thanks. I merely consider myself a conveyer of thanks, although I will pile on my own thanks to you for your words of encouragement. I remember finding a stranger in the house one day while I was home alone. I was afraid he was there to hurt me at first, but after a few moments, I came to realize I was meeting myself. Well, I was meeting me, but from the future. I think he said he was in his 40’s, but I couldn’t tell you with any certainty. Either way, we talked. We talked about life, and what the future held in store for us…
Mostly though, we talked about the abuse. Well, Talked is being generous. We cried, and then we talked. I don’t remember exactly what he told me, but I remember how he made me feel. He made me feel safe. I felt like I could trust him. Trust myself. In the end, he gave me the courage to stand up for myself both at home and at school. He also gave me the courage to talk to mom and dad about what was going on between me and Talia. I do remember being afraid that I would be punished, but he reassured me that they wouldn’t, and that they loved me.
It was a difficult and awkward conversation, but in the end, arrangements were made for me to share a room with Rio and Nathan. I didn’t have much of a relationship with Talia for a long while, but after some years, we managed to patch things up. She apologized to me, and I came to understand the abuse she herself was subjected to by so-called family friends. She didn’t tell me this in an effort to excuse it, but to merely help give me closure to a difficult time from my own childhood. Mom and dad promised to be more attentive to us and we sort of established what I guess you would call an open door policy. We talk more about stuff that’s happening in our lives. Mom is much easier to talk to now. Dad is a little more patient with us too. I apologized to them for not coming to them sooner, and dad gave me a “nugget of wisdom” that I think I’ll live by: We can’t fix what we don’t know is broken. I’ve tried to make sure I talk to them when something is wrong, and I’ve tried to implement that in my life so I don’t have problems with other people.
I’m trying to grow up to be a good guy. I want to have good relationships with people. Nathan says I’m turning into a people pleaser, but I don’t necessarily see that as a terrible thing. I know when to say no to someone. Well, either way, I wanted to make sure I thank you for the help you gave us. I probably won’t remember writing this, but I hope I do find it again someday. Here’s hoping I turn into the man I feel you are. -John Age 16."
I stared at the letter, the words blurring as tears welled up in my eyes. I quickly brushed them away as I quietly spoke to no one in particular. “Thanks guys. I hope I live up to your expectations” I folded the letter, placed it in my pocket, and walked out of the room. After picking up my backpack and tripod, I silently walked towards the front door, my footsteps echoing in the empty house. I turned to look back at the empty living room one last time, and after a moment, I walked out.

27 years old, still live at my parents house, and I've basically been stagnant since high school. I feel like a shell of my former self. I have been going through a process of self discovery and reflection, and the pressure of life is starting to set in. Normally I would counter this with escapism and burying the problem, but this year it feels different. To give some background:
-Short, bald, and obese
-Only have a year and a half experience of part time work (grocery store). I don't have references and a huge employment gap so I'm worried that I am less employable than a felony murderer. I hate working
-Failed out of community college, tried for 6 years and couldn't pass classes I wasn't interested in. Looked into getting IT Certifications as programming and tech support comes naturally to me. I might be limited by not having a college degree later in life, might take 1 college class at a time very slowly while working, who knows. I feel my parents patience is running out so 'career' needs to come soon
-Sadly my favorite thing is media consumption. I've legitimately turned it into a hobby somehow, joining music forums, researching home theater and creating a media center with a custom renderer, part of private torrent communities, etc. I built all of my friends and family's computers, set up surround sound systems, did tech work for grandparents etc. so atleast I can pass that knowledge onto others
-I have 6 really close friends that are absolute saints and have never pressured me into losing weight or getting a job etc. When we hang out its usually food on the cheaper side, memes, hiking, gaming, etc. I know they have my back. As a side effect, I haven't made a new friend since high school, maybe because I have such intense friendships that nothing else would measure up, you know?
-Had a three week relationship when I was 15, she ghosted me
-I think I'm anxious around women specifically. I try to be as normal as possible around them, logically they're any other normal ass person, but the entire time I'm hyper second guessing myself, what I'm saying, how I'm standing, every little thing. I've lived with a close female relative my age and it was completely different. In comparison I feel like a social butterfly around the average gamer type guy around my age
-Tried therapy in the past but bounced off of it, unfortunately I went in looking for a quick fix, instead of advice on how to better myself
Anyways, I felt business as usual up until a couple months ago when my body started screaming out for me to have sex and lose my virginity. Hormones, not peer pressure. Totally normal for a 27 year old guy, but it seems like the journey from here to there is a Mount Everest amount of self work. I don't even know if I want a girlfriend, or if I'm just craving sex. A relationship is about giving and receiving love, and I don't think I'm attractive enough to hook up outside of a relationship which I'm not sure I want in the first place. One redditor told me that people of all shapes and sizes have sex and relationships, regardless of life situation, and 90% of the time it's social skills that limit people
For people who were in the same situation or just have advice, my question is - Do I start from building blocks of a pyramid, cleaning my space and establishing good habits, exercise, adding little by little on top of that? Do I find a part time job, and the rest will fall into place?
How do I find that magical 'third place' to meet women when every hobby sounds lame as fuck?
How do I tell if I'm genuinely aromantic, or if I'm completely hollow inside from being habitually alone?
Does anybody know what the actual fuck is wrong with me?

Made reservations over the phone with United for travel on 9/10 using 2 travel certificates that expire on 9/15. 3 weeks later I noticed the agent forgot to use the travel certificates.
Call to see what can be done - talked to an agent and after she put me on hold for 55 minutes she said she could extend the travel credit another six months, that was it. I said fine.
She did not do that.
I called back again and this time the agent said that since it was their mistake she could refund the original tickets to my credit card and rebook me using the travel credit ($700) and another $500 to my credit card.
A week later I get a notice that my “refund was denied” and now I have a $1200 travel credit that expires in April (a year after original booking).
If I knew I was not getting a cc refund I would have used some of the $1200 travel credit to pay for the new ticket!
I called - again - and this agent said the reason the travel credit was denied was because the other agent didn’t put any reason for the request for a refund.
What is wrong with these people? Do they just make stuff up to get you off the phone??????

Sorry for the repost, something weird was going on with my account so I’m posting again because I really need advice.
I apologize in advance for how long this is going to be. So I 24F started teaching for first time last year so I’m currently in my second year. While in my first year I befriend another teacher let’s call her Patty who was also new to the school and was going to be teaching the same grade and subjects as me. Last year all was great and I learned a lot from her as she already had a year of teaching under her belt. In this school year of teaching we were still really close but a few things were different. I was more independent from her as I became more confident in who I am as a teacher and I became close with two other coworkers. One friendship just came along and another came due to us doing the same after school activity together. At the beginning of this year, all 4 of us were close. We talked everyday ate lunch together, texted in a gc the works.
Now for the weird part. One day during lunch Patty comes in late and then mid conversation gets up and leaves. Which left the three of us super confused. She later text me asking if everything was okay between us. I told her I thought all was fine but I wanted her to stop making comments that I liked our other two friends better than her because it really hurt me that she could think that of me. She apologized and everything seemed okay. The following few days Patty didn’t join us for lunch. I thought maybe she needed time and I didn’t want to push her. Time goes by and she never returns to eating lunch with us. Patty then pulls our one friend aside let’s call her Amy and ask if she hurt me in any way and she’s not sure why our relationship has changed. Amy pushed her to talk to me about it but that never happened. I honestly didn’t know why she was feeling this away because truly nothing had happened between us in my perspective. Patty never came and talked to me. Some time passes and Patty and I aren’t as close anymore but are still professional. In this time Patty gets close with her co teacher Sally. Which I found weird considering Patty made many comments about not liking Sally. I also was wary of Sally as I noticed she would change her personality depending on who she was around. Patty is very conservative so Sally would be conservative. If Sally talked with other staff who tend to be a bit more loud she would then act like them. Which I understand everyone is different depending on the friend but I personally have had bad experiences with people who do this. So I am aware of my own bias here. Either way I remain at professional length with Sally.
Fast forward to February we have a professional development day, where Patty and I go to the same building since we teach the same subject. She pulls me to the side and expresses that she’s not sure what happened between because she doesn’t feel Like she did anything to me and I did nothing to her. She states that it hurt her seeing me, Amy and our other friend match at our staff Christmas. I apologized for this and stated that it was wrong of us to match without her but I felt so awkward asking her to match because we hadn’t talked in months. We both apologized and it felt good. For the rest of the day Patty seemed like her old self but she had made a couple comments about our principal that made me feel weird. She stated that she wasn’t sure how she felt about our new principal who used to be our old VP. That she doesn’t feel like she makes the school feel like a family like our old principal. I would like to say that Patty and our Old principal were very close and she was favored. Patty was often in the spotlight last year due to our old principal raving about her. I think Patty sees our new principal is very professional and keeps friendship and work separate. I expressed that I like our new principal as I feel like she’s kept thing very orderly and I did feel like our school was a family. The conversation ended there and I thought all was fine. But when we returned to school she was back to being awkward as if as if we didn’t talk. I started to notice that in front of Sally she was acting as if we didn’t talk but if Sally wasn’t there she was her old self with me. So things went back to being awkward. I continued to hang with Amy and our other friend and Patty continued to hang with Sally. Now remember when I said that Patty is conservative? this is due to her religion. as Patty and Sally became closer I noticed that Sally started to dress like Patty. With Patty being so conservative due to her religion she often dresses in skirts/dresses never leggings or pants Sally used to dress in jeans, leggings, pants, but more more started to only dress in skirts/dresses, which I found weird.
Fast-forward to this past March, both Patty and I got nominated for teacher of the year. This is Patty‘s second time being nominated as she was nominated last year but did not win. This is my first time being nominated and I would like to say that I am extremely grateful to be nominated in my second year of teaching. Both Patty and I congratulate each other. Now jumping ahead to the day before applications submissions for teacher of the year were due. My friend (not Amy) was sat down by our vice principal to say that there was an efficacy complaint about her coming to lunch with me to pick up my students, this made me very angry as Patty runs the efficacy committee in our school. I felt that the timing was weird as my friend has been coming to pick up my students with me at lunch all year long and there was never an issue but then the day before applications are due someone complains? This made me feel like Patty and Sally were playing dirty to help Patty possibly win and me to look bad? And I have noticed Sally staring at me and side eying me and I really wasn’t sure why until the complaint. But I can say I have a tendency to show how I feel on my face. I can’t hide my emotions which is something that I have been actively working on. So this past week was teacher appreciation week and Patty reposted Sally story where Sally posted the card that Patty gave her saying how thankful she was for her and she is so grateful that she is in her life. Now I know this may seem like I’m a bit jealous but honestly I am just so confused because when Patty pulled Amy to ask what was going on between me and her, she stated that her and Sally were cool, but she does not view her as a best friend, but then writes her card how grateful she is to be her friend?
With all this information I guess I’m just asking how do I move on from feeling weird and uncomfortable by this friendship between Patty and Sally? any advice on how to fake it until I make it when I have to work with Sally and Patty since we are all in the same grade level? Honestly, I feel very uncomfortable by both of them. I’m not really liking either of them too much because of the complaint that they put in any advice?

Hi Everyone. I have been encouraged to share my story here, as SA situations are different to those of general affairs. Both incredibly hurtful and traumatic.
I have been with my (30F) SA parter (30M) for 8 years. We have been living together for 7.5 years now. Own a home. Have a dog.
Throuhout our relationship we have one recurring issue: I'm not sexual enough for him. When we first started seeing one another we were incredibly active. I was aroused, in love, and keen for fun. We didn't do anything crazy overly crazy, but it was passionate and frequent.
Fast forward as we move through out relationship. Theres additional work, life and financial stressors. I'm not 23 living at home anymore, and my sex drive has decreased. On top of this, when we have sex I at times have felt degraded and demoralised. I never feel like what I do is enough for him, and he is bothered by my lack of ability to relax and orgasm. It doesn't help a low sex drive improve.
But again and again we've had this issue where he is grumpy, shitty, in a bad mood. And it comes out that it's because we're not having enough sex. But when we do, it's not experimental enough. I'm not fulfilling his fantasies, and he wants me to work up to doing more things (public sex, multiple partners etc). As we go along I become more and more repressed. I'm borderline on the asexual spectrum now, and no idea how I got here. Maybe I always was? But I dont think so.
One important note is that throughout all of these arguments I've defaulted to "maybe we're just not right for each other". I maintained that he deserves someone with the same sex drive, as do I. I get hit back with outrage that I want to "give up". Im encouraged we can work through this, and off we go staying together.
Mid last year we purchased our first home. I felt our sex life was in a much better place. I was happy in all aspects of my life. We're renovating the home, with all the excitement of what our future looks like there.
And here we are. 7 Days Ago I thought I'd tidy up one of our rooms and in a box of stuff I found a burner sim card. Immediately I knew something was up. I looked on his desk and his old phone (after receiving a new work one) was sitting there. I turned it on. A message pops up, asking for "send pics" etc. I couldn't actually see any suspicious messages. I could see he had an unread message, but it wasn't in the app. Nothing at all there except for old work messages. Until I realised there is an "Archive" section.
Well low and behold a series of evidence that my partner has been contacting people off the internet, off the apps, arranging meetings, having sex, asking women if they squirt, exchanging photos, including selfies. I've found one really long chain where he talked with this girl for ages. Checking in, discussing life, her dog, her relationship. He told her I was asexual and agreed he could have fun on the side. That never happened.
I was pretty broken. I've been pretty broken since then. Lost on what to do. Unable to eat. Unable to sleep. Completely destroyed. Yet he lies next to me, sleeping soundly. How is this fair?
In his previous relationship he did the same things. He had told me about meeting regularly with one prostitute while he was with his ex GF. He told me about his group sex adventures. Sex with pregnant women etc. Meeting with older men for blowjobs and anal sex. All of this was during his relationship in his early 20s - his girlfriend at the time was who he lost his virginity with.
What an idiot I was to feel that was all in the past, that it was a younger boy exploring his sexuality.
He has been open with me that he loves chatting online, pretending to be someone he is not for the thrill of it. No mention of any meetups, although he had expressed maybe it could be a solution when i was comfortable. I wasn't comfortable yet and made that clear, although a part of me wondered if it would just be easier to give it a try (one day). I always felt it would destroy me, and wanted to try sex therapy and work on ourselves first.
I could put all the messages down to silly little text exchanges for the thrill. But unfortunately, there have been addresses exchanged, dashcam footage and call logs that all point to the fact he has been meeting with people for years.
I have no idea if reconciliation is possible. Yesterday I thought it was. Today I don't think it will be.
After a reassuring phone call with him during a breakdown I was having on Tues night (he was away for work), he reassured me he loved me, had been scared of losing me while I was so distant, and we could work through anything. Last night (Wed) he was texting escorts for his one night in Sydney for work next week. Clearly it was all empty words.
From here: I meet with a therapist today. I think I'm pretty close to having a confrontation with him. I need to set my boundaries, and am hoping to discuss that today.
I don't know if I can do this. But this is my story.
TL;DR: My boyfriend of 8 years has a sex addiction and has been meeting with people off the internet and lying about it for at least 4 years, but probably for our entire relationship.

I really want the new pubg pass but my mom won’t buy it for me she says it’s a waste of money and it’s not real items. Am pretty sure this is classed as begging but I don’t know what else to do I have $23 but she won’t let me use the card even though am willing to give her cash. So I made a PayPal account if anybody can spare a dollar it would be much appreciated! I also started streaming on twitch El3v4t3d check me out here’s my link if you don’t mind https://www.paypal.me/EL3V4T3D?locale.x=en_GB

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/XIdus1PkoRM
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Hey guys! My names Josh, I hit my 4 years in the field a few months ago and am getting ready to take my J card test. I am looking to see what are some good avenues to go down once i have my card. I am very passionate about my work and know that this is what i am meant to do on this earth. The dream is to eventually get my C10 and open my own shop, but Rome wasnt built in a day and want to set myself up before i make the jump. (im 27 years old) i would say i am a well seasoned apprentice/electrician. My first 2-3 years i did new commercial construction (nonunion) seeing ground up car dealerships and amazon warehouse remodels from start to finish. from there i went to a residential solar company where i did panel upgrades and battery backups every day for a good year. I am currently working for a traveling retrofit lighting company. Once i get my J card i am looking to settle down at a bad as company. what are some good avenues?

Mr. Winslow accused my mother of stealing his dead wife’s jewelry.
I explained it was impossible. He was welcome to search the tiny apartment I shared with my mother and aunt, he could look wherever he wanted.
“We share a tiny space,” I said. “We barely have enough room for our clothes. I don’t even know where she would hide jewelry.”
I was worried we would lose him as a client. Which would suck because cleaning his house was basically the majority of our rent cheque. But a week later he found the pearl necklace, it had somehow travelled down to his basement.
“I’m still missing the gold bangle though,” he said. “And some earrings.”
I told him I was sorry, but I had no idea. If my mom or aunt found it on their next clean, I promised they would let him know right away.
He hummed and hawed. There might’ve been a week where he hired a different maid service, but eventually he called back, asking if he could hire all three of us on-site again.
I thanked him profusely. I told him we’d keep an eye out for the missing valuables.
***
On our drive over, I had my mom and aunt practice the apology we would give him in English. Even though we didn’t steal anything, I explained we should still say sorry.
“Why?” My aunt asked. “That’s so stupid.”
“Everyone apologizes for everything in Canada. Just trust me. He will want it.”
“We need the work,” my mom said.
For a second my aunt revved up to say something else, but then let it go. We did need the work.
When we arrived, Mr. Winslow was on a phone call, watching his two large goldendoodles play in the front yard. He waved, then gestured to the front door. My mom and aunt gave small bows and carried their cleaning supplies inside.
Before I could enter, he put the phone behind his ear and approached me.
“Ida, hi. Good to see you again. Listen, don't worry about the jewelry. Water under the bridge. Hey. I’m leaving in an hour or so, and I won’t be back until late tonight. I’m wondering if you’d be interested in dog-sitting? You’ve been around Toto and Kipper. What do you think? I’d really appreciate the help.”
I never liked the way he looked at me. It was always too close, and it lingered for too long. My aunt may have been right in that he hired us back just to see me again, but I ignored the thought.
“And don’t worry, I can cover your cab back. My usual walker is just out on holiday. You can help yourself to whatever’s in the fridge. How does six hundred sound?”
I looked at his house and imagined if I would be comfortable there. Alone at night.
“I’ll make it seven-hundred. I know it's last minute. I just hate leaving them alone. Plus Toto has his medicine. You would do me a real solid.”
My apron needed adjusting so I put down my bucket. I focused on the polyester knot, keeping my gaze away from his. I really didn’t want to be doing this, but my aunt would call me stupid for refusing easy money. And frankly, so would I.
“I had plans, but I’m willing to give them up.” I said with a straight face. “Eight hundred and it’s a done deal.”
He paused for a second, observing me scrupulously. Then he found his usual, smarmy half-smile. “You’re a life saver, you know that? An Angel.”
His hand gripped my shoulder. Then patted it twice.
***
Both my mom and aunt were pleased about the extra cash, they said I deserved to make extra for all the bookkeeping I do. But they also both voiced their concerns for safety. They said they could stay with me if I wanted.
“Safety? Mamãe I’m just watching two dogs.”
My mom wiped a caked red stain off his counter. An old wine spill. “Yes, but so late in his house? You’re not worried he might … I don’t know …”
Might what? Exploit me?
I met his groundskeeper once, another immigrant contractor. Except the groundskeeper was being paid far less, because he never properly negotiated. Mr. Winslow was certainly capable of exploiting people when he wanted to, and I’m sure he would try the same on my family.
But I was different. I’d gone to school in Banniver, and I knew the little maneuvers played by the so-called “progressive people in North America.”
And Winslow knew it too.
He didn’t realize a Canadian-raised daughter organized her mom’s cleaning service. Or that she would show up on the first day as a statement. That statement being: You can’t get away with mistreating these old Brazilian women. And you certainly can’t swindle them out of the going rates in his neighborhood. I’m onto you.
I had asserted myself with this Mr. Winslow, and felt confident that I could stand my ground if he tried any bullshit.
“Mamãe I’m not worried about him. Really, I’m not. He’s a pushover.”
***
6:00PM rolled around, it was just me and the goldendoodles.
My mom and aunt were back at home, watching low-res soaps on a Macbook, but they said if I encountered anything strange—a sound, a smell, an unexpected car in the driveway—to give them a call right away.
“Mamãe, its two dogs. I’ll be fine.”
“Just keep your phone close Ida. Your auntie has sensed things in that house. Unpleasant things.”
I forgot to mention my aunt thinks of herself as an amateur medium. In the village she grew up in, she claimed she could sometimes see people who were recently deceased.
But I never really believed her. Mostly because it was also my auntie’s idea to charge families who wanted to forward messages to the very same people who were recently deceased.
“Okay mamãe, whatever you say. I’ll phone you if I get scared.”
“That house has a history Ida, you could feel it in the walls. The outside too.”
It sure does. A history of being owned by a wealthy prick.
***
The sun slinked below the overcast horizon like a dying lantern. It got dark much faster than I expected.
I kept all the lights on, and played with the dogs a bit, trying to encourage them to try piss on the shag rug. Neither did. They mostly wanted naps.
I tried napping for a bit too, but the leather couch felt like it was made of rock. I just couldn’t get comfortable.
Eventually I made myself dinner—some pasta that had been bought from Whole Foods—and ate it while scrolling on my phone.
I was just about done, ready to take my dirty plate in the sink when I first heard it.
The first explosion.
It came from the basement. A vibrating KAPOW that rattled the windows and chandelier on my floor. It sounded like someone had set off a cherry bomb.
What the hell?
I turned to the dogs who were just as scared as I was. They came whimpering with tails between their legs.
Could a pipe have burst or something?
I looked at the basement door, an area we were not instructed to clean, and then heard another explosion.
Vases shook. A painting went tilted. It sounded louder. Like full grade firework. I had lived in Rio de Janeiro, by Prianha beach, where they often launched celebratory fireworks. This was just as deafening.
I didn’t want to go down to the basement. In fact, I sat by the front door.
Both dogs huddled around me.
***
Twenty minutes passed. It had been quiet.
Out of pride I refused to call my mom—I didn’t want to admit I was scared. Instead, I spent the time going through all the rational answers in my head that could explain away the noise. Plumbing, terrorism, teen pranks … hot springs?
There were hot springs all over West Bann.
Obviously, some kind of pent-up geyser had lay dormant for a while, and it was now suddenly unleashing a ton of energy below Mr. Winslow’s house. To distract myself, I Wikipedia’d the history of West Banniver, and satisfied this theory.
During the 1850’s gold rush, West Banniver saw rapid settlement as a mining town. The proliferation of mine shafts soon led to a discovery of underground hot springs. Mayfield Briggs Ltd which was the first company to seize the opportunity as a tourist attraction…
That’s all it was. A hot spring releasing a buildup of pressure.
Then a third explosion came.
It was so loud and violent that the door to the basement flew open. I fell to the ground and covered my head as several books went flying off nearby shelves.
The dogs yipped and barked like crazy. They stood in front of me, guarding against an unseen force. A voice shrieked from the basement.
“HELP!!! HELLLLP!”
Rivets shot through my hands and knees. I was frozen to the floor.
“PLEEEEEEASE!”
It had the high-pitched desperation of someone whose life was about to end. I raised my head and listened closely to hear haggard, dusty coughing. It sounded like an old man’s cough. It echoed through the basement and into the living room. Between coughs the man continued to plead for his life.
HELLLLP!”
I had no idea who it could be or how he got down there.
Before I could think, one of the dogs shot past me, bolting down the basement steps, barking ferociously.
“Kipper!”
I tried to grab the loose leash, but I could only hold the collar of his sibling. “Kipper come back here!”
“HELLO?” The voice from below seemed to recognize my presence. “PLEASE, YOU’VE GOT TO HELP!”
I was now upright, breathing as fast as Toto was panting. I tied Toto to the thick rails on the stairs. I had to save the other dog.
Instinctually I grabbed my phone, slipped an AirPod in one ear, and dialed my mother without even looking at the screen.
“Mãe. There’s … something terrible is happening.”
My mother was suitably confused. Even more so when she heard the screaming of the man downstairs as his voice echoed in the living room. It was a cry of immense, awful pain.
After two slower, more detailed explanations of what I just heard, my mother told me to call the fire department. “Poke your head through the basement, see what’s happening. Then call the fire department.”
That made sense to me. I inched my way to the basement entrance and tried to see past the doorway. It was complete darkness. There was no light switch.
I turned the torch on my phone, and my aunt’s voice came blaring. “Get out of there Ida! I am telling you, there is darkness in that house!”
As I illuminated the dusty wooden stairs, I saw that they only lead only to more pitch black. Yup, plenty of darkness here.
There was some phone-wrestling. My mother came back on. “What is it? What did you see?”
“Don’t encourage her! Get her to leave!” my auntie yelled in the background.
I told them to pipe down because I could suddenly hear the gentle whimpering at the base of the stairs. The dog sounded close.
“Kipper come! This way! Follow my voice!”
I went down a few steps further, expecting the basement floor to appear any second, but there were only more wooden steps. How long was this staircase?
“Kipper?”
There was a flat, cold wall on my left, and no guard rail to speak of. I stepped down each step very carefully to maintain my balance, sliding my hand along the wall.
Then the wall disappeared. I flew forward.
***
I woke up lying face-first on rocky floor. My phone was cracked next to me. My mother was crying in my ear. “Ida! Ida! Oh my god! Ida!”
I looked up to see I was not at the bottom of someone’s basement. There were lights all above me. Lanterns. They were illuminating a cavernous, rocky chamber that led to many tunnels with train tracks and wooden carts. I was in the opening of a massive underground mine.
I coughed, and gave out a weak “… what?”
“Ida is that you? Are you… brrzzzzz” My mom’s voice faded.
Before I could reply, I saw the crooked form of a man in tan coveralls, shaking the immobile body of another person in coveralls next to him. In fact, there was a small row of half a dozen miners all slumped against a blasted rock wall. There were bits of granite, wood, rope, and what looked like entrails splattered all throughout.
“Oh the cruelty …” the one, standing miner said. He went from body to body and jostled each of his coworkers. “Must I find you all like this … every time?”
I crawled up to a half-standing pose and tried to see the face of the hunched over survivor.
My heart dropped.
He had no face.
The explosion which must have killed some of friends had also blasted away this man’s entire sternum, neck and skull. The miner wasn’t hunched over or leaning away with his head, he just simply … had no head.
And up there, floating right in the middle of where his face should be, were a set of eyeballs, glistening under the yellow lights.
The eyes turned to me. “Oh. Why hello. Hello there.”
Terrified, I rose to complete standing and opened both my palms in a show of total deference. “I don’t know. I don’t know who you are or what this is.”
The headless miner walked toward me. I noticed he carried a pickaxe in his right arm. He gestured with his left to where his ear would be.
“I’m sorry I can’t hear you. Had an accident.”
Despite him having no head, his voice still came from where his mouth would be. There was an earnestness in his speech, it might have had something to do with his very old-timey accent, but I still felt like he was trying to be friendly.
“Another batch of faulty dynamite. Everyone’s dead. But what else is new.”
He brought his left palm to his face, perhaps to wipe away tears, but instead his hand travelled through his nonexistent head to scratch a small portion of his back.
“Been dead for many years I’m afraid. But I’ve kept busy. Been a good man. Worked very hard for the boss upstairs.”
He gestured upwards with the pickaxe. I looked up, and out in the distance, I saw a large, ancient, set of wooden stairs that I must have fallen from. They extended far up into the mine’s ceiling and kept going.
“He’s gotten good ore from me. Good, shining, golden ore. I have a knack for it you see. The same knack that killed me so many years ago. It's probably what’s still keeping me around though.”
He came closer. I could see he had brown irises, with one of the cataracts deteriorating into milky white haze. The eyes stared at me, unblinking.
“Because I’m not done, see. This mine isn’t empty. I know there’s more gold. Much more. And it’s not all for the boss. No, I’m keeping some to myself. Don’t tell him, but I’ve been stashing a large deposit for myself. It can’t all be his of course. It’s my mine after all. Half these tunnels were dug entirely by me. So of course I deserve some. It’s only natural.”
I lifted my hand and pointed at the staircase behind him. I mouthed very big, obvious words. “I have to go back. I’m going back up those stairs.”
He shifted his body. His two eyes turned in the air as if they were still inside an invisible skull. I saw nerve endings at the back undulate and twist.
“Yes, that is the only way up.”
My heart was in my throat. At least I found some form of communication. I gestured to knee height and nervously asked if he had seen a “large, shaggy dog.”
“Ah yes. I’ve seen the pooches. They come down here sometimes. When the booms don’t scare em that is. Hahah.”
I gave a thumbs up. It felt like a ridiculous interaction with a ghost, or zombie or whatever this was, but at least it was working.
“I think I saw his little tail run over that way. They like the smell of the mineral spring.”
I turned behind to see the long tunnel he was pointing at. It was dimly lit by a chain of smaller lanterns.
I thought I saw a flutter of movement, and I would have kept looking further if it wasn’t for my aunt’s voice that suddenly exploded in my ear. “Brrrzt … Ida! If you can hear us, we are calling the police to your location. Help is coming soon! … ”
I winced and stepped back—which saved my life. I just so happened to step right out of the way of a pickaxe. It sparked the ground.
I gasped and stared at the headless miner. His eyes were shimmering with a dark focus, staring directly at mine.
“Oh I’ll help you find the dog. I’ll help you find whatever you want. But I’ll need those clean new eyes of yours first.”
He swung at my head. I ducked. He went for the backswing. I ran.
Stupidly, I ran in the opposite direction of the stairs. I ran straight into the long tunnel lined with dim lanterns.
But I couldn’t turn around. I had no idea how quick he could move. And the speed of his pickaxe felt supernatural.
The tunnel was narrow, and lined with wooden tracks, I had to skip-run-jump over the panels with immense precision to make sure I didn’t trip. Behind me, his voice chased.
“Go ahead. Run. I know where these all lead.”
I ignored the words and kept going. The tunnel bent left, then right, then left again. I ignored several exits before the tunnel spat me out into an open, cavernous room filled with dozens and dozens of minecarts.
I investigated the room for anything useful. A far opposite wall appeared to be the site of the latest digging, loose rock lay everywhere.
There was a small mineshaft holding a chained up cart. And something in the cart shimmered…
It was gold.
And not just ore either. There were bars, coins, medallions, and jewelry. Mrs. Winslow’s bangles were right on top.
I ran to the cart furthest from the entrance and ducked behind it, breathing heavily, coughing from all the dust.
The headless man emerged from the tunnel, pickaxe raised and scanning where I could have hid. “I may not be able to hear you. But I can follow footprints pretty easily hah. I know you’re in here.”
He grabbed the closest minecart available and pushed it into the tunnel entrance. With an immense show of strength, he lifted and dislodged the cart off the track, cramming it sideways, creating a massive obstacle.
I was sealed inside.
Trying to stay absolutely still, I coughed through my teeth. Lungs burning. My mom’s voice came through.
“Brrzzztt… The police should be there! I told them you were in danger! They said they sent a unit over. Maybe they broke down the front door?”
I looked up at the mine shaft next to me. If it did connect to the surface upstairs, this was my only chance.
I gave a couple good yells. “HEEEEELP!!! DOWN HERE!! HELP!”
I don’t know if it did any good, but it was better than nothing. I turned to see if the miner had heard anything.
He hadn't.
The pickaxe tapped and clanged awkwardly around minecart after minecart.
I had a bigger advantage than I thought.
Although the miner had two floating eyeballs, only the left one was really capable of seeing anything.
So I kept my distance and watched where he was going, always staying behind.
As he limped and peered around minecarts, I was able to evade him, move from behind rock piles and other carts, careful not to leave a trail in the rock dust.
It was all going well until I heard a familiar panting.
“Oh look. If it isn’t precious.”
The dog had managed to jump over the miner’s blockade. It must have heard my yells. Surprisingly, Kipper was unafraid of the headless villain, and even approached him to receive pets.
“Now why don’t you go say hello to our other friend here huh? I know she's here somewhere.”
No. Kipper. Please. Don’t.
The dog started sniffing. Within seconds he found my scent. Kipper skipped towards me like Lassie and excitedly licked my face.
“Aww there we are. Now isn’t that a good boy?”
I stood up and stared at the filthy, ash-stained coveralls. Despite the lack of teeth, I could sense a menacing grin where the mouth should be.
He wasn't going to lose sight of me now. I had nowhere to go.
So I did the thing my auntie said worked on all spirits. I fell to my knees and prayed.
“Please. I only came here for work. I’m too young to die. Let me go and I won't tell anyone that you're here.”
He stood over me. Both of his pupils started to quiver. In just a few seconds, his eyes were swimming excitedly within the space of his head.
I took off the only valuable I had. A gold necklace with a miniature version of Christ the Redeemer. A gift I had received as a teen in Rio. I held it out in my shaking hands.
“Please. Take it. Take everything.”
Suddenly both the eyeballs stared forward again, entranced by the gold.
“Well look at that. How generous. How generous of her. We should reward generosity shouldn’t we?”
***
It was hard for me to describe to the police officer how exactly I got out, because I have no idea.
The fiery pain where my eyes used to be overwhelmed my entire reality for hours. All I wanted was for it to stop.
They found me half inside a dumbwaiter bleeding to death from the gouges in my face.
I was taken to the hospital, where I would spend the next four weeks recovering.
The police did not in fact storm the house like my mom said. They waited outside for the homeowner to return. But when they heard my screams coming from the top floor, they broke the back door and eventually came to my rescue.
I’m told they did a thorough investigation but could not find any of the things I described.
The basement door led into a regular basement. It was filled with old furniture, unused decor, and paint cans. No Mine.
The dumbwaiter was also just a dumbwaiter. It wasn’t some mine shaft, and it didn’t lead any deeper than the basement. Nothing special.
There were definitely hot springs close by, but nothing close enough to damage Mr. Winslow's property. And there was an old, depleted gold mine not far away either, but it was completely abandoned, closed off, and nowhere near as big as the one I had described.
***
The police, paramedics and doctors all thought my story was some hallucination. That I had been on drugs or had some mental breakdown (even though they couldn’t find anything in me other than small traces of weed.)
Thankfully, my mother and aunt believed me. They believed every word. My aunt is the one who encouraged me to make this post, so others could hear my story.
I know it was real.
I know it was.
And Mr. Winslow is fully aware of the mine’s existence.
Putting the dots together, I realized it was likely the source of his wealth. Winslow had some control over that one headless miner down there.
Did Winslow intentionally entrap me? Was he trying to get the miner a new set of eyes? Or was it all an unfortunate accident?
I might never know.
But what I do know is that Mr. Winslow has been paying for our rent ever since the accident.
He feels “terrible about the situation” and “can’t possibly imagine” what I’ve been through.
But he knows what happened.
He knows if I really pushed, If I really forced the police, or some private investigator to look into it—they would uncover something awful. Something really really bad.
“Anything you need. Anything at all. I will cover it, Ida.” He said. “You helped me out, protected my dogs, and I will never forget it.”
He’s offered to pay for the rest of my University schooling. And once my face heals up, he’s even offered to cover for some very expensive, experimental eye-transplant. We’ll see how that goes.
“You and your family will live comfortably from now on. You’ll want for nothing. Tell me exactly what you need, And you’ll get it.”
So I told him I'd like my necklace back. It was an heirloom. I said I lost it somewhere in his house.
A few days later, he returned with the usual smug, half-crooked smirk in his voice. He brought the necklace back in a box, pretending he had bought me a new one. Except it felt exactly like my old one.
It was all shined up, completely buffed of scratches, but it weighed the same. It was my old one for sure.
When my mom saw it she asked, “did it always have it? This dedication?”
As far as I remembered, the backside of the tiny Christ the Redeemer was always plain. I fingered its shape in my hands.
“What dedication?”
The new little divots caught my nails. There was writing that was definitely not there before.
My mom described it as a curly, serif font. Like a gift for a lover.
~ You’re an angel ~
~ W ~

I’ve been using bunq for a month now and have tested out nearly all the features. I will give an honest review, both the positives and negatives.
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Negatives: - It’s not free, there is a free plan but to make the most of the app you want a paid plan, its monthly subscription and there is different plans and prices to choose from to best suit your budget and needs. - One thing I noticed is that the physical card quality is not the best, all the functions of the card work exceptionally well but I just find the physical card to feel flimsy, it also picks up scratches easily and the printing quality of the name and numbers on the back isn’t the best compare to other cards I’ve had. This is a very minor flaw though and doesn’t affect the quality of the actual service in any way. I would hope they would bring back metal cards which they had before but discontinued them. - Although the customer support agents are really helpful.. they can take a while to reply, I found on average around 4-7 days. They do have emergency SOS help which I have only used once and they replied within minutes. This is only to be used if there is a series issue like money being withdrawn from your account that you didn’t approve of. - Not everything is customisable, you can change the picture and colours of some accounts and balances, and others you can’t. I think they need to allow everything to be customised, including loyalty cards. This would overall improve the aesthetic of the app.
Overall I think is a great bank and I will continue to use it as my main bank. The negatives are very minor and the positives definitely make this a great choice. If your on the border of trying it, just do it. You won’t regret it. If your someone who likes travelling too this is definitely the best option you will find. The team is constantly improving the app too with great, regular updates. Hopefully the team read this too and work towards tweaking a few of the negatives I listed. Thanks for reading :)

Hi guys, i just kinda want someone to tell me what the hell is wrong with me. i was in a “online relationship” around 2022 right for a couple months and he was like a drug addict and had his own issues so ultimately he ended things bc he had to work on himself or what not. while he went away to rehab, on my birthday i found out he actually had a girlfriend from august, which was way after we ended things however we were still in contact and sending things to eachother and he was telling me he loved me. we ended things obviously and he kinda left me with no explanation. eventually he came back a couple of times and everytime i let him come back into my life and it’s always the same outcome everytime he always screws me over and i don’t know why i love him so much. i feel like carrie from sex and the city omg. help

Myrtle Beach SC News article dated May 15, 2024
Documents Invalid & A.I. Endorsement
FOR REDDITORS UNABLE TO OPEN LINKS
Mica Miller mental health documents not legally notarized
Members of Attorney Tom Winslow’s team sent us a statement that legal medical filings surrounding the Mica Miller mental health issues were not legally notarized.
Mica Miller died of what has been ruled a suicide at Lumber River State Park on April 27th. The FBI is now investigating the case.
Suicide Claims, Mica Miller Mental Health Records, And Notary Issues
Despite the fact Pastor JP Miller admitted from the pulpit to being suicidal in October 2023, just two months later JP was able to receive a health care power of attorney from Mica signed Dec. 5. Tom Winslow, of Winslow Law, was the attorney that orchestrated this legal filing.
Texts received by MyrtleBeachSC News show that Power of Attorney documents were supposedly signed by Mica Miller on December 4th at the Solid Rock church. However, those documents were not notarized by Winslow Law employees (Briyana and Tiffany) until the next day at Winslow’s law office.
According to the S.C. Secretary of State, a notary must be present at the actual signing of such documents to prevent fraud.
Two months later, according to the Myrtle Beach Police Department, Mica was “involuntarily hospitalized” on Feb. 8, 2024. But what makes the case even more odd is that JP’s power of attorney documents were not filed until March 20, 2024, despite having been signed and notarized three months prior.
Is Tom Winslow An Expert At Artificial Intelligence - Deep Fake Voice Audio?
Today, we report on Tom Winslow A.I. claims as he touts the importance of A.I. in his law practice. At the bottom of this article, readers can view terrifying texts sent out by J.P. Miller to Mica in November 2022.
We recently published that Pastor JP Miller, and his attorney, Tom Winslow were persons of interest in the Mica Miller “Suicide” FBI probe. Some readers questioned how we could report this with such confidence at that time.
We need to point out that Tom Winslow and JP Miller are not charged with any crimes, and even if they should be, they are considered innocent until proven guilty.
JP Millers Documented Sexual Encounters
According to DailyMail: “Miller’s first wife, Alison, filed for divorce in 2015 after discovering he was having an affair with Mica, who was 14 years his junior.” Alison also claimed that “Miller had an addiction to prostitutes and had ‘sexual encounters’ with underage girls.” She continued, “He had also confessed to me and other staff members of the church that he had sexual encounters with young females from the church, who were under the age of 16.”
The lawyer representing JP Miller in his first divorce case was S.C. State Representative Val Guest.
Mica's Statements About Suicide
Mica’s sister, Sierra Francis, said, “Mica stated to me on many occasions, ‘If I end up with a bullet in my head’, it was JP,” referring to her husband, John Paul Miller. In a written affidavit, Seirra writes, “I know my sister to have expressed the abuse and violence against her by her husband to others, including family members and members of the church congregation. My sister also expressed to me that she was fearful that she would not make it to the divorce and that her life would be taken from her.”
JP Miller Attorney Tom Winslow A.I Endorsement
In the video above, Tom Winslow touts that his law practice is an advocate for the use of Artificial Intelligence. Winslow makes it a part of his practice.
Winslow is a member of Solid Rock Church. His wife is part of the praise team.
Also, as we reported yesterday, Attorney Tom Winslow owns 200 acres of land that backs up to the state park area where Mica’s body was found.
All of this is circumstantial, at best, but it is also very curious.
*The Call Made By Mica At Lumber River State Park?
Mica wrote to her attorney: “Since the day we became husband and wife, I have been abused in every way I can think of. Emotionally, sexually, spiritually, financially and physically. He has harassed me physically and electronically with letters, phone calls, emails and texts, hacking my emails, hacking my personal Facebook and impersonating me. Using my stolen phone to send texts and emails out to church members pretending to be me, texting friends and family saying that I am sleeping with teenagers from our church, and showing up in person at places around town … to having installed three different tracking devices on my vehicle.”
MyrtleBeachSC News learned that JP was in possession of a mobile phone he had stolen from Mica. Anyone who has left an outgoing, “I am not available now” message on their phone, knows that a recorded version of her voice was likely on that mobile phone.
According to the Robeson County Sherriff, at 2:54 p.m., a 911 call was made from Lumber River State Park parking lot.
Miller is calm throughout the call, asking a dispatcher if her phone can be tracked. The operator asks for Miller’s phone number and location, and then why she was calling.
“I’m about to kill myself, and I just want my family to know where to find me,” she replies.
How Deep Fake A.I. Voice Works
Was the Tom Winslow A.I. knowledge put to use in this matter?
Audio Capture And Signal Processing
The first step in AI voice recognition is audio capture. This is where the spoken words are recorded.
The audio is then processed to remove any background noise. This ensures that the system can clearly hear the spoken words.
Signal processing also involves enhancing the quality of the audio. This makes it easier for the system to recognize the speech patterns.
Pattern Recognition And Machine Learning
Pattern recognition is the core of AI voice recognition. It’s the process of identifying the spoken words in the audio signal.
Machine learning plays a crucial role in this process. It helps the system learn and improve its ability to recognize speech patterns.
Over time, the system becomes more accurate. It learns to understand different accents, dialects, and even nuances in speech.
Real-World Examples Of Deep Fake A.I.
AI voice recognition is not a futuristic concept. It’s already a part of our daily lives.
You may have interacted with it without even realizing. It’s present in many devices and applications we use every day.
Miller Says Church Services Are As Usual
In a social media post yesterday, Miller states, “Solid Rock is alive and well and we are moving forward with our new building project. We are excited to see all members at our meeting May 19th at 5 p.m.
The FBI is just starting this investigation and no one knows where it will lead. The Tom Winslow A.I. practices may only prove to be circumstantial. The Mica Miller mental health records are sure to play a roll in this saga. Time will tell where this leads.
Question: Were Public Posts Like This One From JP Miller Abusive?
Miller, pastor at Solid Rock Church in Myrtle Beach, told his sister-in-law that he would be arriving at her house at 1 a.m. on November 17, 2022, where Mica was visiting.
After Sierra warned that he wouldn’t be allowed in their home, he challenged her, saying ‘you can call the cops’.
A few moments later, he replied: “I’m armed. I’m ready. Mica can fix all of this“, to which Sierra replied: “THIS doesn’t help anything. Threats and intimidation only make things worse.”
‘I don’t care (idc) Driving. I can’t text. Thanks.’ said the disgraced pastor.
In response, Miller replied, “Hahaha” when told cops wouldn’t be called if he stayed home.

My boyfriend(28M) and I(26F) have been dating for 5 years and we've lived together for over a year. I'm worried that because we are around each other all the time, the romantic element has faded and I'm struggling to feel loved/special to him. He was once markedly more excited by me and I've started to really feel taken for-granted in the relationship, but I can't tell if I'm just being too demanding/needing too much right now.
Besides the typical sentiments in heterosexual relationships where I feel like I do most of the cleaning, etc., I've also planned really cute/well thought-out dates for us (catered specifically to HIS interests) and I feel like he doesn't do the same in return. Honestly, I don't know when the last time was that he planned literally anything for us was, and I don't know if he has ever planned a single date for us outside of going to dinner. Is it too high of an expectation to want more? To him, a date means going out to get drinks or dinner, but this doesn't feel romantic or special to me anymore. I've given him plenty of very specific date ideas that would mean a lot to ME (I don't 'take him out' on these dates, because these ideas are catered to my specific interests, not his), but he hasn't taken the bait on a single idea. In general, I feels like he puts almost no effort into caring about my interests, even though I always participate in his, which in turn makes me feel like he is not truly interested in me? But am I taking that too personally?
When we do go out to dinner, I'll usually get all dolled up and I feel really confident/pretty, and what can I say, I expect to be hyped up by my partner and I just feel like I'm not. Last time we went on a date I got dolled up and he did too. He saw me and told me "You look nice" and then he decided to dress down to a more casual outfit... I didn't know how to interpret that... and I ended up feeling insecure for the rest of the date. In general, one of my biggest love languages (for receiving) is words of affirmation and he is not a man of many words so I really struggle with this aspect. I've told him that one of the easiest ways to be romantic and make me feel special, without needing to plan out a date or anything, would be to write me a cute love letter. He has written me maybe 1 love letter ever, but I had to beg for it so it didn't feel genuine and I can't help but want some more genuine/spontaneous displays of affection. As I write this I'm even questioning, why am I so obsessed with feeling this "special"? Am I asking too much? I just feel like he should be trying to make me feel special the way I know I try with him? For example, on his birthday I spent hours baking and then setting up our apartment overnight with streamers and balloons to make him feel loved and celebrated, yet on mine, he complained about doing things he didn't want to do and gave me a bday card with a couple sentences on it (even though, as I've established, I want a whole love letter haha).
Even when we make love, I want it to truly feel like making love. I want him to make me feel hot, sexy, wanted, and I want it to feel like he is trying to make the experience as pleasurable as possible for us both. Without getting too detailed, he will actually try to make me come maybe 20% of the time. The rest of the time, it's usually just a quickie centered around him, he might go down on me but not for long lol.
I've talked to him about all of this for months and he always acts super sympathetic and loving, he says loves me he will try, but I don't ever actually see any effort being put in even though he's been saying so for months? Is there anything else I can do at this point, or any way I can better express myself? I'm hoping this all makes sense... but basically I've really started to doubt my own expectations and whether I'm the problem in this situation.
TLDR; the romantic element of our relationship has faded from his side, causing me not to feel loved, and he is not showing any real effort to fix anything even though he keeps saying he'll 'try'...nothing changes. I've been trying to take the lead on these efforts to show him an example of what I want. How would you dial up the romance in a relationship? Are my wants reasonable or do I just need therapy?

(OOC: Redone with correct post flair.)
Vanessa had been looking forward to this job since she saw it posted. Looking for houses was fun, and finding something for a couple of gods would be a nice challenge. Assuming they didn't have a cap on their budget, she could go wild searching for mansions and beach houses and the like.
Camp Half-Blood didn't have wifi, so she went to the big house to use their computer. She figured Mr. D wouldn't care too much about style, so she started a general search for mansions in the state of New York. The first listing that caught her eye was a massive stone mansion with 13 bedrooms and 14 bathrooms. According to the website, it was a whopping 23,000 square feet, and it even had a dock on the beach.
When she saw the price, however, she had to do a double take. She didn't think she'd want to pay that much even if she was a god who could make gold appear out of thin air (wasn't it Mr. D who'd cursed King Midas?), and anyway, it was supposed to be a vacation home, not something they'd live in all year.
She decided to look for more regular houses along the beach. She'd never been to New York before coming to camp, so she wasn't sure what the beaches looked like, or if there were any good ones at all.
Luckily for Lady A and Mr. D, the beaches on most of the houses listed seemed really nice. She ultimately went with a quiet-looking place on a secluded beach in Connecticut. A few states away, but these guys could pretty much teleport themselves wherever they wanted, so she didn't feel like it would be that big of an issue. It was fairly large for two people, with five bedrooms, three bathrooms (did gods even need bathrooms?) and even a dock for parking a sailboat or fancy yacht. The house was a mix of stone and white siding, situated on a mostly flat stretch of land that sloped very gently down to the beach, the perfect kind of ground for building a garden, or a vineyard.
When she clicked on the Make an Offer! button, the information fields automatically filled with Mr. D's credit card information, which told her he'd probably made similar offers before and wouldn't mind if she did it for him. So she made an offer they couldn't possibly refuse, and hit send. She bookmarked the page for him and wrote a little note on the notepad by the computer.
Offer made on beach house in Connecticut.
She wrote down the exact address and signed her name, then headed back to her cabin, proud of herself for a job well-done.