I’ve been reading TS Elliot’s Book of Practical Cats to my son’s kindergarten class and they love it. The drama is really fun, and they understand far more of it than I would have expected.
Can you recommend some more exciting poems at a similar level?

Fontana is a beautiful city in San Bernardino County, California. It is known for its numerous cultural, sporting, and recreational opportunities. Leaps and Bounds is a preschool in California that has branches in some of the state's cities, such as Escondido, La Puente, and Fontana. This Daycare in Fontana Fontana is a beautiful city in San Bernardino County, California. It is known for its numerous cultural, sporting, and recreational opportunities. Leaps and Bounds is a preschool in California that has branches in some of the state's cities, such as Escondido, La Puente, and Fontana. This Daycare in Fontana is ideal for your children since it provides all the necessary education and teaching.
Our school, Leaps and Bounds, has qualities that can make your child’s future adventurous and bright. Our Infant Care Fontana Preschool helps your child thrive, but when your child is too young, your mind does not agree to send your child to a school far from home. But Leaps and Bounds assure the security of each child that comes there. If you’re a parent, you can set your mind at peace by knowing your child is in safe and good hands. The Leaps and Bounds school is quite reliable. We also help in preparing your child for kindergarten.
As a parent, your priority towards your child would be teaching basic manners and etiquette, enhancing language, and giving some basic worldly knowledge to make them eligible for kindergarten. Leaps and Bound help you all through it. We have different teachers for children of different ages with various requirements. If you enrol your child in Leaps and Bounds, we will take full responsibility for your child. From enrolling them in kindergarten to enhancing their physical and emotional abilities, Leaps and Bounds take care of everything.

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Long story short, my mother is the type to say "sorry I wasn't a perfect mother, guess I'll never be good enough for you" to every childhood memory that doesn't paint her as a saint.
Last night I was talking about how reading before bed was not enjoyable for me as a child. I didn't start talking till I was 3, so I ended up with a speech impediment by elementary school. I was put in speech therapy (I thought for years but my mom says otherwise).
I used to "fail" (not score perfect as I should have) in reading because of my pronunciation issues. The thing is I had a college lexile by 5th grade. I had no issue with comprehension and could give the definition of the words I wasn't pronouncing correctly. That didn't matter though.
In order to help me, my mom used to take the time to read with me before bed. Which I am grateful for, I liked reading and still do. However, she made me read Egar Allen Poe. We had a big book of stories and poems by him. I liked the stories, just not reading them out loud.
She would make me reread sentences until I pronounced the words correctly (this could go on for minutes at a time for multiple words per page). It would take what seemed like forever to get through a single page. It made me not want to read at all. I remember crying all the time out of frustration. She apparently, does not.
As I was talking about how frustrating that experience was for me, she started twisting my words and saying I was calling her a bad mother. That was not my intention. I didn't even directly mention her, just the schools grading policy.
If you say it out loud though it sounds stupid. If she's right and I was only in speech for a year that would make me a kindergartener at the time.
Her: oh yeah my kindergartener with speech delays is having issues reading so I bought an Egar Allen Poe book for them to read.
Does that even make any sense?? It would make some sense if I was doing this 3-5th grade like I remember, but still that's a really sophisticated book for an elementary schooler to practice speech with.
My mom left the family group chat and is now not talking to me.
So am I wrong for not being as grateful as I should be for the time my mother spent reading with me as a child.

Hi fellow dads
TLDR: We follow a zero screen time policy until now for our 2 yo daughter. Whats next?
Long version:
Firstly some background info. My daughter turned 2 last week. She is our first child. We did a lot of research before birth and decided to follow E.A.S.Y method, ie my daughter sleeps in a crib since birth (obviously now she has her own room and own bed), follow EASY schedule, trained to sleep by herself (alone in her room) through the night since 10 months old, and started kindergarten at 11 months old. She is now a healthy, independent (as much as a 2 yo can be independent) and smart kid. She can string together a long sentence now like "Papa oi can you come sit next to me and play Lego" or "I don't want the yellow car Papa oi give me the red" . She can dress herself, ride a tricycle, ask us to help her go to the bathroom (still needs a nappy overnight). She can play by herself for 30 mins straight when we are cooking and show interest to help us with other house work like passing clothes for me to hang or help me pick veggies from the garden. She remembers so many poems and songs that I can barely even keep up.
That would bring us to my question. My wife and I decided on a zero screen time til 2 policy. The only exposure she has with mobile phone until now is when we show her photos on it. She has never watched TV before. So what's next?

1. She still has zero idea what "cartoon" is. When is an appropriate time to introduce it to her and what should we start with? How many minutes a day / a week is appropriate?
   
2. She loves to learn to sing. We use a baby music box (which is a portable speaker playing from a SD card). Should we now start letting her watch kid songs on YouTube?
   
3. We got her a Leapfrog laptop for her 2 yo birthday. The screen is a bit shit honestly but maybe thats because we are used to high definition LCD screens. What should be the minute restrictions on this? Both my wife and I are shortsighted so we are afraid our daughter didn't inherit the best gene for eyesight.
   

Any other tips, suggestions, or cautionary tales would be appreciated. I will obviously do my own research on this topic but looking forward to gathering more insights from this sub. Thanks

I'm looking for beta feedback on the standalone spinoff sequel to my published novel, Love on the D-List, which reviewers describe as "Emotional and laugh-out-loud funny."
Here is a brief description of the book:
After breaking up with his movie-star boyfriend and losing his record deal, Theo Young treats his band to a yoga retreat in the Catskill Mountains. The retreat was once owned by a famous psychic medium, but has recently been inherited by her scowling, taciturn, neurodivergent great-grandson, Aloysius. Aloysius was sent to live with his great-grandmother when he was nine. Now, at twenty-nine, he’s amazing at yoga, an accomplished pianist, and can see auras. However, he has no interest in sharing his gifts with clients. He much prefers to spend his time caring for the retreat’s herd of goats. But when a tall, lanky, blue-eyed rockstar—who might very be the soulmate Aloysius’s great-grandmother foretold—appears at the retreat and won’t shut up, Aloysius is forced to step out of his comfort zone and grab his destiny by the balls, literally.
Here is an excerpt of the prologue and first three chapter.
Prologue
Nine Years Earlier
Aloysius
Aloysius tried to focus on the woman waving the vial of chamomile in front of his face, but his attention kept being drawn back to the young man in line behind her. He wasn’t sure why, though. There was nothing particularly striking about the man. Technically, he wasn’t a man at all. He couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen.
He was unusually tall and skinny, like a sunflower, and just as top heavy. His face was all teeth and blue eyes, though those were hidden behind black-rimmed glasses. And while he was handsome in a goofy sort of way, his friend, the one in line behind him, was the more attractive of the two. Instead of pale skin and sharp elbows, he had tan, muscular biceps and thick forearms.
But like Aloysius, he too seemed mesmerized by the tall, awkward teen. His eyes never left the boy’s narrow back. But whether the heat in his gaze was fueled by anger or attraction, Aloysius couldn’t say. Perhaps both.
There were two girls in line with them and another young man, a much shorter one. Aloysius envied them. He’d never had friends before.
One of the girls said something, and they all looked at her and laughed, which gave Aloysius an opportunity to glimpse the blue-eyed boy’s aura. There was nothing special about that, either. It was red and gold with a bit of indigo near his crown chakra.
“What does this do?” the woman asked. “I thought chamomile was just a kind of tea you drank before bed.”
“It can be,” Aloysius replied, regretting coming on this adventure with his great-grandmother. He was no good at talking to people. He preferred animals. “Chamomile is often found in teas, tinctures, and massage oils. It's both an anxiolytic and an antidepressant.”
“Oh, how much?”
“Fifty dollars.”
“For this little thing?”
“Yes.”
The woman set the vial down and picked up a bundle of sage.
Aloysius felt his gaze drifting back to the blue-eyed boy again and busied himself rearranging the selenite crystals, aligning them with the Earth’s magnetic field. There was no spiritual significance to this action, but Aloysius was twenty now, and he shouldn’t be ogling teenage boys.
Aloysius felt simultaneously relieved and hollow when the blue-eyed boy disappeared into the tent. The smaller one went with him, but the handsome one rejoined the girls, loudly voicing his disdain for all things metaphysical while shooting Aloysius accusing glares. Didn’t these people realize how lucky they were to be in Eve’s presence? People traveled from all over the world to see her. And she rarely left the retreat.
The only reason she’d come here—a three hour drive—was because the fair was for charity and run by her boyfriend, Teddy Holiday. Teddy said it didn’t count as a road trip, though, because they didn’t need to stop for gas. Aloysius had always wanted to go on a road trip. But he hated being apart from Eve, and she hated being apart from her home, so they almost never left.
“Aloysius,” Eve called from inside the tent, “Come here, please.”
Aloysius’s stomach swooped. It wasn’t uncommon for Eve to seek his advice. Despite being a famous psychic medium, she couldn’t see auras like he could, a skill Aloysius’s great-grandfather had also possessed in his time. But the thought of purposefully staring at the blue-eyed boy made Aloysius's heart race like a rabbit caught in a snare.
He stepped into the red velvet tent, which Eve normally used for shade when she painted in the yard, and froze. The two young men were facing away from him, looking at Eve, and it took Aloysius all of half a second to become mesmerized by the blue-eyed boy’s tangle of dark, wavy hair, wondering what it would feel like to run his hand through it.
Eve cleared her throat, and Aloysius looked up at her. She was the only adult he’d ever met with a white aura. It was quite common in infants, as they’d yet to develop an attachment to the material world. But it was basically unheard of in adults. Eve, though, wasn’t like most adults. Her connection to the spirit world was unparalleled. And right now, her aura wasn’t just white. It was glowing.
He followed her gaze down to the cards on the table. At first, he didn’t see what the big deal was. But then it hit him. Two years ago, on his eighteenth birthday, he’d seen these same five cards laid out in this exact same arrangement. The Moon, reversed. The Page of Swords, upright. The Knight of Swords, upright. The Ten of Swords, reversed. And, lastly, the Lovers, upright. It couldn’t be, though. This had to be a coincidence. How many five-card arrangements could there be?
Aloysius started building the algorithm in his head, but his brain short-circuited when the blue-eyed boy turned and looked up at him. Aloysius took a step back and tripped over a box. He tried to catch himself on the tent wall, but the red velvet slipped through his fingers, and he landed on the trampled-down grass with a loud thud.
He jumped to his feet just as the blue-eyed boy asked, “Are you okay?”
Instead of answering, Aloysius turned and bolted from the tent.
Chapter 1
Present Day
Theo
Theo tried to stay in the moment, but it was hard with Ryan blowing up his phone and Brady grunting above him like a tennis player. He never should’ve given Ryan his own ringtone.
“Shut that fucker off.” Sweat dripped off Brady’s brow and landed on Theo’s chest in fat, hot dollops.
Theo was tempted to toss his phone in the fish tank. But it was waterproof, and Mr. Bubbles, his goldfish, didn’t appreciate foreign objects in his personal space. Theo silenced it instead.
He considered telling Brady he wasn’t in the mood to fuck anymore, but he could tell Brady was close, so he finished himself off, and Brady followed suit thirty seconds later.
“Why is that asshole calling you? I thought he needed space before he was ready to be your friend again.” Brady said space like it was a racist slur.
“How should I know?” Theo slid out from under Brady and headed for the bathroom.
Theo hadn’t talked to Ryan since they’d broken up back in April. Theo had wanted to stay friends—best friends, even—but Ryan had wanted space. Now, Ryan was dating his beautiful and talented co-star, Mia Malone. Not that Theo was bitter or anything. He wasn’t. He was happy for Ryan.
Brady slid into the shower behind Theo. “He wants to get back together, doesn’t he?”
Theo scoffed. “I highly doubt that.” According to the tabloids, Ryan and Mia were madly in love. Granted, the tabloids were almost always wrong.
“You’re a terrible liar. Why don’t you just marry him and get it over with?” Brady held his hand out for the soap.
If Theo didn’t know better, he’d think Brady was jealous. And maybe that was part of it. But the real issue was that Brady hated Ryan, and not just for breaking Theo’s heart with his all-or-nothing ultimatum. According to Brady, Ryan was literally the most boring person to ever exist. If he weren’t the hottest twink alive, no one would give two shits about him.
“Stop asking questions you already know the answers to,” Theo said, stepping out of the spray so Brady could take a turn.
Ryan had been the perfect boyfriend, loyal, sweet, attentive, and fun. And one day, he’d make some lucky man or woman the perfect husband. It just wouldn’t be Theo.
Theo didn’t do forever. He couldn’t be someone’s everything. Ryan, on the other hand, was just about as heteronormative as his and hers towels. He wanted it all, the house, the spouse, the kids, and the cheesy stocking stuffers. And while, in theory, he supported the right to love in unconventional ways—open relationships, polyamory, ethical non-monogamy, etc—he was firmly on team monogamy. In fact, he was the captain of team monogamy.
Theo had tried to reason with him. Don’t you wanna fully experience your bisexuality while still growing our relationship? Missing the point entirely, Ryan had responded, I said I’d top you. You just have to give me time to get into character.
Ryan had been Theo’s celebrity crush since before Theo had hair on his balls, which was probably why, when the opportunity had presented itself, Theo had slightly oversold how versatile he was. But that hadn’t been why he’d suggested opening their relationship—not really. It hadn’t been about satisfying his own needs, but about ensuring Ryan got the happily ever after he deserved, the happily ever after Theo was in no position to promise him.
Early-onset familial Alzheimer's disease—a rare form of Alzheimer’s caused by a gene mutation—ran in Theo’s family. His grandfather had had it and so had his father. But his uncle had been spared the mutated gene. It was only passed down fifty percent of the time.
In other words, Theo’s life was a coin toss. He could live to be an old man or he could start succumbing to the disease as soon as his early thirties.
He’d promised his father he wouldn’t get tested for the gene unless he had a compelling reason to, like he wanted to have kids or something. His father had gotten the test and had regretted it. He had believed that life was better left a mystery and had wanted Theo to live out his days with hope, even if those days came with a generous helping of uncertainty and dread.
But Theo had broken his promise to his father less than two years later when Robert, the actor playing Theo’s grandfather in the movie based on their lives, pulled some strings and arranged to get Theo tested anonymously. You don’t ever have to open the results if you don’t want to, Robert had said. But this way, it will be your choice, and you won’t have to worry about screwing yourself out of health and life insurance.
That was exactly what Theo had done, gotten the test and not opened the results. He’d planned to never tell anyone he’d gotten the test, not wanting them to know he’d broken his promise to his father, but he’d gotten baked on Alaskan Thunderfuck one night and confessed everything to his two best friends, Brady and Raj.
A lot of people in Theo’s position would live in constant fear of dying, wondering how many Christmases and birthdays they had left. But not Theo. A fortune teller had once told him he’d live a long, happy life, and—as long as he didn’t think too much about the reliability of prophecy—he believed her. That was Theo’s general philosophy when it came to the future. It was best not to dwell on it. He preferred to live in the now. He was basically Eckhart Tolle.
But Ryan wasn’t built like that. And he wasn’t like Brady, either. Theo and Brady had been hooking up off and on since they were sixteen, and even though Brady was a jealous son-of-a-bitch sometimes, it was still easier to love him than Ryan. Brady never asked for more than Theo could give. Brady didn’t try to make Theo his home. He knew Theo was a swanky vacation rental at best.
Brady turned around to rinse the soap out of his ass crack. “Why don’t you just open the fucking envelope, then?”
“Didn’t I just tell you to stop asking questions you already know the answers to?”
“If Travis had known you were gonna spend your life high as fuck, pretending there was no such thing as the future, he’d have driven you to the doctor himself, and you know it. That’s why you got the test.”
“No, I got the test because Robert pulled a fuck-ton of strings and I didn’t wanna be rude.” That was sort of true. “And I have more important things to worry about right now than Ryan. Raj wants to become a banker. Digger wants to hire a songwriter. And Cam thinks we should start performing on cruise ships. Because that’s what we need right now, MRSA. I don’t know how much longer I’m gonna be able to keep the band together.”
Theo’s band, Heirloom Tortoise, had recently lost their record deal. Their third album hadn’t just been poorly reviewed. It had been eviscerated. Saturday Night Live had even spoofed it with a sketch of them recording alongside a bunch of cats in heat. Their characters kept asking if it might sound better with fewer cats, but Christopher Walken kept assuring them that wasn’t the case. They just needed more cowbell. Worse still, Christopher Walken had been right. The album really could’ve used more cowbell.
“Funny you should mention that,” Brady said. “I think I have just the bonding experience you guys are looking for. Remember how I told you my team was going on that hippie yoga retreat in the Catskills next week? Well, we just landed this huge new client, so we’re not gonna be able to go, and it’s too late to get a refund. As you can imagine, my boss isn’t too happy about swallowing the expense. Which means, I bet I could get you the tickets at a discount. Think about it. What better way to rejuvenate and regroup than a week unplugged in the beautiful Catskill Mountains? Plus, you’d be doing me a huge favor. My boss fucking hates me. This will show her I can be just as much of a kiss-ass as everyone else. And you’ve got the money.” To emphasize his point, Brady gestured around Theo’s palatial bathroom, which was absurdly nice. In addition to being bigger than Brady’s apartment, it had a million dollar bathtub carved from a giant quartz crystal.
“It’s not my money,” Theo said, which was true.
“Ask Will, then.”
“I can’t ask Will for money again, not after he just built me a recording studio in the basement. Besides, can you imagine Raj meditating? He probably thinks chakras are bras for women with electrostimulation kinks.”
“Then dip into your trust fund. You wanna save the band, don’t you?”
“More like save your ass.”
“That, too.” Brady shut off the water and handed Theo a towel.
“Was that why you came over tonight?” Brady lived in the city and rarely made the trek out to The Hamptons, except during the summer.
“No, Colin and I are meeting for dinner tomorrow night, and—”
“And you wanted to get your dick wet one last time before getting back together.”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“You don’t even like him.”
“I like him just fine. You’re the one who doesn’t like him.”
That was true. Theo didn’t like Colin. Colin was the worst. He hated when Theo and Brady hung out. He acted like all they did was fuck and talk shit about him behind his back. But they only did that when he and Brady were broken up. When they were together, there was only shit talking. Theo and Brady were a lot of things, but cheaters was not one of them.
After brushing his teeth, Theo crawled into bed and assumed his position as the little spoon. “Do you need me to set an alarm or anything?”
“Nah, I think I’ll stay for breakfast. What are you making me?”
“I don’t know. I think I have some frozen waffles in the freezer.”
Brady pinched Theo’s nipple. “Great. I’ll have that with a side of frittata.”
***
“Here, take Gabe so I can clean this up,” Uncle James said, thrusting the baby at Theo.
The second Gabe was in Theo’s arms, he started crying. Theo wasn’t sure why Gabe didn’t like him. It wasn’t like he’d ever dropped him on his head or stolen his binky. But it was just as well. His little cousin probably shouldn’t get too attached, anyway.
Theo stepped over Gabe’s breakfast, which was scattered across the kitchen floor, and set Gabe down in his playpen. Gabe stopped crying immediately and started pounding on the drum Theo had gotten him for Arbor Day.
“Is Brady still here?” Uncle James asked.
“Yeah, he’s upstairs.” Theo opened the fridge and started pulling out ingredients for a spinach, mushroom, and feta frittata. “He’s trying to unload these tickets his firm bought to some yoga retreat. He thinks it will be a good bonding experience for the band.”
Uncle James was no fool. He knew exactly where this was going. “We just built you a friggin’ state-of-the-art recording studio in the basement. We’re not paying for you to go get high at some ashram in Nepal.”
“It’s a yoga retreat, not an ashram. And it’s in the Catskills, not Nepal. Besides, I didn’t even ask you guys.”
“Didn’t ask us what?” Will said, scooping Gabe up out of his playpen.
“Theo wants us to bankroll a trip to some hippie yoga retreat upstate,” Uncle James said.
“I do not. I was just telling you Brady was trying to unload the tickets so he could impress his boss. The fact that the band is this close to breaking up and could really use some spiritual guidance is merely a coincidence. Though, some would say, there are no such things as coincidences.”
“Did you talk to Ryan last night?” Will asked.
“No, why? Did he call you, too?”
“No, Andy did.”
Theo hated everyone knowing his business before him. “I wasn’t in the right mental space to talk to Ryan last night. What does he want?”
“I think you need to hear it from him,” Will said.
“Why? He probably just feels bad about our album bombing and wants to help. But I’m sick of being Ryan’s charity case. I wanna do this on my own.”
Uncle James dropped the highchair tray in the sink. “Yet you have no problem asking us to foot the bill just so you can go do headstands on a rock in the woods.”
“Raj wants to be a banker,” Theo said. “Is that what you want, another asshole who cranks up the radio every time NPR Marketplace comes on? And if Cam gets her way, we’re gonna start playing the cruise circuit. We’ll probably get MRSA and pass it on to Gabe.”
“Well, we wouldn’t want that, now, would we?” Will said, chuckling. “I think you should go. It might be nice to step out of the spotlight for a little while.”
“Really?” Theo hadn’t been expecting Will to say yes, at least not so quickly.
“Yes, but on one condition. Talk to Ryan before you go.”
Chapter 2
Aloysius
The sun was still below the horizon when Aloysius Byrne reached the summit. It was early October, and the Catskills were reaching peak fall foliage. But in the blue-black light of early morning, the maples were the dark maroon of garnet, and the golds and yellows of the ash and birch trees were sallow and muted.
Aloysius sat on a rock—Devonian shale—and waited for the sun to rise. He was hungry, so he opened his rusty Powerpuff Girls lunchbox, which contained an RC Cola, a Nutty Buddy, and a ziplock bag of Cool Ranch Doritos.
Kian, one of the yoga instructors and the closest thing Aloysius had to a friend, liked to say Aloysius was going to give himself diabetes, but Kian couldn’t even do eka hasta vrksasana, so who was he to judge how Aloysius fueled his body?
Aloysius didn’t normally have lunch for breakfast, but swapping the two meals seemed easier than hiking with milk and a box of Cap’n Crunch, Aloysius’s usual breakfast.
He removed half of the sandwich and put the rest back in his lunchbox. He ate the half in his hand, including the crust, and resisted the urge to open his can of soda. He’d drink it after he dumped the small vial of ashes.
The sun still wasn’t up, so he did some yoga, starting with eka hasta vrksasana, one-handed tree pose. He balanced on one hand and spread his legs above him. Aloysius knew the pose was meant to combine the elements of thought, light, and ether, but he spent most of the time thinking about Kian’s new tattoo, a black mandala om covering his left shoulder. Why did people do that to their bodies?
When the sun crested the mountains to the east, Aloysius switched to his other arm, closed his eyes against the prick of sunlight, and felt the warmth of a new day—Eve’s birthday—strike his face. After a while, he lowered himself back to the ground and watched the colors of the trees come to life.
Lit from below, the leaves took on the jeweled tones of precious gems. Aloysius liked crystals and gemstones. He had an extensive collection in his cabin. The yellows and golds of the ash and birch trees reminded him of citrine, a type of quartz. And the red maples had the vitreous luster of a spinel, which used to be considered a type of ruby before people knew better. Real rubies were the result of chromium impurities in corundum.
Aloysius knew it wouldn’t be long before Kian’s class arrived, so he pulled the stopper from the vial of Eve’s ashes and upended it. This was how Aloysius planned to spend all of Eve’s birthdays from now on, spreading bits of her in beautiful places. He expected the ashes to blow away poetically in the breeze. But instead, they settled in a small heap on the ground and soaked up the morning dew.
Aloysius returned to his throne of Devonian shale, sanitized his hands, and pulled out his Cool Ranch Doritos. Around him, the clearing looked almost as mystical as it was purported to be, covered in three feet of dense fog.
Three hundred and seventy-five million years ago, a meteor had crashed into the very spot Aloysius was sitting. Well, the very spot and one thousand three hundred twenty feet in every direction. The land was said to contain immense spiritual energy and had long been held sacred by the local Native American people—the Mohicans and Esopus. Aloysius, who could see auras and energy fields, found the place no more magical than any other mountain clearing. But he didn’t have the sight, not like his great-grandmother had had, so who was he to question the uniqueness of this place?
Eve Byrne had been revered in life. While some had called her a charlatan, most had considered her the most gifted intuitive of her generation. She’d made a lot of outlandish predictions in her lifetime, including telling Aloysius his soulmate was an awkward boy with skinny arms, blue eyes, and glasses. Most of her predictions—but not all—had come true.
There are no guarantees in life, Aloysius, she used to tell him. Sometimes, your soulmate dies before you meet them. Sometimes, they marry someone else. Sometimes, they ignore the omens and stay in the safe bubble of their ordinary lives.
It didn’t matter, though. Aloysius liked being alone. And he wasn’t alone, not really. He had his animals and his friends. Well, they weren’t technically his friends. They were his employees. But he still loved them, and they loved him.
He opened his can of RC Cola and was delighted to find the fizzy liquid inside as crisp as if he’d just taken it from his mini-fridge. Normally, when he packed food for a hike, the soda was as warm as cold tea by the time he drank it.
Muffled voices sounded from the trail behind Aloysius, so he quickly finished his soda and shoved the empty can and the rest of his Cool Ranch Doritos back inside his lunchbox. He fastened the lid and stood.
“Al, is that you?” Kian asked. “What are you doing up here?”
Kian’s crop of disciples trailed behind him—a handful of wealthy white women who found the yoga instructor dreamy, a couple of men who thought the same, and one guy who just wanted to do sun salutations on the sacred ground of an ancient meteor impact.
Kian wore a long-sleeved athletic shirt, yoga pants, and a beanie the same rusty amber as the chestnut oaks. He noticed the empty vial in Aloysius’s hands, and his eyes darted to the small pile of ashes at their feet. His mouth dropped open, and without saying a word, he wrapped Aloysius in a hug.
“Why didn’t you tell me? I would’ve come with you.” Kian’s normally orange and purple aura turned blue with sadness and empathy.
“I didn’t want you to come with me,” Aloysius said, not hugging Kian back. He didn’t particularly care for hugs.
“Stay for class,” Kian said. “I’ll say a prayer for Eve’s birthday and lead everyone in a guided meditation.”
Aloysius pulled away, ignoring the spicy scent of incense that clung to Kian’s skin and clothes. “I have to bring the goats down to the pond. The poison ivy is back. Then I need to feed the bees.”
“Well, let’s meet in the temple after lunch for a puja, then. I’ll tell Lakshmi and the others.”
Aloysius felt everyone staring at him. “Your class is waiting.”
Without another word, Aloysius turned and headed back down the trail. Once he was out of earshot, he opened his lunchbox and took out his Nutty Buddy.
Chapter 3
Theo
Theo couldn’t handle the silence anymore. Didn’t these assholes know that road trips were for bonding, not brooding? “Do you guys wanna hear the haiku I just wrote?”
“No,” Cam and Raj said at the same time. It wasn’t the answer Theo had been hoping for, but it was nice to hear Cam and Raj agree on something for a change.
“I’d love to hear your haiku,” Digger said. Theo could always count on Digger.
“Good, because I worked really hard on it.” Theo cleared his throat and made a poem up on the spot.
Goat hooves on your back
Gongs going smack smack smack smack
Yak butter up your crack
Theo wasn’t sure if they still used yak butter in Tibetan massage, or if they put it up your crack, but he knew poems were better when they rhymed and cracks were better when they were buttered. Plus, he wanted his friends to be as excited for the yoga retreat as he was. And what was more exciting than goats, gongs, and massages?
“If anyone touches my crack, it’ll be the last thing they do,” Raj said. As their lead singer, Raj was contractually obligated to be an angsty mother-fucker.
“That’s not a proper haiku,” Digger said. “You added a sixth syllable in the last line. But I still love it.”
Shit! Digger was right.
Theo’s phone chimed in his lap, and he glanced down at yet another text from Ryan. Please call me. It’s important.
Theo had planned to call Ryan on the drive up. But then he’d gotten high instead. I’m on my way to a yoga retreat in The Catskills, he texted back. They don’t allow phones or anything up here, so I’ll have to call you next week when we’re done. Then, because he didn’t want Ryan to think he was mad at him for taking space or for reaching out, he added, Miss you.
“What’s wrong with you?” Raj asked from the driver’s seat.
“Nothing.” Theo shut his phone off.
“You never called Ryan back, did you?”
“He’s the one who didn’t wanna talk to me for six months. It won’t kill him to wait a week.”
“I don’t give a fuck if you ever call him back.” Like Brady, Raj was not a member of the Ryan Ashbury fan club. As the stereotypical lead singer, Raj was used to being the center of attention. And with his big brown eyes, shiny black hair, and perpetual five o’clock shadow, he usually was. But whenever Ryan was around, Raj had to settle for being the second hottest guy in the room, and Raj didn’t like to settle.
“Yeah, but what if he’s calling because he wants to put another one of our songs on a soundtrack?” Cam asked. “Wait, do miniseries even have soundtracks?”
“I don’t think so,” Digger said.
The Dallaire siblings, despite sharing identical DNA, were as unique as snowflakes and nearly as white. Both of them were stunning blondes with irreverent senses of humor and a passion for smoking weed, but that was where their similarities ended. Camille (Cam for short) kept her hair long, like a Barbie doll, and Digger (born Juliette) kept theirs short, like Judi Dench. Cam was a cis woman. Digger was non-binary. Cam dressed like a fashion model. Digger dressed like a union worker, usually in some form of coveralls. Cam liked dick and drama. Digger was asexual and aromantic. But despite all of their differences, they made the greatest rhythm section ever. Cam played drums. Digger played bass. And together, they locked into the groove like they were the same person.
“I think this is it,” Raj said, turning up a winding gravel road.
Theo shoved his phone in his pocket and stared out the window. Beyond a wall of colorful trees lay a rocky field filled with—“Goats! Oh my god, they’re so fucking cute. I just wanna hug them.”
“And they’re not the only things I want to hug,” Cam said, ogling the flannel-clad man standing in the center of the field with them. “You see that, Raj? That’s a real man.”
“We talked about this,” Digger said. “Just because Raj doesn’t want to eat your muffin doesn’t mean he’s any less of a man.”
“I know. It means he’s gay.”
Raj flipped Cam off.
“Raj isn’t gay,” Theo said. “We’ve been naked together loads of times, and his dick hasn’t even so much as twitched.”
“Maybe he’s not into lanky twinks,” Cam said.
“That’s a valid point,” Digger agreed. “Maybe Raj is holding out for a leather daddy.”
“Fuck all of you,” Raj said. “There better be some hot-ass yoga instructor with a killer rack at this place or I’m not going to last more than a couple hours.”
“Don’t worry, there will be,” Theo assured him. “All yoga instructors are wicked hot. It’s like a cardinal rule or something.”
The woman who greeted them in the lobby was not wicked hot, though she probably had been fifty years ago. She looked to be in her early seventies, with long, silver hair and translucent gray eyes. Her name tag read, Diamond-Lill (she/hehers). “Look at you,” she said, eye-fucking Raj. “You’re even more handsome in person.”
Raj cleared his throat. “Uh, thanks.”
“Is this tea free?” Cam asked, standing in front of a giant wall of identical metal tea canisters.
“Yes, help yourself.”
The lobby was busy. Though, not with people. With art, mostly landscapes and nudes. Theo had expected sage green walls punctuated by the occasional leafy fern, maybe a bubbling fountain in the corner. Instead, every square inch of wall space, aside from the tea station, was covered in paintings, as if were Monet’s mother’s fridge.
“I’ve got you set up in The House of Swords,” Diamond-Lill said. She launched into a spiel about where and when meals were held, how to sign up for yoga classes and spa sessions, and the general rules of the place, things like not wearing strong perfumes or disturbing the wildlife. “We value the peace and privacy of our clients. That’s why we don’t allow cell phones or cameras of any kind. You’re welcome to go anywhere on the grounds. We just ask that you respect silent hours. And if Tom charges you, just hold your ground and maintain eye contact.”
“Who’s Tom?” Theo asked.
“He’s our turkey. He’s really quite sweet, but you know how turkeys are.”
Theo didn’t know shit about turkeys, except that they were inedible unless smothered in gravy, but he liked that this woman thought he did, so he didn’t contradict her.
“Is it too late to sign up for this goat yoga class?” Digger asked, holding open the brochure. “Raj has never done yoga before, and I think this will be the perfect way to break him in.”
“I’m not doing yoga in a pile of goat shit,” Raj said.
Ignoring Raj, Diamond-Lill smiled and said, “Here’s Lakshmi, now. Let’s ask her.”
A beautiful woman with shoulder-length chestnut hair stepped into the room and headed for the wall of tea.
“Lakshmi, I’d like to introduce you to our newest guests. These are the musicians I was telling you about. This is Raj, Theodore, Camille, and Digger. This is Lakshmi, one of our yoga therapists.”
“It’s nice to meet you all,” Lakshmi said with a kind smile.
Theo wasn’t into women, not even a little bit, but even he could see Lakshmi was beautiful, and not just physically. She had this warm, calming energy about her that reminded him of his kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Miller.
“They were wondering if you had space in your goat yoga class this afternoon,” Diamond-Lill said.
Lakshmi gave them another warm smile. “I’m sure we can make room. Would all four of you like to attend?”
“No, just three of us,” Cam said. “Raj is afraid of goats.”
“I’m not afraid of goats. I just don’t want to lie in their shit.”
“Well, I can’t guarantee there won’t be some feces on the ground,” Lakshmi said. “But I can assure you the class will be a lot of fun. It’s a great way to start your week. And I’ll ask Aloysius to leave Buttercup in the barn.”
“Who’s Buttercup?” Theo asked.
“He’s a little asshole, that’s who he is,” Diamond-Lill said. “Pardon my French. I know he’s just a goat, but I swear, that one’s possessed.”
Lakshmi didn’t deny it. She just stared at Raj, awaiting his answer.
“Fine, I’ll come,” Raj said.
Theo was glad Raj was participating, even if it was only because the yoga instructor had a nice rack. But did Buttercup really have to stay behind?
Digger must have shared Theo’s concern because they said, “Don’t make any special accommodations on our account. I, for one, am dying to meet Buttercup.”
“Me, too,” Cam said.
Raj crossed his arms and glowered. On anyone else, the expression would’ve looked childish and pouty. But on Raj, it just looked mysterious and broody.
“Okay, I won’t say anything to Aloysius, then.” Lakshmi poured hot water into her mug and headed for the door she’d just come through. “See you in a couple hours.”

(also apologies if the grammar is wrong, english isn't my first language haha)
I've liked you for a long time, maybe 3 years? I never really noticed you during classes (before the pandemic) even though we've been classmates since kindergarten. I only really started to notice you when F2F happened in 2022. You were so sweet, funny and smart. You were cool and chill with everyone. I don't know why or when i fell for you but i did, cause now all i can ever think about is you.
For the past few years that I've gotten to know you, I've made poems, stories and songs all about you. Whenever i glance at you, sometimes I'd see you looking at me too, but most probably you're not looking at me.
When E transferred to our class, i started to see how you'd talk to her, how you'd give her you're second bracelet and it would look like you two were sweethearts; because you were sweethearts. How you'd playfully chat and laugh and i would get all jealous. If she was sitting down, you'd sit on an empty sit right next to her. I remember during the last quarter of that grade, i cried over you 2 times: reading quotes on Pinterest because i knew you'd never liked me, never look at me the same way you'd look at her.
Now it's another school year, and you were seated next to my best friend, N. I guess during that quarter you had alot of fun. Cause even now, the last quarter, the way you'd look at her while you talked during classes was a dead giveaway. The fact that even to N, whenever A is absent (A sits in the left seat, N sits in the middle and I sit at the right) you'd come over, bring your bag, and sit at A's seat so you can be next to N. Sometimes you'd let her borrow your ring, you'd mess with eachother, and you send her videos from Facebook. When i showed you pictures of pretty girls and asked you who was the prettiest, you pointed to her and told me "She is". I played it cool and said "Nice!" because i wanted to act like i supported you about your interest in her. Actually, i do, i do support your interest in her, but ofcourse, i'm jealous, i'm jealous about what you see in her that you don't see in me. I'm jealous about how when we were in the beach and she went online, you had sent her a video from facebook. I'm jealous about how in every single group activities, you'd be grouped with her. I'm jealous about how i see you glancing at her. One thing i don't understand is, how does nobody else see it? Do i like you so much that i'm the the third wheel of your love story, the only one who sees the story unfolding page by page? I guess so. And i can't even tell my friends about this at all, but they know i like you. N probably knows because she saw the pictures i secretly took when you were sitting next to eachother. I've cried over you once again, looking at the sky at the roof of my house, asking myself if you'd ever like me the same way i like you.
It doesn't matter. You send me videos too, and I've sent you some aswell. Infact, you were the one who sent me a video first. You first called me clever, and i called you cool. When i showed you those AvM videos, you were so interested, but honestly who wouldn't? You sat right next to me during our literature class, and even when my friends took a picture of us together, ran after them because of it, you still sat next to me right after. Whenever i start to write something on the blackboard, you'd come over, arms in a flirtatious manner and chat with me. You'd sing to me, rap to me and show me you're ideas, no matter how silly they were. You asked me if was going to be okay when i stayed behind in class because our teacher went on a meeting. I love these sweet little moments, alot. You don't know how much they mean to me, and how i wish they never stop.
But I hate how you'd sometimes ignore my replies. I hate how you sometimes won't do shit unless you were bargained with. I hate how you wait a couple of seconds just to finally do what you were told. And back to the replies, i hate it because whenever you text me and i text back, i tell myself "Why am i even bothering? He'll probably just 'seen' it again". And then you'll text me "Hey" and when i reply, you don't even other to tell me anything. I hate how when i talk to you about a video you sent me or a video i sent you, you seem uninterested.
Yet not everyone's perfect, and that obviously includes you. All i know is I overthink, I overreact, I'm obnoxious as fuck, i'm got such a dark humor even the teachers ask if i'm okay. when I get 'mad' i just laugh because i never really get mad, and when i do, you probably won't even talk to me anymore. I have eyebags and am skinny. Anybody could pick me up and throw me from a bridge and I'd drown cause i don't know how to swim. And the biggest: i'm ugly. No one would ever look at me twice because what features do i have that's enough for anyone to be interest in me? Enough for you?
I like you alot, but i'm okay if you like someone else. As long as you don't change and still be as cool as you were when i first got to know you.

This poem is INSANE.
SOME VERY POPULAR SONGS
for example cows beneath the moon, peaceful souls, ruminating, Buddha-guts in the high grass, hidden between small trees and
clumps of brush in the constant greenness, a practical black-and-white- spotted metaphysics, tormented by summer flies which stick to their
saliva. The space hangs inside their eyes like a gong, which beckons to the slaughterhouse. Or a blue rain barrel in the south, where
the sky is an endless continuation of blue, hallucinated spaces during the day, but real. The tricks of the Rolling Stones are over.
I listen to Leonard Cohen singing, there is a war between the men and the women, why don’t you come on back to the war, it’s just be-
ginning. Various grasses grow along the edges, enchanted green. The grass is moved, moves itself, and all the years came, like
always, one after the other: good- bye, fast cloud, goodbye blue sky in the window frames, good- bye, dried grass,
naked in the first twilight, goodbye. A wet barbed wire fence stands there, crooked posts, goodbye, suburbs, as though
no one lives there, fragments of biographies and newspapers, the senseless waving. Some lines are like the waving of children from a
train window while passing through strange cities in the afternoon, passing the rows of low-rent apartments with the single faces at the windows:
if all the confessions in the world that were ever given and written down in the courts of the world were put together and
dragged by one after the other, what an endless misery it would be to be in the world. Someone calls, dials any old
number, and I hear only their breath, and there again is the distance, the soft crackling noise of the
confusion in another place, and otherwise nothing there in the afternoon. And in the morning, when you get up and stare at the hotel
breakfast and you don’t understand why you’re in this hotel room, where you actually are, and you think about what you can do at eight in the morning
after an almost sleepless night, and nothing else comes to mind except to take the three dirty shirts to the laundry, having already
showered at seven, do you embrace the morning light at nine? Or do you say, goodbye, morning light? And then you hear the rush
of a flushing toilet while you walk along a long hallway and what do you feel then? That everything is in order? At ten someone calls and
talks about death, and you make a joke about the film projectionist with cancer who’s been with the company for 25 years, and whoever else is in the room
laughs as well. Who goes through the rooms, unfamiliar, and remembers the lines from the song: Green leaves, how are you alone? What sort of damned lonely
business letters are being written. The signatures don’t matter at all. And you sing your song, “Lady, I’m out of here!” That also belongs to the popular
songs. The peaceful Buddha-souls lie spotted black-and-white in the greenness. They chew beneath the same light the soft green grass again.

1. (for H.S.)

Where the ruble disintegrates into single kopecks, or the dollar into cents, or the D-mark into pfennigs like guilders, where the lira disintegrates
like the franc into centimes and the English pound into the cheap tobacco of Spanish coins, where the ostmark breaks into eye-wrinkles and a
tractor stands in the candlelight, where the Swedish öre disintegrates into insurance like world empires, where the sturgeon dies in the rivers and the herring
in the North Sea, where the distances between the cities grow like the disintegration among the single cities, where the yen is changed into the cruzeiro,
where too much is invested in soap, where the Bulgarian tin cans are converted into Argentinean bank drafts, disintegrating like the Finnish
currency, where forests are rafted down the rivers, where bone meal becomes plastic, where sums are copied, where the geese become zlotys
and are frozen in black aspic, where the dinar drives the camel, the corn rots in the fields, decaying like teeth which will be exchanged, where the
peso dies miserably, the black underwear rises, disintegrating like revenue stamps into whichever sort of coins the faces may disintegrate, into whatever bodily needs, piss, dirt paths, rest
rooms and bed sheets, where the army is financing the study of poetry, where the technical institutes explain the world, the twitching heart of a turtle
hanging from a thread for all to see, where the licenses set the limits, decomposing into animal-pictures, where signatures are needed, testaments, accounts, where the bank
holidays are there for a sigh of relief, to hang out the flags and decorate the day, where the carbide stank, where the bottles burst, where the rubble lay strewn and the tattoos,
the companies proliferate like the mass media, the chunks of stone and rubble have been cleared aside, the pain and the sorrow sold off, decomposed into monthly wages,
where there is still something to do, the specter of unemployment drives them together, the ghosts of the owners, the ghosts of the employees, where all of them are busy
administering this world, or what they consider to be this world, traps, driven together in the offices, but the offices disintegrate, where the rooms have many doors and glass
walls, the elevator shafts disintegrate, the arcades disintegrate, smashed store windows, mold spores, wild vegetation, in between store-window
mannequins, rats scurrying through long ruined arcades, rats in the pale empty corridors of the skyscrapers, where the last cripples are still being
driven together, everyone driven together to administrate this world, these walls, cyclone fences, entrances, the class- rooms like ruined swimming pools,
like signatures which disintegrate, where nights the children scream in the apartment towers, dismally bound to the silence, where the children throw up
their baby food again, where the bodies lie next to each other in the darkness and masturbate in order to go to sleep, finally exhausted and empty, decomposing
like the face of a television announcer in the half-insane dream, who makes new announcements in different voices like on scratched records, disintegrating
like shillings, where the twisted pain becomes jokes in a dialect, applauded by the ranks, where the ranks finally disintegrate, where a radio announcer
pulls her tampon out of the hairy hole between her legs on the toilet in the office of the National Public Radio during a pause in which poems are read, where the
Sundays are endless, decayed like sick lungs, where it is said, that is not your face, that is not your face, where the coins disintegrate into faces, old
faces, dead faces, grieved and hideous on the banknotes which disintegrate, where we go, simple daylight sparkles in the rain puddles, sparkles in the
dripping trees, pleasure, the astonishment of the eyes, when you laughed as you saw your trailer, the beautiful laughter of a total lack of understanding as you opened
the car door, where the checks corroded the surroundings, paper disintegrated into nickel, decayed like a currency made from black dream-slag, which crumbles at the
next touch, where a woman has no other chance than forward through the bushes, like Bolivar disintegrating into centimos, where maybe you’re in a dream,
it’s time that we tell each other more stories, where one doesn’t stand with their back to the wall, but rather in an open door, in the daylight, which doesn’t disintegrate like the
wavy plateau with the lethargic chicken hawks circling above, quiet black movements, clear in the air, where the sky no longer fits in the picture and together with the clouds
passes by in the window. Who’s calling through the frozen forests? Who’s wandering through the snowed-in halls? Who’s freezing and huddled together in the endless
transfer station, where the rupees disintegrate, changed into dirhams, faces upon them, theories of probability, dog bones, death a white apparition in a
white invisible tent, Jeep tracks with dust clouds trailing behind, death is a dried-up camel skeleton by the wayside, death is a
dead skunk on the highway, death is a dead cat on an empty parking lot, death is the long rows of suits on the chromed
rack in the next men’s department, death is a chopped down tree, where the shadow-shoes lie, worn out, where the houses have no
walls anymore, where the electric lights wander about in the rooms, nuclear decay, multiplication, optical lenses, behind the frost patterns on the window the book is shut
and a face cries, a brain is opened, the exhilaration of a dark, clear winter night is illuminated by constellations and does not fall, where death is a dried-
up river bed, white gravel and the plateaus fly by, you see that, we saw them spread out, the plateaus, flying by white in the headlights,
I went back into the hastily constructed apartment, the dreams continuing, the plateau white, I stared into the aluminum pot, at the rest of the broccoli under the light,
the plateau passing by, white, with the slight indication that we make, where a dirty, rickety claw is a clean hand stroking a mahogany
table, having plundered the many daydreams, now it lies rickety and crooked on the clean surface, where the Luxembourgean francs become Malian
dollars, which disintegrate into Cuban pesos, who is it who shits out money and lets a forest die so that he can appear in the comics, massaged on the beach, he with the mantraps
and self-inflicted gunshots, observed by helicopters, a marked man, who is it who drags their suitcase through the bus station, who is it who drops a coin into the TV automat, who is it who skims the
psychoanalytical journals in order to solve a case, who is it who interprets the world, who is it who interprets the next construction- site fence, who is it who interprets the apartment,
shadows of people burned into the asphalt, stones with human shadows on exhibit, aerial photographs of the landscape allowed for postcard greetings
by the Minister of War, he who allows, believes he has the rights for fencing in, where the piastres are scrap, poetry is not a waiting room where one stays overnight, tired,
behind a newspaper opened to the swarming masses of war, every word is war, scrap-words like death, driven together in herds, without differences,
should I have slept with your wife, should I have had more magazines, should I have used the dish- washer, should I have followed the movie
posters, filigree-gray hypothetical questions, tendrils, cement ornamentation, where the dreams die off like plateaus, a canister on the shark, the daily view out the
window into this side street, which you don’t know, where the dollar disintegrates into kopecks and the ruble into cents, where pesetas are wrung from the bones,
but the pleasure is greater than the sorrow, the drachma is smaller than the lust, reduced to a hundred lepta, which disappear at the next opportunity,
where the Turkish pounds are extracted from the tendons, decayed, decayed in the buildings of the 19th & 20th centuries in West Germany, extensions, bills, obligations, everything
the same, pawned off, worn out, trashed, pawned off again on television, from the serial, from the jukebox. Gentle face, in the middle of the crowd you’ve seen
the twitching body, suddenly the concert was over, did you stammer, did you cry, where the corridors are cement, where the speaker boxes boomed, where the faces
broke into dream-wrinkles, where the city maps have white spots, where the color white in no way means death, where the dog fur fails to warm, where the ways end, Ivory Coast is a
fantastic name, tattoos, scars, moving in, moving out, many thanks.

1. (History)

Last night I was thinking about the love story of Adolf Hitler. I saw the permanent waves in the hair of Eva Braun. How many German women
today look like the smile of Eva Braun. The photos reproduce themselves. I was not, I know, born in a photograph. Snow fell in April,
as I was born, shrouded in the ornamental cloth of the baptism ritual. The war, I don’t understand what that is, which language is where? Eva Braun
smiled at Adolf Hitler, that was in Berlin. What did Adolf Hitler first say to Eva Braun? Which distances exist between the permanent waves on the
photo and the old fashioned curling iron for permanent waves which I saw later on a windowsill? As I slept in the Academy of Art in Berlin, I thought about
this curling iron for permanent waves. The photo was a memory which I looked at. Twenty years later I looked at a fat face in the daily
paper, which drank ersatz coffee in a Berlin hotel from a hotel coffee cup, the title was Professor, the title was not to be identi- fied. Eva Braun, was your neck shaved?
Eva Braun, what did you think about the Sarotti chocolates? Adolf Hitler, as you went through Munich with your Pelikan watercolors, what did you see? The Sütterlin script ruined the
handwriting. From the handwriting I was supposed to learn. Adolf Hitler skimmed over the city maps. Eva Braun looked in the crystal mirror at her cunt. Which size
did your thighs have, Eva Braun? I know girls who look exactly like the Eva Braun who looks like Eva Braun in the photo. I grew up, considered my pubic hairs, considered
nipples, considered the reeds, years later I considered the picture of Eva Braun. In the same month a breast of the wife of the American president would be
cut off, in another historical photo old men polished their assholes on brocade-lined armchairs after the conference, the southern afternoon is full of
junk, dust, crumbling constructions. What was with the intestinal worms which Adolf Hitler’s German shepherd had? What was with Eva Braun? A storybook story which one suppressed
like years later the interpretations, ended. Half of Austria arrived in a train, kissed Eva Braun’s hand, looked at her tits, sealed with permanent waves. Adolf Hitler
passed out postcards. I saw my mother in a photo in a long row sitting and laughing, I saw my father in a photo going along a tree-lined avenue,
naive in uniform like an avenue tree, what were they playing as they were photographed? I saw the creases in the pants of Adolf Hitler in a photo, I saw, four years
old, a dark train station passing by in 1944, I saw an enameled sign with blue and yellow wool and knitting needles on the red brick wall of a train station,
Eva Braun, did Adolf Hitler tenderly stroke your pussy with his tongue? Adolf Hitler, did Eva tenderly suck your cock? Or was that taboo thanks to
the state and politics? Come stains on the winter coat, a couple of generals in the toilet, they drew battle plans on the shitty wall, named names, heights, deployments,
Eva Braun, what did you feel when you got the capsule? Did you simply think you’d had your chance? Did you think, now I’ve had it? And the teeth of the German shepherd
fell out of his jaw after the strong injection. The orgasm of death is cheaper than the orgasm of life, although it’s questionable whether the orgasm of death isn’t simply pent up
life that explodes. Why isn’t life in the multitudes every day? Why permanent waves, Eva Braun? Why are you smiling, Eva Braun? Why
do you take cough syrup, Eva Braun? Didn’t Adolf Hitler know that the Austrian psychoanalysis, lying in the sentences, lies? I was never at the river Inn, also
have no desire to look at the water, also have no desire to look at the water in Cologne, dead water, full of dead fish and plants, dead water, which they fought over, borders,
coals, fires for the industry, furnaces, embers in the night, dancing figures before the open fires of the industrial complexes, no holy saint swims in these dead waters, no holy saint spits
out the apartment window, the crude passing through is better than taking pills, the patents, Eva Braun, how was it for you under the shower, German charcoal, flamingo flowers, Spanish irises
and pails? Adolf Hitler in a nightshirt, in the cement, under the earth’s surface, sparkle of nerves, dancing over the files, he dreamed madly in the cement bunker,
supposedly never hit anyone personally, he had others enough to do his hitting, there are always others who sign, hit, hang, indeed there are
always others, employees, secretaries, office boys, insanity, Eva Braun, you straw puppet, smoke, cyanide, trace elements, signatures, which suddenly become single living
persons, things, the shabby things, they’re standing in the room. Did Adolf Hitler stand before you in the room with a stiff cock, Eva Braun? Who washed your bra, Eva Braun? Did you think about
Persil laundry soap? World history in the form of industrial comics, Eva Braun, a lace dress in the large hall, among the human voices, shoulders lifted high, did you see them? What’s with
the dyed hair? What’s with that old high German? What’s with the fossilized love stories? Word-ghosts, dirty bastards of history, stumbling through the rhymes,
between the film-shadows of Berlin, shadow gestures, projection-screen-shadows, shadow-screams, collapsing shadows, later accompanied by a soundtrack, synchronised
lip movements, Eva Braun, in which magazines were you reading? I have to remember: my mother loved airplanes and ghosts, which reappeared, phantoms, she dreamed of them,
even before she cooked for the men at the airfield, in her odd French, my father borrowed a car in his school-English, the top rolled back, they
stopped in the countryside, they fucked at the edge of a warm yellow wheat field in July. My mother loved cheap paperbacks, she looked to see if the seam in her stockings was straight, she went
across the meadow in a silky shimmering dress. The father-in-law left his library to the state of Israel for a sentimental reason, and what happened before, that these forms
developed, more sentimental than the memory of house-corners and street names? More sentimental than permanent waves in a photo? I have to remember the pale suburban settlement, I
have to think about the truck that suddenly stopped in front of the house, packed with people and their belongings, billets to make the foreignness even foreigner, checked off
the lists, bedpans, briefcases, pomaded and parted, they had nothing, owned the in- sanity of never-owned imaginary goods, if they spoke, from where they came, the biographies ruined
by dead Austria, old myths, fallow fields, the opposite is not the industry, the oppo- site disappears in the old photos, in which history disintegrated all around, Eva Braun, opaque
window glass, portals, coma in a Swedish hotel room, shots in the leg above the stocking garter. Now the computers are tossing bones in the air, Stanley Kubrick, the film trick
is revealed, despite four-channel-stereo in the red-plush cinemas of Soho, where I am one rainy evening, walking through London alone, quiet, collected, in the light gray, windy
February evening, decaying London, elegiac West End streets, elegiac advertisements, elegiac theater buildings and striptease clubs, elegiac filthy book stores under aged,
murky dust, rusted leaky water pipes along the house fronts, a senselessly ringing alarm on a house wall, dismally yellowed paint, entrances with the names of bodily flesh,
which for a few moments can be bought, contact between a lonely cock and a cold cunt before the weak gas heater of the rented room, miserable and lost in the
maze of numbers, bleak and frozen in the money. Eva Braun, who wrote you postcards? Eva Braun, have you ever stood freezing in Piccadilly? Eva Braun, what did you say in the moment
when that photo was taken? After the movie I crawl shivering under the thin blanket of a cheap hotel in Bayswater, Odeon station, the monster quarter of London, crumbling courtyards, buried
bodies, the gas-fired fireplace doesn’t heat, the wallpaper is stained, I read a few more poems by Frank O’Hara and W.C. Williams, I drink the rest of some cold coffee out of
the paper cup that stands on the marble mantle over the fireplace, I’m alone in these American poems and see myself in them in the middle of this London night, yellow fog lights along the
streets, Victorian monster-columns and portals the whole street long, windows patched with cardboard, curtain-scraps, and suddenly, in the silence, completely crazy, I remember the call sign
of the BBC radio one morning during the war. I remember the after-the-war-chocolate of the English soldiers, blue plums on a cart, which was being pushed through a courtyard,
Strauss waltzes, a dark movie theater and war. A bone tossed in the air, a killer’s tool on the white screen of the memory, a flickering shadow, hidden behind ornamental flowers,
together with the shadow-noises from the stereo speakers is nothing but a shadow in the eerie, insane ballroom of Death, which is the air, Death blows bubbles in the air, it’s much better to relax
peacefully with a liverwurst sandwich during the lunch break, better to eat the plums out of the icebox without saying you’re sorry, better to drink cold coffee from a paper cup
in a hotel room at night, better than moving pictures, aerial photographs, Eva Braun, I’m thinking here in this Cologne night, stuffy and dismal, while I look at a photo, which tells of the love
story, kitschy and hand-colored, Eva Braun, little monster among the decor, smiling stupid and sad in the photo, and before the photo was taken,
really. The eyebrows are touched up, your mouth is open, lipstick on the lips, are the stocking seams straight? Are you wearing a flowered dress? Has someone
messed up your hair? What’s with the accent? Did someone give you a horny look, your slightly fat baby face? Have you forgotten your cunt? Did your cunt dry up out of fear as the war began?
Berlin sky, as I flew in with a Pan Am plane, I first saw a cemetery between the houses, the gentlemen laid their newspapers on the empty seats,
the taxi driver swore about the passers-by as the lights went on. In the subway hall someone held their bloody, dripping face between their hands and turned toward the tiled wall
as the automatic doors slammed shut. Did you mend your stockings with Güterman’s silk thread? How did you look in a swimsuit? Did you shave your armpits?
Shaved armpits always look like soap and deodorant, stubbly and slick. Fantasy has taken over the industry with its employees.
Did you eat a liverwurst sandwich? Did the liverwurst sandwich taste good? Did Adolf Hitler have sweaty feet? Did he kiss your hand? Did he talk in his sleep? What did you take
against the headaches? What did you think as you were chauffeured along the Kurfürstendamm? In the fading shadows of 5 in the morning I sit there between the folded up,
locked up patio chairs and tables, smoke kif in the shadow of the Café Kranzler awning and walk through the tear gas clouds and shards of glass from the shattered storefront windows, the whores
having hastily retreated as the street battle began a few hours ago, then I take the first subway train to the Wannsee, where a couple of swans are rocking between the garbage along the shore, a lifeless pier,
a weak dawn, light gray. What kind of fur coat did you wear? What kind of toothpaste did you use? I tremble in the first dawn in Berlin, take the socks from the radiator,
let down the shades. It’s a pity that you didn’t invent love, Eva Braun. I write this rock ‘n’ roll song about your terrible insanity, Eva Braun. Would you have
liked this song? Would you have sweated as you danced? What did you talk about as you were alone in the cement bunker? Why the color brown? What did the tongue demand? No one loved Adolf Hitler, and that was why he
had to win the war? Did you see the bodies? Did you see the hand-to-hand combat? Did you see the flame-throwers? Did you see the burned faces? Did you see the gas-cripples? Did you
see the killer-virus spores? Did you see the flower-shadows? Did you look out the window? Did you turn off the nightstand lamp? The permanent waves of
order on your head, your fat, bare shoulder, your underwear from the department store, your pierced ear lobe for the jewel, your handkerchief with the mucous, the camellia
between the legs, your ass-shapes in the garter belt, your nipples, will they remain a secret? In the middle of the historical showplaces of the war, the war is a showplace, who even
looks? Is a love story necessary that needs so many questions? Now you’ve disappeared in the historical photo. Now the disguises are going around. Now the story is broken down and over.

1. (D-Train)

: letting the newspaper flutter out the rolled down window, a child’s hand, with the
shreds of paper against it,
the misery (foreign countries), which invests in this country, sits on every furtively glanced-at
street corner, sad, tired faces, without expression, bags under the eyes, lines around the tight-lipped mouth,
a young woman cries from exhaustion in a two-and-a-half room apartment, in the unfolded architecture of geometry, it’s night and the heating pipes are ticking,
Quote: “The most dangerous animal that exists is the architect. He has destroyed more than the war.”
Hair loss following birth, fear on the street, in the middle of the day, if one stands still, surrounded by the multitudes, the absent
glances, waking up, coughing & spitting
in the sink, postponed material circumstances, the delicate bodies pushed up against the walls by the cars, the same rows of suburban streets
all the way into the inner city,
single, running bodies between the
convoys of the auto industry, blurred figures
behind the dirt-flecked security glass windows, smaller than their own bodies in the industrial shells,
the newspaper rips in the headwind,
shreds of paper drift over the narrow gardens along the tracks, kites made of stinky printer’s ink, collages of the daily gradual madness,
frozen swirls of words: brand names,
reptile brains, hate, slander, semantics, the
big families continue on. In the streets the skinny girls’ bodies, bones with a little skin over them, in colorful rags from the second-hand store,
“when the music’s over” between the rain-
faded old advertisements, (neon-light extinguished curiosity to live, calligraphy)
extinguished poetry. The dawns
are damp and impassable, masses of bent-over figures, they disappear in the offices, they go into the stores, they have to go to schools, kindergartens,
their ways of life distinctive between
rows of products and shelves, in the pestilent-light-flicker of the TV at night the faces of the politicians appear and discuss, in the pestilent-light-flicker
of the TV the strange faces appear on the wall of the room: do you remember
“until the end” the dark house entrances, in which we stood together,
do you remember your own kisses in the stairwell, do you remember kisses
at all? (Or what
you felt?) Submerged in the glowing grass along the paths, seen from the open train window, we let the newspaper shreds fly.
Yellow afternoon light reflects in the windows which we pass by, September-yellow
and what kind of country is this,
what kind of thoughts are
thought to the finish here, finally to the end,
the end “the aristocracy
of feelings,” hahahaha, that’s
not to my taste,
if anyone should have anything to do with that at all, IBM-typewriter-feelings and kisses,
I stretch out my feet, how does that one over the other, in this fit together? compartment, the white Converse All
Star basketball shoes, 12 dollars, on the red plastic seat, and once again the piece of newspaper torn for the child at the open
train window: how the words fly (masks),
the fragments, it’s one of those gentle afternoons that we rarely have, light over the pale, monotone cities, soft afternoon light
on the crumbling facades of the suburbs
and tract homes, soft September-afternoon-light
on the faces in the open windows which we pass by, gentle human-faces in September,
the hate of the newspapers rips, flutters as paper in the hand, that cheerful sound in the moving
D-Train: it brings us from the northwest regions of West Germany through the zones of industry and profit,
dead, abandoned winding-towers, black wheels in the air, slag heaps, dead roads, black, sooty steam locomotives on a dead
track, rusted railway lines
& dust-coated Scotch broom along the embankment, do you really remember your own kisses?
And when the West (“Oh to be out of here, German industry here where everything went collapses? as wished except for the new”)
“Here in this land I live!”: do you really live? (“To be far away and in a foreign No, not this country.” E.P.) sensation.
Until now this was a foreign country, wherever you look,
Memory: I hear the shaky The chestnut voice of the poet on a record tree in the in an apartment, evening, lightless sinister hallways narrow courtyard, and without voices, maybe 60 names on the nameplate in the entryway still-standing by the glass door, locked early, elevators, the stairwell light out, a red glowing light switch at the end of the hall, the calendar and then in the midst of the lifelessness picture television film sounds behind a door on a as I walk along there / the voice of the office wall, poet stuttering in on a Sunday morning, and sun now, after the hallways, in this blinds, West German apartment years later suddenly again)
Prone Venus and Coca Cola 1974, verbs in a continuous chronology, “this Coca Cola of the entire world”
why do you want to speak nicely?
“Must we be idiots and dream in the partial obscurities of a dubious mood in order to be poets?“ (W.C.W.)
Burned out in a beautiful September light, the personal economy: a total disaster,
is the economy a personal feeling? Contradictions because I speak, contradictions because I think
about it: notes in the newspaper margin, being torn to shreds. The few friends scattered about the suburbs, the new friends strewn singly across the country-
side. Different voices, different biographies,
deviations, “good so.”
Discussion: Where everything is forced to connect…
What did you feel as you touched the naked body with your lips, what did you
feel in the middle of the trashed
landscape, word-gods, side-street-sex, under the arranged machines? Let me remember, you say, let me remember, leave me
alone, you say, leave me, gentle face
in a soft September light, like now: answer softly
answer, “in the midst of the daily plundering, or?”
Like the faces in the open afternoon-windows don’t answer. There is a sheet-metal field, dented,
“valse d’autumn” or how such a feeling is called,
not the clarity of looking out a D-Train window, gentle, gentle rhythm here now,
let me, let me remember, you say. Small train stations appear and remain behind,
meaningless structures, : remain behind? meaningless stops : meaningless?
yellow-red fire in a scrap yard,
gentle, gentle woods, last remains of forests in which the thin morning fog still hangs, traces of dampness, not
bent over, small peaceful ponds, forgotten
at the edge of an estate (:“we’re coming back,” in that house, we’re coming home, home?) for the eyes a fugitive rest, from the train window
looking out, the long, slow
even view across this country. There is a hunkered-down green, fantastic green, which passes by, and a child’s hand stretched out the train
window.
Why sadness? All: you gentle
faces in the afternoon light (no faces : you gentle faces between for the coins) the billboards, you gentle
faces in the window frames,
you gentle faces in the September light, you gentle faces of West Germany, tired and sad, you gentle faces, hungry for cunt, cock, tits, hungry for an exotic everyday
life, hungry for a kiss, hungry to feel your own kiss between the walls,
hungry between the advertisements, hungry between the classified ads, hungry between the pictures,
the advertising sales department closes at nine in the evening the movie theaters are darkened, to show a
little more life, the box offices close a quarter-hour after the main feature begins,
the television station broadcasts until shortly after midnight, hungry in the narrow
gardens, hungry for a gentle embrace,
what do you give your selves? What kind of a horror is that, when one stops in the middle of the street, standing among the passers-by,
& each for everyone a passer-by.

Hi everyone! Storyteller here along with Shinobu_Sunshine, the creator of Kaori! Since there has been quite the interest in Kaori in her story, we collaborated together to create the full Kaori lore for those who want to read it. In fact, because she has been so beloved by the community we are currently working on a mod that adds her to the actual game! Until then, we'd like to ask that people don't come up with new lore/mods, but we love seeing new fanart and discussions! Without further ado, here is Kaori's Lore!
Kaori
Personality: A playful but polite extrovert. Super talkative. Dramatic sometimes.
Tropes: Himedere, popular girl
Struggle: She is a bit of an attention seeker. She doesn’t know when to stop talking. Has a big fear of abandonment. She is Bipolar. Her medication keeps her stable although she has to take a ton of pills a day. She hides her condition from her friends so they don't level her as a weirdo
Book interests: Renaissance poetry, medieval Fantasy and Romance
Act 2 changes: Her poems start to talk about how she desperately waits for a prince to come and save her from her own head. Starts to get jealous of the other dokis for spending time with MC. She actually starts to think she is entitled to MC and she actually starts to think she is a princess an MC her prince.
Death: Monika makes her stop taking her meds so she has a psychotic episode (psychosis) which leads her into jumping from the school rooftop. If MC accepts her confession she would jump just to prove she would die for him and tell MC to jump with her so they would both reunite in heaven (Romeo and Juliet reference) but Monika interrupts before MC decides to jump or not. If MC doesn't accept her confession she would jump because she would think that there wouldn't be any other prince in her story if MC isn't hers and deserves to die without a happy ending.
Side Stories (Bravery): Monika invites Kaori to the literature club after discovering Kaori's interest for poetry. It's hard for Kaori to get along with the dokis since Yuri gets overwhelmed talking to Kaori, Natsuki thinks Kaori is way too self-centered and Sayori finds it hard to understand why Kaori is so dramatic sometimes. Kaori gets into an argument with Natsuki and Yuri so she decides to leave the club for a while. Sayori would eventually find Kaori in the bathroom taking a whole lot of medication pills. Sayori immediately understands Kaori's situation and after talking for a while, Sayori notices Kaori is taking the wrong medication so Sayori tells her she should get better professional help (people with bipolar disorder sometimes share some of the same medication with people who suffer from depression so that’s why Sayori would know). Kaori finds out about Sayori's struggle and starts to learn how to properly take care of herself, encouraging Sayori to do the same. The other dokis would eventually find out about Kaori's struggle when she comes back to the club and starts to act more stable and she is comfortable enough to tell them that Sayori has been helping her for a while and the results have started to show. The other Dokis forgive Kaori and praise her for being strong enough to seek help and are impressed by how much she had changed for the better. At the end of this side story Kaori reveals the poem she had been working on. A poem called The Princess who Saved Herself which talks about how she will fight against her condition because that is something that a real princess would do.
Inspired by Kaori's poem and the song "The Princess who saved herself" I imagined that the Literature club was tasked to do some sort of stage play with poetry for the kids in kindergarten so in the side story called "Teamwork" Kaori and Monika would try to make a song together despite some disagreements. Then in the side story called "Confidence" Kaori and Yuri get together to do some preparations for the stage play like a cardboard castle for the background or something and by doing that they kinda start to understand each other a little better so Yuri builds up more confidence to talk to Kaori like a friend and not like just another classmate, also Kaori learns to shut up a bit a let other people talk. Finally on the last side story "encouragement" Natsuki refuses to take up the princess role on the stage play but didn't like the fact that Kaori was going to have the princess role and the singing narrator role at the same time, leaving Natsuki without a role in the stage play at all. All the dokis respect Natsuki's decision but Kaori knows there's something going on so after some deep talk with her. Natsuki Finally accepts to have the princess role and the stage play ends up being a total success.
A note from Shinobu_Sunshine:
Kaori is basically a representation of me although I do think I have to clarify that I don't suffer from Bipolar disorder or any disorder or condition at all. But I do have close people in my life that I personally take care of who suffer from bipolar disorder and depression. This disorder isn't just about rapidly changing moods all the time, if anything, that's a totally wrong misconception. Bipolar disorder is way more than that so I think being able to create a character like Kaori is a good way to bring some awareness and to spread a good message. Not all mentally ill people are just sad or depressed. Sometimes the loudest person in the room might be the loneliest one in there. Some people do suffer alone and refuse to seek help or to tell someone close if fear of being left out or leveled as crazy. Medication DOES work and it doesn't matter how many pills you take or how many times a week you go to the therapist. Mental health is just as important as your physical health and having the courage to step up for yourself and seek help is something to be praised at, not to be ashamed of.
I think that my favorite part of the DDLC community and DDLC as a whole is the amount of effort everyone puts into spreading awareness of mental health and encourage each other to seek help or straight up help each other directly. I'm sure DDLC and its community have saved a lot of people (I'm definitely one of them) and even when some us didn't make it, we were, we are and we will still be here to remember them. We all matter and we should let ourselves know that more often.
Here is an album of Shinobu_Sunshine 's art done for Kaori for those who want to see! https://imgur.com/a/hUBYRfx

TW-Suicide Hi! I'm trying to remember the name of a poem I read in high school. I only have vague recollections of what it was about— think it was divided into three or four sections that followed similar patterns, each was about a different yeaschool grade of a kid growing up. It starts out happy-perhaps in Kindergarten or another young grade-and ends quite dark, perhaps with the child committing suicide or contemplating it. I think there are lines about the child's relationship with his parents, maybe grades he earns in school, etc. Anyone have any ideas? Thank you!

Extremely long. Soz (One mention of discussing self harm)
Yeah I know, the title isn't great but a lot of my confusion is whether I deserved what came of the interaction.
A little background first: we met in sixth grade and I was one of the few kids that talked to her because there were a lot of existing friendships from years prior. She was always kind of extra, emotional, etc. She was very quick to cry or yell and that made me feel bad for her because I saw myself in her especially with my growing understanding of my own mental health. Once I started being friends with her though, she started to push herself into a lot of situations especially between me and my really close friend whom I had know since kindergarten. I cut her a lot of slack early on and i think that's part of why I was quicker to snap later on like in the primary event. Also, the close friend was my girlfriend during the whole event and was also the only reason the friend and I kept talking and interacting. She was kind of weird with my gf though, writing love poems to her, condemning gay people (she is ultra religious but that's a different story) and then literally telling me she had a crush on my girlfriend. She was also often trying to be very physically close with my gf, it made me pretty uncomfortable but they were close so I always let it slide.
Also, I'm not using mental illness as an excuse, just know there was/is a lot of that with the both of us.
The event the title refers to happened at the very end of our freshmen year, we were both 14ish. We had just gotten back from a band trip where we hadn't really interacted because we were in different groups. On the bus back someone had slapped me pretty hard for stupid and unrelated reasons but it contributed to the circumstances heavily. I essentially told the friend that I could, guaranteed, make her angry enough to slap me (ik, stupid) and I don't remember how she reacted to this assertion but I was off. The main gist was that I had befriended her purely out of pity and some other stuff in that vein. I prefaced and bookended my claims by saying that it was part of the "i can make you angry" claim and not my true beliefs and honestly nothing seemed to come of it. Then about a week later we were sitting in English texting about what had happened and she yelled at me, in the dead quiet room. After that she started crying and her and the teacher went outside. I was a dick and never really apologized for anything but I was worried. We didn't really talk over the summer until band camp and everything seemed to be relatively calmed down. The next major event was during a football game that we were playing with band at, probably October ish. Once again, she brought up the event out of nowhere, we were talking about like how many apples it would take to measure some big thing and then a few minutes later she's screaming at me. I screamed back and because she cried and I ended up yelling at a drum major (big no-no), I was the one who got in trouble. The next day she told our director it wasn't my fault but I don't know if he really believed her because I'm tall and brash and angry. By December, (this was all the same year) we had our final shouting match where she got mad at me for, iirc, talking about my own self harm. More specifically she said I was glorifying, which I try to make a point not to do but I can't control her perceptions. Later that day she texted me and said she didn't want to be friends anymore and i essentially said "no shit".
Since then, she has tried to make mutual friends choose sides and I can tell she's never gotten over it. I know I'm a dick but did I deserve all of this? I do and always have genuinely worried about her and I feel like I tried to be supportive when she didn't really have other friends.

Sometimes I sit quietly,
Listening to the sound of falling leaves.
Peaceful indeed is the life of a monk,
Cut off from all worldly matters.
Then why do I shed these tears?
I’m so aware
That it’s all unreal:
One by one, the things
Of this world pass on.
But why do I still grieve?

•
(My comments below were written a year ago and I was going to remove them but it was just another reminder of how much has changed even more so since last year! Life is so swift)
My mum had to put our family dog to sleep on Wednesday evening, she was 15 and her name was Abby. Abby was an all black Border Collie/German Shepherd. Those 15 years passed so quick, like a flash and in all honesty I didn’t appreciate those years, I took them for granted, ignorant to the fact that death can come at any moment. I managed to see her a couple of hours before she was taken to the vets and we had a nice moment where I just sat beside her stroking her face while she lay down, not really thinking much, just being there with her. She had a great life.
I look at my children now, 3YO son and 9 month old daughter, it’s just going so so fast, my sons started school nursery/kindergarten, he’s wearing his little school uniform, this makes my wife cry which I couldn’t understand before, but I get it now, he’s no longer that dependent little ball of innocent energy like he was before, he wants to go to school and play with his friends, doesn’t give us a second thought lol. He still creates chaos at home, he’s like a tsunami, when ever we come down stairs after his bath, story and bed were faced with toys and mess all over the place. He likes painting and gets it everywhere and it’s a pain to clean up but we know a day will come when this will end, he’ll no longer express himself like this and we’ll probably miss this mess 😂
My daughter is trying to crawl, this is another monumental goal that’s both amazing and also hard hitting as she no longer needs holding and carrying round like a baby monkey stuck to our hips anymore.
We have an orchid in our kitchen that looks dead and lifeless most of the time, then just blooms a lovely purple flower. In our garden we have a potted magnolia tree that for years we missed the flowering, every time it bloomed we were on holiday, we just got back to a pile of leaves surrounding it’s stork. We have seen it bloom for the last 4 years, beautiful yellow petals, they don’t last long at all, a week maybe. I should really look up how to look after orchids and maybe repot my magnolia into the ground.
This transient, fleeting and impermanence is life, and I think that is exactly why we prefer real flowers more than synthetic ones, why we love our family, friends, pets and animals. Enjoy and appreciate every moment because it won’t last forever.
Sorry it’s a long one, didn’t expect to have this much to say. (End)
Well, this has changed so much since this was first posted. My daughter is now running around and creating chaos, my son has started swimming lessons and physically changed so much this last year. Some things haven’t changed… my orchid is still leafless and my daughter still clings like a little monkey 🙉.
•
All these Poems are taken from Dewdrops on a Lotus Leaf translated by John Stevens.
Daily Ryōkan Poem #62

Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. The colours of the rainbow. There’s songs, poems, shows, and so many other things that were created to teach these colours.
I chose the worst possible way. It was late on a Monday night, and I had forgotten to make lesson plans for that week. I usually don’t forget, I care about my students a lot.
I just finished teaching them the alphabet. It was a hard unit, but definitely necessary. As a kindergarten teacher, most people rely on my ability to teach kids the foundation for their future education. It’s quite stressful, but very rewarding.
Colours was a unit my kids were excited for, so I was saving some fun activities for this week. I remember checking my alarm clock and realizing it was much too late for me to be able to write a coherent lesson.
And that’s where YouTube comes in. YouTube has always been a godsend, something I never realized was as heavenly as it was until I got my teaching license.
I didn’t have to teach if my kids had videos that taught them. So I started looking for videos on ROYGBIV, and I found the perfect video.
At least it was perfect to my sleep muddled mind. I watched it, the melody of the video’s soundtrack was catchy. Easy to remember.
It was what was needed for class. I saved it, feeling a sense of pride wash over me. It hadn’t taken me too long to search. I’m a perfectionist when it comes to videos.
It was a cartoon character, singing about the colours and giving photo examples. Sure, its smile was a bit too wide and its limbs a bit too long, but I knew the kids would love it. Adults? Not so much. But in the brain of twenty 5 to 6 year olds? It was the greatest thing.
With the pride of a job well done (well, at least one someone else did and I found), I closed my computer and drifted into sleep.
I remember waking up exhausted. My friends (who had much bigger paychecks than me) would have told me it’s because I “didn’t reach R.E.M.”
I didn’t spare a second thought about it, I just headed to work. No need to worry about things that already happened.
With a coffee in my hands and a bagel in my stomach, I soon felt much better. Funny how that works. I gathered materials and set them up on each students’ desk.
They were all particularly chatty today, telling me about the weekends’ events while walking in. Izzy got to pet puppies, Zander got his pants eaten by a goat, Lilly watched Finding Nemo for the 120th time.
Alex told me about a tycoon on Roblox that he played with his older cousin, Tatiana ate mac and cheese for breakfast, so on and so forth. I heard a lot of stories.
We had our opening lesson after the morning’s announcements. I found out that the majority preferred chocolate ice cream over vanilla as a sweet treat after our bell ringer.
It’s always good to give students a way to healthily debate and learn how to respect others’ opinions. Using questions like that was a great way to open their minds and an even better way to get their attention.
I gave them a very short lesson on colours before pulling up the video. Their eyes were glued to the screen by the moment I shared the video on our smart board.
You see, if I pull up a video on my computer, I can screen share it to the smart board so I can control the screen but the kids can easily see.
I was very pleased when they giggled at the sight of the cartoon, laughing at the jokes and puns. I glanced down at my computer and saw the character staring blankly at the screen.
That was a shock. The music was still playing and it was perfectly fine on the smart board, but it wasn’t on my screen. I tilted it so the kids couldn’t see mine, not wanting to scare them.
It was almost still, besides its chest moving as it “breathed”, a lot more lifelike than I was comfortable with. Was the smile that wide last night? Its eyes were hollow and crinkled up from the stretch of the grin.
It was humanoid but in the worst way possible, it was… wrong. Only slightly off. Not enough for it to be a huge deal, but enough to be noticed.
The kids clapped as the song ended and I startled. I forgot it was still going on. I shut my computer quickly, the smart board clicking off and fading to black as I took away its content.
The rest of the day was normal. Nothing wrong. Yet that thing’s face didn’t leave my mind and my heartbeat didn’t slow. Not for a second. During the kids’ lunch break, I pulled it up again.
After scrolling through other experiences shared on this community page, I realize how bad of a decision that was. But I did it. I wish I didn’t.
And the video was normal. The colours seemed a bit brighter and more intense, but its arms were normal and its smile wasn’t stretched out grotesquely.
It took way too long for me to realize that it wasn’t just the video that was put in a wash of high resolution colour. Everything else was too.
My head started to pound from the bright colours being reflected. It was too much. I never realized how muted our world was until I saw it clearly.
I wish I could take back my decision. It kept getting brighter and the colour seemed to be pressed directly into my eyes. Like needles with coloured ink being tattooed into skin.
Dizziness took over as my head pounded with the beat of my heart, a tempo that was speeding up. I called into the office and said I didn’t feel well. I needed to go home. The office was worriedly fussing over me, but I didn’t have the capacity to reassure the sweet woman who worked there.
They called in a sub and I left. Just stepping outside hurt. The colours were even brighter, digging into my skull and tearing into my retinas.
I will admit, I let out a string of words that are unbecoming of an educator but it just hurt so badly. I hated my past self for buying a red car at that moment.
The engine’s rumbling was music to my ears, something familiar. I sped home, ignoring almost all speed limits and road signals. It was so hard to drive with the tears streaming down my face. It hurt too much. I’ve never been honked at more than that day.
My house has been in the dark for a few days now. It helps. But it hasn’t gone down. I tried to turn the lights on yesterday. I bit down on my tongue so harshly to hide a scream that I assume would be blood curdling that I bit off the tip. I can still taste it.
Blood that should have been dark red, almost black was awful. Dark colours should have helped. But instead, something made the colours brighter.
The pink of my flesh was almost white. The prickle of needles I described earlier in this post had changed. It was like being branded now. Branded with pink.
It’s gotten to the point that I don’t just see them; I feel them. Sounds have colours. Feelings have colours. Everything does.
The keys of the computer I’m typing on is blue. The sound is green. The cold metal of the gun at my side is yellow. The bullets feel like purple.
I predict that the sound of my brains splattering against the ceiling will be orange. I think the sound of my heart giving in will be violet.
A fitting end. ROYGBIV ends in violet. And so will I.
I’m telling you this so you can be careful. And please, if there’s anyone who knows this video; try to take it down. It does more harm than good.
I don’t need advice; it’s the end for me. I just want to know that I did something to prevent others from having the same end I will experience.
I hope that creature gets destroyed by the very colours it teaches. Please be safe. And watch for colours. The white of my screen is too much already.

Imagine classrooms bathed in sunshine, lessons whispered by the wind, and knowledge unearthed from the living soil. This isn’t some idyllic daydream; it’s the essence of an outdoor-focused curriculum, and it’s within reach for every school. But how do we transform traditional education into an adventure that takes place under the open sky? Let’s explore the exciting possibilities!
Step 1: Laying the Foundation – Finding Your “Why”
Before building our outdoor learning haven, we need a sturdy foundation. Ask yourself:

• Why outdoor learning? Define your goals. Is it to boost engagement, deepen understanding of the natural world, or foster a connection to the local environment? Or Maybe all of the above?!
• What are your resources? Assess your school grounds, nearby parks, and community partnerships that can offer outdoor learning opportunities.
• How will it integrate with existing curriculum? Look for ways to weave outdoor activities into core subjects like science, math, language arts, and even history. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself. One outdoor lesson a week is a great start! We have a whole treasure trove of curriculum-linked activities to help you on your way.

Step 2: Building the Framework – Designing Engaging Activities
With your “why” in place, it’s time to get creative! Here are some ideas to spark your imagination:

• Science in the wild: Conduct plant and animal surveys, study weather patterns, or build rain gauges and measure precipitation.
• Math under the sun: Estimate tree heights, calculate the area of a pond, or create scavenger hunts that involve problem-solving.
• History comes alive: Reenact historical events outdoors, visit local landmarks, or research the history of your school grounds.
• Storytelling in the breeze: Write poems inspired by nature, create collaborative stories based on outdoor exploration, or perform plays under the clouds.

Step 3: Removing the Roadblocks – Overcoming Challenges
Transitioning to outdoor learning isn’t without its hurdles. Here’s how to tackle some common concerns:

• Logistics and safety: Develop clear procedures for bathroom breaks, sun protection, and emergency situations. Partner with parents and volunteers for supervision.
• Curriculum alignment: Don’t force-fit! Look for natural connections between outdoor activities and learning objectives. Remember, hands-on experiences can often deepen understanding better than textbooks.
• Weather worries: Embrace all seasons! Rain can be an opportunity for puddle-jumping and studying water ecosystems, while sunshine is perfect for nature journaling and solar energy experiments. Although funding can be a hurdle, providing children with all-weather gear can be a great step in helping to incorporate outdoor learning. Many Early Years and Kindergartens already do this.

Step 4: Cultivating a Thriving Ecosystem – Collaboration and Growth
Remember, outdoor learning is a journey, not a destination. Here are some tips for continuous growth:

• Collaborate with colleagues: Share ideas, plan joint outdoor activities, and support each other in overcoming challenges.
• Involve students: Ask for their input on activities and projects. Empower them to take ownership of their learning experiences.
• Connect with the community: Partner with local environmental organizations, parks and recreation departments, and experts in relevant fields. You can often get funding for wet weather gear or other outdoor equipment from local companies.

Opening the Doors to Nature’s Classroom
Developing a curriculum with a focus on outdoor learning is an investment in the future. It’s about nurturing inquisitive minds, fostering a love for the environment, and building resilient, adaptable individuals. So, step outside, breathe in the fresh air, and let the world be your classroom. The possibilities are endless, and the rewards are immeasurable.
Ready to embark on your outdoor learning adventure? Share your ideas, challenges, and successes in the comments below!

Hi, so this is my first post and we are from Germany so this is going to be different. My son 6, is somehow verbal, emotionally pretty well developed and has a lot of different skills. Meaning that he doesn't really communicate the neurotipical way but he can flawlessly write and uses writing to express himself in little poems and and stories. He has perfect pitch can play piano. He is emotionally invested in people meaning he shares laughter with others and even comforts people if they are sad. He is so great and still I am so frustrated right now. Because we had a meeting with his therapist and kindergarten teachers and they advised us to send him to a special school. Now the thing is in Germany Special Schools only offer a "Hauptschulabschluss" which is the lowest of the main educational branches. And I do not necessarily have a problem with that. He could still do the other main branches after that and even go to college. However it's just that in our system it is assumed if a kid can't regulate well and can't just sit at a table quietly doing work for a whole day of school, it isn't smart and it surely can't be gifted. And I just don't think the teachers at a school that rarely get to the point of teaching complex intellectual topics can connect with my son at all. It is so hard keeping up with him. I fear he will completely shut off input from the school pretty quickly if they don't challenge him enough.
I am greatful that my son is doing so well to this point. And I just don't want him to loose the connection to others because they treat him like he's not an equal or like he is some sort of puppy. I hate it when neurodivergent people or people with disabilities get treated like that.

It took me a while to relise that I have dpsd, night owl chronotype, diffrent circadian rythm. I was falling asleep late even as a kid, I was put to recite poems in kindergarten partially because I kept them in mind better than others and partially because until 3 am I had lots of time to rehearse and eventually recompose the poetry. In highschool the waking hour was 6 am and I was falling asleep at 2-3 am, that was rough for my body and mind, but finished well even if probably took a toll. When university started I had more freedom and the loneliness of the nights was filled with clubbing and alcohol and some girls.
Being pressured by my fathegrandmother (totally morning persons) and willing to adapt to norms I started taking all kinds of sleeping pills just to be able to wake up early.
Slowly alcohol became the main sleeping aid, and a friend in the solitude of the nights until it became a severe addiction, but I was already taking levomepromazine 1/2 pill(it was given because it prolongs the sleep and it worked a few times, but now it does not work, it s just an extra addiction), stilnox (even 2-3-4 pills) all in a kind of a race to do the "normal" social things and take care of my small businesses. Finally I gave up alcohol 2 years ago, and everybody(doctors ie) were asking "and your sleep?". It was like you gave up drinking and you are still not one of us? Or they were afraid that I'll return to the habit. Removing the main sleep aid just exacerbated the so called insomnia and I was sleeping from 6 am to 2 pm. But this was not good enough for the morning people.
Now I am taking for sleep the 1/2 levomepromazine that got stuck with me, zopiclone, 1/4 bromazepa(this little piece that I'll get rid), and 1 mitrazepine. All of these before bed at 2-3 am. And still get to sleep at 4-5 am.
So finally I don't get it, maybe if someone could have been wise enough to explain me when I was 20 that this is biochemically my natural sleep pattern and I should have chosen a careebusinesses accordingly, use my night hour to the best and not to involve lots of finally useless chemicals. Maybe naturally would have been better.
Any similar story/experience/understanding/advice?

TW: >! Abuse, Manipulation, Possible Rape/Murder. !<
I’ll try to shorten this as much as possible, but I already know this will still be quite long.
My best friend started talking to a guy online that she met because he was an online friend of her sister’s. She has only know him for a little less than a year now and I think she said that her sister knew him only met him a few months prior. Neither her nor her sister have met this guy in person, so they can only go by how he interacts with them through text/video chat. After some time talking and gaming with this guy, he started being flirty, which she told him made her uncomfortable. He kept doing it and then eventually mentioned that he likes her. She said how she only wants to remain friends since he lives almost at the other end of the U.S. from her. He also has a ton of wants and interests in life that is the complete opposite of hers. For example, he is a Christian, but she’s an atheist. Their political beliefs differ. He lives in a rural area with his parents and works on their farm that he plans to take over, but she only wants to live in a city (preferably the one is already lives in) and isn’t at all interest in farm work, which a partner of his would be required to do according to the life he wants. He wants kids, while she is childfree. He wants dogs, but she dislikes dogs and never wants them due to a traumatic experience in her childhood when she was attacked by a dog and has a scar from it on her face. Also, they wouldn’t be compatible sexually since they are both doms, and he really wants a woman that’s submissive. There’s even more reasons why they’re not compatible, but you get the gist.
Despite all that, he kept saying things like he loves her and making her feel guilty. He eventually said that he can’t just be her friend, and since she was worried that she would lose the only person she games with (me and her aren’t into the same online games), she gave in. So yeah, after a month or so of disrespecting her wishes, he manipulated her into dating him.
Since they are so incompatible, she decided that it would only be a casual relationship that would only last a year or so. One where they could say sweet things to each other mostly since she wasn’t really interested in a sexual relationship, but just the romance aspect (she’s a virgin and didn’t really like anyone that way before). She also figured that they could just have each other’s companionship while he looked for another person to be with long-term. However, he started pressuring her to send him nudes and she eventually did, but fortunately with her face not in them. He wasn’t going to reciprocate, but she eventually got him to, but he made a big deal about it. Also, she found out that he stopped looking for a long-term partner, which defeated the purpose of the arrangement. This made her upset since she didn’t want him getting too attached as they could never work out, yet she still continued to date him.
Then, after a month or so, she realized that she started falling for him (something I knew would happen and warned her against since it would only hurt her). She started thinking that maybe they could meet up one day and they could do some sexual stuff and maybe she could have sex for the first time. He even encouraged that thinking. But then one day he mentioned that he can only have sex after marriage, which crushed her. Despite this, he still keeps talking to her sexually and gets her hopes up that maybe he might do so anyway, but then that would complicate things since he’s a virgin too and only wants to be with one person. But again, they are incredibly incompatible, so it will not work.
Besides all that, he used to send her poems he wrote for her and treated her nicely, but then he started insulting her. He said that he wants a relationship were he and his partner can call each other names and curse at each other, but it would all be a joke, but she said that she doesn’t want a relationship like that. She only wants a relationship where her partner tells her nice, loving things. He said he wouldn’t call her names anymore, and stopped for a few days, but did it again. She told him that it hurt her and again he promised not to do it, but yet again he went right back to it. He would also keep mentioning how he likes a woman to have certain features that she doesn’t have (hair color, height, boob size, etc.) and would send her pictures of girls he knows that he’s into that have those features, which just hurt her and made her insecure. Then, there was a time that she mentioned that after a lot of dieting and exercising, she finally reached her goal weight and she was really happy, but he said that she’s too skinny and he doesn’t like skinny girls, so that ruined the mood. She was happy right before that and then he messed up her whole day. There was another time when she mentioned that she has some white spots on her teeth from the extra fluoride in the water where she’s at and he started saying for her to not tell him that as he has a thing about teeth, so now she feels self-conscious about that. Basically, he’s made her feel like if they meet in person, he won’t like anything about her body. Apart from making her feel insecure, he kept sending her pictures of dogs and saying that he’ll make her like them. Another time, he told her that he was surprised that she was an atheist since “atheists don’t have moral compasses”. He then asked why she was an atheist and when she started explaining, he got mad and didn’t want her to talk about it anymore. Another scummy thing he started did was mention that he thought it’d be hot if her and her sister had a threesome with him. She told him to not say that, but he would keep bringing it up over the course of some time. When she finally had enough, he said that he was just testing her and didn’t actually mean it.
Before it got to that point with the insulting and whatnot, they had been planning to meet one day soon, but then he told her that he doesn’t have the money now and doesn’t think they can meet until at least a year or so. The sudden change in personally mixed with the fact that she might not see him for so long made her upset and she called me crying for hours about it. She said how she doesn’t want to wait that long since she feels like he might make excuses and keep putting it off. That this is only supposed to be a temporary thing, etc, etc.
A week or so later, she said that she thinks she’s going to break up with him and it doesn’t hurt so much anymore (she basically accepted it at that point). She called him after we talked and after she told him that she would break up with him if he didn’t change, he then said that he needs some time to gather his thoughts. The next day or maybe the day after, he talks to her and says that he purposely tried hurting her in order to push her away and have her break up with him because he knows it won’t work out, but then he said that he doesn’t want her out of his life so he’ll be better. He probably said more, but he basically got her to stay with him….
I should also point out that she has very bad anxiety, is in her late 20s, and this is the first guy that has been interested in her in that way from what she has told me. Even though she knows that it’ll literally never work out unless one of them compromises so much that they will eventually resent the other, she feels as though she will never find anyone else and is settling. She’s still adamant that it’s only temporary, both of them are, but at this point they’re saying one thing, yet it’s as if they’re fighting to be with each other anyway. Since she’s an adult, I know I can’t do anything to change her mind. I’ve given her plenty of advice when she asked, and I’ve pointed out all the red flags from the moment she first told me about him. Literally, after just one conversation where she explained her interactions with him, I already knew that it wasn’t good to be friends with him let alone date him.
Now to the worst part and why this is the final straw that convinced me to post this……
She just informed me that she’s really nervous, because he all of a sudden has the money now for them to meet up, and she’s going through with it. Despite being so far away from each other, he can’t go to her and she apparently can’t stay at his place since his parents won’t allow it due to it being against their religious beliefs (they don’t want them having premarital sex). When I say that he can’t go to her, it’s because he never wants to travel by plane since he’s afraid, so she’ll have to (By the way, that’s another incompatibility as she really wants to visits other countries one day). Therefore, she’ll have to travel about 8 hours on a plane to get to the state he would meet her at (he’ll be driving there). Also, part of me wonders if he really is afraid of planes or is just using that as an excuse to get her to go to him and be at his mercy, but I have no proof.
So now first issue: She’s going to be traveling thousands of miles away from everyone she knows to meet someone for the first time that she hardly knows. Second issue: He decided that he wants to get an AirBnb with her for a secluded cabin in the woods that’s a 24min drive away from town (so yeah, quite a long way from the police or a hospital if something were to go wrong). Third issue: There won’t be cell service, just WiFi that hopefully works properly. Fourth issue: Only he will have a car, and she doesn’t have her license anyway, so he’s the only one with a way to get to the town. Fifth issue: The cabin doesn’t have locks for the bedrooms and bathrooms.
After she told me this, I brought up how dangerous this all is. She started seeing reason and was mentioning her doubt to him and he got really upset. He said something like “I give you my word that I won’t hurt you, and a man is nothing without his word”….Sure, so is that supposed to magically make you incapable of lying and actually hurting her? Also, he has already lied to her many times before, but whatever. She then believed him and started feeling shitty that she made him mad and that he might call the whole thing off. He did originally throw a temper tantrum and say that he doesn’t even want to go now since he wants to go to that cabin and doesn’t like that she doesn’t trust him. But then he eventually gave her a link to a hotel in the town and said that they could spend the first 2 nights there getting to know each other. While this should be slightly better since there would be service and people around, she would have to share a room with him and have no privacy.
I mentioned to her that I’m really afraid that he might do something horrible to her, that he may even be a >! trafficker !< going by his actions, and said that she should at least try to do things that would be safer (when they talked previously about meeting up, he only ever made suggestions to secluded places close to his state in a cabin with no cell reception. One of them didn’t have WiFi at all, so this place is technically a compromise). She then said that if she were to meet up with him and get in his car after he picks her up from the airport, then there’s nothing she can really do anyway if he plans to >! traffick !< her. Okay, so I guess that she’s basically saying that she won’t have any safety precautions since it won’t matter anyway?…..
Again, I know I can’t actually stop her since she’s an adult, and I’m also not in a financial position to go to the state she’ll be at in order to be there if she needs help. So now I’m left with 2 options: I can either freak out for the duration of time leading up to the trip, which is only about a month from now, or I can just try to turn my emotions off and not care anymore since she’s honestly being very hard-headed and just plain stupid. I mean, I love her a ton, but she’s really being so incredibly stupid with this whole situation with him.
A part of me is considering ending the friendship just so I can stop caring about her and not be devastated when the inevitable happens. Even if everything works out fine with the trip, he’s a terrible person for her to have in her life, and it’s frustrating to hear all the ways he’s hurting her and she’s just allowing him to stay in her life…But then, another part of me cares about her so much and can’t handle the fact that at the end of the day, ending my friendship with her will do no good. Plus, I can’t just not be there for her. Besides having to deal with his abuse, her family also doesn’t treat her right. She still lives with her parents and is dependent on them due to years of abuse where they made her believe that she can’t live on her own. Though, I won’t go into that, because that would be an even longer story than this one to explain. The point is, I’m the only genuine friend she has. I’m the only one that has been there for her, always encourages her to pursue her dreams, always listens to her troubles and offers advice when asked. I’m the only one she can count on, and she herself has even said so. So, I can’t actually end the friendship. That would just be wrong.
So now I ask, how do you cope with the fact that someone you’ve known for over 2 decades, since the first day of kindergarten, may be hurt very badly, and there’s nothing you can do? You’ve done all you could by giving all the advice you can offer. You know that best case scenario, he’s going to hurt her verbally and emotionally given his past interactions with her, and at worst she may be >! raped !< and/or >! murdered. !<
(If this is not the subreddit to post this at, please let me know where it’s allowed).

TW: >! Abuse, Manipulation, Possible Rape/Murder. !< I’ll try to shorten this as much as possible, but I already know this will still be quite long. My best friend started talking to a guy online that she met because he was an online friend of her sister’s. She has only know him for a little less than a year now and I think she said that her sister knew him only met him a few months prior. Neither her nor her sister have met this guy in person, so they can only go by how he interacts with them through text/video chat. After some time talking and gaming with this guy, he started being flirty, which she told him made her uncomfortable. He kept doing it and then eventually mentioned that he likes her. She said how she only wants to remain friends since he lives almost at the other end of the U.S. from her. He also has a ton of wants and interests in life that is the complete opposite of hers. For example, he is a Christian, but she’s an atheist. Their political beliefs differ. He lives in a rural area with his parents and works on their farm that he plans to take over, but she only wants to live in a city (preferably the one is already lives in) and isn’t at all interest in farm work, which a partner of his would be required to do according to the life he wants. He wants kids, while she is childfree. He wants dogs, but she dislikes dogs and never wants them due to a traumatic experience in her childhood when she was attacked by a dog and has a scar from it on her face. Also, they wouldn’t be compatible sexually since they are both doms, and he really wants a woman that’s submissive. There’s even more reasons why they’re not compatible, but you get the gist. Despite all that, he kept saying things like he loves her and making her feel guilty. He eventually said that he can’t just be her friend, and since she was worried that she would lose the only person she games with (me and her aren’t into the same online games), she gave in. So yeah, after a month or so of disrespecting her wishes, he manipulated her into dating him. Since they are so incompatible, she decided that it would only be a casual relationship that would only last a year or so. One where they could say sweet things to each other mostly since she wasn’t really interested in a sexual relationship, but just the romance aspect (she’s a virgin and didn’t really like anyone that way before). She also figured that they could just have each other’s companionship while he looked for another person to be with long-term. However, he started pressuring her to send him nudes and she eventually did, but fortunately with her face not in them. He wasn’t going to reciprocate, but she eventually got him to, but he made a big deal about it. Also, she found out that he stopped looking for a long-term partner, which defeated the purpose of the arrangement. This made her upset since she didn’t want him getting too attached as they could never work out, yet she still continued to date him. Then, after a month or so, she realized that she started falling for him (something I knew would happen and warned her against since it would only hurt her). She started thinking that maybe they could meet up one day and they could do some sexual stuff and maybe she could have sex for the first time. He even encouraged that thinking. But then one day he mentioned that he can only have sex after marriage, which crushed her. Despite this, he still keeps talking to her sexually and gets her hopes up that maybe he might do so anyway, but then that would complicate things since he’s a virgin too and only wants to be with one person. But again, they are incredibly incompatible, so it will not work. Besides all that, he used to send her poems he wrote for her and treated her nicely, but then he started insulting her. He said that he wants a relationship were he and his partner can call each other names and curse at each other, but it would all be a joke, but she said that she doesn’t want a relationship like that. She only wants a relationship where her partner tells her nice, loving things. He said he wouldn’t call her names anymore, and stopped for a few days, but did it again. She told him that it hurt her and again he promised not to do it, but yet again he went right back to it. He would also keep mentioning how he likes a woman to have certain features that she doesn’t have (hair color, height, boob size, etc.) and would send her pictures of girls he knows that he’s into that have those features, which just hurt her and made her insecure. Then, there was a time that she mentioned that after a lot of dieting and exercising, she finally reached her goal weight and she was really happy, but he said that she’s too skinny and he doesn’t like skinny girls, so that ruined the mood. She was happy right before that and then he messed up her whole day. There was another time when she mentioned that she has some white spots on her teeth from the extra fluoride in the water where she’s at and he started saying for her to not tell him that as he has a thing about teeth, so now she feels self-conscious about that. Basically, he’s made her feel like if they meet in person, he won’t like anything about her body. Apart from making her feel insecure, he kept sending her pictures of dogs and saying that he’ll make her like them. Another time, he told her that he was surprised that she was an atheist since “atheists don’t have moral compasses”. He then asked why she was an atheist and when she started explaining, he got mad and didn’t want her to talk about it anymore. Another scummy thing he started did was mention that he thought it’d be hot if her and her sister had a threesome with him. She told him to not say that, but he would keep bringing it up over the course of some time. When she finally had enough, he said that he was just testing her and didn’t actually mean it. Before it got to that point with the insulting and whatnot, they had been planning to meet one day soon, but then he told her that he doesn’t have the money now and doesn’t think they can meet until at least a year or so. The sudden change in personally mixed with the fact that she might not see him for so long made her upset and she called me crying for hours about it. She said how she doesn’t want to wait that long since she feels like he might make excuses and keep putting it off. That this is only supposed to be a temporary thing, etc, etc. A week or so later, she said that she thinks she’s going to break up with him and it doesn’t hurt so much anymore (she basically accepted it at that point). She called him after we talked and after she told him that she would break up with him if he didn’t change, he then said that he needs some time to gather his thoughts. The next day or maybe the day after, he talks to her and says that he purposely tried hurting her in order to push her away and have her break up with him because he knows it won’t work out, but then he said that he doesn’t want her out of his life so he’ll be better. He probably said more, but he basically got her to stay with him…. I should also point out that she has very bad anxiety, is in her late 20s, and this is the first guy that has been interested in her in that way from what she has told me. Even though she knows that it’ll literally never work out unless one of them compromises so much that they will eventually resent the other, she feels as though she will never find anyone else and is settling. She’s still adamant that it’s only temporary, both of them are, but at this point they’re saying one thing, yet it’s as if they’re fighting to be with each other anyway. Since she’s an adult, I know I can’t do anything to change her mind. I’ve given her plenty of advice when she asked, and I’ve pointed out all the red flags from the moment she first told me about him. Literally, after just one conversation where she explained her interactions with him, I already knew that it wasn’t good to be friends with him let alone date him. Now to the worst part and why this is the final straw that convinced me to post this…… She just informed me that she’s really nervous, because he all of a sudden has the money now for them to meet up, and she’s going through with it. Despite being so far away from each other, he can’t go to her and she apparently can’t stay at his place since his parents won’t allow it due to it being against their religious beliefs (they don’t want them having premarital sex). When I say that he can’t go to her, it’s because he never wants to travel by plane since he’s afraid, so she’ll have to (By the way, that’s another incompatibility as she really wants to visits other countries one day). Therefore, she’ll have to travel about 8 hours on a plane to get to the state he would meet her at (he’ll be driving there). Also, part of me wonders if he really is afraid of planes or is just using that as an excuse to get her to go to him and be at his mercy, but I have no proof. So now first issue: She’s going to be traveling thousands of miles away from everyone she knows to meet someone for the first time that she hardly knows. Second issue: He decided that he wants to get an AirBnb with her for a secluded cabin in the woods that’s a 24min drive away from town (so yeah, quite a long way from the police or a hospital if something were to go wrong). Third issue: There won’t be cell service, just WiFi that hopefully works properly. Fourth issue: Only he will have a car, and she doesn’t have her license anyway, so he’s the only one with a way to get to the town. Fifth issue: The cabin doesn’t have locks for the bedrooms and bathrooms. After she told me this, I brought up how dangerous this all is. She started seeing reason and was mentioning her doubt to him and he got really upset. He said something like “I give you my word that I won’t hurt you, and a man is nothing without his word”….Sure, so is that supposed to magically make you incapable of lying and actually hurting her? Also, he has already lied to her many times before, but whatever. She then believed him and started feeling shitty that she made him mad and that he might call the whole thing off. He did originally throw a temper tantrum and say that he doesn’t even want to go now since he wants to go to that cabin and doesn’t like that she doesn’t trust him. But then he eventually gave her a link to a hotel in the town and said that they could spend the first 2 nights there getting to know each other. While this should be slightly better since there would be service and people around, she would have to share a room with him and have no privacy. I mentioned to her that I’m really afraid that he might do something horrible to her, that he may even be a >! trafficker !< going by his actions, and said that she should at least try to do things that would be safer (when they talked previously about meeting up, he only ever made suggestions to secluded places close to his state in a cabin with no cell reception. One of them didn’t have WiFi at all, so this place is technically a compromise). She then said that if she were to meet up with him and get in his car after he picks her up from the airport, then there’s nothing she can really do anyway if he plans to >! traffick !< her. Okay, so I guess that she’s basically saying that she won’t have any safety precautions since it won’t matter anyway?….. Again, I know I can’t actually stop her since she’s an adult, and I’m also not in a financial position to go to the state she’ll be at in order to be there if she needs help. So now I’m left with 2 options: I can either freak out for the duration of time leading up to the trip, which is only about a month from now, or I can just try to turn my emotions off and not care anymore since she’s honestly being very hard-headed and just plain stupid. I mean, I love her a ton, but she’s really being so incredibly stupid with this whole situation with him. A part of me is considering ending the friendship just so I can stop caring about her and not be devastated when the inevitable happens. Even if everything works out fine with the trip, he’s a terrible person for her to have in her life, and it’s frustrating to hear all the ways he’s hurting her and she’s just allowing him to stay in her life…But then, another part of me cares about her so much and can’t handle the fact that at the end of the day, ending my friendship with her will do no good. Plus, I can’t just not be there for her. Besides having to deal with his abuse, her family also doesn’t treat her right. She still lives with her parents and is dependent on them due to years of abuse where they made her believe that she can’t live on her own. Though, I won’t go into that, because that would be an even longer story than this one to explain. The point is, I’m the only genuine friend she has. I’m the only one that has been there for her, always encourages her to pursue her dreams, always listens to her troubles and offers advice when asked. I’m the only one she can count on, and she herself has even said so. So, I can’t actually end the friendship. That would just be wrong. So now I ask, how do you cope with the fact that someone you’ve known for over 2 decades, since the first day of kindergarten, may be hurt very badly, and there’s nothing you can do? You’ve done all you could by giving all the advice you can offer. You know that best case scenario, he’s going to hurt her verbally and emotionally given his past interactions with her, and at worst she may be >! raped !< and/or >! murdered. !< (If this is not the subreddit to post this at, please let me know where it’s allowed).

TW: >! Abuse, Manipulation, Possible Rape/Murder. !<
I’ll try to shorten this as much as possible, but I already know this will still be quite long.
My best friend started talking to a guy online that she met because he was an online friend of her sister’s. She has only know him for a little less than a year now and I think she said that her sister knew him only met him a few months prior. Neither her nor her sister have met this guy in person, so they can only go by how he interacts with them through text/video chat. After some time talking and gaming with this guy, he started being flirty, which she told him made her uncomfortable. He kept doing it and then eventually mentioned that he likes her. She said how she only wants to remain friends since he lives almost at the other end of the U.S. from her. He also has a ton of wants and interests in life that is the complete opposite of hers. For example, he is a Christian, but she’s an atheist. Their political beliefs differ. He lives in a rural area with his parents and works on their farm that he plans to take over, but she only wants to live in a city (preferably the one is already lives in) and isn’t at all interest in farm work, which a partner of his would be required to do according to the life he wants. He wants kids, while she is childfree. He wants dogs, but she dislikes dogs and never wants them due to a traumatic experience in her childhood when she was attacked by a dog and has a scar from it on her face. Also, they wouldn’t be compatible sexually since they are both doms, and he really wants a woman that’s submissive. There’s even more reasons why they’re not compatible, but you get the gist.
Despite all that, he kept saying things like he loves her and making her feel guilty. He eventually said that he can’t just be her friend, and since she was worried that she would lose the only person she games with (me and her aren’t into the same online games), she gave in. So yeah, after a month or so of disrespecting her wishes, he manipulated her into dating him.
Since they are so incompatible, she decided that it would only be a casual relationship that would only last a year or so. One where they could say sweet things to each other mostly since she wasn’t really interested in a sexual relationship, but just the romance aspect (she’s a virgin and didn’t really like anyone that way before). She also figured that they could just have each other’s companionship while he looked for another person to be with long-term. However, he started pressuring her to send him nudes and she eventually did, but fortunately with her face not in them. He wasn’t going to reciprocate, but she eventually got him to, but he made a big deal about it. Also, she found out that he stopped looking for a long-term partner, which defeated the purpose of the arrangement. This made her upset since she didn’t want him getting too attached as they could never work out, yet she still continued to date him.
Then, after a month or so, she realized that she started falling for him (something I knew would happen and warned her against since it would only hurt her). She started thinking that maybe they could meet up one day and they could do some sexual stuff and maybe she could have sex for the first time. He even encouraged that thinking. But then one day he mentioned that he can only have sex after marriage, which crushed her. Despite this, he still keeps talking to her sexually and gets her hopes up that maybe he might do so anyway, but then that would complicate things since he’s a virgin too and only wants to be with one person. But again, they are incredibly incompatible, so it will not work.
Besides all that, he used to send her poems he wrote for her and treated her nicely, but then he started insulting her. He said that he wants a relationship were he and his partner can call each other names and curse at each other, but it would all be a joke, but she said that she doesn’t want a relationship like that. She only wants a relationship where her partner tells her nice, loving things. He said he wouldn’t call her names anymore, and stopped for a few days, but did it again. She told him that it hurt her and again he promised not to do it, but yet again he went right back to it. He would also keep mentioning how he likes a woman to have certain features that she doesn’t have (hair color, height, boob size, etc.) and would send her pictures of girls he knows that he’s into that have those features, which just hurt her and made her insecure. Then, there was a time that she mentioned that after a lot of dieting and exercising, she finally reached her goal weight and she was really happy, but he said that she’s too skinny and he doesn’t like skinny girls, so that ruined the mood. She was happy right before that and then he messed up her whole day. There was another time when she mentioned that she has some white spots on her teeth from the extra fluoride in the water where she’s at and he started saying for her to not tell him that as he has a thing about teeth, so now she feels self-conscious about that. Basically, he’s made her feel like if they meet in person, he won’t like anything about her body. Apart from making her feel insecure, he kept sending her pictures of dogs and saying that he’ll make her like them. Another time, he told her that he was surprised that she was an atheist since “atheists don’t have moral compasses”. He then asked why she was an atheist and when she started explaining, he got mad and didn’t want her to talk about it anymore. Another scummy thing he started did was mention that he thought it’d be hot if her and her sister had a threesome with him. She told him to not say that, but he would keep bringing it up over the course of some time. When she finally had enough, he said that he was just testing her and didn’t actually mean it.
Before it got to that point with the insulting and whatnot, they had been planning to meet one day soon, but then he told her that he doesn’t have the money now and doesn’t think they can meet until at least a year or so. The sudden change in personally mixed with the fact that she might not see him for so long made her upset and she called me crying for hours about it. She said how she doesn’t want to wait that long since she feels like he might make excuses and keep putting it off. That this is only supposed to be a temporary thing, etc, etc.
A week or so later, she said that she thinks she’s going to break up with him and it doesn’t hurt so much anymore (she basically accepted it at that point). She called him after we talked and after she told him that she would break up with him if he didn’t change, he then said that he needs some time to gather his thoughts. The next day or maybe the day after, he talks to her and says that he purposely tried hurting her in order to push her away and have her break up with him because he knows it won’t work out, but then he said that he doesn’t want her out of his life so he’ll be better. He probably said more, but he basically got her to stay with him….
I should also point out that she has very bad anxiety, is in her late 20s, and this is the first guy that has been interested in her in that way from what she has told me. Even though she knows that it’ll literally never work out unless one of them compromises so much that they will eventually resent the other, she feels as though she will never find anyone else and is settling. She’s still adamant that it’s only temporary, both of them are, but at this point they’re saying one thing, yet it’s as if they’re fighting to be with each other anyway. Since she’s an adult, I know I can’t do anything to change her mind. I’ve given her plenty of advice when she asked, and I’ve pointed out all the red flags from the moment she first told me about him. Literally, after just one conversation where she explained her interactions with him, I already knew that it wasn’t good to be friends with him let alone date him.
Now to the worst part and why this is the final straw that convinced me to post this……
She just informed me that she’s really nervous, because he all of a sudden has the money now for them to meet up, and she’s going through with it. Despite being so far away from each other, he can’t go to her and she apparently can’t stay at his place since his parents won’t allow it due to it being against their religious beliefs (they don’t want them having premarital sex). When I say that he can’t go to her, it’s because he never wants to travel by plane since he’s afraid, so she’ll have to (By the way, that’s another incompatibility as she really wants to visits other countries one day). Therefore, she’ll have to travel about 8 hours on a plane to get to the state he would meet her at (he’ll be driving there). Also, part of me wonders if he really is afraid of planes or is just using that as an excuse to get her to go to him and be at his mercy, but I have no proof.
So now first issue: She’s going to be traveling thousands of miles away from everyone she knows to meet someone for the first time that she hardly knows. Second issue: He decided that he wants to get an AirBnb with her for a secluded cabin in the woods that’s a 24min drive away from town (so yeah, quite a long way from the police or a hospital if something were to go wrong). Third issue: There won’t be cell service, just WiFi that hopefully works properly. Fourth issue: Only he will have a car, and she doesn’t have her license anyway, so he’s the only one with a way to get to the town. Fifth issue: The cabin doesn’t have locks for the bedrooms and bathrooms.
After she told me this, I brought up how dangerous this all is. She started seeing reason and was mentioning her doubt to him and he got really upset. He said something like “I give you my word that I won’t hurt you, and a man is nothing without his word”….Sure, so is that supposed to magically make you incapable of lying and actually hurting her? Also, he has already lied to her many times before, but whatever. She then believed him and started feeling shitty that she made him mad and that he might call the whole thing off. He did originally throw a temper tantrum and say that he doesn’t even want to go now since he wants to go to that cabin and doesn’t like that she doesn’t trust him. But then he eventually gave her a link to a hotel in the town and said that they could spend the first 2 nights there getting to know each other. While this should be slightly better since there would be service and people around, she would have to share a room with him and have no privacy.
I mentioned to her that I’m really afraid that he might do something horrible to her, that he may even be a >! trafficker !< going by his actions, and said that she should at least try to do things that would be safer (when they talked previously about meeting up, he only ever made suggestions to secluded places close to his state in a cabin with no cell reception. One of them didn’t have WiFi at all, so this place is technically a compromise). She then said that if she were to meet up with him and get in his car after he picks her up from the airport, then there’s nothing she can really do anyway if he plans to >! traffick !< her. Okay, so I guess that she’s basically saying that she won’t have any safety precautions since it won’t matter anyway?…..
Again, I know I can’t actually stop her since she’s an adult, and I’m also not in a financial position to go to the state she’ll be at in order to be there if she needs help. So now I’m left with 2 options: I can either freak out for the duration of time leading up to the trip, which is only about a month from now, or I can just try to turn my emotions off and not care anymore since she’s honestly being very hard-headed and just plain stupid. I mean, I love her a ton, but she’s really being so incredibly stupid with this whole situation with him.
A part of me is considering ending the friendship just so I can stop caring about her and not be devastated when the inevitable happens. Even if everything works out fine with the trip, he’s a terrible person for her to have in her life, and it’s frustrating to hear all the ways he’s hurting her and she’s just allowing him to stay in her life…But then, another part of me cares about her so much and can’t handle the fact that at the end of the day, ending my friendship with her will do no good. Plus, I can’t just not be there for her. Besides having to deal with his abuse, her family also doesn’t treat her right. She still lives with her parents and is dependent on them due to years of abuse where they made her believe that she can’t live on her own. Though, I won’t go into that, because that would be an even longer story than this one to explain. The point is, I’m the only genuine friend she has. I’m the only one that has been there for her, always encourages her to pursue her dreams, always listens to her troubles and offers advice when asked. I’m the only one she can count on, and she herself has even said so. So, I can’t actually end the friendship. That would just be wrong.
So now I ask, how do you cope with the fact that someone you’ve known for over 2 decades, since the first day of kindergarten, may be hurt very badly, and there’s nothing you can do? You’ve done all you could by giving all the advice you can offer. You know that best case scenario, he’s going to hurt her verbally and emotionally given his past interactions with her, and at worst she may be >! raped !< and/or >! murdered. !<
​
(If this is not the subreddit to post this at, please let me know where it’s allowed).

Hey friends. I've wondered quite a lot about whether I am autistic, and this sub seems like a good place to ask questions and compare notes. Apologies if I've come to the wrong place. I'd really appreciate any insights or advice the sub might have.
I (35M, cisgender, white) was medically diagnosed with ADHD (Inattentive) for the first time about a year ago. The diagnosis really helped me contextualize a lot of things about my history and personality I did not understand, and I do think it is an accurate diagnosis. However, I also feel like ADHD doesn't explain all of my struggles or all the ways that I feel different, and I really relate to some of the personal experiences of my autistic peers.
Some background: I am happily married and have a relatively successful career practicing law. School was always a breeze, from kindergarten through law school. I was physically and emotionally abused my an older sibling until my early teens, and was bullied at school, both of which I mostly attributed to my being a pretty obviously queer kid in the rural southern U.S. I have a history of anxiety and depression and have been treated for the latter since I was a teenager. I've always had a particular aptitude for spoken and written language--I consider myself an expert communicator, and I pick up on foreign languages with relative ease. I have a similar aptitude for music.
I never considered autism because I never related to what I figured was the "core" diagnostic symptom of autism--the differences in social functioning and communication. I've always felt that I had an excellent talent for understanding other people's perspectives and emotional states. I'm great at making people feel comfortable, and I feel I always have good control over how my word choices and body language would be perceived by a conversation partner. Growing up, I was a "theater kid." I'm comfortable with public speaking (at least in formal/professional settings). I've never had any trouble with abstract or metaphorical speech, and I'm great at understanding and using sarcasm. (I'm not using any sarcasm here, though--this post is intended to be 100% sincere.)
However, I wonder now how much of these qualities of mine are "innate," like they seem to be for neurotypical folks, as opposed to skills I taught myself to fit in and avoid abuse. I know that those who experience abuse often learn to constantly scan their environment and to "read" people's mental state as a defense mechanism to identify potential dangers, and I do see that dynamic play out in other dimensions of my life. I also think I have a few cognitive biases that make it seem like I'm good at reading people, but are really just self-protective (like subconsciously assuming that everyone is always mad at me). I also have
I do relate pretty closely with other common autistic features, though:

• I've always enjoyed memorizing long lists or blocks of text. When I was little, I would try to memorize the longest poems I could find. Today, I still love to memorize and rehearse large blocks of written information. Right now, I could name every sitting U.S. senator and governor, every UN member nation and its capital, and every U.S. city with more than 100,000 people. I can name more than 2,000 U.S. municipalities without any reference material (and will, more often than I care to admit, sit and name cities for an entire 9-hour workday).
• I stim. My knee constantly bounces, pretty forcefully, and it gets worse if I am anxious or if I am trying to focus. (My dad does the same thing.) I also have a stim that veers into light self-harm--I can't stomach the sensation of rough or irregular patches on my skin, and will often pick at myself until I am bleeding and raw. (Most commonly my fingers.) I also have vocal stims--I am constantly singing or humming some kind of melody. Basically, I'm low-key scatting 24/7, unless I mask it.
• I have misophonia and cannot tolerate certain sounds (especially "mouth" or "wet" sounds, like open-mouth chewing or a dog grooming itself). If the sound doesn't stop, I will have to excuse myself. I adore pure silence (almost as much as I adore music) and usually work with noise-canceling headphones.
• I have somewhat restricted interests. Video games are my #1 hobby. Some games, like the original Resident Evil titles, I have played dozens and dozens of times, and watched on Youtube dozens more. I've dumped 1000+ hours in many other titles (looking at you, Dark Souls III). I have extensive knowledge of my favorite franchises and could probably write a damn encyclopedia about some of them. I tend not to mention these interests around people I don't know very well, though my husband tells me I'm pretty good about not giving an unsolicited monologue when the topic does come up.
• I might have meltdowns? It's hard to tell. I know one of my main psychological issues is that I tend to pretty brutally suppress my own emotions, so I don't think I've ever had a "meltdown" the way a lot of people picture it. When I'm emotionally overwhelmed, I'm likelier to completely shut down, go silent, and try to find some place to be alone. I know this tends to happen in highly stimulating contexts (e.g., rock concerts, dance parties). Similarly, I get paralyzed in verbal confrontations and cannot will myself to speak even if I know exactly what I'd want to say.

Any thoughts are welcome.