I am a software engineer (SWE) and I was making a professional networking app for this company.
I was connecting it to their existing Wordpress site via APIs.
They fired me claiming I didn’t know the language I was writing in (boss wasn’t a dev and didn’t know it existed before me), I didn’t know WP APIs (connecting this way isn’t documented well and was my first time so I had trouble but I got it done in the end), and lied in the interview about my skills.
I was there for 2 months. Shitty place. There were other red flags that I chose to ignore.
I feel like I wasted time I could have been using looking for more reliable job while I was working there.
Now I feel hopeless, like I’ll never get a stable job, and pissed off.
My background is: I’ve been programming since I was 13. Started with HTML/CSS + PHP blog and moved to WordPress and then MySQL and now I’ve dabled in react, angular, MSSQL and all the C langs. I’m trying to be well rounded. Professionally, I got my degree in 2013 as an IT Management which didn’t require higher level math or an internship and then never used the degree cause I’m an idiot. (Though I don’t fully regret it because I met my husband)
I was retail until 2022 when I got a 11-month SWE job but they wanted senior and I was fully honest about being JR. fired me. That was last year. Since then I worked for another company that barely paid me enough to live. So I moved from FL to Austin, TX and got another job in December. That one I got in August or September. So only a few months. The one in December laid me off in Feb due to financial issues (supposedly). Said they would hire me back though.
Then I was unemployed for a month and got this last job in March.
So I have a spotty professional career but I have been practicing and learning so much in my free time that I consider myself a senior front end SWE and JR back end SWE or JR full stack SWE.
Been applying for jobs over the last 2 weeks but I know the market is crap.
I’m worried I’ll run out of TX unemployment and then have to get retail jobs which will barely pay me enough to live.
We don’t live extravagant. Husband has celiac disease. We shop at Whole Foods but frequently check prices between HEB and Walmart and target and everywhere else is more expensive for what we get. We stick with chicken and shrimp and salads mostly.
All our expenses are the lowest they can be. We rarely eat out and don’t spend money on things we don’t need. Husband is very frugal and isn’t even getting his hair cut until I have a job. I don’t cut my hair or do my nails or do any of that girly crap. I hate coffee so we don’t spend on that stuff either.
We frequently make sure our bills/expenses are as low as possible.
Yet $50k a year or less after taxes will not sustain us. Husband has Autism so can’t work. Once I get a job he plans to sell coral so he will have some income and he has some disability from the VA but that’s it.
My last job was paying us $100k and we barely saved $1k/mo due to expenses. Again nothing changed between then and now. We spend the same amount.
So now I feel like I’m gonna have to get 2 jobs if I don’t get a job and I’ll never see my husband and I don’t want to live like that.
How do I deal with the disappointment of being fired for a lie and not having a stable job/income ? I feel like I’m drowning.

To craft an effective book description, several strategies can be employed to ensure its appeal and engagement:

1. **Analyze Amazon Nonfiction Book Descriptions:*\* Start by visiting the Amazon Nonfiction books page. Observe and study various book descriptions to identify common formats and approaches. Choose a captivating format that resonates with you and modify it to fit the unique attributes of your book. By mirroring an effective structure, you increase the chances of your book description catching the reader’s attention.
   
2. **Utilize AI Tools for Writing Assistance:*\* Advanced AI tools like ChatGPT can be invaluable in generating compelling book descriptions. By simply inputting the title of your book and requesting a description, the AI can provide a well-written draft in seconds. This not only saves time but also ensures the description is engaging and polished.
   

Once you have thoroughly researched trending news for your book content and compiled your manuscript:

• Paraphrase and edit your manuscript for clarity and coherence.
  
• Design an attractive book cover.
  
• Conduct thorough keyword research to optimize discoverability.
  
• Finalize your book description.
  

With all these elements in place, the next step is to publish your book on Amazon. Following these steps strategically positions you to potentially generate revenue from your publication.

amazon #amazonaffilate #amazonAssociates

Current market cap $70 million
When FFIE reaches:
$100 Million Market Cap: $2.38 per share $200 Million Market Cap: $4.76 per share $500 Million Market Cap: $11.90 per share $1 Billion Market Cap: $23.81 per share $2 Billion Market Cap: $47.62 per share $3 Billion Market Cap: $71.43 per share $4 Billion Market Cap: $95.24 per share $5 Billion Market Cap: $119.05 per share
The GameStop pump this past week had an influx of nearly $10 BILLION in about 4 days. This is not going to pump like GameStop last week, it’s going to pump like GameStop in 2021, slowly grinding up day by day until hedge funds crack, 🚀🌑then everyone and their mothers would have wished to buy this at $2 a share.
If your scared stay on the sidelines and jump in after $10

Nowadays one of the features that I look for most in new gear is it’s portability. I don’t really know why. I don’t travel a whole lot even though I would like to. I don’t take my gear around the house very often, it mainly just sits on my desk in my room. I’ve been feeling uninspired lately though and I keep seeing all over the Internet people who take their portable gear and go out into the forest or something like that and make some music there. They talk about how the change of scenery inspires them. I’ve always wanted to do that and a few days ago I decided to do it. My girlfriend and I went on a short camping trip to the beach, and I brought so much gear with me. It was ridiculous, and I felt ridiculous at the time, but I just didn’t know what I wanted to play with or what I would be inspired by out there. And I was really looking forward to feeling inspired again. I wanted to make sure I had the right thing for when it hit. I was expecting it to be a really great feeling…
It wasn’t. Not only did I not feel inspired, I really hated lugging my equipment onto the beach, I felt like a dweeb playing with electronics on the beach, and it just didn’t feel right. My girlfriend kept telling me to pull something out and make music because I said I wanted to do that, but I continued to hesitate. While I was talking to her, there was a moment when it just hit me that I was at the coast with the person I love and our dogs. Why would I want to throw headphones on and go into my little world. I do that so often already.
I keep thinking that music production is such a prevalent part of my life, and it is, but there are more important things and sometimes I I don’t think about that. Maybe this would’ve been different if I was alone, but my point is, don’t forget to take time and spend it with the people you love and animals you love. Don’t take them for granted.
When we got home from the trip, I unpacked and sat down at my desk and felt refreshed, totally inspired and made an awesome track that I will upload soon. Basically, the trip worked in my favor, I felt inspired just by getting out of the house into nature, and I had a great time with my partner. Does this resonate with anyone else?

I figured I'll make this post in case anyone else has been having trouble with these CPUs.
Built my PC last year and decided to full send it by splurging on an i9-14900K. However I would keep experiencing constant crashes when compiling large programs or trying to run intensive games - complete lockup of my system, full reboot required. I couldn't even compile swww! I would just have to get lucky if something would actually compile. Yes, granted I should've RMA'ed my CPU but at the time there wasn't much information on the instability of these CPUs. Anyways, I eventually just accepted my fate and rolled with the punches.
However, recently it has come to light that many people have had similar issues regarding the stability and Intel themselves addressed it - claiming that mobo manufacturers are pushing the CPU too far. (Quite frankly I don't really care who is actually at fault.) These stability issues have forced mobo manufacturers to implement a "Intel Baseline Profile" to fix this.
Upon updating my bios and enabling this option I can comfortably compile anything with no issues whatsoever and as of writing still have not had any issues. So if you're like me and bashing your head into a wall consider, checking your manufacturer's website for a bios update.
Is this the best solution? I don't know, I'm just happy my PC doesn't crash when doing literally anything CPU intensive.
TL;DR: 13th and 14th gen K-series CPUs are unstable resulting in crashes of high loads, update bios and enable Intel Baseline Profile.
Sources: Falcon Northwest, Intel's Statement

Mickey Zoggs, a pub in heart of St. Pauls and the home of Noods Radio is at risk of being closed down due to the development of flats in the area.
Once again the landlord vultures are attempting to grab any semblance of community in the name of profits. Zoggs (and Noods as a whole) is a centrepiece of the underground music community in Bristol. I personally have made many friends there as well it helping me grow as an artist, like i know it has many others.
They’ve started a fundraiser to put down a deposit on the pub which I’ll link below - please, please consider donating if you care about music, venues, or Bristol grasping on the last bits of soul it has left before EVERYTHING is a flat.
Here is the fund raiser as well as more info as to why this is so important…
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/keep-mickey-zoggs-alive
We’ve lost plenty of music venues and art spaces in the past, let’s not lose another!

I’m at the point in my life where things should be stabilized. I should have a career, I should have at least a girlfriend, I should at least be looking to progress past those stages and milestones.
Yet, I played the game, got the good degree and put forth enormous amounts of effort including moving far away and spending 3 of the best years of my life alone and isolated working my ass off only for my career to collapse out from underneath me not once but twice.
Everyone in my family that works is enormously successful all clearing well above six figures through various means. All my friends, some of whom I’ve known since we were kids are all ridiculously successful. One just paid cash for a $970k house, (I saw the documents in person), and another is currently building a $2.1MM with his $780k salary. Another is an energy trader that made so much money he’s effectively retired and travels the world for fun. I called him last week to see what was going on and he was in the airport on his way to go rock climbing in Chile because he felt like it. One guy is a day trader who I’m pretty sure has around $6MM. Another good buddy just bought a house with his wife and are well on their way to huge wealth. Another just got married to a guy who’s a consultant making obscene money and they are looking for a house to pay cash for.
Then there’s me. I have like $114 to my name and fresh off my 2nd collapsed career back at square one again through no fault of my own. Women won’t talk to me because I am such a loser. I hate seeing these people and hanging out with them now. They’re my oldest and best friends but they are just a reminder of how much of a loser I am. I’m left out of every conversation not because they exclude me but because they are not applicable to me. I just sit there quietly with nothing to add pounding whiskeys or beers because the fuck else am I supposed to do.
Who else is the worthless loser out of everyone they know and just want to not exist anymore because of it. And how do you deal with it.

I (19M) am struggling to do activities with my dad (63M). He has gone completely insane, over politics. I was never into politics, I read the news and that’s it. I am fine with people having different opinions on the matter, or supporting different candidates after all that’s how democracy works, however, my dad is going absolutely insane. It’s almost like he’s living in another world. I am struggling with a lot of stuff myself with really awful thoughts and I can’t hangout with my dad anymore.
He’s not the cool, funny, good man, smart he was in the past, who was there for me, he’s a whole different person with extreme far right wing ideas. He accuses everybody who doesn’t support the right wing ideology to be a communist, and supports the death of every communist. He keeps spreading fake news and is on every right wing politician telegram sharing every shit he knows and always brings politics up when literally anything is happening. He stopped talking to everybody, he basically has no friends anymore because nobody wants to be around him. He stopped talking to his childhood friend who was one of his wedding best men simply because he voted for the left wing candidate.
This has been going on since 2018 afaik, he just wasn’t so radical. He thinks the vaccine is responsible for me having mental health, or health issues, blames everything on the vaccine. He is always being violent and speaking about guns, killing communists, etc. I do not feel safe around a man like this, specially because I do not support the right wing and I tended to lean more towards the left wing candidate the last election. So he thinks I’m a communist. He thinks that a new extreme left wing dictatorship will happen at anytime due to the new world order and that the so called “communists”, will go out there raiding peoples houses and take everybody’s belongings, and he thinks he’s the nationalist hero who can stop it, insanity.
I’ve tried to make him stop, I always say that I don’t want to talk about politics, that I have other problems, that I am struggling with shit and he always finds a way to bring politics in. My parents are divorced and I live with my mom, thank God. I used to visit my dad every week for 2 days and weekends sometimes but now it has turned impossible. A few days ago I sent him a big text saying how I am struggling with my mental health, that I love him, that I don’t want to talk about politics and it took 2 messages for him to bring politics. He told me to ask “x” left candidate politician for financial support, when I didn’t even bring money up nor asked him money in the last months, in fact he’s the one who owes me some money, can pay it, and won’t.
I don’t know what happened to the person he was, it’s like a whole new person is in his body and he shares a different personality with it, he’s addicted to politics, completely obsessed and maniac. I am starting to think this might be due to his age or a mental problem like BPD or multiple personality disorder.
I hate politicians for destroying the person who my dad was. My grandma supports the right wing and it’s really fun to discuss politics with her. We spend like 20 min a week discussing it? It’s really nice to hear her side of ideas with no extremism and no disrespect to me, and when she brings me some news and it’s fake I let her know and she recognizes it’s fake and apologizes, but my dad never recognizes a mistake, he’s a narcissist, he thinks he’s always right, but this has gone off the limits.
Since 2022 I’ve been telling my dad that I don’t like the right wing ideas and that I don’t want to talk about politics with him, there were over 10 attempts and he always forced it down my throat, forcing me to watch right wing propaganda, videos, etc and I am tired of this. He’s retired and spends 70% or more of his day on politics. It really hurts but I see no other way out than cutting him off, it really hurts cause I love the younger version of dad, but the new one is a psycho. I really wish he could be a good person again, or just have boundaries. He always say he’s disappointed with my political. I tried to summarize everything but he’s really radical, I could write 30 more paragraphs about his extremism towards the right wing.
Thanks politics, for ruining my dad. I don’t know what to do? I love the man who he once was, not the man who he is now and I want my dad back.

Dear ___,
I’d like to apologize for what I did wrong. I got upset and so did you, and for that I’m sorry. All I can say is I had good intentions, but what does that change? Absolutely nothing.
For what it’s worth, I hope you’re doing really well and that you’re very happy. I’m still a little hurt, my ego hasn’t yet fully recovered, but you deserve happiness, safety, and comfort, which despite my best attempts, I didn’t manage to provide. I hope you’ve found it and I’m sorry for the discomfort. I’m trying to learn, improve, heal. I don’t feel ready to talk. I just had to get this out since my last message was rather reactionary.
I’m sorry for not being more careful with my words. I’m afraid I played around too much, insinuating things I didn’t intend to, only realizing so in hindsight — almost like I thought you could somehow read my mind and anticipate my bad jokes, somewhat ironic references, which of course, you can’t, especially not when there was depth and truth scattered in there too. I’m sorry for burdening you: it was the last thing I wanted to do. In fact, it’s exactly what I was afraid of. We don’t have to talk though. You don’t owe me conversation. I’m still working through things. Just had to say I’m sorry for having hurt you. At the time, it felt right to express myself and I tried my best, but I was naive in believing it would be appreciated.
ADD, autism, BPD, bipolar, schizotypal, anxiously attached: at one point or another, usually at an ebb, I considered there may be something (or many things) “wrong” with (or rather different about) me. There certainly is. However, it doesn’t mean I’m a bad person. I try my best not to hurt people but sometimes I do. I try to uplift and make amends whenever I spot an opportunity, perhaps too often going out of my way to create one. And so I find myself apologizing to someone who’s hurt me too. Because yeah, what’s good and what’s evil, what’s brave and what’s cowardly, what’s well-intentioned and what’s manipulative, and where exactly is the line between both; even that is subjective.
I’m sorry for that one message being so long. I felt in-equipped to deal with this matter in writing and tried to make it work, but I couldn’t. I didn’t say what I had to nor what I wish I’d said. I can’t express that in writing.
Kind regards, Your annoying fan
I don’t think I’ll ever manage to stay upset at you for long, for I’m too grateful for the impact you’ve had throughout the years. Although there’s still a lot of work to be done, I wouldn’t have grown as much, both intellectually and emotionally, if it weren’t for you. Kind of random, but I’ve come to find out the harsh way that I’m a socialist too. I won’t bore you with the details. It must be weird to have fans huh. Well, you deserve them, but without the hassle. I’m sorry for stealing your time. I’m stupid, so stoopid. But I’m trying. I hope by the time I’m in my thirties, I’m half as wise and accomplished as you. I truly meant no harm and I believe neither did you, but we did hurt each other and I don’t know if there’s a way to recover what once was. I can’t fix this on my own, and it seems you’d rather let it go, and that’s ok. If I may ask you for a favor though, know that I’ll continue to love you from afar, still cherish the moments we shared, and that there’s absolutely no reason to be afraid. If anything, I pray for your safety, health, and wellbeing, and I have for a while.

So my boyfriend and I are on a “break”. He’s 23M I’m 22F. Long story short to get ourselves together, and I would say I’m the main reason for that. I need to get myself together. Throughout the relationship these last few months he would come home super late and say he either fell asleep at his sisters, friends house, or fell asleep in car.
Tonight he comes in at 2am, before he left (2:30pm) to go to the gym he said I’m not gonna play long I’m gonna be home by 8 ish. Time ticks, I lay in bed worrying. He comes in I give him the cold shoulder cause wtf? I turn over n asked why he came so late he says “I got too high and was too tired so I fell asleep” I said where? He told me his car.
Same old bs. If you are SO tired common sense says let me go home and go to sleep. Right? It’s just so obvious at this point like be so fr. I have a feeling about it too. TL-DR : What would you do in this situation? And do u think that’s suspicious?

First/Previous
The travel took on a less gloomy quality in the day that passed since Gemma’s self-reflection and although there remained a queer distance in her eyes, she seemed in better spirits in losing the weight of the words.
It was a night just beyond Wabash Crevasse that we pushed on till sunset was almost upon us and we were each tired and the food stocks ran low and so we found harbor in a half collapsed cellar where a home once stood; it was only after examining the slatted, rotted boards of the old place, fallen over, tired with decay, that we spied the cellar doors intact; sheets of door metal plied us with safety from the outside world and the interior of the place stank of mold and the deeper recesses were collapsed, but there was a cradle to crossbar the stair hatch and I put my prybar there for the night. We finished the water and canned tomatoes, and I smoked a cigarette, staving off the inevitable doom which would come with the dwindling of our supplies.
I’d peeked through the space where the doors met at the cellar’s entry and watched the full darkness there while the youngins spoke of life and the trivial pursuits of it and I hardly said a word besides.
Sitting on the lowest step with Trouble dumbly maintaining her station by me, by the low glow of the space in the threshold, I saw they’d pushed their bedrolls together and Andrew had fallen asleep with his arm over Gemma’s shoulder and her eyes glowed with shine from the crack, blinked a few times while seeing me; she too eventually drifted to sleep, and I spent time by the secured door.
Gunshots rang across the stillness, and they stirred from their quiet slumber and Gemma asked, “Harlan, is it alright?”
I moved to the space there at the doorway again and listened and watched what I could through that crack and nothing beyond came. “It’s safe. I’ll be up a bit longer. I’ll watch.”
Andrew asked, “Can’t sleep?”
“I’ll sleep in a bit. Don’t worry about me. Rest. Sleep good and we can put more behind us.
They sat up, legs crossed triangle-wise, and Gemma spoke again, “Why do you have such a hard time sleeping? It seems I’m asleep after you and only awake after you too.”
“Yeah,” said Andrew.
“It’s cool at night. I can listen to the wind.” I shrugged.
“You should be the one that tries to get some sleep,” said Andrew.
I said nothing.
They reached out their arms and I shook my head.
“Here,” Gemma said, “Move your bedroll closer.” She reached across the dirt floor of the cellar and dragged my splayed roll so that it sat beside hers.
“I’ll sleep later.” I turned my attention back to the door and ignored them till their sounds of sleep could be heard. The Alukah was nowhere and did not tap on the door that night and when I moved to sleep, I shimmied onto the roll beside them, facing away on my shoulder; the dog followed, laid on the bare dirt beside me and I held the mutt.
Though I refused a noise as they stirred in the absolute darkness, I felt Gemma’s arm fall over my own shoulder and felt Andrew’s hand touch my back, and water traced the bridge of my nose and I slept deeply thereafter.
There was no breakfast without food, and the water was gone; I felt the eyes of the dog on us as we packed up our belongings that next morning and I tried not to imagine the poor animal skinned over fire. I smiled at Trouble, patted its head, scratched its chin; she sniffed my hand like she was looking for something that wouldn’t be found.
We went west again, ignoring roads and pushed through straight wasteland where nothing was and no one was, and with every dry footfall on the dry hard ground, I wished for rain, and I wished that when it had rained, as infrequent as it was, that I had been wise enough to save what we could from the sky; that sky was red and swollen and refused to burst. We pushed on through strange dead thickets where grayed and twisty yellow branches lurched from the ground into the sky like even they too wished for an end to all the suffering. It was days more till we would see Alexandria and though I could stave off hunger (thirst too, if necessary), I was not so certain that the children would be able to push on without it; they did not complain and watched the ground in our march and maintained higher spirits than I could’ve imagined from them.
Early in the day, they spoke often, and I listened and as they wore on, their words came less and even the dog seemed in a lower mood for the unsaid predicament; me too.
Gemma broke the silence on the matter by saying, “What are we going to do about food? Water?”
“We’ll push on.”
“We could turn back?” asked Andrew.
“The more time we spend out in the open, outside of a city, the more likely it is that the Alukah will catch us unawares. Tighten your belts.” Our feet took us around a dilapidated truck, an old thing with a rusty hook which dangled off a rear arm. “Save your urine.”
They made faces but did not protest.
“Does that work? You ever drink pee?” asked Andrew.
I laughed, “I thought we’d be there by now. I took us too long by trying to drop the scent of the Alukah. That thing’s hunted us for days—last night was the first time it ain’t bothered us. It’s got me wondering why.”
Gemma piped up, licking her dry lips before speaking, “Do you think that monster ran into those scavengers we saw?” Then I caught her shooting a look at Andrew, “At least we warned them.” Her smile was faint and almost indiscernible as one.
I shrugged. “Can’t say. Don’t think it’s smart to turn back. Won’t be long and we’ll touch the 40 and then it’ll be a straight on to Babylon—couple of days—can’t turn back though. Maybe without food; that’s doable. Water’s the worst, but if it comes to it,” I paused and looked on the weathered faces of the children, on the lowered head of Trouble which followed her nose across the ground (it searched just short of frantic), “Like I said, ‘save your urine’.”
The first pains of hunger held within me brought up some reminiscence and I wished for nothing more than to hold Suzanne; I could nearly smell them and in the swaying walk which took us on past toppled townships, I held long blinks where I could nearly make out their face and if I really pushed the limits of my imagination, I could feel them. In those moments, as we passed dead places, rotted pits of despair, I could think of little more than their presence. Though I knew it was a dangerous game, hoping for more than I was worth, I hoped for Suzanne then and I wished that I’d taken them up on their offer to travel to Alexandria with them; it could’ve been home—it never was in all the times I’d gone there, but who knows? The thoughts of Babylon brought forth their gardens; the wild gardens and the water which flowed freely through their pipes. I wished I was a different person entirely and that too would’ve been better for Suzanne; how it was that they’d seen anything in me, I don’t know. How it was that they could stoop to the level of being with someone like me—I warded off that thought, because to place the blame there would certainly be unfair. I thought of my love plainly and wanted a different life more suited to them.
Imaginations played more furiously, and I remembered the evening when Dave stopped me from leaping from that roof—it’s doubtful that he even realized that he’d slowed my demise; perhaps he did know—I wished then that I could ask him. Too kind for the world. People too kind for the world were scarce and hardly worth the trouble. Yet, there I was, chaperoning those two across the wastes.
Gemma was a broken person when I’d found her, tortured in Baphomet’s well; Andrew was a dullard boy who’d lost his hand. What a silly predicament.
I stopped in my movements and swiveled on my heel to catch Andrew by the shoulder. “You still got your hand, don’t you?”
In good humor, the boy grinned, lifted the nub on the end of his left forearm to show me, “Nope.”
“Dammit, no! The hand in the jar!”
Andrew raised his eyebrows. “In my pack.”
“Stop,” I commanded Trouble; the dog hardly recognized my words and continued a way then circled back, sad eyes looking up from where she took to sit by my side. Gemma, both arms dangling loosely from her own pack’s shoulder straps, took into the circle we’d formed.
The girl asked, “What about the jar? It’s nasty, but I guess it’s his.”
“I think that’s it,” I said. I took Andrew by his shoulders, looked him in his eyes, “We could use it!”
“What?” The boy almost laughed in the display of our concern. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“I think I’ve got it! It’s good for a trap.” I shook him; maybe too hard. I almost smiled. “It’s worth a shot!”
“It’s mine.” He bit his top lip, withdrew from me.
“You’ll feel differently about that,” I said.
Gemma placed a hand on Andrew’s pack and tried ripping it open. “Give it to him!” shouted the girl.
The boy whipped from her grasp, and he spun on his feet, and panic stood on his face. “It’s mine, isn’t it?”
I took a step forward, “No, not anymore.” I put out my palm, “Give it.”
Andrew nearly flinched at the thought of it and shook his head a little. “Why?”
“I told you why,” I said.
“You don’t even know if it’ll work, do you?” his words were long in protest.
The girl started again, “Andrew, please.”
He locked eyes with Gemma and once again, his bottom teeth came up to meet over his top lip and he moved his jaw methodically with contemplation.
“What does it even matter?” she asked.
“It’s mine. You don’t know what it’s like.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!”
“C’mon,” he said, but his pack straps fell from his shoulders, and he hunkered down on the ground and opened his bag; his right hand plunged into the recesses therein and withdrew the jar with his severed left hand. He held the object up, refusing to come up from his open pack, keeping his eyes on the ground. “Take it then.” He shook the jar; its contents sloshed with liquid decay.
I grabbed the thing, held it to skylight; the remains within had congealed and rotted and lumps nearly floated in the brownish liquid which had formed in the base of the container. I shook it and stared for a moment at the miniscule debris which floated alongside the hand; each of its digits had swollen and erupted to expose bone; some had come away in pieces. “Tomorrow,” I said and nodded.
We gathered ourselves and Andrew pulled his pack on again and we moved, Trouble still looked sorry and the boy remained quiet while the girl chattered on with questions while we took through the dying ground in a formation with the dog on point then me then the children.
“What will you do with it?” she asked me.
“Not sure yet.”
Andrew made a noise like he wanted to say something but didn’t.
“You think it will work?” asked Gemma.
“Nothing’s a guarantee. They’re smart—Alukah.”
“Smart enough to figure out a trap?”
I shrugged. “We’ll find out.”
“We could put stakes in a pit.”
“Keep on the lookout for a building. Something with multiple floors.”
With that, we moved on, found a worn, mostly destroyed road and we fell into a travelling quiet and the thought of hunger or thirst arose again, and I pushed it down—though I knew the uneasiness could only last so long before savagery would overtake the human condition; the kids seemed strong enough, but I kept an eye on the dog too. Savagery belonged not only to humans, after all.
The ground of the wastes was harder when it was quiet, and it was flatter further west. The sky—red and full of thin and transparent drifting clouds—seemed an awful sight when stared at for too long; it was the thing which stretched as if to signal there wasn’t an end in any direction, as if to declare we had much more to go till safety. Wanderlust is a thing that I believe I’ve felt before, but under that sky, with those two and the dog, I didn’t feel it at all. It was doom that I felt. Ignorance and doom. And it was all because I was certain I’d made all the wrong mistakes, and it was coming back to me. I was experienced. We should’ve had food and water. Perhaps there was some deep and nasty part inside of me that had intended to sacrifice them along the way. The words of the Alukah might have rung true: You say you make no deals, but I smell it. I think you’d deal.
Surely, I felt differently. Surely.
“Getting darker,” called Andrew as we came to where signposts—worn and bent and barely legible—told us of a place once called Annapolis and the buildings were nearly gone entirely; places, maybe places that were once homes, were leveled—I was briefly caught in imagining what it might’ve been like all those ages ago. As are most places, it was haunted like that and when we came to a long rectangular structure of metal walls—thin walls—we took it as a place for rest for the night.
It once served as an agricultural station, for when we breached its entry, there were a line of dead machines—three in all—cultivators or tillers which stood higher than any of our heads and Gemma asked what they were, and I told her I thought they were for farming. The great rusted bodies stood in quiet shadow as we came through a side passage of the building and the great doors which had once been used to release those machines from the building stood frozen in their frame. I approached the doors, lighting my lantern and motioning for the children to shut the door we’d entered through.
Upon closer inspection, it seemed the doors would roll into the ceiling and the chains which held the doors in place were each secured with rusted padlocks—I removed my prybar from my pack and moved along the wall of doors, giving each old lock a smack with the weapon; each one held in place, seemingly fused there through years of corrosion, and I rounded the cultivators once more, back to the children, near the side door where they’d discovered a rickety stair frame which crawled up the side of the wall to a catwalk; along the catwalk, a levitated box stood at the height of the structure, stilted by metal legs, and we took the stairs slowly with the dog following close behind; the poor mutt was mute save the sound of its own shuffling paws.
The metal stairs creaked under our weight and Gemma held her own lantern high over her head so that the strange shadows of the place grew longer, stranger, and suddenly I felt very sure that something was in the dark with us, but there was no noise except what we made. My eyes scanned the darkness, and I followed the children up the stairs till we met the overhang of the catwalk and I peered into the shadows, the blades of the cultivators—far extended on foldable arms—struck up through the pool of blackness beneath us and I felt so cold there and if it were not for the breath of my fellow travelers, I might have been lost in the dark for longer than intended—lost and frozen and contemplative.
“There’s a room,” said the boy, and he pushed ahead on the hanging passage, and he was the first to the door. “Boxes,” he said plainly.
Upon coming to the place where he stood, Gemma pushed her lantern over the threshold, and I saw what he’d meant as I traced my own lantern to help; the room was crammed with plastic totes and old metal containers of varied sizes. There seemed to be enough empty space to maneuver through the room, but only if one watched their feet while they walked. Carefully.
We moved to the room, and I found a stack of crates to place my lantern then motioned for Gemma to douse hers. In minutes, the place was rearranged so that we could sit comfortably on the floor; crates lined the walls precariously and we breathed heavy from the work done, but we began to unpack and upon watching the children while I rolled a cigarette, I felt a pang of guilt, a terrible summation—all choices in my life had led me here and with them and perhaps it would have been a better world for them without me.
Mentally shrugging this thought away, I lit my cigarette, inhaled deeply, and then withdrew the jar which Andrew had handed over. I held it to the lantern to examine it. The grotesqueness of it hardly phased me and I watched it more curious and hopeful than disgusted.
“I hope it’ll work,” said the boy, “Whatever it is that you plan on doing with it.” He grimaced and maintained a further silence in patting his bedding for fluff. The dog moved to him, and she pushed her forehead against him where he squatted on floor. The boy scratched Trouble’s chin and whispered, “Good girl,” into the top of her head where he’d pushed his own face.
“I’m hungry,” said Gemma; she placed her chin in her arm while watching Andrew with the dog. She sat on her own flat bed there on the floor and stated plainly the thing that I’d hoped to ignore for longer.
“I know.” I took another drag from the cigarette and let the smoke hang over my head. “The dog?”
Andrew recoiled, pulling Trouble closer into his arms.
I smiled. “It was a joke.”
Andrew relaxed, but only a moment before Gemma added, “Maybe.”
The boy narrowed his eyes in the girl’s direction, and she shrugged. “If it’s life or death.”
He didn’t say anything and merely continued stroking Trouble’s coat.
That night, we slept awfully and even in the complete darkness, I felt the cramp of the storage room and the angled shapes of the tools that protruded from the containers on all sides remained permanent well after we’d turned the light off and it felt like those shapes were the teeth of a great creature like we were sitting inside of its mouth, looking out.
Trouble positioned herself partially on my chest, her slow rhythmic breathing brought my thoughts calm and I whispered to her in the dark after I was sure the others were asleep, “I promise it was a joke.” And I brushed the back of her neck with my hand and the animal let go of a long sigh then continued that deep rhythmic breathing.
Still without food or water, the following day was the true indication of the misery to come. Gemma’s stomach growled audibly in waking and Andrew—though he kept his complaints to himself—smacked his lips more often or protruded the tongue in his mouth in a starvation for water. The room, in the daylight which peered through pinpricks of its half-decayed roof, seemed another beast altogether from its nighttime counterpart; it was not so frightening. Again, I admonished myself for the lack of preparation, but there was another thought that brought together a more cohesive feeling; we had a possible plan, a trap for the demon that’d been following us.
We went into the field to the west of the building where there was only dirt beneath our feet in the early sunlight and in the coolness of morning air, I nearly felt like a person. The sun crested the horizon and brought with it a warmth that would quickly become overwhelming—in those few minutes though—it felt good enough. I wished for the shy dew and saw none. The weirdness of holding Andrew’s rotting hand in a jar momentarily caught me and I almost laughed, but refrained and the dog and the children looked on while I held the container up and suddenly, seeing the congealed mass of tissue floating in its own excretions, I was overcome with the urge to run, the urge that nothing would ever be right again in my life, and that I was marked to be that way.
I blinked and tossed the jar to Andrew. “Say goodbye,” I said. He fumbled after it with his right hand and caught it to his chest.
“It’s strange you care so much anyway,” said Gemma, shrugging—her eyes forgave a millisecond of pity and when Andrew looked at her, still holding the jar in his right hand, she smiled and stuffed her hands into the pockets of her pants.
“We’ve enough oil, I think,” my voice was raspy from it being early, “Enough for good fire, but if we use it, it’ll mean a few more dark nights on our way.”
“We’re going to set it on fire?” Andrew pondered, keeping his eyes to the contents of the jar. “It worked good enough last time. It’ll work,” I nodded, “I has to, doesn’t it?”
His dry lips creased into a brief smile, and he tossed the jar back to me and I caught it.
“Let’s dig,” I said.
Without much in the way of proper tools, we began at the ground under us with our hands, then taking turns with my prybar till there was a hole in the ground comfortably large enough to conceal a human head and I uncapped the jar and spilled it contents there and we covered it back and I lightly tamped it with my boot. My eyes scanned the outbuilding we’d taken refuge in the night prior and then to the street to the north then to the houses which stood as merely rotted plots of foundation with frames that struck from the ground more as markers than support. “I’ll take up over there across the street when it gets dark. I want you two in that storage room before anything goes off.”
“We can’t help?” asked Gemma.
“You can help by staying out of the way—the mutt too,” I said; the words were harsh, but my feelings were from worry.
“Wouldn’t it be better if we stuck together?” asked the girl.
I shook my head. “You stay in the room and keep quiet. No matter what you hear, you stay quiet and safe.”
“That’ll put you at a bigger risk,” Gemma furrowed her brow at me and shifted around to look out on the houses across the street, “There’s hardly any cover over there.”
The boy nodded, smacked his lips, and rubbed his forearm across his mouth then audibly agreed with her.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said, “No matter what you hear happening outside, no matter, you don’t open the door and you don’t scream—don’t make a noise at all. Alright? Even if you hear me calling you, you don’t do it.”
“Pfft,” Gemma crossed her arms and kicked her foot against the ground. The way her eyes seemed hollowed with bruising showed that the irritation would only grow without food. “Alright,” she finally sighed.
Andrew looked much the same as she did in that; he swallowed a dry swallow then stuffed his hand into his pocket and looked away when our eyes matched.
We gathered our light oil. Altogether, it seemed enough; rummaging through the room of the outbuilding we’d earlier taken refuge within, we managed three intact glass containers—the only ones found that wouldn’t leak with liquid; two were bottles and the third was the jar that’d once kept Andrew’s hand. With that work done, we sat with three Molotov cocktails within our huddled circle of the storage room.
“Is it enough?” asked Gemma.
“We’ll see,” I began rolling a cigarette to ignore the hunger and the thirst.
Andrew took to the corner and glanced over his shoulder only a moment before a steady liquid stream could be heard and when he rotated from the wall once the noise was finished and he held a canteen up to his nose, sniffed it and quivered and shook his head.
As the sun pushed on, I scanned the perimeter outside, and they followed. Far south I spied a mass of shadow inching across the horizon and Gemma commented, “What’s that?”
I pushed the binoculars to her and let her gaze through them.
“A fiend—that’s what we called it back in the day anyway. A mutant.”
She held the binoculars up and frowned. “A mutant? So, it was once human?”
“A fiend was once many humans.” I pointed out to the horizon though she couldn’t see me doing so and continued, “If you look at the edges of its shape, you’ll see it’s got limbs galore on it. Sticking up like hairs is what it’ll look like at this distance. Those are arms and legs. It’s got faces too. Many faces.” I shuddered.
“I can barely see any details,” she passed the binoculars to Andrew, and he looked through them, “What’s it do?”
“What?” I asked.
“What’s it do if it catches a person?”
“It pulls people into it. Makes you apart of its mass. Nasty fuckers.”
Andrew removed the lenses from his eyes and held them to his chest and asked, “It won’t mess up your trap, will it?”
“We’ll keep an eye on it,” I said, “You don’t want to mess with a fiend unless you have to.”
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Generally, sadisati gives isolation to person and the person goes through tremendous bad situation during sadesati. But, what if the person is going through a good mahadasha, let's say Jupiter Mahadasha. Will sadisati still gives negative results here?
For Leo Rashi,Tula lagna, if Saturn is retrograde and situated in 4th house of Capricorn. The Jupiter is situated in 11th house of Leo with Moon. Will sadesati give bad effect here , during Guru Mahadasha?

My boyfriend and I broke up a few hours or so ago and in the middle of us talking about it he says “is being friends out of the question”. At first I said yes cause I was honestly just hurt. He said over the course of the last week his feelings for me had been slipping away. We’ve only been dating (long distance) for 3 weeks. I asked him what caused this and he said stress, mental health, negative emotions, and feeling suffocated. He said be felt suffocated and his heart is worn. I tried to get him to elaborate on all of this to get down to specifics of what exactly caused negative feelings and such, but he wasn’t giving me much with his answers.
Over the past week I will admit I put pressure on him to kick his butt into gear and start making some strides in improving his life. He’s talked about how he wants to find a better paying job and he wants to figure out what he wants to do as a career. We had a conversation about this where he’s said he feel paralyzed with fear and anxiety when trying to make big decisions and to take the first steps. He’s mentioned how he’ll tell people he’ll do something, but not follow through. Almost everyday over the last week it had felt like things were just getting worse. It felt like there was some tension, but I don’t think either of us understood why. We were very kind and nice to each other throughout this short relationship. So, to me there was no reasons for any negative feelings.
When I asked him why he wants to be friends with me he said he feels like he has something to prove and wants to show me he can get out of this rut he’s been in. He wants to show me he can improve his life.
If he has no feelings for me then why would he even care about proving something to me?

So, I need to know if I’m the bad guy in this situation because I feel very conflicted. My boyfriend and I have been dating & seeing each other now for about 5 months. We live in separate countries and I’m due to go down to visit him in a month. We’ve had a wonderful relationship for the most part, the only really rocky parts have been our discussions around distance and how we are going to navigate it being on two separate sides of the world. We met when he was on vacation in my city earlier in the year and fell for each other very quickly.
I have a TikTok account with a small following (around 7.5k) that I’ve been actively posting on for the last 2 years. I have a small community of girls that watch & love my videos and I’ve posted a lot about my dating journey over the last 2 years, making videos about dating, men and all of that kind of stuff alongside lifestyle & makeup content. My boyfriend doesn’t have TikTok, and when I showed him my account he thought it was pretty cool that I had a few followers and loved that I posted online. When we first went on a few dates while he was visiting my country, I made some TikTok stories hinting at the fact that I’d met someone. 2 months later he visited me and we had the most wonderful time and really solidified our relationship. After he left, I posted 2 videos on TikTok essentially giving the rundown of our whirlwind relationship because it was very “straight out of a movie” and the girls that follow me were all sooo eager to know what had transpired.
I posted these videos but never said my boyfriend’s name or gave any details about him, other than how we met, how we feel and the fact that we are dating. In the videos I say nothing but sweet and lovely things and praise him for being so wonderful and making me very happy. The videos got a few thousand views and all the comments came from long time watchers of mine just expressing their happiness for me as I wrap up my dating journey. I posted these videos 6 weeks ago, and he only became aware of them 2 days ago when one of his friends told him I had posted videos about our relationship. I know he doesn’t have TikTok, but figured he probably still watches my videos or keeps tabs on my page knowing it’s something I actively do. I also just thought that he’d see them, think they were sweet and not really care about them. Because posting as always just been apart of my weeks, I never thought to tell him that I was making videos about it because we are dating and the videos were overwhelmingly sweet & positive and again, I never gave any of his details away.
He was incredibly upset, said he felt uncomfortable and told me to remove the videos from my page. He said he’s a very private person and has no interest in having his relationship blasted on the internet for strangers to comment on and that it all felt performative. I never knew he was such a private individual, he rarely posts on social media but I figured it’s just because he doesn’t care much for it, not because he’s very private. He had no issue with me being someone that posted openly & frequently online about my life, but now that it involves him he said he doesn’t want to be apart of it and has no interest in being on my social media.
I guess I’m a bit sad, because it doesn’t seem like a huge deal to me and I’ve always wanted a partner that can appreciate this part of me and get on board with how I love to document happy parts of my life online. I took the videos down with no issue because I respect his privacy and his wishes, but still feel a bit confused by the whole situation. He doesn’t seem to understand that I have a small community of women that love my videos and that treat me like a big sister and that I was purely posting videos out of happiness & excitement to have met him and have found such a wonderful love. His reaction took me by surprise, but am I the one in the wrong here?

Palestinian Happy Family
A short story.
A father in his 30s named Ammar, looking so weak and exhausted. With his 7 year-old daughter named Lara, a thin injured girl in her arm with bandage under her brown hair covering wounds having green eyes filled with holded tears. They live inside a ruined house in Gaza.
Everything around them is dead. Wrecked streets are dead. Collapsed Schools are silent. Children and families used to fill the air here with life are now either dead, injured with no hospitals to rescue, or forced to leave places they have always belonged to.
The girl breaks a long dead silence saying to her father: “Dad…why all that happened? What was the wrong thing we did to deserve this punishment?” The father replies in disappointment: “I don't know!”.
After short silence while Lara is looking around to see what happened in pity and pain, she asks again in confusion: “How comes?! My mother and brother were killed…lost 5 of my friends who were killed also…what was our fault…before all this happened to our district, we were playing Hide and Seek after finishing our school day…can Hide and Seek game deserve this punishment?”
Ammar with a smile: “wouldn't you eat? I baked this loaf of bread to you using the oven we made together yesterday from mud, sticks, and cement…Oh! Thank God…we are really genius.” The girl looks at her father longly into the eyes and says: “Where's your loaf?” He answered: “I ate a piece from yesterday’s bread…we are out of flour now…but don't worry…I will find my way to some flour again. Don't underestimate your father.”
The girl began eating hardly but stopped again after eating two small pieces saying: “Dad! You changed the subject…what did we do to deserve this punishment?” She continues on: “You know dad! I heard someone say that it's because we are Muslims…but what about my friend Cristina who was killed last week?” Ammar says: “Oh Lara! I didn't ask my old brother all these questions when my father and mother were killed when I was at your age…I know that you have the write to ask all the time…but sometimes questions have no answers.”
Lara looks at her father's face silently and after a while she asks with pain: “Dad! Are you trying to hold your tears? Didn't you get used to being into this throughout your life? You spent your life either in war or in calm ordinary big prison sieged by poverty, corruption, soldiers, tanks, and planes.”
Ammar keeps silent and silent. All of a sudden, he breaks down crying while trying to hide his face by his hands. He begins talking with distorted voice: “What a shame; I can't do this…I can't be weak in front of you…there's no one left for a tiny girl like you in this world but me…but I’m a human…I can't stand all of this…won't I see my girl go to school in peace and joy?! Won’t I see my girl in a home again?! Will I be able to find you a loaf of bread tomorrow?! What if I can't?! What did you do to deserve all of this?! What did your mother and brother do?! What did my father and mother do?! What did my imprisoned for life older brother do?! What did your tiny friends do?! I feel weak in front of you and it kills me every single moment as a father…I and you despite our weakness should be proud…we will die but inside ruins of our home…these bricks are not of bricks…every brick means home, means motherland, means dignity, means resilience, means glory and pride…real pride.”
Lara rises up and hugs her dad who is sitting tired after a hard speech leaning on a wall standing tall from the wrecked home. Rain comes heavily on their heads. They hide under remains of a roof. Sounds of a new air raid are heard.