I’m a trans woman (24) and I’m not out IRL. I dress, sound, and am perceived as a man every single day.
I live in a small and very religious town where the idea of presenting as myself doesn’t feel like a realistic possibility.
However this year I started making YouTube videos. At first I was presenting similarly to how I do IRL, just using a more comfortable voice. But eventually I started wearing makeup (nothing major, just eyeliner and mascara), and most recently I started wearing a wig as well.
I’ve never mentioned the fact that I’m trans but it’s obvious I guess. When I first put on a wig I received some very supportive comments from people saying things like; they’re happy to see me being more comfortable and confident.
However, I don’t remotely pass. I’m taller than most men, I have broad shoulders, and if I don’t shave every single day there’s course rough hair all over me. I feel like I look like Tony Soprano with a wig and eyeliner lmao
Today I got a comment saying “A bloke in drag. I wish you all the best with your struggles in the future.” I’ve gotten comments like this before and they always take me down a notch. I know I should have thicker skin, but I don’t know. Getting comments like that makes me feel as if that’s how everyone sees me, but the other people are just too nice to actually say it.
I don’t know, I guess I’m just conflicted. These silly little videos feel like one of the only ways I can have fun as myself in my current living situation. But is it worth it if everyone just sees me as a freak anyway? Is it much different than my town? Should I just stop unless I’m able to one day pass?
Apologies if this post seems more like a venty-ramble than a nicely phrased question 😅 I’m just having a rough day I guess and am looking for some perspective

40F here. Back in my late 20s, I dated a guy who never wanted to see me without a full face of makeup up. It was one of his “conditions” that I always be with a full face of makeup 24x7. Needless to say, I broke it off with him though I was madly in love with him back then and the experience broke me apart. But I enjoy doing make up so when I’m out, I do makeup to feel good n confident. I do a light concealer, foundation, cheek tint, lip stick and kohl, mascara. This is my go to make up look.is this a lot?
Back to present self, I recently dated a guy for 2 months. Loved being with him and I wish it had turn into something more. He thinks of me as a really good friend, I do have feelings for him but keeping his feelings in view, we have decided to scale back and be friends for now. While talking heart to heart, he told me that my makeup is a huge turn off for him. The smell and taste of it puts him off especially when making out. Though he immediately added that if it makes me feel good, I should not change this about me.
I want to know if this is really true that make up turns men off? I have had men make fun of me when I’m without make up and the ex who insisted on me being made up 24x7 n now I meet a guy who prefers a no make up look. I’m wondering if the next date I go to, I should turn up in very basic make up ? I’m extremely confused about this . I would love to go make up free but I hate it that when I do that, guys around me make fun of me saying omg u look so average without makeup. That affects my self esteem a lot and makes me feel less as a woman.
I would want to know your views .
Men here especially- please share your thoughts.

An hour after getting back from the Mason apartment, Bruce Kenner had the distinct misfortune of meeting Bertha Henderson.
A plump, gaudy woman with wrinkles and sun beaten skin only an alligator could love, Bertha Henderson wore bright red lipstick, bright red rouge, and way too much mascara. Her tangled hair was a dull red color and her clothes - pink pants and a white floral top - stretched tight across her bulbous frame. She looked like the kind of woman who lived in a trailer with velvet pictures of Elvis on the wall and pink flamingos in the front yard.
She acted like one too.
From the moment she stormed into his office, she hadn’t shut up once. She scolded, chided, accused, and badgered, sometimes even wagging one fat finger in his face like he was a naughty little boy. Ten minutes into the dressing down and Bruce was beginning to fantasize about police brutality.
It took him another ten minutes to find out what the hell she even wanted.
“It’s my granddaughter,” she shot back, “she’s missing in your town.”
My town? Lady, this is barely my office. I share it with three other people.
“Well, if you’ll calm down, maybe I can help.”
Jesus Christ was that the wrong thing to say. She hit the roof and didn’t come down again until Bruce was this close to arresting her for assault on a police officer. “Young man, I do not appreciate the way you’re talking to me. My tax dollars are the only reason you have a job. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be working at a car wash.”
At least I wouldn’t have to deal with you.
Bruce took a deep breath and held his tongue in check. “How can I help you?” he asked.
“I told you, my granddaughter is missing. If you listened to me, you’d know this already.”
Bertha produced a picture and slid it across the desk. Bruce studied it. A girl, roughly sixteen with black hair, blue eyes, and dimples smiled back at him. “She;’s with that Rossi man, I just know it,” she said bitterly.
“Who?” Bruce asked.
Rolling her eyes like he was stupid, the old woman told him the story. Jessie - the dimple faced girl - had the rotten luck of having to live with Grandma Bertha after her parents went to jail on drug charges. They lived in Sand Lake, a little town in the mountains outside Albany, where Bertha was no doubt loved and admired by all. One day, Jessie, who her grandmother lovingly described as “A little troublemaker”, ran off. Bruce didn’t blame her. He’d known Bertha for half an hour and he wanted to run off. Bertha did some snooping on Jessie’s laptop and found that the “little whore” had been chatting with an older man, Joe Rossi. Rossi, or so Facebook said, lived in Albany and worked at Club Vlad.
“I want him arrested for pedophilia,” Bertha said and crossed her arms defiantly over her chest. “He’s a dog just like all men. She’s probably pregnant already. Another mouth I have to feed.”
Behind the old battle ax, Vanessa appeared in the doorway and lifted her brows as if to say What a piece of work. Knowing her, she’d probably been standing just out of sight this whole time with McKenny, the elderly evidence clerk, and snickering into her hand like a little girl. LOL she called him young man.
Bertha noticed him looking over her shoulder and started to turn. Vanessa’s face went white and she ducked out of the way, narrowly avoiding detection. “I’m glad you think this is funny,” Bertha said to Bruce. “Meanwhile, if I don’t get Jessie back, the state’s going to stop sending me my checks. I need that income. I can’t work, you know. I have gout.”
Too bad being an asshole isn’t a job, you’d be world-famous
“I’ll go talk to him,” Bruce said.
“I want more than talk, young man, I want action.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
When Bertha finally decided to waddle off and ruin someone else’s day, Vanessa came in and sat in the chair the old woman had so recently occupied. “Oh, my God,” she said, “that was intense. I was this close to radioing in a 1015.”
1015 was code for officer down.
“Funny,” Bruce said without a trace of humor. He had kids going missing, a dead guy someone moved around like a goddamn Barbie doll, and now this. What next, hemorrhoids?
“What do you think? Code 1 or code 2?”
Code 1 meant top priority. Code 2 meant not a top priority. Bruce thought for a moment. It didn’t sound like Jessie Henderson was in danger. It sounded like she met a guy - granted, one too old for her - and decided to hide out with him from her psycho grandma. Maybe it could be something more, but he had a gut feeling that it wasn’t…and his gut feelings were usually right. “2,” he finally said. “I got shit to do.”
By shit, he meant “Talk to the families of those missing boys again.” He’d been interviewing them for two days looking for clues, but there was nothing. It’s like they just vanished. Bruce didn’t like this. He didn’t like it at all.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” Vanessa said and slapped the desk.
When she was gone, Bruce sighed.
Never a dull moment, he thought.
***
Ed Harris - no relation to the Hollywood actor - had been the medical examiner for the City of Albany since 2002, and in all that time, he had never seen anything quite like this.
It was Wednesday evening and Ed was locked away in the cold, sterile space beneath the city offices that comprised his domain. With its puke green tiles, harsh lights, and cloying smells of disinfectant, the .coroner's office creeped most people out, but not Ed. He was at home here, as comfortable surrounded by toe-tagged bodies as a cactus was surrounded by desert. A thin man in his fifties with curly, steel gray hair thinning in the middle, he wore a white smock, blood stained over his clothes that made him look like a butcher instead of a low level government functionary. He had a dark and dry sense of humor, but then again, so do all people who play with dead bodies for fun and profit.
The coroner’s office was a vast, utilitarian vault segmented into multiple different rooms. Here, where the magic happened, three stainless steel tables stood in a row; a bank of refrigerated drawers kept watch, making sure nothing funny happened. One of the cold fluorescent lights overhead flickered with a hum of electricity, and water dripped rhythmically from a faucet. It was a cold, eerie place, but to Ed, it was home.
On most nights, only one of the tables was occupied, but tonight, two were. On one lay an old lady who died of what appeared to be cyanide poisoning. On the other was Dominick Mason.
Naked save for a white cloth draped over his groin to protect his dignity, Dom was the most corpsy corpse you’d ever hope to see. In fact, if you looked up dead guy in the dictionary, you’d see a picture of him. His body was pale and sunken, one side covered in purple splotches where his blood had pooled, and his eyes were closed. His abdomen was slightly distended with the expected build up of gas, and his flesh stuck fast to the bones beneath. In other words, he was text book. A normal corpse.
Mostly normal.
As men of his trade are wont to do when strange bodies mysteriously appear, Ed had opened Dom up, making a Y shaped incision from his neck to his groin. He hummed to himself as he did so, his hands wielding his sharp and shiny tools with the deft assuredness of a seasoned surgeon. Done cutting, he dipped his gloved hands into the cavity and started removing organs. A spleen here, a liver there, nothing Dom would miss. When he got to the heart, however, he stopped.
There was something…off…about it. At first glance, it was black and withered like an oversized raisin. An odd and putrid odor emanated from it and though he was familiar with the various smells and stenches the human body produced after death, this wasn’t one of them. Try as he might, he couldn’t place it, couldn’t even compare it to anything. Plucking a magnifying glass from the metal cart next to the table, he peeled back part of Dom’s chest and examined the heart closer.
That’s when things got really weird.
Dominick Mason’s heart was, indeed, shriveled, but it was not black. Instead, it was almost entirely covered by an interlacing crisscross of what appeared to be black mold. Here and there, Ed could glimpse flashes of the heart beneath: It was wrinkled and a sickly gray color. “What is this?” Ed asked himself at length. He grabbed a pair of tweezers from the tray and carefully, very carefully, attempted to remove a piece of the mold for analysis. The moment the cold metal tips touched the heart, it gave a violent spasm that sent Ed falling back with a shocked gasp, the tweezers falling from his hand and clinking to the tiled floor.
The heart began to pulse like an alien egg sac, slowly at first, then more rapidly. For a moment, Ed was frozen in place, unable to comprehend what he was seeing. Once you die, your heart ceases beating. That’s that. Only living hearts beat, and Dominick Mason was certainly dead. He was dead from the moment Ed first laid eyes on him earlier that day and he was dead now. Yet there was his heart, beating anyway.
It could be a muscle spasm. They usually aren’t that violent and consistent, but dead bodies sometimes do strange things. As he watched the blackened muscle expanding and contracting, however, Ed had the most eerie feeling. He went to rub the back of his neck, realized he was still wearing blood soaked gloves, and stripped them off. He was spooking himself out; he needed a break and a hot cup of coffee. He’d come back fresh and start over again.
With that mold.
Could you really blame him for being creeped out? That stuff wasn’t normal. He’d never seen anything like that before, not even in textbooks. Dom was scrawny and didn’t get enough vitamins in life, but overall, he was healthy; that mold…or whatever it was…had no business being there.
Going over to the coffee pot, which stood in the same room to save travel time, Ed grabbed a styrofoam cup. When he was done here, he planned to go home and -
A terrible, metallic clatter rang out, and Ed jumped. He turned around, and when he saw Dominick Mason standing next to the table, hunched slightly over and staring at him, an electric burst of fright shot up his spine and exploded in his brain, so strong it made the edges turn gray. Pale, hands hooked into talons, and the flaps of his chest hanging open to reveal the cavity beneath, Dominick Mason looked for all the world like a boy who’d been caught sneaking out to meet his girlfriend. A weak, involuntary, “Oh, God,” slipped from Ed’s trembling lips, and the spell was broken. Dom came alive and ran toward the door leading out to the parking lot. He slammed through it, and the sound of it crashing open and then falling closed again echoed through the empty chamber.
Shaking, panting for air, and soaked in piss, Ed sank to the floor in a sitting position, his eyes wide and staring like those of a soldier returning damaged from the front.
It was a long time before he composed himself enough to call the police.
***
Dazed and caught in a nightmarish twilight realm where nothing made sense, Dominick Mason limped painfully down the sidewalk, a stranger lost in a strange land filled with danger and hostile creatures. Barefoot and shrouded in a white sheet, he trembled with cold and struggled to ignore the dark, threatening shapes looming from the fog in his brain, shapes that would turn into unspeakable truths if he let them.
Passersby openly stared at him, their expressions either morbidly curious, disgusted, or alarmed. A man put his arm protectively around his girlfriend; a woman pulled her little boy to her breast, and another man sneered at him, his nose crinkling. Dom, his glazed eyes narrowed against the harsh glare of the many street lamps, headlights, and storefronts, lumbered headlong toward nowhere, his fear growing until he was shambling. He imagined he could hear every cough, every whisper; smell the odor of every unwashed body. Each car horn was deafening, every whiff of ass or armpits sent his stomach churning. The rustle of a passing pedestrian’s jacket jammed into his ears like icepicks, and the approaching globes of LED headlamps burned his eyes. He gritted his teeth and groaned against the pain.
The dense mist wrapping his brain made it hard to think. Like a frightened animal, he made his way on instinct alone. Home. He needed to get home. Out here, on the street, he was exposed. At home, locked away in his small apartment, he would be safe.
A car passed in the street, bass heavy rap music blaring from its open windows, and Dom’s brain exploded with agony. He threw himself against a street sign and held on for dear life, his legs weak. Dizziness overwhelmed him, and he almost went down. He was also cold.
So, so cold.
People around him quickened their step; they never took their eyes off him, as though he were a venomous snake that would strike at any moment. He needed to get away from them. They were going to hurt him; people always hurt him.
Pushing away from the sign, he began to hobble once more toward home, wherever home was. He looked over his shoulder several times as he made his way down Central Avenue, and each time, he saw that no one was following him as he had feared.
No one, that is, except for the man in sunglasses.
Tall and lank with curly hair, he wore dark Aviators and a leather motorcycle jacket over a button up shirt. His hands were thrust deep into his pockets and his face showed no expression. He was always there, always a few steps closer. Outside Capital Fried Chicken, a group of people openly stared at him, He heard their whispers as he passed. What’s wrong with him? Dude’s straight tweakin. And the one that struck him the most. That guy looks dead.
Dom hobbled faster, as if to outrun the realization that he was, in fact, dead. The man in sunglasses was closer now, his footsteps so loud that Dom winced. He turned around, and the man was impossibly in front of him. Dom ran into him and bounced backward, going ass over tea kettle and landing on the former. They were in front of a church on a darkened corner, the lights here either burned out or shot out - you could never tell in Albany. Even though it was dark, Dom could see everything with crystal clarity. Dom tried to scurry away, but he was too weak to escape. Right there and then, he decided to give up. Come what may, he just wanted this nightmare to be over.
The man stared down at him, emotionless, unspeaking.
Dom squirmed.
“You’re real lucky I came along,” the man said. His tone was flat, even.
Dead.
“Get up,” he said, “I’ll take you home.”
Home?
Yes.
Dom wanted to go home.
The man helped him up, and Dom followed him into the night.
***
Bruce Kenner stood in the middle of the medical examiner’s office at half past nine that evening with his hands on his hips and stared doubtfully down at Ed Harris. The lonely cavern was alive with activity as cops went over everything, all of them looking either bemused or a mused. Bruce was neither. He’d been at home, sitting in his chair and having a beer in front of AEW Dynamite when Vanessa called. “You might wanna get down here,” she said, sounding confused, “something really strange is going on.”
Ed Harris - no relation to that one guy - sat in a straight back chair beside his cluttered desk and gripped a styrofoam cup of coffee in both hands, putting Bruce - for some reason - in mind of a monkey. When Bruce came in, the old man was white as a sheet and shook like a leaf. In the last half hour, little had changed.
“Tell me again,” Bruce said.
He and Ed were pretty good friends. He knew that Ed knew standard police procedure. Cops don’t ask you to repeat your story a thousand times over because they’re forgetful fucks, they do it because telling it again and again helps to jog loose details that you might have forgotten. Ed, therefore, did not protest. “I turned my back,” he said and chopped the chair like Jackie Chan, “and I heard the noise.”
His voice was thick, unsteady, and halting. He sounded as squirrely as he looked…and he looked pretty damn squirrelly right now.
“I turned around…and he was looking at me. He was standing there and he was looking at me.”
This was the fourth time he’d had Ed go through the story, and nothing had changed. Bruce felt something stirring deep inside his gut. It was either disquiet…or he had to fart. He opened his mouth to speak, but sighed.
“You don’t believe me,” Ed said.
“I dunno, Ed. Dead bodies don’t just get up and walk away.”
Ed flashed. “I know that, goddamn it, but this one did.”
Bruce glanced at Vanessa. She looked uncomfortable.
“Are you sure he was dead?” Bruce asked.
Ed opened his mouth, closed it again, and said, “I did the autopsy.” His voice broke on the last word, and he sounded almost like he was pleading. “His fucking liver’s on the floor. He stepped on it. The man has nothing in him. I-I’m telling you, there’s no way he’s alive.”
During the autopsy, Ed had sat Dominick Mason’s organs on the little tray table where he kept his pointy things. Mason knocked it over while getting up. Indeed, there were human organs on the floor, and one of them did look kind of squished. Bare, bloody footprints led to the exit door, up a set of concrete steps, and then disappeared in the alley behind the office.
“You said you left his heart,” Bruce said.
“And his brain,” Vanessa helpfully added.
Ed pinched the bridge of his nose like a put upon professor dealing with two particularly stupid students. “Even with his heart and his brain, he’s dead. You saw the livor mortis. He was cold, he was stiff. His heart wasn’t beating, he wasn’t breathing. He was in one of those drawers for nine hours, not breathing, no blood flow - it’s impossible. It’s just…it’s impossible. I don’t care what you think, he was dead. And even if somehow he wasn’t, I cut out almost everything. I opened his stomach, I took his spleen - you don’t just get up from that. You don’t walk away from that, much less run.”
Bruce chewed the inside of his bottom lip because he didn’t have a Twix. He didn’t look like the smartest man in the world…and he wasn’t…but he knew a dead body when he saw one, and the body they took out of Dominick Mason’s apartment was D.E.A.D. And like Ed said, even if by some freak fluke of nature he wasn’t, he couldn’t just get up and go about his day with no liver, spleen, or kidneys. Hell, Bruce had his gallbladder out and he couldn’t even walk away from that.
“You said there was something funny about his heart,” Vanessa said.
Ed finished off his coffee. “Yeah. It was…moldy. I-I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Is it possible that…has something to do with it?”
“Unless the rules of biology have changed overnight, no,” Ed stated.
While Ed poured himself another cup of Joe, spilling some because he was still shaking, Vanessa took Bruce aside. “So what do you think?” she asked. “Is he telling the truth?”
For that, Bruce did not have an immediate answer. All else aside, he was a cop. He followed the evidence - and his gut instinct - wherever it led him. Ed was a sober man - he was not a drunk, insane, or stupid - and no man on earth could fake the look of trauma in his eyes. Bruce’s eyes went to the bloody footprints leading away from the exam table and his stomach roiled. It might be cliched, but there had to be a rational explanation. “Yeah,” he finally said. “The kid got up like he said, but there’s no way he was dead. Maybe…I dunno, he had a surge of adrenaline or something. I’m not a doctor.”
“That’ll only get him so far,” Vanessa said. “We’ll probably find him on the street somewhere.”
He went back to the purple splotches on Dom’s face, to his cold stiffness. There’s no way he was dead?
Bruce was confused, and he hated being confused.
“I dunno,” he said, “maybe.”
But he had the gnawing feeling that they wouldn’t. They would never find him…and Bruce would be confused forever.
Goddamn it, Mason, he thought, where are you?

An hour after getting back from the Mason apartment, Bruce Kenner had the distinct misfortune of meeting Bertha Henderson.
A plump, gaudy woman with wrinkles and sun beaten skin only an alligator could love, Bertha Henderson wore bright red lipstick, bright red rouge, and way too much mascara. Her tangled hair was a dull red color and her clothes - pink pants and a white floral top - stretched tight across her bulbous frame. She looked like the kind of woman who lived in a trailer with velvet pictures of Elvis on the wall and pink flamingos in the front yard.
She acted like one too.
From the moment she stormed into his office, she hadn’t shut up once. She scolded, chided, accused, and badgered, sometimes even wagging one fat finger in his face like he was a naughty little boy. Ten minutes into the dressing down and Bruce was beginning to fantasize about police brutality.
It took him another ten minutes to find out what the hell she even wanted.
“It’s my granddaughter,” she shot back, “she’s missing in your town.”
My town? Lady, this is barely my office. I share it with three other people.
“Well, if you’ll calm down, maybe I can help.”
Jesus Christ was that the wrong thing to say. She hit the roof and didn’t come down again until Bruce was this close to arresting her for assault on a police officer. “Young man, I do not appreciate the way you’re talking to me. My tax dollars are the only reason you have a job. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be working at a car wash.”
At least I wouldn’t have to deal with you.
Bruce took a deep breath and held his tongue in check. “How can I help you?” he asked.
“I told you, my granddaughter is missing. If you listened to me, you’d know this already.”
Bertha produced a picture and slid it across the desk. Bruce studied it. A girl, roughly sixteen with black hair, blue eyes, and dimples smiled back at him. “She;’s with that Rossi man, I just know it,” she said bitterly.
“Who?” Bruce asked.
Rolling her eyes like he was stupid, the old woman told him the story. Jessie - the dimple faced girl - had the rotten luck of having to live with Grandma Bertha after her parents went to jail on drug charges. They lived in Sand Lake, a little town in the mountains outside Albany, where Bertha was no doubt loved and admired by all. One day, Jessie, who her grandmother lovingly described as “A little troublemaker”, ran off. Bruce didn’t blame her. He’d known Bertha for half an hour and he wanted to run off. Bertha did some snooping on Jessie’s laptop and found that the “little whore” had been chatting with an older man, Joe Rossi. Rossi, or so Facebook said, lived in Albany and worked at Club Vlad.
“I want him arrested for pedophilia,” Bertha said and crossed her arms defiantly over her chest. “He’s a dog just like all men. She’s probably pregnant already. Another mouth I have to feed.”
Behind the old battle ax, Vanessa appeared in the doorway and lifted her brows as if to say What a piece of work. Knowing her, she’d probably been standing just out of sight this whole time with McKenny, the elderly evidence clerk, and snickering into her hand like a little girl. LOL she called him young man.
Bertha noticed him looking over her shoulder and started to turn. Vanessa’s face went white and she ducked out of the way, narrowly avoiding detection. “I’m glad you think this is funny,” Bertha said to Bruce. “Meanwhile, if I don’t get Jessie back, the state’s going to stop sending me my checks. I need that income. I can’t work, you know. I have gout.”
Too bad being an asshole isn’t a job, you’d be world-famous
“I’ll go talk to him,” Bruce said.
“I want more than talk, young man, I want action.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
When Bertha finally decided to waddle off and ruin someone else’s day, Vanessa came in and sat in the chair the old woman had so recently occupied. “Oh, my God,” she said, “that was intense. I was this close to radioing in a 1015.”
1015 was code for officer down.
“Funny,” Bruce said without a trace of humor. He had kids going missing, a dead guy someone moved around like a goddamn Barbie doll, and now this. What next, hemorrhoids?
“What do you think? Code 1 or code 2?”
Code 1 meant top priority. Code 2 meant not a top priority. Bruce thought for a moment. It didn’t sound like Jessie Henderson was in danger. It sounded like she met a guy - granted, one too old for her - and decided to hide out with him from her psycho grandma. Maybe it could be something more, but he had a gut feeling that it wasn’t…and his gut feelings were usually right. “2,” he finally said. “I got shit to do.”
By shit, he meant “Talk to the families of those missing boys again.” He’d been interviewing them for two days looking for clues, but there was nothing. It’s like they just vanished. Bruce didn’t like this. He didn’t like it at all.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” Vanessa said and slapped the desk.
When she was gone, Bruce sighed.
Never a dull moment, he thought.
***
Ed Harris - no relation to the Hollywood actor - had been the medical examiner for the City of Albany since 2002, and in all that time, he had never seen anything quite like this.
It was Wednesday evening and Ed was locked away in the cold, sterile space beneath the city offices that comprised his domain. With its puke green tiles, harsh lights, and cloying smells of disinfectant, the .coroner's office creeped most people out, but not Ed. He was at home here, as comfortable surrounded by toe-tagged bodies as a cactus was surrounded by desert. A thin man in his fifties with curly, steel gray hair thinning in the middle, he wore a white smock, blood stained over his clothes that made him look like a butcher instead of a low level government functionary. He had a dark and dry sense of humor, but then again, so do all people who play with dead bodies for fun and profit.
The coroner’s office was a vast, utilitarian vault segmented into multiple different rooms. Here, where the magic happened, three stainless steel tables stood in a row; a bank of refrigerated drawers kept watch, making sure nothing funny happened. One of the cold fluorescent lights overhead flickered with a hum of electricity, and water dripped rhythmically from a faucet. It was a cold, eerie place, but to Ed, it was home.
On most nights, only one of the tables was occupied, but tonight, two were. On one lay an old lady who died of what appeared to be cyanide poisoning. On the other was Dominick Mason.
Naked save for a white cloth draped over his groin to protect his dignity, Dom was the most corpsy corpse you’d ever hope to see. In fact, if you looked up dead guy in the dictionary, you’d see a picture of him. His body was pale and sunken, one side covered in purple splotches where his blood had pooled, and his eyes were closed. His abdomen was slightly distended with the expected build up of gas, and his flesh stuck fast to the bones beneath. In other words, he was text book. A normal corpse.
Mostly normal.
As men of his trade are wont to do when strange bodies mysteriously appear, Ed had opened Dom up, making a Y shaped incision from his neck to his groin. He hummed to himself as he did so, his hands wielding his sharp and shiny tools with the deft assuredness of a seasoned surgeon. Done cutting, he dipped his gloved hands into the cavity and started removing organs. A spleen here, a liver there, nothing Dom would miss. When he got to the heart, however, he stopped.
There was something…off…about it. At first glance, it was black and withered like an oversized raisin. An odd and putrid odor emanated from it and though he was familiar with the various smells and stenches the human body produced after death, this wasn’t one of them. Try as he might, he couldn’t place it, couldn’t even compare it to anything. Plucking a magnifying glass from the metal cart next to the table, he peeled back part of Dom’s chest and examined the heart closer.
That’s when things got really weird.
Dominick Mason’s heart was, indeed, shriveled, but it was not black. Instead, it was almost entirely covered by an interlacing crisscross of what appeared to be black mold. Here and there, Ed could glimpse flashes of the heart beneath: It was wrinkled and a sickly gray color. “What is this?” Ed asked himself at length. He grabbed a pair of tweezers from the tray and carefully, very carefully, attempted to remove a piece of the mold for analysis. The moment the cold metal tips touched the heart, it gave a violent spasm that sent Ed falling back with a shocked gasp, the tweezers falling from his hand and clinking to the tiled floor.
The heart began to pulse like an alien egg sac, slowly at first, then more rapidly. For a moment, Ed was frozen in place, unable to comprehend what he was seeing. Once you die, your heart ceases beating. That’s that. Only living hearts beat, and Dominick Mason was certainly dead. He was dead from the moment Ed first laid eyes on him earlier that day and he was dead now. Yet there was his heart, beating anyway.
It could be a muscle spasm. They usually aren’t that violent and consistent, but dead bodies sometimes do strange things. As he watched the blackened muscle expanding and contracting, however, Ed had the most eerie feeling. He went to rub the back of his neck, realized he was still wearing blood soaked gloves, and stripped them off. He was spooking himself out; he needed a break and a hot cup of coffee. He’d come back fresh and start over again.
With that mold.
Could you really blame him for being creeped out? That stuff wasn’t normal. He’d never seen anything like that before, not even in textbooks. Dom was scrawny and didn’t get enough vitamins in life, but overall, he was healthy; that mold…or whatever it was…had no business being there.
Going over to the coffee pot, which stood in the same room to save travel time, Ed grabbed a styrofoam cup. When he was done here, he planned to go home and -
A terrible, metallic clatter rang out, and Ed jumped. He turned around, and when he saw Dominick Mason standing next to the table, hunched slightly over and staring at him, an electric burst of fright shot up his spine and exploded in his brain, so strong it made the edges turn gray. Pale, hands hooked into talons, and the flaps of his chest hanging open to reveal the cavity beneath, Dominick Mason looked for all the world like a boy who’d been caught sneaking out to meet his girlfriend. A weak, involuntary, “Oh, God,” slipped from Ed’s trembling lips, and the spell was broken. Dom came alive and ran toward the door leading out to the parking lot. He slammed through it, and the sound of it crashing open and then falling closed again echoed through the empty chamber.
Shaking, panting for air, and soaked in piss, Ed sank to the floor in a sitting position, his eyes wide and staring like those of a soldier returning damaged from the front.
It was a long time before he composed himself enough to call the police.
***
Dazed and caught in a nightmarish twilight realm where nothing made sense, Dominick Mason limped painfully down the sidewalk, a stranger lost in a strange land filled with danger and hostile creatures. Barefoot and shrouded in a white sheet, he trembled with cold and struggled to ignore the dark, threatening shapes looming from the fog in his brain, shapes that would turn into unspeakable truths if he let them.
Passersby openly stared at him, their expressions either morbidly curious, disgusted, or alarmed. A man put his arm protectively around his girlfriend; a woman pulled her little boy to her breast, and another man sneered at him, his nose crinkling. Dom, his glazed eyes narrowed against the harsh glare of the many street lamps, headlights, and storefronts, lumbered headlong toward nowhere, his fear growing until he was shambling. He imagined he could hear every cough, every whisper; smell the odor of every unwashed body. Each car horn was deafening, every whiff of ass or armpits sent his stomach churning. The rustle of a passing pedestrian’s jacket jammed into his ears like icepicks, and the approaching globes of LED headlamps burned his eyes. He gritted his teeth and groaned against the pain.
The dense mist wrapping his brain made it hard to think. Like a frightened animal, he made his way on instinct alone. Home. He needed to get home. Out here, on the street, he was exposed. At home, locked away in his small apartment, he would be safe.
A car passed in the street, bass heavy rap music blaring from its open windows, and Dom’s brain exploded with agony. He threw himself against a street sign and held on for dear life, his legs weak. Dizziness overwhelmed him, and he almost went down. He was also cold.
So, so cold.
People around him quickened their step; they never took their eyes off him, as though he were a venomous snake that would strike at any moment. He needed to get away from them. They were going to hurt him; people always hurt him.
Pushing away from the sign, he began to hobble once more toward home, wherever home was. He looked over his shoulder several times as he made his way down Central Avenue, and each time, he saw that no one was following him as he had feared.
No one, that is, except for the man in sunglasses.
Tall and lank with curly hair, he wore dark Aviators and a leather motorcycle jacket over a button up shirt. His hands were thrust deep into his pockets and his face showed no expression. He was always there, always a few steps closer. Outside Capital Fried Chicken, a group of people openly stared at him, He heard their whispers as he passed. What’s wrong with him? Dude’s straight tweakin. And the one that struck him the most. That guy looks dead.
Dom hobbled faster, as if to outrun the realization that he was, in fact, dead. The man in sunglasses was closer now, his footsteps so loud that Dom winced. He turned around, and the man was impossibly in front of him. Dom ran into him and bounced backward, going ass over tea kettle and landing on the former. They were in front of a church on a darkened corner, the lights here either burned out or shot out - you could never tell in Albany. Even though it was dark, Dom could see everything with crystal clarity. Dom tried to scurry away, but he was too weak to escape. Right there and then, he decided to give up. Come what may, he just wanted this nightmare to be over.
The man stared down at him, emotionless, unspeaking.
Dom squirmed.
“You’re real lucky I came along,” the man said. His tone was flat, even.
Dead.
“Get up,” he said, “I’ll take you home.”
Home?
Yes.
Dom wanted to go home.
The man helped him up, and Dom followed him into the night.
***
Bruce Kenner stood in the middle of the medical examiner’s office at half past nine that evening with his hands on his hips and stared doubtfully down at Ed Harris. The lonely cavern was alive with activity as cops went over everything, all of them looking either bemused or a mused. Bruce was neither. He’d been at home, sitting in his chair and having a beer in front of AEW Dynamite when Vanessa called. “You might wanna get down here,” she said, sounding confused, “something really strange is going on.”
Ed Harris - no relation to that one guy - sat in a straight back chair beside his cluttered desk and gripped a styrofoam cup of coffee in both hands, putting Bruce - for some reason - in mind of a monkey. When Bruce came in, the old man was white as a sheet and shook like a leaf. In the last half hour, little had changed.
“Tell me again,” Bruce said.
He and Ed were pretty good friends. He knew that Ed knew standard police procedure. Cops don’t ask you to repeat your story a thousand times over because they’re forgetful fucks, they do it because telling it again and again helps to jog loose details that you might have forgotten. Ed, therefore, did not protest. “I turned my back,” he said and chopped the chair like Jackie Chan, “and I heard the noise.”
His voice was thick, unsteady, and halting. He sounded as squirrely as he looked…and he looked pretty damn squirrelly right now.
“I turned around…and he was looking at me. He was standing there and he was looking at me.”
This was the fourth time he’d had Ed go through the story, and nothing had changed. Bruce felt something stirring deep inside his gut. It was either disquiet…or he had to fart. He opened his mouth to speak, but sighed.
“You don’t believe me,” Ed said.
“I dunno, Ed. Dead bodies don’t just get up and walk away.”
Ed flashed. “I know that, goddamn it, but this one did.”
Bruce glanced at Vanessa. She looked uncomfortable.
“Are you sure he was dead?” Bruce asked.
Ed opened his mouth, closed it again, and said, “I did the autopsy.” His voice broke on the last word, and he sounded almost like he was pleading. “His fucking liver’s on the floor. He stepped on it. The man has nothing in him. I-I’m telling you, there’s no way he’s alive.”
During the autopsy, Ed had sat Dominick Mason’s organs on the little tray table where he kept his pointy things. Mason knocked it over while getting up. Indeed, there were human organs on the floor, and one of them did look kind of squished. Bare, bloody footprints led to the exit door, up a set of concrete steps, and then disappeared in the alley behind the office.
“You said you left his heart,” Bruce said.
“And his brain,” Vanessa helpfully added.
Ed pinched the bridge of his nose like a put upon professor dealing with two particularly stupid students. “Even with his heart and his brain, he’s dead. You saw the livor mortis. He was cold, he was stiff. His heart wasn’t beating, he wasn’t breathing. He was in one of those drawers for nine hours, not breathing, no blood flow - it’s impossible. It’s just…it’s impossible. I don’t care what you think, he was dead. And even if somehow he wasn’t, I cut out almost everything. I opened his stomach, I took his spleen - you don’t just get up from that. You don’t walk away from that, much less run.”
Bruce chewed the inside of his bottom lip because he didn’t have a Twix. He didn’t look like the smartest man in the world…and he wasn’t…but he knew a dead body when he saw one, and the body they took out of Dominick Mason’s apartment was D.E.A.D. And like Ed said, even if by some freak fluke of nature he wasn’t, he couldn’t just get up and go about his day with no liver, spleen, or kidneys. Hell, Bruce had his gallbladder out and he couldn’t even walk away from that.
“You said there was something funny about his heart,” Vanessa said.
Ed finished off his coffee. “Yeah. It was…moldy. I-I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Is it possible that…has something to do with it?”
“Unless the rules of biology have changed overnight, no,” Ed stated.
While Ed poured himself another cup of Joe, spilling some because he was still shaking, Vanessa took Bruce aside. “So what do you think?” she asked. “Is he telling the truth?”
For that, Bruce did not have an immediate answer. All else aside, he was a cop. He followed the evidence - and his gut instinct - wherever it led him. Ed was a sober man - he was not a drunk, insane, or stupid - and no man on earth could fake the look of trauma in his eyes. Bruce’s eyes went to the bloody footprints leading away from the exam table and his stomach roiled. It might be cliched, but there had to be a rational explanation. “Yeah,” he finally said. “The kid got up like he said, but there’s no way he was dead. Maybe…I dunno, he had a surge of adrenaline or something. I’m not a doctor.”
“That’ll only get him so far,” Vanessa said. “We’ll probably find him on the street somewhere.”
He went back to the purple splotches on Dom’s face, to his cold stiffness. There’s no way he was dead?
Bruce was confused, and he hated being confused.
“I dunno,” he said, “maybe.”
But he had the gnawing feeling that they wouldn’t. They would never find him…and Bruce would be confused forever.
Goddamn it, Mason, he thought, where are you?

TLDR; with Beautycounter no longer being available, I need clean and effective suggestions for concealer, non-powder blush and highlighter, mascara, sunscreen, men’s body wash, and shampoo and conditioner
I don’t love the idea of MLM’s, and I shudder at the thought. But I really loved Beautycounter’s products. I regularly purchased their makeup, sunscreen, and hair products. With everything going on lately, I obviously can no longer buy them 🙃 so I’m left in limbo trying to find products that are both clean and effective.
I’ve always struggled finding quality shampoo & conditioner that doesn’t make my hair greasy the next day. I’m slowly going through my BC bottles, and it’s been the only brand that has worked for my hair… I need suggestions for some good brands I could try next as I transition. The same goes for sunscreen.
Also looking for mascara, concealer, blush (preferably not a powder), and highlighter (also preferably not a powder) as those were my go-to BC makeup products. I’ve never found a concealer that worked as well as BC’s on my skin, so I’m really not looking forward to that switch 😭😂 all my products/colors are sold out on Ulta, so I need some suggestions. I’m nearly out of my concealer, so hoping to find that ASAP.
One more thing (sorry). My boyfriend loves BC’s men’s body wash, so I’m going to need to try finding an alternative there, as well.
I know this is a LOT, but I figured different people might chime in with suggestions for different things, and aside from the research I’ll have to do on my own, posting here seemed like the best start.
Thank you so, so much! I genuinely appreciate any help. I’m lost when it comes to this stuff.

An hour after getting back from the Mason apartment, Bruce Kenner had the distinct misfortune of meeting Bertha Henderson.
A plump, gaudy woman with wrinkles and sun beaten skin only an alligator could love, Bertha Henderson wore bright red lipstick, bright red rouge, and way too much mascara. Her tangled hair was a dull red color and her clothes - pink pants and a white floral top - stretched tight across her bulbous frame. She looked like the kind of woman who lived in a trailer with velvet pictures of Elvis on the wall and pink flamingos in the front yard.
She acted like one too.
From the moment she stormed into his office, she hadn’t shut up once. She scolded, chided, accused, and badgered, sometimes even wagging one fat finger in his face like he was a naughty little boy. Ten minutes into the dressing down and Bruce was beginning to fantasize about police brutality.
It took him another ten minutes to find out what the hell she even wanted.
“It’s my granddaughter,” she shot back, “she’s missing in your town.”
My town? Lady, this is barely my office. I share it with three other people.
“Well, if you’ll calm down, maybe I can help.”
Jesus Christ was that the wrong thing to say. She hit the roof and didn’t come down again until Bruce was this close to arresting her for assault on a police officer. “Young man, I do not appreciate the way you’re talking to me. My tax dollars are the only reason you have a job. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be working at a car wash.”
At least I wouldn’t have to deal with you.
Bruce took a deep breath and held his tongue in check. “How can I help you?” he asked.
“I told you, my granddaughter is missing. If you listened to me, you’d know this already.”
Bertha produced a picture and slid it across the desk. Bruce studied it. A girl, roughly sixteen with black hair, blue eyes, and dimples smiled back at him. “She;’s with that Rossi man, I just know it,” she said bitterly.
“Who?” Bruce asked.
Rolling her eyes like he was stupid, the old woman told him the story. Jessie - the dimple faced girl - had the rotten luck of having to live with Grandma Bertha after her parents went to jail on drug charges. They lived in Sand Lake, a little town in the mountains outside Albany, where Bertha was no doubt loved and admired by all. One day, Jessie, who her grandmother lovingly described as “A little troublemaker”, ran off. Bruce didn’t blame her. He’d known Bertha for half an hour and he wanted to run off. Bertha did some snooping on Jessie’s laptop and found that the “little whore” had been chatting with an older man, Joe Rossi. Rossi, or so Facebook said, lived in Albany and worked at Club Vlad.
“I want him arrested for pedophilia,” Bertha said and crossed her arms defiantly over her chest. “He’s a dog just like all men. She’s probably pregnant already. Another mouth I have to feed.”
Behind the old battle ax, Vanessa appeared in the doorway and lifted her brows as if to say What a piece of work. Knowing her, she’d probably been standing just out of sight this whole time with McKenny, the elderly evidence clerk, and snickering into her hand like a little girl. LOL she called him young man.
Bertha noticed him looking over her shoulder and started to turn. Vanessa’s face went white and she ducked out of the way, narrowly avoiding detection. “I’m glad you think this is funny,” Bertha said to Bruce. “Meanwhile, if I don’t get Jessie back, the state’s going to stop sending me my checks. I need that income. I can’t work, you know. I have gout.”
Too bad being an asshole isn’t a job, you’d be world-famous
“I’ll go talk to him,” Bruce said.
“I want more than talk, young man, I want action.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
When Bertha finally decided to waddle off and ruin someone else’s day, Vanessa came in and sat in the chair the old woman had so recently occupied. “Oh, my God,” she said, “that was intense. I was this close to radioing in a 1015.”
1015 was code for officer down.
“Funny,” Bruce said without a trace of humor. He had kids going missing, a dead guy someone moved around like a goddamn Barbie doll, and now this. What next, hemorrhoids?
“What do you think? Code 1 or code 2?”
Code 1 meant top priority. Code 2 meant not a top priority. Bruce thought for a moment. It didn’t sound like Jessie Henderson was in danger. It sounded like she met a guy - granted, one too old for her - and decided to hide out with him from her psycho grandma. Maybe it could be something more, but he had a gut feeling that it wasn’t…and his gut feelings were usually right. “2,” he finally said. “I got shit to do.”
By shit, he meant “Talk to the families of those missing boys again.” He’d been interviewing them for two days looking for clues, but there was nothing. It’s like they just vanished. Bruce didn’t like this. He didn’t like it at all.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” Vanessa said and slapped the desk.
When she was gone, Bruce sighed.
Never a dull moment, he thought.
***
Ed Harris - no relation to the Hollywood actor - had been the medical examiner for the City of Albany since 2002, and in all that time, he had never seen anything quite like this.
It was Wednesday evening and Ed was locked away in the cold, sterile space beneath the city offices that comprised his domain. With its puke green tiles, harsh lights, and cloying smells of disinfectant, the .coroner's office creeped most people out, but not Ed. He was at home here, as comfortable surrounded by toe-tagged bodies as a cactus was surrounded by desert. A thin man in his fifties with curly, steel gray hair thinning in the middle, he wore a white smock, blood stained over his clothes that made him look like a butcher instead of a low level government functionary. He had a dark and dry sense of humor, but then again, so do all people who play with dead bodies for fun and profit.
The coroner’s office was a vast, utilitarian vault segmented into multiple different rooms. Here, where the magic happened, three stainless steel tables stood in a row; a bank of refrigerated drawers kept watch, making sure nothing funny happened. One of the cold fluorescent lights overhead flickered with a hum of electricity, and water dripped rhythmically from a faucet. It was a cold, eerie place, but to Ed, it was home.
On most nights, only one of the tables was occupied, but tonight, two were. On one lay an old lady who died of what appeared to be cyanide poisoning. On the other was Dominick Mason.
Naked save for a white cloth draped over his groin to protect his dignity, Dom was the most corpsy corpse you’d ever hope to see. In fact, if you looked up dead guy in the dictionary, you’d see a picture of him. His body was pale and sunken, one side covered in purple splotches where his blood had pooled, and his eyes were closed. His abdomen was slightly distended with the expected build up of gas, and his flesh stuck fast to the bones beneath. In other words, he was text book. A normal corpse.
Mostly normal.
As men of his trade are wont to do when strange bodies mysteriously appear, Ed had opened Dom up, making a Y shaped incision from his neck to his groin. He hummed to himself as he did so, his hands wielding his sharp and shiny tools with the deft assuredness of a seasoned surgeon. Done cutting, he dipped his gloved hands into the cavity and started removing organs. A spleen here, a liver there, nothing Dom would miss. When he got to the heart, however, he stopped.
There was something…off…about it. At first glance, it was black and withered like an oversized raisin. An odd and putrid odor emanated from it and though he was familiar with the various smells and stenches the human body produced after death, this wasn’t one of them. Try as he might, he couldn’t place it, couldn’t even compare it to anything. Plucking a magnifying glass from the metal cart next to the table, he peeled back part of Dom’s chest and examined the heart closer.
That’s when things got really weird.
Dominick Mason’s heart was, indeed, shriveled, but it was not black. Instead, it was almost entirely covered by an interlacing crisscross of what appeared to be black mold. Here and there, Ed could glimpse flashes of the heart beneath: It was wrinkled and a sickly gray color. “What is this?” Ed asked himself at length. He grabbed a pair of tweezers from the tray and carefully, very carefully, attempted to remove a piece of the mold for analysis. The moment the cold metal tips touched the heart, it gave a violent spasm that sent Ed falling back with a shocked gasp, the tweezers falling from his hand and clinking to the tiled floor.
The heart began to pulse like an alien egg sac, slowly at first, then more rapidly. For a moment, Ed was frozen in place, unable to comprehend what he was seeing. Once you die, your heart ceases beating. That’s that. Only living hearts beat, and Dominick Mason was certainly dead. He was dead from the moment Ed first laid eyes on him earlier that day and he was dead now. Yet there was his heart, beating anyway.
It could be a muscle spasm. They usually aren’t that violent and consistent, but dead bodies sometimes do strange things. As he watched the blackened muscle expanding and contracting, however, Ed had the most eerie feeling. He went to rub the back of his neck, realized he was still wearing blood soaked gloves, and stripped them off. He was spooking himself out; he needed a break and a hot cup of coffee. He’d come back fresh and start over again.
With that mold.
Could you really blame him for being creeped out? That stuff wasn’t normal. He’d never seen anything like that before, not even in textbooks. Dom was scrawny and didn’t get enough vitamins in life, but overall, he was healthy; that mold…or whatever it was…had no business being there.
Going over to the coffee pot, which stood in the same room to save travel time, Ed grabbed a styrofoam cup. When he was done here, he planned to go home and -
A terrible, metallic clatter rang out, and Ed jumped. He turned around, and when he saw Dominick Mason standing next to the table, hunched slightly over and staring at him, an electric burst of fright shot up his spine and exploded in his brain, so strong it made the edges turn gray. Pale, hands hooked into talons, and the flaps of his chest hanging open to reveal the cavity beneath, Dominick Mason looked for all the world like a boy who’d been caught sneaking out to meet his girlfriend. A weak, involuntary, “Oh, God,” slipped from Ed’s trembling lips, and the spell was broken. Dom came alive and ran toward the door leading out to the parking lot. He slammed through it, and the sound of it crashing open and then falling closed again echoed through the empty chamber.
Shaking, panting for air, and soaked in piss, Ed sank to the floor in a sitting position, his eyes wide and staring like those of a soldier returning damaged from the front.
It was a long time before he composed himself enough to call the police.
***
Dazed and caught in a nightmarish twilight realm where nothing made sense, Dominick Mason limped painfully down the sidewalk, a stranger lost in a strange land filled with danger and hostile creatures. Barefoot and shrouded in a white sheet, he trembled with cold and struggled to ignore the dark, threatening shapes looming from the fog in his brain, shapes that would turn into unspeakable truths if he let them.
Passersby openly stared at him, their expressions either morbidly curious, disgusted, or alarmed. A man put his arm protectively around his girlfriend; a woman pulled her little boy to her breast, and another man sneered at him, his nose crinkling. Dom, his glazed eyes narrowed against the harsh glare of the many street lamps, headlights, and storefronts, lumbered headlong toward nowhere, his fear growing until he was shambling. He imagined he could hear every cough, every whisper; smell the odor of every unwashed body. Each car horn was deafening, every whiff of ass or armpits sent his stomach churning. The rustle of a passing pedestrian’s jacket jammed into his ears like icepicks, and the approaching globes of LED headlamps burned his eyes. He gritted his teeth and groaned against the pain.
The dense mist wrapping his brain made it hard to think. Like a frightened animal, he made his way on instinct alone. Home. He needed to get home. Out here, on the street, he was exposed. At home, locked away in his small apartment, he would be safe.
A car passed in the street, bass heavy rap music blaring from its open windows, and Dom’s brain exploded with agony. He threw himself against a street sign and held on for dear life, his legs weak. Dizziness overwhelmed him, and he almost went down. He was also cold.
So, so cold.
People around him quickened their step; they never took their eyes off him, as though he were a venomous snake that would strike at any moment. He needed to get away from them. They were going to hurt him; people always hurt him.
Pushing away from the sign, he began to hobble once more toward home, wherever home was. He looked over his shoulder several times as he made his way down Central Avenue, and each time, he saw that no one was following him as he had feared.
No one, that is, except for the man in sunglasses.
Tall and lank with curly hair, he wore dark Aviators and a leather motorcycle jacket over a button up shirt. His hands were thrust deep into his pockets and his face showed no expression. He was always there, always a few steps closer. Outside Capital Fried Chicken, a group of people openly stared at him, He heard their whispers as he passed. What’s wrong with him? Dude’s straight tweakin. And the one that struck him the most. That guy looks dead.
Dom hobbled faster, as if to outrun the realization that he was, in fact, dead. The man in sunglasses was closer now, his footsteps so loud that Dom winced. He turned around, and the man was impossibly in front of him. Dom ran into him and bounced backward, going ass over tea kettle and landing on the former. They were in front of a church on a darkened corner, the lights here either burned out or shot out - you could never tell in Albany. Even though it was dark, Dom could see everything with crystal clarity. Dom tried to scurry away, but he was too weak to escape. Right there and then, he decided to give up. Come what may, he just wanted this nightmare to be over.
The man stared down at him, emotionless, unspeaking.
Dom squirmed.
“You’re real lucky I came along,” the man said. His tone was flat, even.
Dead.
“Get up,” he said, “I’ll take you home.”
Home?
Yes.
Dom wanted to go home.
The man helped him up, and Dom followed him into the night.
***
Bruce Kenner stood in the middle of the medical examiner’s office at half past nine that evening with his hands on his hips and stared doubtfully down at Ed Harris. The lonely cavern was alive with activity as cops went over everything, all of them looking either bemused or a mused. Bruce was neither. He’d been at home, sitting in his chair and having a beer in front of AEW Dynamite when Vanessa called. “You might wanna get down here,” she said, sounding confused, “something really strange is going on.”
Ed Harris - no relation to that one guy - sat in a straight back chair beside his cluttered desk and gripped a styrofoam cup of coffee in both hands, putting Bruce - for some reason - in mind of a monkey. When Bruce came in, the old man was white as a sheet and shook like a leaf. In the last half hour, little had changed.
“Tell me again,” Bruce said.
He and Ed were pretty good friends. He knew that Ed knew standard police procedure. Cops don’t ask you to repeat your story a thousand times over because they’re forgetful fucks, they do it because telling it again and again helps to jog loose details that you might have forgotten. Ed, therefore, did not protest. “I turned my back,” he said and chopped the chair like Jackie Chan, “and I heard the noise.”
His voice was thick, unsteady, and halting. He sounded as squirrely as he looked…and he looked pretty damn squirrelly right now.
“I turned around…and he was looking at me. He was standing there and he was looking at me.”
This was the fourth time he’d had Ed go through the story, and nothing had changed. Bruce felt something stirring deep inside his gut. It was either disquiet…or he had to fart. He opened his mouth to speak, but sighed.
“You don’t believe me,” Ed said.
“I dunno, Ed. Dead bodies don’t just get up and walk away.”
Ed flashed. “I know that, goddamn it, but this one did.”
Bruce glanced at Vanessa. She looked uncomfortable.
“Are you sure he was dead?” Bruce asked.
Ed opened his mouth, closed it again, and said, “I did the autopsy.” His voice broke on the last word, and he sounded almost like he was pleading. “His fucking liver’s on the floor. He stepped on it. The man has nothing in him. I-I’m telling you, there’s no way he’s alive.”
During the autopsy, Ed had sat Dominick Mason’s organs on the little tray table where he kept his pointy things. Mason knocked it over while getting up. Indeed, there were human organs on the floor, and one of them did look kind of squished. Bare, bloody footprints led to the exit door, up a set of concrete steps, and then disappeared in the alley behind the office.
“You said you left his heart,” Bruce said.
“And his brain,” Vanessa helpfully added.
Ed pinched the bridge of his nose like a put upon professor dealing with two particularly stupid students. “Even with his heart and his brain, he’s dead. You saw the livor mortis. He was cold, he was stiff. His heart wasn’t beating, he wasn’t breathing. He was in one of those drawers for nine hours, not breathing, no blood flow - it’s impossible. It’s just…it’s impossible. I don’t care what you think, he was dead. And even if somehow he wasn’t, I cut out almost everything. I opened his stomach, I took his spleen - you don’t just get up from that. You don’t walk away from that, much less run.”
Bruce chewed the inside of his bottom lip because he didn’t have a Twix. He didn’t look like the smartest man in the world…and he wasn’t…but he knew a dead body when he saw one, and the body they took out of Dominick Mason’s apartment was D.E.A.D. And like Ed said, even if by some freak fluke of nature he wasn’t, he couldn’t just get up and go about his day with no liver, spleen, or kidneys. Hell, Bruce had his gallbladder out and he couldn’t even walk away from that.
“You said there was something funny about his heart,” Vanessa said.
Ed finished off his coffee. “Yeah. It was…moldy. I-I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Is it possible that…has something to do with it?”
“Unless the rules of biology have changed overnight, no,” Ed stated.
While Ed poured himself another cup of Joe, spilling some because he was still shaking, Vanessa took Bruce aside. “So what do you think?” she asked. “Is he telling the truth?”
For that, Bruce did not have an immediate answer. All else aside, he was a cop. He followed the evidence - and his gut instinct - wherever it led him. Ed was a sober man - he was not a drunk, insane, or stupid - and no man on earth could fake the look of trauma in his eyes. Bruce’s eyes went to the bloody footprints leading away from the exam table and his stomach roiled. It might be cliched, but there had to be a rational explanation. “Yeah,” he finally said. “The kid got up like he said, but there’s no way he was dead. Maybe…I dunno, he had a surge of adrenaline or something. I’m not a doctor.”
“That’ll only get him so far,” Vanessa said. “We’ll probably find him on the street somewhere.”
He went back to the purple splotches on Dom’s face, to his cold stiffness. There’s no way he was dead?
Bruce was confused, and he hated being confused.
“I dunno,” he said, “maybe.”
But he had the gnawing feeling that they wouldn’t. They would never find him…and Bruce would be confused forever.
Goddamn it, Mason, he thought, where are you?

SEE UPDATE BELOW!
I had my final round of interviews for a large company today. Today was VERY humid and the campus is HUGE (foreshadowing).
I arrived and parked 40 minutes before my interview time just to navigate campus. I walk about 5-7 minutes the correct way but to the wrong building. I asked two workers for help and they said "Oh no! You're headed in the wrong direction. Take the path and walk all the way back." So I did.. I took a path and walked all the way back... to an empty field. Luckily there were two men working back there and offered to give me a truck ride to the correct building.
Now, let me say this. I am a SWEATER. I definitely have hyperactive sweat glands and by the time I walked in the complete opposite direction, I was HOT. Not to mention, I was wearing a semi-heavy blazer for the interview.
I finally made it into the right building and checked in at the desk... sweating. I rushed to the bathroom in an attempt to cool down - even used my portable fan but to no avail. As soon as I sat down all of the heat had caught up to me and I was sweating again. The recruiter finally arrived and JUST MY LUCK, "Ok! We're going to walk over to the next building here". BACK OUTSIDE... and she was a FAST WALKER. I was hoping to make it to the space where I'd have my first interviews a little bit ahead of the person I was meeting with (the DIRECTOR of the team I'd be on) but just my luck - she was early.
I begged for forgiveness and asked her to excuse me as I was DRIPPING SWEAT and rushed to the bathroom - again, in an attempt to cool off. I apologized once again before the interview started and she even made a light-hearted joke about and told me that I can use the paper with my agenda on it as a fan. The interview itself went well besides the fact that I was literally DRIPPING SWEAT and fanning myself practically the entire time she was talking. I sweat so much that the salt got in my eye and started to burn. TEARS in my left eye started to stream down my face.
Every interview was back-to-back. I quite literally had no time to even use the bathroom between interviews and the tour until after lunch... when I finally got to sit down and look at myself to notice that I had sweat so much my mascara ran and there were mascara stains underneath my eye.
I quite literally had sweat through all 6 of my interviews today. The content of the interviewes went really well but I can't help but to think about how much I was sweating and how embarassing it was. Even worse, I REALLLLLYYYYYYY need this job.
If you have any terrible interview stories please feel free to drop them below lol.
UPDATE: I GOT THE JOB!!!!!!

Hi there, welcome to my post! Feel free to make an offer for anything listed :D
The Boring Stuff: - Items come from a non-smoking home, and are all new / never used unless noted. Used items have photos showing usage. - Prices exclude shipping & insurance, to be calculated to your zip code ($5+).

ISO List

(trades only, not looking to purchase at this time. Will also look at lists!)

• Imaginary Authors: A City on Fire, Memoirs of a Trespasser, O Unknown, Saint Julep, Whispered Myths
  
• Too Faced mini Gingerbread Spice palette
  
• Too Faced mini Salted Caramel palette
  
• Tetris x Ipsy brushes
  
• Christophe Robin Regenerating Hair Mask - FS or multiple minis from beauty boxes
  
• Necromancy Cosmetica lipsticks in Ancient Queen, Lydia, Solis Mortem, or Ophidian
  
• Try me on lip scrubs (new please)
  
• Pat McGrath Subversive palette (also interested in other gold PM items)
  
• Lalique fragrances: Fleur Universelle, Or Intemporel, Silver, Zamak, and Zinc
  
• Jo Malone fragrances: particularly interested in Bloomsbury (non-floral - Leather & Artemisia, Tobacco & Mandarin, and Whiskey & Cedarwood) and Ginger Biscuit, but try me
  
• Zoologist samples
  
• Marc Jacobs fragrances: Ginger Cocktail
  
• Diptyque fragrances: Eau Lente and Eau Duelle
  
• Ginger / clove forward fragrances in general...if someone has a decant of CB I hate perfume Gingerbread that would be awesome
  

Palettes, Kits, and Sets

Anastasia Beverly Hills eyeshadow singles, listed L-R, top then bottom. $25 for the 4 shadows, or priced individually below: - ABH eyeshadow single in Wine, full size, swatched - $8 - ABH eyeshadow single in Surface of the Sun, full size, swatched - $8 - ABH eyeshadow single in Chocolate Crumble, full size, new - $8 - ABH eyeshadow single in Metal, full size, swatched - $8
Benefit Greeting From Cabana Glama DesTANation Makeup Kit, used as shown - $15
Karl Lagerfeld x ModelCo Minaudière with Mini Lip Kit, full size, NIB P - $100 Includes: - Minaudière hard clutch / makeup bag, with attachable (heavy) chain to use as a shoulder bag and dust bag - Full-size Lip Liner in Rosewood (0.05 oz.) - 2 Mini Lip Glosses in Ramatuelle and St Tropez Sunset (0.04 oz. each) - 2 Mini Lipsticks in Kate and Stella (0.05 oz. each)
Flesh Starshine eyeshadow palette, full size, new. Open. Back of palette. - $20
Kat von D Shade + Light eyeshadow palette in Plum, full size, used 2x as shown. Back of palette. - $10
Make Up For Ever MUFE 9 artist shadow palette Volume 4 (shades 100, 842, 240, 620, 806, 536, 126, 546, 530), full size, used 2x as shown. Back of palette. - $25
Smith & Cult Book of Eyes quad palette in Noonsuite (bronzey), full size, NIB - $25
Tarte Be Your Own Tarteist Eye & Cheek Palette, used as shown - $20
Urban Decay Naked Cherry palette, full size, NIB - $40

Eyes

Brows:
Anastasia Beverly Hills ABH Clear Brow Gel, travel size (2.5ml), NIB - $7
ModelCo More Brows in Light / Medium, Full Size - $10
Ulta Brow Tint in Medium, full size, new - $6
Eyeliner:
BareMinerals Lasting Line Long-wearing Eye Liner in Absolute Black, Full Size, New - $10
Beauty For Real I-Line 24-7 Eyeliner in Black Magic, full size, new - $10
Estée Lauder Automatic Eye Pencil Duo Refill in Charcoal, full size, NIB - $10
Lancome Drama Liqui-Pencil in Noir Intense, Travel Size, .018oz - $5
Laura Geller I-Care Waterproof Eyeliner in Charcoal, Full Size - $10
NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Milk (white), full size, new - $3
Sephora Waterproof Contour Eye Pencil in 33 Love Affair (plum), new, travel size (.017oz) - $3
Stila Smudge Stick Waterproof Eyeliner in Stingray (jet black), full size, NIB - $15
Tarte Sex Kitten Eyeliner in Black, travel size (half size, .0035oz), new - $8
Ulta Dual-Ended Liner, in Halo & Black/Brown, Full Size - $3
Victoria's Secret Very Sexy Sparkling Eyeliner in Blacklight, Full Size, cracked cap used 2x - $5
Eyeshadow:
Kat Von D KVD Metal Crush Eyeshadow in Thunderstruck (warm white gold), full size (.1oz), swatched - $12
Laura Geller Baked Marble Eyeshadow in Amethyst, full size, new - $12
Maybelline Expert Wear Eyeshadow in Amethyst Smokes, used 3x - $2
NYC HD Color Trio Eye Shadow in Late Night Latte, Full Size, used 5x - $2
NYX Prismatic Eyeshadow Single in Punk Heart (plum with purple shimmer), full size, used as shown - $3
Trestique Color and Smudge Shadow Crayon in Marimoto Pink Pearl, full size, NIB - $15
Ulta Eye Shadow singles Duo in Petite (light beige matte) and Beauty Junkie (mauve glitter), both full size (.06oz), both new - $8 for the pair
Ulta Eye Shadow Palette in Lace, Charm, Nostalgia, Vintage, Delicate, and Seaside, .21oz, new - $6
Lashes:
Eyelure London Limited Edition Party Lashes in Snow Princess, full size, NIB - $3
Wet n Wild Fantasy Makers Blue Glow in the Dark Lashes, full size, NIB - $2
Mascara:
BellaPierre Volume Lash Waterproof Mascara, full size, new & sealed - $10
Butter London Double Decker Lashes Mascara in Black, travel size (.18oz), NIB - $6
Clinique Chubby Lash Mascara in 01 Jumbo Jet (black), travel size (4ml), NIB - $5
Clinique High Impact Mascara in black, half size (.15oz), new - $10
Clinique Lash Power Flutter-to-Full Mascara in 01 Black Onyx, travel size, new - $8
Estée Lauder Sumptuous Knockout Mascara in 01 Black, travel size (.09oz), new - $10
Julep Length Matters Mascara in Jet Black, travel size (.2oz), NIB - $8
Laura Geller StyleLASH Intense Lengthening Mascara, FS (.33oz), NWOB - $14
Maybelline Great Lash Mascara in Black, travel size (.15oz), new - $2
Pur Big Look Mascara with Argan oil, full size (.12oz), new - $6
Ulta Amped Lashes Mascara in Jet Black, full size, new - $6
Ulta Beauty Maximum Lashes Defining and Lengthening Mascara, full size, new - $6

Lips

Lip Gloss, Balms, & Stains:
ChapStick Lip Butter in Green Tea Mint, full size, NIB - $2
First Aid Beauty FAB Ultra Repair Lip Therapy, full size (.5oz), new - $8
Jane Iredale SPF 15 Lip Drink Lip Balm in Flirt (sheer pink), full size, NIB - $10
MAC Vamplify Lip Gloss in Suggestive, FS, new - $12
Mally Beans High Shine Lip Gloss in Pilar Bean, DS (.07oz), new - $6
NYC City Proof Extended Wear Lip Gloss in Mauving All Night #458, Full Size - $3
Philosophy High-Gloss Lip Shine in Fresh Cream, full size (.4oz), new and sealed - $6
Pur Chrome Glaze High-Shine Lip Gloss In DIY (pinky nude), full size (0.07 oz), NIB - $10
Ulta Double Duty Lip Stain and Balm in Drama (Dark Red), full size, new - $4
Ulta Double Duty Lip Stain and Balm in Romance (Pink), full size, new - $4
Urban Decay Revolution Lip Gloss in Savage (bright pink), travel size (.05oz), new - $5
Whole Foods organic lip balm in Peppermint, full size, new and sealed - $1
Whole Foods organic lip balm in Pomegranate Orange, full size, new and sealed - $1
Whole Foods organic lip balm in Tangerine, full size, new and sealed - $1
Victoria's Secret Beauty Rush Lip Balm in Minty Kiss, Full Size - $3
Lip Liners & Primers:
Kat Von D Everlasting Lip Liner in Homegirl, full size (.25g), used 2x as shown - $10
Milani Color Statement Lip Liner in 02 True Red, full size, new - $2
Tarte Tarteist Lip Crayon in Thirsty (bright red), .01oz, NIB - $10
Lipstick - Liquid:
Julep It's Whipped Matte Lip Mousse in At Midnight (Fireball Red Matte), full size (.14oz), new - $10 for 1, $16 for 2
Julep It's Whipped Matte Lip Mousse in Love Potion (Bronzed Black Metallic Matte), full size (.14oz), new P - $10 for 1, $16 for 2
Julep It's Whipped Matte Lip Mousse in Pillow Talk (Victorian Pink Matte), full size (.14oz), new - $10 for 1, $16 for 2
Julep It's Whipped Matte Lip Mousse in Say Hello (Rich Marsala Matte), full size (.14oz), new - $10 for 1, $16 for 2
Julep It's Whipped Matte Lip Mousse in XOXO (Femme Fuchsia Matte), full size (.14oz), new - $10 for 1, $16 for 2
Laura Geller Lip Silk Liquid Lipstick in French Kiss (soft pink), full size, new - $10
Maybelline Color Sensational Vivid Matte Liquid Lip Color in Nude Flush , Full Size, swatched 1x - $3
NYX Suede Cream Liquid Lipstick in Orange County (bright orange), travel size (.05oz), new - $4, or 2/$6
NYX Suede Cream Liquid Lipstick in Pink Lust (bright pink), travel size (.05oz), new - $4, or 2/$6
NYX Cosmetics Soft Matte Lip Cream in Transylvania (deep wine), full size (0.27 oz), new - $4, or 2/$6
OCC Lip Tar in Disintegration (pale plum metallic), full size, NIB - $12
OCC Lip Tar in Hoochie (magenta / purple), full size, NIB - $12
Tarte Lip Sculptor, Lipstick & Lipgloss, in VIP (cool nude), travel size (1.5g lipstick 1ml lipgloss), new - $10
Tarte Tarteist Lip Paint in Bae (red), full size, new - $13
Lipstick - Bullet & Pencil:
Almay Demi-Sheer Creme Lipcolor in 80 Demi Mauve, full size, used 3x as shown - $8
Bite Beauty Luminous Creme Lipstick Topper, no shade listed but a shimmery bronze, full size, new - $18
Bite Beauty High Pigment Pencil in Rhubarb, full size (.09oz), used 1x - $10
Bite Beauty Matte Cream Lipstick in Barberry (cool dark plum), full size, used as shown - $16
DCA Lipstick in No. 108, full size, used 2x as shown - $4
Estée Lauder All-Day Lipstick in Ancient Brick, full size, swatched as shown - $12
Estée Lauder Pure Color Envy Sculpting Lipstick in Irresistible, full size (.12oz), new P - $15
Illamasqua Glamour Lipstick in Tease (pale Nude), full size, used 3x - $12
Kat Von D Studded Kiss Lipstick in Homegirl (satin matte berry), travel size (.04oz), used as shown - $6
Kat Von D Studded Kiss Lipstick in Poe (cool metallic blue), full size, NIB - $12
Kat Von D Studded Kiss Lipstick in Roxy (purple), mini size (1g), used 1x as shown - $6
Korres Matte Twist Lipstick in Tempting Coral, full size (.05oz), new - $10
Lancome Rouge Absolu Lipstick in Rose Espace, full size, used 3x as shown - $12
Laura Geller Color Brilliance Lustrous Lipstick in Cute, full size, new - $12
Laura Geller Italian Marble lipstick in Strawberry Toffee, full size, new - $12
MAC Retro Matte Lipstick in Flat Out Fabulous (bright pink/purple), full size, new - $12
Makeup Academy Lipstick in Persian Rose (bright pink), full size, used 1x - $3
Makeup Revolution Scandalous Lipstick in Depraved (violet), full size, used 1x - $3
NARS Velvet Matte Lip Pencil in 413 BLKR (fuchsia), full size (.08oz), new - $16
NARS Velvet Matte Lip Pencil in Let's Go Crazy (cool fuchsia), 3/4 size (1.8g, FS is 2.4g), new - $10
Nudestix Magnetic Matte Lip Color in Greystone (greige), .088oz (FS is .1oz), new - $12
NYC Lipstick in Fragile Pink, Full Size - used as shown - $2
NYC Ultra Moist Lip Wear in Blossom #316, Full Size, Used 2x - $2
NYC Ultra Moist Lip Wear in Ruby #305, Full Size, Used 2x - $2
Sephora Collection Rouge Cream in #49 Belly-Dancing (red), mini (.03oz, FS is .14) - $2
Smashbox Be Legendary Cream Lipstick in Inspiration (cool fuchsia), .08oz (FS is .1oz), new - $10, or 2/$15
Smashbox Be Legendary Cream Lipstick in Legendary (cool red), .08oz (FS is .1oz), new - $10, or 2/$15
Smashbox Be Legendary Cream Lipstick in Tabloid (cool violet), .08oz (FS is .1oz), new - $10, or 2/$15
Ulta Lipstick in Cherry Picked 202 (medium true red), Full Size, Used 1x - $4
Urban Decay x Gwen Stefani lipstick in Spiderweb (satin red cream), full size, NIB - $12
Urban Decay Matte Revolution Lipstick in Temper (red-orange), full size, NIB - $12
Urban Decay Vice Lipstick in Phone Call (bright pink with cream finish), full size, NIB - $10
Wander Beauty Wanderout Dual Lipstick in Wanderberry (rich burgundy), half size (.07oz), new - $10
Winky Lux Matte Lip Velour in Royal (purple), .14oz, NIB - $10

Face

Blush:
Lancome Blush Subtil in in Rose Fresque, full size (.18oz), used as shown - $12
Ulta Cheek Palette in Fresh Glow Highlighter and Nude Pink Blush, .155oz, new - $5
Bronzer & Contour:
BareMinerals BareSkin Serum Bronzer in Sheer Sun, Travel Size (.1oz) - $3
St. Tropez One Night Only Finishing Gloss, travel size (.16oz), new - $2
Foundations, Concealers, CC Cream, & Powders:
Bee Naturals Tinted Moisturizer in Shade 2 (Medium/Dark), Full Size (1oz) - 1/$15 or 2/$20
Benefit Porefessional Pore Minimizing Makeup in Shade 1, travel size (.16oz), new - $10
Dermablend Loose Setting Powder, travel size (.11oz), new - $10
Jane Iredale Smooth Affair, travel size (.24oz), new - $8
Julep Cushion Complexion concealer 5-in-1 Skin Perfector with Turmeric in 200 Nude, full size, NIB - $18
Laura Geller Balance-N-Brighten Baked Foundation in Medium, full size, new - $15
Laura Mercier Translucent Loose Setting Powder, travel size (.12oz), new - $6
Pixi by Petra Beauty Bronzer in Summertime, Travel Size, .16oz - $4
Highlighters:
Laura Geller Baked Gelato Lace Illuminator in Ballerina, full size, new - $15
Laura Geller Baked Golden Rose Highlighter, full size, new - $12
P/Y/T Upgrade Highlighter in Backstage Pass (warm shimmer nude), .07oz, NIP - $8
Primers & Setting Sprays:
Becca First Light Priming Filter, travel size (.2oz), NIB - $7
Japonesque Velvet Touch Primer, travel size (.3oz), new - $8
Laura Geller Spackle Even Tone Primer, travel size (.5oz), new - $6
Pur Correcting Primer, travel size (.3oz), new - $10
Too Faced Hangover 3-in-1 Face Primer & Setting Spray, travel size (.06oz), NIB - $4
Too Faced Hangover Replenishing Face Primer, travel size (.16oz), NIB - $4
Urban Decay All Nighter Long Lasting Makeup Spray, travel size (.5oz), new - $6

Skincare & Body

BareMinerals Skinlongevity Vital Power Infusion, full size (1.7oz), new - $35
Bliss Leave it to Cleavage, Travel Size, .5oz - $4
Bliss Triple Oxygen Instant Energizing Foaming Mask, new, travel size (.16oz) - $3
Clinique Dramatically Different Moisturizing Gel, new, Travel Size (.5oz) - $4
Clinique 7 Day Scrub Cream, travel size (1oz), new - $5
Daily Concepts Exfoliating Body Scrubber - $5
Elizabeth Arden Prevage Daily Anti-Aging Serum, Travel Size, .17oz - $8
Erborian Bamboo Creme Frappe Skin Reviving Gel, new, travel size (.17oz) - $4
Estée Lauder Advanced Night Micro Cleansing Foam, travel size (1oz), new - $6
Estée Lauder Revitalizing Supreme+ Global Anti-Aging Cell Power Creme, .5oz, new - $15
First Aid Beauty FAB Facial Radiance Intensive Peel, travel size (.34oz), new - $6
First Aid Beauty FAB Ultra Repair Cream, travel size (1oz), new - $6
First Aid Beauty FAB Ultra Repair Cream Intense Hydration in Honeysuckle, travel size (1oz), new - $6
First Botany Cosmeceuticals 50X Strength Hyaluronic Acid Serum, .5oz, new - $8
MAC Cleanse Off Oil, travel size (.2oz), new - $4
Milk Makeup Sunshine Oil, Sample, .1oz - $2
Murad Age Reform Nutrient-Charged Water Gel, travel size (.25oz), NIB - $10
Omorovicza Budapest Magic Moisture Mist, full size (1.7oz), NIB - $65
Omorovicza Balancing Moisturizer, full size (30ml), new - $50
Perricone MD Blue Plasma Cleansing Treatment (gentle cleanser), travel size (2oz), new - $18
Perricone MD Cold Plasma Plus + Eye Cream, travel size (.25oz), new - $30
Proactiv Skin Purifying Mask, travel size (1oz), NIB - $10
Shiseido Ultimune Power Infusing Concentrate, travel size (.33oz), new - $15
Strivectin TL Advanced Light Tightening Neck Cream, travel size (.25oz), NIB - $10
Toulon Mineral Infusion Serum-92, 1oz - $6
Whish Self-Tanner, Travel Size (.75oz) - $2

Hair / Tools / Nail Polish / Etc

Alterna Haircare Caviar Anti-Aging Miracle Volume Mist, travel size (1.4oz), new - $6
Bumble & Bumble BB Pret-a-Powder, travel size (.5oz), used 1x - $8
Essie Nail Lacquer in Say it Aint Soho (metallic copper), full size, new - $5
Fatboy Spray Putty, full size (4.8oz), new - $15
Julep Color Treat Polish in It Girl Lillian (pink creme), full size, new - $8
Living Proof TBD Multi-Tasking Styler, travel size (1oz), new - $7
OPI Nail Lacquer in Can i Bairro This Shade (dusty teal), full size, new - $5
OPI Nail Lacquer in The Taupe of the Iceberg, full size, new - $5
Phyto Paris Phytoelixir Cleansing Care Hair Cream, travel size (1oz), new - $8
Phyto Paris Intense Hydrating Brilliance Mask (Dry Hair Phytojoba), 1.7oz, NIB - $8
Matrix Total Results Miracle Creator Multi-Tasking Treatment, travel size (1oz), new - $3
Urban Decay Heavy Metal loose glitter in Reverb (blue), full size (.10oz), NIB - $10

Fragrance

Full Size
Aromachology Exotic & Spicy EDP, full size (1.7oz), used 1x - $40
Jo Malone English Oak & Redcurrant Cologne, full size (3.4 oz), sprayed 1x - $100
Penhaligon's Heartless Helen, full size (75ml) in box, used 3x - $160
Ralph Lauren Polo Sport for Women, used as shown - $12
Travel Size
Armani Air di Gioia EDP, travel size spray (.5oz - bigger than a rollerball), NIB - $20
Armani Sky di Gioia EDP, travel size spray bottle (.5oz - bigger than a rollerball), NIB - $20
Bvlgari Au The Rouge EDC, travel size (.17oz), used 2x - $10
Candie's Candie's EDT, travel size (.5oz), about 60% remaining - $5
Lush All Good Things solid perfume, travel size (12g), used 1x as shown - $15
Origins Ginger Essence Sensuous Skin Scent, travel size (.5 oz), used as shown (about 80% remaining) - $12
Philosophy Pure Grace EDT spray, travel size (.5oz), NIB - $15
Samples 3/$5
Atelier Cologne Vanilla Insensée Cologne Absolue, sample size + postcard, new - $3
Burberry Mr. Burberry EDT, sample size (2ml), new - $2
Calvin Klein Eternity for Men EDT, sample size (1.2ml), new - $2
Clean for Men Classic EDT, sample size (1ml), new - $2
Versace Eros EDT, sample size (1ml), new - $2
Viktor & Rolf Spicebomb EDT, sample size (1.2ml), new - $2.

I just started watching Shogun the TV show which takes place right before the start of the Tokugawa period (year 1600), and some of the styling choices are making me laugh. I’m not a Japanese historian by any means, but I’m pretty sure court ladies weren’t sporting plump nude-glossed lips, natural foundation, and volumizing mascara.
It did make me really curious though, just how wrong (or right) did they get it? How would Japanese nobility actually have been styling themselves hair- and makeup-wise at this time?
Would the women have been using white powder, red lipstick, and/or teeth-blackening powder? Did any of them actually wear their hair in loose ponytails like the show portrays, or would they all have been wearing it up in elaborate styles? Did the men wear makeup at all? And what about women and men of low rank and peasants?
I’m curious about the clothing as well, but that’s probably an entirely different post.

ABOUT ME
I wrote a money diary in October 2022. Since then, my boyfriend P. has been upgraded to fiance (we are getting married in July!) and my beloved Trash Cat has had enucleation surgery (we now call the vet “The Eye Snatcher”). I still work as a technology specialist in higher education. In December 2023, I discovered HR input my salary wrong when I first started my current job—the contract I signed stated my salary as $65,000, but they input it as $60,000. I got a hefty portion of back pay. I am currently making about $67,000/year.
P. and I still split expenses 50/50 (somewhat imperfectly) and do not have any combined accounts. We input shared expenses into this spreadsheet and then settle the difference once a month. His salary is about $75,000. He recently cashed out about $15,000 from a 529 plan he never used (he didn’t go to college) and will be creating a CD ladder with this money to save for a down payment.
ASSETS & DEBT
Retirement balance: $6,542.66 in my 403(b) and $2,688.03 in my Roth IRA. In my last money diary, I felt guilty about my retirement balance because I didn’t really start until the age of 25 and for a year my contributions went uninvested. I feel much better about it now. This summer, I’ll qualify for employer-matched contributions to my 403(b), which will improve my progress even more.
Equity: maybe one day????
Savings account balance: $1,291.23 in an emergency fund, $160.32 in a recently-started down payment fund.
Checking account balance: $3,052.37
Credit card debt: $4,651 on credit card 1, $0 on credit card 2. Unfortunately, I’ve had 3 major setbacks in recent months: Trash Cat’s surgery ($2,200), new tires/maintenance on my car ($2,300), and an unexpected hotel stay when P.’s nephew passed away just before Christmas ($1,000). P. and I split Trash Cat’s surgery and the hotel stay, so the total I’ve put on my card in recent months is $3,900. I was down to about $800 in debt prior to all this fun stuff.
Student loan debt: $75,000 in public loans for a bachelor’s degree in Education and a master’s degree in English. This was technically a “bad choice” because I did use my loans for living expenses during grad school, but I honestly do not regret it. I LOVED grad school, even though most of it happened online due to the pandemic, and I sincerely believe it made me a better, more thoughtful, and empathetic person. Since the university I work for now is a certified non-profit organization, I will eventually qualify for PSLF if I stay here or within the field of accredited higher education.
Car debt: I owe $2,754 on my Toyota.
INCOME
Income progression: I have worked steadily at part-time jobs since age 16. I’ve been in educational tech for 3 years; my starting salary was $18/hour as a customer service associate, which was around $42,000 annually with overtime. When I started my current job almost 2 years ago, my salary jumped to $65,000 (which ended up being funky, see ABOUT ME above). My current salary, after it was adjusted and I received a 3% raise, is now $67,000.
Monthly take-home pay: $3,355.90 after deductions
Side gig income: None. I quit tutoring because I started taking night classes back in the fall.
Parental Support: As I mentioned in my money diary last year, my parents contributed about $22,000 to rent/car expenses during my “adult” (college) life. My dad is also paying for our wedding “reception,” which is a private dinner at a restaurant for 15 people (estimated cost $5,000). I hinted heavily at Financial Trauma in my last diary, an issue I’ve mostly overcome thanks to my incredible therapist. I might write a more detailed post on healing Financial Trauma and my experience with it…let me know if you’d be interested in reading something like that :)
EXPENSES
Rent: $787.50 (P. and I split rent 50/50; our total rent is $1,575)
Renter’s & car insurance: $1,321/year, which averages out to $110.83/month (not split).
Health insurance: $394.46/month before tax for health and dental. Once P. and I get married, I am hopping on his insurance.
Retirement contribution: $257.50/month pre-tax into my 403(b). I also transfer $50/month into a Roth IRA.
Savings contribution: $200/month to emergency fund, $50/month to down payment fund
Debt payments: $260/month for my car payment, $60/month for my student loan payment (this is wildly low because I am on an income-driven repayment plan. Due to the ongoing Federal Battles, I have not had to recertify my income, so this payment is based on my 2019 income. I also pay at least $500/month towards my credit card debt. Since this is a three paycheck month (and my third paycheck will be a “deduction holiday”), I am paying $1,000 towards it this month. P. does not contribute towards my debt.
Utilities: P. and I split internet, water, electricity, and trash evenly: usually about $175/month for my half, $350 total.
Cellphone: $65/month (we each pay for our own phones).
Subscriptions: Spotify for $10.99/month, Hulu for $7.99/month, Monarch (web budgeting app) for $50/year (this is a discounted price; it will jump to $80/year next year). None of these expenses are split.
Gym membership: $36/monthly for gym membership; $500/quarter for personal training (not split).
Pet expenses: P. and I split this expense; generally $100/month for my half, $200/month total.
Therapy: $25/week (not split).
MONEY DIARY
DAY 1: FRIDAY
😴 7 AM: P. shakes me awake. I reluctantly get up, go to the bathroom, and change into leggings and a sweater dress. After I give Trash Cat his morning medicine, I kiss P. goodbye and I’m out the door. I listen to the Sinisterhood podcast on my drive to work and try to stop for coffee, but the drive-thru line is backed up into the street and causing traffic, so I skip it.
💄8 AM: I put on my makeup in the bathroom at work; this has become my new routine since I was diagnosed with sleep apnea because the extra few minutes of sleep are now a medical necessity. I use Covergirl skinmilk foundation, elf lash and roll mascara, and elf instant brow pencil. Sometimes I use elf lip stain (big elf fan over here) but don’t bother today.
😈 9 AM: I meet with the university’s academic technology team to help them set up a feedback survey for a new grading tool they piloted this semester. We also bitch a little about some difficulties we’ve had this week with faculty. An important thing to know about me is that I am a hater to my innermost core.
🥪12 PM: After spending most of the morning replying to emails, updating tickets, and watching budgeting videos on YouTube, I realize I forgot my lunch at home. Since digging myself back into credit card debt, I’ve made a conscious effort to bring my lunch to work and spend less on convenience food, so I’m pretty annoyed with myself. A quick trip to the library cafe yields a turkey sub, a green smoothie, and a giant cookie ($14.47). I eat at my desk while making some money moves (it’s payday!). $200 goes to my credit card to cover my therapy copay and the pair of Hokas I bought my mom for her birthday earlier this week. I also transfer $500 to my savings account. $214.47
👣5 PM: I pack up and make the short drive over to my friend’s apartment. It was a spectacularly unproductive day; if I’m being honest, I’ve been feeling burnt out and need a break, but I’m trying to save my vacation days for our wedding. My friend and I walk around one of my favorite neighborhoods in the city and catch up. We also go to Whole Foods before she heads to the gym. I grab some specialty canned beans, tofu, tortilla chips, Chomps, and some Poppi sodas ($35.23).
🐱8 PM: I eat one of my favorite lazy meals for dinner—refried beans mixed with quinoa, salsa verde, and shredded cheese with tortilla chips—and watch a few episodes of Home Economics on Hulu. I get sucked into TikTok for a little while before brushing my teeth and taking my meds. I go to bed around 10:30 PM while snuggling Trash Cat.
Daily Total: $249.70
DAY 2: SATURDAY
🚿 8:30 AM: Quick shower before changing into a blue sundress and a white button up. I do my makeup and feed Trash Cat. I’m out the door a little past 9 AM to head to book club.
📚10 AM: This month, we’re having book club at an adorable little tea room. We read Romancing Mr. Bridgerton and obviously love a ✨theme✨ so the four of us spend an hour talking about the book, eating tiny finger sandwiches, and drinking approximately 5 gallons of tea. One of my good friends from grad school, R., started this book club a few months ago and it has been such a joy to get together with awesome women on a regular basis. We also commiserate over family problems—R does a dramatic reading of an outrageous text from my dad before we go our separate ways ($38.10).
💍12 PM: I received an email yesterday from our jeweler that my wedding ring is done and realize I’m much closer to the jewelry shop than I am to home. I call P. to ask if he’d be okay with me picking it up. He is. I swing by the shop and try on my ring; it is so beautiful and fits perfectly! I wear it on my drive home and can’t stop admiring it. P. put down $400 when we met with the jeweler a few months ago, so I pay $821.88 to take it home. P. sends me that exact amount on Venmo. (technically, I pay nothing).
😵2 PM: I eat more of my refried bean lazy meal and watch some episodes of The Rookie on Hulu. The rest of the day is spent fielding calls and texts from my sister, brother, and sister-in-law about my mother’s birthday dinner tomorrow. It is bringing up ✨trauma✨ for all of us.
😴9 PM: A very lazy night routine of brushing my teeth, taking off my makeup with a wipe, take my meds, and drinking water while listening to a podcast as I fall asleep.
Daily Total: $38.10
DAY 3: SUNDAY
🎁10:30 AM: Roll out of bed, make some Kodiak protein waffles, and call my youngest brother, who is 22. He and I are very close, but I still carry a lot of guilt about how much I couldn’t—and can’t—protect him from. I offer to pick out a gift for Mom “from him” since he has to head to the airport to retrieve our parents and he agrees.
🧀12 PM: I go to a gift shop in the next town over and pick out a pair of gold vermeil earrings. They’re $225. I buy them and tell my brother to Venmo me $175 (so technically I spend $50). After, I pop over to Wegmans, which is in the same shopping plaza, and pick up quesadillas, seltzers, fried rice, and spicy chicken for lunch ($41.55 total, $20.77 for my half). $70.77.
🧼1 PM: P. and I eat lunch on the couch while watching YouTube. Afterwards, I channel my irritation into cleaning the apartment. I vacuum, swiffer, put away dishes, and wipe down the bathroom. P. takes out the trash and recycling and starts some laundry.
🍾4 PM: We meet my other brother (I have two—this one is also younger but closer in age to me, 27) and my sister-in-law at a bar to pregame for Mom's birthday dinner. Is this healthy? Probably not. Does it work? Yes. I pay for all our drinks ($112.02)
🙄5 PM: Dinner time. A bunch of my aunts and uncles are there, too, so we sit at the “kid’s table” with my siblings and one of my cousins. I order Jameson and ginger and a fancy cheeseburger. Maybe it’s the liquid courage, or the fact I went into this with extraordinarily low expectations, but I have a surprisingly good time…until my dad starts to fight with the waitress about separate checks for the separate tables. He didn’t mention it at the beginning of the meal, and considering we have 17 people at three different tables, the waitress understandably says no. It gets to the point where my brother just hands her his credit card to put an end to it. He doesn’t tell me how much the total bill is; P. and I venmo him $100 each ($100).
🍋7 PM: The fun isn’t over! We head back to my parents’ house for cake and presents. I eat lemon cake with ice cream and give my mom the Hokas I bought her earlier in the week. She loves the earrings from my brother, and he thanks me for helping him.
💤11 PM: We finally leave. I fall asleep on the way home. I thank P. for being such a supportive partner, take my meds, and promptly fall asleep again.
Daily total: $282.79
DAY 4: MONDAY
🤕8 AM: I make it out of bed and over to the computer. I respond to emails, update a few tickets, and purchase a knee brace from Amazon ($24.01). I LOVE going to the gym and I’m trying to lose weight for health reasons, but the past few days my left knee has been stiff and achy to the point that it hurts to go up and down the stairs. I have a doctor’s appointment this week so I can tell my primary care physician then, but I want to go for a walk to clear my head. I drink a Liquid IV.
🍜11 AM: P. picks up brunch from one of our favorite local restaurants. Their biscuits and gravy bowl is incredible. ($27.58 total, $*13.79 *for my half).
🥟4 PM: I jump in the car and run to Petsmart to pick up pill pockets and food for Trash Cat. Even though he came from a dumpster, he has decided he’ll only eat the fancy cat food. ($64.78 total, $32.39 **for my half). Then I go to Wegmans for some more groceries: tomatoes, cucumbers, frozen dumplings, lettuce, seltzer, onions, brussel sprouts, and turkey burgers. ($68.22 total, $34.11 **for my half).
🍅6 PM: P. and I eat dinner while watching the John Oliver episode on libraries (stop banning books, losers!!!!). It’s one of our other favorite lazy meals: quinoa with fancy canned beans with chopped up peppers, onions, and tomatoes. I drink a seltzer with dinner and then do some chores and take a shower.
🦷10 PM: Stayed up later than I meant to scrolling TikTok and Reddit. Whoops! I brush my teeth and turn off the lights.
Daily total: $104.30
DAY 5: TUESDAY
🧇8 AM: Roll out of bed and walk 5 steps to my computer. After checking email and signing in, I make protein waffles for breakfast and put on my new knee brace that was delivered last night.
💩10 AM: I take a quick break from writing technical documentation to fold some laundry and tidy up the kitchen. I give Trash Cat some treats and clean out the litterbox. He is a stinky boy.
👨‍💻1:30 PM: I run a meeting with my boss and grandboss about the documentation project I’m currently spearheading. We are migrating into a new (and easier) documentation system, which means I need to export, update, and organize all our current documentation. They’re both pleased with my progress and the next goals I’ve outlined. Maybe I am good at my job? Afterwards, I eat some refried beans with tortilla chips and a seltzer.
🤬4:30 PM: I get a very rude email from a faculty member saying he cannot access a file a student shared with him (and grades are due tonight). He sends me a screenshot and it turns out…he’s clicking the wrong button. I explain the correct steps and attach the student’s file, but I’m so agitated that I sign out early and go for a walk. The weather is beautiful, and I try not to think about the email, but I keep stewing over it. The worst part of working in higher ed is the entitlement - I am often treated like “the help” by the Impossibly Busy Big Brained Professors Who Don’t Have Time For Glitches (FYI, glitches do not care whether you have time for them or not).
📱6 PM: P. and I eat leftovers of our fancy canned bean bowls for dinner and feed Trash Cat. I numb out by scrolling for about 3 hours.
🙄9 PM: I go to bed, but keep thinking about that damn email and then beat myself up for being so sensitive and giving that professor so much of my mental energy off the clock.
Daily total: $0
DAY 6: WEDNESDAY
🥯7 AM: Get out of bed, throw some clothes into my gym bag, get dressed, and run out the door. I stop at Dunkin on the way to work to get an iced coffee and some stuffed bagel minis ($5.45).
🧘‍♀️10 AM: I log into my virtual therapy appointment from my office and talk for 40 minutes straight about everything I am struggling with: my routine is out of whack thanks to my mom’s dinner; I’m mad at my parents, my sister, and my job; my knee is killing me so I can’t work out; I have been a shitty partner and cat mom this week; I am scrolling to numb out instead of reading or relaxing in a meaningful way. My therapist helps me come up with an action plan. I put my phone on bedtime mode to turn it to black and white, make plans with P. for a cozy date night at home this weekend, and bookmark a few jobs to apply for. She reminds me I am a supportive sister and partner and relationships are not 50/50 every single day. We end with a meditation about releasing anger.
☁️11 AM: I meet with a staff member in admissions over Zoom to discuss file back-up in preparation for his new computer. He is actually already synced to our cloud system, meaning that all files are backed up, so the meeting is easy. He asks a few questions about the cloud system and how it works and also provides feedback on some of the tools he feels need guidelines or best practices for usage.
📽️12 PM: Lunch is the last of the fancy bean bowl leftovers and a seltzer (I am a creature of habit). While I eat, I watch budgeting videos on YouTube. I get an email that my credit card has been charged for my therapy copay ($25).
🙃3 PM: I meet virtually with a professor who is, technologically speaking, extremely high-need. I watch her rename and organize files for about an hour. Inevitably, she moves them to the wrong place, accidentally deletes the entire file name, etc. On the bright side, she is very sweet and appreciative of my guidance.
💪4:45 PM: I duck out early to drive to the gym. I let my trainer know what is going on with my knee, so we decide to hit upper today. I only started weightlifting in November and I’ve found I love it so much I am willing to shell out for personal training. After doing my best not to side-eye the men with terrible form (if you need to use your knees to complete a bicep curl, the weight is too heavy), I stretch out and grab dinner from Qdoba: a chicken bowl for me and a steak burrito for P ($24.66 total, $*12.33 *for my half).
🤙7 PM: I call my youngest brother while eating dinner. He is the only one living at home with my parents and needs to vent about what’s going on. I do my best to validate his feelings and remind him he can stop by our apartment whenever he needs to. I wish I could do more.
🚿8 PM: I pack my Qdoba leftovers for lunch, take a shower, and crawl into bed with some sleepy tea and a book.
Daily total: $42.78
DAY 7: THURSDAY
🦶5:30 AM: P. wakes me up by tickling my feet. It is not enjoyable, but it is highly effective. I grab my leftovers and head to the gym.
🚲7 AM: I finish up my cardio workout on the bike, take a quick shower, and change into my work clothes. It’s a little unfair that exercise actually does make you feel better. On the way to work, I stop at Dunkin for iced coffee again but resist getting a snack ($3.31).
🥤9 AM: My morning work consists of emails, tickets, and updating some website pages. I also find a job listing on LinkedIn at another university which is a step up from my current position. A quick look at Glassdoor shows it has a higher employee satisfaction rating than the institution where I work now, and the salary range for this position is at least $10k higher than my current salary. I spend a bit of time fine-tuning my resume and drafting a cover letter while researching the university. It has a much nicer fitness center and a smoothie bar? I know, I know, the grass is always greener…
📚10 AM: Quick walk over to the library for an appointment with the archival specialist. We discuss how to back up her files in preparation for her new computer. She gives me a tour of the rare book collection - first editions of Jane Eyre and David Copperfield, plus a copy of the Nuremberg Chronicle from the fifteenth century. Very cool. For about five minutes, I consider going back to school to get a master’s degree in library science.
🌶️11 AM: Early lunch of my Qdoba leftovers, tortilla chips, and seltzer since I didn’t have breakfast.
🖥️2 PM: I meet with my manager to discuss the documentation project and a new hire initiative in collaboration with HR. The spring semester is officially over, so we have more time on our hands to do some maintenance, clean-up, and proactive support.
🧀5 PM: Work is over! I stop at the grocery store to buy brie, crackers, oat milk, toilet paper, paper towels, and a cup of macaroni. My period is coming and I always crave cheese ($49.55 total, $*24.77 *for my half).
🍴6 PM: P. and I eat a dinner of brie, crackers, and brussel sprouts while watching a few cooking videos on YouTube. We talk about how “emotionally charged” I’ve been for the past few days (P. uses the phrase—he never, ever calls me crazy, irritable, moody, etc.). Eating cheese makes me feel better. Trash Cat and I watch a few episodes of Brooklyn 99.
💊8 PM: Quick shower, meds, and podcasts. I start to doze off.
📞9:30 PM: My brother calls me. I’m confused and groggy, so I miss the call but text him immediately asking if everything is okay. He lets me know he will be fine and I promise to call him tomorrow. It takes me a little while longer to fall asleep; P. comes to bed around 10 PM for cuddles.
Daily total: $28.08
WEEKLY TOTALS (edited)
Total Spent: $745.45
Food + Drink: $375.95
Fun / Entertainment: $38.10
Home + Health: $49.01
Clothes + Beauty: $0
Transport: $0
Credit card: $200
Gift: $50
Pets: $32.39
REFLECTION
This was an above-average spending week for me with my mom’s birthday. Emotionally, it was also not a great week for me, and I often tend to spend more money when I’m upset, although I’ve apparently channeled that compulsion into grocery shopping. I am also trying to test out if smaller, more frequent grocery trips are better for us, since weekly shopping often means we throw out produce or meat.
I’m working on a) digging myself out of credit card debt and b) regulating my emotions, especially when it comes to my family. This particular stressor, and its effects on my finances, waxes and wanes throughout the year - birthdays and holidays tend to bring out the worst in both. However, even with the debt, I still feel like I am pretty financially stable (definitely more so in comparison to where I was as a kid, teen, and younger adult).
Thanks for reading 😼 Let me know if you have any questions!

Trap Idea #2: The Half and Half Trap
the story:
a toxic, racist, misandristic woman is commonly found in court, testifying as a ‘witness,’ spinning up stories about men on trial for unnamed crimes, whom she’s never known prior, only providing false statements because of her hatred for men, especially black gentlemen. she’d make up convincing stories that align to events that occurred in the criminals’ cases, often ending up landing them in death row for how severe of a story that she stirs up. the same can’t be said about women who are on trial, though, as she ALWAYS defends ones on trial, and often gets them out, or reduces their sentence.
her actions would catch the attention of detective hoffman due to his connections in the police force. (that does nothing about the woman due to the precinct being corrupt, sound familiar?) a trap would be built in an old, dilapidated and abandoned courthouse. the trap would not be public, much to everyone’s dismay.
the trap:
the subject wakes up strapped onto a metal wall, wearing only a bra and underwear (more on that later). they are bound by their chest to a metal bar that can swing away, hinging at the right (attached by a lock on the left) and by their legs by shackles that are also attached to the wall, which can move, while the upper part, where the subject is bound by their chest, cannot. they are free to move their head around as much as they want, all in the realm of reality of course. just above the subject is a pulley system with a strong but flexible metal cable that dangles in front of the subject and runs down their throat. attached at the end of the line, in the subject’s stomach, is razor wire that is lubricated to not cause as much pain to the subject, but quickly drying up. the lubricant is immune to being melted by stomach acid, but not internal body heat. also attached onto the wire just down their throat, is a key, knotted into the wire so it has no chance of falling off.
the subject’s leg shackles are attached to a moving platform behind the false wall that will move downward. if the subject fails the test, the platform behind the wall will begin to slowly move downward.
the pulley is attached to a handle that can be pulled, which in turn activates machinery that winds up the pulley, and slowly pulls the wire out of the subject’s mouth.
the scene:
Sharon is met with an intense sore throat and cold as her eyes slowly open from a groggy, drug induced sleep. she could really use a coffee right about now. except, she’s not at home. she’s in court. a rather run down looking one, at that. she scoffs, but is met with immediate searing pain coming from her throat. her tongue feels something in her mouth that should NOT be there: a wire. her mind immediately goes to a memory from watching the news.
“Nina Alexander, publicist of fraudulent Jigsaw trap survivor Bobby Daegan, was found dead this morning after a raid on an unnamed building in Downtown. the details of her death are gruesome and violent, as she died screaming in agony, quite literally, as a line was found dangling just to her left with a key on it, as well as what coroners believe to be esophagus tissue. five officers have also been found dead as a result of this raid, and appeared to have been-“
she panics.
“oh my god, this can’t be happening! i can’t end up like her!” she thinks.
a tv flashes and buzzes to life in front of her. she looks at it slowly and cautiously as the face of a clown with red, swirly cheeks appears on screen with a haunting giggle.
a low, raspy voice is heard.
“hello, Sharon. i want to play a game. your pledge to the law is idealistically a noble gesture. standing up for victims and bringing criminals to justice. only you have a sickness. you are a misandrist. your hatred for men extends to no bounds, as not only are you prejudiced against men who have done nothing to you, you are also a racist. you take the stand and say whatever you can, just so the male defendant gets the worse sentence. but today, it is you who will be on trial. right now, you are in a personal favorite test of mine. you are unable to move from your torso down. above you is a handle that can be pulled, and attached to that is a motor, which is connected to the wire running down your throat.”
sharon grasps at the wire, only to be met with an extreme, sharp pain coming from inside of her abdomen.
she sweats as her eyes dart back to the tv.
“the key to your freedom is somewhere deep inside of you. you just have to find the courage to rip it out and hold it tightly. live or die, Sharon. make your choice.”
the tv cuts to static before dying entirely, and a loud buzzing is heard somewhere in the room. a number appears on a clock just across the room from sharon.
60.
it begins ticking down.
59
58
57
sharon, without thinking, reaches up to grab the handle and pulls down with all her might.
BUZZ
a motor starts, and the steel cable hanging from her mouth begins to retract into an unseen pulley. slowly, it retracts from in front of her, until it goes taut. sharon feels the same sharp pain as she did before, only slightly higher up.
she tries to scream, but everything starts to hurt. this can’t be real! “i’ll wake up eventually” she thinks.
she looks at the clock again.
39
38
37
her time is running out. if she wants to be free, she has to do this now. against her best wishes, she pulls the handle again.
BUZZ
whirring, the wire begins to slowly retract again, slicing the insides of sharon’s stomach lining. it hurts like hell, but she has to press on.
31
30
29
something in her throat moves in a sharp and undesired way, which causes an exorbitant amount of pain. she releases the handle and grasps her throat, which is bleeding from her mouth profusely. her eyes well up from the pain, leaving mascara streaks running down her face. she coughs and spits blood, which is now running down her chest and staining her bra.
25
24
23
she looks around. she tries to scream, but the wire down her throat prevents it. she tries moving her legs, but even they’re bound to the wall. she scrapes and claws at the bracket holding her onto the wall, but doesn’t have any luck, except for a nail or two that breaks off, causing much less pain than she’s already in right now.
18
17
16
she reaches up and grasps the handle weakly. she’s in so much pain that she can’t think straight. she tries to pull down, but it slips between her fingers. her energy is running low, but she tries again. this time, she uses two hands to reach for the handle. after grasping it, she pulls down, and the machine springs to life once more.
BUZZ
throat slashing, pain, electrical and mechanical whirring. only this time something is different. something is coming out of her throat. she keeps pulling until she tastes something different on the very back of her tongue.
it feels key shaped.
she pulls again, desperate to grab it.
BUZZ
rip, tear, guts torn apart noises, blood spurts.
11
10
9
a key emerges from her mouth knotted onto the wire. it’s covered in blood and mucus, but she tries to grab it anyway. in her panic, she knocks the key off of the wire.
her heart sinks as her only beacon of hope clatters to the floor below her.
the key is gone.
she looks back at the clock.
6
5
4
she closes her eyes, and starts to pray. she’s never been a holy woman. sharon has never gone to church. never donated blood. never done anything to actually help the community, and now look at her.
3..
2..
1.
a loud buzzer goes off in the room. mechanical whirring is heard one final time as the metal cord in her throat is forcefully ripped out completely. chunks of esophagus and blood spurt all over the front of her chest.
then Sharon feels something different. her chest area clicks as the wall behind her begins to shift.
it starts to move down.
Sharon screams in absolute agony as the machine begins to separate her bottom and top half. her spine clicks in many different places as she watches her abdomen begin to bleed on the inside. muscles tear. bones snap.
then she sees her skin begin to tear. the pain is unlike anything she’s ever felt in her life, even the wire in her throat wasn’t as bad. blood leaks out of her and shoots everywhere.
the machine moves downward more and more as Sharon coughs up even more blood. her lower abdomen is almost entirely separated by this point. her intestines begin to spill out onto the floor in front of her. she doesn’t witness this.
before long, Sharon blacks out from the pain.
before long, the machine makes one final tug. the tug that completely tears Sharon in half.
just like she acted on trial. half and half. half good towards women, half bad towards men.
in the end, Sharon died alone and afraid.
Sharon died a liar, and in pain.

Right now, women are rating themselves based on how they look with what is essentially a mask on. You have hard 3-6/10 women running around calling themselves “beautiful” and thinking they are a catch deserving of the top men available.
Can you imagine if men completely disguised their appearance, then proceeded to demand supermodels based on a fake face? Shit they lose their minds when men fudge their age by a year or two or wear a hat with a receding hairline, imagine a complete “makeover.”
It’s beyond bizarre, but if you bring it up you are told the following:

• “men can wear makeup” obvious bullshit, very little makeup available to enhance men’s appearance without making them look feminine and it is not socially acceptable whatsoever.
  
• “if you cant tell winged mascara and purple eyeliner aren’t natural you have more problems than getting a date.” Another nonsense deflection, no one is talking about first year cosmetology student goth cake jobs, we are quite clearly referring to natural looking concealers, skin tone evening creams and eyelash extensions.
  
• “women wear it for themselves not for men.” Needs no explanation, total gaslighting nonsense.
  
• “women receive very minimal enhancement from the minimal makeup they use” I have seen countless examples of women who look like completely different people without their mask on.
  
• “It’s no different than men using facial hair” terrible comparison, significantly less men are able to achieve any sort of enhancement from this and even fewer do.
  

An hour after getting back from the Mason apartment, Bruce Kenner had the distinct misfortune of meeting Bertha Henderson.
A plump, gaudy woman with wrinkles and sun beaten skin only an alligator could love, Bertha Henderson wore bright red lipstick, bright red rouge, and way too much mascara. Her tangled hair was a dull red color and her clothes - pink pants and a white floral top - stretched tight across her bulbous frame. She looked like the kind of woman who lived in a trailer with velvet pictures of Elvis on the wall and pink flamingos in the front yard.
She acted like one too.
From the moment she stormed into his office, she hadn’t shut up once. She scolded, chided, accused, and badgered, sometimes even wagging one fat finger in his face like he was a naughty little boy. Ten minutes into the dressing down and Bruce was beginning to fantasize about police brutality.
It took him another ten minutes to find out what the hell she even wanted.
“It’s my granddaughter,” she shot back, “she’s missing in your town.”
My town? Lady, this is barely my office. I share it with three other people.
“Well, if you’ll calm down, maybe I can help.”
Jesus Christ was that the wrong thing to say. She hit the roof and didn’t come down again until Bruce was this close to arresting her for assault on a police officer. “Young man, I do not appreciate the way you’re talking to me. My tax dollars are the only reason you have a job. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be working at a car wash.”
At least I wouldn’t have to deal with you.
Bruce took a deep breath and held his tongue in check. “How can I help you?” he asked.
“I told you, my granddaughter is missing. If you listened to me, you’d know this already.”
Bertha produced a picture and slid it across the desk. Bruce studied it. A girl, roughly sixteen with black hair, blue eyes, and dimples smiled back at him. “She;’s with that Rossi man, I just know it,” she said bitterly.
“Who?” Bruce asked.
Rolling her eyes like he was stupid, the old woman told him the story. Jessie - the dimple faced girl - had the rotten luck of having to live with Grandma Bertha after her parents went to jail on drug charges. They lived in Sand Lake, a little town in the mountains outside Albany, where Bertha was no doubt loved and admired by all. One day, Jessie, who her grandmother lovingly described as “A little troublemaker”, ran off. Bruce didn’t blame her. He’d known Bertha for half an hour and he wanted to run off. Bertha did some snooping on Jessie’s laptop and found that the “little whore” had been chatting with an older man, Joe Rossi. Rossi, or so Facebook said, lived in Albany and worked at Club Vlad.
“I want him arrested for pedophilia,” Bertha said and crossed her arms defiantly over her chest. “He’s a dog just like all men. She’s probably pregnant already. Another mouth I have to feed.”
Behind the old battle ax, Vanessa appeared in the doorway and lifted her brows as if to say What a piece of work. Knowing her, she’d probably been standing just out of sight this whole time with McKenny, the elderly evidence clerk, and snickering into her hand like a little girl. LOL she called him young man.
Bertha noticed him looking over her shoulder and started to turn. Vanessa’s face went white and she ducked out of the way, narrowly avoiding detection. “I’m glad you think this is funny,” Bertha said to Bruce. “Meanwhile, if I don’t get Jessie back, the state’s going to stop sending me my checks. I need that income. I can’t work, you know. I have gout.”
Too bad being an asshole isn’t a job, you’d be world-famous
“I’ll go talk to him,” Bruce said.
“I want more than talk, young man, I want action.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
When Bertha finally decided to waddle off and ruin someone else’s day, Vanessa came in and sat in the chair the old woman had so recently occupied. “Oh, my God,” she said, “that was intense. I was this close to radioing in a 1015.”
1015 was code for officer down.
“Funny,” Bruce said without a trace of humor. He had kids going missing, a dead guy someone moved around like a goddamn Barbie doll, and now this. What next, hemorrhoids?
“What do you think? Code 1 or code 2?”
Code 1 meant top priority. Code 2 meant not a top priority. Bruce thought for a moment. It didn’t sound like Jessie Henderson was in danger. It sounded like she met a guy - granted, one too old for her - and decided to hide out with him from her psycho grandma. Maybe it could be something more, but he had a gut feeling that it wasn’t…and his gut feelings were usually right. “2,” he finally said. “I got shit to do.”
By shit, he meant “Talk to the families of those missing boys again.” He’d been interviewing them for two days looking for clues, but there was nothing. It’s like they just vanished. Bruce didn’t like this. He didn’t like it at all.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” Vanessa said and slapped the desk.
When she was gone, Bruce sighed.
Never a dull moment, he thought.
***
Ed Harris - no relation to the Hollywood actor - had been the medical examiner for the City of Albany since 2002, and in all that time, he had never seen anything quite like this.
It was Wednesday evening and Ed was locked away in the cold, sterile space beneath the city offices that comprised his domain. With its puke green tiles, harsh lights, and cloying smells of disinfectant, the .coroner's office creeped most people out, but not Ed. He was at home here, as comfortable surrounded by toe-tagged bodies as a cactus was surrounded by desert. A thin man in his fifties with curly, steel gray hair thinning in the middle, he wore a white smock, blood stained over his clothes that made him look like a butcher instead of a low level government functionary. He had a dark and dry sense of humor, but then again, so do all people who play with dead bodies for fun and profit.
The coroner’s office was a vast, utilitarian vault segmented into multiple different rooms. Here, where the magic happened, three stainless steel tables stood in a row; a bank of refrigerated drawers kept watch, making sure nothing funny happened. One of the cold fluorescent lights overhead flickered with a hum of electricity, and water dripped rhythmically from a faucet. It was a cold, eerie place, but to Ed, it was home.
On most nights, only one of the tables was occupied, but tonight, two were. On one lay an old lady who died of what appeared to be cyanide poisoning. On the other was Dominick Mason.
Naked save for a white cloth draped over his groin to protect his dignity, Dom was the most corpsy corpse you’d ever hope to see. In fact, if you looked up dead guy in the dictionary, you’d see a picture of him. His body was pale and sunken, one side covered in purple splotches where his blood had pooled, and his eyes were closed. His abdomen was slightly distended with the expected build up of gas, and his flesh stuck fast to the bones beneath. In other words, he was text book. A normal corpse.
Mostly normal.
As men of his trade are wont to do when strange bodies mysteriously appear, Ed had opened Dom up, making a Y shaped incision from his neck to his groin. He hummed to himself as he did so, his hands wielding his sharp and shiny tools with the deft assuredness of a seasoned surgeon. Done cutting, he dipped his gloved hands into the cavity and started removing organs. A spleen here, a liver there, nothing Dom would miss. When he got to the heart, however, he stopped.
There was something…off…about it. At first glance, it was black and withered like an oversized raisin. An odd and putrid odor emanated from it and though he was familiar with the various smells and stenches the human body produced after death, this wasn’t one of them. Try as he might, he couldn’t place it, couldn’t even compare it to anything. Plucking a magnifying glass from the metal cart next to the table, he peeled back part of Dom’s chest and examined the heart closer.
That’s when things got really weird.
Dominick Mason’s heart was, indeed, shriveled, but it was not black. Instead, it was almost entirely covered by an interlacing crisscross of what appeared to be black mold. Here and there, Ed could glimpse flashes of the heart beneath: It was wrinkled and a sickly gray color. “What is this?” Ed asked himself at length. He grabbed a pair of tweezers from the tray and carefully, very carefully, attempted to remove a piece of the mold for analysis. The moment the cold metal tips touched the heart, it gave a violent spasm that sent Ed falling back with a shocked gasp, the tweezers falling from his hand and clinking to the tiled floor.
The heart began to pulse like an alien egg sac, slowly at first, then more rapidly. For a moment, Ed was frozen in place, unable to comprehend what he was seeing. Once you die, your heart ceases beating. That’s that. Only living hearts beat, and Dominick Mason was certainly dead. He was dead from the moment Ed first laid eyes on him earlier that day and he was dead now. Yet there was his heart, beating anyway.
It could be a muscle spasm. They usually aren’t that violent and consistent, but dead bodies sometimes do strange things. As he watched the blackened muscle expanding and contracting, however, Ed had the most eerie feeling. He went to rub the back of his neck, realized he was still wearing blood soaked gloves, and stripped them off. He was spooking himself out; he needed a break and a hot cup of coffee. He’d come back fresh and start over again.
With that mold.
Could you really blame him for being creeped out? That stuff wasn’t normal. He’d never seen anything like that before, not even in textbooks. Dom was scrawny and didn’t get enough vitamins in life, but overall, he was healthy; that mold…or whatever it was…had no business being there.
Going over to the coffee pot, which stood in the same room to save travel time, Ed grabbed a styrofoam cup. When he was done here, he planned to go home and -
A terrible, metallic clatter rang out, and Ed jumped. He turned around, and when he saw Dominick Mason standing next to the table, hunched slightly over and staring at him, an electric burst of fright shot up his spine and exploded in his brain, so strong it made the edges turn gray. Pale, hands hooked into talons, and the flaps of his chest hanging open to reveal the cavity beneath, Dominick Mason looked for all the world like a boy who’d been caught sneaking out to meet his girlfriend. A weak, involuntary, “Oh, God,” slipped from Ed’s trembling lips, and the spell was broken. Dom came alive and ran toward the door leading out to the parking lot. He slammed through it, and the sound of it crashing open and then falling closed again echoed through the empty chamber.
Shaking, panting for air, and soaked in piss, Ed sank to the floor in a sitting position, his eyes wide and staring like those of a soldier returning damaged from the front.
It was a long time before he composed himself enough to call the police.
***
Dazed and caught in a nightmarish twilight realm where nothing made sense, Dominick Mason limped painfully down the sidewalk, a stranger lost in a strange land filled with danger and hostile creatures. Barefoot and shrouded in a white sheet, he trembled with cold and struggled to ignore the dark, threatening shapes looming from the fog in his brain, shapes that would turn into unspeakable truths if he let them.
Passersby openly stared at him, their expressions either morbidly curious, disgusted, or alarmed. A man put his arm protectively around his girlfriend; a woman pulled her little boy to her breast, and another man sneered at him, his nose crinkling. Dom, his glazed eyes narrowed against the harsh glare of the many street lamps, headlights, and storefronts, lumbered headlong toward nowhere, his fear growing until he was shambling. He imagined he could hear every cough, every whisper; smell the odor of every unwashed body. Each car horn was deafening, every whiff of ass or armpits sent his stomach churning. The rustle of a passing pedestrian’s jacket jammed into his ears like icepicks, and the approaching globes of LED headlamps burned his eyes. He gritted his teeth and groaned against the pain.
The dense mist wrapping his brain made it hard to think. Like a frightened animal, he made his way on instinct alone. Home. He needed to get home. Out here, on the street, he was exposed. At home, locked away in his small apartment, he would be safe.
A car passed in the street, bass heavy rap music blaring from its open windows, and Dom’s brain exploded with agony. He threw himself against a street sign and held on for dear life, his legs weak. Dizziness overwhelmed him, and he almost went down. He was also cold.
So, so cold.
People around him quickened their step; they never took their eyes off him, as though he were a venomous snake that would strike at any moment. He needed to get away from them. They were going to hurt him; people always hurt him.
Pushing away from the sign, he began to hobble once more toward home, wherever home was. He looked over his shoulder several times as he made his way down Central Avenue, and each time, he saw that no one was following him as he had feared.
No one, that is, except for the man in sunglasses.
Tall and lank with curly hair, he wore dark Aviators and a leather motorcycle jacket over a button up shirt. His hands were thrust deep into his pockets and his face showed no expression. He was always there, always a few steps closer. Outside Capital Fried Chicken, a group of people openly stared at him, He heard their whispers as he passed. What’s wrong with him? Dude’s straight tweakin. And the one that struck him the most. That guy looks dead.
Dom hobbled faster, as if to outrun the realization that he was, in fact, dead. The man in sunglasses was closer now, his footsteps so loud that Dom winced. He turned around, and the man was impossibly in front of him. Dom ran into him and bounced backward, going ass over tea kettle and landing on the former. They were in front of a church on a darkened corner, the lights here either burned out or shot out - you could never tell in Albany. Even though it was dark, Dom could see everything with crystal clarity. Dom tried to scurry away, but he was too weak to escape. Right there and then, he decided to give up. Come what may, he just wanted this nightmare to be over.
The man stared down at him, emotionless, unspeaking.
Dom squirmed.
“You’re real lucky I came along,” the man said. His tone was flat, even.
Dead.
“Get up,” he said, “I’ll take you home.”
Home?
Yes.
Dom wanted to go home.
The man helped him up, and Dom followed him into the night.
***
Bruce Kenner stood in the middle of the medical examiner’s office at half past nine that evening with his hands on his hips and stared doubtfully down at Ed Harris. The lonely cavern was alive with activity as cops went over everything, all of them looking either bemused or a mused. Bruce was neither. He’d been at home, sitting in his chair and having a beer in front of AEW Dynamite when Vanessa called. “You might wanna get down here,” she said, sounding confused, “something really strange is going on.”
Ed Harris - no relation to that one guy - sat in a straight back chair beside his cluttered desk and gripped a styrofoam cup of coffee in both hands, putting Bruce - for some reason - in mind of a monkey. When Bruce came in, the old man was white as a sheet and shook like a leaf. In the last half hour, little had changed.
“Tell me again,” Bruce said.
He and Ed were pretty good friends. He knew that Ed knew standard police procedure. Cops don’t ask you to repeat your story a thousand times over because they’re forgetful fucks, they do it because telling it again and again helps to jog loose details that you might have forgotten. Ed, therefore, did not protest. “I turned my back,” he said and chopped the chair like Jackie Chan, “and I heard the noise.”
His voice was thick, unsteady, and halting. He sounded as squirrely as he looked…and he looked pretty damn squirrelly right now.
“I turned around…and he was looking at me. He was standing there and he was looking at me.”
This was the fourth time he’d had Ed go through the story, and nothing had changed. Bruce felt something stirring deep inside his gut. It was either disquiet…or he had to fart. He opened his mouth to speak, but sighed.
“You don’t believe me,” Ed said.
“I dunno, Ed. Dead bodies don’t just get up and walk away.”
Ed flashed. “I know that, goddamn it, but this one did.”
Bruce glanced at Vanessa. She looked uncomfortable.
“Are you sure he was dead?” Bruce asked.
Ed opened his mouth, closed it again, and said, “I did the autopsy.” His voice broke on the last word, and he sounded almost like he was pleading. “His fucking liver’s on the floor. He stepped on it. The man has nothing in him. I-I’m telling you, there’s no way he’s alive.”
During the autopsy, Ed had sat Dominick Mason’s organs on the little tray table where he kept his pointy things. Mason knocked it over while getting up. Indeed, there were human organs on the floor, and one of them did look kind of squished. Bare, bloody footprints led to the exit door, up a set of concrete steps, and then disappeared in the alley behind the office.
“You said you left his heart,” Bruce said.
“And his brain,” Vanessa helpfully added.
Ed pinched the bridge of his nose like a put upon professor dealing with two particularly stupid students. “Even with his heart and his brain, he’s dead. You saw the livor mortis. He was cold, he was stiff. His heart wasn’t beating, he wasn’t breathing. He was in one of those drawers for nine hours, not breathing, no blood flow - it’s impossible. It’s just…it’s impossible. I don’t care what you think, he was dead. And even if somehow he wasn’t, I cut out almost everything. I opened his stomach, I took his spleen - you don’t just get up from that. You don’t walk away from that, much less run.”
Bruce chewed the inside of his bottom lip because he didn’t have a Twix. He didn’t look like the smartest man in the world…and he wasn’t…but he knew a dead body when he saw one, and the body they took out of Dominick Mason’s apartment was D.E.A.D. And like Ed said, even if by some freak fluke of nature he wasn’t, he couldn’t just get up and go about his day with no liver, spleen, or kidneys. Hell, Bruce had his gallbladder out and he couldn’t even walk away from that.
“You said there was something funny about his heart,” Vanessa said.
Ed finished off his coffee. “Yeah. It was…moldy. I-I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Is it possible that…has something to do with it?”
“Unless the rules of biology have changed overnight, no,” Ed stated.
While Ed poured himself another cup of Joe, spilling some because he was still shaking, Vanessa took Bruce aside. “So what do you think?” she asked. “Is he telling the truth?”
For that, Bruce did not have an immediate answer. All else aside, he was a cop. He followed the evidence - and his gut instinct - wherever it led him. Ed was a sober man - he was not a drunk, insane, or stupid - and no man on earth could fake the look of trauma in his eyes. Bruce’s eyes went to the bloody footprints leading away from the exam table and his stomach roiled. It might be cliched, but there had to be a rational explanation. “Yeah,” he finally said. “The kid got up like he said, but there’s no way he was dead. Maybe…I dunno, he had a surge of adrenaline or something. I’m not a doctor.”
“That’ll only get him so far,” Vanessa said. “We’ll probably find him on the street somewhere.”
He went back to the purple splotches on Dom’s face, to his cold stiffness. There’s no way he was dead?
Bruce was confused, and he hated being confused.
“I dunno,” he said, “maybe.”
But he had the gnawing feeling that they wouldn’t. They would never find him…and Bruce would be confused forever.
Goddamn it, Mason, he thought, where are you?

I've been in a bit of a confusion state recently. I am a 28-year-old MtF who came out a few months ago. I've been gradually experimenting with different things, I've partially perfected make-up to disguise facial hair and found an eye pattern I like a lot. Still can't do mascara a lot. Will be planning to buy more varied outfits and better make up in a few weeks. Been able to join some transgender support groups. I have been given the go-ahead to try a trial HRT. Since it takes 3 months for permanent effects to start, I'm going to do 10-11wk on a lower dosage to start, then raise it a bit towards the end. During this, I've been given consistent counselling, and I'm keeping diary records of change in emotions and thoughts. Seemingly all is perfect.
I got the Estradiol and CPA this week, but I've been hesitant to start. I just can't shake the thought patterns in my head about the possibility of this being a bad decision or of potential side effects if I continue. How do I work out if I'm having second thoughts about it, or is it a bad idea or whether I'm just nervous about starting the process? Has anyone else faced similar thoughts when starting out? My major dysphoria feelings does come and go depending on how I feel seeming more or less important at different times but that's normal for many people
A few things I've been dealing with in my mind: -That stupid saga with the bears vs men memes over the past 2 weeks has really been provoking weirs thoughts and feelings. I shouldn't let dumb internet sagas bother me, I know the internet is a place filled with incompetent morons making dumb posts, this is nothing new. -On occasion I have encountered terrible or umb/inconsiderate women online or in the real worlstha make me think "Do I really wanna be more similar to that person?" But I've come to realise, I'm not anyone else and other people shouldn't be bothering me. I just need to do me.

- I clearly have some internalised a variety of things over my lifetime I need to address my thinking from but still sometimes they eat away at me.

Some transition related issues are: -Genital shrinkage, I know that testicular and penile shrinkage are inevitable in some capacity. However as a person who doesn't have much genital dysphoria and doesn't intend on genital Surgery for a long time (if ever) I am worried about this. Since this is anonymous I'll just mention my penis is smaller than average even pre transition and that's always niggled a little at times in my life. I know i shouldnt be comparing myself to othersand thats another issue i need to address. I am hypersexual to some degree, and I am a srmi-regular masturbator but I know HRT tends to decrease sexuality, especially during the early stages. I heard that frequent masturbation reduces shrinkage, but idk. I also heard that careful usage testosterone cream can be used to reduce shrinkage as it gets absorbed into the genitals but little reaches the blood, which means it has little effect on blood levels. Does anyone have any data on this? -Another possibility is I've been considering incomplete suppression at least at first. They recommend testosterone levels down to below 50, but I'm wondering if levels a bit higher (maybe close to 100 or so, also saw one studying saying many transwomen only fell to 130 after a year) might be better for me. This is still fairly low but would still allow some testosterone, and partial release from the testies may reduce shrinkage. I also think it's kinda a bit of a reality that strict hormone levels aren't very good in practice. Cisgender women have wildly variable testosterone from woman to woman and even in the same cis woman at different times (eg., Menstrual cycles) but transwomen being kept to a specific, very low interval just doesn't reflect the reality of variation between people's bodies. A higher level is an exclusion from certain sports, but I'm not competing for professional sports any time soon, so why would it matter? Does anyone have any experience in incomplete suppression? It might slow some feminising changes but it's not gonna induce any further masculinising given that I'm well past puberty and no further virilisation is possible.
Also, of course, I worry about passing, I feel better about my jaw shape but my nose, I'm unsure of. I will need forehead surgery as I have a forehead defect from years ago. I will need laser hair removal, but I'm looking into that eventually. One of the biggest triggers has been my voice, one thing HRT is not effective for, but I have done voice practice, and I'm going to get voice therapy eventually. Do any of these feelings seem unusual or are these common feelings people experience?
It's clear if I chose to continue I have a few things to discuss.
If it means anything: I'm Autistic, I have Epilepsy and on and off anxiety.
Thanks very much for any help and for your attention!

It doesn't matter how hard you try or how many times you repeatedly get knocked down and crawl back up onto the proverbial horse. Pulling yourself up by your boot straps and facing another day is all for nothing. There aren't any truly good people in this world. From my experience, everyone lies, cheats, steals, manipulates and strives to take advantage of others consistently. We are slaves to work. We are slaves to money. We are slaves to the never-ending task of eating. Even that has increased monetarily and countless people die of starvation, even in the USA. The vast majority eat junk food, because healthy food is too expensive. Our health is declinijg as a result. We work through our best, most productive hours each day. However, those hours are usually spent making another company succeed or fail....not us individually. The cost of living is sky rocketing and even as minimum wage is rising to $15/hr, that's woefully inadequate for even basic survival. We hide incessantly in any form of entertainment we can find. That's why musicians, actors/actresses and athletes are treated like God's. They give us an escape from hell...temporarily. We reward them with millions of dollars as a result. The suicide rate amongst these "God's of society" is staggering. Even they are secretly miserable. We can't see the cancer, because it surrounds us and we've grown accusotmed to the stage 4 illness. Our young children are in daycare and raised by other people, while we give our heart and minds to an industry that could care less about our well being and feed on their own villainous greed. Our kids suffer, society suffers and everyday seems like a total waste of time and energy. We are all slowly dying in an endless cycle of chaos. We are taught that it's normal and just go with the flow. We are taught to put our own needs aside and help others, when nobody helps us on return. Religion and spirituality are both lies of the highest order. We all live a pathetic life, that's mostly empty and void of true joy...and then we die. Everyone dies. Nothing matters. Aside from technological advances, society is declining at a rapid pace. All of our hard work is for nothing. All of our carefully chosen words and diligent actions propell society into the mud. Women are taught that they lack beauty and the cosmetic industry makes trillions of dollars from actively clawing out the self esteem of women, so they are now dependent on their product. Little girls are lied to and before they can even think for themselves, they are catapulted into a lie that this world embraces. They watch their mothers fall helplessly into the trap the world has set. They in turn mirror that dehavior. They dawn eye liner, lip stick mascara, blush, hair color and various other make up components to construct their self esteem...because society has eagerly stripped them of it voluntarily (for the vast accumulation of money). That is sickening and revolting. Young men and women are filtered through the military. They suffer mental anguish and war. They suffer from untold stories of P.T.S.D. so this country can stay corrupt and vile. The government couldn't care less about the wounded, the dead and the mental suffering...as long as they get their billion dollar defense contracts. This world has no ethics, no morals and no real sense of direction. We are all thrown into the fire from birth. So...yeah, it doesn't matter. We are all just fuel for the fire. The smoke slowly disappears and the ashes of our valiant efforts are left behind. It's all for nothing. The lie that life is worth living, might be the biggest one out there. They want you to keep living, because you're a cow in the pasture. The top 1% need the dedicated sacrifice of their "cattle" to fund their luxurious lifestyles. If you commit suicide, they lose money from all the things you're addicted to. It's one less hand stuffing their pockets. So, they need you to stay alive. Life is not worth living. Life is simply a dirty joke perpetuated on the masses. I could keep going, but hopefully you see my point....it doesn't matter anyway.

i have a friend. he is a boy. he is very tall, he is very funny, his voice is not too deep but he sounds like a man, he's very strong since he regularly exercices at the gym and he is very, very cool. he jokes around and he's bold because he is a man and i think that's cool. still, he is kind when he is not joking and i'm sure he is a sweet man. i always think he is so cool. whenever he posts photos i think "WOAH thats like SO cool" like i wish i was like that but also, i like my life. i like having a big booty and boobies and my long hair, i like smelling sweet and having plump lips and fair skin. i like having rosy cheeks and painting my nails and i like putting mascara on and seeing my skin glow and my wavy hair shine in the sun. i like how i am short and the shape my body makes, i like small girly waists and i love how girls treat eachother. i like how my girl mind thinks. i like accepting others and overthinking and i like being open minded and not joking around too much like boys do or being too bold, even if i end up being like that sometimes. maybe we are not so different, but why do i feel so different?
and i do not like this man. i have a boyfriend. my boyfriend is short, too. he is very nice and understanding. he has a sweet voice and he dresses boyish, but cute. he is very cute. and he likes kittens. i love my boyfriend, he is the boy i always wished for. i am bisexual, i always liked girls better because they are softer and sweeter and cuter than boys, and i like that better, but he is like that so he's just perfect! i don't care about gender, it's just that those qualities are more present in girls than in men and for that, i wouldn't date my friend. he is not as sweet and understanding and cute as my boyfriend is, so i don't like him. he wouldn't be as attentive as my boyfriend, he wouldn't be so in love because he is too much of a man. so then, i came to the conclusion that i idolize him, and then i saw many men, many tall, big men. and i envied them too. but.. i thought it was because my friend is funny or his personality is cool... no? no, it's not just that, it's everything. he is like my idol. and now i realize, i envy the big strong men, not just him, its not a coincidence, i envy the big strong men and now im crying. im crying because i envy them again. im crying because i thought i was finally okay with being a girl im crying because even if i am okay with being a girl somewhat, somehow, i love it and i love femininity and i love guys with the characteristics i associate with feminity. still, now i see them and i envy them, the big men, i envy them and i cry, but i know if i was the big strong man, i wouldn't cry when i see a sweet, pretty girl. i would date her, i wouldn't want to be her i cry because i want to transplant my brain to my friend's body, and then i would feel happier. i cry because i have realized once again that this feeling will always be present deep in my soul, but i will never be him.
anyways, i think i will be okay in a few days because i really really love being a girl, it's just that i wouldn't envy girls if i was him and i know that for a fact and it hurts me and it hurts the way i know it and the way i ignore it

I feel a little more energetic this morning which is nice! I also feel very warm, like it’s 16°, the windows are open and I’m wearing a tank top and I’m still warm. Which is not normal for me. I always love the windows open but I am also someone that feels the cold quite quickly. Idk. Anyway.
I feel disgusting today. Disgusting. Like I could not be an uglier monster of a girl if I tried. It sounds dramatic but I genuinely want to rip my face off and saw off all my limbs sometimes. I’ve had that fantasy… a long time. Probably since before high school. I know I hated how I looked back in primary school, I don’t remember if I had violent thoughts about it then though. It sounds so silly to write down that for example I would like to hack at myself with a chainsaw and then piece myself back together as I’d like to be, but in my head it’s a dream. I remember, not recently, but I used to like claw into my arm or leg with my nails to sort of envision it and sometimes make myself bleed a little. Not often though so it’s fine. I don’t have those thoughts about anyone else and never ever have, because a) that’s horrific b) ew and c) I could never. But me? A daydream. But I just… I cannot put into words the level of hatred I have for myself. I don’t think you could understand unless you felt the same way, and it’s why I don’t bother explaining it in depth or don’t mention it because I can’t. We talk about it in therapy, but not to the extent we should. Well no we DO, and she knows I have these extreme feelings, but it often gets talked about in a sad way when sometimes I feel a violent anger sort of hatred towards myself. I don’t really know how to bring it up. And tbh it has been brought up in passing, awhile ago. But she gets so serious about self harm and I don’t really need to hear about it or waste a $200 session on it because I’m not going to hurt myself. I hurt myself internally, not externally - it’s how I’ve always done it. And I just know if we talk about the thoughts I wrote before then it’s $200 wasted. But I should be more open about it not just being a despondent type of self hate. Anyway.
I have the ballet and dinner tonight. I don’t want to go. I’m nervous :(
It’s now day one million and I still don’t have my period.
I don’t know why, but I don’t feel as lovey today. Nothing changed, I guess that’s like I said yesterday though how some days I just feel a supercharged level of love and then I go back to regular levels. I felt that way when we hung up too. Idk why. But I ended up crying myself to sleep like the pathetic baby I am. I wasn’t upset about anything, I just felt wrong. Probably pms. I think I just felt extra sensitive, for example when he disagreed with something I said earlier on and told me to try again I felt like I was going to cry, I didn’t cry but I had a stupid frowny face and I could feel my bottom lip quivering a little - like a literal cartoon baby. So that’s where I’m at sensitivity wise right now. Again, pms. But I also felt very mildly upset because sometimes when he says bye at the end of a phone call it feels so abrupt. Like “bye-beep beep beep” with the beeps being a hang up. Which isn’t how it works because I think I hang up or idk whatever it doesn’t matter but I think it’s just sometimes I wish it would be a softer bye. And this is why I need my period to hurry the f up because I should not be feeling sensitive and upset about the way in which he says bye. But also I’ve thought this before, for a long time, I just don’t think it matters but right now it got to me. My pms blurred the line of reasonability and I got upset.
I no longer feel energetic, energetic was a stretch anyway but I felt less tired earlier but now I’m back to normal yay
He was telling me about social media and stuff last night and idk, sometimes I wonder how honest he is about it with me. He’s given me no reason to doubt him, but still, that’s based on what he tells me. Would he tell me he follows certain kinds of accounts etc? Tbh I believe he wouldn’t follow them, I’m pretty sure anyone can see who you follow? Like how cringe to see your friend following a bunch of naked ladies so why would you ever do that. Anyway. I’ve read about this on here before, it was in the ask men one and I remember a bunch of men being like yeah no if it shows up for him then it means he looks at that stuff. Something about an algorithm and it not being random? So him saying his page with that is showing a bunch of near naked women? It’s just the fact a bunch of guys were like yeah no that’s not random. So. Idk. Why would they make that up? But also why am k believing a bunch of reddit people. How stupid. I don’t even care the way I used to if I’m honest. I feel sort of resigned to it. I know he looks at that stuff regardless of what he says, I know he will actively spare my feelings and insecurity when he can because he’s sweet like that. And let’s be real, even when we’re together and he can have me naked whenever he wants, I’m never going to look like the women online. Ever. So how can I be upset, I’m not being what I should be for him so I get it. It doesn’t make it hurt less on the inside but idk, I feel more accepting of it now. I feel less upset, I guess because now I realise it’s because of where I’m failing him, and how can I blame him or be upset with him for that? I can’t. That’s not fair. So if he’s looking at naked women online or whatever then that just shows I’m not enough which is something I already know as a fact. So I shall continue working on myself. But I know I will never be enough for him, or anyone, so I know it will always be a thing. So I may aswell stop allowing myself to get so worked up over it.
While I’m being a negative nancy or a difficult Delilah or whatever I am, I hated hearing him say “WE had a bath/shower” and “I wanted US to go HOME” etc last night when he was talking about his ex ex. I thought he didn’t live with her? I thought he only lived with his most recent ex? I realise it’s not really any of my business and I refrained from asking questions because as soon as he said it it felt like a punch in the stomach and I just didn’t want to know this time. Sometimes I get curious and I’m kind of okay with it all, I didn’t feel that way last night and I just wanted him to shut up with talking about her in such a fond way. Like shut up shut up shut up. Why am I on the verge of tears right now? PMS makes me even more of a loser pathetic baby than usual.
I’m wearing that Beautiful Magnolia perfume mum got me today, I wouldn’t personally buy it but I do like it - it’s like a zingy floral? But it was so cute, she got me this 30ml bottle of perfume along with a bunch of snacks, medicine, a book and stuff when I had covid, she came over to my house with a big thing of stuff for me - like who buys someone a proper bottle of perfume because they have covid? I love my mum, so unnecessary but so sweet. I’ll wear it tonight too, I think she’d like that. Except whenever I wear it I remember that that Ana actress is the spokesperson for it and that Andy would rather I looked like her than me and that hurts the most because if I could look like anyone it would be her and I thought/wished that was before he said she was his celebrity crush. Well her and Kate B. So idk, wearing this perfume kind of makes me remember I’m an ugly disappointment.
Sometimes I feel like I jinx people to die. Kind of like Phoebe with the dentist and anytime she goes someone she knows dies. But like Paul Auster, he died today and this is not long after I save a bunch of his books, 4321 especially, to my TBR. I remember when Peaches Geldof died years ago, I was slightly obsessed with her as a young teen like I loved her whole look like outfits, hair etc and I would always read her columns in Teen Vogue but I think thag was later on idk but I read that a lot which now makes me feel so old as that is such a core memory like I remember being in Washington DC and I was 13 and I knew a new copy of teen vogue was out so I remember dragging mum and dad down to some bookshop so I could buy it. I LOVEDDDDDD magazines back then, my dream was to work for one - which I’m glad didn’t work out as I’d have been made redundant by now anyway. Wait anyway so I liked Peaches a lot. And then I was talking about her to my friend Kelly back then which was years after I last thought of her because I was in my early 20s by then I think idk anyway and then the next day news was out that she died. And I was so internally upset that I jinxed it. Also happened with one or two other celebrities. So sometimes I wonder if I jinx people to death :(
I have cramps :(
My new favourite song is sweet by CAS. I’ve just been listening to them on repeat, maybe because this time of year I normally listen a lot to the xx, the national and Rhye and stuff - idk why, this time of year just subconsciously forces me to. So this new stuff fits in perfectly. Anyway it’s sweet. Also john Wayne. But falling in love ahhhh. It sounds so soft and hazy and I love it so much. I love the most simple music I think. Like Indian summer by the doors? One of my all time favourites, to the point I would want it as a wedding song, and it’s beyond simple. I like everything to be soft and gentle. Everything in my life I try have as such I think. Now I’m thinking of the MAC soft and gentle highlighter I had yearrrrs ago and I dropped it on the floor of the NYC apartment I was staying in and it shattered and I wanted to cry. That wooden floor probably still has glitter in the cracks.
Things have truly hit the fan with an ER case at work. I literally had a call with the manager this morning and we agreed to step back and let things unfold/not get involved at this point - which is not so much my preferred approach but came down from my Big Boss so it is what it is. Anyway cut to five hours later and there was a screaming match in reception with swearing that was also witnessed by other colleagues. So. No more backseat and I’ll likely have to go back to that office next week for a disciplinary with potential for dismissal given the language etc - though idk at this stage, I don’t have proper statements yet. I have had one of the women call and vent to me for half an hour which was fine, I seem to be good at that as she was laughing and things by the end when she was crying at the beginning, like I calmed her down and explained what may happen next etc etc and all that. The basics. It’s such a bloody mess and I’m struggling to get an objective idea of the situation as one side are talking about the manager and employee in a way that I don’t see them, the manager is brash and impulsive from my conversations with her but she doesn’t seem to be viewed that way elsewhere - but she’s also close friends with a very senior manager in the business who brings in a LOT of money and I talked to my manager about this because I feel like the scenario is being swayed based on that and my manager basically implied I agree but this is how it is for now. So I’m kind of frustrated with that, but I need to stay objective and not “side” with the reception staff like I’m tending to do. Not verbally to them in anyway, I couldn’t be more neutral if I tried, but I just don’t see this situation the way my managers do and it’s to the point where I’ve actively said I don’t think this is being looked at fairly or without any form of prejudice. Which was knocked back. Anyway who knows, we’ll see what happens. It’s a tomorrow problem considering it’s almost 5 and I’m meeting mum at 6. Nothing can be done now anyway. Employees are calmed down so idk. Anyway. Ffs. I don’t know if HR is for me tbh. I know I need to continue in the ER space in order to have exposure to all areas but f me I hate it. So much drama. And idk, I just don’t think I’m someone that should be inviting additional negativity into my life.
Wowowowowowowowow. The performance tonight was spectacular. I couldn’t stop internally gushing over the costumes too, they were just so… sumptuous. The dancers were incredible! I started feeling crampy and I was very cold and shivery too but I didn’t even care because I was utterly enthralled. I was very anxy majority of the night though which wasn’t great. I also felt so ugly and like I looked unfinished and turns out when I was washing my face before my shower earlier I forgot to put mascara on before I left. So I had smudgey brown liner but no mascara, ffs. Oh well.
He called meeee. We played our NYT games and it’s always so so fun! I love playing them with him. We really are on the same mental page a lot of the time, without the other knowing we both guessed braid as our third word with no real reason to other than an A and an I I think. So cute!!!! I would say same minds but his is way better. We can just be two peas in pod. I wonder what living together will be like, will we merge into one person? I know we won’t but still, CUTE. I adore him so much.
It’s so so so rainy. I’m kind of scared my ceiling will cave in :( I’m also sleepy so night night

Has anyone tried the just for men beard and mustache? I saw one at target that kinda looked like mascara and was wondering if anyone has tried it? I have been trying to grow a mustache for forever now and it’s too light even though it is there. I was thinking worst case i get it and try it, and if it looks stupid i just shave?

Hej alle

Måske et underligt emne, men jeg har øjenvipper, som vokser ”ind i hinanden” samt ”ind i øjnene” ved øjenkrogene.
Dette gør at det ”stikker” nogle gange ved den inderste øjenkrog, samt at mine vipper ved den yderste øjenkrog sidder fast i hinanden, når jeg har mascara på (lidt à la små velcrokroge).

Er der nogen der ved, om der findes en løsning på indadvendte øjenvipper, udover at plukke dem ud jævnligt?

På forhånd tak!
//
Eyelashes grow "into each otheinto the eyes" at the corners of the eyes


Hi everyone

Maybe a strange topic, but I have eyelashes that grow "into each other" as well as "into the eyes" at the corners of my eyes.
This means that it sometimes "pokes" at the inner corner of the eye, and that my lashes at the outer corner of the eye are stuck together when I wear mascara (a bit à la small velcro hooks).

Does anyone know if there is a solution for ingrown eyelashes other than plucking them regularly?

Thanks in advance!

(i dont know to use GuestPost flair since i'm not officially ftm or just gender-questioning, so sorry). gender has always been hard for me. i've been going back and forth between fem and masc clothes and styles and preferences, so i became bigender. i was bigender for a few months before i changed to nonbinary so i could feel more comfortable without labels. ive been binding since last year. my boyfriend is trans so he always helps and gives me advice, helps me bind, etc. i love wearing his clothes, not just because i feel safe but because they are boy clothes, if that makes sense. ive been binding a lot more recently and cut my hair to above my shoulder (it was down to my back before). i love makeup though. i understand men can wear makeup but it just makes me feel dysphoric since im afab, but recently ive been going to school with only mascara in the hopes of looking less fem. i just dont know what i am. can someone please give me advice?

Weird question, I know, but I'm a bit curious. Everyone has a bit of insecurity about their looks, men are no exception. Eye bags, acne, natural face shapes, etc. I mean, just look at whatever the fuck "mewing" is.
My question is this: as a guy, is it acceptable to wear makeup for your dating profile pictures or for actual dates? Not like, plastering your face, of course. But small things like concealer or similar. As a guy, I'd probably stay away from mascara or eyeshadow and such, but the general "first layer" that I've heard women describe might be useful.
Maybe there should be more acceptance with men wearing makeup. It used to be a big thing hundreds of years ago. I bet if manscaped made a makeup line for men, they'd make a shitload of money.