I think the most interesting thing I came away from this experience was it challenged the way I thought about the world. I don't know if he's right. If he is, there is a lot of very smart people very wrong and that's harder for me to accept than one guy out of millions of people in this profession being the only right one. HOWEVER! It should be easy imo to look at the way he views math and to temporarly play around with it, and see if things make more sense. You should be able to see if things fall apart and make significantly less sense if 1x1=2. It should be easy. Right? What concerns me, is people are more interested at making fun of him, than treating his experience as a genuine experience and exploring his ideas and coming to real conclusions instead of refusing to even engage or entertain that we may be wrong. It's challenging, because my initial reaction is to deny deny and deny. But, if I listen to him he doesn't seem crazy. He seems very lucid and in control of himself. He's clearly very intelligent and he has a unique mind — as we all do. My experience isn't any less real to anyones. Academics, should spend at least a weekend listening to what he has to say, play around with his system, plug things in and see where it goes. If it turns out the answer is "if you pretend 1x1=2 and you can make sense of the universe under that system but only in that system" then that says far more about reality doesn't it? That it all boils down to at the end of the day, what you believe and how you choose to describe the universe. I'm not interested in people dismissing Terrence Howard. I listened to what he had to say. I can understand how he thinks the way he thinks. I get it. Now, let's open it up to the "smart" people and let the break it down and see where it falls apart. If they can't do that, Terrence is right. As long, as the academic world refuses to even look at this, he's right. He checkmated the entire fucking world because now we exist like Schrödinger's Box. We are in a superstate of 2 possible realities. Either he's wrong or he's right. We remain in this box, until I see someone tear it apart beyond recognition. If this is all fucking based on interpretations, then Science is fucked. Isn't it? We're right back to Philosophy (which imo, is where the real smart people live. Being Wise and Smart are not the same thing. You'll find happiness in wisdom, you'll never find peace in trying to think your way into it). Shouldn't Math explain how the universe works? If it can't, then it's pointless. It's made up. It's imaginary and we're fucking lost. Terrence getting on this show, was his ultimate move. Now the world is aware of what he has to say. He pubically called out Neil, and now there's going to be pressure for Neil to respond on the show. As long as Neil refuses to respond, Terrence wins. If Neil responds and refutes and tries out his math and things don't work and make less sense, than we lost nothing and nothing changes. It was wonderful hearing Terrence and I hope he finds some happiness finally getting this out of his system so unashamed for being brave to say potentially the stupidest thing someone in his position can say. It's one thing to be Kanye, it's another for people to refer to you as the idiot that once thought 1x1=2 and in your 50's. That's somehow worse than not being able to read. It's like, being too fucking stupid to breath. It's embarrassing if he's wrong and it should be so fucking easy to show why and I don't want the same old explanations. I want his shit tested and applied. Plug it in. SHOW THE WORK. Fuck.

My remaining years are few and my body is weak, yet my memories are still sharp, so I shall share a tale I’ve long kept secret. I no longer wish to take it with me to the grave. I once feared that others might be drawn to this horrible experience of mine, like those who wander too close to the edges of a roaring tornado, only to be consumed and mangled beyond recognition. But I’ve come to realize that it was naive to think this way. Though some may not heed a tornado's warning, that’s no reason not to sound the alarm. And so, I tell this story with that purpose in mind.
Consider this the gravest of warnings to stay away from Stonemoor Manor.
In the year of 1953, I was but a young man, though already busy with the responsibilities of a career and a family. Despite my tender age, I had already dabbled in various trades, for I was a restless spirit, never one to settle. From labor to intellect, I had tried my hand at it all. With equal prowess in both craft and wit, I found my true calling in a profession that demanded both: veterinary medicine.
Life in Ireland was tough in those times. Many young families were heading off for better opportunities overseas. Though I was hesitant at first, myself and the wife decided we’d eventually do the same for our daughter’s sake. But I wasn’t about to take them to a new land empty-handed, so we agreed to stay another year in Ireland while I put away some coin. To stretch our savings as far as they would go, we chose to see out our final year in a rural spot where the cost of living was kinder on the pocket.
With but a year's worth of experience as a vet under my belt, I had yet to earn myself a reputation worth speaking of, nor had I much acquaintance with the locals in the village we'd chosen as our temporary home. Still, I held firm in the skills I possessed, my eagerness to learn, and my belief that this countryside community of farms and fields would provide ample chances to prove myself. To put it plainly, I was brimming with confidence, some might even call it cockiness. I suppose it was a mixture of that and desperation which brought me to Stonemoor Manor.
As the days stretched into months, I found myself haunting the local pub like a ghost, a familiar face among the regulars. My confidence was dwindling with the lack of work. It seemed like everyone in that village had the healthiest animals in all of Ireland, maybe even beyond. What a cruel twist, their blessed lives mocking my own struggles.
One evening, in my drunken stupor, I hadn’t noticed at first the gaunt figure come into the pub and saunter over to the shadowed corner where I was drowning my sorrows. It wasn’t until he spoke that I saw him.
“Are you the veterinarian?” He asked.
I raised my head and steadied my blurred gaze on the face of a man whose sunken features made him look more shadow than flesh. For a moment, I even thought I was looking at a skeleton.
“Aye, that’d be me.”
“They seek your presence at Stonemoor Manor.”
“And what’s the reason for that?”
“The Master’s horse has taken ill.”
“And what does this ‘master’ go by?”
The man glared in silence, then in a tone tinged with irritation and raised volume, declared, "His name is Alistair Stonemoor."
In an instant, the chatter in the pub fell silent, and every gaze turned toward our shadowed corner.
Under the weight of the pub's collective gaze, the man squirmed uncomfortably, his voice lowering as he muttered, "It matters not. You’ll be well rewarded for your troubles."
Past the man, the bartender shook his head in disapproval, fixing me with a stern glare, and silently mouthed the word, "no."
Despite the bartender's cautionary glance, fueled by youth, folly, and a healthy dose of drink, I brushed aside his advice and turned to the man, blurting out, "How much is this Master Stonemoor offering?"
The man leaned closer, his face illuminated by the flickering candlelight, revealing a gaunt, pallid countenance and foggy eyes. He looked every bit of his seventy years or more. "Sufficient to settle comfortably upon reaching the shores of America," he murmured.
In that moment, it would have been prudent to heed the warning signaled by the hairs standing on end at the nape of my neck. When your instincts scream "leave," it's best to listen. But the allure of a swift resolution to my troubles clouded my judgment. The prospect of a better life sooner than expected was too tempting to resist. So, I rose from my seat and addressed the man, "I'll go fetch me things.”
I made the decision I believed was best for my family.
God rest their souls.
I kept from my lovely Mary the weight the Stonemoor name carried in the pub. She'd have put a stop to my leaving in an instant. Instead, I spun a tale of a wealthy gent in need of my skills, assuring her I'd be back when the job was done. With our wee Annie already tucked in for the night, I kissed my wife goodbye, gathered my tools, and slipped into the back of a sleek black sedan, driven by the mysterious man with eyes like fog, seemingly undeterred by their cloudy gaze.
I leaned in and murmured, "Didn't quite catch your name, sorry.”
“Never said it.”
“Ah, right. What is it, then?”
“Fergus.”
“Pleasure, Fergus. I’m Liam.”
“I know.”
“Right. The ad. You’ve seen me ad.”
With no response from Fergus, I pressed on, asking, "How far is Stonemoor Manor from here?"
“About a half hour drive.”
What ensued was a half-hour journey enveloped in silence, traversing through the village and onto a dirt path winding through a dense, shadowy forest. Eventually, we arrived at an iron gate, which swung open onto a secluded road. Despite my keen observation, I couldn't discern who operated the gate, nor who secured it shut behind us. Ten minutes further along this secluded path, the woods parted, revealing the grandeur of Stonemoor Manor for the first time.
It bore a striking resemblance to a castle, its exterior fashioned from grey stone adorned with towers and crenellations, save for the central portion, which appeared to be of Victorian design. Judging by the numerous windows, the manor rose at least four stories high, not accounting for any underground levels.
The manor lay bathed solely in the moon's glow, devoid of any external illumination. Among the multitude of windows, only one emitted light: a solitary glimmer from a small window perched atop one of the corner towers.
Fergus brought the car to a halt, then stepped out and opened my door. With a nod, he gestured towards the manor and uttered, "Master Stonemoor awaits you within."
"Up there, is he?” I acknowledged, stepping out of the vehicle and casting a nod towards the illuminated window.
Ignoring my question, Fergus closed the door firmly. "Come along," he directed, leading the way towards the looming manor.
We climbed stone steps to confront a grand iron door, effortlessly opened by old Fergus. He gestured for me to enter before closing the door with a heavy thud that echoed through the foyer. Cast only in the moon's silver light, the room revealed itself in fragments, with stone stairs disappearing into the shadows ahead. Fergus had vanished from sight, leaving me to navigate the dimness alone.
I called out for Fergus, but my voice echoed unanswered, stirring a growing sense of unease. Doubt crept in, whispering of traps and deceit. With cautious steps, I retreated towards the door, its cool iron offering a sense of security. Fumbling in the darkness, my heart quickened with each passing moment, panic threatening to overwhelm me. Just as my trembling hand found the handle, the room burst into light.
“Departing so soon, are we?”
A new voice pierced the silence, resonating with youth and vigor unlike Fergus's. Swiveling around, my eyes met those of a tall, middle-aged man clad in a sleek black three-piece suit, accented by a bold red tie. With raven-black hair framing his face and piercing blue eyes, he commanded the landing of the steps, which diverged to his left and right.
“Ah, sorry now. I seemed to have gone and misplaced Fergus,” I chuckled sheepishly. “Thought he might’ve been locked out. I take it you’re Mister Stonemoor?”
"Please, call me Alistair," he replied with a nod. "And you must be Doctor Kerrigan?"
"Aye... Liam, that's me name," I stammered. "Only the creatures call me doctor."
I couldn't tell if the jest garnered even a smirk, for Alistair remained rooted to the spot at the top of the stairs, a considerable distance away.
"Anyhow," I persisted, "I understand there's a sick horse in need of attention?"
"Are you drunk, Doctor?" Alistair's tone was pointed, his gaze piercing.
Alistair's question caught me off guard, leaving me momentarily speechless, akin to a child caught in mischief. Yet, I had a feeling of innocence; after all, it was Fergus who had recruited me from the pub.
“I’ve had a few pints this evening.”
“I can smell it on you.”
“That is truly impressive.”
“There is nothing impressive about it, Doctor Kerrigan.”
“Well, I didn’t go swimming in it, did I?”
“I do not know and I find your sarcasm unwelcome. Fergus will escort you to a chamber, and you shall begin attending to my horse at daybreak."
“Hold on now, I'm sorry for me behavior, but I can't be staying the night. I've got a family to get back to. And anyhow, shouldn't this horse be needing emergency treatment?"
Alistair turned on his heel and ascended the staircase to his right. "Treatment can wait until you've sobered up," he declared, his tone leaving no room for argument.
"I'm plenty sober!" I hollered after him as he vanished up the stairs. "Me hands are steady as a rock!" My protest echoed through the empty foyer, but Alistair had already disappeared from sight.
Fergus emerged from the shadows of a nearby hallway, causing me to startle. "I will show you to your room.”
“You’re a right sly one, Fergus. Anyway, I can’t be sticking around for the night.”
“Master intends to further compensate you for your time.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then I shall return you to your burdens.”
With my jaw clenched and eyes shut tight, I drew in a deep breath. For a fleeting moment, a vision danced in my mind's eye: my little Annie, her smile radiant as she pointed towards Lady Liberty. So precious she was, my heart ached with longing for her to have a better life.
"Fine," I relented, opening my eyes. "Show me to the room."
As I awoke, it was not to the gentle glow of morning light, but to the harsh brightness of noon. Jumping from the bed, I checked my watch, confirming my fears. With urgency, I slipped on my shoes, grabbed my bag, and hastened out of the bedroom. Stepping into the hallway, I was disoriented, with no recollection of its layout from the night before. Rows of closed doors lined the corridor, and I began to try each one in turn. Pushing and pulling, I soon realized that every door was locked. Surely, not every room warranted such security, I pondered, my frustration growing with each failed attempt.
As I ventured down the hall and finally arrived at the imposing stone staircase, the resounding clicks of each door unlocking in unison sent shivers down my spine. Goosebumps prickled across my skin, and I hastened my descent down the stairs, my heart pounding in my chest. Just as I reached the bottom, I came to an abrupt stop, narrowly avoiding a collision with the ghastly figure of Fergus.
“Sleep well?” He asked.
“Jesus, Fergus! It’s noon! Has the horse given up the ghost yet? And, I haven’t a clue what’s happening upstairs, but…”
“Master Stonemoor awaits your presence in the stables.”
I looked at Fergus a moment, wondering if he’d heard a word I’d said, then relented, “Okay, then. Can I use a phone first?”
“There’s no phone on this property.”
“No phone? That’s a bit old-fashioned, isn’t it? I need to let me wife know where I am.”
“I will send word.”
“Quickly, then. Just let her know not to be worrying about me. I’ll be back once the job is done.”
Fergus nodded in acknowledgement before guiding me towards the stables. In the light of day, the grandeur of Stonemoor Manor became even more apparent. It truly was a colossal structure, dominating the landscape with its impressive presence.
The stables were nearly empty, save for one stall at the far end where I found Alistair tending to a black thoroughbred, sprawled on straw, barely clinging to consciousness.
"She's a beauty, isn't she?" Alistair remarked, not lifting his gaze from her.
"Aye, but she's in a bad way."
Alistair nodded solemnly. "She's been like this for some time.”
"You should've woke me.”
"Wouldn't have changed a thing." Alistair paused in his brushing of the horse’s mane and rested his hand upon her flank, following the rhythm of her strained breaths.
"Isn't it me duty to tend to her?"
Alistair withdrew his hand and straightened up, his eyes bluer than ever. "No, it's not." And just then, the horse's breathing stopped. "Come along, Doctor."
Alistair guided me through the grand house, down echoing halls, and into a room adorned with portraits aplenty. He paused in the center of the room and asked, "Any of these faces look familiar?" I scoured the walls until I stumbled upon a particular painting, a sight that nearly shook me to the core. In that frame, a woman and a young lass gazed back at me, bearing an eerie resemblance to my own Mary and our sweet Annie.
My blood boiled with fury, convinced that this portrait depicted my own wife and daughter. Suspicion gnawed at me, and I eyed Alistair with distrust, wondering if he was some sort of obsessed deviant. "Out with it," I demanded, my voice sharp with anger.
“No need to fret, Doctor. This painting predates your girls by quite a stretch."
"I'm not taking it, they're too alike for comfort.”
"I’m just as baffled as yourself," Alistair conceded, his words laced with sadness. "The girls in the painting are my dear wife and daughter. Both passed away some time ago."
I stood silent for a moment, then spoke softly, "I'm sorry. I didn't realize." My gaze returned to the portraits before scanning the room again, my eyes catching on something odd. "Don't you have any photographs of them?"
Alistair let out a weary sigh and turned to me. "I'm afraid not," he confessed. "They passed before photographs were even a notion."
A puzzled chuckle broke from my lips. "Surely not. Cameras have been about for a hundred years," I countered, shaking my head in disbelief.
Alistair fixed me with a steady gaze, betraying no hint of doubt or error. "So it be," he affirmed with quiet certainty.
Apart from Alistair's piercing blue eyes, other features seemed to have taken on a newfound radiance. His skin possessed a youthful glow, his hair appeared fuller, and his jawline more defined. Alistair, it seemed, had undergone a remarkable rejuvenation, growing younger right before my eyes.
“Pardon me asking, but in which year were you born, Mister Stonemoor?”
Alistair smirked and made his way to a sizable wooden desk and lowered himself onto a chair. "Are you a man of faith, Doctor Kerrigan?”
Assuming this to be a roundabout approach, I responded, "Aye, I've a healthy fear of the Almighty."
Alistair rummaged through a drawer and withdrew a hefty leather-bound tome, causing a cloud of dust to rise as he placed it upon his desk. Flipping it open, he motioned for me to approach. Amongst the sea of words, atop the first page, was a title:
The Knights Templar.
What Alistair divulged to me was a tale so fantastical, it surpassed any yarn I'd ever heard spun. He claimed to have once been among the legendary Knights Templar, embroiled in the Crusades and journeying across continents in pursuit of sacred relics and hidden truths.
But as history tells, the Templars met a grim fate, condemned by their own church and hunted to extinction. Yet, Alistair was no mere casualty of that bloody chapter. He was a survivor, lurking in the very woods where Stonemoor Manor now stood, clutching to the shadows with a treasure in hand.
Amongst the spoils of his clandestine escapades was a fabled emerald tablet, etched with secrets believed to bridge the mortal realm with the divine. Alistair, having purloined the tablet and sought refuge in the forest, claimed to have communed with the Almighty himself. And in that sacred dialogue, he made a plea, and it was granted.
Thus, his years became as boundless as his desires.
As his narrative drew to a close, Alistair closed the book and beckoned me to follow him back to the stables. Stunned into silence after what I’d just heard, I trailed behind him as we retraced our steps to the very spot where we had witnessed the horse's demise. And once we arrived, still, my tongue lay dormant as I beheld the miraculous sight before me: the once lifeless creature now stood vibrant and strong.
Finally, a solitary word escaped my lips, a gasp of incredulity as I uttered, "How?"
"The Lord bestowed upon me a gift," Alistair confessed, his voice weighted with solemnity. "But it came at a cost. In death, I find life. With each soul I take, I grow younger."
The transformation in Alistair's appearance now made sense, yet it did little to quell my lingering doubts about the resurrection of the horse. "But why is the horse alive, then?" I pressed, seeking further clarification.
In response, Alistair simply glanced past me, nodding toward a figure looming in the shadows. Turning, my eyes fell upon Fergus, his form now even more weathered, his countenance more gaunt and gray. He looked to have aged another decade.
Alistair spoke as I stood in awe, elucidating, "With death, I am rejuvenated, yet with life, Fergus withers further. I take and I gain, while he gives and he loses. Our blessing is also our curse.”
Fergus looked on with weary eyes and sagging shoulders. "There was a portrait earlier that escaped your notice, Doctor," Alistair interjected. "It was the portrait of my son... Fergus Stonemoor."
To be continued…

Hi all, I(20F) and NED from uterine cancer recently saw a nutritionist to get a better understanding of what I should be eating and avoiding to minimize my chances of a recurrence. However the plan she laid out for me really stressed me out, as she basically said that I couldn't eat any sugar, meat, dairy, processed foods and even tomatoes and potatoes. She also gave me some advice abt drinking alkaline water which I know for a fact is pseudoscience since the body regulates its own pH, and she directly implied that if I ever need chemo I should refuse and go the alternative medicine route... In addition, she recommended fasting and the whole "positive thinking heals cancer" thing. Needless to say I was shocked and disappointed, but I have read that there is a link between some foods like dairy and meat and uterine cancer.
Now, the worst part of this situation is that I've struggled a LOT with disordered eating ever since I was about 10. I've had full blown anorexia as well as phases of orthorexia and binge eating. I've worked really hard to get rid of my guilt around eating and my obsessive tendencies when it comes to food. However, I'm aware that it is smart to change my diet to a healthier one due to my diagnosis. But I'm just really frustrated because I have no idea how to go about this in a pshychologically healthy way which won't cause me to relapse into an eating disorder.
After my talk with the nutritionist, I was craving some dark chocolate and decided to eat it, but afterwards I felt this extreme guilt and fear that I'd cause my cancer to come back with my bad choices. I'm feeling super conflicted and frustrated with this whole situation. Sorry about the long rant and I'm not sure if anyone will find this relatable or coherent, but I really needed to vent.

*UNRELATED BUT RE:JINXING IT: it dont be silly (says the guy who hasnt shaved in multiple weeks now lmfao but thats more a camaraderie tradition thing with the team/my brothers) but WE in NY should know better than anyone even the Pres Trophy 'curse' doesnt effect us (the last 3 we got to the FINAL the last time, got knocked out in game 7 of the ECF by Tampa when they were in dynasty mode, annnnd won the cup in 94, the year we won the PT, plus this year worst case another ECF loss....
*TO THE MAIN POINT(S)* ill keep em brief cuz im sure u get the idea and also have opinions of your own but lets try and respect eachother as fellow humans but right now moreso AS FELLOW RANGERS!
THE REASONS IF UR JUST HERE FOR THE MEAT AND POTATOES OF IT:
1.) Igor > Bob - i know these are the two only ELITE goalies left though Oett is playing really well but not on this level...these guys can steal series but i lean Igor cuz A.) theres a reason we got Quick as a backup after he literally played in LAST YRS playoffs lol, to rest Igor for long series/posteason, the longer it goes the more that edge can help - also looking at their playoff numbers Igor's got most covered (i dont really put much into GAA and more into SAVE % as a former minor goalie cuz if u have great defense etc it helps but save % is just how well YOU did against ON GOAL SHOTS aka goals if ur not there (and also 'big chance' bob and igor are abotu tied but Bob also hasnt faced a team as offensively talented as the rangers (atleast right now the way the playoffs are goin, not that FLA is a slouch)
2.)Special Teams, they made the diff in CAR a few times, and CAR was meant to be top 3 at PP AND PK...well as we know it duidnt go that way for their ST's and not only are we scoring SH goals keeping teams wary but going into this series our PP is 31.4% and FLA's PK is 22.1% - thats gonna give 3 or 4 goals on avg against any goalie/games at this level facing a PP as clinical as NY (personally i do worry it could be worse as Fox looks to be playing injured and sturggles to pivot as well/agility so being our top 'QB' on the PP could be an issue)
3.) LIneup - again its hard to seperate these teams but i STILL think we have a slight edge in all 3, OFF (they're more top heavy, we get scoring up and down the lineup - ALSO we have teh 'good' problem of picking Rempe for more physical, Blake Wheeler is back AND Chytils at full health, obv cold but i trust Lav cuz he earned it and also he sees way more than we do behind the scenes. - Point is say Mika or Panarin have a garbage game/series or dont show up theres on fire Laff AND Trocheck, very solid Roslovic and i doubt Mika AND Bread dissapear at the same time but theres one player OBV not mentioned for a reason...Kreider.
As Kreider has adjusted his game to being a deflecting netfront presence vs the 'speed power' in his earlier game but (legacy game aside aka the #RalieghRallyNattyHatty lol) but the point is over the last 5 years EVERYONE knows thats his game and he still leads the league in tip ins...its the fact they CANT STOP HIM from doing something thats generating goals and if they DO put enough effort into stopping him itll leave more time and space for others...
****BONUS REASON***** this effects everyone AND strategically cuz u get 2 periods vs 1 of the 'short switch' and as the home team in a poss game 7 not only is IGOour record at MSG inane but that building will be exploding...its been proven many times refs tend to favor home teams likely due to subsciouscious pressure from the crowd (like giving a 'bs makeup call' which many former refs admit is common) but also as the home team THEY have to put their lines out first so we can 'react' instead of putting out a physical 4th line only to see them put their big guns out etc
*I know this isnt all like, shockingly insightful but just antsy so thought id see what yall think or if yall knew this info too or agreed/disagree?d

Newly diabetic. Diagnosed about a month ago. Getting medication has been a challenge. Doctor put me on Ozempic which result in a fight and a final denial by Fl BCBS. Then put on a low dose of metformin, that for the life of me Walgreens won’t fill; I have good insurance and healthy backup HSA card.
But nonetheless, I think I am adjusting quite well, mostly. I’ve given up food cold turkey mostly. Trying to control the lack of medicine strictly with diet, for now. Started intermittent fasting and eating first meal around 1-2 pm consisting of a lean protein, a sweet potatoes slice (long ways) and a lot of greens, and dinner about 7 of fish and greens. Trying to keep my glucose in 140-160 post meal I only cheated with fries one, and my sugar shot up to 184 and that scared me.
My waking sugars seems to be good at about 110-115.
Ironically, typing this as I am having a glass of Merlot to test how it hits me.
Crap, I miss fries and chicken nuggets.

30F
Running history
Ran cross country in high school. 4K PR 17:29 (7:02/mile), 3 mile PR 22:03 (7:21/mile). I didn't do any training in the off season.
Annoyingly, I never actually raced a 5K during high school cross country. We did one three mile race each year, the rest of our races were 4K's.
Started running again April 2023 to train for a sprint triathlon.
Mileage by Month Graph
https://imgur.com/a/TRItqf8
Race results

Month	Race Type	Time	Weather	Notes
April 2023	5K	24:59 (8:02/mile average)	30 degrees, 17 mph NW wind, 86% humidity	Negative splits. Felt good, didn't take this too seriously.
June 2023	3 miles	23:01 (7:40/mile average)	70 degrees, 7 mph S wind, 56% humidity	Positive splits. Very hard, didn't feel great.
August 2023	5k, part of a sprint triathlon	23:23 (7:31/mile average)	70 degrees, cloudy, 3 mph wind NW, 73% humidity	Negative splits. Hard but felt good. Garmin measured this course as short. Garmin 5K time is 23:53 (I kept running after crossing the finish).
November 2023	5 mile trail	42:27 (8:29/mile average)	39 degrees, 14 mph SSE wind, 65% humidity	Positive splits. Very hard. Garmin recorded this as 5.20 miles. Took three week off from training in September due to a vacation.

May 2024 Goal 5K
After the November five miler, I settled on a new goal: beat my high school running performance. I decided to define this as running a 5K at a pace equivalent to my three mile PR in high school. This equals a 5K time of 22:35.
In December, I added kettlebell strength training twice a week. I upped my mileage and ran six days a week. Generally, I ran three easy six mile days, one easy 8 mile, one easy long run between 10-14 miles, and two workouts a week. The workouts were usually one hill, and the other was usually tempo or intervals. Generally my typical easy running pace was anywhere from 9:20-10:30/mile. I probably ran some intervals and hills too hard. I also didn't dedicate enough time to warm ups or cool downs.Garmin VO2 max increased to 52 in December and 53 in March. Finally, I signed up for a May 2024 5K race.
Last 11 weeks of weekly mileage: 44, 45, 47, 46, 20 (vacation), 42, 41, 38, 28, 29 (vacation half this week), 18 (vacation half this week).
I mostly avoided injury. There was a week I did two hard workouts on consecutive days, and that left my knee hurting for about a week, but thankfully I recovered. I also occasionally struggled with a side stitch/pain on my right side.
Lessons learned: it got really hard to prioritize running and workouts during vacation, and as the weather got nicer in my area I started to get busier too. I think my training peaked too early and tapered off too strongly.
I did get a Garmin 5K PR of 23:26 on a 4/30 training run which left me feeling confident. The workout was 5 1K's with two minute rest in between, and I ran the 1K's at the following paces: 7:11, 7:07, 7:00, 6:55, 6:42. However, a different workout the next week left me demoralized after it was much harder than I anticipated.
Race Day
The few days leading up to the race, I was quite nervous. A big concern of mine was peeing my pants. This happened during my high school three mile PR. At that time I was also on my period, so I was hoping to write off the experience as a weird one off related to menstruation. I was also quite worried about getting a debilitating side stitch, as that happened during one of my last few training runs. I focused on drinking a lot of water in the few days leading up to the race, as I theorized the side stitch came on due to dehydration. I slept well the week of the race.
Race day weather: 65 degrees, 12 mph SSE wind, 73% humidity.
Woke up at 6:30 AM and ate some bites of sweet potato and a smoothie made from tart cherries, beets, and cocoa. Listened to the Kendrick-Drake diss tracks to pump me up. I leisurely biked the three miles to the start of the race. I ran 3/4 of a mile for a warm up and did some dynamic movements to warm up. Used the porta potty twice, including just minutes before the race. Had to cut through nearly a thousand people to get near the start. Race started at 8:45 AM.
I decided to aim for a pace of 7:08 and see how that felt. I chose this pace mostly based on the 5 1000 meter workout I did a few weeks before. I ended the first mile at 7:07. It felt hard but manageable. Same for the second mile, where I ended at 7:08.
However, I fell apart a bit during the third mile. I really slowed down for about 2 minutes and 15 seconds, bottoming out at a pace of 8:15 per mile. Seeing that really demoralized me. My breathing was labored, and I started to feel a pain on my right side and general stomach discomfort. I was able to bring up my pace for a minute, but then I had another slower minute. During this time, there were two runners ahead of me. I think one was coaching the other - and she started to encourage me too. I sped up to run with them and stayed with them for a few minutes. I ran past some friends who were cheering me on, and I couldn't even manage a smile or to notice their sign. I ended the third mile with a split of 7:28. My husband was following along via bike and he could tell I really struggled in that third mile. He said it looked like I wasn't breathing and he could hear me gasping for air.
I didn't think it was possible, but once my watch buzzed for the third mile, I surged. Maybe it was desperation for the race to be over. My pace the last .10 of the mile was 6:34. I started to feel something strange in the pelvic region, but kept my pace.
Time: 22:34
Once I crossed the finish line, I peed. Couldn't control it at all. It felt like it was more than a leakage, but it also didn't dribble down my leg.
I felt terrible for a good 10-15 minutes. had to lay down. Really wanted to just sit on a toilet, but since my only option was the porta potty, I declined. Suddenly though, I felt better. I regained my strength, cheered on a friend who was finishing a longer race, and went on to have a busy Saturday complete with another 17 miles of (leisurely) biking.
Soreness was minimal. Saturday I swore that was my last race.
Now I'm thinking, how do I get below 22 minutes? I think I'll aim for a fall race and try using a Pfitzinger plan.
but first - I shall find a pelvic floor PT.

Hi! I feel like a lot of the discourse about people not liking this season is in part due to people not really understanding what friends to lovers is, specifically the trope as it applies to Colin and Penelope, so I thought I might share my thoughts :)
Now I haven’t read the books - this is all based on what I gleaned from the show on multiple rewatches and as someone who has been the Penelope in a friendship for a longggg long time. Hopefully this makes sense.
Romance tropes can often boiled down to their immediate, basic truths. The popular enemies to lovers, for example: Enemy 1 + Enemy 2 + sexual tension = Lover 1 and Lover 2. Not to say enemies to lovers can’t be complex, but generally the starting point for enemies is an essential lack of trust between the parties and moments of connection (via fights) fueled by intense feelings of hatred/rage/whatever which can, in turn, translate to sexual tension. Due to the lack of trust, when they do get together it’s an explosion of that intense energy, highlighted even more-so by the knowledge that they don’t truly trust each other but they need each other which makes the heart race all the more and the passion all that more explosive.
Let’s look at Kate and Anthony as this trope. When they meet there is an immediate spark, fueled by a race in which they’re in competition. Once she hears him at the ball she decides she will do everything in her power to stop him from marrying her sister, and since he is determined to marry Edwina every interaction they have from that point on, until they have their happily ever after in the last episode, can be considered a fight. Moments like the bane of my existence and you vex me are such high intensity because it’s two people fueled by anger and sexual/romantic tension. They need each other like air but will do everything to fight it because of the anger, making the onscreen affections super intense for the viewer (especially as viewers who have just been introduced to Kate and are getting to know her through the lens of Anthony).
Now friends to lovers is, if I may say, quite a bit more complicated. A basic boiled down is Friend 1 + Friend 2 + romance/sexual tension = Lovers. But all friendships are different - if you’re new friends your pipeline to lovers is likely entirely different than old friends to lovers. If one party is in love with the other that changes the dynamic entirely; are they long distance or close? Were they childhood friends? Are they both likeable and popular or is one more nerdy and quiet or both? Do they know each other’s families? Are they best friends or just friends? All of these and more create new dynamics and emotions that can lead to love in different ways. My point is that friends to lovers is not as easy to pin down as something like enemies to lovers. So that’s why a couple like Polin may seem like they don’t have as much chemistry on screen - because their intensity shines in a different way than what we’re used to in Bridgerton.
Going into season three we know that Penelope has been in love with Colin for a long time, but during that time the two also formed a close friendship. When Colin proposed to Marina, yes Penelope whistledowned about the pregnancy to stop him from marrying her for love reasons, but also because he is her friend and she didn’t want to see him trapped in a loveless marriage. We also know that when Colin traveled between seasons one and two Penelope most often responded to his letters. Even during a scene in season two Pen specifically asks to hear more about his travels, even though everyone else in Colin’s life had asked him to stop talking about it. Pen’s crush and friendship don’t cancel each other out, they exist side by side as two parts of Penelope that often overlap but are most importantly separate entities. And she knows that.
Colin does not. In season three when Colin is talking about when they first met, Penelope looks away with anxiety when Colin suggests he knows why Penelope was so forward in making fun of him for falling off his horse and starting their friendship. She knows it’s because she had a crush on him. He states that it was because they were kids. This means it’s canon that Penelope had a crush on him since the moment they met. As a result, Colin has never experienced a friendship with Pen that doesn’t also have an underlying crush. He doesn’t know that Pen doesn’t respond to everyone’s letters all the time, or hangs onto their every word, or goes out of her way to talk to them. How Pen acts around him is how he assumes she acts around everyone - that’s why he doesn’t pick up on her crush.
It’s also why, I argue, he doesn’t realize that he loves her until the kiss in season three. He truly and genuinely takes her affections, her friendship, for granted because he doesn’t understand that someone so loyal and loving like that is rare. He doesn’t appear to have much else in the way of friends; outside of his family we don’t really see him interact with other men, and in season three the “friends” he does spend time with make comments to suggest they only started hanging out with him after his personality change to be more like his brothers - a rake who doesn’t care much for real affections. It’s why he said he would never court Penelope Featherington, or why he said “You are Pen, you do not count” when asked why he was still talking to her if he swore off women. He was super young when his dad died, so the only male role models he has for what love means are Anthony and Benedict. So, as he understands it, a man courting a woman is about sleeping around until the man finds a suitable match that pleases the family regardless of the man’s happiness. Even though he saw that Anthony fell in love by the time Colin said he would never court Pen, he didn’t see Anthony’s journey to understanding that love is not something to run from but something to cherish like we, the viewers, did. Anthony’s arc was just background noise for Colin, so it wasn’t like that would change his outlook on what Anthony’s actions in season one and beginning of season two loudly called out: choosing love over meaningless sex is idiotic and weak. It is explained in a letter that the reason Colin decided to try being like his brothers is BECAUSE Penelope stopped responding to him during his travels between seasons two and three. He decided to start guarding his heart, throwing on the rakish armor we see him dawn in the first half of season three, because he didn’t have that relationship that made him feel stable and loved anymore.
This is why Colin is genuinely distressed when Penelope walks away from him at the garden party in the first episode of season three, and why he went after her to explain that he missed her. He loves his relationship with her, not understanding that what he feels is actually love for her because he has never been aware that true love feels the way it does when he is with Pen. He sees Penelope as his best friendship, rather than the love of his life, because he literally can’t see it any other way based on how everything in his life played out to that point.
———
Okay this is way longer than I intended this to be already, but to finally make it to my main point! The Friends to Lovers trope as it plays out in Season Three Part One: Polin Do Be Polining.
What does all this mean for how Polin’s intensity shines as a couple? Due to the way their friendship has played out things like Colin taking Pen to the dance floor (not small social feat btw) in season one when Cressida bullies her, seeking each other out at social events, Pen asking about his travels - all of these are part of their relationship! It’s all part of the slow burn; it’s just less slap-you-in-the-face noticeable, to a viewer of a show about specified romance, as Kate and Anthony and even Simon and Daphne because acting like friends is an implicit part of Polin’s love story. Because they are best friends as well as eventually lovers!!
This is in full display in Season three, though put more on blast since it’s their season to get together. Colin saying he’ll teach Penelope how to get a husband isn’t a pity thing, it’s a real moment of genuine care that Colin is extending towards her.
—— “Pen wants to get a husband to be happy? Great! I’ll help to make her happy because her happiness means everything to me. Because I am her friend. Duh :)” - top ten photos taken ten seconds before disaster. ——
And it works! They start spending all this time together, and Pen has always looked gorgeous but is finally wearing clothes that she feels gorgeous in and you can see it in the way she acts, and suddenly Colin’s heart starts doing all these weird jumps around her like when she’s in the drawing room and when she wraps his hand because he has always loved her, so he doesn’t understand what these feelings that are coming up during these scenes are because they are not new feelings, just more intense ones of what he believes is pure friendship.
Penelope, on the other hand, has had her brain decide to give up on Colin Bridgerton (even though her heart hasn’t). As someone who’s been there, being in unrequited love with your friend is brutal but you can never really let go. No matter how many people they date, or the hours you spend together talking about their new crush, or the life moments share together where they do everything but love you there is always that small spark of hope in your chest that you can’t let go of lest they ever possibly realize they love you back. That chance is too precious to give up - that’s why Penelope can’t give Debling a real answer when he asks her if she would like to be with Colin in episode four. Logically she knows she should give it up but her heart just can’t. She is a hopeless romantic and her life has been spinning around Colin Bridgerton since she was 16 like the earth around the Sun. There is no other way to live, for her, if she isn’t in love with Colin. And that’s what breaks her heart the most.
It’s also why, I believe, she asks him to kiss her in that garden. She had just written about herself in Whistledown that she did the upmost embarrassing act of taking Colin’s assistance on the marriage market, and her mother dressed her down about being a spinster for the rest of her life. All of Pen’s plans, of marrying and getting out, are utterly gone for her in that moment when she goes out to the garden. She doesn’t have her prospects. She doesn’t have Eloise. She doesn’t have safety in her own home. The only thing she has left is Colin. That’s why she asks him to kiss her, because he might grant her this one kindness of making her feel alive for just this one moment before the rest of her life ends. That moment is the culmination of all of her feelings up to that point in the show. She’s given up on Colin - she wouldn’t have asked him to kiss her had she any hope left. This was her last ditch attempt to just be a girl and be kissed regardless of what he actually meant to her. It wasn’t out of desperation, it was staring down the barrel of the gun with societies’s finger on the trigger.
When she asks him Colin is taken aback. Not because he doesn’t want to kiss her but because he has never considered it before. Kissing was reserved for women you are looking to sleep with at a bar, for prostitutes in alleyways, not for his caring Pen. I’ve seen some upset over not including more of Colin’s writing in the show, as he becomes quite the writer in the books apparently, and the writing we do see is just about sex but given the way they paced the show they provided the most important piece of context for Colin’s understanding of intimacy in the writing they did use. He wonders how one can feel, despite sleeping with every kind of woman across Europe, such intimacy in physical closeness and yet such distance emotionally. It’s some level of satisfying for him to sleep around, but it doesn’t fulfill him in the way it seemed to fulfill his brothers. He cannot equate the idea of kissing to Penelope because he feels such emotional closeness to her. But when she brings it up, suddenly everything clicks into place for him. All the emotions he feels towards her, what he thought was just friendship, is so much more. Yes she is his friend, but by god he wants to kiss his friend; not out of the need to search for something but of the overwhelming feeling of going home.
Their kiss is sweet, and soft. Unlike Daphne and Anthony’s first kisses with their respective partners it isn’t this immense clashing of bodies and teeth. It’s two friends who love each other finally meeting each other as sparks fly.
———
Colin is left speechless, and confused. The kiss was amazing to him because he finally unlocked that part of him that made him realize he was in love with Penelope. The kiss was amazing to Penelope because she has been in love with him for so long, but it was also tinged with her own doubts and feelings of hopelessness. That’s why she runs away, and thanks him, because this was her last stand and he was just her friend helping her out as she believes.
But as always, a night of sleep helps clarify things. The next time Pen goes into society she is awkward but still well intentioned about getting a husband because that kiss was a long day’s worth of self pity followed by, in her terms, a moment of weakness. But it clarified things for her too. Now she can’t die without ever having been kissed, so that ultimatum she set up in her own mind was gone and everything seems much more manageable from that point on. Colin, as we know, is a wreck who is absolutely bamboozled at these feelings and we love to watch him flounder!!!
———
Now the tables have been turned. To those of who are think Penelope should have chosen Debling, this part is for you. This is when Debling really starts to court Penelope as she goes after him. She literally fights Cressida for him, because he seems like the most amenable husband for her to be able to continue Whistledown and be provided security. She isn’t looking for love in Debling because she already has love in Colin (love she believes will always remain unrequited, but that kiss can be a memory she cherishes for the rest of her life and that be that); she basically did what Anthony did at the beginning of season two. Find a suitable match that makes the most sense for her and leave searching for a love match out of it. She likes Debling, for sure, and he’s a rly nice guy!! He cares about her in a way that a suitor might, and I’m certain had they gotten married he wouldn’t have been mean to her or anything. But she would’ve been lonely. As remembered she is a romantic, someone who craves the love she reads about in her romance books. She’s spent most of her conscious life in love - marrying Debling would stop that in its tracks. In his own words, Debling tells Pen that he could try to maybe love her but that it was far too unlikely to find any room in his heart for her over his passions (aroace Debling stans rise). He specifically mentions that he is choosing her to marry because she has her own passions, separate from his, that can keep her company while he is gone both physically and emotionally from her. She doesn’t realize this until it’s too late, when her focus on the chase is over, and Debling asks her mother for her hand. It’s only then that she thinks that maybe she could hold out for love, and that power is strong enough to make her actively not want to ensure her security through Debling.
Love is treacherous, and yet we yearn for it like a sailor who cannot help but smile at the beauty of the raging sea at it comes crashing down upon him. Penelope would rather a thousand lifetimes of the chance to be in love with Colin over one lifetime married to Debling in safety.
That is why Debling breaks it off with her. Because she loves Colin, Debling knows she would choose Colin over him, and he sees Colin’s interest in her even if she does not. Like girl…. Colin literally found out she was going to get engaged, ran to the ball, interrupted the dance wherein Debling was going to ask Pen to marry him, ran after her carriage just to know if she was engaged because he couldn’t fathom letting her get away in a loveless marriage, and when finding out she was not engaged telling her he loved her even if she did not love him back because he simply had to express to her how much he loved her as he owed her that as his friend. Colin got in his knees in that carriage because he was genuinely splaying out his heart to her for her to dissect as she chose. He put himself at her mercy because that is where he believes his place to be - hers.
———
The carriage scene is, of course, the moment of highest intensity from the viewer standpoint of what we think love should appear to be. Other scenes could be Colin’s dream, and the moment in the sweets tent, etc. But those moments aren’t all of Polin’s love story. They may be the most visceral to witness, but they are just as important as the two of them laughing together in the corner of a ballroom. Their romantic trope is defined as Friends to Lovers, but that isn’t quite right - they are both. There is no big “or” between the two. Colin and Penelope are friends and lovers, and all of it is a beauty to witness.
Okay that’s it! If you’ve made it this far thanks for sticking around to hear my obsessive little thoughts. I wish you a very happy Bridgerton rewatch :)

I've had this friend of mine for several years now. He's my one of my closest friends I can think of, ill call him Daniel. We have this friend group with 2 other of my really close friends, the 2 others both being girls
Daniel and one of the girls(let's call her jaiden) got together and started dating, but broke up a few months ago.
A few days ago jaiden told me that she was usually made very uncomfortable by Daniel while they were together, they used to kiss infront of us and others and she says that Daniel coerced her to. She then told me about how he forced her to do alot of things she didn't feel comfortable with. And how he touched her in places she repeatedly told him not too. She also said he was very manipulative in how he'd ask for things, for example, saying he'd never date again if she refused his proposal. She also said that he forced her into one other thing but didn't feel comfortable enough talking about it
This is all just so confusing to me cause Daniel has been like a brother to me for the 4 years I've known him, yeah he's not perfect but stuff like this?! I had to at least talk to him and hear him out
He was, uncooperative, he kept trying to end the conversation, gave me one word answers, admitted to a few things like the whole never-date-a-woman-again fiasco, bur ofcourse he denied everything else
Now I'm left between a rock and a hard place. Daniel really really seems guilty by how he responded, he didn't seem too suprised when I brought everything up, and didn't seem like he could care less. And it's not like i dont trust jaiden either, she's been my friend almost as long as Daniel has, but even then it's still hard to just completely side against him. But I've continued to support and comfort jaiden, as for Daniel, I've just kinda slowed down interaction
My girlfriend though, got really pissed at me for not immediately cutting ties with Daniel, and says I'm not taking this seriously enough, she's really pissed at me right now and it hurts cause I thought I was doing fairly well. She accused me of not doing enough, which confused me as what else am I meant to be doing? I'm listening to and supporting jaiden, I've called out Daniel and he denies everything. She's upset that I'm not immediately boiling over and seething in rage but its really hard to immediately and completely turn the tables on someone who's been your friend for so long. It's not like I'm excusing him or downplaying the situation, and I'm sure i can't rly remain friends with him, it would feel so wrong and gross, but this is still Daniel were talking about, the Daniel that's made my high-school life awesome, is it so crazy that I'm a bit hesitant to kill off everything we've had these past few years, it's not like hesitant means I won't do it, and if he admitted to everything I'd find it much easier to, but at the moment he says he didn't do anything, and while he seems seriously suspicious, is it so wrong to hold out hope that my friend of 4 years isn't an abuser, that this is all just one gross misunderstanding
So there, AITAH for not immediately cutting my friend of 4 years out of my life
Immediately being within the span of 2 days since I first heard of the accusations

I got diagnosed with reactive hypoglycemia about 3 years ago (I'd have to dive into my notes but it's been over 2 years) and it was life changing to finally know what was wrong with me and how to help it. For years before it I just knew it would help sometimes if I had something savory (protein) to absorb the sugar, and just felt like i was going crazy so much of the time. I'd crash, get hungry, angry, couldn't stop crying, even self harmed.
It isn't exactly easy to go to a low carb diet but I felt so much better it was worth it, learning I actually felt less hungry if I DIDN'T eat white bread or other high carb/sugary stuff and actually felt more full when I ate less as long as it had enough fiber and protein. I wasn't on a keto diet but I quickly learned that anything keto or Atkins was usually safe to consume and some actually tasted good.
My father is a narcissist and noticed I was losing weight (like most Americans I'm over weight but I was happier about feeling better than getting closer to a healthy weight) and not eating the trash he would buy or make (besides all the carbs and salt he doesn't practice any food safety like handwashing so I don't like to eat what he makes) and to try to force me to eat his food he'd throw my low carb food in the dog dish. That was just one of many ways he tried to control my life. Fortunately a little less than two years ago I was able to get into a group home.
At first there were some misunderstandings in the group home about my dietary needs, but this place was all about setting people up to become independent and healthy and with my Endocrinologist's notes I was able to work things out to have a low carb diet and didn't have crashes.
Unfortunately this first group home is only supposed to be transitional living so I had to move out and landed in this second group home. And this place has been hell. The first group home was setting people up to move on, would teach life skills like cooking (I already knew how to cook before coming to the first group home, helped teach others, it was a good environment) here people just come to rot. It used to be a nursing home and refuses to let anyone forget that. I can't even go into the kitchen, much less cook anything that can't be microwaved.
My dietary needs would have been on my application for this place. And I told them my first day here that I have reactive hypoglycemia and need to have a low carb diet.
They don't care. The only bread they have is white bread and they have white bread with every. single. meal. Shepherd's pie get a side of white bread. Pasta gets a side of white bread. If you don't like what's for breakfast you can get cereal- and don't expect something like Cheerios, the only cereal they have is sugary cereal, this morning I tried to get a cereal that isn't sugar and all they had is Fruity Pebbles and Cinnamon Toast Crunch, one morning they gave me Capn Crunch. If you have researched life with reactive hypoglycemia by now you know sugary cereal is on the don't eat list, and having sugary cereal first thing in the morning on an empty stomach is possibly the worst thing you can do, expect maybe hard drugs. No protein besides the milk they pour on it.
If you don't like what's for lunch or dinner you can get peanut butter and jelly- on white bread.
I calculated what this place feeds us in a single day and it's over the recommended amount of salt, sugar and carbs and below the recommended amount of protein. The only vegetable I've had in over two days was a little corn in the shepherd's pie and potatoes. They give us potato chips at least once a day.
I'm disabled (claim keeps getting denied) so I have no income. My endocrinologist got insurance to cover protein shakes for me, but the insurance only covers one of those a day. I bought a jar of peanut butter the other day so I can get some protein and have been eating straight peanut butter to the point that I'm sick to death of peanut butter.
Today I had an appointment so I had lunch over 2 hours late. They decided that i didn't need dinner. Didn't even ask me, I just went to dinner and had no food.
If you're wondering how I'm eating like this without crashing- I'm not. I've been having episodes pretty much daily since I got here. My mental health has gone to hell, I struggle to think straight. I keep dropping things. My joints all hurt. I'm supposed to have a job orientation later this week but I don't feel up to it at all since I'm always too hungry to even think.

Thanks to Patron Member u/Entharo_entho - Here is the wiped out Tweet retrieved
Context - Wiped out from Internet
In March, I got a chance to work with filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali right after he made Gangubai Kathiawadi, and Alia Bhatt, playing the titular character in the film, retweeted me.
The headline (in my head) was going to be, ‘The Boy From Kamathipura Goes To Bhansali Mandi.’
Then reality struck in April.
One of my closest friends Sweta called me from the Shivapuri National Park near Kathmandu and put me on speaker. Two other friends Mona and Ayush were listening to the WhatsApp call.
‘How’s it going with Bhansu?’ Sweta asked.
‘We are not working together anymore,’ I said.
‘Whaaaaaaaat?’ the three people shrieked, creating a wavy disturbance in audio frequency.
‘Whyyyyy?’ they cried, collectively anguished.
‘He said he is not feeling the vibes.’
‘What?’
‘Vibes,’ I said aloud, causing a seismic tremor in the audio frequency.
‘What vibes?’ Sweta jibed, ‘Maybe he can’t feel the vibrator.’
Laughter upped the vibes.
First, a little context on how I got that far. Check this, this, this & this.
So my tweets were going viral in February-March.
In the second week of March, a woman DM’d me saying she loves the tweets. I said thank you. She said she works at Bhansali Productions.
Whoopsie Daisy!
I asked if I could be a part of the production. She checked with SLB and team. He said he wants to meet now.
NOW!
How?
I was in Calcutta.
I called an actor friend in Bombay and told him about it.
“They will book your tickets and put you up in 5-star,” he said, “Like Hollywood.”
“This is Bhansaliwood,” I said, “Yahan dhanda hamesha manda hai.”
I flew (on my own expense) and met him.
I was ‘prepared’ by his team for the meeting with His High and Mightiness.
I was told:

Arre, then what do I say?
I sashayed in a brown kurta and white linen trousers. Please see Madhuri Dixit-Nene’s brown ghagra for aesthetic reference I used from my very limited wardrobe of the only kurta I had at the time. By the way, the chorus sings ‘Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje,’ aesthetically referencing you know what, right?
He was lunching with his minions (strictly calling them minions from his pov) when I arrived in his pristine white dining hall in a building called Magnum Opus. Where else should he reside, no? Both his house, and his office (where I was ‘prepared’ earlier) were tastefully done in creamy white.
It was, as I said to my friend later, like walking into a cumulus cloud, or like sitting on his favourite singer Lata Mangeshkar’s lap. Calm, serene and quite surreal. I was inside his snow globe. Violins from a Bach concerto (in my head) were replaced with say Madan Mohan’s doleful rendition of ‘Mai ri main ka se kahoon peedh apne jiya ki.’ (Side effect of writing this on Mother’s Day.)
I look for books when I enter a house for signs of intelligent life. There were lots of lamps and candelabras but where were the stacks of books they were perched on? The aesthetic was high on film set disposable kitsch. I stared into a cumulative void.
The minions were intensely debating Darjeeling momos. What’s that? I spent my childhood there. Never heard of this GI tag!
SLB relished his meal and said, “I want puranpoli today.”
Puranpoli appeared not out of thin air, but a house-help flipping wishes instantly on a griddle on the fifth floor. We were on the first floor. Although the puranpoli is shaped like a flying saucer, it doesn’t fly, perhaps burdened by the weight of excess ghee and crowd-pleasing expectation. It does, however, reach SLB’s plate at the speed of light.
‘Give him some,’ he asked a minion to serve me while I waited on the sofa.
‘I’ve had lunch, thank you,’ I said, trying to behave. The plate arrived. I took a mousy bite to exhibit my failing attempt to transform into a champion minion.
When he came to chat, he noticed the unfinished food and gently reminded me how there were days he went hungry. I should have rolled my eyes for my own lean days.
‘One should not waste food,’ he said.
‘I don’t,’ I said, ‘I was going to parcel it home in a doggy bag.’
Hearing the word doggy, his well-behaved dog came over to inspect me.
He observed me. I petted her perfunctorily. Am a cat person. Stereotypical writer stuff — allergic to undesired petting and attention.
‘So, what have you done?’ he asked, sitting on a sort of empire-style bergere chair. Full marks for faux-ornate.
‘A novel, some writing for a series,’ I said nervously, dismissively.
‘Anything I might have seen?’ he asked.
‘No, not worthwhile.’
‘Are you interested in direction also?’
‘No, am not delusional.’
A moment passed. I might have displayed an errant repartee.
‘I mean, I can only write, or am trying to,’ I said. L’esprit de l’escalier.
He gave me a spiel on writing, how screenplay is an art not many understand, etc, et cetera.
I nodded to make his voice disappear.
‘What are you writing now?’
I showed him the cover of my new book, The Last Courtesan, featuring my mother, on my phone.
‘Oh, this is so fascinating,’ he said.
He spoke rapturously about Calcutta’s great food and colonial architecture when I mentioned growing up in Bowbazar kothas. If you watch any of his interviews now on YouTube you will realise he only speaks in raptures. He’s always explaining things like an impassioned conductor at a dime-store opera. It can exhaust the boorish audience immediately. He spoke about living in the Kamathipura area as a child when I said I had lived there. The mythmaker was interested in exoticising his own legend as an ‘outsider’.
‘But how will you work here if your mother is in Calcutta?’ he said, ‘I am a maa-ka-bhakt.’
Everything is about him or his mother. I have reached that stage too, though only by circumstances unavoidable.
‘Actually it was my mother who asked me to come here. I told her it would only work out if you understand that I will have to vacillate between the two cities initially. Jaise Sanjay ki Leela hai, waise meri Rekha.’
Corny dialogue, but worked. No one calls him by his first name, except perhaps his own mother. He is sir for everyone.
‘If I am speaking to you for so long means I like you,’ he said. ‘Otherwise, I would have asked you to leave long ago.’
Barely five minutes into the conversation, he asked me to return to his office and inform his team that I was going to be a part of his writer’s room.
I went back to his office and read a script. This is the part I cannot mention. His legal team sits in the adjacent room.
I flew to Calcutta and was to return after a week. I had to make arrangements for my mother’s tri-weekly dialysis sessions at a nearby hospital, figure out a tiffin-delivery service for her, find a house help (she sent four nurses scurrying in the past), all of which is a bit of a task in this retrograde city.
Remember the woman who had DM’d me about my tweets? She messaged. She had met SLB after my meeting. He said this about me: ‘What a wonderful find. That boy has so much potential and is talented. Most importantly, he is sensitive.’
I told her I’d get this engraved on my tombstone.
Like how he wants to take Alia Bhatt’s golchakkar in Dholida to his grave.
“It’s a shot that I will take to my grave. If there’s any shot that I want to be played when I breathe my last, it would be Alia doing that shot. It is the best thing I have seen an actor do in a very long, long time.”
I was only emulating the high priest of hyperbole in my tombstone comment. Perhaps I was regressing into a minion.
I had only managed a few tasks for mother when I was back in Bombay. It worried me that the old, frail woman with shaky limbs and slurred speech was trying to be brave to send me to work. I hadn’t worked since the pandemic; she was in and out of hospitals so frequently that I had surrendered the thought of getting another job ever again. Taking care of her was my full-time job.
The first day in his office was to chill in my new, aesthetically pleasing kurta I had shopped for in Gariahat. There was a security camera in every corner that was apparently accessible on his phone. My skin tingled with this information. Chilled. He was at home. Probably watching. That’s a great way to create a myth.
The next day, there were more minions on the lunch table in his first floor apartment. The magically appearing steamy and fragrant sheera was delicious. A minion deemed it the best sheera in the city. I nodded to make that statement evaporate.
A courier boy interrupted for a document signature. SLB flared at a spelling mistake in the document papers.
‘Go wash your face and come back,’ he yelled at the young man.
The minions at the table laughed nervously. I so wished I was wearing a mask to cover my surprise emoji face.
The minions on the table were writers and assistant directors.
‘Dastavez,’ SLB said, ‘would that be correct to use?’
‘Kaaghzaat,’ the minion replied.
‘Kaaghzaat is paper, dastavez is document,’ said the second minion.
‘You always mislead me,’ SLB sternly reprimanded the first minion. ‘Don’t ever do that again.’
Only that minion tried to laugh, offering an apology. He shut the minion down.
My mask, my mask emoji face.
A third minion was sulking in a corner before I arrived for the writing session. This minion had reportedly offered a script suggestion, which he disliked and barked down. I liked this minion the most. Relatable.
A faint noise of a person running or perhaps just a rumbling sound from somewhere outside interrupted the room. He looked up at the ceiling and said, ‘No one lives there. Am certain it is a ghost. I hear running sounds all the time. I have heard sounds of furniture being dragged.’
I wondered if he actually believed in half the things he uttered, or was he just saying it to create enigma about himself. Mythical thoughts certainly kept him preoccupied.
Reality bored him. SLB had nothing good to say about the ‘current plague’ of South Indian films upsetting the Bollywood cartel. He compared them to a circus. He wasn’t kind to the actors he had worked with in his last film. He cracked lame jokes about everyone and everything. The minions laughed and kept him busy. I chuckled a few times to blend in. The mythmaker revelled in his prophesies about the impending doom of charlatans with no aesthetics: just crass, commercial peddlers pimping art. It was all said to amuse and bemuse while he fussed over the yellow shade of fabric from several swatches.
When he left for his music session, the minions bitched him out, and how! All the horror stories I had heard over the years about his moods, behaviour, language and violent temper were true. How else will he create myth about himself as a maestro? The Glomar response. Let the plebs indulge in hearsay. I will neither confirm nor deny. The minions sang effigy songs in happy tunes, if I may stretch this part a bit like his penchant for high camp.
That night, when I went to my actor friend’s house, where I was temporarily staying, I said to him, ‘I don’t think I will last a week there.’
I was rattled by how he spoke to the courier boy and the minions, with no filter. Well, at least it was clear he had no tact, endearing as that might be of a ‘genius’ if one compromises with his erratic behaviour. The CEO of his company does it beautifully and advises to develop a ‘thick hide’ around him. Cows, essentially.
Verve
The words genius, great, master, maverick, were so loosely bandied by his office staff even in his absence that I was tempted to add auteur, if they could spell or pronounce it. They worked in perpetual fear of him turning up at any hour and checking on their tidiness. A minion whined she wasn’t dressed appropriately for his surprise visit. Once, he even cut pay for unscheduled leave, said another minion. A minion narrated a shot he copied from a photographer in Gangubai Kathiawadi. Another minion recounted how he made her cry on shoot by screaming at her for a silly mistake. Minions couldn’t leave the office till his evenings were scheduled. It was a well-paying job so long as they did not have to see ‘chacha’s’ face and only applaud his cinematic sorcery.
His office team would assign me desk-work and warn me not to inform him about it.
‘What am I supposed to say if he asks?’
‘Make up something,’ I was told.
‘Why should I?’
‘You will slowly understand,’ I was told.
His team of assistants would sneak around me. I didn’t know who was reporting what back to him. He would interrogate the management team. They would lash out at me for informing the assistants. The management wanted to control me a certain way because ‘sir’ does not need to know everything. It was quite a guessing game. He had created an ecosystem of complete chaos and loved the hubbub. New people were hired for him to use the ‘new energy’ to rekindle the ‘old energy’ that needed to be reminded it could be snuffed out and replaced. He thrived on confusion because it all boiled down to him to sort out the mess. He was the provider so long as the minions ingratiated and served their grand master.
One time he called me upstairs, what his CEO called the god’s chamber aka the Shahenshah’s durbar: his office on the seventh floor. Walls were lined with giant posters of his films. We minions sat on the fifth floor. I was of course by now a week old in the toady mill. On the seventh floor, production team members, set designer, director assistant, young people sat on the floor, armed with notebooks and laptops, alert and sugar-tongued. He sat on a throne and dictated each one about their duty. A masseur massaged his leg. He asked me what I thought of a script. I said it was lovely. He asked me to elaborate. I said I liked a character’s resolve. He denied it was written. I said that’s my interpretation. A minion promptly backed me.
‘What changes do you suggest?’ he asked.
‘We should sit on it collectively and decide,’ I said.
He mumbled something. My suggestion was dismissed. I was dismissed. I bowed out. A minion whispered to me, ‘We all walk on eggshells around him.’ I had to be a chicken in a coop I suppose.
Another time he dismissed my suggestion for a scene saying, ‘That’s not how art is made.’ I had referenced a scene from Bandit Queen to illustrate my point. Just like his entire oeuvre is homage to a classic. How else does he make his art?
Allow me to illustrate with a frame from his first film Khamoshi: The Musical. The second image is from Pakeezah.
Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam references Red Beard, Woh 7 Din.
Devdas references Pakeezah more than once.
Black references The Miracle Worker.
Saawariya references Pyaasa, Awaara.
Guzaarish references Whose Life Is It Anyway?
Goliyon Ki Raasleela: Ram-Leela references Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story.
Bajirao Mastani references Mughal-E-Azam.
Padmaavat references Mirch Masala.
Gangubai Kathiawadi, let’s give him the benefit of doubt is all his own, original artistry.
The American filmmaker Jim Jarmusch once meta quoted the French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard when he said:
“Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery — celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from — it’s where you take them to.”
SLB believes he takes art and betters it, removing the grubby coat of slime from the sublime, often not concerned with acknowledging the source. He is a master’s master, elevating it to an otherworldly experience, the creator of a mythoverse.
He asked me to rewrite a scene I didn’t agree with. He banged the script folders on the table like a petulant, little child. I watched his posture change into a frump. Tiger Shroff’s ‘Bacchi ho kya,’ dialogue comes to mind.
‘You are talking like those critics who find fault but don’t know how to write. They should write the film,’ he said.
That argument will never make sense to me but since I write movies now and not just about them, I rewrote the scene in half an hour and showed it to him. He found it rubbish.
I was not called to the writer’s room for a week.
His CEO said I should go to his house; hang around him, like the other assistants whose only purpose in life is to feed his ego. We are slaves to his vision, she said. She thought I was a better writer than the team he had assembled. ‘From whatever I read, only three lines of your work on social media, I could sense it,’ she said.
Either she was encouraging, or bluffing with a perfectly Zen face. From the hundreds of Ganesh idols stacked in her room, it was clear she wasn’t a reader. She was good at reading numbers, data, and stats. She would sense a sign if one of the metal idols sucked milk from a spoon on the day she enquired about box –office figures.
There was more than one right-wing hardliner in his office. Secular staff was invisible. A pretty minion in baby pink t-shirt, whose main grouse was that another minion called him a Barbie doll, said he was happy with the Modi government building roads in his home state Bihar. Another minion countered him by asking: What about the persecution of minorities by the same government? The pretty minion said he didn’t care for that. He was assisting ‘sir’ because he wanted to be an actor. Which lead me to wonder how many Muslim actors has this production worked with? Silly of me to think, right? Given that I myself don’t use my Muslim surname. I’ve now successfully planted a myth in your head. That’s how it works.
In the time that I was in Versova during my brief stint at Bhansali Productions, I met several people with their own SLB horror story. A producer said, ‘He is a difficult man but life changes for good after you work with him. Some people want to go through hell first. Life bann jaati hai.’ I didn’t understand why purgatory was necessary. Another former assistant said, ‘When you work with the worst (SLB) and the best (KJO), you are ready for the rest.’
A young woman gave him a thesis she wrote on his films. He asked her to write a book on her. She said she wanted to assist as a director. She never heard from him. A filmmaker said SLB was too friendly with another assistant, suggesting intimacy. A writer wasn’t given credit in a film.
Another writer was promised his script will be turned into a film but it never took off and now he feels his life has been ruined. A young filmmaker’s debut movie SLB produced was delayed, not promoted, and called ‘kachra’ to his face.
The young man said SLB is sexist, homophobe, classist, fat shamer, emotional abuser, and a body shamer. “He is a joyless pit of darkness where happiness goes to die. And those are the nicest words I can think of to describe him,” he said. Another filmmaker said a choreographer was in a relationship with SLB and wanted to marry him but he wouldn’t even touch her, a hotly discussed conversation amongst his minions.
Everything sounds hokum. A successful man is likely to upset a few. The few will talk. Their words may ring true through a gossamer veil of implausibility. Myths magnifying his persona.
There are too many myths about his personal life, aroused by his silence on the subject but all too obvious in his work. When people want to confirm with me, I am equally appalled at their lack of aesthetics. Like the great reader of curtains, Edgar Allan Poe, you only have to look at SLB’s use of billowy curtains in films to guess.

Above stanza, courtesy Poe, poem: The Raven.
Hope you get the drift, or draft, hawa ka jhonka! By the way, am digressing now, is the weirdly named character Sameer Rosselline in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam the first mainstream Hindi film hero to pass wind? The ruffled curtains are first to be cautioned though.
Unlike most people willing to swallow their pride to work with SLB, few like the eponymous Gangubai character choose izzat. The house-help employed in my actor friend’s house was asked to work as a cook in his house. When she heard the whimsy, dessert-craving demands, she declined the offer. I identify with her no-nonsense style.
In November 2021, a filmmaker read a film script I wrote and said, ‘This is SLB territory. Only he can make it. It is the modern love-story he has been wanting to make for a long time.’
‘Are you sure?’ I asked, somewhat flattered but also bewildered.
‘Yes, we just have to change the setting from Calcutta-Bombay to Calcutta-New York. It is what he has been trying to crack. I’ll get him to read it.’
I never spoke to SLB about my script. I did not want to look like a schemer. I had only got a chance because of my mother’s story. I had come to write courtesan songs. Hindi films are recognised by their songs. His films have show tunes that live on long after the sequins and mirrors reflect a decadent style. He employs the old-fashioned method of making Hindi films, which is to stitch scenes around a song, not the other way round. And when you glean your references from the best of classical melodies, how can you falter?
My own SLB story is that after watching Saawariya in 2007, I wrote a few songs, moved to Bombay, lived in Versova, close to Magnum Opus, and hoped to meet him, but made no effort even though I came in close contact with people who worked directly with him. I never requested for a meeting. Over the years, I too had heard a few horror stories about him. I only believe in what I see. I waited when he would call for me, my work would have to speak for itself.
A day before Good Friday, his CEO sat me down and said it’s not working out.
There’s a mythical story of how Lata Mangeshkar was on her way to record a song for SLB but the heavens poured and she had to turn her car back. A typical SLB frame of hope and hopelessness.
Never work with your idols. You’ll have a better story to imagine and create myths.
I was so relieved to leave. I hadn’t got a moment to read, or write, let alone think since I got here. Why I wanted to work with SLB was to not believe in hearsay. I will either confirm or deny.
‘Great,’ I said, ‘everyone deserves an off on Good Friday.’
The office was unsure about public holidays. SLB’s mood dictated the calendar.
Before returning to Calcutta, I met a friend entrenched in the film business.
When she heard of the fiasco, she said, ‘I’ve heard he is very anal, is he?’
The vibrator jokes never stop.

I don’t even know how to describe what’s wrong honestly. I just don’t feel quite right and am concerned is maybe the best way I can think to describe it bc I’m not really in pain but I have a certain degree of discomfort and my abdomen can feel mild pain sometimes particularly when laying on my side or bending over and occasionally I do get a bit of pain. I guess 1 of the best ways to describe it might be that I have tenderness and a bloated feeling in my abdomen, or a feeling of pressure. I think I’ve generally felt this way for several weeks with significant fatigue but I think it’s gotten more substantial recently especially today to the point where today I’m now urinating like every half hour or more frequently. I’m a bit concerned about kidney failure now or something related to my kidneys. Earlier today at the advice of my friend I was concerned about Type 1 Diabetes so I went to an urgent care facility and when they asked me what’s wrong I didn’t know what to say and said I might be interested in doing a diabetes screening and described the symptoms of frequent urination and tenderness in the abdomen. They told me that I needed a doctors order in order to run lab tests (that they can’t just test without me seeing a doctor 1st and a doctor ordering it which Idrg bc don’t they have doctors at that facility that can order them 🤷‍♂️) so I went home and scheduled a doctors appointment for Friday. I won’t get into it much here but that seems silly to me that I can’t just decide to have lab tests done to see what might be going on with me. Idk how urgent this might be and the thought of waiting more days for something that could have been done today is a bit frustrating and scary to me but I guess that’s my fault for not keeping up with my regular physicals and bloodwork and for waiting to see a doctor for so long after having the notion months ago that something feels a little off.
Uhm so, idk what to expect tbh. I’m worried about everything from Kidney problems to a urinary tract infection to a bacterial infection to pre diabetes or something (although I guess it’s probably not that but I wouldn’t really know). There’s no history of diabetes in my family afaik. Uhm I don’t eat a lot of sugar.
1 strange theory I have that I want to mention is that I’m concerned it could have to do with Grapefruit juice. I drink about at least 12 oz. of Florida’s natural Ruby Red Grapefruit juice everyday and have for years. I’m particularly concerned about the grapefruit juice after reading this:
https://ibb.co/7gD8DwK https://ibb.co/KGNBsYG https://ibb.co/gmpPKvF https://ibb.co/b1rxCBC
“Grapefruit juice can cause kidney failure in some people due to its high potassium content People with kidney infections should be cautious because their kidneys may not be able to filter out excess potassium, which can be life-threatening.”
“Grapefruit can also cause kidney toxicity, also known as nephrotoxicity, which can lead to kidney failure and damage. Other side effects of grapefruit juice on the kidneys include: • Muscle breakdown: When grapefruit is used with certain statins, it can cause abnormal and potentially serious muscle breakdown. The FDA reports that this risk can lead to kidney failure. • Liver damage: The FDA reports that this risk can lead to kidney failure. • Neurological side effects: The Mayo Clinic reports that these include confusion and memory lOss. However, grapefruit also contains a flavonoid called naringenin, which regulates a protein that decreases growths related to kidney cysts. A 2014 study by scientists at Royal Holloway, University of London, found that naringenin can prevent kidney cysts from forming.”
Uhm just laying down writing this now I think just realized I may be able to feel slight pain or pressure or bloating in my back which I read earlier today is sign of a kidney problem.
Idk what to do and am just a little scared and concerned I guess about waiting.
Medications I take include methadone daily at 29 mgs in the mornings.
I intake nicotine pretty heavily through a vaporizer.
What other information should I include uhm, I’m a 5’7” male, 28 years old, I weigh about 135 - 140 lbs, probably on the lower end rn but idrk.
Yeah idk my abdomen just feels weird in a way I’ve never experienced before and like tense and like pressure and I feel like I don’t want to bend over or twist it.
I think I might have a tonsil stone (Bc of a large white growth in my throat most visible when I shine a flashlight in my mouth down my throat) and possibly a skin / staph infection on another part of the body but that’s probably an unrelated issue. I only say that bc I have a boil looking skin bump on my rear. And that I’ve heard those can be staph infections. And I suppose I’m worried about that having possibly spread.
Sorry for being so thorough with possibly unrelated stuff. I just want to include as much information as possible bc idk what might be important in ways I don’t understand.
Uhm if I think of anything else I’ll post it in the comments. But yeah I just don’t feel great man, like I felt a bit nauseated and a bit ill this morning for a short while. I’ve felt extremely fatigued for weeks now sleeping an extremely excessive amount and rn walking around writing this I just feel a tension in my abdomen and sides and just torso / lower torso? Idk just torso in general. I really just don’t know how to describe it. Even my heart and arms sometimes kind of ache a bit recently. Idk even legs or limbs occasionally feel an ache that idk could just be anything. Maybe I’m getting a bit hypochondriac.
I don’t know what to think.
Thanks a lot for any time. I’m sorry I wrote so much. Nobody likes a kiss ass but I’ll say it anyway, I have great respect for the profession of healthcare provider. Like in a bit of a religious sense I think that kind of helping people in some of their worst moments and most needy and weak moments is admirable in a way almost nothing else is.
Think I might go back to a facility and try to see someone 1 more time or at least talk to them a bit more and explain better bc my family is encouraging me to. I don’t want to bother them unnecessarily though especially if I caused this and it’s some strange obscure phenomenon. Idk that’s all.

Hello wonderful Redditors of the Assistance Subreddit.
With the dramatic increase in price for basic necessities such as food here in Montreal and with my disability payments changing from every two weeks through salary insurance to once a month through the long term disability option of the health insurance I get through my work, I have Ben struggling to make ends meet.
I currently have no food in the house and no money to go to the grocery store. While the end of the month is not too far away, I only get my check on the 31st of May, which leaves me worrying about how I'm going to survive the next 10 days with no food.
Due to my health conditions and due to food intolerances that are so severe that eating those foods can land me in the hospital for weeks, unable to even take a sip of water without throwing up, I can't rely on quick and usually cheaper food items like bread, pasta, and other gluten containing foods, as well as carb heavy foods such as potatoes, since I developed a low tolerance for carbs (high carbohydrate meals trigger my nausea and vomiting disorder (currently awaiting to do a gastric emptying study to determine if the current diagnosis of treatment resistant severe cyclic vomiting syndrome and idiopathic intracranial hypertension is actually gastroparesis)).
I am coming to you lovely people here on the assistance subreddit to humbly ask if anyone can help me purchase some groceries.
I have PayPal, and I can accept interac e-transfers and would even accept gift cards to the two grocery stores near me (Maxi and IGA) which I will link into an Amazon wishlist in the comments momentarily
Even if you are unable to help, id like to thank you for reading my request post anyways and wish you all a good day/afternoon/evening/night in advance

I can’t BELIEVE I used to spend 4-10+ hours a week on sales calls 🥴
That’s like… An entire day of my week, at times, just speaking to people who AREN’T paying me.
… AND I was making extremely time consuming custom proposals on top of that 😅
Your life should never foot the bill for your business.
Work to live, don’t live to work.
For me, that means:
NOT spending time on tire kickers…
NOT being a slave to making hundreds of posts on social media…
NOT being chained to my desk with 15+ hours of sales calls and custom proposals per week…
I was sick of being chained to my desk for all these sales calls, so I decided to take my destiny into my own hands -
And I quickly found I needed 2 critical things:

1) Find a method to get new leads that DIDN’T involve me buying coffee, lunch, or putting my personal 1:1 time into finding them…

2) A simple, painless, online process to reach those ideal clients and enroll them into the offer…

Here’s what I did:

1) Find a method to get new leads that DIDN’T involve me buying coffee, lunch, or putting my personal 1:1 time into finding them…

After 100s of hours of researching the solution to my stuck sales, I realized that the LIFEBLOOD of all businesses boils down to the same 3 parts:
🙋 Acquire Leads 💸 Bag Clients 🔁 Continue Leveling-Up Clients
That’s when I had my priceless epiphany:
I didn’t have a LEADS PROBLEM…
I was spending all this time on these calls, after all…
That’s when I realized I had a SALES PROBLEM.

2) A simple, painless, online process to reach those ideal clients and enroll them into the offer…

Understanding that I had a SALES PROBLEM allowed me to fix the root of my stagnant growth.
Everything changed for me when I built these 3 sales systems for my business:

• Hands-free Sales System #1: Effortless Influence Formula (Attract DREAM clients effortlessly, who are ready to pay what you’re worth and work with you long-term because your positioning commands premium prices…)
  
• Hands-free Sales System #2: Lead to PAYING CLIENT Engine (Makes you sales today, AND consistent evergreen sales + sustainable revenue on repeat WITH 0 SALES CALLS…)
  
• Hands-free Sales System #3: Profitable Scaling Playbook (Get your OTHER Offers in front of those who don’t have it, get consistent visibility WITHOUT posting on social media…)
  

After doing this:
Amazingly, I noticed I wasn’t hustling like I was before on my “usual” grind…
To my surprise, in just a few days I already had serious buyers reaching out to me and asking how they could work with me!
… And it was actually easier than what I was doing before!
And the MAJOR difference was eliminating all the complexity and friction from my sales process 💯
If your sales growth stalled like mine did, the fastest way to break free from your plateau is:
Take YOURSELF out of the way.
That’s the freedom that building hands-free sales systems gives you.
Want to learn how to build those systems for yourself?
Here’s some good news:
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"You should go to Hallett. We went last year and it was fun. A good track for Miata's"
My friend Gerry the Texan who along with his team brings several Miata's to races all over from Road America to Houston to Seibring. It's a great bunch of people who are having a blast racing Lemons. He told me that and it got me to thinking. We wanted to go to a new track this year and after the disappointment at Barber going somewhere and having some fun sounded good. Also Hallett is noted for having a smaller field so we could be competitive. I always say that Barber is more like a pro level Lemons race in that it attracts the faster and better prepped teams. Road America was like that too.
But first we have to fix the car. As typical, we wait until the race is almost upon us to start. There's the matter of how bad the car is bent from the last race where Manny hit the wall. They thought it was good but we need to check this.
After pulling the rear sub frame in hopes of replacing it we learn that a 90 is a bit different than a 91 subframe or a 2001 subframe. Supposedly it all interchanges but after looking over the differences, Youngest adds a few reinforcements at places the internet gurus say are the weak points and we put the rear end together and put it back in the car. Then we check the alignment. To my great surprise the rear camber and caster is spot on. I was shocked, but the crew did a great job that night fixing the car while it was up on jack stands. Using just a tape measure they got the car really close. Toe was out but the borrowed porta powers got the bent subframe where it needed to be.
We changed the oil and brake fluid, bled the system where we took the rear apart to drop the subframe.
Another project we attempted was to swap in a larger fuel tank. Manny who has been helping with the repairs found a article on the internet that said you could bolt in a NB fuel tank out of a 2001 or so Miata and gain a gallon of fuel capacity. Yeah, that is not possible. The tank has a hump where the car does not and would involve cutting a hole in the car which would be a bit noticeable. Not worth it for such a little gain. Good news is I now have two extra NB tanks if anyone needs one. A gallon would not seem to be that much but we are still dreaming of two stopping the car at certain tracks, stretching our mileage to only stop every two hours and 25 minutes and make a seven hour day with one less stop. It's not all about raw speed, strategy can make a difference. One less stop per day could potentially add ten laps in a weekend of racing at certain tracks.
After we got the subframe in and the car aligned Youngest pulled it all apart again. He was not happy with the bushings holding the rear differential in place. The rear has to move a bit so it is not solid mounted, it actually can pivot a slight bit. He felt the bushings holding it were letting it move too freely.
Once again we put the car back together.
All during this time Manny and FabGuy have been working hard on a new car. Manny got a little crazy on Co-part. First one Miata shows up at our shop. Then another. Then another. I started joking with the guys "Hi I'm Manny, I might have a Miata addiction". Yeah. So after a lot of looking we have three wrecked cars, one being a automatic that was absolutely destroyed. It had zero good body panels and even the front subframe was pushed back where it had got up on something in a wreck. I think the only things we saved off that car was a rear axle, engine, transmission and the hard top which was cracked but usable.
We then robbed enough body parts off of one to put on the other so we ended up with a mostly maroon car with a drivers side red fender, red door and silver hardtop. I say we but all we did at the shop was to take the cars apart, everything else went to Manny's garage where he and FabGuy installed the cage and built the car. They did bring it over a time or two to put in the air to install a few parts or when we aligned it. The build and fitment were top notch on the car, lots of nice parts went in, like a better seat and belts than we use on our Miata. Like most builds they were literally bolting parts to it the night before we loaded the car to head west.
Finally both cars are prepped and it's time to get on the road. Manny has a business where he uses two rollbacks and moves cars mostly to and from car lots and auction lots. So he gets the newer one of the two trucks and shows up at the shop Thursday morning. RacerGuy and I are already there and have hooked our camper to RacerGuys truck. I am leaving my trucks at home, but taking our race trailer and our camper. The plan is to hook the camper to RacerGuys diesel F250 and hook the race trailer to Manny's newish Chevy 4500.
The plan nearly goes off the rails when Manny shows up and I get to looking at his truck. Being in the business I can't not help but look at tires. His drives are terrible, two are bald, one is soft and one showing wire. I go to air up one of the bald ones and it's not having it. Air is leaking out as fast as it was going in. In Manny's defense his employee was driving this truck and Manny had not seen it in weeks. I had already loaded tire tools and extra spare tires for every truck and trailer in the caravan except RacerGuy's truck and I would have got a spare for it too if I had thought about it. With nothing else to do, we all jump in and start busting tires. Forty five minutes later we have four new drives on the truck and we are in a much better spot to make the long drive. I hadn't done any big truck tires for a long time, sold that part of the business. Still got it, just like riding a bike.
We find I40 and start clicking off miles. Manny has already told us the limiting factor which is that GM put a really tiny fuel tank in his truck so we are forced to stop every 160-180 miles for fuel. It slows us down but it's not all bad, we find a roadside BBQ joint that looks like a camper up on blocks that has a huge parking lot and a ton of customers lining up. Of course we try it out, the best BBQ comes from little places like that, not the ones with massive buildings.
We cross Arkansas and I think it was the first time I ever went that way westbound on 40. Came back the other side when we brought the box truck back where we bought it in California. We finally make Oklahoma and bent north to go to Tulsa. Did not see the Tulsa King anywhere, stopped in a Super Walmart and stocked up on groceries for the weekend. Hallett is in the middle of nowhere, so we are planning on eating at the track.
We get there and make our way into the paddock. This will be the first time we have every camped inside the track. They have a cross over with gates that close during when the track is hot and a tunnel for access when the gates are closed. The tunnel looks kind of tight, I'm happy to not test the posted height limits. It says our trailers should fit. Yeah we will wait.
We hustle to get the camper leveled and the generator cranked up. For the next three days it will run non-stop to keep the fridge cold and our lights on. We run the a/c but for the most part temps are very nice.
The next morning we are up and on the road after the drivers meeting. We go to Pawnee, take in some sights then hit Stillwater for some parts and pieces at a hardware store. We also gas up all our empty gas cans so we are ready for race day.
Back at the track Manny and Fabguy are unloading their car off the back of the rollback. It was nice carrying one and towing one car. They go out and practice a bit, come in and make some changes then go out again. It's a new build and everyone has realistic expectations about the car. We are all expecting issues as it takes a while to find the weak spots and fix them.
We get our car out and practice. We send three of the four drivers out and have them run a few laps. I'm about to get ready and go out when RacerGuy comes in and says he felt something pop. We get to looking and the adjuster is gone off the alternator. Look a little more and the bolt has broken off in the alternator. So we have a spare motor in the trailer but it is missing the adjuster. Looks like we need the adjuster, the bolt and the alternator. We make a few visits around the paddock to look for parts but none of the other Miata teams have what we need. Youngest goes into the trailer and in a small miracle finds the adjuster laying under the spare motor loose. He and Coach head into Tulsa on a parts run while Manny agrees to put me into their car for a few laps so I can get a feel for the track. I've watched a hundred laps on Youtube but nothing is like actually driving the track. I go out and don't push things too hard. It is a very worn surface with some patches, particularly in the groove of turn two. Manny's car drives a lot different than ours, you can really tell you have more power and grip. Their tires are a lot wider as well as having 30-40 more hp. They have been working on the car all day and just finished taking off the lines where they installed a remote oil filter, they were not Lemons grade and were leaking.
Just before dark Youngest gets the parts on the car. We also install a helmet blower, we are going to try to use the air to defrost the windshield. All reports indicate rain is coming Sunday.
Then it's dinner time. Our friends from Minnesota have brought pure Lemons art down in the form of a Chrysler Magnum wagon powered by a slant 6 that is mid mounted. It is a engineering feat and runs out nicely. Adam the team leader and I have been planning and they are cooking for us for tonight and we are cooking for them Saturday night. They show us up by putting on a feed with steaks and salad. I'm feeling bad about the fact we are serving hamburgers, coleslaw and potato salad the next night. It was great.
Saturday morning dawns and we are up and moving around. I give up waiting on a shower as the line is too long inside and try the outdoor shower. It has no roof, just walls. It was ok. The next morning I tried it again and it was freezing, no hot water!
I skip breakfast and get ready to get in the car. I want to get on the grid early as I still am not feeling great about the track. The laps in Manny's car did not give me much to make me feel really attuned to the track as I was learning both the car and the track at the same time. I want all the practice laps I can get in our car. The line up is me, Youngest, Coach and then RacerGuy bringing up the finish for the day. FabGuy is gridded about ten cars behind us and he is under team orders to take it easy to start the race.
We get out and start doing pace laps. Soon enough it's green and the race is on. A few laps in Fabguy blasts by me. So much for taking it easy. Going into turn 2 I see a car off track. I mean he's not a little off the racing surface, he's 150 feet off the corner and just about in the tree line. I wonder what happened there. I am starting to get the hang of the track and pick up some speed. Then I mess up early on and miss the line completely going into turn 9 from 8 and run off the track. I fire the car back up and quickly exit and head to the penalty box.
"what happened?'
"I missed the line and ran out of asphalt and talent all about the same time"
The judge kind of laughs, "keep it on the track" and sends me back out. Youngest has made it to penalty and looks the car over from my adventure in the dirt and grass and gives the go ahead. If you are going to mess up do it right at the entrance to pit road, it really cuts down your time off track!
I run clean the rest of the stint. I tiptoe around the corner I went off but run hard the rest of the track without pushing so hard I get off again. Then Youngest, then Coach. We are having one of the best days we have ever had at the track. Besides my adventure off track no one else has messed up. Our stops are clean and quick. Our times top to bottom are very similar and consistent. Something strange is happening. We are in the top 15 overall and since we managed to get put in B class we are doing very well. Only 50 cars at Hallett this weekend, the smallest Lemons field we have ever competed against.
Fabguy pulls off to go to the gas pumps. We are fueling on pit road but they are going to just fuel at the pumps this race. They aren't planning on winning anything so why go to all the trouble of getting all your gear on and doing hot pit stops? Fabguy comes off a little hot and the officials come over to tell them they were over the ten mph paddock limit. Manyy drives the car up to the penalty and Fabguy comes up and they are told they are good to go. Later Manny gets off the track and goes to penalty. They start in on him not serving the penalty for going too fast in the pits. "we served that penalty" The judge goes off "do you really want to argue about this" Later when they realize the team was right and the previous judge had not marked it off the offenders list before going on break. In a first the judge apologizes to them.
With about two hours left in the day their Miata is towed off. The engine is super hot and will not crank. All signs look bad. Later it cools off and will crank, but cranks with ease, signs of a engine that has lost all compression. Their weekend is done and Fabguy heads out to get a headstart on getting to work early Monday. The rest of us will pull an all nighter after the race Sunday.
I start doing the math and realize it's going to be very tight. We make our calcuations based on a normal 7 hour race day. Today is a 7.5 hour day which is a bit longer than normal when racing Lemons. I figured out the stints and got it wrong. We realize our mistake and run Coach a bit longer before we put in RacerGuy. It's going to come right down to the limit of our fuel mileage. We start planning dinner and cleaning up the paddock with about ten minutes to go when all the sudden we realize the car is not out there. We run to the pumps and find Racerguy there. He ran out and limped the car to the pumps but could not get all the way there. By the time we get the car pushed around to get fuel the race is over for the day. I feel like a total idiot, I could have ran another five minutes easily in the car in the morning and not had this problem.
But the good news is that somehow even after I went off the track and and then we ran out of gas was that we were still very good on the day. We had enough of a lead on the car behind us in Class B that we still had a 7 lap lead even after running out of gas. Even better our paddock mates in the Chrysler are putting a shellacking on Class C as well. Their Magnum wagon is running a Richard Petty scheme, they all have uniforms and the requisite trademark Petty cowboy hat and STP logos, only this time it means "Slow Through Paddock" signs and all. They actually shouted this out when doing the morning driving meeting when they were going over the rules. "STP, Slow through Paddock!" every time the officials discussed that rule in the drivers meeting.
We put everything away, rain is moving in. We are in shock about how well everything is going. Surely we will find a way to loose this race tomorrow. Will other cars be faster in the rain? Will we shoot ourselves in the foot and have poor driving and get multiple black flags? Will something break on the car which has been running great all day long? And who the heck is this Coach guy? All that and more when we wrap up this in the next part of this story. Stay tuned!

to start off, i wouldn't consider myself a baby lesbian, though i am fairly inexperienced. i (24) have known i was interested in women and have pursued exclusively non-men for years, with a few short term flings here and there. things in the past didn't work out one way or another, distance was too great, schedules didn't work out, feelings were one sided. after years of engaging in comp-het and confusing myself with my sexuality, i've effectively been celibate for three years. i got pulled into that kind of stuff younger than i should have, so i have proceeded with more caution and intent when with women. i don't want to be like the predatory men who took advantage of me and my emotions when i was growing up. i wanted to take my time and jump into the world of sapphic love with someone i felt a strong connection with, not just a hookup.
all that to say, i have next to no experience with women and intimacy. my girlfriend (29) and i first met via bumble july 2023. things were great, good conversation, solid connection, and we kept in touch. things felt friendly. but to be real, i just thought she was too cool for me, that i would not be considered a potential partner. but we kept in touch. some health issues come up, and she has to leave the country for two months. during this time my feelings for her continued to grow, and i begun to realize just how much she meant to me, how much i missed her. she came back, things resolved, and we began dating exclusively not long after that.
it's been four months since making things official. i am trying to take things slow, follow her pace. i know she's had issues with past partners (men and women) taking advantage of her so the last thing i want to do is add to that fear or become another one of those shitty exes. we've discussed intimacy briefly, i'm the one bringing it up, and all she has really said boils down to "i'm nervous." that's fine, i won't push. but i guess four months in, with someone i'm obsessed with, who actually said "i love you" to ME, FIRST, i'm a little insecure. i hate bringing it up with her because i feel like a broken record. the closest we've gotten physically was some moderate kissing, for maybe a minute or two.
i've expressed apprehension talking about this closeness, mentioning that i'm afraid to even bring it up because i don't want to have her feel like i'm pressuring her. to that she replied "that's the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me." so i get the impression that i jut should not talk about it, at all, because that's what she wants.
another important detail, i am non-binary and will be starting T and getting top surgery this summer. she knows. i've talked with my therapist about my desire for intimacy, and the want for that once i can finally occupy the body i feel most comfortable in.
besides the physical stuff, the relationship is great, good communication (on things that aren't sex related) and we make time for each other when we can. but if you are reading this, and have been through something similar, or can just offer a little advice on how to proceed, it would be greatly appreciated. i don't know how to approach these things in a way that conveys "i just want to love my girlfriend in every which way" without sounding like a dog or scaring her off. will probably delete this in a few days when the embarrassment gets to me.
TLDR: been with my girlfriend for 4 months, i feel ready to take the "next step", though after a few brief conversations i get the feeling she does not experience that same kind of desire.

I’ve had contamination OCD for four years now, maybe I’ve had it all my life but it got way worse when Covid hit. At one point it got so bad that I couldn’t touch anything in my room, which I considered a safe zone, except for my bed. I had to use tissues as “gloves” to turn the light on, I took boiling hot showers daily and my hands bled because of how much I was washing them. I didn’t have anyone to talk to about it because my family isn’t really that understanding about mental illnesses (and I was scared, tbh if I told them they would’ve probably helped me) so I felt really lost.
As bad as it was, slowly I learnt the way my mind worked and started to manage my compulsions. A lot of it is lying to myself and gaslighting myself which I know doesn’t work for everyone but it worked for me. Now I’m a lot better then I was those three years ago, a set routine keeps me from washing my hands too many times and I find ways to work around my compulsions. That’s not to say I’m all better, not by a long shot, there’s so many things I’m still working on, like physical contact with others, animal fur and lately I’ve been thinking about slowly getting rid of my “safe zone” but I’m not sure if I can do that yet.
But what I really want to say is you’re not alone. I know it’s scary and painful but you can make it through this and get better. If you can get professional help then do that, but if for whatever reason you aren’t able to, don’t worry it’ll be okay too. My advice would be to find what works for you, routines, meditation, making fun of the situation (this also works for me I look at the situation I’m taking too seriously and make fun of it and how ridiculous it is), setting rules that you can never cross (for me it’s max 1 shower daily unless there’s special circumstances), talking with people or gaslighting yourself (I mean if it works it works right). Just be patient with yourself and never give up.

I got off work yesterday and had to run to the store to get a few things. The store by my house is a small version of the major chain in my area and is always packed around 5.
I get my things and get to the front. I’m waiting for self checkout and there’s a boomer at one of the 4 checkouts slowly boiling over as he paced and looked around for a worker. Again, they are SLAMMED. Myself and a different boomer give each other an eye roll look and ignore. He eventually starts waiving a bill around and yelling that the machine won’t take his money. I tell him he can’t pay with cash at self-checkout. He explodes about how is he supposed to know that. I tell him it says it on the machine. He yells it doesn’t. I point to where it clearly says it FOUR places. (Also the whole only option on the payment screen being electronic payment is a pretty clear sign of no cash.) He grabs his stuff and storms off to the normal checkout with a string of expletives.
Meanwhile, across the way at another self checkout another boomer is yelling that it won’t scan her wine. Since I’m now engaged with these fools, I inform her that you can’t buy alcohol at self checkout because they have to ID and, again, big sign right there.
So now, with long lines, half the self checkouts are stalled out because boomers can’t read signs. Luckily an employee comes over from customer service, where they also had a line, approved the lady’s wine and cleared angry dudes cart. Boomer behind me laughs and says life’s hard for some folks and we both check out and leave. Threw me back a decade when I worked in food service and learned that a sizable chunk of the population can’t read signs and follow basic instructions.

Machaon woke up, another day under the dimly lit, haze choked skies of his home world of Barbarus. As always, he got dressed, had a meager breakfast, put on his gas mask and ventured out into the toxic air to check on his crops. His father had spent a long time trying to create a strain of their main food crop so that it could resist the toxic environment of the upper levels of Barbarus, and allow more food to be grown. His father always said that they were “working today so others can eat tomorrow.” Unfortunately, his father passed away many years ago, but Machaon continued his work in earnest, doing his best to accomplish his father’s dream.. And based on the growing stalks of healthy looking crops, he had succeeded. He performed a more thorough inspection on the stems and leaves of the budding vegetables, and wrote down everything he saw in his journal. Years of his family’s work finally come to fruition.
Next on his to do list was to check the herbal garden his mother had grown. He had taken care of it when his mother was unable to, due to a debilitating sickness. The garden had a few different varieties of medical herbs, including hawthorn, lavender, aloe, and peppermint along with a mix of herbs for cooking. He checked the stems and leaves of the plants, making sure all of them were healthy, once more writing his findings in his journal. Confident all his plants were healthy, he closed his notebook and made his way to the local herbalist he was being mentored by. Machaon had spent time with a local herbalist to try and learn how to make herbal remedies to cure his mother’s sickness, and the older gentlemen needed help with certain things around his house. In exchange for his expertise, Machaon provided some of his own herbs and some extra food since the older gentleman had trouble growing enough food to feed himself.
Machaon knocked on the door, hearing a gas mask sealing and a cantankerous older gentleman call out “I don’t appreciate interruptions to my work! Best be something important!” A few seconds later, the herbalist came to the door wearing a load of protective equipment, something that seemed a little out of place for an herbalist, swinging it open. “What do ya wan — oh hey kid, come on in.” The old man opened the door, hobbling back into his abode.
Machaon walked in, taking a look around the place. It was a mess like it always was, but the old man did have his own system of organization. Calling it a system of organization was a stretch, but Machaon couldn't convince him to change his ways, so he gave up on convincing him and focused on his herbalist and apothecary training. Pushing that thought from his mind, he put on his herbalist protective gear and got ready to start the day’s training regiment. The old man looked at him, smiling “You ready kid?”
Machaon looked at his journal, stocked with papers and writings, now old and worn. He was in his thirties now, and most people he knew and cared for had passed on. His mother died not too long after he finally made a chemical resistant strain of crops, and his herbalist mentor had passed a few years after, finally having accomplished his life goal. Wiping a tear from his eye, Machaon wiped a tear from his eye, closed his journal and went on his usual ritual of checking on his plants and documenting strange things. Once he finished, he changed into his apothecary attire and shouldered his backpack full of supplies. His apothecary goal was to keep tackling the disease outbreak that had popped up nearby. A village a few days ago in the valley east of his abode had sent missives asking for medical aid, as a small portion of their population had been confined to their homes with fevers and coughs, with the occasional victim with boils on the skin. He had been working to quell it these last few days, but he was not sure if he was going to be able to completely stop it before it spread outside his control. Unfortunately, he would never be able to find out. As he began to take care of his ill patients in the sick house, he heard the sounds of a ship outside, and the clanking of boots. Something was up, and he was certainly not about to surrender his patients to whatever was outside.
Machaon walked outside, a simple pistol holstered on his hip. He may be an apothecary, but he could deal just as much hurt as he could heal. And he certainly wasn't going to run away when he had people in his stead, people that could spread infection and kill even more people. However, he soon found that his pistol would do nothing against the new arrivals. A military officer of some kind, along with some soldiers had formed up outside the sick house, the officer wearing what seemed to be an imperial army officers uniform, a green patch with three green skulls on the shoulder. The officer approached him, and began to read from a data slate. “Apothecary Machaon Strakos, on the order of Primarch Mortarion, daughter of the Emperor of Mankind, head of the Death Guard Adeptus Astartes legion, you are to be transferred to the Endurance, the Primarch flagship, for apothecary duty. You have one hour to gather your belongings.”
Machaon tried to protest, “With all due respect sir, I have patients to take care of, otherwise they’ll die.”
The Imperial Army officer looked at him with disdain. “If you do not comply peacefully, I will be forced to make you comply.” The soldiers next to him aimed their lasguns at him at the same time, their faces cold and icy.
Machaon knew that his ‘forced compliance’ would hurt his patients more than him leaving peacefully. “As you wish, officer. I will collect my supplies and return shortly.” He then returned to the interior of the sick house, gathering all his supplies into his backpack, along with the seeds for his plants. He didnt want to leave his people, but he didnt have much of a choice. A young girl who was laying on a cot by the door asked him, “Mister, where are you going?”
He wanted to tell her the truth, but he knew that wouldn't help. So he did the next best thing he could do, and he kneeled down next to her cot. “Well young lady, I’m going to take care of another group of people who need my help. There’s a lot of them, and the man outside needs my help to do it. I know you all are in good hands, so I’m going to save the people who aren’t in good hands. Feel better young lady.” He said, giving her a flower from his garden as he stood up and left. He didn't really believe what he said, at least not entirely. He would be helping people, but not the way he wanted, not on his own terms. Nevertheless, he would do his duty to his planet and his people.
Machaon walked outside the sick house and found the officer. “Officer, I’m ready.”
The Imperial Army officer looked at him coldly. “Then get on. We must reach the ship before the fleet takes off for the next expedition.” He and his soldiers then got on Stormhawk, and Machaon made sure to follow close behind them. The doors shut, and the engines roared to life, taking the ship off the ground and into space. Shortly after, they arrived in the hangar of the Endurance, and the Imperial Army company that escorted him departed, and Machaon followed quickly, not wanting to be left in the huge ship.
When he stepped out of the Stormhawk, he saw a virtual city of people working, repairing and refueling ships, unloading cargo, and new recruits moving deeper into the ship. It was certainly more people than he had ever seen in his life, but it did not phase him. He knew that whatever they were calling him for would have been big, especially if it was being led by a daughter of the Emperor. He followed the Imperial Army officer further into the ship, until they arrived at the barracks section of the ship. The Imperial officer told him simply “These are your quarters. Find a bunk.” Then he left.
Machaon was not particularly impressed with the lodging, but decided it was better to secure a spot rather than leaving it to chance. Once he found a spot, he laid down his items that were not essential to his duties as an apothecary, kept whatever else he had on his and tried to make his way to the apothecary chamber. Having no idea where everything was, he asked directions, and eventually after nearly an hour, found his way to the apothecary chamber and began to set out his equipment and find a place to grow his herbs. He knew he would need them for the battles ahead,wherever they may be.

I could use advice, but more than anything I really really need to vent to people that understand. So, as the title reads, we broke up and got back together. From their point of view, I would never hold space to validate them, I was always too defensive, and this would trigger reactions of screaming/yelling fits and name calling, de-valuation and general degradation. I always have had a problem with defensiveness that I've been working on in therapy, but this has been NOTHING compared to other relationships I've been in.
I've liked the wrong person's picture on Instagram - FRIENDS of mine. Boom, I am a horrible person, a cheater, and completely degraded and yelled at after trying to explain that they're a friend. I'm too negative/talking about having a bad day or being upset with a friend. Boom - I hold no space for positivity and am yelled at even after a fantastic date. The list goes on, but generally speaking without getting too long winded - everything has been my fault, I am always the reason they end up yelling/becoming angry. It got to a point where I got to that point too, and I wish I never did. I felt so much resentment and pain and anxiety, so belittled and like they hated me whenever they were mad.
With that said: we worked through things. They had been okay for awhile, but it felt as though the resentment was there and it was impossible to get over. It eventually got to a point where they broke up with me because they were convinced I was lying, after they asked me to reach out to a friend and mend things because it affected our relationship. This time I didn't defend myself. I knew I had done nothing wrong. I let them know they asked me to, and they degraded me once again. This was during an event, so I didn't want things to boil over and just let them walk away. I was devastated but felt like it was over. I was so upset, so sad.
A few weeks later, they came back into my life. We've been trying to make it work, but all of the blame has been put on me for us getting to this point. I feel so jaded that I was broken up with, especially after everything. I am told that I was given "everything that they had to give" me and now they're empty, and it's my fault. For small instances like rescheduling because I am very busy with work - I'm a "flake" and don't value their time at all, and it's now my fault. I have cried to them, pleaded, tried to explain myself but they don't want to hear it. And I don't think I'm willing to sit down and say "Everything that has happened is my fault" when I don't feel that way.
Then it becomes my ego. My ego is too large to admit fault, even though I have apologized time and time and time again for the smallest discrepancies. I also have horrible memory problems that I feel are used against me. When I forget things, I'm 'twisting things in my favor' to make them look bad. I can't even begin to explain how dissociated and out of my mind this makes me feel. I feel like I can't trust myself most of the time now.
I just want to ask everyone if there is a pathway forward. I truly do love them, but right now I am an emotional, anxious wreck and this is controlling my life in so many ways. I want them to see that I love them and that I don't have any intention to hurt them, but it feels like they hate me when they switch until they calm down. I can tell it's draining both of us. All of their relationships have been this way in the end and I feel so much guilt. I feel like it's my fault, and maybe it is. If anyone can talk to me about their experiences if they've been similar at all, please don't hesitate! Thank you.
EDIT: I felt important to add this, but I've also vented to friends about the relationship negatively. In turn, they have told me that I make them look worse than they are. I cannot tell you how isolating this has felt. I don't want them to look bad, but it's so hard to hold all of these feelings in. I admit my own faults as well, but my friends want what's best for me and are concerned.