Hi. I am a brown Male, 18, from the UK. My hair is quite thick. I wanted to ask how I could keep my hair in this style (check image). That is how my hair looks after few hours after I have a shower (just using water) but in the mornings it is always a mess. I wanted to ask in what ways could I restyle my hair in the morning so that I can have my hair looking like this without the need to constantly have to have a shower beforehand?
Also, I wanted to ask for recommendations on hair care. I believe I suffer from dry scalp (I notice tiny white specs in my hair), and I wanted to know what I should use to treat this. Furthermore, I wanted to ask about shampoos that I can use. I used to use Head and Shoulders but I find that it always dries my hair out (even the deep hydration ones). I’m ideally looking for something under £30 and won’t dry out my hair.
If you can help, it would be greatly appreciated.
(Also, if you had any advice on a haircut I should get it would be of great help. I do quite like the top, but I’m not sure what I should do on the sides)

~Rayray~
It felt frustrating in Chongqing. I was rather stuck in Hechuan. I got accustomed to lajiao (spice) there. I was a Midwesterner at the age of 22. I was raised in Illinois. I became a manic—a Ferris wheel on fire—I was hiding under a bed in a hotel. Bold like napalm. Sometimes I can never stop. Even when I was 18 in a ward arguing with staff. Always want to fight things. That’s why I refused the meds and went on a plane from America to China. I was going to be an English teacher. And like a light switch, the change and SSRIs turned me into a mess. It would be my first time experiencing psychosis. My biggest issue. I never imagined I would be stuck illegally in a country suffering a psychotic episode in my early twenties.
Transplanted as pollen. I was left with a backpack and a cellphone. With a downloaded app called WeChat. I had arrogantly quit a university job in a fit. Spent the past months full of energy and not sleeping and neglecting myself, including not eating, to work on a novel. Not considering myself normally religious, I had obsessed over occult ideas during that time. Spending nights reading Aleister Crowley—haven taken a rusty pocket knife to carve a pentagram on my chest for spiritual protection.
I did not have funds to fly home. My visa was connected to my previous job, which meant I had now made it void. I was an illegal resident now in China.
I used a nifty app called WeChat as a messaging app, it allows users to find people near them that are also looking for others. It was like a virtual pond. All kinds of people, including sex workers trying to make things happen.
It could with luck be used to find people looking for people in terms of other kinds of work. It was helpful on many occasions for finding gigs working at English training schools and also finding work as a private tutor for people.
WeChat also works as a digital wallet.
Mania makes me irritable. Enough to tell a boss to fuck off. Thoughts ricochet within me. Bumper cars collide.
Being stuck and angry sucks. I scrolled and scrolled on a Huawei phone.
Absolutely pissed off at this world.
Pissed at the times police wanted to take me away for being a mess.
Sometimes women get pissed. Scrolling through their phones. Angry at their cheating husbands. It really is not that hard to have flair—be a damn white oddity. Like moths to a porchlight. Particles of sand through hands. This is when I first started the habit of it…
I rather go by a rather empty name of Rayray… with further explanation needed but now is not convenient. But I assure it is interesting enough and has some importance.
Habits are various in nature in how they attach to and eat at marrow—like atom bombs flashing as rays evaporating DNA—sets in a way less than human as putting myself in the cage of bad things taken up—my time as a former heroin addict is left as stretch marks on me in various ways. The same goes for the first time I found myself making arrangements with middle aged married women while desperation of waves whiplashed me like sandpaper hands coming at me to leave me in a tiring state of abrasion.
I had spent a night snuck away into a hotel. Found someone on a business trip. Instead of registering I waited to sneak along into the hotel elevator amongst a group of others attending the hotel, as I had no card. I headed to a designated room number. Originally I was sitting in a park. Playing on WeChat and found someone in their mid-thirties. Pictures were exchanged and I said no. She brought up paying for the hotel if I arrived. I agreed and went along.
When I met I washed up after her and we used our phones to awkwardly translate what we would do.
Room service knocked. I found myself hidden under a bed as I was not registered to be there.
It seems unusual that it was around this time I had started working on a story of my life as a heroin addict when I got caught up in my worse manic episode ever experienced during my age of 22. Finished half that story before never going back to it after my manic episode had ended. Now I am here writing about it and wondering if the same can happen again in the process of this work.
It feels extremely cliché I would write a novel about struggles with heroin addiction. It has been done many times. It’s just lame of me.
I feel like my thoughts are bit off. I left the hotel the next morning with the little money I did have on a debit card. Turns out the woman was from Taiyuan. It is a city in the northern part of China in the province of Shanxi—coal country with the worst air pollution in China. She has a colleague in Taiyuan that takes courses at an English training center. I was able to contact this place in the morning via a shared contact on WeChat given to me by the stranger I met that night.
Before I knew it I was sending my information and documents in my backpack at an internet café in a fax—with the intent that the woman agreed to share my information to the training center as she shared my contact to its hiring manager. It would land me a job that day that would help me out of my situation. Things turned not quite out as I expected though. I was shifted like a ball to somebody else to contact for a training center geared to teaching children.
I took what I had and ran off to a train station after taking the public transit. Unfortunately I was shit for money and could not afford a high speed rail pass. The slow train would take thirty-two hours to get to my destination. I would have taken a room with a bed but all I could afford was a hard seat for the travel.
Things were getting better for me in the circumstance considering I had found someone willing to take me for work despite my visa situation.
The thirty-two hour train ride was horrendous in some ways, but mostly I was in excitement despite the circumstances. I’m always giddy when disappointed. I moved up and down the aisle of the train. I could not speak mandarin, but it did not stop me from trying to interact with everyone. I talked many ears off during the train ride. I went up and down the aisle trying to interact as a moth to porchlights—I could not stop even if I had wanted to. I found great enjoyment the times I did get to sit across a table from somebody my age heading to Taiyuan from Chongqing. They were a university student returning to their hometown. Another passenger who sat beside me was an elderly man with hard boiled eggs, he was eating one after another one. I highly enjoyed each and every conversation that I had. It was like my head was a lightbulb wanting June bugs to bang against it with the intensity of Roman candles shot at my mouth of nicotine tinged teeth.

“If you find someone in Shanxi it is practice to pay the family money before you can get married. You would also have to already own a home and a car,” told my new friend across in their seat from me—a university passenger friend named David.

“Not necessarily what I was looking for. When is the next stop for snacks?” When the train stops I am able to get out and to have a walk onto the platform to buy various goods from the vendors to take back with me to eat along the ride to Taiyuan.

I had all my important documents tucked in my bag. This included my health clearance and obviously I made no mention of my mental health diagnosis or history to the doctor who had to evaluate me. My diploma and TEFL certificate were tucked away securely. A TEFL is a certificate that stands for Teaching English as a Foreign Language, it qualifies me to teach English as a second language abroad—it had only took a few months of taking a course online that I had paid for to obtain.
It is easy to be happy when you can trick yourself as your own con artist. Mania can make you deceive yourself. One can be doused in napalm and still not fully recognize what is actually going on. Same goes the flicking of psychosis. Even when I have nothing I find myself in my radiating irritation the most qualified of things—the velocity of my rhythm sets me out of an orbit.
The pressure cooker keeps me moving like a propeller at times. I finally arrived at Taiyuan. I arrived at the station to be greeted by Ryan my manager and his assistant Jennifer. We had our hello and introduction and they helped me get to a taxi that would bring me to my new apartment. I finally had a residence again. Apparently they were desperate for a teacher. The last teacher was from New Mexico and apparently they pulled a midnight run—that is when a teacher in the middle of the night disappears onto a plane back home without any notification of it.
The apartment was okay. On the fourth floor with no elevator, so it was a bit of a climb up a dark stairwell not lit correctly.
My job was a training center that had a location near Yingze Park in the center of the city. I was to be paid in cash via envelopes. I would assist in teaching kindergarten all the way up to high school aged students there in private lessons paid by their parents. I would also be assigned by my company to various primary schools in the city. I would take public buses to various schools paid by the company I worked for to give English lessons as I bounced around to various classrooms and schools in the city. Often I would receive a phone call to avoid going to work that day if my boss got inside input that officials would be doing raids to check foreigners’ visas that day.

A taxi ride would always be a thrill. Caused me nerves at first, but I came to love the flying in dangerous ways along a busy road. I remember a driver beeping their horn away as they drove onto the sidewalk to pass people. They treated the pedestrians as if they were in the wrong. I came flying in front of a primary school at its front gates. I was going to start teaching a first grade classroom and a kindergarten classroom. The way schools are set up is with a wall around the entirety of the exterior of the school. There is a gate at the front where one or two security will be waiting to let people in and out of the complex of the school.

I walked in front of the gate to greet the security. It was my first time with an assignment at this school. The guard said they had never seen me before and wouldn’t let me in. Not a big nuisance while I called my boss who then called the school to sort out the situation.

I miss the classroom so much. I ended up teaching in China for five years at various training schools. After returning to Illinois, I still taught as a primary school teacher in a public school.

I often feel extremely ugly from inside to my outside, but something is attractive there. This does not come just in terms of flirting and relationships—mania makes me a genuine lightbulb that flickers in a way that encourages the insects to me—everyone looks like a June bug—this is what I have come to understand about life. But that ugly does kind of stay like rot in a cavity that leaves a bad taste in the mouth that smells foul—hoping nobody catches the smell near me—it must tie into my struggles with bulimia over the years.

The same goes for my years as a teacher—in relation to the whole lightbulb phenomenon—I’m positive it is tied to mania and hypomania. The younger students always were fixated on the information I was teaching to them. I kept over the years methods taught to me and self-taught that I found extremely effective with younger students when it comes to teaching.
Everything was physical in learning in terms of intensity and ambition. When teaching my first grade classroom I would create flashcards for the vocab we would work on and implement in creating new sentences with. We would chant these words together in a way that made me a clown while teaching. Students would yell out the word that I presented with intense enthusiasm. As I walked by students it was expected that while they yelled out the word they would also physically hit the card. Later I would also work on physical gestures and acting out of vocab words and they would follow the actions and phrases with me.
I would often eventually turn the class into two teams. When students got an answer right I would behave comically and full of energy—I would give them a high five and pretend they were so strong with it that it hurt my hand in the process with much exaggeration—the students always seemed to never get tired of this act.
One game I would play involved drawing two stick figures with happy faces on them. Each figure would represent one of the teams for the classroom. I would draw a hungry alligator under the figures. Their faces would also be comical in appearance and full of exaggerations. Each figure had a parachute placed over them and four strings attached. During the game the students would race to say the word correctly represented on the flashcard or the correct word for the gesture I was making. The team that was not the slowest would lose a string on the parachute. If a team lost all four strings they would fall to the alligator who would eat them. The students found it hilarious with my actions involved in it. I would also draw tears and a person praying to represent anticipation and worry of falling down each time they lost a string.
I had a tooth game too. I would draw too large faces for each team. The team that could answer the flashcards and gestures the quickest would have a tooth drawn in their mouth. The team with the most teeth would win and it would look rather funny as the mouth grew and grew with an abnormal and extreme amount of teeth.
I often did other physical and interactive games like having students run to the word I showed a card to or gestured—each word would be attached to a point in the classroom on a wall.
I know it sounds grandiose, but the parents always seemed to think I was great at my job.
The word vulnerable means so many things to me. That word is like the coal to form the generator that makes the guiding energy for the ethics I follow in my life—I hold very strongly to these values that have developed on how to live—I can express it more later but I greatly attach a kind of Christian value system to it, which makes sense considering I was raised in a Lutheran household and always went to church, Sunday school, and went to my courses and went through my confirmation—everyone is a bit of a mop—some pick up clean water and others dirty or a mix of it—waiting to find the people to drain them voluntarily or involuntarily. I was born vulnerable. I walk pigeon-toed and grew up tripping on my feet—I speak with a soft feminine voice. Bipolar disorder makes somebody vulnerable. There was much vulnerability in being eighteen and hospitalized involuntarily for my first manic episode—tied to a stretcher. I have almost a sense of us vs them—the vulnerable and those that harm the vulnerable—take advantage of the vulnerable—I feel this is a very much Christian in the idea of the unfortunate are more holy than the rest of the bunch—children are like that in terms of being born into a cruel existence—a cruel existence I felt at times in my life and so many do—making sure harm does not come to those in need gives the light of purpose to go bright inside like a Christmas tree in my brain—this light of happiness and warmth. I never expected I would fall in love for teaching due to the antidepressant effect provided. It would become my career for a decade. Some grow up wanting to be a teacher, I became one by accident, desperation, and being saved.
Sometimes I inflate on self-hate like a helium balloon that needs to be tied to a wrist to not float away.
In my early teens I started struggling with bulimia and image. I remember when my mother caught me in the act. I was not offered help but criticized. I was called a girl for my problems and threatened to be taken somewhere to be fixed of my confusion. I don’t identify as transgender. I identify as a man that struggles with bulimia and happens to have feminine qualities.
I attribute it to circumstances that happened to me—a justification for the pain at times—an attack on aspects of bisexuality.
After a long day of work I did what my young self often did. I went clubbing with friends. I feel like even if I hide aspects of myself such as being bisexual, people can spot it regardless. I’m extremely secretive about it and not comfortable displaying that vulnerable aspect of myself.
My friend from England went with me. He was about six years my senior. Big guy. Tall. The clubs name was Maoye.
I always enjoyed the free drinks available to foreigners—it was done to attract Chinese clients, as the idea was foreigners being there would attract people.
Amongst the hot and sweltering crowd a man grabbed ahold of me. I felt stuck. I was taken off guard. Pushed and cornered. While on me I managed to push him off. But it all serves as a reminder of the vulnerability of my life.
A nail was placed into my hand—a constant burn and reminder of that vulnerability.

Part 2
From self-hate I can also be so grandiose. I am like a Christmas tree that is lit up. Sparklers so pretty that you cannot let go of them, even if it burns your fingertips and hurts.

From heroin to sex, you can smother the pain. You drain the ocean to fill a void in these times. It ties to mania as well. That restlessness and irritability is extinguished by the paradox of throwing kerosene to everything burning. I’m so grandiose to hide my insecurities, I mistake my misfortune as a mark of something ugly virtuous—the neon of vulnerability pulsating like a star within me. Swelling on a pain.

Bad habits. I want you to judge me and tell me what’s wrong with me. Give me a verdict.
Stress a trigger for mania, and I was stressed from the incident I had experienced at the club. I bloated like a tick to distract from locusts of thoughts that could not shut up with their commotion.
I had been sleeping around more than before. My brain was Christmas tree lights. I accelerated on a generator—I made a mixed episode worse.
Tease a disaster when you are heightened like a blimp. Full of hydrogen. Hoping to burn up ad rain down like napalm.
When the pretty candles on the Christmas tree are left untouched—not looked at like a kettle on burner that has been forgotten—the dry neglected tree will into a house fire.
I’ve had four attempts in my life so far.
When I attempt I don’t cry for help. I feel too vulnerable. I’m afraid.
Hate police and wards.
Downing pills.
My past failed attempts made me aware of everything done wrong before. The sleeping pills alone might not do what I was looking for at that time. I bought an electrical cable. This way if it failed I would still be unconscious and choked out by the cord—fail safe plan to end my life.
The words coming out of my mouth slowed down. I started getting second thoughts. Stuck my face towards the toilet bowl while on my knees. Sticking my fingers down my throat. Leaving blood vessels bursting in my eyes.
Went stumbling outside and waved a taxi down and asked to be taken to the local hospital.
Never expected finding myself checked into a psych ward in a foreign country.
Nietzsche has a quote in reference to chaos in life and how it is needed to create a star—this reference holds so much value to me. Sometimes stars hit together just right to create fate out of the worst of things. The ward lead me to meet the woman made of paper. She would one day become my wife. I would have two daughters with her. Forge together as soldiers to face the obstacles in life. Someone who would save my life during a future attempt when I was found unconscious from an overdose. The smartest and toughest woman I have ever known. Someone to build trenches with.
I liked it when she stuck that needle in me for an IV. It must correlate to being a heroin addict. The pushing of something in my vein correlates to happiness and purity.
The woman made out of paper was my nurse in the ward I was stuck in. What attracted her to the mess that is me I will never understand fully.
The woman made out of paper is named Lilu. She was one year older than me and one of my nurses at that ward in Taiyuan. She was from Zhengzhou—a city in the province of Henan that is based in the center of China. I am sure as the reader it would be nice to know why I call her the woman made of paper.
She struggled with her own demons. She also deserves much praise for her resilience and brains. When she was born she was raised by a family that adopted her and often neglected and abused her growing up. Her biological family is distant from her, even though she has an identical twin—they felt too poor to take care of her and made the choice that they needed to be less of one child as she also has an older sister—her twin got to stay with that family but she was given up and adopted. I am sure this must bother her even if she never will talk about it to anyone in her life—as she is one to refuse ever discussing emotions and feelings, as this is not her personality type—she is very much a fighter. I think most would struggle with wondering why they were the one let go of—it also must hurt her knowing that the family would have a son and keep him.
Despite all these circumstances, she graduated top of her class of four thousand students—Chinese high schools can be quite large serving a large region—they often serve as boarding schools. She was a smart and hardworking student. Circumstances never made her stop trying to be the best and moving forward and she never made excuses for herself. In university she also did well and got accepted at the most studious and hard to obtain nursing position at the number one hospital in Shanxi.
I have already ranted and gone on about my affection and feelings tied to heroin. Drinking of entire oceans to fill voids.
Paper is a void. It asks for calligraphy to be written on it to make braille. This way when fingers run over skin to tell its worth—the reason for its troubles on display—it forms connection through those words of declaration—the whining for why things are the way they are—the filling of a void like a heroin addict needing a cure to cure kicking legs—two papers come together to write upon one another—as a paper I am her typo—I stand as a falling mess with nerves like tripwire, I keep failing and losing my composer, while she stands stronger as a declaration that has been written on me, my very own typewriter—when I was chased I listened to her and joined as one. I wish and intend to always serve the woman made out of paper who has saved my life and has always been there for me, being so strong despite circumstances—amongst the wind of turmoil in life I follow along her path like a sail.
It was love at first sight for her but not for me. I had no interest in dating her at the time. I worked across the street of that hospital in an office building for a training center as a part time job. I would teach adults English who paid for private lessons near to Yingze park in the center of Taiyuan. She signed up for classes for me to teach her and brought me food on almost every other day that she had prepared. Eventually we found ourselves coupled fully.
As paper we write on each other—eat each other.

I think that I may have Cushing's. I want to be checked but I know with how uncommon it is and will likely get pushback from my doctor. I'm expecting to get the ol "when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras" that the medical community likes to toss around. My thinking is my PCP fully brushed off my complaints about excessive fatigue and bleeding between periods since July 2023 (which turned out to be anemia and an endometrial polyp), so what else has she missed about my weight problem? She keeps pushing bariatric surgery on me, which I am not interested in for multiple reasons, namely my gut feeling is we should first do a thorough physical and hormonal workup to find the root cause of my weight gain before resorting to a serious surgery.
My suspected Cushing symptoms are:

• Unexplained Rapid Weight Gain. For years I have only ate one large protein-heavy meal either in the morning or around lunchtime so I can intermediate fast for a minimum of 12 hours. Then eat a small meal like a bowl of cereal or a sandwich for dinner. I do not drink calories. Just plain filtered water or sometimes an additive like Mio or Crystal Light when I get bored with water. I am not a "snacker" but if I do it is nothing significant, like popcorn or baby carrots with hummus. I have confirmed PCOS and insulin resistance so I cannot eat three square meals like a normal person. Otherwise I would weigh 600 pounds.
  
• Cannot Lose Weight Without Starvation Dieting. No weight comes off unless I eat less than 1200 calories daily. Even at 1200 calories the weight loss is slow ... like 5 pounds per month if I'm lucky. I did clean keto successfully through most of 2018 and lost 100 pounds in 8 months while still being a couch potato. However for half of those months I was barely eating 800 calories daily. Essentially a starvation diet. Some days I would not eat at all bc the high fat diet made me feel nauseated. Managed to keep the weight off with on/off keto until COVID hit. Tried keto again beginning Jan 2023 and only about 20 pounds of water weight came off between Jan and April with a daily limit of 1800 calories and 25 net carbs. For someone who is almost 400 pounds, this is a major red flag. Exercise does nothing for weight loss.
  
• Hungry All The Time. As stated above, I eat high protein meals to feel full. I eat then within a couple of hours, my stomach is audibly and physically growling.
  
• Excessive Sweating. My scalp/face sweat like a waterfall easily. This started about two years ago. At work events, I can be in an air-conditioned space standing completely still but my scalp will start pouring sweat like I just ran a marathon. It's embarrassing. I've actually had to talk myself out of shaving my head bald multiple times bc my hair becomes so drenched then my scalp will stink and begin to itch if I am stuck in a situation where I cannot wash and dry my hair immediately. I thought it may be a vitamin D deficiency. I got tested earlier this year and my D levels were very low. Started supplementing and my levels are now back to normal but my scalp still sweats like crazy.
  
• Easily Overheated. I was diagnosed with Hypothyroidism in July 2023. I am medicated with Levothyroxine and my TSH levels are normal. Typically those with a slow thyroid are cold but I am the opposite. I am hot all the time. As such, you will see me rocking just a camisole and Hanes shorts bc wearing anything else makes me feel too hot. I have to turn my air conditioning down to 65 degrees in the summer to feel comfortable. I cannot handle summer heat at all so I rarely leave the house between May and August (probably explains the Vitamin D deficiency). I leave my furnace at 62 degrees in the winter. If there is not moving air on me, I feel like I am having a hot flash (I am 38 and still a good 10+ years away from menopause).
  
• Huge Apron Belly and Round Face. For someone who is 400 pounds, I only look it in my belly. Otherwise it looks like I missed "arm and leg day," as they say. I have noticed in the last year the bottom of my jaw is looking more round than it usually does.
  
• Stretch Marks. Ugly purple stretch marks on my stomach, hips, around my armpits, and back of my knees. Maybe bc I am fat but also maybe not. My other stretch marks look like flesh colored stripes.
  
• Excessive Hair. Hair growing in places it shouldn't be and I don't think it's just the PCOS hirsutism.
  
• Wounds That Do Not Heal. I have scabs on my upper thighs that have been there for years and will not heal. They have been there since before I was anemic. I have tried vitamin E ointments, shea butter lotions, soaking baths, special bandages, you name it. They will not go away. Also other wounds seem to take longer to heal in recent years.
  
• Easily Irritable and Anxious. I am not sure if it just my job wearing on me but I feel anxious and easily Irritable. Burned out. Like my body is in "fight or flight" mode 24/7. Even the smallest inconveniences set me off and it seems silly.
  
• Tired All The Time. This could easily be blamed on my anemia but this started long before I began bleeding between periods and developed anemia. I just have no energy to do anything. Even showering myself or brushing my teeth seems like a chore. It's not depression like I'm sad, my body physically cannot do some things bc I feel so weak and tired.
  
• Easy Bruising. Every day I wake up and seem to find a new bruise somewhere even though I don't do much activity and don't remember hitting my body in that spot.
  

~Rayray~
It felt frustrating in Chongqing. I was rather stuck in Hechuan. I got accustomed to lajiao (spice) there. I was a Midwesterner at the age of 22. I was raised in Illinois. I became a manic—a Ferris wheel on fire—I was hiding under a bed in a hotel. Bold like napalm. Sometimes I can never stop. Even when I was 18 in a ward arguing with staff. Always want to fight things. That’s why I refused the meds and went on a plane from America to China. I was going to be an English teacher. And like a light switch, the change and SSRIs turned me into a mess. It would be my first time experiencing psychosis. My biggest issue. I never imagined I would be stuck illegally in a country suffering a psychotic episode in my early twenties.
Transplanted as pollen. I was left with a backpack and a cellphone. With a downloaded app called WeChat. I had arrogantly quit a university job in a fit. Spent the past months full of energy and not sleeping and neglecting myself, including not eating, to work on a novel. Not considering myself normally religious, I had obsessed over occult ideas during that time. Spending nights reading Aleister Crowley—haven taken a rusty pocket knife to carve a pentagram on my chest for spiritual protection.
I did not have funds to fly home. My visa was connected to my previous job, which meant I had now made it void. I was an illegal resident now in China.
I used a nifty app called WeChat as a messaging app, it allows users to find people near them that are also looking for others. It was like a virtual pond. All kinds of people, including sex workers trying to make things happen.
It could with luck be used to find people looking for people in terms of other kinds of work. It was helpful on many occasions for finding gigs working at English training schools and also finding work as a private tutor for people.
WeChat also works as a digital wallet.
Mania makes me irritable. Enough to tell a boss to fuck off. Thoughts ricochet within me. Bumper cars collide.
Being stuck and angry sucks. I scrolled and scrolled on a Huawei phone.
Absolutely pissed off at this world.
Pissed at the times police wanted to take me away for being a mess.
Sometimes women get pissed. Scrolling through their phones. Angry at their cheating husbands. It really is not that hard to have flair—be a damn white oddity. Like moths to a porchlight. Particles of sand through hands. This is when I first started the habit of it…
I rather go by a rather empty name of Rayray… with further explanation needed but now is not convenient. But I assure it is interesting enough and has some importance.
Habits are various in nature in how they attach to and eat at marrow—like atom bombs flashing as rays evaporating DNA—sets in a way less than human as putting myself in the cage of bad things taken up—my time as a former heroin addict is left as stretch marks on me in various ways. The same goes for the first time I found myself making arrangements with middle aged married women while desperation of waves whiplashed me like sandpaper hands coming at me to leave me in a tiring state of abrasion.
I had spent a night snuck away into a hotel. Found someone on a business trip. Instead of registering I waited to sneak along into the hotel elevator amongst a group of others attending the hotel, as I had no card. I headed to a designated room number. Originally I was sitting in a park. Playing on WeChat and found someone in their mid-thirties. Pictures were exchanged and I said no. She brought up paying for the hotel if I arrived. I agreed and went along.
When I met I washed up after her and we used our phones to awkwardly translate what we would do.
Room service knocked. I found myself hidden under a bed as I was not registered to be there.
It seems unusual that it was around this time I had started working on a story of my life as a heroin addict when I got caught up in my worse manic episode ever experienced during my age of 22. Finished half that story before never going back to it after my manic episode had ended. Now I am here writing about it and wondering if the same can happen again in the process of this work.
It feels extremely cliché I would write a novel about struggles with heroin addiction. It has been done many times. It’s just lame of me.
I feel like my thoughts are bit off. I left the hotel the next morning with the little money I did have on a debit card. Turns out the woman was from Taiyuan. It is a city in the northern part of China in the province of Shanxi—coal country with the worst air pollution in China. She has a colleague in Taiyuan that takes courses at an English training center. I was able to contact this place in the morning via a shared contact on WeChat given to me by the stranger I met that night.
Before I knew it I was sending my information and documents in my backpack at an internet café in a fax—with the intent that the woman agreed to share my information to the training center as she shared my contact to its hiring manager. It would land me a job that day that would help me out of my situation. Things turned not quite out as I expected though. I was shifted like a ball to somebody else to contact for a training center geared to teaching children.
I took what I had and ran off to a train station after taking the public transit. Unfortunately I was shit for money and could not afford a high speed rail pass. The slow train would take thirty-two hours to get to my destination. I would have taken a room with a bed but all I could afford was a hard seat for the travel.
Things were getting better for me in the circumstance considering I had found someone willing to take me for work despite my visa situation.
The thirty-two hour train ride was horrendous in some ways, but mostly I was in excitement despite the circumstances. I’m always giddy when disappointed. I moved up and down the aisle of the train. I could not speak mandarin, but it did not stop me from trying to interact with everyone. I talked many ears off during the train ride. I went up and down the aisle trying to interact as a moth to porchlights—I could not stop even if I had wanted to. I found great enjoyment the times I did get to sit across a table from somebody my age heading to Taiyuan from Chongqing. They were a university student returning to their hometown. Another passenger who sat beside me was an elderly man with hard boiled eggs, he was eating one after another one. I highly enjoyed each and every conversation that I had. It was like my head was a lightbulb wanting June bugs to bang against it with the intensity of Roman candles shot at my mouth of nicotine tinged teeth.

“If you find someone in Shanxi it is practice to pay the family money before you can get married. You would also have to already own a home and a car,” told my new friend across in their seat from me—a university passenger friend named David.

“Not necessarily what I was looking for. When is the next stop for snacks?” When the train stops I am able to get out and to have a walk onto the platform to buy various goods from the vendors to take back with me to eat along the ride to Taiyuan.

I had all my important documents tucked in my bag. This included my health clearance and obviously I made no mention of my mental health diagnosis or history to the doctor who had to evaluate me. My diploma and TEFL certificate were tucked away securely. A TEFL is a certificate that stands for Teaching English as a Foreign Language, it qualifies me to teach English as a second language abroad—it had only took a few months of taking a course online that I had paid for to obtain.
It is easy to be happy when you can trick yourself as your own con artist. Mania can make you deceive yourself. One can be doused in napalm and still not fully recognize what is actually going on. Same goes the flicking of psychosis. Even when I have nothing I find myself in my radiating irritation the most qualified of things—the velocity of my rhythm sets me out of an orbit.
The pressure cooker keeps me moving like a propeller at times. I finally arrived at Taiyuan. I arrived at the station to be greeted by Ryan my manager and his assistant Jennifer. We had our hello and introduction and they helped me get to a taxi that would bring me to my new apartment. I finally had a residence again. Apparently they were desperate for a teacher. The last teacher was from New Mexico and apparently they pulled a midnight run—that is when a teacher in the middle of the night disappears onto a plane back home without any notification of it.
The apartment was okay. On the fourth floor with no elevator, so it was a bit of a climb up a dark stairwell not lit correctly.
My job was a training center that had a location near Yingze Park in the center of the city. I was to be paid in cash via envelopes. I would assist in teaching kindergarten all the way up to high school aged students there in private lessons paid by their parents. I would also be assigned by my company to various primary schools in the city. I would take public buses to various schools paid by the company I worked for to give English lessons as I bounced around to various classrooms and schools in the city. Often I would receive a phone call to avoid going to work that day if my boss got inside input that officials would be doing raids to check foreigners’ visas that day.

A taxi ride would always be a thrill. Caused me nerves at first, but I came to love the flying in dangerous ways along a busy road. I remember a driver beeping their horn away as they drove onto the sidewalk to pass people. They treated the pedestrians as if they were in the wrong. I came flying in front of a primary school at its front gates. I was going to start teaching a first grade classroom and a kindergarten classroom. The way schools are set up is with a wall around the entirety of the exterior of the school. There is a gate at the front where one or two security will be waiting to let people in and out of the complex of the school.

I walked in front of the gate to greet the security. It was my first time with an assignment at this school. The guard said they had never seen me before and wouldn’t let me in. Not a big nuisance while I called my boss who then called the school to sort out the situation.

I miss the classroom so much. I ended up teaching in China for five years at various training schools. After returning to Illinois, I still taught as a primary school teacher in a public school.

I often feel extremely ugly from inside to my outside, but something is attractive there. This does not come just in terms of flirting and relationships—mania makes me a genuine lightbulb that flickers in a way that encourages the insects to me—everyone looks like a June bug—this is what I have come to understand about life. But that ugly does kind of stay like rot in a cavity that leaves a bad taste in the mouth that smells foul—hoping nobody catches the smell near me—it must tie into my struggles with bulimia over the years.

The same goes for my years as a teacher—in relation to the whole lightbulb phenomenon—I’m positive it is tied to mania and hypomania. The younger students always were fixated on the information I was teaching to them. I kept over the years methods taught to me and self-taught that I found extremely effective with younger students when it comes to teaching.
Everything was physical in learning in terms of intensity and ambition. When teaching my first grade classroom I would create flashcards for the vocab we would work on and implement in creating new sentences with. We would chant these words together in a way that made me a clown while teaching. Students would yell out the word that I presented with intense enthusiasm. As I walked by students it was expected that while they yelled out the word they would also physically hit the card. Later I would also work on physical gestures and acting out of vocab words and they would follow the actions and phrases with me.
I would often eventually turn the class into two teams. When students got an answer right I would behave comically and full of energy—I would give them a high five and pretend they were so strong with it that it hurt my hand in the process with much exaggeration—the students always seemed to never get tired of this act.
One game I would play involved drawing two stick figures with happy faces on them. Each figure would represent one of the teams for the classroom. I would draw a hungry alligator under the figures. Their faces would also be comical in appearance and full of exaggerations. Each figure had a parachute placed over them and four strings attached. During the game the students would race to say the word correctly represented on the flashcard or the correct word for the gesture I was making. The team that was not the slowest would lose a string on the parachute. If a team lost all four strings they would fall to the alligator who would eat them. The students found it hilarious with my actions involved in it. I would also draw tears and a person praying to represent anticipation and worry of falling down each time they lost a string.
I had a tooth game too. I would draw too large faces for each team. The team that could answer the flashcards and gestures the quickest would have a tooth drawn in their mouth. The team with the most teeth would win and it would look rather funny as the mouth grew and grew with an abnormal and extreme amount of teeth.
I often did other physical and interactive games like having students run to the word I showed a card to or gestured—each word would be attached to a point in the classroom on a wall.
I know it sounds grandiose, but the parents always seemed to think I was great at my job.
The word vulnerable means so many things to me. That word is like the coal to form the generator that makes the guiding energy for the ethics I follow in my life—I hold very strongly to these values that have developed on how to live—I can express it more later but I greatly attach a kind of Christian value system to it, which makes sense considering I was raised in a Lutheran household and always went to church, Sunday school, and went to my courses and went through my confirmation—everyone is a bit of a mop—some pick up clean water and others dirty or a mix of it—waiting to find the people to drain them voluntarily or involuntarily. I was born vulnerable. I walk pigeon-toed and grew up tripping on my feet—I speak with a soft feminine voice. Bipolar disorder makes somebody vulnerable. There was much vulnerability in being eighteen and hospitalized involuntarily for my first manic episode—tied to a stretcher. I have almost a sense of us vs them—the vulnerable and those that harm the vulnerable—take advantage of the vulnerable—I feel this is a very much Christian in the idea of the unfortunate are more holy than the rest of the bunch—children are like that in terms of being born into a cruel existence—a cruel existence I felt at times in my life and so many do—making sure harm does not come to those in need gives the light of purpose to go bright inside like a Christmas tree in my brain—this light of happiness and warmth. I never expected I would fall in love for teaching due to the antidepressant effect provided. It would become my career for a decade. Some grow up wanting to be a teacher, I became one by accident, desperation, and being saved.
Sometimes I inflate on self-hate like a helium balloon that needs to be tied to a wrist to not float away.
In my early teens I started struggling with bulimia and image. I remember when my mother caught me in the act. I was not offered help but criticized. I was called a girl for my problems and threatened to be taken somewhere to be fixed of my confusion. I don’t identify as transgender. I identify as a man that struggles with bulimia and happens to have feminine qualities.
I attribute it to circumstances that happened to me—a justification for the pain at times—an attack on aspects of bisexuality.
After a long day of work I did what my young self often did. I went clubbing with friends. I feel like even if I hide aspects of myself such as being bisexual, people can spot it regardless. I’m extremely secretive about it and not comfortable displaying that vulnerable aspect of myself.
My friend from England went with me. He was about six years my senior. Big guy. Tall. The clubs name was Maoye.
I always enjoyed the free drinks available to foreigners—it was done to attract Chinese clients, as the idea was foreigners being there would attract people.
Amongst the hot and sweltering crowd a man grabbed ahold of me. I felt stuck. I was taken off guard. Pushed and cornered. While on me I managed to push him off. But it all serves as a reminder of the vulnerability of my life.
A nail was placed into my hand—a constant burn and reminder of that vulnerability.

Part 2
From self-hate I can also be so grandiose. I am like a Christmas tree that is lit up. Sparklers so pretty that you cannot let go of them, even if it burns your fingertips and hurts.

From heroin to sex, you can smother the pain. You drain the ocean to fill a void in these times. It ties to mania as well. That restlessness and irritability is extinguished by the paradox of throwing kerosene to everything burning. I’m so grandiose to hide my insecurities, I mistake my misfortune as a mark of something ugly virtuous—the neon of vulnerability pulsating like a star within me. Swelling on a pain.

Bad habits. I want you to judge me and tell me what’s wrong with me. Give me a verdict.
Stress a trigger for mania, and I was stressed from the incident I had experienced at the club. I bloated like a tick to distract from locusts of thoughts that could not shut up with their commotion.
I had been sleeping around more than before. My brain was Christmas tree lights. I accelerated on a generator—I made a mixed episode worse.
Tease a disaster when you are heightened like a blimp. Full of hydrogen. Hoping to burn up ad rain down like napalm.
When the pretty candles on the Christmas tree are left untouched—not looked at like a kettle on burner that has been forgotten—the dry neglected tree will into a house fire.
I’ve had four attempts in my life so far.
When I attempt I don’t cry for help. I feel too vulnerable. I’m afraid.
Hate police and wards.
Downing pills.
My past failed attempts made me aware of everything done wrong before. The sleeping pills alone might not do what I was looking for at that time. I bought an electrical cable. This way if it failed I would still be unconscious and choked out by the cord—fail safe plan to end my life.
The words coming out of my mouth slowed down. I started getting second thoughts. Stuck my face towards the toilet bowl while on my knees. Sticking my fingers down my throat. Leaving blood vessels bursting in my eyes.
Went stumbling outside and waved a taxi down and asked to be taken to the local hospital.
Never expected finding myself checked into a psych ward in a foreign country.
Nietzsche has a quote in reference to chaos in life and how it is needed to create a star—this reference holds so much value to me. Sometimes stars hit together just right to create fate out of the worst of things. The ward lead me to meet the woman made of paper. She would one day become my wife. I would have two daughters with her. Forge together as soldiers to face the obstacles in life. Someone who would save my life during a future attempt when I was found unconscious from an overdose. The smartest and toughest woman I have ever known. Someone to build trenches with.
I liked it when she stuck that needle in me for an IV. It must correlate to being a heroin addict. The pushing of something in my vein correlates to happiness and purity.
The woman made out of paper was my nurse in the ward I was stuck in. What attracted her to the mess that is me I will never understand fully.
The woman made out of paper is named Lilu. She was one year older than me and one of my nurses at that ward in Taiyuan. She was from Zhengzhou—a city in the province of Henan that is based in the center of China. I am sure as the reader it would be nice to know why I call her the woman made of paper.
She struggled with her own demons. She also deserves much praise for her resilience and brains. When she was born she was raised by a family that adopted her and often neglected and abused her growing up. Her biological family is distant from her, even though she has an identical twin—they felt too poor to take care of her and made the choice that they needed to be less of one child as she also has an older sister—her twin got to stay with that family but she was given up and adopted. I am sure this must bother her even if she never will talk about it to anyone in her life—as she is one to refuse ever discussing emotions and feelings, as this is not her personality type—she is very much a fighter. I think most would struggle with wondering why they were the one let go of—it also must hurt her knowing that the family would have a son and keep him.
Despite all these circumstances, she graduated top of her class of four thousand students—Chinese high schools can be quite large serving a large region—they often serve as boarding schools. She was a smart and hardworking student. Circumstances never made her stop trying to be the best and moving forward and she never made excuses for herself. In university she also did well and got accepted at the most studious and hard to obtain nursing position at the number one hospital in Shanxi.
I have already ranted and gone on about my affection and feelings tied to heroin. Drinking of entire oceans to fill voids.
Paper is a void. It asks for calligraphy to be written on it to make braille. This way when fingers run over skin to tell its worth—the reason for its troubles on display—it forms connection through those words of declaration—the whining for why things are the way they are—the filling of a void like a heroin addict needing a cure to cure kicking legs—two papers come together to write upon one another—as a paper I am her typo—I stand as a falling mess with nerves like tripwire, I keep failing and losing my composer, while she stands stronger as a declaration that has been written on me, my very own typewriter—when I was chased I listened to her and joined as one. I wish and intend to always serve the woman made out of paper who has saved my life and has always been there for me, being so strong despite circumstances—amongst the wind of turmoil in life I follow along her path like a sail.
It was love at first sight for her but not for me. I had no interest in dating her at the time. I worked across the street of that hospital in an office building for a training center as a part time job. I would teach adults English who paid for private lessons near to Yingze park in the center of Taiyuan. She signed up for classes for me to teach her and brought me food on almost every other day that she had prepared. Eventually we found ourselves coupled fully.
As paper we write on each other—eat each other.

Hi, I started getting burrows and was very itchy a week ago. When I say burrows, I mean hundreds all over my body. I went to urgent care and they gave me the 5% permethrin topical. Applied it as soon as I got home, left it on for 8 hours. In that time I cleaned my apartment and laundered all linens according to recommendations; washed and dried on hot settings, vacuumed all rugs and upholstery. Took a shower that night and afterwards applied the permethrin again, head to toe. Went to sleep and left the cream on for 14 hours. Overnight there were many more new burrows. Went to the ER where they gave me a dose (3 tablets) of oral ivermectin. Went to sleep, and when I woke up the rash had spread tenfold. In new spots that weren't even itchy yesterday. At this point I don't know what to do.
First I'm trying to understand the culprit so I can be properly treated. Is it that my apartment was not treated properly so I become reinfected every night sleeping in my bed or on the couch? If that's the case, does that require I treat my apartment every time I do the topical treatment? Or is my case just resistant to oral and topical antiparisitics? The rash is so, so much worse and progressively so.
I don't know what to do. Do I get my apartment professionally treated and go to a hotel for 3 days while doing the permethrin treatment? Will that help?
Please please help me!!
https://preview.redd.it/xhjbmvi3kd5d1.jpg?width=2266&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=40d77f7a7abe849c3f03c8b875207bb5d053847c

I posted this in hair too but figured you folks would have curly specific recommendations
Hi all - my daughter has curly hair (mix of 2c/3a curls). She also has a chronically itchy scalp. She does not have lice, she does not have dandruff. I only wash her hair once or twice a week because it is extremely prone to getting very dry and brittle. But when I pile on conditioning products to try and keep it smoother and shiny, it gets weighed down and dull. Her hair grows pretty slowly and grew in late (it didn't touch her shoulders until she was 5). I've started adding a rosemary scalp conditioning oil a couple times a week but it doesn't help long term. Her hair is fine but pretty thick.
She is 6.5 so I don't want to do a long and involved process every morning. I just want to help her hair grow and be healthy. I personally have long, fairly straight and fine hair that does well with very minimal upkeep so I'm struggling to figure out how to care for her hair. Is the best approach to take her to a curly salon and get their take? Help!

Hi all - my daughter has curly hair (mix of 2c/3a curls). She also has a chronically itchy scalp. She does not have lice, she does not have dandruff. I only wash her hair once or twice a week because it is extremely prone to getting very dry and brittle. But when I pile on conditioning products to try and keep it smoother and shiny, it gets weighed down and dull. Her hair grows pretty slowly and grew in late (it didn't touch her shoulders until she was 5). I've started adding a rosemary scalp conditioning oil a couple times a week but it doesn't help long term. Her hair is fine but pretty thick.
She is 6.5 so I don't want to do a long and involved process every morning. I just want to help her hair grow and be healthy. I personally have long, fairly straight and fine hair that does well with very minimal upkeep so I'm struggling to figure out how to care for her hair. Is the best approach to take her to a curly salon and get their take? Help!

Hello, a toilet in my house leaked during the day when we were out of the house, and a puddle formed in the bathroom. This eventually expanded, and water got under laminate flooring in the adjacent room. I would say 5 feet in each direction, when you walk on the laminate flooring, you can hear squishing. There’s also a spot where when you step on it, water pierces through and gets your foot wet. This happened yesterday. It doesn’t seem like a ton of water - maybe a gallon or two?
What do you recommend I do? It doesn’t seem like a ton of water. Will it eventually evaporate or get absorbed? There is a green vaper barrier under the laminate flooring.
Should I try to dry it somehow? Should I replace the flooring altogether? I am not handy

Hello, a toilet in my house leaked during the day when we were out of the house, and a puddle formed in the bathroom. This eventually expanded, and water got under laminate flooring in the adjacent room. I would say 5 feet in each direction, when you walk on the laminate flooring, you can hear squishing. There’s also a spot where when you step on it, water pierces through and gets your foot wet. This happened yesterday. It doesn’t seem like a ton of water - maybe a gallon or two?
What do you recommend I do? It doesn’t seem like a ton of water. Will it eventually evaporate or get absorbed? There is a green vaper barrier under the laminate flooring.
Should I try to dry it somehow? Should I replace the flooring altogether? I am not handy

Disclaimer: I do not speak Korean. This is purely translated by machine with a lot of cleanup afterward. With that in mind, I am open to criticism to improve these translations. Enjoy!
​
Chapter 431
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- Vile human, who is that person?
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There he is. Such a fearless man.
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As I cursed silently, my gaze swept the area.
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We were far from the bustling city center, in a forgotten expanse where not even the artificial lights that mimicked daylight could reach.
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Amidst the crumbling ruins, a lone silhouette emerged, casting a long, ominous shadow.
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"It seems our fates are forcibly entertwined, seeing how we keep running into each other."
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Seok Go-Jun's reply cut through the darkness, icy and detached.
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"It's not fate, but rather misfortune."
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"Then what should I call it, meeting like this in such a place by chance?"
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His response was sharp as a blade.
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"Inevitable."
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"That's a clear-cut answer. Is that why you've been following me like a stray dog?"
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"Since when did you know?"
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"Since the Stone Age, you bastard. I thought you were going to bore holes into my face from all your staring."
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I recalled the persistent gaze that had followed me since I inspected the magic circle.
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It was a sticky, unwelcome stare unlike the curious glances of the others.
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Open hostility towards me was rare these days.
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"It could only be you or those Princeling bastards. But the latter are too busy cleaning up the mess they've spread everywhere... so isn't it obvious?"
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Seok Go-Jun remained unflustered, his features stoic.
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"Of course. That's right."
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"Really?"
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"I thought you'd realize it. If not, there wouldn't be any reason for you to come here alone, leaving Magic Johnson behind."
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Look at this guy?
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Observing his calm demeanor, a realization dawned on me. Seok Go-Jun wasn’t rattled; he was beckoning me to follow.
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This encounter was no mere surveillance or bait — it was the confrontation we both sought.
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Of course, the outcome of this meeting would be far from ideal for him.
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"There's something I want to ask."
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Seok Go-Jun didn't wait for an answer. His eyes locked on mine, radiating a challenging intensity.
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"Did you do it?"
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The question was terse, heavy with implications. Feigning ignorance, I cocked my head and replied with feigned innocence.
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"What are you talking about?"
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"You know what I mean."
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"You're not thinking... that I killed Uncle Jeong-Ryong, are you?"
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At the mention of Lee Jeong-Ryong, Seok Go-Jun's eyes quivered violently. I didn’t await his response; instead, I clasped both hands over my mouth in mock horror.
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"My goodness, how could you think such a horrible thing? Are you serious?"
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"Fuck your disgusting act. Does it look like I'm asking because I don't know?"
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"Then why are you asking? Didn’t you see the press conference?"
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"I did. It was nothing but nonsense and lies from start to finish."
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Thud, thud.
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Blood drops fell from a fist clenched so tightly it turned white. Seok Go-Jun glared at me with eyes ablaze with anger.
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"It's just you and me here. Speak the truth."
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- How dare you leave out me, Stone King, born in Atlanta!
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There’s another monster here.
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Specifically, two people and one monster. Though it's debatable whether you can still call the Skeleton King a monster.
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"Hmm."
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Scratching the back of my head, I looked squarely at Seok Go-Jun and admitted nonchalantly,
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"That’s right. I killed them."
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"…!"
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"Lee Jeong-Ryong and Wu Hei-Xing. I took care of them both. Those lunatics wrote such an absurd scenario. They planned to kill only me and not even touch the Arch Lich. But you knew this, didn't you?"
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Guesses and truth are distinctly different.
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Even if he had already guessed as much, hearing confirmation from the mouth of an enemy is something else entirely.
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I drove the final nail into the trembling Seok Go-Jun.
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"Given how those bastards behaved, what could I have done? I cut both of them tickets for America and sent them on their way. Oh, and Mr. Jeong-Ryong got a first-class ticket."
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"Y-you dared to do that to him…!"
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Hsssss!
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A surge of murderous intent radiated from Seok Go-Jun, chilling the surrounding air.
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His fingers trembled as they inched towards the hilt of his sword. I blurted out,
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"What are you doing now?"
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"…!"
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Seok Go-Jun's eyes widened, shock registering visibly as the murderous intent around him dissipated.
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Or rather, it was quelled by the wave of Qi emanating from my core.
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In this suddenly altered domain where I now held all the power, I began to advance slowly.
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"Your skills have indeed improved dramatically since before. You're even better than Wu Hei-Xing. You're truly a disciple that Lee Jeong-Ryong raised by his side."
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Step.
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"But..."
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Step.
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With each deliberate stride I took, Seok Go-Jun’s complexion drained of color.
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The stark power imbalance was palpable. A rabbit facing a tiger. Any slight movement towards his sword, and my strike would be swift. A predator’s teeth would be at his throat.
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"You should look before you stretch out your legs to lie down. What if you choose a wet spot?"
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Boom!
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A flick of my finger unleashed a burst of compressed air.
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With a sharp crack, a gust of wind surged toward the frozen Seok Go-Jun.
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Clang!
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His sword, once secured at his waist, clattered away, thrown by the force.
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Observing Seok Go-Jun's twisted expression and bulging eyes, I allowed myself a sly smirk.
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"What's wrong? Did you think I was going to kill you?"
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"Why?"
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"If you really wish to die, come prepared to die in secrecy, not set up a half-baked trap like today."
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My hand moved like lightning. Seok Go-Jun had no time to react.
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Bang! In quick succession, three blasts of wind cut through the darkness.
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Thump, thump, thump!
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In the distance, the faint sounds of bodies hitting the ground echoed.
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Three black shadows, each a highly skilled Hunter trained in stealth and cloaked in magic, fell unconscious, unable to evade my heightened Qi Sense.
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"Were you filming? You voyeuristic bastard."
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Click, click.
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I tutted, lightly tapping Seok Go-Jun’s cheek. Through his clenched teeth, a bitter, resentful voice emerged.
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"Do you think... you’ll remain safe after this?"
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"From you?"
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"We, the Ares Guild, will not fall. We will surely avenge his death..."
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Smack!
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Blood splattered, mingling with the harsh sound of gnashing teeth. I seized Seok Go-Jun by the collar, delivering another forceful slap across his face.
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Smack!
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Once more.
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Smack!
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And once again.
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Smack!
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Each strike was powered by the Heavy Hand Technique. [Note: direct translation - Internal Heavy Method.]
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The Qi infused within my palm didn’t rend his flesh or shatter his bones but instead burrowed deep, jarring his very brain.
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I tightened my grip on Seok Go-Jun's throat as he swayed, struggling to maintain his balance like a drunken man.
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"Pay close attention to what I'm about to say."
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"Cough…!"
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Blood frothed at his lips, splattering his face as he groaned. I stared at my reflection in his glazed eyes and continued in a voice devoid of emotion.
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"You started this, but I will end it."
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Ultimately, our world is dominated by the logic of power.
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Superhumans known as Hunters, or those with equivalent power, set their own rules according to their tastes and cheat without hesitation. No yellow or red cards are given, no matter what they do.
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Such was the norm, just as Lee Jeong-Ryong had once severed Mr. Rough Guy’s arms to maintain the balance of power.
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"You shouldn't have started this."
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With the arrival of a new enforcer, the game changes, and the new rules are brutally simple.
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I pressed a finger against Seok Go-Jun's Mute Point, whispering,
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"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."
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Grasping his arms, I twisted them as one might wring out wet clothes.
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Crunch!
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The horrific sound of tearing flesh echoed as his arms were forcibly ripped from their sockets.
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Blood gushed in torrents, his eyes rolling back in their sockets as silent screams escaped his sealed lips.
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"I'm not done yet."
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My fingers probed the jagged, torn stumps of his arms, the Scorching Yang Qi within my hands searing his flesh, amplifying his agony. I pinned down his convulsing form and grasped his ankles.
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"This won’t be enough for someone like you."
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Crack!
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With a force capable of pulverizing a thousand-pound boulder, the bones in his legs shattered, fragmenting into countless pieces.
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"…!"
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A silent struggle.
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I channeled Qi into Seok Go-Jun's body, immobilized by excruciating pain.
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As light flickered back into his dimming eyes, I pounded his shattered legs with relentless fists.
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Thud! Thud! Thud!
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When I finally ceased, the figure sprawled on the ground scarcely resembled a human anymore, but rather a battered mass of flesh.
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The weak gasps escaping from his nose and mouth were the sole evidence he remained among the living.
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The Skeleton King, a silent observer from the inventory, voiced his horror with a quiver:
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- H-human...
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I answered in a dry voice.
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"What?"
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- Ah, no. I mean...
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He faltered, his sentence trailing into silence, but his intention was clear without further words.
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"Yes, it's cruel."
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- ...
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"But it was necessary."
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The sheer helplessness, the pain so intense that death would be a mercy, a respite eagerly embraced.
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And the terror of knowing that such suffering could be inflicted again at any moment by their adversary's mere whim.
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These feelings had to be seared into the enemy's psyche, carved deep into their very bones.
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Of course, there was one straightforward solution to avoid any future complications:
​
‘Death.’
​
Unbidden, my fingertips began to twitch.
​
With minimal effort, a slight increase in pressure, I could end Seok Go-Jun’s life.
​
It was an opportune moment to eradicate even the smallest chance of reprisal.
​
But...
​
‘The timing isn't right.’
​
The doubts surrounding the truth do not disappear.
​
Just like the conspiracy theories that humanity first went to the moon or that numerous historical figures are still alive.
​
If Seok Go-Jun vanished following Lee Jeong-Ryong and Wu Hei-Xing, and I was found 'coincidentally' at the scene, the whispers about me would transcend mere conspiracy. I needed to nip this in the bud before these rumors could sprout.
​
At this moment, when the overwhelming power disparity and the dread I had instilled were at their zenith.
​
"I'll say this one last time."
​
"…!"
​
Seok Go-Jun's body tensed sharply. My words fell, each one deliberate and colder than ice.
​
"Let's end this with Lee Jeong-Ryong. Only him."
​
My breath, as searing as molten lava, brushed against him, causing his prone body to shudder.
​
Like a rabbit sensing the tiger’s fangs at its neck.
​
"Hide your teeth, conceal your claws. If you do that... nothing will happen."
​
Anyone who chooses the path of the killer must be prepared to face death.
​
Lee Jeong-Ryong was a formidable foe, the greatest barrier in my path, and he met his fate because of his actions.
​
What I propose now is not merely an offer of peace — it is an ultimatum.
​
And Seok Go-Jun had only one viable option left.
​
Swoosh.
​
His head gave a faint nod. As I peered into his eyes, awash with fear and resignation, I pressed his Sleep Point and retrieved several Top-grade potions from the inventory, applying them to his wounds.
​
Sizzle.
​
As I observed the rapid healing, I suddenly turned away.
​
"So... that's roughly what happened."
​
At that moment, the space around us shifted, revealing a large black man. Magic Johnson, his expression complex, met my gaze.
​
「I think we have a lot to talk about.」
​
"I think so too."
​
As our conversation resumed, the Skeleton King interjected softly.
​
- What about the club?
​
"It's a gay bar, man."
​
Previous Table of Contents Next

Mastering Mobile Car Detailing: Expert Tips and Tricks

Mobile car detailing is revolutionizing the way car owners in Tampa, FL, maintain their vehicles. This convenient service brings high-quality car care right to your doorstep, saving you time and ensuring your car looks its best. In this guide, we’ll share expert tips and tricks to master mobile car detailing, and discuss how Tampa’s unique weather conditions impact your vehicle. We'll also highlight the top 10 wealthiest neighborhoods in Tampa, where many residents enjoy the benefits of premium mobile detailing services.

Why Mobile Car Detailing in Tampa?

Tampa’s weather can be harsh on vehicles. The city experiences intense sunlight, high humidity, and frequent rain, all of which can damage your car’s exterior and interior. Mobile car detailing is not only convenient but also essential for protecting your vehicle from these elements. Regular detailing helps to preserve your car’s paint, interior materials, and overall condition.

Expert Tips and Tricks for Mobile Car Detailing

1. **Invest in High-Quality Products and Equipment**

To achieve professional results, use premium car care products and equipment. High-quality shampoos, waxes, polishes, and microfiber towels are crucial. Advanced tools like dual-action polishers and steam cleaners can make a significant difference in the detailing process.

1. **Follow a Detailed Process**

A structured approach ensures thorough and consistent detailing. Here’s a step-by-step guide:

• **Pre-Wash:** Rinse off loose dirt and debris.
  
• **Wash:** Use the two-bucket method with a high-quality car shampoo.
  
• **Decontamination:** Employ a clay bar to remove embedded contaminants.
  
• **Polish:** Use polish to eliminate minor scratches and swirl marks.
  
• **Protect:** Apply wax or sealant to protect the paint.
  
• **Interior Detailing:** Clean and condition the interior, including seats, dashboard, and carpets.
  

1. **Pay Attention to Detail**

Detailing is all about the finer points. Clean often-overlooked areas such as door jambs, wheel wells, and undercarriages. Use specialized brushes to reach tight spots and ensure every part of the car is immaculate.

1. **Use Proper Techniques**

Employing the correct techniques is crucial:

• **Washing:** Use the two-bucket method to prevent cross-contamination and reduce swirl marks.
  
• **Drying:** Pat the car dry with a microfiber towel to avoid scratches.
  
• **Polishing:** Work in small sections and use a dual-action polisher for even application.
  
• **Vacuuming:** Utilize a crevice tool for thorough interior cleaning.
  

1. **Protect the Interior**

The interior is as important as the exterior. Use high-quality cleaners and conditioners for leather seats, plastic trim, and carpets. UV protectants can shield the dashboard and other surfaces from sun damage.

How Tampa’s Weather Affects Car Detailing

Tampa’s climate presents unique challenges:

• **Sun Exposure:** Intense UV rays can cause paint to fade and interiors to crack and deteriorate.
  
• **Rain and Humidity:** Frequent rain and high humidity can lead to water spots, mold, and mildew.
  
• **Salt Air:** Proximity to the coast means salt in the air, which can accelerate rust and corrosion.
  

Regular detailing is essential to mitigate these effects. Using UV protectants, waxes, and sealants helps shield your car from the sun. Thorough cleaning and drying prevent moisture-related damage.

Top 10 Wealthiest Neighborhoods in Tampa

Residents in Tampa's affluent neighborhoods often seek premium mobile detailing services to maintain their luxury vehicles. Here are the top 10 wealthiest neighborhoods in Tampa:

1. **Davis Islands**
   
2. **Hyde Park**
   
3. **Bayshore Beautiful**
   
4. **Palma Ceia**
   
5. **Beach Park**
   
6. **Culbreath Isles**
   
7. **Sunset Park**
   
8. **Parkland Estates**
   
9. **Golfview**
   
10. **Harbour Island**
    

These neighborhoods boast beautiful homes and luxurious cars, making mobile detailing services highly sought after.

Conclusion

Mastering mobile car detailing involves using high-quality products, following a meticulous process, and understanding how local weather conditions affect your vehicle. In Tampa, where the climate can be tough on cars, regular detailing is crucial to maintaining your vehicle’s appearance and value. By implementing these expert tips and tricks, you can ensure your car remains in pristine condition.
Whether you live in one of Tampa’s wealthiest neighborhoods or elsewhere in the city, mobile car detailing offers the convenience and quality you need to keep your vehicle looking its best. Contact us today to schedule your professional mobile car detailing service in Tampa, FL.
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FAQs

**Q: How often should I detail my car in Tampa?**
A: Ideally, detail your car every 3-6 months. Tampa’s harsh climate may necessitate more frequent detailing to protect your vehicle from sun and moisture damage.
**Q: What are the benefits of mobile car detailing?**
A: Mobile car detailing offers convenience, personalized service, and high-quality results without needing to visit a detailing shop.
**Q: Can I detail my car myself?**
A: While you can detail your car yourself, professional services provide expertise, specialized equipment, and high-quality products that can achieve superior results.
**Q: What should I look for in a mobile car detailing service?**
A: Look for a service with positive reviews, experienced technicians, high-quality products, and transparent pricing.
By following these expert tips and leveraging the advantages of mobile detailing, you can master the art of car care and keep your vehicle in top condition, regardless of Tampa’s weather conditions.

Hello, a toilet in my house leaked during the day when we were out of the house, and a puddle formed in the bathroom. This eventually expanded, and water got under laminate flooring in the adjacent room. I would say 5 feet in each direction, when you walk on the laminate flooring, you can hear squishing. There’s also a spot where when you step on it, water pierces through and gets your foot wet. This happened yesterday. It doesn’t seem like a ton of water - maybe a gallon or two?
The previous home owner definitely installed the laminate flooring himself, and he never did anything correctly.
What do you recommend I do? It doesn’t seem like a ton of water. Will it eventually evaporate or get absorbed? There is a green water barrier under the laminate flooring.
Should I try to dry it somehow? Should I replace the flooring altogether?

~Rayray~
It felt frustrating in Chongqing. I was rather stuck in Hechuan. I got accustomed to lajiao (spice) there. I was a Midwesterner at the age of 22. I was raised in Illinois. I became a manic—a Ferris wheel on fire—I was hiding under a bed in a hotel. Bold like napalm. Sometimes I can never stop. Even when I was 18 in a ward arguing with staff. Always want to fight things. That’s why I refused the meds and went on a plane from America to China. I was going to be an English teacher. And like a light switch, the change and SSRIs turned me into a mess. It would be my first time experiencing psychosis. My biggest issue. I never imagined I would be stuck illegally in a country suffering a psychotic episode in my early twenties.
Transplanted as pollen. I was left with a backpack and a cellphone. With a downloaded app called WeChat. I had arrogantly quit a university job in a fit. Spent the past months full of energy and not sleeping and neglecting myself, including not eating, to work on a novel. Not considering myself normally religious, I had obsessed over occult ideas during that time. Spending nights reading Aleister Crowley—haven taken a rusty pocket knife to carve a pentagram on my chest for spiritual protection.
I did not have funds to fly home. My visa was connected to my previous job, which meant I had now made it void. I was an illegal resident now in China.
I used a nifty app called WeChat as a messaging app, it allows users to find people near them that are also looking for others. It was like a virtual pond. All kinds of people, including sex workers trying to make things happen.
It could with luck be used to find people looking for people in terms of other kinds of work. It was helpful on many occasions for finding gigs working at English training schools and also finding work as a private tutor for people.
WeChat also works as a digital wallet.
Mania makes me irritable. Enough to tell a boss to fuck off. Thoughts ricochet within me. Bumper cars collide.
Being stuck and angry sucks. I scrolled and scrolled on a Huawei phone.
Absolutely pissed off at this world.
Pissed at the times police wanted to take me away for being a mess.
Sometimes women get pissed. Scrolling through their phones. Angry at their cheating husbands. It really is not that hard to have flair—be a damn white oddity. Like moths to a porchlight. Particles of sand through hands. This is when I first started the habit of it…
I rather go by a rather empty name of Rayray… with further explanation needed but now is not convenient. But I assure it is interesting enough and has some importance.
Habits are various in nature in how they attach to and eat at marrow—like atom bombs flashing as rays evaporating DNA—sets in a way less than human as putting myself in the cage of bad things taken up—my time as a former heroin addict is left as stretch marks on me in various ways. The same goes for the first time I found myself making arrangements with middle aged married women while desperation of waves whiplashed me like sandpaper hands coming at me to leave me in a tiring state of abrasion.
I had spent a night snuck away into a hotel. Found someone on a business trip. Instead of registering I waited to sneak along into the hotel elevator amongst a group of others attending the hotel, as I had no card. I headed to a designated room number. Originally I was sitting in a park. Playing on WeChat and found someone in their mid-thirties. Pictures were exchanged and I said no. She brought up paying for the hotel if I arrived. I agreed and went along.
When I met I washed up after her and we used our phones to awkwardly translate what we would do.
Room service knocked. I found myself hidden under a bed as I was not registered to be there.
It seems unusual that it was around this time I had started working on a story of my life as a heroin addict when I got caught up in my worse manic episode ever experienced during my age of 22. Finished half that story before never going back to it after my manic episode had ended. Now I am here writing about it and wondering if the same can happen again in the process of this work.
It feels extremely cliché I would write a novel about struggles with heroin addiction. It has been done many times. It’s just lame of me.
I feel like my thoughts are bit off. I left the hotel the next morning with the little money I did have on a debit card. Turns out the woman was from Taiyuan. It is a city in the northern part of China in the province of Shanxi—coal country with the worst air pollution in China. She has a colleague in Taiyuan that takes courses at an English training center. I was able to contact this place in the morning via a shared contact on WeChat given to me by the stranger I met that night.
Before I knew it I was sending my information and documents in my backpack at an internet café in a fax—with the intent that the woman agreed to share my information to the training center as she shared my contact to its hiring manager. It would land me a job that day that would help me out of my situation. Things turned not quite out as I expected though. I was shifted like a ball to somebody else to contact for a training center geared to teaching children.
I took what I had and ran off to a train station after taking the public transit. Unfortunately I was shit for money and could not afford a high speed rail pass. The slow train would take thirty-two hours to get to my destination. I would have taken a room with a bed but all I could afford was a hard seat for the travel.
Things were getting better for me in the circumstance considering I had found someone willing to take me for work despite my visa situation.
The thirty-two hour train ride was horrendous in some ways, but mostly I was in excitement despite the circumstances. I’m always giddy when disappointed. I moved up and down the aisle of the train. I could not speak mandarin, but it did not stop me from trying to interact with everyone. I talked many ears off during the train ride. I went up and down the aisle trying to interact as a moth to porchlights—I could not stop even if I had wanted to. I found great enjoyment the times I did get to sit across a table from somebody my age heading to Taiyuan from Chongqing. They were a university student returning to their hometown. Another passenger who sat beside me was an elderly man with hard boiled eggs, he was eating one after another one. I highly enjoyed each and every conversation that I had. It was like my head was a lightbulb wanting June bugs to bang against it with the intensity of Roman candles shot at my mouth of nicotine tinged teeth.

“If you find someone in Shanxi it is practice to pay the family money before you can get married. You would also have to already own a home and a car,” told my new friend across in their seat from me—a university passenger friend named David.

“Not necessarily what I was looking for. When is the next stop for snacks?” When the train stops I am able to get out and to have a walk onto the platform to buy various goods from the vendors to take back with me to eat along the ride to Taiyuan.

I had all my important documents tucked in my bag. This included my health clearance and obviously I made no mention of my mental health diagnosis or history to the doctor who had to evaluate me. My diploma and TEFL certificate were tucked away securely. A TEFL is a certificate that stands for Teaching English as a Foreign Language, it qualifies me to teach English as a second language abroad—it had only took a few months of taking a course online that I had paid for to obtain.
It is easy to be happy when you can trick yourself as your own con artist. Mania can make you deceive yourself. One can be doused in napalm and still not fully recognize what is actually going on. Same goes the flicking of psychosis. Even when I have nothing I find myself in my radiating irritation the most qualified of things—the velocity of my rhythm sets me out of an orbit.
The pressure cooker keeps me moving like a propeller at times. I finally arrived at Taiyuan. I arrived at the station to be greeted by Ryan my manager and his assistant Jennifer. We had our hello and introduction and they helped me get to a taxi that would bring me to my new apartment. I finally had a residence again. Apparently they were desperate for a teacher. The last teacher was from New Mexico and apparently they pulled a midnight run—that is when a teacher in the middle of the night disappears onto a plane back home without any notification of it.
The apartment was okay. On the fourth floor with no elevator, so it was a bit of a climb up a dark stairwell not lit correctly.
My job was a training center that had a location near Yingze Park in the center of the city. I was to be paid in cash via envelopes. I would assist in teaching kindergarten all the way up to high school aged students there in private lessons paid by their parents. I would also be assigned by my company to various primary schools in the city. I would take public buses to various schools paid by the company I worked for to give English lessons as I bounced around to various classrooms and schools in the city. Often I would receive a phone call to avoid going to work that day if my boss got inside input that officials would be doing raids to check foreigners’ visas that day.

A taxi ride would always be a thrill. Caused me nerves at first, but I came to love the flying in dangerous ways along a busy road. I remember a driver beeping their horn away as they drove onto the sidewalk to pass people. They treated the pedestrians as if they were in the wrong. I came flying in front of a primary school at its front gates. I was going to start teaching a first grade classroom and a kindergarten classroom. The way schools are set up is with a wall around the entirety of the exterior of the school. There is a gate at the front where one or two security will be waiting to let people in and out of the complex of the school.

I walked in front of the gate to greet the security. It was my first time with an assignment at this school. The guard said they had never seen me before and wouldn’t let me in. Not a big nuisance while I called my boss who then called the school to sort out the situation.

I miss the classroom so much. I ended up teaching in China for five years at various training schools. After returning to Illinois, I still taught as a primary school teacher in a public school.

I often feel extremely ugly from inside to my outside, but something is attractive there. This does not come just in terms of flirting and relationships—mania makes me a genuine lightbulb that flickers in a way that encourages the insects to me—everyone looks like a June bug—this is what I have come to understand about life. But that ugly does kind of stay like rot in a cavity that leaves a bad taste in the mouth that smells foul—hoping nobody catches the smell near me—it must tie into my struggles with bulimia over the years.

The same goes for my years as a teacher—in relation to the whole lightbulb phenomenon—I’m positive it is tied to mania and hypomania. The younger students always were fixated on the information I was teaching to them. I kept over the years methods taught to me and self-taught that I found extremely effective with younger students when it comes to teaching.
Everything was physical in learning in terms of intensity and ambition. When teaching my first grade classroom I would create flashcards for the vocab we would work on and implement in creating new sentences with. We would chant these words together in a way that made me a clown while teaching. Students would yell out the word that I presented with intense enthusiasm. As I walked by students it was expected that while they yelled out the word they would also physically hit the card. Later I would also work on physical gestures and acting out of vocab words and they would follow the actions and phrases with me.
I would often eventually turn the class into two teams. When students got an answer right I would behave comically and full of energy—I would give them a high five and pretend they were so strong with it that it hurt my hand in the process with much exaggeration—the students always seemed to never get tired of this act.
One game I would play involved drawing two stick figures with happy faces on them. Each figure would represent one of the teams for the classroom. I would draw a hungry alligator under the figures. Their faces would also be comical in appearance and full of exaggerations. Each figure had a parachute placed over them and four strings attached. During the game the students would race to say the word correctly represented on the flashcard or the correct word for the gesture I was making. The team that was not the slowest would lose a string on the parachute. If a team lost all four strings they would fall to the alligator who would eat them. The students found it hilarious with my actions involved in it. I would also draw tears and a person praying to represent anticipation and worry of falling down each time they lost a string.
I had a tooth game too. I would draw too large faces for each team. The team that could answer the flashcards and gestures the quickest would have a tooth drawn in their mouth. The team with the most teeth would win and it would look rather funny as the mouth grew and grew with an abnormal and extreme amount of teeth.
I often did other physical and interactive games like having students run to the word I showed a card to or gestured—each word would be attached to a point in the classroom on a wall.
I know it sounds grandiose, but the parents always seemed to think I was great at my job.
The word vulnerable means so many things to me. That word is like the coal to form the generator that makes the guiding energy for the ethics I follow in my life—I hold very strongly to these values that have developed on how to live—I can express it more later but I greatly attach a kind of Christian value system to it, which makes sense considering I was raised in a Lutheran household and always went to church, Sunday school, and went to my courses and went through my confirmation—everyone is a bit of a mop—some pick up clean water and others dirty or a mix of it—waiting to find the people to drain them voluntarily or involuntarily. I was born vulnerable. I walk pigeon-toed and grew up tripping on my feet—I speak with a soft feminine voice. Bipolar disorder makes somebody vulnerable. There was much vulnerability in being eighteen and hospitalized involuntarily for my first manic episode—tied to a stretcher. I have almost a sense of us vs them—the vulnerable and those that harm the vulnerable—take advantage of the vulnerable—I feel this is a very much Christian in the idea of the unfortunate are more holy than the rest of the bunch—children are like that in terms of being born into a cruel existence—a cruel existence I felt at times in my life and so many do—making sure harm does not come to those in need gives the light of purpose to go bright inside like a Christmas tree in my brain—this light of happiness and warmth. I never expected I would fall in love for teaching due to the antidepressant effect provided. It would become my career for a decade. Some grow up wanting to be a teacher, I became one by accident, desperation, and being saved.
Sometimes I inflate on self-hate like a helium balloon that needs to be tied to a wrist to not float away.
In my early teens I started struggling with bulimia and image. I remember when my mother caught me in the act. I was not offered help but criticized. I was called a girl for my problems and threatened to be taken somewhere to be fixed of my confusion. I don’t identify as transgender. I identify as a man that struggles with bulimia and happens to have feminine qualities.
I attribute it to circumstances that happened to me—a justification for the pain at times—an attack on aspects of bisexuality.
After a long day of work I did what my young self often did. I went clubbing with friends. I feel like even if I hide aspects of myself such as being bisexual, people can spot it regardless. I’m extremely secretive about it and not comfortable displaying that vulnerable aspect of myself.
My friend from England went with me. He was about six years my senior. Big guy. Tall. The clubs name was Maoye.
I always enjoyed the free drinks available to foreigners—it was done to attract Chinese clients, as the idea was foreigners being there would attract people.
Amongst the hot and sweltering crowd a man grabbed ahold of me. I felt stuck. I was taken off guard. Pushed and cornered. While on me I managed to push him off. But it all serves as a reminder of the vulnerability of my life.
A nail was placed into my hand—a constant burn and reminder of that vulnerability.

Part 2
From self-hate I can also be so grandiose. I am like a Christmas tree that is lit up. Sparklers so pretty that you cannot let go of them, even if it burns your fingertips and hurts.

From heroin to sex, you can smother the pain. You drain the ocean to fill a void in these times. It ties to mania as well. That restlessness and irritability is extinguished by the paradox of throwing kerosene to everything burning. I’m so grandiose to hide my insecurities, I mistake my misfortune as a mark of something ugly virtuous—the neon of vulnerability pulsating like a star within me. Swelling on a pain.

Bad habits. I want you to judge me and tell me what’s wrong with me. Give me a verdict.
Stress a trigger for mania, and I was stressed from the incident I had experienced at the club. I bloated like a tick to distract from locusts of thoughts that could not shut up with their commotion.
I had been sleeping around more than before. My brain was Christmas tree lights. I accelerated on a generator—I made a mixed episode worse.
Tease a disaster when you are heightened like a blimp. Full of hydrogen. Hoping to burn up ad rain down like napalm.
When the pretty candles on the Christmas tree are left untouched—not looked at like a kettle on burner that has been forgotten—the dry neglected tree will into a house fire.
I’ve had four attempts in my life so far.
When I attempt I don’t cry for help. I feel too vulnerable. I’m afraid.
Hate police and wards.
Downing pills.
My past failed attempts made me aware of everything done wrong before. The sleeping pills alone might not do what I was looking for at that time. I bought an electrical cable. This way if it failed I would still be unconscious and choked out by the cord—fail safe plan to end my life.
The words coming out of my mouth slowed down. I started getting second thoughts. Stuck my face towards the toilet bowl while on my knees. Sticking my fingers down my throat. Leaving blood vessels bursting in my eyes.
Went stumbling outside and waved a taxi down and asked to be taken to the local hospital.
Never expected finding myself checked into a psych ward in a foreign country.
Nietzsche has a quote in reference to chaos in life and how it is needed to create a star—this reference holds so much value to me. Sometimes stars hit together just right to create fate out of the worst of things. The ward lead me to meet the woman made of paper. She would one day become my wife. I would have two daughters with her. Forge together as soldiers to face the obstacles in life. Someone who would save my life during a future attempt when I was found unconscious from an overdose. The smartest and toughest woman I have ever known. Someone to build trenches with.
I liked it when she stuck that needle in me for an IV. It must correlate to being a heroin addict. The pushing of something in my vein correlates to happiness and purity.
The woman made out of paper was my nurse in the ward I was stuck in. What attracted her to the mess that is me I will never understand fully.
The woman made out of paper is named Lilu. She was one year older than me and one of my nurses at that ward in Taiyuan. She was from Zhengzhou—a city in the province of Henan that is based in the center of China. I am sure as the reader it would be nice to know why I call her the woman made of paper.
She struggled with her own demons. She also deserves much praise for her resilience and brains. When she was born she was raised by a family that adopted her and often neglected and abused her growing up. Her biological family is distant from her, even though she has an identical twin—they felt too poor to take care of her and made the choice that they needed to be less of one child as she also has an older sister—her twin got to stay with that family but she was given up and adopted. I am sure this must bother her even if she never will talk about it to anyone in her life—as she is one to refuse ever discussing emotions and feelings, as this is not her personality type—she is very much a fighter. I think most would struggle with wondering why they were the one let go of—it also must hurt her knowing that the family would have a son and keep him.
Despite all these circumstances, she graduated top of her class of four thousand students—Chinese high schools can be quite large serving a large region—they often serve as boarding schools. She was a smart and hardworking student. Circumstances never made her stop trying to be the best and moving forward and she never made excuses for herself. In university she also did well and got accepted at the most studious and hard to obtain nursing position at the number one hospital in Shanxi.
I have already ranted and gone on about my affection and feelings tied to heroin. Drinking of entire oceans to fill voids.
Paper is a void. It asks for calligraphy to be written on it to make braille. This way when fingers run over skin to tell its worth—the reason for its troubles on display—it forms connection through those words of declaration—the whining for why things are the way they are—the filling of a void like a heroin addict needing a cure to cure kicking legs—two papers come together to write upon one another—as a paper I am her typo—I stand as a falling mess with nerves like tripwire, I keep failing and losing my composer, while she stands stronger as a declaration that has been written on me, my very own typewriter—when I was chased I listened to her and joined as one. I wish and intend to always serve the woman made out of paper who has saved my life and has always been there for me, being so strong despite circumstances—amongst the wind of turmoil in life I follow along her path like a sail.
It was love at first sight for her but not for me. I had no interest in dating her at the time. I worked across the street of that hospital in an office building for a training center as a part time job. I would teach adults English who paid for private lessons near to Yingze park in the center of Taiyuan. She signed up for classes for me to teach her and brought me food on almost every other day that she had prepared. Eventually we found ourselves coupled fully.
As paper we write on each other—eat each other.