Author of Scifi, Fantasy, and Romance
1093 posts
Kairaloi - Organized Chaos - Tumblr Blog
A faerie introduces himself. Then, holding out a hand, asks, āAnd your name, please?ā
And, like a fool, you give it to him.
5 more days!
Ahhhhhh! I'm so excited! My first contracted novel will begin on Oct 17th.
Part of Romance Splits is the real life things that married couples deal with. This includes kids and their teachers. In Beau and August's case it's the twin girls, their IEP (individualized education plan), and the teachers not following it properly.
Speaking as a parent, these little things take attention away from the relationship sometimes. This is not a kids suck the fun out of things comment but just a fact. We all only have so much energy and attention and time. And our kids (if you have them) take up a lot because they need it.
At the same time, parents want to set a good example for a healthy relationship because we want our kids to have one too. It's a hard balance.
Wonder how Beau and August will do <3
Light painting photography . Credit : Darius Twin
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Working at the mattress store generally means a lot of long shifts. Ten hour days are not uncommon. You come in, sit alone in a box for a long time, maybe sell a bed, itās fine. Itās not usually an issue of safety, though, because whoās coming in to shakedown a mattress store? We have no cash and nothing really portable.
But there was one night where I was whiling away my time and a guy came in. He was a big guy, muscular and very punk, tattoos, piercings, the works. We got along fabulously and while helping him a middle aged white couple came in. I was pleased to have a livelier night than Iād anticipated. I bounced back and forth between the disparate parties, eventually finding beds for both.
I finished sooner with the couple but they lingered uneasily by the front of the store instead of leaving and eventually beckoned me over. I trotted along to ask if everything was okay and the woman whispered to me that they were scared to leave me alone with the guy. It was getting late and he appeared quite menacing to them. I wanted to laugh, he was an absolute sweetheart, but instead I assured them that all was well and they could go.
They departed and I immediately told the guy what theyād said. We both had a hearty laugh over it. He finished his purchase and went on his way.
In the last hour, I had my final customer. A young white man in immaculate clothes, button down shirt with freshly shined shoes. Reader, I wanted to bolt. The man had the discordant energy of a cracked bell. Something was deeply wrong with his vibes despite his polished exterior. I desperately wished the nice couple would come hover in the doorway and stare.
I gritted my teeth and greeted him, projecting a friendly and unconcerned air. It seemed clear pretty quickly that he wasnāt actually that interested in getting a bed, which alarmed me even more. I tried to go through the process of fitting him for a mattress but instead he would segue off into telling me about his life while making unblinking eye contact. He asked probing questions about me. I longed for the nice punk man to come back in with a question.
I soldiered onward, visualizing my panic button and refusing to show the slightest hint of unease to him. Eventually he told me that he played piano. He asked if I would like to see a video of him playing piano. I said okay. He then turned his phone over and showed me his screen. In it, he sat staring directly into the camera while playing piano. Above the screen he stared with the same intensely unhinged energy in the video, two sets of serial killer eyes fixed on my tiniest reaction.
I smiled politely, pinned in place by social niceties. After an eon the video finally ended. It was clear he was not going to buy a bed. I insisted that I needed to lock up. He asked if he could stay for that. I firmly informed him he needed to leave for that. With reluctance he drifted out the door as I radiated calm assurance of my own safety and power, locking the door behind him. I turned out the lights and crouched behind the desk in the darkened store, peeking out to watch.
He sat in his car for a long time. But eventually he drove away. I darted out to my car and got home as quick as I could.
The encounter remains one of the most unsettling Iāve ever had in retail. In my decade of serving the public I helped a parade of characters from the harmlessly eccentric to the genuine creeps but this man truly frightened me unlike anyone Iād ever dealt with.
Chapters 16-18
Pretend like I market on here instead of forgetting...
Read Atrophy of the Eternal Forest for free on Tapas!! It's amazing, I swear
If youāve ever wondered how reposting hurts artists- yesterday I found a post from 2012ish featuring one of my Sherlock/Doctor Who pieces. That post had 17,604 notes. It wasnāt my post. My post of that art had 0 notes.
Apparently I saw the post once when it was at 6k because an artist I admired reblogged it, but at that stage I was very unwell & not experienced enough with Tumblr to realise what effect it might have.
Looking through the notes now I see that in the six years since then-
Several people got the design as a tattoo.
A number liked it enough to want custom designs but didnāt know how to contact me so thatās approximately Ā£300 I didnāt get a chance to earn.
Someone used that art in the front cover of a comic by accident and while the company fixed it after I contacted them thatās exposure that itās far too late to capitalise on now.
If you like an artwork that you find off tumblr, please, please I am begging you search for the artistās name and see if they do actually have a Tumblr you could reblogged from instead. If youāre an artist search your username(s) every so often to see if your work has been taken.
A few hundred quid might not seem like a lot, but thatās a few months of income for me
I was a pretty sickly kid. I'm a pretty sickly adult too I guess. But one of the issues I had was constant ear infections. I almost went deaf because I just had near continuous swelling and inflammation going on. I had tubes in my ears twice because they fell out the first time.
If you're unfamiliar that's where they put a tiny gauge in your inner ear to help force it open. It's meant to stop water getting trapped back there. I had to put wax in my ears before contact with pools, baths, showers, anything, for years, to prevent water from slinking through that narrow channel and festering long enough to spawn bacteria.
It was miserable. To this day my inner ear is blighted with so much scar tissue that every single ear exam the doctor goes, "Woah." You never want to hear a doctor say woah. It's never good.
Eventually my constant rounds of antibiotics and misery was pinned on my tonsils. A doctor declared there was just too much ick hiding out in there and they had to go. I was about five or six at the time. Having surgery as a little kid is already pretty scary but I was determined to be brave. I'd already had vacuum suction tools used on my inner ear weekly a practice so painful it's banned now. I was also promised a coveted troll dinosaur for good behavior.
So I walked tremulously into the hospital to have an organ removed. By all accounts I comported myself admirably. Afterward I was coming out of anesthesia quite slowly. The nurse was carrying me back to my parents when I rasped a whispery, "Knock knock," at her.
She paused and looked down at me, "What?"
A little stronger I repeated, "Knock knock."
She was shocked her tiny patient was trying to tell a joke while higher than a kite but dutifully said, "Who's there?"
"Adam," I said in a wavery little voice.
She leaned closer to hear me, "Adam who?"
I bellowed through my raw throat, still freshly bleeding from surgery, "Adam my way, I'm gettin' outta here!"
The nurse had to stop she was laughing so hard and she was in hysterics when she delivered me back to me parents, repeating the whole episode to them, turning their anxiety into delight that their doped up child was a comedy genius.
No one knew where I'd learned the joke, but it was a staple story throughout my childhood.
baotuquan趵ēŖę³, jinanęµå, shandong province in china by å”äøē¦
You know, when I see fictional characters who repress all their emotions, they're usually aloof and very blunt about keeping people at a distance, sometimes to an edgy degreeābut what I don't see nearly enough are the emotionally repressed characters who are justā¦mellow.
Think about it. In real life, the person that's bottling up all their emotions is not the one that's brooding in the corner and snaps at you for trying to befriend them. More often than not, it's that friendly person in your circle who makes easy conversation with you, laughs with you, and listens and gives advice whenever you're upset. But you never see them upset, in fact they seem to have endless patience for you and everything around themāand so you call them their friend, you trust them. And only after months of telling them all your secrets do you realizeā¦
ā¦they've never actually told you anything about themselves.
fun fact about me is that when i was a kid id write capital Eās with as many of those little horizontal lines as possible and id call them ladder Eās and adults fucking hated them