Strip club near

am new to taking these tests. I happen to have the clear blue advance test strips that I had bought a while back. I randomly started using them last month. Last month I got no flash smiles but a solid smiley at around day 14. Does this mean that I am ovulating on day 15 or day 14? This month I got the same thing. Except that I got one flashing smiley on day 13. Usually cycle is either 28 or 29 days. We had sex every day from day 9(hubby was in the mood this early) till day 16. This was quite tough for us because hubby tends to be really in the mood towards the beginning of the fertile week but then starts getting very tired as the actual important time comes near lol. Help a girl out!!

I don’t even really like antiques, is the thing. My vision for my apartment—the first place I was ever living in on my own, a studio—was an uncluttered, modern kind of vibe. The place I was moving from had enough old shit in it. Not antiques, per se, but it was the kind of roommate share apartment that had been passed down from roommate to roommate since anyone on the lease could remember, and everything was a hand-me-down or something that a former resident had left behind when they upgraded to a new living situation.
Unfortunately, the cost of the safety deposit and first month’s rent and movers and all the other nonsense that comes with moving had really wiped out my savings, so as much as I wanted to live that Shiny New Apartment Life I was in fact browsing local thrift stores for new furniture. My favorite find was an extremely retro-looking armchair upholstered in green velvet. I didn’t have a couch yet, but since I was living alone it didn’t seem like too much of a priority. At another store, a few weeks later, I found an old 70s stand mixer in the exact same shade of green—convenient since my living room was also my kitchen was also my bedroom. To complete the midcentury vibe, in a third thrift store I found a really cool old mirror. It was big and round, with gold spikes radiating out from it like light from a child’s drawing of the sun. Little did I know at the time—well.
The problem was hanging it up. I admit I’m not much of a handy…woman? Handyperson? My go-to wall art solution is command strips. But this mirror was pretty heavy, and it would also be ideally situated above my tv, so I bought a wall hanging kit and watched about a thousand YouTube videos about drywall anchors. I was feeling very empowered by the end of my home improvement YouTube binge: I was a competent modern woman living in my own apartment! Surely I would be able to tackle any possible hurdle life could throw at me! I got out the little toolkit my dad had gifted me when I first decided to live on my own and pulled out the hammer, feeling the weight of it in my hand while looking resolutely at the spot on the wall where I was going to hang the mirror.
It did not go great. By the end of my efforts I was covered in plaster dust, my fingers were throbbing, and I had busted a half-inch hole directly in the middle of the white wall in a location that would be impossible for the building manager to miss when he was deciding whether to give me my safety deposit back when I eventually moved out. I guess it doesn’t matter whether it’s “handywoman” or “handyperson” because I am not either one.
I ended up securing the mirror to the wall with about ten command strips, then subsequently realized I hadn’t accounted for the height of my tv stand and I would have to shift the whole thing up the wall by about a foot and a half.
After having a little cry and some well-deserved takeout, I set the mirror on the floor and abandoned the project for the night, promising myself that the spot on the floor would NOT become the mirror’s permanent home.
It absolutely did.
It was summer, the busiest season at my job, and I was working long hours and coming home absolutely exhausted most evenings. On my days off I preferred to curl up in my armchair watching Netflix rather than attempt more home improvement projects. My one living-alone indulgence was that I adopted a cat.
He’s a dignified older gentleman of a cat, gray and white, with a little marking on his chest like he’s wearing a badge or something. That’s where his name came from: I call him The Admiral. I had meant to call him something else, but that’s what stuck. It amused me to say to my coworkers, “I have to get home to The Admiral,” or, “The Admiral woke me up early this morning.”
The Admiral is a great companion—I still have him, of course. He spent most of his time in the apartment getting fur all over my armchair even though I bought a cat tree for him to climb on. Being a distinguished older gentleman, he doesn’t play with cat toys very much, but when I was living there I noticed that sometimes he would focus on the inner wall of the apartment. He didn’t much care about the walls with windows, that opened onto the courtyard of the building, which I thought was weird, because I could usually see birds flitting between the branches of the trees in the courtyard. No, The Admiral was fixated on the wall of my little apartment that butted up against the rest of the apartment building. The one with the mirror leaning against it.
The mirror was still propped against the wall, its wide shining surface reflecting nothing in particular: just the empty place where the opposite wall met the ceiling. Sometimes, when I was watching tv, I caught movement there out of the corner of my eye, but I always managed to convince myself it was just shadows. The bigger problem was the noises: sometimes while lying in bed if I strained my hearing I thought there were tiny skittering or scratching noises in the walls. They were quiet enough that I always decided that it was my anxious imagination, coming up with ways to stress about this otherwise amazing living situation. I didn’t know what any of my neighbors’ apartments looked like, only that the building was a prewar one that had been haphazardly renovated over the years. I couldn’t even really tell the dimensions of the apartment that was next to mine. I had been nervous that I would be annoyed by the faint sound of my neighbor playing music or something, but I didn’t ever hear any human noises through the wall, just the scratching. Gross as it was, I figured there were probably mice.
Spooky mirror and possible mice aside, I truly loved living alone. No roommates waking me up coming back drunk from the bar, no unwashed dishes in the sink, no one moving my stuff without my knowing it. Well… mostly. Every once in a while I would come home with the sense that things in my home were slightly different, my little trinkets disturbed, the piles of half-worn not-quite-dirty-yet clothes disarrayed where they were draped over the back of my chair. Times like this The Admiral was always meowing like crazy, weaving anxiously around my feet and butting his head against my calves, and he would sleep in bed with me afterwards, too, which he usually didn’t like to do. But apart from these few incidents I loved living alone, I loved my cat, and I loved the freedom of never wearing pants in my apartment.
As the summer came to an end, my job finally stopped being so chaotic and I took a few well-deserved days off. Although initially I had had the vague idea of going on a trip somewhere, all I really wanted to do was watch tv and cuddle my cat so I decided to stock up on snacks and have a staycation. Those first few days were glorious: I slept late, ate junk food, and spoiled the hell out of the Admiral, giving him extra treats all day and not chasing him off my green chair even though he was getting fur all over it.
I guess that was what I noticed first: even though The Admiral was getting extra treats, he was still spending a lot of time staring at the wall of my apartment that had the mirror leaning against it. It seemed ridiculous that this cat, who didn’t even care about the birds flying just outside the windows, would be so fixated on the mice or whatever was living in the walls. I often found my eyes drawn to the mirror, the unassuming face of it reflecting a simple view of the white wall and ceiling. There was never movement there… at least, not when I was looking directly at it.
Anyone who has ever lived alone with a cat knows that you spend nearly your whole life in one-sided dialogue with the cat. “Do I not feed you enough? Are the expensive organic salmon treats not to your taste, your Admiralship? Are your hunting instincts so refined that you are compelled by the sounds within the wall, even though you are living a luxurious life here?” I would jokingly ask him. Sometimes he would look up at me and meow urgently, his eyes enormous, as though trying desperately to tell me something—but how was I supposed to know what?
I spent most evenings of my little staycation curled up in my chair, watching tv, wearing whatever ugly, comfortable oversized lounge clothes I had lying around. After so much time at work the past few months it was bliss to finally be alone. The Admiral usually laid in his bed next to my chair, close enough that I could reach over and pet his head from time to time. That is—usually. Sometimes he would go full Halloween cat, back arched, tail puffed up, ears flattened back, growling low in his throat. Always while facing that same wall, the one behind the tv, with the mirror leaning against it, marred halfway up by the big hole I had accidentally poked in the drywall. Even though I had attempted to repair the hole the broken bits had eventually all fallen out of the hole, so that its jagged edges framed the inky blackness of the inside of the wall. It embarrassed me to look at evidence of my failure so I usually avoided looking at it, but for whatever reason my eyes were drawn to it this time—and it wasn’t blackness that I saw.
It was a glimpse of white.
The white of an eye.
I startled and jumped out of the chair. The Admiral was freaking out, growling with a ferocity I had never heard before. I knew I wasn’t imagining things, because The Admiral was never this upset. But I didn’t know what to do. It seemed silly to call the cops. “Hello, 911, I maybe saw something in a little hole I accidentally poked in my wall trying to hang up a mirror, and also my cat is flipping out, can you send your best officers?”
Yet there was no way in hell I was staying there that night, so I got the Admiral into his cat carrier and stayed in a god damn hotel room. Yes, I smuggled my cat into a hotel room. What was I supposed to do, leave him there?
It was a miserable night. I was anxious, The Admiral was anxious, and the less said about how I improvised a litter box in a hotel room, the better. The next day I steeled my nerves and asked a friend to come investigate my apartment with me. I apologized, said it was probably nothing and I was being silly, but fortunately he was understanding.
I realized I looked ridiculous waiting for my friend outside my apartment building. The only clothing I had was the faded and stretched-out old band t-shirt I had been wearing when I fled the night before and the lounge pants I had hastily thrown on before opening the door. I crossed my arms over my chest uncomfortably, very aware that I wasn’t wearing a bra.
Thankfully, when my friend Ben showed up, he looked deadly serious. We had talked on the phone last night, and I guess he had realized from the tone of my voice how scared I truly was. He had brought with him a big flashlight and, to my amusement, a crowbar, as though he was ready to fight any intruder we might encounter.
The apartment looked the same as ever, not even with that feeling of my stuff being moved that I sometimes had. I clutched the cat carrier to my chest as Ben looked around, shining the flashlight into my kitchen cabinets, under my bed, into my closet. I had just managed to convince myself that The Admiral and I had both been seeing things the night before when Ben went over to the wall with the mirror and leaned over, peering at the hole in the plaster.
“Hey, I don’t want to scare you,” he said, scaring me.
My grip tightened on the cat carrier as Ben pressed his face against the wall, shining the flashlight at an oblique angle toward the hole so that he could see inside.
“What,” I whispered.
“It looks like someone’s been… living back here.”
Well, we did call the cops after that. It was surreal to be sitting on my bed, still holding the cat carrier, with Ben’s sweatshirt draped over my shoulders, as the cops poked around the apartment and said very matter-of-factly that it looked like a human being had indeed been living in the little space beside my wall. There were pillows and blankets and lots of snack food wrappers strewn about. I remembered the scratching noises I had thought I heard while lying in bed and felt sick. It wasn’t a mouse: it was someone peeling the wrappers off candy bars while spying on me.
The police report did make it easy for me to break my lease without penalty, thank god, and I’ve temporarily moved in with Ben while I try to find a new living situation. It’s not ideal, but The Admiral hasn’t had any freakouts since we moved in here, so I think it’s safe.
​
I’ve been extra careful to check my new room’s walls for holes, though.

I have been a silent reader for a while now. I have been with him for 5 years and we broke up.
Here is some context... We started talking since we were 15, started dating when I was 20. The one thing when we started dating was that I could not move to his country (usa)? So he would have to move to mine (canada). In the beginning he said it was okay. During the first two years of our relationship, we were good, but at that point I was struggling with mental health that i did not know i have. I would lash out sometimes, but immediately apologize and we would make up. ( i know I'm a terrible person, I've been told it enough). He normally had patience for me, but after a while you can only take so much, and I understand that.
Anyways, in November of 2020 my depression got really bad. I attempted to unalienable myself, but was unsuccessful. I was admitted to the hospital. From there I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. He then broke up with me in February 2021, then back together the end of March. When we got back together it appeared he wanted nothing to do with me. He never wanted to hangout, call, game, nothing. August 2021, I went manic and broke up with him. I was not in a good mental state and I thought he didn't love me. He wanted nothing to do with me. I thought I was nothing to him. I was hanging out with my friends a lot and their brother. His brother would bring his friend around and I would drive him home. One night he drank too much and kissed me. I knew right then and there I did not want anything to do with this person. Mind you this was month after the break up. During this time he was trying to get back with me, but I was still manic and hurt.
Anyways, we got back together in November and he flew to see me. He went through my phone and seen what happen. I know I was in the wrong for not telling him, but everyone around me said not to tell him. I'm dumb. So, we were together for about 8 months, and things changed again. He started making excuses to not hang out with me and he was different. I was unhappy. We broke up again.
We got back together and then we broke up today. The last few months of us being together he was telling me how miserable he was. I was trying to make things work. He would only give me about 15 hours throughout a whole week to talk/hangout. He priorizied the gym, we only talked when he wanted to talk, we only hungout when he wanted to hangout. Again, in the last few months he would tell me how unhappy he was, that he dreaded hanging out with me (at this point i was begging for attention and asking if he still loved me and stuff. I probably would have gotten annoyed too), he said he wouldn't tell his coworkers we were dating because he was embarrassed of me (because we broke up three times and didn't want to keep telling people we broke up and got back together), he said I was holding him back from progressing in life, he said more hurtful things, but I don't want to type it.
The original plan was for him to move here because I have medical issues and without good insurance in the states it would cost an arm and a leg. So then, he said that if my medical monthly bill was too much that he would break up with me because we couldn't afford it. This hurt me. I cannot control my chronic conditions. The reason he would not move here because he didn't trust me. I would let him go through my phone, I always had my location on, and I would send him snaps of the people I would be talking to. I even asked if he wanted my passwords to my socials to prove I wasn't cheating. I would never cheat on him. Not in a million years, but he considers a person kissing me a month after the break up me cheating. But yet! In 2022 when we broke up he went to a strip club spent 350 on a dancer 2 days after we broke up (strip clubs were a no no in our relationship). To make all this worse he knew he didn't want to be with me for a while, but he didn't want to lose me so he stayed until he was ready to let go. I feel so hurt.
I feel like this is all my fault, that if I was mentally stable enough that he would have stayed. All I do is cry. I'm even crying this as I'm writing this.
I'm sorry for the long post! Thank you for reading.
Anyways!! I will be leaving this sub. I hope all of you have a successful relationship and everything works out the way it's supposed to!!

I have really found it frustrating that some of the commenters and posters here have (in my opinion) what are extremely out of touch and sometimes even elitist opinions and takes. Some of these include:

• Gatekeeping the Costco Membership: Claiming that only Costco members should be allowed to shop at Costco, even if the person has a gift card; Advocating for Costco to restrict their IC marketplace to members only though a surcharge for non-members is already in place; treating Costco membership as membership to an exclusive club. For god's sake, it's just an entry fee.
• Requesting members be banned for small infractions: asking for members who leave cold food out to be tracked down on the cameras and immediately banned on 1st offense (an extremely unreasonable request); asking for people who leave shopping carts out to be banned
• Championing heavy-handed and discriminatory-towards-poor tactics to shoplifting: supporting LEO/Court involvement in small-dollar thefts which waste taxpayer money and divert necessary funds from actual diversion and rehabilitation budgets. Overlook the fact that being arrested has more serious implications for a small crime.
• Not understanding poverty: claiming that people on food stamps will slow down the lines because "they won't be able to pay for all that merchandise" and "cause trouble", not fully supporting equal access programs
• Overly defending a publicly traded company/treating it like a Co-Op/"Thou art holy" attitude: defend it on things like higher prices/markups as being at-cost (i.e claiming everything is nearly at cost and no more than 15% markup, which was never promised at all by corporate); claiming a person/thing is increasing prices for everyone by doing some action; calling otherwise legitimate returns fraudulent behavior without knowing the full picture. Acting as if Costco is the most ethical company of all by overlooking the fact they also shortchange their suppliers like most giants in the retail business; defending overselling of Exec membership to people who don't want it as a way to earn rewards and claiming refund of additional charge is easy (which it is no longer)
• Member elitism and snootiness: Looking down on Walmart shoppers or mocking their behavior (note that Walmarts are also built in poor areas), assuming Costco is the only place with civilized people, claiming that Costco members are held to higher standards than at other warehouse clubs/stores; refusing to submit to receipt inspections at other stores, considering being banned from Walmart for refusing a receipt check to be "an honor," disrespecting salespeople with snide remarks/facial gestures even if they have not been provoked first
• "If you don't like it, go to Walmart/Sams Club": criticisms will sometimes be met with this nonproductive statement, and they are not receptive to any type of valid criticism and use this line to end an argument.

The boy next door is no longer an enigma.
No longer a mystery.
For the last few days, I have been laying low after Mrs Wilder kidnapped and threatened me in my own home. I’ve had barely any sleep and my lack of it has definitely disrupted my ability to write. I’m sorry if this update is messy or full of typos. I just don’t know what to do.
I’ve been a mess. I’ve been jumping at every movement. Every time there’s a knock on the door I feel part of myself splinter into pieces I can’t put back together. I did something crazy stupid two days ago. And that stupid mistake has fully exposed me to Mrs Wilder’s secret. What she is hiding behind her walls—and just how fucked I truly am if I disobey her again. Like I said, over the last several days I have been keeping my head down.
I went to school and did my homework and went to bed. That was it. When mom asked if I was talking to any Wilder kids, I shook my head. I had quickly grown afraid of Casper Wilder’s window. I knew something was wrong with him.
Something is wrong with his head.
He had told me. At least, the part of him which was bleeding between consciousness and a submissive state not being controlled by his psychotic mother. I saw him. I saw who he really was. I saw the boy next door crying out to me for help through bloodied fingers and cryptic messages splattered in scarlet. If he had intentionally hurt himself to get messages across to me, there was something he was fighting.
Mrs Wilder’s words were haunting me. The paper-doll rendition of me, blackened and smouldering orange between her nimble fingers-- I couldn’t get it out of my head.
So, I grabbed all the paper I could find and taped up my window, blocking him out. It sounds ridiculous. And it was. Because once I had spent over an hour feverishly taping pieces of paper over my window, I tore them down with a knot in my gut. When I clawed away the last piece of paper, I got a glimpse of Casper. His curtains were open, allowing me to see inside his room once more.
I saw a normal guy’s bedroom once again, guitars leaning against the walls, clothes strewn over the floor and sketchpads littering the bed. Warm light illuminated the window, and I wished what I was seeing was normal.
I wished I had seen nothing bad, and this was just the boy next door.
My completely normal neighbor.
But I couldn’t deny what I’d seen two nights ago. Casper Wilder wasn’t standing at his window with a twisted expression, a cocktail of pain and anger and confusion burning in mismatched eyes I was sure glinted with something metallic. Something man-made—which had been inserted, no, forced inside him.
I expected him to be awake. Even if it was just a single look in his eye which told me he was still there—still holding on. No. It was like nothing had ever happened. The window had been cleaned of blood, and there were no traces of the boy who had cried out for help. In his place was the Wilder son I had found friendship with. Before he cracked, and something inside him, something buried deep, deep, down, ignited. I missed that version of him. Who he used to be.
Because this guy was not Casper Wilder. I didn’t know who he was—and neither did he from the way he’d reacted days before. Underneath this name being forced onto him, there was nothing.
Just a broken kid with no name. No memory, except ones filled with her. I missed the personality Mrs Wilder was trying to hide. Who had told me she wasn’t his fucking mother, and sworn at me, his writing erratic and confusing, clawing into his head with this desperation to be let go.
Seeing him through the window at that moment, I realised, a sickly paste crawling up my throat, that all of that had been erased. He had returned to default. Casper was sitting on his bed playing guitar with a look of content, bed hair falling in sleepy eyes. He was wearing his glasses this time. His fingers moved up and down, feet bouncing to a beat I couldn’t hear.
Stumbling back, I tripped over my backpack with a shriek, which caught Casper’s attention.
When his head twisted around, empty eyes floating towards the window, I ducked. I couldn’t stop myself. After counting to ten, I slowly lifted my gaze.
He was still staring at me, and I noticed he’d stopped playing the guitar, fingers entangled in the strings. Casper’s smile had dimmed slightly. I wondered if seeing me brought something back. Maybe he remembered writing his own bloody messages on the window and trying and failing to speak through his mother’s control. The boy blinked at me before slowly getting to his feet. I didn’t see the chord thing this time. Casper strode over to the window, a giddy smile curling on the edges of his lips.
He pressed his palm against the glass, and I was already grabbing my notepad and a pen. But then his mother’s words sliced through my thoughts. I was back inside my lounge, foggy headed, the stink of pool cleaner still thick at the back of my nose and throat.
Mrs Wilder loomed over me, my paper-doll she had ravaged sticking from the doll-house on mom’s coffee table constructed from our letters. “I hope you understand that if you talk to, or even breathe the same air as my children again, I will rip you apart too.”
Her breath was heavy in my face. I couldn’t help looking at Mrs Becker for help, but her eyes were equally as cruel. I watched perfectly manicured nails pick up one of the four Wilder dolls, making it dance around in circles.
“Do you understand me, Phoebe?”
“Yes.” I said, my words twisted on my tongue.
“I… I understand.”
The memory was painful enough to feel physical knives digging into my gut. Mrs Wilder had made it clear that if I pursued her children, she was going to hurt me. Mom, too. I dropped my notepad and pen. Casper was still smiling at me. His eyes were vacant. He had no idea who I was after months of us talking. Mrs Wilder had taken all of it away. Including him breaking apart and waking up as a confused shell with no name. “Hello.” Casper’s lips mouthed the words, and I took several steps back, my heart in my throat.
He didn’t even blink. I watched his expression fail to flicker and wondered just how the fuck had I never noticed there was something wrong with him in the months I knew him. I watched him search his desk for a notepad and pen. Maybe seeing me was unravelling something inside him, I thought. Maybe I could try and wake him up again. At the back of my mind, however, I could still see my little paper doll’s head being torn off, its body ripped apart.
“What’s your name?” Casper had written in bubble writing. It’s like everything had been reset. His frenzied and wild eyes, that desperation to escape. Gone.
His handwriting was boiling my blood. Just looking at this perfect calligraphy which wasn’t even his. It had been forced onto him. Because Mrs Wilder expected this boy to be the perfect son, a creative prodigy like his siblings. I looked for a splinter in his eyes, just a glimpse that he was still in there. Still fighting whatever his ‘mother’ had done to him. But I saw nothing. I saw a blank fucking slate.
“Phoebe.” I mouthed.
Inclining his head, he scribbled a follow up message. “Can you write it down?”
Swallowing a lump in my throat, I shut my curtains, blocking him and his message out. Then I jumped into bed, turned off my light, and dreamed I was that paper-doll with no mouth to scream with, as Mrs Wilder slowly tore me limb from limb. The next day felt like a blur. I don’t think I snapped out of it until mom poked me with the prongs of her fork, tearing me from a scenario I was going over in my head.
If Casper was a prisoner, were his siblings too? I’d only caught a glimpse of Issac and Freddie Wilder. Mrs Wilder talked of being pregnant with four children. But she spoke like she had lost them. So, my guess was that she had kidnapped four teenager’s in their place—and was raising them as her dead children. “Are you okay, honey?”
Mom’s voice slid through my thoughts, and I realised I had been pushing my pasta around my plate. I wasn’t really hungry.
Mom had made this sort of red pepper spaghetti, but every time I tried to take a mouthful, I was seeing spatters of scarlet running from Casper’s temples, dripping down his face and smudged on the glass of his window. THUD. The image of him slamming his head into the pane, wild eyes and twisted lips, an agonising panic bringing him to the edge of hysteria caught me off guard, and my fork slipped through my fingers, tomato sauce slowly creeping its way back up my throat.
Fuck. I couldn’t forget about him. I couldn’t leave him and block him out after his mother had threatened me. Because if I didn’t help him, who would? It was my word against the town.
Mom cleared her throat
“Phoebe, are you listening to me?”
“Huh?”
“I said, have you been abiding by the rules?” Mom twirled pasta around her fork and took a dainty bite. Since joining Mrs Becker’s book club I had noticed a certain gleam in her eye. Like she was looking through me. “You haven’t been talking to the Wilder children, have you?”
“No.”
After three mouthfuls of spaghetti, I ended up with half of my dinner dripping down my face.
Mom grabbed a napkin, handing it to me. “Clean yourself up. You are seventeen, not seven.” Her expression softened. “Sweetie, are you okay?”
“Yes.” I said, struggling to appear it. I knew she could see my sleep circles.
“Have you been talking to the Wilder kids? I’ll know if you have.”
Technically, I had been communicating with him. But it was one-sided.
Still though, paranoia turned my thoughts against me. Shovelling down spaghetti, I spoke through a mouthful. “No.”
She handed me another napkin. “So, if I talk to Mrs Wilder…”
“Mom.” I grabbed her hand, squeezing it for dear life. Mrs Wilder knew, I thought dizzily. She must have known Casper’s attempt to talk to me, even if he was exactly who she wanted him to be. Still under her demented control. But it was confusing me just how she had that control. This wasn’t a movie or a TV show.
Mind control didn’t exist, right? And if it did, it was barely even a thing—induced by cocktails of drugs and torture. Casper didn’t look like he’d been tortured.
Except that thing inside his head… my thoughts grew foggy, and I was suddenly overcome with emotion. What I meant to tell her was all about what I had seen, and what Mrs Wilder had done to me. Though knowing what the woman was capable of, and thinking about that chord-like thing which surely had been forced into the back of Casper Wilder’s skull… “Can we just…move?” I choked out. “I want to move. I hate it here.” I gestured around.
“I hate this house. It’s too big, I feel like I’m lost every time I go upstairs. I hate school. The kids there freak me out.” Holding her gaze, I curled my lip. “And I hate our stupid neighbors.”
“Phoebe.” Mom’s tone darkened. “What did I tell you about being respectful?”
“It’s not like they can hear us!” I spat. “Did they fit cameras in here, mom? I wouldn’t be surprised! We’re under draconian rules!”
“Young lady, you are acting like a child.” She said stiffly. “Take several deep breaths and tell me what is wrong.”
“I’m fine.” I whispered.
“No, you are not.” Mom sipped red wine. “I know when there is something wrong with my daughter, and you cannot look me in the eye.”
I took a sharp breath and forced myself to stay calm. “Mom.” I sputtered through a sob. “It’s Mrs Wilder. She… she did something to me.”
Mom’s expression twisted. “What?”
“The other night,” I forced out. The images were flooding my head. Smouldering orange tearing its way through paper white. “She knocked me out, and she had this… dollhouse. And four paper dolls.”
I heaved out a breath. “She threatened me, mom. Mrs Wilder threatened me, and I need you to believe me.” I grabbed for her hand again, my own trembling. “Casper Wilder is not her son.” I said. The words felt foreign on my tongue. Wrong. They felt like a time bomb. “I think she kidnapped him. All of them. And she’s brainwashed them into thinking they’re her real kids.” There was a pause, and my mom’s expression didn’t change. So, I continued. “We need to call the police.” I reiterated. “Okay? You’re listening to me, aren’t you?” I swallowed sobs wracking my chest. “Because… you’re my mom. And you’re supposed to believe me.”
She surprised me with an eye-roll. “You are being ridiculous.”
THUD.
It felt like the walls were suddenly closing in. I could smell the stink of pool cleaner and Mrs Wilder’s perfume intoxicating my senses.
THUD.
I was seeing Casper slamming his head into his window once again, his eyes alive with a light I couldn’t understand. Like something was entwined inside his pupil.
THUD.
“Help me.”
God, it wouldn’t stop.
His voice. It was driving me crazy.
“I don’t know who I am.” Casper’s sobs echoed. “I don’t… I don’t fucking know who I am! I can’t remember… I can’t remember who I am!”
I could see his words clear in my mind, red scrawled against white until they were barely readable.
WHO.
AM.
I?
WHO AM I? WHO AM I? WHO AM I? I DON’T KNOW WHO I AM. THAT WOMAN IS NOT MY MOM.
I was going to be sick.
“Mom,” The words were choking from my mouth before I could stop them. I didn’t mean to sound so childlike, but that is exactly what I felt like. A child. I was alone. Drowning.
Looking at my mother’s curled lips, her eyes burning right through me, I felt myself start to come apart.
Like that stupid doll.
“Mom, please—”
She cut me off with a snort. “What? Is this because you're not allowed to talk to the boy next door? You’re creating your own narrative, and it’s… endearing. Childlike, but you are a child after all." Mom chuckled. “Sweetie, I know you love your mysteries, and sure, I can understand the cliché Romeo and Juliet thing going on, but really, there are plenty more fish in the sea. You don’t have to make up ridiculous scenarios.”
I let go of her hand, my toes curling. They didn’t sound like her words. They were someone else’s.
What was she talking about, ridiculous scenarios? Did my mother really think I was capable of imagining all of this shit?
I couldn’t reply. Not when part of me wondered if these were even her words. I had a strong suspicion my mom was just a puppet.
Like someone was talking through her.
“Do you like him?” Mom pressed. In her eyes, I could see Mrs Wilder was asking that question. “Is that why you’re being so… “ She trailed off with a sigh, and I glimpsed her fingers tighten around her wine glass, pressing enough pressure to leave marks on the rim. “Difficult?”
Mom’s lips splintered into a grin which wasn’t hers, and something inside me snapped. She was joking around.
When Casper was suffering, a prisoner of his own mind, my mother was treating me like I was fucking love-sick.
"No!" I shook my head. “No, I want to move.” I whispered. “I want to go back to our old house.”
“That’s not going to happen, sweetie. You know I can’t just leave my job. Phoebe, you’re a senior at school. You have SAT’S.”
“But—"
Her expression softened. “You’ll grow to like it. Don’t worry.” She said, before standing up and carrying our plates to the faucet. “I have a late shift tonight, so I expect your best behaviour.” I barely felt mom press a kiss to my forehead.
Her presence felt strange, like I wasn’t even seeing my mother. After what she said, I was sure her words were being pupiteered. When mom went to work, after yelling that there were leftovers on the counter, I was left with the soundtrack of a stupid dripping tap, and our humming refrigerator. I made several promises to myself in the time I was in the kitchen.
I would save Casper and his siblings, and then I’d force mom to drive all of us out of town. There were logistics I didn’t want to think about. These were feverish thoughts which controlled me. I had to get them out of that house. Time seemed to go by slowly. When I lifted my head from where I’d been staring at leftover meatballs I dropped onto the table, my phone vibrated in my jeans. Pulling it out, there was a DM regarding my post I wrote on here.
I read it. Then I read it again and again until I could process it.
“Film it. Literally get evidence of what is going on with Casper. You need people to believe you. And if people are going to believe you, you need to make a scene. If you want that house stormed, make as much noise as possible. I know it sounds stupid, but think about it like this. All you need is attention. Mrs Wilder can’t hide from the world if you show the world what’s going on. Good luck, Phoebe. Please be safe.”
-- A friend.
I was shaking when I knocked on the Wilder’s door fifteen minutes later. I knew exactly how to cause a scene.
Mrs Wilder answered, her expression cross between frustrated and bewildered. But I could barely focus on her, or the fact that she was holding a ladle like a weapon. The second the door opened revealing Casper’s mom drowning in a homely golden light, something slammed into me. Nothing physical, though it might as well have been. I forced myself to breathe through the stink which hit me like a brick to the face, suffocating my nose and mouth. Lavender. Not just lavender. The expensive flowers mom would get grocery shopping.
The ones which made me sneeze when I leaned too close. The house stunk of flowers—and that was just from standing on the threshold. But I knew better. I knew, once sweet smelling salts and flowers entwined in my senses, that the stink was to cover something up. And the more I edged closer over the threshold, the true smell of the Wilder house began to snake into my nose. Rot. I had once left a donut under my bed as a kid as an experiment to see if I could grow a whole new species. But this wasn’t mouldy food. It was far more potent. More like a decaying animal.
“Phoebe!” Mrs Wilder folded her arms across her apron. “I’m sorry, were my instructions not clear?” She cocked her head, an amused smile curving on her lips. She was triumphant, knowing exactly how to get under my skin. “Are you aware of what a restraining order is?”
Ignoring the smell choking the air, I held up my phone. “I’m live on Instagram.” I said. “Can I come in?”
I’m not sure why, but seeing her cheeks turn white made me feel like I was the one in control. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Live.” I repeated with a cheery wave. “On Instagram.”
I expected her to shove me back, or call out my bluff (yes, I was bluffing). Instead though, the women’s resolve seemed to crumble, her expression twisting, fear igniting in her eyes. She stammered for a moment, her gaze flashing to my phone before she wrapped her arms around herself and seemed to force a nod. “This is my house.” Her voice came out in a hiss.
Mrs Wilder was talking straight to the camera, and clearly faking terror. “Phoebe Daly, this is far past your usual games. This is… this is trespassing! Do you hear me? I’m calling the police!” Mrs Wilder didn’t call the police.
She held her phone to her ear but didn’t dare dial a number. I could see her options flitting across her eyes.
Was she going to attack me, or play it cool? Playing it cool, it was. With a face like thunder, she stumbled aside when I took a step forward and asked to be let inside. I wasn’t live on Instagram. I had barely 10 followers.
But she didn’t know that. Instead of being live, I was filming everything with my normal phone camera, angled at a height so she couldn’t slap it out of my hands. Watching her stumble back, panic twisting her expression into fury and frustration filled me with satisfaction. I had her. The crazy witch really thought I was streaming. I used that to my advantage, making sure to commentate to my imaginary audience as she led me down the main hallway, and I made sure to point the camera at everything I could see. Kids photographs covered neat paintwork.
But they were all different young children taken from a distance. Towards the end of the hall, what I saw did send my heart into my gut. And for a moment—just a brief second—I actually felt sympathy for Casper’s mom.
Four ultrasound’s.
I didn’t let the camera linger on them, instead going to the woman herself, who was following me, trying and failing to stall my effort to delve further inside the house. She stepped in front of me with a huff. “Phoebe. That is enough! You have terrorised me to no end!” her voice rose into a whine. “Whoever you are, Phoebe’s friends! This brat is targeting my children!”
“Casper!” I yelled, ignoring her. “Are you there?”
No answer.
My heart dropped into my gut, though I wasn’t giving up. I had the advantage, and I had to play to it.
“Casper!”
I ran up the first few steps leading upstairs, but Mrs Wilder seemed far too focused on shielding the door at the end of the hall.
“What’s in the kitchen?” I asked with a lump in my throat. Backing down the stairs, I made my way towards her.
“Nothing is in the kitchen!” she spat back, feigning innocence. “We’re having dinner if you must know. And you are ruining it!”
I shook my head. “This is Mrs Wilder,” I announced, pointing the phone at her. “She is holding four teenagers against their will and claiming them as her own children.” I said smoothly. When we reached a sliding glass door leading into the kitchen, I grabbed the handle with force.
Her rough hand slammed over mine, claw-like fingernails slicing my flesh. “Get out of my house,” she said stiffly. “Young lady, you are trespassing on my property.” Every word came out in globules of saliva hitting me in the face. “I have never met such a disruptive and outright disrespectful child without discipline. Your mother should be ashamed of herself.” She shot a nervous look at my phone camera.
“Where’s Mrs Becker?” I asked.
“What?”
Mrs Becker.” I repeated. “She helped you kidnap and scare me into staying quiet the other day. So, where is she?”
She spluttered, clearly caught off guard. “You are delusional!”
“Then show me them.” I said, pointing the camera at the door. “Your children, Mrs Wilder. I want you to show me Issac, Matilda, Freddie, and…” I swallowed hard. “And Casper.” Ignoring her steel grasp on the door handle, I pulled it open, trying to ignore the sudden squawking noise which had escaped her mouth, slamming into my ears. I can’t describe it. Mom has spoken about a mother instinct, and I wonder if it truly was that. This was animalistic. Feral.
Immediately, Mrs Wilder was behind me like a beast, her trembling arms trying to grasp hold of me and drag me back violently. But I was stronger, and desperate. I had to know the Wilder's secret. Stepping over the threshold, I was first aware of a far dimmer light. And when I fully focused on the room, I realised I was seeing candlelight. In front of me was a hardwood dining room table, and five chairs—four of which were occupied. The kitchen was a copy of our own. Except ours had always been lit up and bright.
It felt more like I was stepping inside a cave. An orangeade blur illuminated each face. Three out of four bodies sat stiff, almost… doll like. Mechanical. The way the three were facing me. Their expressions matched perfectly. Wide eyes and wider grins splitting lips apart. I drank each Wilder kid in slowly, as my brain struggled to take in the real horror of the room. What I was failing to fully take in. I couldn’t. I don’t think I could physically understand what I was seeing. I was aware my phone had slipped from my fingers, that I was paralysed to the spot.
The smell of stink and rot, I thought.
It was them.
I couldn’t move. There were three boys, and one girl. Matilda Wilder was a mousey redhead while her brothers were all brunettes. She wore a purple dress which fit her perfectly, her hair tied into pigtails with red ribbons. Issac and Freddie Wilder sat shoulder to shoulder.
They were the twins, I thought dizzily. They were identical twins in Mrs Wilder’s eyes, but these guys looked nothing like each other—one of them sporting a handsome face and razor jawline, while the other had an odd looking nose and jutting chin. Still though, I could tell Mrs Wilder had made an effort to make them look… beautiful. Perfect. I could see her attempt at stitching their lips together.
It wasn’t their appearance that was gluing me to the ground, however. Because looking closer, past the made-up faces on both the boys and the girls, the ribbons and fancy clothes and empty eyes staring right through me, soft candlelight was slowly bringing them to life in front of me. These kids had been hidden away for so long, and I was finally seeing them for who they were. My gaze flicked to each of them. I was seeing… stitches. I was seeing rugged stitches and gashes in their flesh, patchwork skin making up fingers and elbows and cheeks. They had been taken apart over and over again and put back together.
Matilda’s neck was a collage of flesh, rugged markings where a marker pen had clumsily sliced into her skin and pieced her like a jigsaw through mangled body parts and anything left over. Freddie and Isaac’s heads were cocked at an angle, and looking closer I glimpsed the bad stitch-job which had knitted them together.
I could see it in all of them. None of these kids were their original selves. They reminded me of dolls built through old doll pieces. I didn’t know I was screaming until the gravity of the situation hit me, and I realised I was suffocating on dead skin which made them up, their bodies stitched and knitted together, transforming them into her ideal children. Flickering candlelight revealed the last Wilder kid.
There were two significant things which were different about Casper.
The first, was that he must have been her most recent. He was her most… original—and the second? Unlike the others, he was awake.
Until that moment, Casper had been sitting amongst his siblings, head cocked to the side like the others, catatonic.
His dazed eyes slowly found mine—and I glimpsed recognition flickering in his expression, his rigid body starting to contort back to life. He was her paper-doll.
But Casper wasn’t finished.
“Phoebe?” When the boy spoke, his voice was barely a whimper. Frenzied eyes flicked from Matilda to Issac and Freddie, all of which were still wearing their perfect smiles. I noticed the rugged skin of his neck, and my heart sank.
Something was moving behind him, and I forced myself to step forwards. I glimpsed that same chord-like thing. This time it was fully attacked to him. No, it was buried directly inside his head. A sour paste crept up my throat when I saw the carnivorous hole burrowing deeper inside his head. I could glimpse the intense white of chipped skull and a strange looking fluid leaking out —but it looked… wrong. I’ve always imagined the internals of someone’s brain to be pinkish grey. Though what I was seeing was more like a black ooze sliding down the back of his neck. It reminded me of squid-ink. Definitely not blood.
It looked like he had been shot in the head, or had been pulled out of the operating theatre mid-surgery. And somehow, he was still alive. Just like the description, the chord-thing seemed to be attached in two places—to the back of the head, directly on the brain, and stapled to his spine. The device was humming, but I don’t think it was working.
Casper was looking directly at me, and the way his body was angled was different to his siblings. Instead of sitting straight, he was trying and failing to jump to his feet, his eyes wide, almost unseeing. I could see that frustration and anger, that pain from the other night alive in his face. I opened my mouth to speak, though Casper was already lifting a trembling hand, his fingers twining around the chord and giving a pathetic tug. A thin line of dark red, almost black, slid from his nostril.
I knew it was him. “Can you… can you get… it… out?” His hand found the chord again, and his grasp slipped. “Please.” He whispered, squeezing his eyes shut. “There’s something… in my… my head, and I need you to… I need you to fucking get it out…. right now.”
“Casper.” I couldn’t resist a relieved hiss. “This woman.” I twisted and pointed at Mrs Wilder.
“Who is she to you?”
The kid blinked, his eyes narrowing. He jolted, twisting around to try and see the thing attached to him. “Why would I know her? Get this shit out of my head!”
He let out a hysterical yell. His cry was more of a demand, and that nameless boy underneath splintered doll pieces began to unravel.
“Get it out.” He kept repeating. “Fucking get it out! There’s something inside my head!”
I nodded, choking back a cry.
He slammed his hands down, but seemingly couldn’t move from the chair. “What the fuck.” He side eyed the others. “What the fuck is this?”
I struggled to answer without screaming myself. “Stuff.” I managed to get out through a sputter. “Can you stand up?”
“What?” He blinked rapidly at me, I was seeing it again. That odd light flickering in his pupils.
“No. I can’t move!”
The humming grew louder, and at the corner of my eye, that thing seemed to dig deeper inside his head.
More blood spurted from his nose, and I could tell that he was fighting it.
The boy’s eyes found mine, his words tangling into an almost slur. “Get it out! I can’t… I can’t fucking think straight. I…. I….”
His eyes rolled back for a moment before he shook his head, lunging against the chair. His head twitched. “I don’t know I am.”
I couldn’t move. Watching this thing take control in real time, it was both fascinating and horrifying, sending my knees buckling.
“Who… who am I?”
His whole head twitched, like he was glitching.
“I know her. I… I know her. I’m her… I’m her son… I’m her s—son.”
Casper hummed, his twitching lips pricking into a demented smile. “I’ll always know her. She’s the one who… who s---saved me.”
Choking on a shade too vivid and dark to be blood, he sputtered, his head drooping.
“Mom?” Casper spoke through mouthfuls of pooling black. He lifted his head, unseeing eyes blinking in dim candlelight. The chord-like thing sounded more like it was drilling into his brain, and I knew I was fucked when his lips spread out into a childlike smile, and he swayed to the left and then the right, the light in his eyes burning. “There’s… water.” He whispered. “So… so cold. I’m so cold.” His voice broke.
“I don’t… want to be cold.”
“You won’t be cold.” Mrs Wilder’s voice was a sharp cry behind me. “Ever again. Your mom is here.”
“Promise? You n… need to… prom…promise me.” His teeth chattered. “You need to… tell me… I won’t… be cold. That my mom… is coming.”
“I promise, darling.”
“Mommy?”
“No,” I swallowed back frustrated tears. “Casper, she’s not your mother!”
His next words split into a guttural screech which almost sent him toppling off of the chair. He grabbed at his head, clawing at face.
But the more he was tugging, the machine fought against him. I could see metallic clamp-like legs stubbornly holding on.
His next words were mangled between cries from his conscious self, and whatever the fuck his ‘mother’ was forcing into his head.
And yet it barely grazed my ears. I was trying to figure out how to get that monumental THING out of his brain. There was no way I could just pull it out. That could kill him, right?
I started forwards to grab him, to try and pry the clamp off his spine, before I was being smothered with the stink of rich lavender. I hadn’t noticed Mrs Wilder swipe up my phone. She was holding it up in the air. “Live? You were never filming anything, you stupid girl! Do you understand what you have done?” She laughed—and I mean cackled like a witch. “I warned you, didn’t I?”
I got one last glimpse of Casper. His whole body was jerking under the chord inside his head, but he wasn’t crying out anymore.
Before I knew what was happening, I was being dragged back, and in front of me a Wilder boy shoving his struggling brother back into the chair. I didn’t have time to cry out.
With strength I had no idea the crazy bitch had, I was being violently yanked by my hair. And while I was flailing, I saw the ultrasound’s once again. Looking closer though, each one had a different name. A different mother. My head spun. That couldn’t be right. Mrs Wilder told me she was pregnant with four children, so who’s ultrasound’s were these? And why had she framed them? I didn’t have time to check it out.
I was dumped on my ass and the door was slammed straight in my face. I tried to get back in, throwing my fists into the door, until my own mother’s arms were pulling me back. I was hysterical. I couldn’t breathe, and mom wasn’t getting through to me. I’d kicked and thrown myself into the door, attracting the attention of our neighbours. That’s what I wanted. I wanted one of them to call the police, and when I picked up a brick, struggling against mom’s attempt to restrain me, and throwing it through the Wilder’s front window, I finally got it.
Two cops arrived, and I was so relieved I almost sobbed into one officer's chest. While my mom was trying and failing to explain my “breakdown” I begged them to take a look inside. And I was loud. I was screaming.
Which they couldn’t ignore.
“Phoebe!” I was partially aware of mom’s voice trying to calm me down, but I all I could see was that thing in Casper’s head, and his siblings made from knitted flesh. When the officer’s exited the Wilder’s house after five painful minutes waiting, I stumbled over to the two.
“Well?” I demanded, shoving away my mom. “Did you see them?” I yelled. “She’s turned them into… into dolls!” I was already going on a tangent, hysteria plunging me further into my own insanity.
“They’re not her children.” I gritted out. “She kidnapped and.. and stitched them up like… like Frankenstein! Mrs Wilder likes dolls! She had this paper-doll of me when she kidnapped me and lit it on fire to threaten me because I was talking to Casper. And he… he’s one of them, and not even her son! She’s controlling his mind with this thing stuck inside—"
“That’s enough!” Mom snapped.
The officer in front of me chuckled. “Breathe, kid!” He said. “Jeez. You’re not even giving us time to talk.”
“What?”
Instead of speaking to me directly, the officer turned to mom. “There’s nothing out of the ordinary, ma’am.” He said. “The Wilder’s were enjoying a family dinner, and…” his gaze flashed to me. “Well. It appears someone ruined it. There are no current reports of child abduction.”
I couldn’t resist a laugh. “Are you serious? Did you not… did you not see—”
He cut me off. “There they are!” He chuckled. “The Wilder siblings!” The officer saluted the four of them who had wandered outside trailing their mother. Ignoring the other three, I made my way over to Casper. But he looked… I don’t know, he looked like he usually did through his window? There were no stitches or patchwork skin. He was wearing a beanie, and I reached to yank it off, when his hand caught mine.
He was freezing cold.
His skin felt almost slimy, like I was touching the skin of a dead fish. I wanted to hold on, to force the cops to believe me, but he was already speaking—his voice was different, a lot deeper than the hysterical cry of the boy underneath. “Mom?” Casper’s eyes were cold. He shoved my hand away before taking a shaky step back. Like I was crazy. He quickly joined his siblings.
“Who is this girl?”
“We’re going home.” Mom said, grasping my arm. “Can’t you see you’ve embarrassed me enough?”
“Phoebe, huh?”
I turned to find the other Wilder kids. The guy with the jawline still had that doll-like smile. “Please leave our brother alone.”
I couldn’t resist spitting at him. “He’s not your brother. You’re brainwashed.”
Something in his expression seemed to twitch suddenly. Mom tried to pull me back, but I stubbornly stayed where I was.
Issac or Freddie cocked his head. “Brain... washed?"
He started to speak, before Mrs Wilder ushered them all away. But I did notice him turn back to frown at me.
Needless to say, I was grounded—and threatened with a restraining order.
That didn’t stop me peeking through the gap in Casper’s curtains that night. I caught him stumbling around, struggling to get the chord-thing out of his head with manic hands. He came over to the window several times, his bloody hands slamming into the window before slipping away. I'm not sure, but I don't think he knew why his legs kept drawing him to the window.
Mrs Wilder joined him soon after, forcing him to bite into something plastic, as she led him to sit on the bed, her fingers wrapping around the chord, and yanking it out. I didn't hear his scream, but his reaction to it, body writhing, eyes squeezing shut, I knew he could feel it. And part of him was awake. Just part of him.
Not the parts who knew our window sessions and his horrifying reality.
Casper came to his window all bandaged up. He didn’t hold up a message, and his eyes were vacant.
Though his expression told me everything I needed to know.
Engines woke me up several hours later. It was midnight. Sliding out of bed, my gaze went straight to Casper’s window. But it was dark. I pressed my face against my own window and glimpsed Mrs Wilder standing on her lawn in her robe.
A car pulled up, and the cop from earlier jumped out. In his arms was what looked like a body bag. He dropped it on the ground. “Freshly dead.” He said, when I opened my window to hear what was being said. “Car crash. Victim is male. Eighteen years old.” He folded his arms with a light laugh. “I got him straight from the morgue. His parents think there’s no body.” Both of them knelt next to the bag, and Mrs Wilder zipped it open with a hiss.
When the bag jolted suddenly, I realised the body was still alive.
The officer stumbled back. “Jesus. I didn’t even use that much. You said a single shot, right?”
“Mmm.”
Mrs Wilder pulled out a carving knife from her robe, and I felt my entire body turn to ice.
The cop raised a brow. “You came prepared.”
She sighed, her hands on her hips. “He’s spare parts. The expiry is approaching which is why they’re… acting out.”
With startling precision, she aimed the knife above what I guessed was the body’s head, before bringing it down with a sickening crunch. The bag stopped squirming.
I can’t remember anything else from that night.
My mother was gone the next morning. A paper doll replica of her was sitting next to a note and a plate of freshly baked cookies.

“Dearest, Phoebe.
I baked these thinking of you! And my, you should be grateful I have even bothered to do this after playing your games last night. Honestly, I am not the monster you think I am. Your mom asked me to let you know she will be busy with me for a few hours.
I’ve been asked to take care of you, so here are some chocolate cookies! Please maintain the rule I set in place and do not go near or talk to my children. I’m sure you know what will happen if you happen to slip up. I took the liberty of asking your mother to fit specialised devices in your room so I know when you are talking to my son. Writing equipment has been taken away. I hope we can be friends and I can start calling you my daughter. If something were to happen to your mom, do not worry. I will take you in. I want you to remember that.
Love,
Mrs Wilder.
PS: I can’t wait for you to (not) meet my newest son!

Hello! I am sorry if this is not the correct place to post something like this but I am quite desperate. I have a very strange situation and have tried damn near everything to fix it. I built my PC about 3 months ago and have had an issue on and off where the PC screen will go black and automatically restart. When I checked Event Viewer the error is a Critical Kernel 41 Error. All the parts were bought new except for an older NVME SSD that I brought into my new PC from my old system. When it powers off, the fans keep running and everything seems to still be turned on but it crashes anyway. It happens anywhere and everywhere, sometimes while gaming, sometimes while watching YouTube, and it even happened in BIOS one time which means it is likely not a software issue. My temps are stable enough, with the CPU reaching a max of around 75C when gaming and the GPU hitting 65-70C when gaming but it is usually lower than that.
My Specs are:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7700x
GPU: GIGABYTE AERO 4080
MOBO: ASUS ROG STRIX B650
RAM: 2x Corsair CMT32GX5M2B5200C40 5200 2x16
CPU Cooler: Kraken Z73 RGB
PSU: Corsair RMx850 80+ Gold
Drives: WD 770 NVME and WD 750 NVME (this one is from my old system)
Additional: Lian Li SL-Infinity 120x10, Lian Li Strimer v2 24 Pin
When I first built the PC 3 months ago it went about 7 days with no issues. Then, the black screens started. I panicked like I am now and eventually I plugged it into my wall as opposed to a power strip and that seemed to fix the issue for about 2 months. About 2 weeks ago, the black screens started again and me plugging it into the wall did not fix it like it did last time. I can say for sure it is not the graphics card because I had slotted in my old MSI NVIDIA GTX 970 while I was waiting for my 4080 to arrive and the crashes have happened with both cards. I have tried many troubleshooting steps, including taking out the old SSD, updating drivers from ASUS website, doing a fresh install of windows multiple times, and even had it taken to a professional who could not determine the issue. He said my hardware passed but he was not able to directly test the power supply, and he said he was 90% sure that it was because I had to daisy chain one of the PCIe power cables on the 12vhpwr adapter that goes to the 4080. I have done some research on this and most say it isn't an issue. I contacted corsair to get a 3rd PCIe cable but they take forever to respond, and I'm not even sure if this is the issue because as stated earlier these crashes happened with both cards. Any advice anyone can give is appreciated otherwise I will just have to start replacing parts one by one until I find the issue.

Hello! I am sorry if this is not the correct place to post something like this but I am quite desperate. I have a very strange situation and have tried damn near everything to fix it. I built my PC about 3 months ago and have had an issue on and off where the PC screen will go black and automatically restart. All the parts were bought new except for an older NVME SSD that I brought into my new PC from my old system. When it powers off, the fans keep running and everything seems to still be turned on but it crashes anyway. It happens anywhere and everywhere, sometimes while gaming, sometimes while watching YouTube, and it even happened in BIOS one time which means it is likely not a software issue. My temps are stable enough, with the CPU reaching a max of around 75C when gaming and the GPU hitting 65-70C when gaming but it is usually lower than that.
My Specs are:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7700x
GPU: GIGABYTE AERO 4080
MOBO: ASUS ROG STRIX B650
RAM: 2x Corsair CMT32GX5M2B5200C40 5200 2x16
CPU Cooler: Kraken Z73 RGB
PSU: Corsair RMx850 80+ Gold
Drives: WD 770 NVME and WD 750 NVME (this one is from my old system)
Additional: Lian Li SL-Infinity 120x10, Lian Li Strimer v2 24 Pin
When I first built the PC 3 months ago it went about 7 days with no issues. Then, the black screens started. I panicked like I am now and eventually I plugged it into my wall as opposed to a power strip and that seemed to fix the issue for about 2 months. About 2 weeks ago, the black screens started again and me plugging it into the wall did not fix it like it did last time. I can say for sure it is not the graphics card because I had slotted in my old MSI NVIDIA GTX 970 while I was waiting for my 4080 to arrive and the crashes have happened with both cards. I have tried many troubleshooting steps, including taking out the old SSD, updating drivers from ASUS website, doing a fresh install of windows multiple times, and even had it taken to a professional who could not determine the issue. He said my hardware passed but he was not able to directly test the power supply, and he said he was 90% sure that it was because I had to daisy chain one of the PCIe power cables on the 12vhpwr adapter that goes to the 4080. I have done some research on this and most say it isn't an issue. I contacted corsair to get a 3rd PCIe cable but they take forever to respond, and I'm not even sure if this is the issue because as stated earlier these crashes happened with both cards. Any advice anyone can give is appreciated otherwise I will just have to start replacing parts one by one until I find the issue.

This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 82%. (I'm a bot)

Nearly two dozen journals from two of the fastest growing open-access publishers, including one of the world's largest journals by volume, will no longer receive a key scholarly imprimatur.
The Web of Science Master Journal List, run by the analytics company Clarivate, lists journals based on 24 measures of quality, including effective peer review and adherence to ethical publishing practices, and periodically checks that listed journals meet the standards.
Clarivate calculates impact factors for a select subset of journals on the list.
Journals losing their Web of Science impact factors-the average number of citations per article over 2 years-is bad news for their authors because the metric is widely used in hiring, tenure, and promotion decisions as a proxy for quality, despite criticism that impact factors are methodologically flawed.
In 2022, nearly 100 MDPI journals that have impact factors published more than 17,000 special issues, containing 187,000 articles, according to an unpublished analysis by Paolo Crosetto, an economist at France's National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food, and the Environment, and Pablo Gómez Barreiro of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
The 19 Hindawi journals delisted by Clarivate represent about one-third of its journals that had been listed in Web of Science.

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Grand Theft Auto V is one of the most profitable entertainment franchises in the history of games. It came along as a return to form after what many fans would argue was a misstep with the more gritty and realistic GTA 4. Originally released back in 2013 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3—yes, it spans three console generations—developer Rockstar has supported the game's online mode with continual updates adding new content, new areas, and even all-new mechanics.
GTA V was such a runaway success—and GTA The Trilogy: Definitive Edition was such a dumpster fire—that Rockstar gave up working on a Red Dead Redemption 2 DLC, and has now reportedly abandoned plans to remaster more of its beloved older titles to instead focus on both further GTA Online content as well as the development of GTA 6.
gtaonline fukaru
Naturally, expectations for GTA 6 are incredibly high, and given the advanced age of GTA V, fans are chomping at the bit for any bit of news. That's why there's so much buzz around a report at Bloomberg that focuses on Rockstar's new corporate culture. Company co-founder Dan Houser left Rockstar in 2020, and ever since then the development house has been trying to reshape a corporate culture that the report refers to as being "like a frat house".
Given the nature and tone of the humor in the Grand Theft Auto series, it's really not surprising to hear that the atmosphere inside Rockstar was juvenile and chauvinistic. The report remarks that the workplace culture at Rockstar was "full of drinking, brawling, and excursions to strip clubs." That may sound like a good time to some, but it's admittedly not very professional.
gta1 katie Katie from the OG Grand Theft Auto (1997) on PC (left) and Game Boy Color (right).
As part of the report, author Jason Schreier casually reveals that GTA 6 will have at least two playable protagonists, and that one of them will be a Latina woman. This technically isn't the first playable woman nor even the first playable Hispanic woman in the GTA series; the very first GTA game featured a Latina named "Katie" as one of its eight playable characters.
Still, very few of the series' modern fans even remember the old DOS-based Grand Theft Auto, so we can forgive everyone for forgetting about poor Katie. Regardless, the new girl will apparently be part of a Bonnie-and-Clyde-like crime duo, calling to mind the partnership between Claude and Catalina in the beginning of Grand Theft Auto III. Hopefully the partnership between the new player characters in GTA 6 doesn't end the same way that one did.
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KOwen 29 July, 2022
Release the PC version at the same time as the consoles please!
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Share Powered by TermsPrivacyFeedback 85K 27K 39K TOP CONVERSATIONS YOUR NEXT PC PLATFORM? Intel 13th Gen AMD Ryzen 7000 Intel Meteor Lake Ryzen 7000X3D Submit More Results MORE HOT HEADLINES Grab This NVIDIA GeForce Hotfix To Stop... WB Delays Hogwarts Legacy Launch On PS4... Intel Panther Lake Gets Ready To Roar... What The Fungi? Scientists Create A... US Antitrust Boss Compares Big Tech To... Lonestar's Mission To Build Data Centers... AMD's Last Of Us Game Bundle Deal Drives... KEEP INFORMED My Topics Follow topics to stay updated with your favorite content

I consider today’s so-called sports cars to be heavy, claustrophobic coupes, caught up in a horsepower race that makes them nearly undrivable on the street.
Case in point: At a performance-car get-together spot south of San Francisco I met up with a guy in a Lamboghini Huracan, a fabulous exotic, but huge, and with its interior as confining as a tomb. I felt sympathetic toward the driver. On that bright summer’s day, twisty and undulating Hwy 9 to Santa Cruz was the perfect fun drive for my ND2, while his Lambo would never have got out of second gear.
To me an MX-5 with manual transmission is a precision instrument that, for a driver with sufficient skill, makes possible an unparalleled driving experience on public roads.
First off, the car is as small as they can make it, too small for many Americans. But for those who fit, with the top down the car pretty much disappears, making the driver one with their environment.
Add to this Mazda’s obsession with lightness and perfect weight distribution, and the result is inertia-free turn-in, and once in a corner, all four wheels sharing the load.
The car’s all-alloy suspension is fully tunable, as befits the most-raced car in the world. Upon delivery, every MX-5 owner with sporting intentions should take their car to an alignment shop that specializes in race cars, and have them use Flyin’ Miata’s alignment settings. The factory’s settings are usually out of whack, and with the stock suspension and race alignment, the car is transformed.
Mazda delivers the car softly sprung, because half its owner base are not “serious” drivers, but instead want a cute car as a fashion accessory. This demographic keeps the MX-5 profitable. Honda’s more driver-focused S2000 was a superb sports car but Honda discontinued it because the motorhead community is just too small to make production affordable. So I never criticize the fashionista crowd — enjoy your MX-5 your way!
The stock suspension with race-spec alignment is just fine for 7/10ths driving on the street. At this reasonably safe level of engagement the car’s best features shine through. Driven harder, excessive body roll ensues.
The ND2’s high-revving, high-compression (13:1) engine provides a perfectly linear power band, paired with a TRUE six-speed that has NO overdive gears, resulting in always being at optimal revs however variable the corners on your favorite stretch of road.
A stock ND2 reaches 60 in under 6 seconds and tops 130 mph, and that is just-right performance for the street. I’ve been down the forced-induction road with earlier MX-5s and lived to regret it. The wheelbase is too short for big horsepower and combined with turbo lag resulted in some scary moments. (But never have I crashed an MX-5 or been in a collision.)
Unless you autocross, you don’t need the limited slip diff.
The traction control cuts in too early for spirited driving so is best turned off, provided the driver is aware the back end is going to want to come around a little earlier.
If you’re a sports car enthusiast, which trim level to get? The one all the racers buy, the base level Sport. You’ll save thousands over the Club, and the Club’s brand name add-ons are ALL replaced by the racing community because they add no performance benefit and do not stand up in the racing environment!
For example, the racers use 16” wheels, which the Sport is delivered with, shod with excellent summer-only performance tires. (On base models, most manufacturers provide cheap all-season tires, but Mazda has too much class to go that way.) The Club comes with heavier 17” wheels for cosmetic reasons.
If you want to go seriously fast, you’ll need to replace the brakes with race spec calipers and go with stainless steel lines. The Club Brembos will fade if raced.
And, to get rid of that body roll, and to enhance turn-in, you’re best off switching to a coil-over suspension with race-spec shocks from Koni or Ohlins.
If you go that route you’ll lose the standard MX-5’s suspension compliance, which keeps the car from getting upset in bumpy corners and delivers a smooth ride by sports car standards.
Those who pay to lower the car in order to impress strangers are part of the “cute car” demographic and so do not have to be concerned with handling.
The only cosmetic option I got with my MX-5 was the factory metal pedals at around $210. A car so perfect for heel-and-toe shifting deserves metal pedals.
I got my 2019 Sport in basic black, new from the dealer for $24,600. Three and a half years into ownership the car has never been commuted in and with 18k on the clock is coming into its own.
And not just for sport driving. Doing errands around town is nearly as much fun as back roads, because this car has to be DRIVEN every moment. Heel-and-toe braking and shifting is not just a performance technique, it is essential for going up and down through the gears around town for maximum smoothness.
Where the car has no equal, however, is at 7/10ths on a twisty, undulating secondary road. All the inputs are perfectly tuned to deliver a smooth and quick drive while multitasking the steering, throttle, brakes, and shifting, a lot of consecutive activities that when done right, add up to a matchless driving experience.
Having owned all kinds of cars, I’ve found my driving sweet spot and this is it. That Mazda can deliver a thoroughbred sports car that rivals a Lotus Elan, which I drove in England back when they were new, for under the price of an optioned Mazda3 exconobox is just spectacular. A couple of years ago Consumer Reports cited the MX-5 as having the lowest operating costs of any new car sold in the USA. A sports car! And the high-compression Skyactiv engine combines high revs and extraordinary fuel economy, in the 30s even when driven hard.
My generation, the okay boomer crowd, is on its way out, and so is our version of driving performance. Very few Millennials and Gen Zs care about manual shifting, and they are right. Today’s automatics shift way faster than any manual driver could, and shifting stick at least doubles the complexity of the driving process. But that is why we old school motorheads like shifting for ourselves — because it is hard! It is a skill that takes practice and money cannot buy.
Were it not for this car, we old timers would have nowhere to turn. People don’t understand why we are uninterested in a front-drive hot hatch like Honda’s Civic Type R. The particular form of driving magic we seek is not related to acceleration, but rather to harmony. There is a Zen-like state that can be achieved in this little car unlike with any other, and those who get it are now a vanishingly small minority. To us, this is our swan song, our farewell to a future of self-driving electric pods, a future foreign and unappealing. With the MX-5, we can go out in style.

Hello! I have a very strange situation and have tried damn near everything to fix it. I built my PC about 3 months ago and have had an issue on and off where the PC screen will go black and automatically restart. All the parts were bought new except for an older NVME SSD that I brought into my new PC from my old system. When it powers off, the fans keep running and everything seems to still be turned on but it crashes anyway. It happens anywhere and everywhere, sometimes while gaming, sometimes while watching YouTube, and it even happened in BIOS one time which means it is likely not a software issue. My temps are stable enough, with the CPU reaching a max of around 75C when gaming and the GPU hitting 65-70C when gaming but it is usually lower than that.
My Specs are:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7700x
GPU: GIGABYTE AERO 4080
MOBO: ASUS ROG STRIX B650
RAM: 2x Corsair CMT32GX5M2B5200C40 5200 2x16
CPU Cooler: Kraken Z73 RGB
PSU: Corsair RMx850 80+ Gold
Drives: WD 770 NVME and WD 750 NVME (this one is from my old system)
Additional: Lian Li SL-Infinity 120x10, Lian Li Strimer v2 24 Pin
When I first built the PC 3 months ago it went about 7 days with no issues. Then, the black screens started. I panicked like I am now and eventually I plugged it into my wall as opposed to a power strip and that seemed to fix the issue for about 2 months. About 2 weeks ago, the black screens started again and me plugging it into the wall did not fix it like it did last time. I can say for sure it is not the graphics card because I had slotted in my old MSI NVIDIA GTX 970 while I was waiting for my 4080 to arrive and the crashes have happened with both cards. I have tried many troubleshooting steps and even had it taken to a professional who could not determine the issue. Any advice anyone can give is appreciated otherwise I will just have to start replacing parts one by one until I find the issue.

(15f) I can’t run away. I have given up on therapy. I need to find a way out of the abuse but that’s not possible at the moment till I turn 18 or go to college. I’m a south asian immigrant in Minnesota who isn’t a US citizen so it’s a bit more complicated to go no contact. There has been severe physical abuse all my childhood. Now the focus is more on extreme emotional/verbal abuse since I started fighting back the beatings. My family is very religious and conservative. I’m an ex-muslim. I live in so much fear and so much sickness every single day.
How do I live through these 3 years till I turn 18. I have really traumatizing memories of being physically abused by both parents. I fantasize about my mum dying so I can finally have my peace. Everything in my life will be used against me by her. She will even see this post in the near future because she strips every part of my life apart to examine it under a microscope. I have wanted her to die so badly for so long. I’m so terrified of my dad I can’t even go near him or pass by him. I can’t run away but I can’t keep on living in this house forever. CPS isn’t an option either.

I am looking to potentially start a woodcarving club in Antioch, IL. I was wondering if anyone near or in Antioch would be interested in joining me for this. The Antioch library is newly renovated and has great hosting potential. I just need enough people with interest. I apologize if this isnt the place to post this, but hey I thought why not. Thank you for reading. Please message me if interested.

(15f) I can’t run away. I have given up on therapy. I need to find a way out of the abuse but that’s not possible at the moment till I turn 18 or go to college. I’m a south asian immigrant in Minnesota who isn’t a US citizen so it’s a bit more complicated to go no contact. There has been severe physical abuse all my childhood. Now the focus is more on extreme emotional/verbal abuse since I started fighting back the beatings. My family is very religious and conservative. I’m an ex-muslim. I live in so much fear and so much sickness every single day.
How do I live through these 3 years till I turn 18. I have really traumatizing memories of being physically abused by both parents. I fantasize about my mum dying so I can finally have my peace. Everything in my life will be used against me by her. She will even see this post in the near future because she strips every part of my life apart to examine it under a microscope. I have wanted her to die so badly for so long. I’m so terrified of my dad I can’t even go near him or pass by him. I can’t run away but I can’t keep on living in this house forever. CPS isn’t an option either.

(15f) I can’t run away. I have given up on therapy. I need to find a way out of the abuse but that’s not possible at the moment till I turn 18 or go to college. I’m a south asian immigrant in Minnesota who isn’t a US citizen so it’s a bit more complicated to go no contact. There has been severe physical abuse all my childhood. Now the focus is more on extreme emotional/verbal abuse since I started fighting back the beatings. My family is very religious and conservative. I’m an ex-muslim. I live in so much fear and so much sickness every single day.
How do I live through these 3 years till I turn 18. I have really traumatizing memories of being physically abused by both parents. I fantasize about my mum dying so I can finally have my peace. Everything in my life will be used against me by her. She will even see this post in the near future because she strips every part of my life apart to examine it under a microscope. I have wanted her to die so badly for so long. I’m so terrified of my dad I can’t even go near him or pass by him. I can’t run away but I can’t keep on living in this house forever. CPS isn’t an option either.

(15f) I can’t run away. I have given up on therapy. I need to find a way out of the abuse but that’s not possible at the moment till I turn 18 or go to college. I’m a south asian immigrant in Minnesota who isn’t a US citizen and can’t get naturalized either in the upcoming 10 years so it’s a bit more complicated to go no contact. There has been severe physical abuse all my childhood. Now the focus is more on extreme emotional/verbal abuse since I started fighting back the beatings. My family is very religious and conservative. I’m an ex-muslim. I live in so much fear and so much sickness every single day.
How do I live through these 3 years till I turn 18. I have really traumatizing memories of being physically abused by both parents. I fantasize about my mum dying so I can finally have my peace. Everything in my life will be used against me by her. She will even see this post in the near future because she strips every part of my life apart to examine it under a microscope. I have wanted her to die so badly for so long. I’m so terrified of my dad I can’t even go near him or pass by him. I can’t run away but I can’t keep on living in this house forever. CPS isn’t an option either.

Grand Theft Auto V is one of the most profitable entertainment franchises in the history of games. It came along as a return to form after what many fans would argue was a misstep with the more gritty and realistic GTA 4. Originally released back in 2013 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3—yes, it spans three console generations—developer Rockstar has supported the game's online mode with continual updates adding new content, new areas, and even all-new mechanics.
GTA V was such a runaway success—and GTA The Trilogy: Definitive Edition was such a dumpster fire—that Rockstar gave up working on a Red Dead Redemption 2 DLC, and has now reportedly abandoned plans to remaster more of its beloved older titles to instead focus on both further GTA Online content as well as the development of GTA 6.
gtaonline fukaru
Naturally, expectations for GTA 6 are incredibly high, and given the advanced age of GTA V, fans are chomping at the bit for any bit of news. That's why there's so much buzz around a report at Bloomberg that focuses on Rockstar's new corporate culture. Company co-founder Dan Houser left Rockstar in 2020, and ever since then the development house has been trying to reshape a corporate culture that the report refers to as being "like a frat house".
Given the nature and tone of the humor in the Grand Theft Auto series, it's really not surprising to hear that the atmosphere inside Rockstar was juvenile and chauvinistic. The report remarks that the workplace culture at Rockstar was "full of drinking, brawling, and excursions to strip clubs." That may sound like a good time to some, but it's admittedly not very professional.
gta1 katie Katie from the OG Grand Theft Auto (1997) on PC (left) and Game Boy Color (right).
As part of the report, author Jason Schreier casually reveals that GTA 6 will have at least two playable protagonists, and that one of them will be a Latina woman. This technically isn't the first playable woman nor even the first playable Hispanic woman in the GTA series; the very first GTA game featured a Latina named "Katie" as one of its eight playable characters.
Still, very few of the series' modern fans even remember the old DOS-based Grand Theft Auto, so we can forgive everyone for forgetting about poor Katie. Regardless, the new girl will apparently be part of a Bonnie-and-Clyde-like crime duo, calling to mind the partnership between Claude and Catalina in the beginning of Grand Theft Auto III. Hopefully the partnership between the new player characters in GTA 6 doesn't end the same way that one did.
Comments1Comments Support Independent Tech Journalism, Become A Patron! Tags: Grand Theft Auto, Rockstar Games, GTA V, GTA, gta 6 exp-player-logo
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KOwen 29 July, 2022
Release the PC version at the same time as the consoles please!
Reply
Share Powered by TermsPrivacyFeedback 85K 27K 39K TOP CONVERSATIONS YOUR NEXT PC PLATFORM? Intel 13th Gen AMD Ryzen 7000 Intel Meteor Lake Ryzen 7000X3D Submit More Results MORE HOT HEADLINES Grab This NVIDIA GeForce Hotfix To Stop... WB Delays Hogwarts Legacy Launch On PS4... Intel Panther Lake Gets Ready To Roar... What The Fungi? Scientists Create A... US Antitrust Boss Compares Big Tech To... Lonestar's Mission To Build Data Centers... AMD's Last Of Us Game Bundle Deal Drives... KEEP INFORMED My Topics Follow topics to stay updated with your favorite content

I’m visiting in May and wondering what’s a good location to stay in Tel Aviv. Single gay male here, looking to be near the nightlife and good bars and clubs. I speak Hebrew and been to Israel many times, just not recently

My ndis supports have been getting set up over the last couple of months.
My planner put in for “employment support” which is not something I need because I already have a job. But I have the funding, so they said I can use it to get a support person to help with meal prep and things around the house once a week.
Last week she came for the first time and I didn’t really know what she was able to offer so she just went around tidying up and doing things. I’m still getting used to letting people into my home.
This week she came and I said there were some veg that needing chopping and freezing so she did that. Then she asked “what else can I help with”? And I said I wanna strip the kids sheets and wash them.
She said “I spoke to my coordinator last week and he wants me to do less cleaning stuff because you have a cleaner” She said “he wants me to do more capacity building stuff”.
I said “I don’t really understand what you mean by that.” ( I have the capacity to work but I am severely burnt out and I struggle with keeping up at home and often call in sick due to being so fatigued and overwhelmed by every day life).
She ignored me completely and didn’t answer me.
I went to my bedroom for 5 mins to call in sick for work. And take some deep breaths to avoid melting down. She asked my husband if I was “still here” like I had left the house.
My hubby told me later that he noticed she speaks to me more like a child but talks to him normally.
It’s as if she thinks I’m stupid. I have an IQ in the 130s and I work as a nurse. I was at a very low capacity yesterday morning because I had a really bad night sleep and overdid things on my day off the day before, after having worked both days on the weekend.
All I wanted to do was go back to bed. But I had this lady, who kept asking me “what do you want next” when I still don’t really understand what her role is and I almost had a meltdown from having to deal with it.
I was nearly at the point of being non verbal and she didn’t just seem to pick up on this at all.

I’m one of the devoted fans who dedicated my vacation to Houston to going to my first TK concert. I really did feel like a “victim” when I boarded my flight home to North Carolina on Monday morning. I had to gather my thoughts before posting this. If I felt like it didn’t help me or someone else I won’t have posted my opinion. Here goes. The world of large rock arena shows has many sides or competing interests. There is the art of rock and rock- make art and the ends justify the means. For example The Stones played on at Altamont while people were stomped by the show’s “security detail.” Led Zep was known to land in a helicopter at the venue in order to take off never to be seen the next minute. This was and still is rock and rock- flip off what ever doesn’t feel good now. Artists are well artists. Another side is corporate interests. I work in that world and my work pays my bills and I stand by my work. Corporate interests have lately been scrutinized by US Senate Anti-Trust Committees whereby Senator Blumenthal asked Ticket Master to “Respectfully look in the mirror and say it’s me. I’m the problem.” This corporate side adds more dates for artists to play more than humanly possible. This side overbooks and over-commits venues so that preparations for The Final Four have to compete with a twice booked make up concert. Later this summer Houston will host The Cure and Depeche Mode among others. Then there is the side of common sense which I am sad to say has been missing from both TK and Houston’s Toyota Center. I hate to admit that my favorite band that hasn’t traveled to the Carolinas since they were a small band has less common sense than Guns N Roses, Taylor Swift, DMB and Beyoncé. GNR, TS and Queen B posted their near entire schedule publicly on their websites before tickets went on sale. These artists proactively invited fans to join fan clubs to get the advance ticket and info. They made it easy to join(I joined GNR’s Night Train so I could see them in Charlotte). For TK I researched their schedule and crossed checked against my schedule and budget. If I would have known that private corporate shows and benefit shows were to cloud an already tight schedule I would have arranged to fly to Atlantic City or Columbus. I have to respectfully ask our boys who’s side are you on? We are all human and get sick and as humans we evolved to make art to share it. We evolved to be ethical and fair and improve the needed relationship with corporations. As humans who evolved to dancers we learned to ask “where’s the logic?” Can we trust that your art is available for me too?