Brian was sitting in his armchair watching conspiracy theory videos sprinkled with ones about the paranormal, as he does most nights for several hours, when he was overcome by a sudden primal hunger near impossible to ignore. His stomach felt like it was imploding. He shoved the feeling down deeper and kept watching. This time, it was an interview with very contrarian physicist and philosophy enthusiast.
"What if I told you the universe isn't real? In what is called a bio-centrist view, consciousness is all that exists, and everything around us is just like a user-interface that our brains make and give our senses. If a tree falls in the forrest and nobody is around to hear it, not only does it not make a sound, but it doesn't even exist until a conscious observer walks past it."
"Ok, um, is any of this provable? This all sounds a little woo-woo for me," his guest replied.
"It is. In fact, the famous double-slit experiment we discussed with our last guest definitively proved that the universe isn't defined until a conscious observer witnesses it. Reductionists used to argue consciousness is an illusion, but ironically, we now know there is consciousness but we do not know there is anything else. So, one could say the outside world is an illusion. What we believe to be patterns that reliably predict how the universe should work all fall apart on the quantum level. My very efficient machine of a brain constructs a framework for understanding what's around me, but I only see what fits into that framework. If you give someone with bipolar disorder an optical illusion, they will not be deceived by the illusion because their brain works differently, and the illusion was built for you and I. All of what us neurotypical people see is a shared illusion because we have similar constructs for interpretting the world. The real universe could be far more bizarre than we give it credit for."
The video ended, and with a deep breath, he pried himself from his armchair and stumbled into the kitchen. In his freezer were the remains of a pulled pork sandwich. Fighting his most basic carnal desires, he stared at it sitting in the freezer as cool refreshing fog surrounded it and gave an almost other-worldly ambiance to this heavenly meat.
In an instant, this 145lb 6'2" man's resolve shattered. He grabbed a plate, threw the entire sandwich in the microwave, and in only 90 seconds there was nothing standing between him and satiety. He sat at the table with a fork and knife, prepared to take small bites and savor each moment when just as suddenly as the urge to feed overcame him, a stronger urge not to compelled him to get up from the table and prepare for bed, putting the entire event to rest. He didn't put it back in the freezer but left it out, figuring the rotting smell would ruin his taste for the meat.
The next two days, he tried to eat various foods such as dried fruits, protein bars, vegetables, and small servings of oatmeal. He could barely get any of it down. All the while, this rotting meat was sitting on his kitchen table during a particularly hot week of summer, attracting flies.
Brian worked from home, but the quality of his work had been suffering lately. Barely having the energy to work, he sat at his computer and tried to focus on the task at hand when he heard a wet plop. He looked behind him and saw the dinner plate face down on the floor with his sandwich from several nights ago underneath. He slowly got up and attempted to clean up the mess when one of the most incredible events in mankind's history happened to this frail man in a crumbling old Kansas City apartment. His food spoke to him.
"Freeze me," it said.
"But you're a sandwich. Sandwiches don't talk."
"Brian, listen closely. I am God, and I can take many forms. Who are you to question me? If I wish to take this form and ask you to help me preserve it, you shall do as I ask."
"Alright," sighed Brian. He put the sandwich in the freezer. Then, he watched an episode of King of Queens and went to bed.
The next morning, he opened the freezer to check on his new friend, but it just sat there lifeless.
A couple weeks went by with nothing. Brian resumed his work and watched his videos. Everything became fairly routine again until he again felt what he called "an unholy cramping" in his stomach. He got up from the chair and managed to fight the temptation to disobey the sandwich for a few more minutes. He knew he couldn't hold it off forever. Again, he resisted the urge to feed, and again he left it out for several days only to be shocked that his sandwich spoke to him. It felt like it was happening for the first time. Even though the last time it happened was less than a month ago, it was barely a vague memory. Brian once again followed the orders of the sandwich and refroze it.
This cycle would soon be broken though. A few months later, a new family moved in next door and caught him in the hallway as he went to get his mail.
"Oh hi! I'm Susan. We just moved into 2C."
"Brian, I'm in 2D."
"Oh, so we're neighbors then!!!" she exclaimed and rushed in for a hug. "We just moved here from Sydney and are absolutely love this city's zoo! There is so much to do in this town. What are some good restaurants you'd recommend?"
"Oh, I don't eat out. I make my own food."
"Smart. I bet that's how you stay so fit. Listen, my husband Kyle and I would love to invite you over to our new place for a homecooked meal," Susan said with a warm motherly tone.
"Ok, can I bring my own food?"
"S- sure. Is 7pm tonight good?"
"Yeah, see you then" Brian said hurriedly as he darted back to his apartment, trying to give the vibe he was too busy to chat.
He stared blankly at his kitchen cabinets with a mounting sense of pressure. He would NOT eat whatever she prepares. He can't comtrol the calories, the macronutrients, the portions, any of it, and he knew if he were to arrive empty-handed, he'll have to eat whatever they prepare. He couldn't find anything hearty enough to look like a meal though. All he had in his cabinets were nuts, vegetables, and some protein bars. He knew there was only one food in his home that fit the bill. It will look like a normal dish, and then he can pretend he isn't feeling so he won't need to eat it. Such an excuse would be insulting if he doesn't eat their food, but who cares if he claims he's sick and won't eat food he brought?.
"But the smell. What will you do to cover the smell?" his sandwich asked him.
"Spices! I'll cover you in spices. The strongest smelling spices. He doused the sandwich in peppermint extract, which surprisingly, did fully cover the scent of rotting meat.
He spent the afternoon bathing it in a large bowl filled with peppermint extract. It was the strongest bonding moment the two of them had so far. They both were singing. Brian grabbed a toothbrish and whimsically pretended to be scrubbing it down. He had never had such a genuine connection with anyone before.
"Brian, do you trust me?"
He nodded.
"I require proof. Make a small incision on your hand and place a piece of me in it. We are blood brothers."
Hesitantly, Brian obliged, and he shoved a small piece of this maggot-infested minty meat into his hand and promptly poured alcohol on it. He then bandaged up the wound. As he sat in his favorite armchair waiting for the dinner with his new friends, he thought to himself "I'm so glad I'm trained in first-aid. Most people wouldn't be prepared for this and wouldn't even think to rinse the wound with alcohol."
As the meal time approached, Brian changed the bandage, put on his formal attire, and reheated the sandwich once more to freshen it up.
He rang the doorbell and was already starting to form pit stains through his one dress shirt.
"Hi, come in! This is my husband Kyle."
"Brian."
"Pleased to meat you, Brian. Please, take a seat. Can I get you something to drink?"
"Water please," Brian replied as he sat at the table.
The lunch sack he brought the sandwich in began to squirm. "Brian? Briiiiii-an... did you hear what the man said? Pleased to meat you? He knows. He has one of my brethren in his fridge. He calls it his meat-mate. His wife gets jealous. That's why she's so bubbly around you. She wants to make him jealous. Introduce me to his meat-mate. We can sort all this out."
Susan started looking concerned. "Brian? Are you ok? Hello? What happened to your hand?"
Kyle's demeanor quickly changed from one of sociable hospitality to distrust. He could tell there was something off about Brian.
Picking up on this, Brian attempted to build rapport. "I'm fine, really. It was just an accident in the kitchen."
Susan, trying to dismantle the awkwardness replied "ouch, I'm so sorry. Kyle just did that a few months back."
At that moment, Brian turned to Kyle with curiosity. He looked deep into his eyes and told him in a very heart-to-heart manner "I want to show you something."
He opened up his lunch sack and pulled out his slab of rotten meat sandwiched between two blue-green moldy pieces of bread. Ashamed he never married, Brian said "my beautiful wife was jealous of it at first, but we have a very different bond." Turning to Susan, he explained "the bond between man and woman is different from between man and meat. Your husband's meat can co-exist with you. You don't need to feel threatened."
"You need to leave. Meal's over, bud. Get out, Kyle said while clutching a knife under the table. As Brian grabbed his sandwich and was headed out, he saw the knife and grew concerned for Susan's safety. Clearly, Kyle had gone too far down this dark path and had become so fixated on his meat-mate that he was going to do away with his sweet wife Susan, Brian thought.
Sitting in his apartment, Brian wondered if he had gone too far himself. "I knew this was too good to be true." He grabbed the sandwich and decided to dispose of both it and Kyle's meat-mate, but he knew as they were blood-bonded, it was impossible for him to willingly destroy the sandwich. "Shit! Kyle's cut! He's blood-bonded to his as well, and they're both held captive by his sandwich. He wasn't trying to be rude to me. His sandwich wanted him to make me leave. The only way out is for me to eat Kyle's sandwich and him to eat mine. He's so deep into this, I know won't eat another man's sandwich though."
Over the next couple hours, Brian devised a plan to sneak into their home and incorporate small pieces of his sandwich into all of their food and of course, do Kyle the kindness of taking his sandwich out of the freezer and eating it for him.
He decided he needed to find out when they are having guests over next and incorporate it into their dishes then because they will be preparing enough food that he can spread it more easily amongst the dishes without getting noticed.
Unfortunately, as the weeks went by before they would have guests over, Brian's hand bwcame infected, and the infection was worsoning. It began to take on a repuslive smell, much like his sandwich, and the flesh of his hamd was becoming discolored. He noticed this was what happened to the bun. It had also changed color over time.
In another week, Brian's whole body was aching. He was feverish and throwing up what little he had in his stomach. "The meat is fighting back. I need to act soon."
The next day, once his neighbors left for work, he broke in and immediately searched their freezer. Unable to find meat-mate, he started mixing pieces of his sandwich among the foods they had in the fridge. Now, all he needed to do was wait.
The next day, Brian woke up invigorated knowing he had been cleansed, but he looked down at his hand, at it had even gotten worse. More drastic measures needed to be taken. He figured his hand had already metamorphasized into more rotten pork meat than man. It was too late for his hand, but perhaps the rest of him could be saved. As his luck would have it, there was a community potluck for the apartment the following evening. He promptly signed up to bring peppermint pork.

“There were rules, Mafia codes you had to go by. But the code is ridiculous. It's a code among sociopaths.” David Chase (creator: The Sopranos)
Chapter Three: Tiffany and The Ax

1. ANTIBES, FRANCE. Jude sat at a small table outside La Forge Restaurant on Jacques Audiberti Place. The petite square was bustling with late morning activity. He sipped an espresso and paged through his USA Today. A group of teenagers passed loudly through the square on their way to the beach from a hostel. Tiffany and her girlfriend were with the group. He had been watching her for about a week now but the right opportunity hadn't presented itself.

He told himself he wasn't delaying the operation because he was on an unlimited expense account and his target was spending the summer on the Cote d'Azur. He supposed milking a client that way would be unethical. The thought amused him. It really was because he hadn't found the perfect chance to kill her. Mostly. Mostly that was it.
He noted that the Tour de France was passing through the area and decided to find a place to watch the event. And then there was the Musee Picasso on Place Mariejol. He didn't want to miss that.
He could kill Tiffany tomorrow. Or the next day.
Finally it was the weather that forced his hand. A fierce summer storm was predicted for that week. Such an event would make Tiffany's movements unpredictable. She might stay in and weather it, as he would then have to do as well or she might catch the train to a fairer climate. He had no doubt he could find her again, but uncertainties made him uncomfortable. The night before the storm rolled in, he got his perfect opportunity.
It was late, past midnight. Jude had been watching Tiffany as she snuck away with a young man, an Australian, Jude guessed. They had been drinking on the beach, the Plage Gravette, having snuck on after it closed. The location couldn't have been more perfect if Karsen picked it himself. It was surrounded by walls on three sides and faced the ocean. It wasn't lit other than the light kicking off the surrounding apartment buildings. And with the cloud cover from the oncoming storm, it was all but impossible for anyone in the overlooking apartment buildings to see any activity on the beach that night.
Tiffany's male companion passed out after sex. Tiffany lay there, quite drunk herself. Finally she got up and staggered towards the road. Jude watched from the shadows as she came right towards him. She passed one bum, fast asleep by the wall and entered into the tunnel leading from the beach. She never saw Karsen.
She cried out for a split second. But Jude covered her mouth with gloved hands and snapped her neck. He carried her body off the beach, out the gate to the Quai Henri Rambaud and onto a waiting boat.
While Jude piloted the motorboat out into the ocean, into the face of the storm, his partner prepared the body. When they reached far enough out, they dumped the pretty, blonde teenager over the side. And started a media firestorm.
​
Tiffany Teague was an ordinary American girl. She was from the state of New York. Wynantskill, specifically. A hamlet outside of Albany. She was a junior in college, attending Cedar Crest College in Allentown, PA, an all women's school. She liked Justin Timberlake and Fallout Boy and thought that Paul Walker was the perfect man.
Edward and Maggie Teague weren't rich, or even well off after several failed business ventures, but they doted on their kids and helped Tiffany save for a summer of backpacking in Europe. They were proud of the fact that while most of Tiffany's friends were sitting around getting drunk and pregnant, Tiffany would be learning about the world. They probably wouldn't have been pleased with how she spent her last hours alive.
When she vanished, they began a tireless campaign. Like all parents faced with an unsolvable mystery of this type, they played nightmare scenarios over and over in their heads. Was it worse that she was dead? Or was it worse that she was alive, perhaps living in some horrible situation? Which to hope for? How to pray?
The case caught the attention of Nancy Grace and Greta Van Susteren. The resulting media pressure caused France, the United States and Australia (the home of the poor drunken boy last known to be with her) to redouble their efforts on Tiffany's behalf.
But there was no trace to be found. No clue as to her disappearance. The Australian boy, somewhat of a loathsome cad, found himself now reviled as a murderer. For the life of him, he could barely remember their last hours together. He didn't even remember having slept with her on the beach. A fact attested to by the drunk who watched it, but his testimony was highly questionable.
No one would ever have tied it to a case in Federal Court from almost two years before. The prosecution of a small time thug named Paulie Azeglio. In 2002 Paulie was convicted under U.S.C. § 2315 Sale or receipt of stolen goods, securities or monies. He was sentenced to three years, but died in prison in 2003. His death was retribution in an ongoing organized crime power struggle involving his infamous father, Frank “The Ax” Azeglio. Edward Teague was a juror in the trial that convicted Paulie.
​
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK. Two and half months before Tiffany's death, Jude was in the living room of his home in Sherman Oaks. He had his laptop hooked up to his 70 inch big screen television and he was sitting on the couch watching porn when his cell phone rang with an unknown number. Normally he wouldn't have answered it, but the area code was from New York. And he got a prickly feeling at the back of his neck. So he managed to get his hands clean in time to answer the call before it kicked over to voice mail.
The speaker was abrupt. A limousine would be arriving at his home in forty-five minutes. It would take him to the airport. He would fly to New York, JFK International and be picked up from there for a meeting. After the meeting he would be taken to a hotel before being flown back to L.A. the following afternoon. The option to refuse this was not offered. And Jude, recognizing the voice, knowing the caller by reputation, never once thought of turning it down. He got up, showered and packed an over-night bag. The limo was right on time.
When he arrived in New York, it was almost 4 AM. Another limo was waiting for him and the ride from the airport took forty-five minutes. Jude slept for most of it as it was past one in the morning, California time. He woke from the sound of the limo coming to a stop. The driver opened the door and Jude stepped out, stretching as he did so.
He was in a warehouse complex. Dull orange lights hung from the corners of buildings in halos of mist. The ocean was nearby, though he couldn't see it. He could smell the salt in the air and hear the not-so-distant sound of compressed surf crunching against a wharf. This was an old complex. Rust rotted through the walls of the buildings. Some were missing whole panels.
The limo drove away, leaving him alone. For a moment, there was a tightness in his chest. Anxiety. He didn’t have a gun. He wasn’t armed but that was unavoidable. He pushed it away. Calculated the odds. It was unlikely they brought him this far just to kill him. Unlikely, but not impossible. He pushed the thought away again. You never knew for sure when dealing with the Mafia. Before anxiety consumed him, a door opened. Twenty feet away, a large man wearing a suit stepped out of the darkness and motioned him to come forward. Karsen did not feel better.
The man searched Karsen, patting him down. Karsen didn't object. When the man was satisfied, he waved Jude through the doorway. Neither of them spoke.
Karsen moved cautiously into the old warehouse. It was a huge empty place. Dim light filtered in from broken windows high above. Deep shadows hung like curtains through cavernous space. Karsen lit a cigarette and walked, kept walking towards the center of the warehouse. Finally, seeing no objective and hearing the door crash closed behind him, he stopped. In a dim pool of light drizzling in from a broken window high above.
Footsteps echoed out of the shadows. Coming towards him. Gradually a man emerged from the gloom. He stopped a few feet from Jude. The man was in his late fifties or early sixties. Obviously Italian. His hair was steel grey and his manner was one that assumed authority.
Jude stared at Frank “The Ax” Azeglio. He took a drag on his cigarette and exhaled softly. Frank spoke.
“Mr. Karsen.”
“Yeah.”
“Put out your cigarette. My sinuses...”
“Oh. Sorry.” Jude dropped the smoke and crushed it with his shoe.
“Thank you. And thank you for coming.”
“Sure.”
“I have a job for you, Mr. Karsen.” With gloved hands, Frank the Ax passed a manila envelope to Karsen.
“Family member?” asked Jude.
“No.”
“One of the bosses?”
“Is this a quiz show? Open the fucking envelope.” Azeglio pulled out a bottle of nasal spray and took a squirt up each nostril.
Karsen skimmed the information and looked at the photo. A photo of Tiffany Teague. He glanced back up at Azeglio, curiosity on his face.
“This is a teenage girl.”
Frank stared at him. Silent. Jude shot him a small, knowing smile.
“Sure. I'll do it. Any special requests?”
“Make it quick and painless. Make the body disappear.”
Jude nodded and slid the papers back into the envelope. Something was weird about this. There was a reason Frank called him in the middle of the night, flew him across the country. There was a reason they were meeting in this warehouse instead of some back room of a restaurant. Something about this contract was different.
“A mil,” said Jude. “Plus expenses.”
The Ax didn't hesitate or negotiate. “I'll have it wired to your account. Bill me the expenses through our usual contact.”
“You got a deal.” Karsen handed the envelope back to Frank.
“Don't you need this information?”
“I have what I need memorized. I don’t want to carry that file past the TSA.” Karsen turned and walked towards the door. He hadn't gone more than a couple feet before Frank spoke again.
“Mr. Karsen.”
Jude stopped and turned to the mob boss.
“I want you to know why.”
Jude shifted uncomfortably. He was itching to go and he felt the nascent urge to urinate. But it was more than that. Somehow he felt that the longer he stayed, the more...culpable he was. It was an irrational, random thought, but it nagged him. It put an urgency on him.
“That's not necessary. I prefer not to know. To know as little as possible.”
“But I want you to know.”
Jude stood there quietly. He desperately wanted a smoke. Frank “The Ax” began to speak.
“My son Paul. Francis Paul Azeglio Jr, you know I wanted a better life for him. Wanted him to go to college, maybe join the military. I didn't want this life for him. This life that you and I lead. I wanted better for my children. Wasn't that the point of fighting my way out of the gutters and back alleys of Brooklyn? And I did it. I gave my children everything. Paul was raised in luxury. He got an excellent education at a private school. He had all the opportunities of privilege at his fingertips. Opportunities I bled and made others bleed to win for him.
“All I wanted was for him to be a doctor or a stockbroker or even a musician. To have a family and give me grandchildren. I wanted my son to escape this life that I was forced into by simple economics and...certain skills I had that others lacked. You understand me, Mr. Karsen?”
“I don't have children,” Jude regretted it the moment it came out his mouth. Frank's expression clouded and his brow furrowed.
“But I get your point,” Karsen added quickly.
“Every father worth a damn wants to protect his children. Of course, to my son, it seemed like I thought he wasn't up to it, like I thought he wasn't tough enough for the job....” Frank trailed off, staring up at the shattered windows with their rusted frames. “Which, of course, was the absolute truth.”
They were silent. Jude's need to piss was growing stronger. But there was no way to leave this conversation. Not until Frank the Ax was done. Was this a confession wondered Jude? Karsen suspected Frank was probably a Catholic. How did he suddenly become this man's priest?
Frank finally broke the silence. “Did your father respect you?”
Ahh jeez, thought Jude, “I broke his jaw when I was sixteen. After that it didn't matter.”
“Bullshit. It always matters. I never even knew my father and I still wonder what he would've thought of me, to this very day. But you took respect from your dad the day you cracked his face.”
“I don't know. I didn't see him much after that.”
“Right...right,” Frank sighed. “Paul wanted my respect. He wanted to impress me, not just as a son or even as a man, he wanted my respect as a gangster. He coulda done anything and I woulda been proud of him. But he wanted to be good, be great at what I was great at. You understand?”
“I think so.”
“This kid...this right side of the tracks, white kid who never had to fight in his life, decided he was smart enough to do a major job, like it was some movie or one of these cable TV shows. He stole a container full of flatscreen TVs and tried to fence. He wanted to bring down a big score, just like the stories he'd heard his old man tell the boys, when he shoulda been in bed at night...”
“He got caught.”
“Of course he got caught. Grand Theft Auto was a video game to him. To me, it was a way of life.” Frank muttered something under his breath that Jude didn't make out.
“What?”
“Nothing. Because Paul went across state lines it was a Federal Crime. Ahh, that shouldn't have mattered. I got the best lawyers, greased the skids with the Judge and the prosecutor. They offered a decent deal, but not enough. I didn't want my boy to do a day inside. So it went to trial. Still shouldn't have been a problem. I hired one of those fancy jury consultant companies and wired the jury...but one slipped by. One man named Edward Teague. Real Dudley do-right. From my man inside, he tells me this Edward Teague bullied this jury, harassed this jury, and wore them out by dragging it on for days so they finally gave in and convicted. They didn't want to convict. But this guy...this guy...he was the foreman and he all but forced them...”
Something didn't ring true about this story, but Jude wasn't about to question a man nicked-named 'The Ax'.
“Tough break.”
“So my sweetheart baby boy, my only son...went to the Federal Pen. God, the way he acted, like it was a badge of honor, like I should be proud of him. I told him-”
Frank stopped, his voice catching as the memory overcame him. He composed himself and wiped a tear, passing it off as rubbing the bridge of his nose.
“I told him. Keep your head down. Do your time quietly and he'd be taken care of. Mob guys can be very safe inside. But he... he still had something to prove...”
Another tear slid silently down the mafia don's cheeks. Jude wanted desperately to leave. But he felt he had to say something at this point.
“He's dead.”
“I got the guys that did him. I got them already.” Frank wiped the tears from his face and his manner changed. As he spoke, a slow rage filled his voice. “Now. Now I want Edward Teague. Juror number nine. I want him to suffer like I do. To live without his precious child, his daughter that he dotes on, that he loves. I want to rip her out of his arms.” His voice seethed with hatred.
“I want him to hurt...you understand me? I want him to have this hole in his heart. This ache, this, this horrible, empty, loss torn into his soul.”
Frank stepped closer to Jude, until he was so near Jude could smell the faint medicinal scent of nasal spray on the man's breath. He was so uncomfortable that he wanted to burst out laughing, but knew that would mean his instant death. Not figuratively. Frank, in this moment, would kill him for disrespect. It was the thought of his own face being bludgeoned that drove the amusement away.
Brutality filled Azeglio's voice, “I want to take his daughter from him and I want him to live the rest of his life never knowing what happened to her.”
The cold hatred that burned out of the man was awful in its intensity. His eyes cut into Jude's with the horror of emptiness. Without another word, Frank turned and walked back into the darkness.

Hello everyone, my girlfriend told me to make an nice experience in rome with her. So i asked chatgpt but i dont know if its reliable...
​
I need the best italian food experience avaliable in rome
​
For a romantic and memorable dining experience in Rome, here are some restaurants known for their ambiance and exceptional Italian cuisine:

1. Aroma: Situated near the Colosseum, this Michelin-starred rooftop restaurant offers stunning views of the city along with a gourmet menu that combines traditional Italian flavors with modern techniques.
2. Il Pagliaccio: This two Michelin-starred restaurant in the historic center of Rome offers a sophisticated and intimate setting. The chef creates innovative dishes that showcase the best of Italian ingredients.
3. Ristorante Aroma at Palazzo Manfredi: Located near the Colosseum, this upscale restaurant offers a refined atmosphere and panoramic views. They serve a creative menu featuring both Italian and international dishes.
4. Mirabelle: Situated on the rooftop of the Hotel Splendide Royal, Mirabelle offers breathtaking views of Rome's skyline. Their menu highlights seasonal ingredients and traditional Italian recipes with a touch of modern flair.
5. Il Convivio Troiani: This elegant restaurant in the heart of Rome's historic center is known for its impeccable service and inventive cuisine. They offer a tasting menu that showcases the chef's culinary skills.
6. Palatium: Located near Piazza Navona, this restaurant and wine bar focuses on showcasing the best of Italian regional cuisine. They offer a wide selection of wines from all over Italy to complement your meal.
7. Metamorfosi: Situated in the Parioli neighborhood, this Michelin-starred restaurant offers a contemporary dining experience with artistic presentations and innovative flavors. The tasting menu provides a culinary journey through Italian cuisine.

These restaurants provide a combination of excellent food, romantic atmosphere, and memorable experiences that will create a lasting Italy memory for you and your girlfriend. Remember to make reservations in advance to secure your table. Enjoy your time in Rome!
​

1. Trattoria Da Danilo: Located near Termini station, this family-run trattoria serves traditional Roman dishes with a focus on quality ingredients and homemade pastas.
2. Armando al Pantheon: Situated near the Pantheon, this historic trattoria has been serving classic Roman dishes since 1961. Their menu features specialties like cacio e pepe, carbonara, and abbacchio (lamb).
3. Roscioli: This renowned delicatessen and restaurant offers a wide range of gourmet products, including cheeses, cured meats, and wines. Their restaurant section serves Roman classics and innovative dishes.
4. La Pergola: Located inside the Rome Cavalieri Waldorf Astoria hotel, this Michelin three-star restaurant offers an unforgettable fine dining experience with breathtaking views of the city. The menu combines traditional Italian flavors with creative techniques.
5. Da Enzo al 29: Situated in the Trastevere neighborhood, this cozy trattoria serves authentic Roman cuisine. Their menu includes classics like amatriciana, carbonara, and trippa alla romana (Roman-style tripe).
6. Pizzarium: If you're looking for amazing pizza, head to this popular pizzeria near the Vatican. They offer a wide variety of delicious and creative pizza toppings, served by the slice.
7. Antico Arco: Located in the Gianicolo neighborhood, this upscale restaurant offers a contemporary twist on traditional Roman dishes. Their menu focuses on seasonal ingredients and innovative flavor combinations.

Here are the answers. Please let me know your best tips

I rarely post, but recently I've been reading some posts where people offer uplifting responses to strangers. It has been a source of comfort for me lately. At the moment, I feel overwhelmed and defeated, with a deep sense of loneliness. I want to express my emotions intelligently, as I am experiencing profound emotional wounds and a lack of direction in my life. This description reflects my current state.
The aspects that define me at this moment are a combination of permanent, temporary, cyclical, and circumstantial factors. I find myself in the deepest depression I have ever experienced in my 41 years of life. Considering my current circumstances and the metrics used to measure success, I feel like a complete failure. If one were to analyze my job history and performance, there were moments of incredible opportunities followed by brief success, only to be followed by utter failure. Similarly, if we were to evaluate my personal life in terms of social interactions, dating/marriage, friendships, and health, I would be considered among the lowest performers. It seems like my entire life has been marked by failure.
Furthermore, it seems as though the universe has singled me out for some special kind of punishment. For years, I have felt a sense of surrealism, where every decision or action I take inevitably leads to unfavorable outcomes. Every significant matter in my life has ended in prolonged consequences, worsened circumstances, or some form of material loss. I have missed out on numerous opportunities, chances for marriage and having children have slipped away, I am financially struggling, and I have very few friends apart from one in my former hometown of Chicago and another in Alaska. My spirituality and faith have also been deeply affected by the setbacks and obstacles I have faced, and I am dealing with all of this without the support of my estranged family.
My three best friends, my sisters, and I have not spoken in six years. I can't recall the last time I spoke with my brother, as he doesn't respond to my emails or texts. My mother is suffering from rapid-onset dementia, while my father has recently retired from a lifelong career as a doctor. Throughout my life, my family has systematically scapegoated me, starting with being labeled the black sheep. However, everything changed when I disclosed at the age of 27 that my brother had sexually and physically abused me as a child. Since then, life has been a constant battle against me. The universe seemed to shift its axis, and my life has never been the same. It is particularly disconcerting that my brother, a urologist by profession, is the perpetrator of such heinous acts.
My sisters, as research suggests, took sides between the "black sheep/fuckup/substance user" and the successful urologist. They accused me of lying, changing my story, waiting too long, claiming it was nothing, and even being jealous of my brother's life, which includes a mansion, a Porsche, wealth, and respect. Since I have accomplished nothing, they believe I fabricated drunken tales of childhood and only decided to reveal this ultra-specific story at the age of 27. I never imagined that I would lose my family in this way. It feels like I have lost my identity, purpose, support system, best friends, and confidants – my sisters. They have subjected me to the silent treatment, which my brother also employs, treating me as if I don't exist. My sister's last text message summed it up when she said that they don't get together to talk about me anymore because I don't come up in their conversations. It was the same sister who initially encouraged me to reveal the truth about the abuse but then betrayed me and twisted the narrative.
In my family, my case of sexual abuse was not an isolated incident. My father, a physician and at the time a pediatrician in Illinois, had a second case of sexual abuse and incest in his side of the family. His younger brother, the second oldest among seven siblings, also abused his own daughter, my cousin. He is also Dr. A few years before I disclosed my own abuse as an adult, my cousin trusted my father enough to disclose her abuse to him. Despite my father not knowing about my case at the time, he took no professional action to report the abuse committed by another doctor, his brother, who abused his now niece, and did nothing.During that same disclosure, my cousin admitted that her two brothers, who are also my cousins, had abused her as well. This meant that five members of her household, three of whom were abusing one child, were involved in these traumatic events. My father, along with his brother and siblings, did nothing legally to report these incidents. My uncle, the abuser, is now the president of a hospital in East Texas. So technically, my case was the fourth, following my uncle, cousin, and another cousin. One of those cousins is now a pastor of a small church community, while the other works for a former presidential candidate's company. As for me, I have been trapped in a cycle of failure to launch as an adult, mental health issues, and intermittent substance abuse problems for the past 20 years. And that's not even the end of it – the fifth case involves my cousin, who was arrested in a state capital where he worked as a therapist or counselor. He was arrested for filming his young neighbor through her window. I am aware of his arrest but do not have any information regarding the progress of his case or its resolution.
To put it all together, it is an intricate mess of narcissism, ego, power, control, and childhood trauma. I strongly believe I have developed complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD) as a result of these experiences. In fact, I am certain that I have.
Fast-forward to the present, and I am writing this from a motel room, where there are too many details to recount from the past six months since my return from Montana. In a way, I followed the path of my other abused cousin – I left. However, I ultimately failed and had to return to a city near my parents, a city I despise. To add to my troubles, I was falsely accused of felony domestic violence soon after my return, further fueling my sense of failure and shame. My parents, upon hearing about the incident, made it clear that they wanted little to do with me. Speaking of Montana, my experiences and the year I spent there were truly nightmarish, to say the least. But that's a story for another time.
During the car ride to a hospital in a small town in the same county, my father and I had an opportunity for a discussion about the abuse. I wanted to understand why he did nothing in all five cases, why the eldest child seems to be targeted (true for my brother and cousin), why successful doctors are involved – including a pastor, a consultant, and now a urologist after the fact. Did he not notice the intergenerational pattern and his own parental negligence as a physician and a parent of adult children? I questioned why he took no action, why his behavior changed so drastically in the past three years, why he lied about his knowledge of nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) when he had used them for possible infidelity and had lied about private settlements. He even harassed me using the police, assassinated my character in our small town, and now charged me with striking him, resulting in false statements and allegations. As a consequence, my reputation has been tarnished while my father's remains pristine. We currently reside in a town where he practiced medicine, and the consequences for me are severe. Deep in my heart, I know that his post-arrest behavior towards me has been consistently inconsistent. He evades questioning, avoids contact and visits, and shows no signs of wanting a relationship. Instead, he guilt-trips me, shifts blame, engages in word salad and gaslighting, and pathologically lies.
As I sit here now, I wonder: What can one do in such a dire situation? There seem to be no options, no answers, no safety nets of money or emotional support, no motivation, and no joy – only the looming threat of a potentially harsh sentence. Even worse, my father has attempted to record my phone calls and offered me money not to hire a proper defense attorney or pursue litigation, just a week before I was supposed to accept a four-year adjudication plea as an innocent party. Then, when I decided to plead my innocence at the last minute during the trial, he abandoned me once again, signaling to me that money is somehow tainted. Regardless, it's gone now.
I apologize for unloading all of this on Reddit, and I understand that it may be quite depressing for others to read. However, I feel that I have reached the end of my fight, not against just one issue, but against a conglomerate of issues that have stolen my life and time, offering me nothing in return. I desperately need legal advice, emotional support, prayers, or any form of assistance. I find myself lost in a maze of confusion, where every turn I make is a miscalculation, distorted by backward perspectives and reflections off other elements. Over the past six weeks since leaving my job due to a problematic relationship with the owner, I have been living a transient and isolated existence in the dark corners of this wretched city. It feels as though I have been exiled from my own life. I don't know what to do or who to turn to. I want to assure you that I'm not dramatizing this situation; I'm simply sharing my experience because I have no one else to talk to. I have been completely alone and isolated since losing my job.

I rarely post, but recently I've been reading some posts where people offer uplifting responses to strangers. It has been a source of comfort for me lately. At the moment, I feel overwhelmed and defeated, with a deep sense of loneliness. I want to express my emotions intelligently, as I am experiencing profound emotional wounds and a lack of direction in my life. This description reflects my current state.
The aspects that define me at this moment are a combination of permanent, temporary, cyclical, and circumstantial factors. I find myself in the deepest depression I have ever experienced in my 41 years of life. Considering my current circumstances and the metrics used to measure success, I feel like a complete failure. If one were to analyze my job history and performance, there were moments of incredible opportunities followed by brief success, only to be followed by utter failure. Similarly, if we were to evaluate my personal life in terms of social interactions, dating/marriage, friendships, and health, I would be considered among the lowest performers. It seems like my entire life has been marked by failure.
Furthermore, it seems as though the universe has singled me out for some special kind of punishment. For years, I have felt a sense of surrealism, where every decision or action I take inevitably leads to unfavorable outcomes. Every significant matter in my life has ended in prolonged consequences, worsened circumstances, or some form of material loss. I have missed out on numerous opportunities, chances for marriage and having children have slipped away, I am financially struggling, and I have very few friends apart from one in my former hometown of Chicago and another in Alaska. My spirituality and faith have also been deeply affected by the setbacks and obstacles I have faced, and I am dealing with all of this without the support of my estranged family.
My three best friends, my sisters, and I have not spoken in six years. I can't recall the last time I spoke with my brother, as he doesn't respond to my emails or texts. My mother is suffering from rapid-onset dementia, while my father has recently retired from a lifelong career as a doctor. Throughout my life, my family has systematically scapegoated me, starting with being labeled the black sheep. However, everything changed when I disclosed at the age of 27 that my brother had sexually and physically abused me as a child. Since then, life has been a constant battle against me. The universe seemed to shift its axis, and my life has never been the same. It is particularly disconcerting that my brother, a urologist by profession, is the perpetrator of such heinous acts.
My sisters, as research suggests, took sides between the "black sheep/fuckup/substance user" and the successful urologist. They accused me of lying, changing my story, waiting too long, claiming it was nothing, and even being jealous of my brother's life, which includes a mansion, a Porsche, wealth, and respect. Since I have accomplished nothing, they believe I fabricated drunken tales of childhood and only decided to reveal this ultra-specific story at the age of 27. I never imagined that I would lose my family in this way. It feels like I have lost my identity, purpose, support system, best friends, and confidants – my sisters. They have subjected me to the silent treatment, which my brother also employs, treating me as if I don't exist. My sister's last text message summed it up when she said that they don't get together to talk about me anymore because I don't come up in their conversations. It was the same sister who initially encouraged me to reveal the truth about the abuse but then betrayed me and twisted the narrative.
In my family, my case of sexual abuse was not an isolated incident. My father, a physician and at the time a pediatrician in Illinois, had a second case of sexual abuse and incest in his side of the family. His younger brother, the second oldest among seven siblings, also abused his own daughter, my cousin. He is also Dr. A few years before I disclosed my own abuse as an adult, my cousin trusted my father enough to disclose her abuse to him. Despite my father not knowing about my case at the time, he took no professional action to report the abuse committed by another doctor, his brother, who abused his now niece, and did nothing.During that same disclosure, my cousin admitted that her two brothers, who are also my cousins, had abused her as well. This meant that five members of her household, three of whom were abusing one child, were involved in these traumatic events. My father, along with his brother and siblings, did nothing legally to report these incidents. My uncle, the abuser, is now the president of a hospital in East Texas. So technically, my case was the fourth, following my uncle, cousin, and another cousin. One of those cousins is now a pastor of a small church community, while the other works for a former presidential candidate's company. As for me, I have been trapped in a cycle of failure to launch as an adult, mental health issues, and intermittent substance abuse problems for the past 20 years. And that's not even the end of it – the fifth case involves my cousin, who was arrested in a state capital where he worked as a therapist or counselor. He was arrested for filming his young neighbor through her window. I am aware of his arrest but do not have any information regarding the progress of his case or its resolution.
To put it all together, it is an intricate mess of narcissism, ego, power, control, and childhood trauma. I strongly believe I have developed complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD) as a result of these experiences. In fact, I am certain that I have.
Fast-forward to the present, and I am writing this from a motel room, where there are too many details to recount from the past six months since my return from Montana. In a way, I followed the path of my other abused cousin – I left. However, I ultimately failed and had to return to a city near my parents, a city I despise. To add to my troubles, I was falsely accused of felony domestic violence soon after my return, further fueling my sense of failure and shame. My parents, upon hearing about the incident, made it clear that they wanted little to do with me. Speaking of Montana, my experiences and the year I spent there were truly nightmarish, to say the least. But that's a story for another time.
During the car ride to a hospital in a small town in the same county, my father and I had an opportunity for a discussion about the abuse. I wanted to understand why he did nothing in all five cases, why the eldest child seems to be targeted (true for my brother and cousin), why successful doctors are involved – including a pastor, a consultant, and now a urologist after the fact. Did he not notice the intergenerational pattern and his own parental negligence as a physician and a parent of adult children? I questioned why he took no action, why his behavior changed so drastically in the past three years, why he lied about his knowledge of nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) when he had used them for possible infidelity and had lied about private settlements. He even harassed me using the police, assassinated my character in our small town, and now charged me with striking him, resulting in false statements and allegations. As a consequence, my reputation has been tarnished while my father's remains pristine. We currently reside in a town where he practiced medicine, and the consequences for me are severe. Deep in my heart, I know that his post-arrest behavior towards me has been consistently inconsistent. He evades questioning, avoids contact and visits, and shows no signs of wanting a relationship. Instead, he guilt-trips me, shifts blame, engages in word salad and gaslighting, and pathologically lies.
As I sit here now, I wonder: What can one do in such a dire situation? There seem to be no options, no answers, no safety nets of money or emotional support, no motivation, and no joy – only the looming threat of a potentially harsh sentence. Even worse, my father has attempted to record my phone calls and offered me money not to hire a proper defense attorney or pursue litigation, just a week before I was supposed to accept a four-year adjudication plea as an innocent party. Then, when I decided to plead my innocence at the last minute during the trial, he abandoned me once again, signaling to me that money is somehow tainted. Regardless, it's gone now.
I apologize for unloading all of this on Reddit, and I understand that it may be quite depressing for others to read. However, I feel that I have reached the end of my fight, not against just one issue, but against a conglomerate of issues that have stolen my life and time, offering me nothing in return. I desperately need legal advice, emotional support, prayers, or any form of assistance. I find myself lost in a maze of confusion, where every turn I make is a miscalculation, distorted by backward perspectives and reflections off other elements. Over the past six weeks since leaving my job due to a problematic relationship with the owner, I have been living a transient and isolated existence in the dark corners of this wretched city. It feels as though I have been exiled from my own life. I don't know what to do or who to turn to. I want to assure you that I'm not dramatizing this situation; I'm simply sharing my experience because I have no one else to talk to. I have been completely alone and isolated since losing my job.

I rarely post, but recently I've been reading some posts where people offer uplifting responses to strangers. It has been a source of comfort for me lately. At the moment, I feel overwhelmed and defeated, with a deep sense of loneliness. I want to express my emotions intelligently, as I am experiencing profound emotional wounds and a lack of direction in my life. This description reflects my current state.
The aspects that define me at this moment are a combination of permanent, temporary, cyclical, and circumstantial factors. I find myself in the deepest depression I have ever experienced in my 41 years of life. Considering my current circumstances and the metrics used to measure success, I feel like a complete failure. If one were to analyze my job history and performance, there were moments of incredible opportunities followed by brief success, only to be followed by utter failure. Similarly, if we were to evaluate my personal life in terms of social interactions, dating/marriage, friendships, and health, I would be considered among the lowest performers. It seems like my entire life has been marked by failure.
Furthermore, it seems as though the universe has singled me out for some special kind of punishment. For years, I have felt a sense of surrealism, where every decision or action I take inevitably leads to unfavorable outcomes. Every significant matter in my life has ended in prolonged consequences, worsened circumstances, or some form of material loss. I have missed out on numerous opportunities, chances for marriage and having children have slipped away, I am financially struggling, and I have very few friends apart from one in my former hometown of Chicago and another in Alaska. My spirituality and faith have also been deeply affected by the setbacks and obstacles I have faced, and I am dealing with all of this without the support of my estranged family.
My three best friends, my sisters, and I have not spoken in six years. I can't recall the last time I spoke with my brother, as he doesn't respond to my emails or texts. My mother is suffering from rapid-onset dementia, while my father has recently retired from a lifelong career as a doctor. Throughout my life, my family has systematically scapegoated me, starting with being labeled the black sheep. However, everything changed when I disclosed at the age of 27 that my brother had sexually and physically abused me as a child. Since then, life has been a constant battle against me. The universe seemed to shift its axis, and my life has never been the same. It is particularly disconcerting that my brother, a urologist by profession, is the perpetrator of such heinous acts.
My sisters, as research suggests, took sides between the "black sheep/fuckup/substance user" and the successful urologist. They accused me of lying, changing my story, waiting too long, claiming it was nothing, and even being jealous of my brother's life, which includes a mansion, a Porsche, wealth, and respect. Since I have accomplished nothing, they believe I fabricated drunken tales of childhood and only decided to reveal this ultra-specific story at the age of 27. I never imagined that I would lose my family in this way. It feels like I have lost my identity, purpose, support system, best friends, and confidants – my sisters. They have subjected me to the silent treatment, which my brother also employs, treating me as if I don't exist. My sister's last text message summed it up when she said that they don't get together to talk about me anymore because I don't come up in their conversations. It was the same sister who initially encouraged me to reveal the truth about the abuse but then betrayed me and twisted the narrative.
In my family, my case of sexual abuse was not an isolated incident. My father, a physician and at the time a pediatrician in Illinois, had a second case of sexual abuse and incest in his side of the family. His younger brother, the second oldest among seven siblings, also abused his own daughter, my cousin. He is also Dr. A few years before I disclosed my own abuse as an adult, my cousin trusted my father enough to disclose her abuse to him. Despite my father not knowing about my case at the time, he took no professional action to report the abuse committed by another doctor, his brother, who abused his now niece, and did nothing.During that same disclosure, my cousin admitted that her two brothers, who are also my cousins, had abused her as well. This meant that five members of her household, three of whom were abusing one child, were involved in these traumatic events. My father, along with his brother and siblings, did nothing legally to report these incidents. My uncle, the abuser, is now the president of a hospital in East Texas. So technically, my case was the fourth, following my uncle, cousin, and another cousin. One of those cousins is now a pastor of a small church community, while the other works for a former presidential candidate's company. As for me, I have been trapped in a cycle of failure to launch as an adult, mental health issues, and intermittent substance abuse problems for the past 20 years. And that's not even the end of it – the fifth case involves my cousin, who was arrested in a state capital where he worked as a therapist or counselor. He was arrested for filming his young neighbor through her window. I am aware of his arrest but do not have any information regarding the progress of his case or its resolution.
To put it all together, it is an intricate mess of narcissism, ego, power, control, and childhood trauma. I strongly believe I have developed complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD) as a result of these experiences. In fact, I am certain that I have.
Fast-forward to the present, and I am writing this from a motel room, where there are too many details to recount from the past six months since my return from Montana. In a way, I followed the path of my other abused cousin – I left. However, I ultimately failed and had to return to a city near my parents, a city I despise. To add to my troubles, I was falsely accused of felony domestic violence soon after my return, further fueling my sense of failure and shame. My parents, upon hearing about the incident, made it clear that they wanted little to do with me. Speaking of Montana, my experiences and the year I spent there were truly nightmarish, to say the least. But that's a story for another time.
During the car ride to a hospital in a small town in the same county, my father and I had an opportunity for a discussion about the abuse. I wanted to understand why he did nothing in all five cases, why the eldest child seems to be targeted (true for my brother and cousin), why successful doctors are involved – including a pastor, a consultant, and now a urologist after the fact. Did he not notice the intergenerational pattern and his own parental negligence as a physician and a parent of adult children? I questioned why he took no action, why his behavior changed so drastically in the past three years, why he lied about his knowledge of nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) when he had used them for possible infidelity and had lied about private settlements. He even harassed me using the police, assassinated my character in our small town, and now charged me with striking him, resulting in false statements and allegations. As a consequence, my reputation has been tarnished while my father's remains pristine. We currently reside in a town where he practiced medicine, and the consequences for me are severe. Deep in my heart, I know that his post-arrest behavior towards me has been consistently inconsistent. He evades questioning, avoids contact and visits, and shows no signs of wanting a relationship. Instead, he guilt-trips me, shifts blame, engages in word salad and gaslighting, and pathologically lies.
As I sit here now, I wonder: What can one do in such a dire situation? There seem to be no options, no answers, no safety nets of money or emotional support, no motivation, and no joy – only the looming threat of a potentially harsh sentence. Even worse, my father has attempted to record my phone calls and offered me money not to hire a proper defense attorney or pursue litigation, just a week before I was supposed to accept a four-year adjudication plea as an innocent party. Then, when I decided to plead my innocence at the last minute during the trial, he abandoned me once again, signaling to me that money is somehow tainted. Regardless, it's gone now.
I apologize for unloading all of this on Reddit, and I understand that it may be quite depressing for others to read. However, I feel that I have reached the end of my fight, not against just one issue, but against a conglomerate of issues that have stolen my life and time, offering me nothing in return. I desperately need legal advice, emotional support, prayers, or any form of assistance. I find myself lost in a maze of confusion, where every turn I make is a miscalculation, distorted by backward perspectives and reflections off other elements. Over the past six weeks since leaving my job due to a problematic relationship with the owner, I have been living a transient and isolated existence in the dark corners of this wretched city. It feels as though I have been exiled from my own life. I don't know what to do or who to turn to. I want to assure you that I'm not dramatizing this situation; I'm simply sharing my experience because I have no one else to talk to. I have been completely alone and isolated since losing my job.

I rarely post, but recently I've been reading some posts where people offer uplifting responses to strangers. It has been a source of comfort for me lately. At the moment, I feel overwhelmed and defeated, with a deep sense of loneliness. I want to express my emotions intelligently, as I am experiencing profound emotional wounds and a lack of direction in my life. This description reflects my current state.
The aspects that define me at this moment are a combination of permanent, temporary, cyclical, and circumstantial factors. I find myself in the deepest depression I have ever experienced in my 41 years of life. Considering my current circumstances and the metrics used to measure success, I feel like a complete failure. If one were to analyze my job history and performance, there were moments of incredible opportunities followed by brief success, only to be followed by utter failure. Similarly, if we were to evaluate my personal life in terms of social interactions, dating/marriage, friendships, and health, I would be considered among the lowest performers. It seems like my entire life has been marked by failure.
Furthermore, it seems as though the universe has singled me out for some special kind of punishment. For years, I have felt a sense of surrealism, where every decision or action I take inevitably leads to unfavorable outcomes. Every significant matter in my life has ended in prolonged consequences, worsened circumstances, or some form of material loss. I have missed out on numerous opportunities, chances for marriage and having children have slipped away, I am financially struggling, and I have very few friends apart from one in my former hometown of Chicago and another in Alaska. My spirituality and faith have also been deeply affected by the setbacks and obstacles I have faced, and I am dealing with all of this without the support of my estranged family.
My three best friends, my sisters, and I have not spoken in six years. I can't recall the last time I spoke with my brother, as he doesn't respond to my emails or texts. My mother is suffering from rapid-onset dementia, while my father has recently retired from a lifelong career as a doctor. Throughout my life, my family has systematically scapegoated me, starting with being labeled the black sheep. However, everything changed when I disclosed at the age of 27 that my brother had sexually and physically abused me as a child. Since then, life has been a constant battle against me. The universe seemed to shift its axis, and my life has never been the same. It is particularly disconcerting that my brother, a urologist by profession, is the perpetrator of such heinous acts.
My sisters, as research suggests, took sides between the "black sheep/fuckup/substance user" and the successful urologist. They accused me of lying, changing my story, waiting too long, claiming it was nothing, and even being jealous of my brother's life, which includes a mansion, a Porsche, wealth, and respect. Since I have accomplished nothing, they believe I fabricated drunken tales of childhood and only decided to reveal this ultra-specific story at the age of 27. I never imagined that I would lose my family in this way. It feels like I have lost my identity, purpose, support system, best friends, and confidants – my sisters. They have subjected me to the silent treatment, which my brother also employs, treating me as if I don't exist. My sister's last text message summed it up when she said that they don't get together to talk about me anymore because I don't come up in their conversations. It was the same sister who initially encouraged me to reveal the truth about the abuse but then betrayed me and twisted the narrative.
In my family, my case of sexual abuse was not an isolated incident. My father, a physician and at the time a pediatrician in Illinois, had a second case of sexual abuse and incest in his side of the family. His younger brother, the second oldest among seven siblings, also abused his own daughter, my cousin. He is also Dr. A few years before I disclosed my own abuse as an adult, my cousin trusted my father enough to disclose her abuse to him. Despite my father not knowing about my case at the time, he took no professional action to report the abuse committed by another doctor, his brother, who abused his now niece, and did nothing.During that same disclosure, my cousin admitted that her two brothers, who are also my cousins, had abused her as well. This meant that five members of her household, three of whom were abusing one child, were involved in these traumatic events. My father, along with his brother and siblings, did nothing legally to report these incidents. My uncle, the abuser, is now the president of a hospital in East Texas. So technically, my case was the fourth, following my uncle, cousin, and another cousin. One of those cousins is now a pastor of a small church community, while the other works for a former presidential candidate's company. As for me, I have been trapped in a cycle of failure to launch as an adult, mental health issues, and intermittent substance abuse problems for the past 20 years. And that's not even the end of it – the fifth case involves my cousin, who was arrested in a state capital where he worked as a therapist or counselor. He was arrested for filming his young neighbor through her window. I am aware of his arrest but do not have any information regarding the progress of his case or its resolution.
To put it all together, it is an intricate mess of narcissism, ego, power, control, and childhood trauma. I strongly believe I have developed complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD) as a result of these experiences. In fact, I am certain that I have.
Fast-forward to the present, and I am writing this from a motel room, where there are too many details to recount from the past six months since my return from Montana. In a way, I followed the path of my other abused cousin – I left. However, I ultimately failed and had to return to a city near my parents, a city I despise. To add to my troubles, I was falsely accused of felony domestic violence soon after my return, further fueling my sense of failure and shame. My parents, upon hearing about the incident, made it clear that they wanted little to do with me. Speaking of Montana, my experiences and the year I spent there were truly nightmarish, to say the least. But that's a story for another time.
During the car ride to a hospital in a small town in the same county, my father and I had an opportunity for a discussion about the abuse. I wanted to understand why he did nothing in all five cases, why the eldest child seems to be targeted (true for my brother and cousin), why successful doctors are involved – including a pastor, a consultant, and now a urologist after the fact. Did he not notice the intergenerational pattern and his own parental negligence as a physician and a parent of adult children? I questioned why he took no action, why his behavior changed so drastically in the past three years, why he lied about his knowledge of nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) when he had used them for possible infidelity and had lied about private settlements. He even harassed me using the police, assassinated my character in our small town, and now charged me with striking him, resulting in false statements and allegations. As a consequence, my reputation has been tarnished while my father's remains pristine. We currently reside in a town where he practiced medicine, and the consequences for me are severe. Deep in my heart, I know that his post-arrest behavior towards me has been consistently inconsistent. He evades questioning, avoids contact and visits, and shows no signs of wanting a relationship. Instead, he guilt-trips me, shifts blame, engages in word salad and gaslighting, and pathologically lies.
As I sit here now, I wonder: What can one do in such a dire situation? There seem to be no options, no answers, no safety nets of money or emotional support, no motivation, and no joy – only the looming threat of a potentially harsh sentence. Even worse, my father has attempted to record my phone calls and offered me money not to hire a proper defense attorney or pursue litigation, just a week before I was supposed to accept a four-year adjudication plea as an innocent party. Then, when I decided to plead my innocence at the last minute during the trial, he abandoned me once again, signaling to me that money is somehow tainted. Regardless, it's gone now.
I apologize for unloading all of this on Reddit, and I understand that it may be quite depressing for others to read. However, I feel that I have reached the end of my fight, not against just one issue, but against a conglomerate of issues that have stolen my life and time, offering me nothing in return. I desperately need legal advice, emotional support, prayers, or any form of assistance. I find myself lost in a maze of confusion, where every turn I make is a miscalculation, distorted by backward perspectives and reflections off other elements. Over the past six weeks since leaving my job due to a problematic relationship with the owner, I have been living a transient and isolated existence in the dark corners of this wretched city. It feels as though I have been exiled from my own life. I don't know what to do or who to turn to. I want to assure you that I'm not dramatizing this situation; I'm simply sharing my experience because I have no one else to talk to. I have been completely alone and isolated since losing my job.

When I was brand new to NovelAi I had no idea how 2048 tokens really looked as text. So for anyone looking at the tiers, trying to decide how many tokens they want for Clio with the new update, I've tokenized Part of The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald (public domain since 2021).
That way new users can more easily visualize what the AI's maximum context is for each tier. According to the UI Clio uses the NerdStash Tokenizer, as different tokenizers will convert text to tokens their own way.
------------------------
In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.
“Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”
He didn’t say any more, but we’ve always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence, I’m inclined to reserve all judgements, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsought—frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon; for the intimate revelations of young men, or at least the terms in which they express them, are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgements is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.
And, after boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to the admission that it has a limit. Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes, but after a certain point I don’t care what it’s founded on. When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction—Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the “creative temperament”—it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. No—Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.
My family have been prominent, well-to-do people in this Middle Western city for three generations. The Carraways are something of a clan, and we have a tradition that we’re descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch, but the actual founder of my line was my grandfather’s brother, who came here in fifty-one, sent a substitute to the Civil War, and started the wholesale hardware business that my father carries on today.
I never saw this great-uncle, but I’m supposed to look like him—with special reference to the rather hard-boiled painting that hangs in father’s office. I graduated from New Haven in 1915, just a quarter of a century after my father, and a little later I participated in that delayed Teutonic migration known as the Great War. I enjoyed the counter-raid so thoroughly that I came back restless. Instead of being the warm centre of the world, the Middle West now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe—so I decided to go East and learn the bond business. Everybody I knew was in the bond business, so I supposed it could support one more single man. All my aunts and uncles talked it over as if they were choosing a prep school for me, and finally said, “Why—ye-es,” with very grave, hesitant faces. Father agreed to finance me for a year, and after various delays I came East, permanently, I thought, in the spring of twenty-two.
The practical thing was to find rooms in the city, but it was a warm season, and I had just left a country of wide lawns and friendly trees, so when a young man at the office suggested that we take a house together in a commuting town, it sounded like a great idea. He found the house, a weather-beaten cardboard bungalow at eighty a month, but at the last minute the firm ordered him to Washington, and I went out to the country alone. I had a dog—at least I had him for a few days until he ran away—and an old Dodge and a Finnish woman, who made my bed and cooked breakfast and muttered Finnish wisdom to herself over the electric stove.
It was lonely for a day or so until one morning some man, more recently arrived than I, stopped me on the road.
“How do you get to West Egg village?” he asked helplessly.
I told him. And as I walked on I was lonely no longer. I was a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler. He had casually conferred on me the freedom of the neighbourhood.
And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.
There was so much to read, for one thing, and so much fine health to be pulled down out of the young breath-giving air. I bought a dozen volumes on banking and credit and investment securities, and they stood on my shelf in red and gold like new money from the mint, promising to unfold the shining secrets that only Midas and Morgan and Maecenas knew. And I had the high intention of reading many other books besides. I was rather literary in college—one year I wrote a series of very solemn and obvious editorials for the Yale News—and now I was going to bring back all such things into my life and become again that most limited of all specialists, the “well-rounded man.” This isn’t just an epigram—life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all.
It was a matter of chance that I should have rented a house in one of the strangest communities in North America. It was on that slender riotous island which extends itself due east of New York—and where there are, among other natural curiosities, two unusual formations of land. Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay, jut out into the most domesticated body of salt water in the Western hemisphere, the great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound. They are not perfect ovals—like the egg in the Columbus story, they are both crushed flat at the contact end—but their physical resemblance must be a source of perpetual wonder to the gulls that fly overhead. To the wingless a more interesting phenomenon is their dissimilarity in every particular except shape and size.
I lived at West Egg, the—well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them. My house was at the very tip of the egg, only fifty yards from the Sound, and squeezed between two huge places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season. The one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard—it was a factual imitation of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. It was Gatsby’s mansion. Or, rather, as I didn’t know Mr. Gatsby, it was a mansion inhabited by a gentleman of that name. My own house was an eyesore, but it was a small eyesore, and it had been overlooked, so I had a view of the water, a partial view of my neighbour’s lawn, and the consoling proximity of millionaires—all for eighty dollars a month.
Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water, and the history of the summer really begins on the evening I drove over there to have dinner with the Tom Buchanans. Daisy was my second cousin once removed, and I’d known Tom in college. And just after the war I spent two days with them in Chicago.
Her husband, among various physical accomplishments, had been one of the most powerful ends that ever played football at New Haven—a national figure in a way, one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savours of anticlimax. His family were enormously wealthy—even in college his freedom with money was a matter for reproach—but now he’d left Chicago and come East in a fashion that rather took your breath away: for instance, he’d brought down a string of polo ponies from Lake Forest. It was hard to realize that a man in my own generation was wealthy enough to do that.
Why they came East I don’t know. They had spent a year in France for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together. This was a permanent move, said Daisy over the telephone, but I didn’t believe it—I had no sight into Daisy’s heart, but I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking, a little wistfully, for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game.
And so it happened that on a warm windy evening I drove over to East Egg to see two old friends whom I scarcely knew at all. Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red-and-white Georgian Colonial mansion, overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach and ran towards the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sundials and brick walks and burning gardens—finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run. The front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with reflected gold and wide open to the warm windy afternoon, and Tom Buchanan in riding clothes was standing with his legs apart on the front porch.
He had changed since his New Haven years. Now he was a sturdy straw-haired man of thirty, with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body—he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing, and you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage—a cruel body.
His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed. There was a touch of paternal contempt in it, even toward people he liked—and there were men at New Haven who had hated his guts.
“Now, don’t think my opinion on these matters is final,” he seemed to say, “just because I’m stronger and more of a man than you are.” We were in the same senior society, and while we were never intimate I always had the impression that he approved of me and wanted me to like him with some harsh, defiant wistfulness of his own.
We talked for a few minutes on the sunny porch.
“I’ve got a nice place here,” he said, his eyes flashing about restlessly.
Turning me around by one arm, he moved a broad flat hand along the front vista, including in its sweep a sunken Italian garden, a half acre of deep, pungent roses, and a snub-nosed motorboat that bumped the tide offshore.
“It belonged to Demaine, the oil man.” He turned me around again, politely and abruptly. “We’ll go inside.”
We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-coloured space, fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end. The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding-cake of the ceiling, and then rippled over the wine-coloured rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.
The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room, and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor.
The younger of the two was a stranger to me. She was extended full length at her end of the divan, completely motionless, and with her chin raised a little, as if she were balancing something on it which was quite likely to fall. If she saw me out of the corner of her eyes she gave no hint of it—indeed, I was almost surprised into murmuring an apology for having disturbed her by coming in.
The other girl, Daisy, made an attempt to rise—she leaned slightly forward with a conscientious expression—then she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh, and I laughed too and came forward into the room.
“I’m p-paralysed with happiness.”
She
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laughed again, as if she said something very witty, and held my hand for a moment, looking up into my face, promising that there was no one in the world she so much wanted to see. That was a way she had. She hinted in a murmur that the surname of the balancing girl was Baker. (I’ve heard it said that Daisy’s murmur was only to make people lean toward her; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming.)
At any rate, Miss Baker’s lips fluttered, she nodded at me almost imperceptibly, and then quickly tipped her head back again—the object she was balancing had obviously tottered a little and given her something of a fright. Again a sort of apology arose to my lips. Almost any exhibition of complete self-sufficiency draws a stunned tribute from me.
I looked back at my cousin, who began to ask me questions in her low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered “Listen,” a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour.
I told her how I had stopped off in Chicago for a day on my way East, and how a dozen people had sent their love through me.
“Do they miss me?” she cried ecstatically.
“The whole town is desolate. All the cars have the left rear wheel painted black as a mourning wreath, and there’s a persistent wail all night along the north shore.”
“How gorgeous! Let’s go back, Tom. Tomorrow!” Then she added irrelevantly: “You ought to see the baby.”
“I’d like to.”
“She’s asleep. She’s three years old. Haven’t you ever seen her?”
“Never.”
“Well, you ought to see her. She’s—”
Tom Buchanan, who had been hovering restlessly about the room, stopped and rested his hand on my shoulder.
“What you doing, Nick?”
“I’m a bond man.”
“Who with?”
I told him.
“Never heard of them,” he remarked decisively.
This annoyed me.
“You will,” I answered shortly. “You will if you stay in the East.”
“Oh, I’ll stay in the East, don’t you worry,” he said, glancing at Daisy and then back at me, as if he were alert for something more. “I’d be a God damned fool to live anywhere else.”
At this point Miss Baker said: “Absolutely!” with such suddenness that I started—it was the first word she had uttered since I came into the room. Evidently it surprised her as much as it did me, for she yawned and with a series of rapid, deft movements stood up into the room.
“I’m stiff,” she complained, “I’ve been lying on that sofa for as long as I can remember.”
“Don’t look at me,” Daisy retorted, “I’ve been trying to get you to New York all afternoon.”
“No, thanks,” said Miss Baker to the four cocktails just in from the pantry. “I’m absolutely in training.”
Her host looked at her incredulously.
“You are!” He took down his drink as if it were a drop in the bottom of a glass. “How you ever get anything done is beyond me.”
I looked at Miss Baker, wondering what it was she “got done.” I enjoyed looking at her. She was a slender, small-breasted girl, with an erect carriage, which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet. Her grey sun-strained eyes looked back at me with polite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan, charming, discontented face. It occurred to me now that I had seen her, or a picture of her, somewhere before.
“You live in West Egg,” she remarked contemptuously. “I know somebody there.”
“I don’t know a single—”
“You must know Gatsby.”
“Gatsby?” demanded Daisy. “What Gatsby?”
Before I could reply that he was my neighbour dinner was announced; wedging his tense arm imperatively under mine, Tom Buchanan compelled me from the room as though he were moving a checker to another square.
Slenderly, languidly, their hands set lightly on their hips, the two young women preceded us out on to a rosy-coloured porch, open toward the sunset, where four candles flickered on the table in the diminished wind.
“Why candles?” objected Daisy, frowning. She snapped them out with her fingers. “In two weeks it’ll be the longest day in the year.” She looked at us all radiantly. “Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it.”
“We ought to plan something,” yawned Miss Baker, sitting down at the table as if she were getting into bed.
“All right,” said Daisy. “What’ll we plan?” She turned to me helplessly: “What do people plan?”
Before I could answer her eyes fastened with an awed expression on her little finger.
“Look!” she complained; “I hurt it.”
We all looked—the knuckle was black and blue.
“You did it, Tom,” she said accusingly. “I know you didn’t mean to, but you did do it. That’s what I get for marrying a brute of a man, a great, big, hulking physical specimen of a—”
“I hate that word ‘hulking,’ ” objected Tom crossly, “even in kidding.”
“Hulking,” insisted Daisy.
Sometimes she and Miss Baker talked at once, unobtrusively and with a bantering inconsequence that was never quite chatter, that was as cool as their white dresses and their impersonal eyes in the absence of all desire. They were here, and they accepted Tom and me, making only a polite pleasant effort to entertain or to be entertained. They knew that presently dinner would be over and a little later the evening too would be over and casually put away. It was sharply different from the West, where an evening was hurried from phase to phase towards its close, in a continually disappointed anticipation or else in sheer nervous dread of the moment itself.
“You make me feel uncivilized, Daisy,” I confessed on my second glass of corky but rather impressive claret. “Can’t you talk about crops or something?”
I meant nothing in particular by this remark, but it was taken up in an unexpected way.
“Civilization’s going to pieces,” broke out Tom violently. “I’ve gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read The Rise of the Coloured Empires by this man Goddard?”
“Why, no,” I answered, rather surprised by his tone.
“Well, it’s a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don’t look out the white race will be—will be utterly submerged. It’s all scientific stuff; it’s been proved.”
“Tom’s getting very profound,” said Daisy, with an expression of unthoughtful sadness. “He reads deep books with long words in them. What was that word we—”
“Well, these books are all scientific,” insisted Tom, glancing at her impatiently. “This fellow has worked out the whole thing. It’s up to us, who are the dominant race, to watch out or these other races will have control of things.”
“We’ve got to beat them down,” whispered Daisy, winking ferociously toward the fervent sun.
“You ought to live in California—” began Miss Baker, but Tom interrupted her by shifting heavily in his chair.
“This idea is that we’re Nordics. I am, and you are, and you are, and—” After an infinitesimal hesitation he included Daisy with a slight nod, and she winked at me again. “—And we’ve produced all the things that go to make civilization—oh, science and art, and all that. Do you see?”
There was something pathetic in his concentration, as if his complacency, more acute than of old, was not enough to him any more. When, almost immediately, the telephone rang inside and the butler left the porch Daisy seized upon the momentary interruption and leaned towards me.
“I’ll tell you a family secret,” she whispered enthusiastically. “It’s about the butler’s nose. Do you want to hear about the butler’s nose?”
“That’s why I came over tonight.”
“Well, he wasn’t always a butler; he used to be the silver polisher for some people in New York that had a silver service for two hundred people. He had to polish it from morning till night, until finally it began to affect his nose—”
“Things went from bad to worse,” suggested Miss Baker.
“Yes. Things went from bad to worse, until finally he had to give up his position.”
For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened—then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret, like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk.
The butler came back and murmured something close to Tom’s ear, whereupon Tom frowned, pushed back his chair, and without a word went inside. As if his absence quickened something within her, Daisy leaned forward again, her voice glowing and singing.
“I love to see you at my table, Nick. You remind me of a—of a rose, an absolute rose. Doesn’t he?” She turned to Miss Baker for confirmation: “An absolute rose?”
This was untrue. I am not even faintly like a rose. She was only extemporizing, but a stirring warmth flowed from her, as if her heart was trying to come out to you concealed in one of those breathless, thrilling words. Then suddenly she threw her napkin on the table and excused herself and went into the house.
Miss Baker and I exchanged a short glance consciously devoid of meaning. I was about to speak when she sat up alertly and said “Sh!” in a warning voice. A subdued impassioned murmur was audible in the room beyond, and Miss Baker leaned forward unashamed, trying to hear. The murmur trembled on the verge of coherence, sank down, mounted excitedly, and then ceased altogether.
“This Mr. Gatsby you spoke of is my neighbour—” I began.
“Don’t talk. I want to hear what happens.”
“Is something happening?” I inquired innocently.
“You mean to say you don’t know?” said Miss Baker, honestly surprised. “I thought everybody knew.”
“I don’t.”
“Why—” she said hesitantly. “Tom’s got some woman in New York.”
“Got some woman?” I repeated blankly.
Miss Baker nodded.
“She might have the decency not to telephone him at dinner time. Don’t you think?”
Almost before I had grasped her meaning there was the flutter of a dress and the crunch of leather boots, and Tom and Daisy were back at the table.
“It couldn’t be helped!” cried Daisy with tense gaiety.
She sat down, glanced searchingly at Miss Baker and then at me, and continued: “I looked outdoors for a minute, and it’s very romantic outdoors. There’s a bird on the lawn that I think must be a nightingale come over on the Cunard or White Star Line. He’s singing away—” Her voice sang: “It’s romantic, isn’t it, Tom?”
“Very romantic,” he said, and then miserably to me: “If it’s light enough after dinner, I want to take you down to the stables.”
The telephone rang inside, startlingly, and as Daisy shook her head decisively at Tom the subject of the stables, in fact all subjects, vanished into air. Among the broken fragments of the last five minutes at table I remember the candles being lit again, pointlessly, and I was conscious of wanting to look squarely at everyone, and yet to avoid all eyes. I couldn’t guess what Daisy and Tom were thinking, but I doubt if even Miss Baker, who seemed to have mastered a certain hardy scepticism, was able utterly to put this fifth guest’s shrill metallic urgency out of mind. To a certain temperament the situation might have seemed intriguing—my own instinct was to telephone immediately for the police.
The horses, needless to say, were not mentioned again. Tom and Miss Baker, with several feet of twilight between them, strolled back into the library, as if to a vigil beside a perfectly tangible body, while, trying to look pleasantly interested and a little deaf, I followed Daisy around a chain of connecting verandas to the porch in front. In its deep gloom we sat down side by side on a wicker settee.
Daisy took her face in her hands as if feeling its lovely shape, and her eyes moved gradually out into the velvet dusk. I saw that turbulent emotions possessed her, so I asked what I thought would be some sedative questions about her little girl.
“We don’t know each other very well, Nick,” she said suddenly. “Even if we are cousins. You didn’t come to my wedding.”
“I wasn’t back from the war.”
“That’s true.” She hesitated. “Well, I’ve had a very bad time, Nick, and I’m pretty cynical about everything.”
Evidently she had reason to be. I waited but she
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didn’t say any more, and after a moment I returned rather feebly to the subject of her daughter.
“I suppose she talks, and—eats, and everything.”
“Oh, yes.” She looked at me absently. “Listen, Nick; let me tell you what I said when she was born. Would you like to hear?”
“Very much.”
“It’ll show you how I’ve gotten to feel about—things. Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling, and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.’
“You see I think everything’s terrible anyhow,” she went on in a convinced way. “Everybody thinks so—the most advanced people. And I know. I’ve been everywhere and seen everything and done everything.” Her eyes flashed around her in a defiant way, rather like Tom’s, and she laughed with thrilling scorn. “Sophisticated—God, I’m sophisticated!”
The instant her voice broke off, ceasing to compel my attention, my belief, I felt the basic insincerity of what she had said. It made me uneasy, as though the whole evening had been a trick of some sort to exact a contributory emotion from me. I waited, and sure enough, in a moment she looked at me with an absolute smirk on her lovely face, as if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged.
Inside, the crimson room bloomed with light. Tom and Miss Baker sat at either end of the long couch and she read aloud to him from the Saturday Evening Post—the words, murmurous and uninflected, running together in a soothing tune. The lamplight, bright on his boots and dull on the autumn-leaf yellow of her hair, glinted along the paper as she turned a page with a flutter of slender muscles in her arms.
When we came in she held us silent for a moment with a lifted hand.
“To be continued,” she said, tossing the magazine on the table, “in our very next issue.”
Her body asserted itself with a restless movement of her knee, and she stood up.
“Ten o’clock,” she remarked, apparently finding the time on the ceiling. “Time for this good girl to go to bed.”
“Jordan’s going to play in the tournament tomorrow,” explained Daisy, “over at Westchester.”
“Oh—you’re Jordan Baker.”
I knew now why her face was familiar—its pleasing contemptuous expression had looked out at me from many rotogravure pictures of the sporting life at Asheville and Hot Springs and Palm Beach. I had heard some story of her too, a critical, unpleasant story, but what it was I had forgotten long ago.
“Good night,” she said softly. “Wake me at eight, won’t you.”
“If you’ll get up.”
“I will. Good night, Mr. Carraway. See you anon.”
“Of course you will,” confirmed Daisy. “In fact I think I’ll arrange a marriage. Come over often, Nick, and I’ll sort of—oh—fling you together. You know—lock you up accidentally in linen closets and push you out to sea in a boat, and all that sort of thing—”
“Good night,” called Miss Baker from the stairs. “I haven’t heard a word.”
“She’s a nice girl,” said Tom after a moment. “They oughtn’t to let her run around the country this way.”
“Who oughtn’t to?” inquired Daisy coldly.
“Her family.”
“Her family is one aunt about a thousand years old. Besides, Nick’s going to look after her, aren’t you, Nick? She’s going to spend lots of weekends out here this summer. I think the home influence will be very good for her.”
Daisy and Tom looked at each other for a moment in silence.
“Is she from New York?” I asked quickly.
“From Louisville. Our white girlhood was passed together there. Our beautiful white—”
“Did you give Nick a little heart to heart talk on the veranda?” demanded Tom suddenly.
“Did I?” She looked at me. “I can’t seem to remember, but I think we talked about the Nordic race. Yes, I’m sure we did. It sort of crept up on us and first thing you know—”
“Don’t believe everything you hear, Nick,” he advised me.
I said lightly that I had heard nothing at all, and a few minutes later I got up to go home. They came to the door with me and stood side by side in a cheerful square of light. As I started my motor Daisy peremptorily called: “Wait!”
“I forgot to ask you something, and it’s important. We heard you were engaged to a girl out West.”
“That’s right,” corroborated Tom kindly. “We heard that you were engaged.”
“It’s a libel. I’m too poor.”
“But we heard it,” insisted Daisy, surprising me by opening up again in a flower-like way. “We heard it from three people, so it must be true.”
Of course I knew what they were referring to, but I wasn’t even vaguely engaged. The fact that gossip had published the banns was one of the reasons I had come East. You can’t stop going with an old friend on account of rumours, and on the other hand I had no intention of being rumoured into marriage.
Their interest rather touched me and made them less remotely rich—nevertheless, I was confused and a little disgusted as I drove away. It seemed to me that the thing for Daisy to do was to rush out of the house, child in arms—but apparently there were no such intentions in her head. As for Tom, the fact that he “had some woman in New York” was really less surprising than that he had been depressed by a book. Something was making him nibble at the edge of stale ideas as if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart.
Already it was deep summer on roadhouse roofs and in front of wayside garages, where new red petrol-pumps sat out in pools of light, and when I reached my estate at West Egg I ran the car under its shed and sat for a while on an abandoned grass roller in the yard. The wind had blown off, leaving a loud, bright night, with wings beating in the trees and a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of the earth blew the frogs full of life. The silhouette of a moving cat wavered across the moonlight, and, turning my head to watch it, I saw that I was not alone—fifty feet away a figure had emerged from the shadow of my neighbour’s mansion and was standing with his hands in his pockets regarding the silver pepper of the stars. Something in his leisurely movements and the secure position of his feet upon the lawn suggested that it was Mr. Gatsby himself, come out to determine what share was his of our local heavens.
I decided to call to him. Miss Baker had mentioned him at dinner, and that would do for an introduction. But I didn’t call to him, for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone—he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward—and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness.
II
About halfway between West Egg and New York the motor road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. This is a valley of ashes—a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of ash-grey men, who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of grey cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-grey men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight.
But above the grey land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic—their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose. Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there to
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Hi, I don't go to Loyola but I recently came across this petition and it was concerning enough to catch my eye. It details a story from a former student who had to deal with Title IX Coordinator Tim Love in what seems like a horror story from hell. Students story says and I quote "Hello, I am a former student at Loyola University Chicago and have the unfortunate pleasure of telling you about Tim Love. I once spoke up about the wrongdoings of Loyola University Chicago and the Title IX Coordinator Tim Love. I spoke up about how Tim Love and the Title IX department mishandled my entire case and told me to figure it out on my own. It all started when I requested mental health help from Loyola and Tim Love due to being extremely depressed and having suicidal thoughts. I reached out by email and phone calls many times trying to get some help from a counselor but instead was met with an automated message telling me about a waitlist, imagine waitlisting a student with suicidal thoughts and making them figure it out on their own. After a breakup with an ex of mine who made up countless false statements regarding my personal life to try to damage my character and get the school to dismiss me but ultimately failed after months of a mentally and emotionally crushing trial, I went through a period where I was stalked by her new boyfriend along with his ROTC friends, I went to Tim Love and the Title IX department to try to get this resolved but it persisted until the end of the semester, so badly so I was not able to bring myself to be on campus because the stalking became so bad. Ultimately, I knew I needed to speak out against Tim Love after I reported many times to Tim Love about being cyberbullied, bullied and stalked all in person on campus but nothing was done. My ex gf, who I shall not name, has since broken the no contact order and continued stalking me multiple times but has yet to be punished by Tim Love and the Title IX department. Please help me, a former student done wrong by Tim Love and Loyola University Chicago, finally get Tim Love to resign from Loyola University Chicago and give other students help they finally need instead of having their cries for help dismissed by Tim Love."
​
The link to the petition can be found here:
change.org/p/petition-for-tim-love-to-resign-or-be-fired-from-loyola-university-chicago

I'd like to find somebody thoughtful, someone who isn't superficial. Somebody who appreciates the rich vastness of our shared multicultural past, and freely follows her curiosity in exploring it. Somebody who is trying her best to adhere to the guidance of her inner moral compass, and isn't so easily fooled by the distractions and illusions of the world.
One such illusion, that must immediately be mentioned (this is important, because it's led to a break for me, in the past): religion. Religion is man-made, and not of any higher authority. The Bible and the Quran all permit slavery—in addition to countless other horrid and divisive ideas—while claiming to be eternal wisdom, and that is indefensible. I still like to believe in the idea of some permeating higher morality, that imbues us with our general sense for justice, fairness, and empathy...but, I know that without outright proof, even my holding of such a notion can be deemed a flight of fancy, a residual remnant of a system so entrenched. However, it seems to me that life is often more than just what's on the surface. Um, but now, then—back to the person I wish to know...
I'd also love it if she were artistic. Singing, sketching, painting, writing, composing, creating. Someone who is trying to nurture their talents and passions. I know it can be difficult...
As for me, well... I adore music. Mostly voices from the past (the 1960s would have to be my favorite), because I find them to be humbler and more from the heart, at least in popular music. I’ll just give an example of something I’ve looked into, and this is nowhere near representative of my wider taste, but if you go back to early 1920s country music... (Here's an aside: a lot of what people think of as "country" today is a long cry from what the genre is actually like, historically. If you are into folk music—Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan—it is indelibly linked to "country", and if you'd like a popular example of a song that originated within the genre, look no further than the universally recognized "You Are My Sunshine", from 1939!)
Anyway. If you go back to that early period, where undiscovered niches of music were still sought out and first put to tape... a lot of those artists had no idea about anything to do with recording—no ego, no attempt to sound "cool". What came through instead was a bare expression of the life that had been lived—the inner beauty of their own personhood, and I love hearing that. It's so honest. A vulnerable and piercing expression.
So if you're into history or the beautiful music of decades (and centuries) past, if you have any aspirations for creating as a method of changing the world for the better, if you'd like to play games and watch movies together, if you'd like an accountability partner—or all of the above...please message me. I don't mind the chat function, either—in fact, it's probably easier. Also, to get this out of the way: this is what I look like.
I love beautiful things. Nature, music that tugs at your heartstrings or is so honest you're enraptured, experiences that heal. More specifically, here are some of my current interests:

• music (singing/playing an instrument/the Beach Boys are my favorite group—I also love Maybelle Carter, Cass Elliot, Pink Floyd, Lana Del Rey, The Cranberries, Sixpence None The Richer, loads of video game music, The Smiths, The Beatles, The Who, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Harry Nilsson, Joni Mitchell, The Righteous Brothers, Judy Garland, Sam Cooke, Frank Churchill, Marty O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori... Here’s a brief go at the Beatles’ “Julia”.) And, if you liked that—a more recent one…
• drawing—here are a few I've done.
• video games (any era from Atari—I like exploring the history and evolution—to the Switch and PS4) [Currently playing, or starting: The Binding of Isaac, Catherine]
• Disney, especially the Golden Age and Renaissance—Pinocchio (my favorite movie ever), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Aladdin, The Lion King, Tarzan. I love how handmade the early films look. And yet, how no expense was spared in creating these most precious and moving works of art.
• films/series/books I've enjoyed lately: The Sound of Magic, The Little Prince, Matilda, Love Hard, The Fundamentals of Caring, This Beautiful Fantastic, Donnie Darko, Alamut by Vladimir Bartol (this book was a key inspiration for the first Assassin's Creed), The Trial of the Chicago 7, Medici: The Magnificent, Pollyanna by Eleanor Porter, Judy

To close... I suppose I should say I've been afflicted with long-COVID for over two years. It'd be very nice to keep each other company, especially if we share any of the interests up above—we could watch favorite films, have shared listening sessions on Spotify, and it'd be a godsend to find somebody up to play on PS4 and Switch! Donkey Kong Country 2 and 3 on the secret hard modes, maybe? Or sculpting our own world from scratch in Minecraft? Or maybe we could act out Ocarina of Time's storyline using all the options available on Smash Ultimate!
I'd really like to know an intelligent person with a unique identity...who puts forth effort—though at the same time, no pressure on reaching out. If you are this type of person, but can currently only muster up a few words because, hey! Life is tough, and grueling, and we don't always have a ready-made letter in us to flip out of our pockets—don't be scared away by my tower of words. I absolutely know, firsthand, what it's like to want to communicate, yet not currently have the energy or the mindpower for it. Life can really sink you... I promise I will not judge. Please send me a chat message, if you're at all interested in chatting.

I'd like to find somebody thoughtful, someone who isn't superficial. Somebody who appreciates the rich vastness of our shared multicultural past, and freely follows her curiosity in exploring it. Somebody who is trying her best to adhere to the guidance of her inner moral compass, and isn't so easily fooled by the distractions and illusions of the world.
One such illusion, that must immediately be mentioned (this is important, because it's led to a break for me, in the past): religion. Religion is man-made, and not of any higher authority. The Bible and the Quran all permit slavery—in addition to countless other horrid and divisive ideas—while claiming to be eternal wisdom, and that is indefensible. I still like to believe in the idea of some permeating higher morality, that imbues us with our general sense for justice, fairness, and empathy...but, I know that without outright proof, even my holding of such a notion can be deemed a flight of fancy, a residual remnant of a system so entrenched. However, it seems to me that life is often more than just what's on the surface. Um, but now, then—back to the person I wish to know...
I'd also love it if she were artistic. Singing, sketching, painting, writing, composing, creating. Someone who is trying to nurture their talents and passions. I know it can be difficult...
As for me, well... I adore music. Mostly voices from the past (the 1960s would have to be my favorite), because I find them to be humbler and more from the heart, at least in popular music. I’ll just give an example of something I’ve looked into, and this is nowhere near representative of my wider taste, but if you go back to early 1920s country music... (Here's an aside: a lot of what people think of as "country" today is a long cry from what the genre is actually like, historically. If you are into folk music—Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan—it is indelibly linked to "country", and if you'd like a popular example of a song that originated within the genre, look no further than the universally recognized "You Are My Sunshine", from 1939!)
Anyway. If you go back to that early period, where undiscovered niches of music were still sought out and first put to tape... a lot of those artists had no idea about anything to do with recording—no ego, no attempt to sound "cool". What came through instead was a bare expression of the life that had been lived—the inner beauty of their own personhood, and I love hearing that. It's so honest. A vulnerable and piercing expression.
So if you're into history or the beautiful music of decades (and centuries) past, if you have any aspirations for creating as a method of changing the world for the better, if you'd like to play games and watch movies together, if you'd like an accountability partner—or all of the above...please message me. I don't mind the chat function, either—in fact, it's probably easier. Also, to get this out of the way: this is what I look like.
I love beautiful things. Nature, music that tugs at your heartstrings or is so honest you're enraptured, experiences that heal. More specifically, here are some of my current interests:

• music (singing/playing an instrument/the Beach Boys are my favorite group—I also love Maybelle Carter, Cass Elliot, Pink Floyd, Lana Del Rey, The Cranberries, Sixpence None The Richer, loads of video game music, The Smiths, The Beatles, The Who, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Harry Nilsson, Joni Mitchell, The Righteous Brothers, Judy Garland, Sam Cooke, Frank Churchill, Marty O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori... Here’s a brief go at the Beatles’ “Julia”.) And, if you liked that—a more recent one…
• drawing—here are a few I've done.
• video games (any era from Atari—I like exploring the history and evolution—to the Switch and PS4) [Currently playing, or starting: The Binding of Isaac, Catherine]
• Disney, especially the Golden Age and Renaissance—Pinocchio (my favorite movie ever), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Aladdin, The Lion King, Tarzan. I love how handmade the early films look. And yet, how no expense was spared in creating these most precious and moving works of art.
• films/series/books I've enjoyed lately: The Sound of Magic, The Little Prince, Matilda, Love Hard, The Fundamentals of Caring, This Beautiful Fantastic, Donnie Darko, Alamut by Vladimir Bartol (this book was a key inspiration for the first Assassin's Creed), The Trial of the Chicago 7, Medici: The Magnificent, Pollyanna by Eleanor Porter, Judy

To close... I suppose I should say I've been afflicted with long-COVID for over two years. It'd be very nice to keep each other company, especially if we share any of the interests up above—we could watch favorite films, have shared listening sessions on Spotify, and it'd be a godsend to find somebody up to play on PS4 and Switch! Donkey Kong Country 2 and 3 on the secret hard modes, maybe? Or sculpting our own world from scratch in Minecraft? Or maybe we could act out Ocarina of Time's storyline using all the options available on Smash Ultimate!
I'd really like to know an intelligent person with a unique identity...who puts forth effort—though at the same time, no pressure on reaching out. If you are this type of person, but can currently only muster up a few words because, hey! Life is tough, and grueling, and we don't always have a ready-made letter in us to flip out of our pockets—don't be scared away by my tower of words. I absolutely know, firsthand, what it's like to want to communicate, yet not currently have the energy or the mindpower for it. Life can really sink you... I promise I will not judge. Please send me a chat message, if you're at all interested in chatting.

Hi Go Wild Friends! In case anyone wants to know about beautiful Costa Rica I went there using my Go Wild pass so I thought I would do a story about what happened in Costa Rica. There aren’t really a lot of travel tips in here, its just the wild shit I got into in Costa Rica. I did another write up with actual tips about South Beach in Miami on a budget here if you want to read that one.
Okay, Costa Rica, so fuckin amazing! I want to fly to all the international places Frontier goes so I decided to do Costa Rica second (Cancun is an easy trip for me in Kansas City, they go nonstop there every weekend). The hardest part about Costa Rica is just getting there, I took a bit of a circuitous route.
I always take a big vacation each year after tax season, its fun for me to turn my phone off and go somewhere off the grid and not even think about work. Last year I went to Argentina and Uruguay and it was wild but honestly, this year was even better! I first wanted to stay with my brother and see my nieces and nephews in Orlando so I booked a one way flight from St. Louis to Orlando for only $19 with my Go Wild pass. I got to take a train from Kansas City to St. Louis, it was only $37 and I loved it actually, something about trains is so fun for me, probably because I took one to Chicago in college and stayed in a homeless shelter, my first real experience solo traveling, I loved it!
I spent the afternoon in St. Louis riding around downtown on those fun scooters and eating chicken wings and walking around the baseball experience place they had, it was a good afternoon. I had a late flight to Orlando but I fucked up the terminal (don't google which terminal is Frontier, its wrong). I went through security and bag check only to find out I was in the wrong terminal so that stunk but I had plenty of time for two security checks so no big deal. The flight was delayed so I didn’t get into Orlando until almost 2am and there was a long line for the rental car. I regret not doing the one you can pick up without talking to an agent so much, it was only like $5 more, do the self check car rental if possible. Orlando was fun, got to see my nieces and nephews and my brother and his wife put a little guest bedroom in the shed, easy to get into at 2am without waking anyone up.
After two days in Orlando it was time for my big flight to Costa Rica! So excited! This flight was only $51 with my Go Wild pass, an absolute steal. It stopped in Atlanta and then I was in Costa Rica in no time. On the plane a bunch of us were excitedly talking about our Go Wild passes, its kind of fun to do the spiderman meme thing and be like, you have a Go Wild pass? Me Too! The ringleader told me there were wild sloths if I went to a place called Manuel Antonio. I said what the fuck did you just say, wild sloths? Oh yes! I literally had no plans for a whole week so I mentally added sloths to the list of things I wanted to see. I have a travel buddy I met in Mexico to visit in San Jose and I wanted to see the volcano and the beaches of course but that was it.
At the airport you will want to get some cash, they have an ATM right there when you walk out. Don’t do the currency exchange, those people were giving really shitty rates. After you get cash walk around outside the airport to the backside, it’s a short walk and that’s where all the city buses come. There are buses to San Jose every 15 minutes, just jump on one of those its only like $1.50 and it goes 25 minutes to downtown. I have a huge aversion to taxis in Latin America, I’ve been ripped off a lot and airports are especially bad.
Once in San Jose you can walk most places, it’s a fun city to walk around. I stayed at the Costa Rica Backpackers hostel which I do not recommend for one big reason. Its so fuckin hot. I didn’t even think about checking for air conditioning, most places have it now. Also, I like hostels and the common areas and the hammocks and I always set up my chess board and play at night with beers. But I really like to have my own room at a hostel. This private room was I think $35 a night which is pretty good but it did not have air conditioning, just a fan recirculating hot air and it was right off the street so yeah, no recommendation for that one, I only stayed one night. That’s the fun thing about how I travel though, no reservations and no plans, if its not great I just go to a different place. I hung out with my travel buddy that night and we smoked a lot of um… cigarettes and went to this place where locals hang out. It was like some fuckin fast and furious movie but with Ticos, guys were just flying around on motorcycles on wheelies. I bought a huge meal for my friend and me, empanadas, a bunch of other Costa Rican food, it was so fuckin good and the whole meal was only $7, ha!
The next morning I set my chess board out at the hostel and I put $10 out on the money clip like I normally do when I travel. It’s a fun way to get people to play, if you beat me you get $10 if I win, nothing. My chess is kind of like a parlor trick too because I play in less than 5 seconds every move so everyone is thinking through it and Im having beers and going quick, usually at a hostel there gets to be a crowd and Im playing four dutch people on warm night in Mexico, so fuckin fun. On this morning a kid came up to play and I was teaching him chess for awhile nervously, I didn’t see his mom anywhere and secondly who brings a kid to a hostel? I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen one. He starts just taking my pieces off the board and then he takes the $10 and says welp I guess I won. I laughed and I said alright then, good job buddy. Just then his mom hobbled over, a Danish hippy with a broken foot. She thanked me for hanging out with him and told me the doctor said not to walk too much but it was hard with a six year old. I said sit down, sit down and I got her breakfast and helped her out. We talked for a bit and I told a funny Mexico story and helped them get their stuff together and she said oh you have to come to our hippy community in Puerto Viejo, you can stay in our shack by the ocean. I said oh that sounds fun today Im going to see a volcano but maybe later. She said they are the most beautiful beaches in Costa Rica, one is entirely black sand. I said Im listening. She said they were poor in a little shack by the rainforest and they have monkeys and sloths in their backyard. I said um what the fuck did you just say? Wild sloths? She said yeah, tons of them. I booked a ticket right away for the 6am bus the next day. I went with my friend to the active volcano and then he dropped me off at my hotel. I booked the Radisson the second night because I really wanted Air Conditioning. Im soft like that, sorry. And it had a hot tub. I’ve never seen that many people in one hot tub, ha. At night I did a Tinder date, I found out all the cabs are pretty much $6 in San Jose so it was easy to get there and back and I went out with a fun Costa Rican lady named Wendy who told me in Costa Rica they eat chicken wings with gloves, did you guys know that?
I got up at 4:30am and packed up for my 6am bus. At the front desk I asked them if they could call me a cab and they said its an additional $30 US. I was like nah, fuck that, $30? What a ripoff, I’ll just walk, its only 2 miles. So I walk pretty far into downtown San Jose and whoooooooosh, a bottle explodes near me! I go what the fuck and look up, theres a drunk Costa Rican man in a soccer jersey like two blocks away screaming at me in Spanish! I had so many questions, the first of course was who is balling out of control at 5am in the morning? The second was, who the fuck is that Latino Roger Clemens? I could barely see the guy from two streets away and he was (presumably) drunk getting that close to me with a full bottle of beer? The last question of course was who is drunk and throwing FULL bottles of beer? I walked away from his direction and then saw that there was a whole bar full of drunk soccer fans like him and I noped the fuck out and ran to the taxi stand and got a taxi. I said you know what, a taxi isn’t such a bad idea!
I regretted not Googling anything because my phone didn’t work at all in Costa Rica. They said I could buy a sim card but I didn’t want to, I kind of liked being off the grid. But I really wanted to find wild sloths. Maybe the person beside me will help I thought as I stood in line for the 6am bus. Damn, I hope its not someone rapid firing Spanish at me though, my Spanish is not great. Most of my Spanish I’ve learned from the music of Bad Bunny. I was relieved to see my seat in 44 was next to a Japanese man in 45. Oh that’s awesome I thought, he will struggle with Spanish too and we can find wild sloths together. Nope, turns out Im a racist asshole, he was a Japanese Argentinian who spoke perfect Spanish and no English, none. His phone worked too and he was putting all these upside down house letters in Japanese and beautiful beaches were popping up, I really needed his help. I tried to befriend him but they speak a different kind of Spanish in Argentina, cajes instead of calles and so fast, so fuckin fast! His had like a little stall in it before it winded up too, like a UUUUUU mi esposa no esta aqui! His wife was either sleeping back in San Jose or dead, I couldn’t really understand. I noticed he had a bear avatar on his phone so I knew he liked animals so half way through the ride I decided to try to tell him they had sloths there. Hay peresozos en Puerto Viejo I said but he didn’t understand what I was saying. I said peresozos again and put up three fingers mimicking a sloth and then I panicked, I was like shit, what do sloths do? Its an animal famous for not doing anything. I pretended to hang up side down and he is (loudly) guessing animals in Spanish and Im like no, peresozos! Maybe I was saying it wrong but I had no Google so I said es posible tu telefono? And I typed in sloths and all these upside down houses came up and the words Oso Peresozo. And he goes UUUUUU OSO PERESOZO! I don’t know if you’ve ever been on a bus traveling through rural Costa Rica and seen a Japanese Argentinian get excited in Spanish about wild sloths but it is… ADORABLE!
Si SI! Oso Peresozo! I yelled. People are turning around now, they are like why the fuck are the American and Japanese guys back there in 44 and 45 playing charades two hours into a 6am bus ride? I said juntos? (Together) and he said si si! He told me where we could get bikes to rent and what to eat, he was the perfect travel partner! He said Yelp dices Jerk Chicken is the best to eat here. I said thanks Juan, you are my favorite travel partner! We had an amazing day in Puerto Viejo, beautiful beaches, monkeys, wild sloths, God damn that was an amazing day. He even showed me where my hostel was and I dropped off my bag. This hostel was called 456 hostel which I also do not recommend because no AC and there are weird animals running on the roof but I didn’t care, I just wanted to throw down my bag and get back to looking for wild sloths. The lady said we can’t just take your bag you need to check in first, I said listen lady you see that God damn excited Japanese man out there? We got wild sloths to find! I had no desire to spend one second in that hostel but Juan goes “Esta bien, cerveza” and then he had a beer by the ocean while I checked in. I joined him for a beer and it turns out that is a beautiful setting for a hostel. Still don’t recommend though, so fuckin hot.
Juan and I had an amazing day in Puerto Viejo, God damn that place is beautiful. We saw wild sloths, monkeys, and had an amazing time on the beach. I was sad to see him go, what a great travel partner! He pointed to where my hostel was but I said I would ride back into town with him. To be honest, I forgot to write down the name of the bike rental and there was like a hundred in Puerto. I turned my bike in with his to his surprise because we had rented for a full day but I told him I wanted a motorcycle. He used his expert Googling skills to get me to the cheapest motorcycle place. It was only $30 a day for a motorcycle which I thought was very reasonable. And I didn’t have enough cash on me and they didn’t take cards so the rental guy just said no worries man, take de bike to the ATM. That was pretty trusting! I came back with the money and got the bike and I can’t tell you guys the drugs part because the mods said no talking about drugs.
That was such a fast motorcycle. I turned my Bluetooth speaker up all the way and floored it and zoomed down the coast in time for the sunset, so God damn beautiful! Something about that warm Costa Rican sun on your shoulders and the sound of Khalid and the smell of salt in the air riding along the beautiful ocean, it will change your life. After the sunset I went to Cat’s house and her beautiful German friend Alina was there. There were three kids too and as soon as I got there they went riffling through my bag looking for candy. I had two caramels but was one short so I gave the little kid my chips. This was her sad face for not getting candy!
Cat was hobbling around on crutches so Alina and I said sit down we will take care of dinner. I went to the store down the street and got so much stuff for that poor family- toilet paper, rice, peppers and Barbies for the kids and a soccer ball for Marcello. Gringo santa claus when I came back, both the ladies cried, Alina said her girls had never had a Barbie doll. Alina and I cranked up the music in that little hippy house by the ocean and made dinner and drank wine and laughed while the kids played with their new toys and Cat relaxed and finished her remote work. We ate the food and drank the wine and smoked…cigarettes and had an amazing night. Alina asked if I wanted to share the Tuk Tuk and I said yes. She said it in kind of a mischievous way so I thought maybe she wanted to make out. And she was very beautiful so I said yes. We got in the Tuk Tuk and rode back towards town passing my hostel, she winked and said your hostel was back there you know and then put her hand on my arm.
I thought Cat was poor but Alina was super poor. She told the tuk tuk driver to turn left by the trash dump and we pulled up to an even tinier house right next to the rainforest. She said wait out here and I’ll put the kids to bed. So I waited on the porch. The kitchen was actually outside, a little refrigerator and a little stove and a sink. I sat in the chairs and she came out and we smoke a um cigarette together and then she said wait here. I was like fuck, wait her for what? Is she going to rob me or something but she didn’t seem scary, she seemed sweet. She came back out with a big giant mattress and threw it on the porch floor. Then she took off her shirt and said in her German accent, “Un now we share our bodies.” I thought that was a pretty sexy thing to say so I took off my shirt too and joined her except I didn’t want to have unprotected sex with a hippy so we just made out.
Sometime after she slipped back inside so I was alone on the mattress on the backporch by the rainforest. I thought that was a pretty good place to spend my first night in Puerto Viejo and I looked up and saw a hundred million stars lighting up the sky and fell asleep. But not too many hours later, God damn I awoke to a caucophony of jungle sounds! So many monkeys, just fuckin howling. And there were these weird rat things running around, they weren’t small at all, if you’ve ever seen the Princess Bride fucking ROS. (Rodents of Unusual Size). I honestly thought the monkeys were coming on the porch, that’s how loud they were.
I jumped up and leaned the mattress against the house and started walking, past the trash dump and out to the ocean. The first beach I came across was the black beach, it was amazing and I sat there until the sun came up. I had no watch or anything and my phone was dead so I walked for a long ways until I found a Tuk Tuk driver who took me to Cats. I got my motorcycle and went back to the hostel but when I charged my phone I found it was only 6am so I went back to sleep. But the hostel had no AC and there were some fuckin animals on the roof right over my head so I couldn’t sleep much. I went to the beach and found more wild monkeys and then sent Cat a WhatsApp message to see if she needed my help since she had the broken foot and Marcello was home, it was some kind of Costa Rican holiday.
She said sure come over and so I drove my motorcycle back down the coast and went back to the store and got more supplies and cooked them a big lunch. I had asked before if they eat meat because some hippies don’t and she said sure but its expensive here I don’t know if you want to buy it. It was $4 ha, I got some ham and rice and peppers and made a huge lunch and drank some beers and cooked while Cat did her remote work. She took a picture and I asked if she mind taking a short video of me cooking. IT wasn’t for social media or friends or anything, that video was for me so I could remember when I could be happy. A trip to Costa Rica for only $51 with my Go Wild pass and I got to be by the ocean and I met new friends and I was actually helping someone, I realized that day that’s what made me the most happy, that’s why I wanted the video.
After lunch I cleaned up and then Marcello and I played some chess. She asked if I minded watching Marcello while she ran to town with a client and I said sure, no problem. I was wrong, it was a huge fuckin problem! She said she would be back in an hour and then we could go to the hippy get-together on the beach. She was NOT back in an hour and I fuckin panicked. I didn’t know this lady’s last name, I didn’t know Marcello really, I called Cat and she didn’t answer and I tried texting her, nothing. I thought fuck, she must have abandoned me with this kid. And I don’t know how to get ahold of the authorities and it was a holiday, this shit was basically the plot to the Adam Sandler movie Big Daddy. I started pounding beers because I was so nervous. I asked Marcello if he knew Alina’s number and this little dude said, and I quote, “Who’s Alina?” What the fuck? I said buddy, the lady that was here last night with the kids? He said he didn’t know them very much. Oh my God I thought, I’ve definitely been saddled with a kid. But then I was thinking, you know what, I could raise this kid, wouldn’t be that bad, live in this $400 a month house by the ocean, sounds good. But I have my own kids back home in Kansas City and that made me panic even more, now Im fuckin slammin beers so worried. Every car that goes down this little side road Im like oh please be Cat. Now this kid is starting to yell at me to come back out in Norwegian, I don’t know Norwegian and he wants me to read him books, which are also in Norwegian, Im full panicky at this time.
Finally Cat came back I said Cat, I wasn’t comfortable with that, I don’t even know your last name or anything. She goes, why, whats wrong? And goes running in to see Marcello, I said oh no, he’s fine, nothing happened its just that I thought you left and weren’t coming back. She said why would I leave my kid I love him more than anything in the world. I said I know, okay, its just that I was panicking. She said calm down, all good, lets go to the hippy fire circle. I was not going to go, I was going to get the fuck out but I really wanted to go to the fire circle, I was hoping they would let me spin the fire. So we went to the fire circle, Marcello and Cat with the client and me following behind on the motorcycle. We relaxed on the blanket and then up came beautiful Alina looking like a million bucks in the sun tucking her brown hair behind her ears. She got on the blanket with us close to me and I retold the story about how I thought Cat abandoned her kid with me and we all laughed and smoked again and had beers and then watched the sun go down. I didn’t know Marcello didn’t know how to swim so I showed him how to swim a bit, a little lesson in front of the beautiful sunset. After the sun went down it was time for the fire circle and the main guy said brother, thank you for helping Cat, you are in our circle now, whats ours is yours. I said oh man thank you so much can I do the fire spinning? And he said that you can not do. Damn.
So I watched the others spin it jealously and then I got us some appetizer snacks from the restaurant. After the fire circle and the singing and everything we decided to have a picnic at the black beach. They went to the store to get the food and I went to go get my motorcycle. When I got back I guess Alina had stolen something from the store because the workers were all around her and the police were coming. It was equally sad and scary. They took everything she bought away and Cat said its okay she had enough so we all walked to the black sand beach and I gave Alina a hard time for being a thief until we all were laughing. We had a great night by the ocean and then they both got Tuk Tuks and I got on my motorcycle and drove back to the hot hostel and fell asleep and I never saw those hippies again. The end.

Lots of Volunteering (I think)
Clinical:

• Total= 909 (w/out anticipated)
• CNA: 384 anticipating: 288,
• Hospital Volunteer US: 120,
• Clinic Volunteer US: 240
• International Volunteer Clinic: 160

Nonclinical:
Total= 990 (w/out anticipated)

• Make a wish: 120 ant: 150, Health club: 350 ant:120
• Domestic violence (fundraiser and awareness campaign): 110
• Substance abuse awareness: (drive and awareness local and global): 100
• Volunteering club (raised money for various causes ukraine etc also education forums and park cleanups): 310 ant:100

Shadowing: 180 hours 3 physicians and two specialties
Research: 323 hours psychology research 2 posterboard presentations at college only and 2 awards won for school no pubs
I really really need help with a school list. Im super broke and I’m a FL native
Current List:

• ALL FL schools (resident)
• Loyola
• Wake Forest
• Quinnipac
• Temple
• Drexel
• Wayne State (Lived in MI till highschool)
• Rush
• Tulane
• Oakland
• Rosalind Franklin
• EVMS
• Wester MI Uni
• Vermont
• Creighton
• Georgetown
• Sidney Kimmel
• University of Michigan
• DOChicago COllege of Osetopathic
• MSUNYITCOM
• NSU DO
• Touro

I've been trying to recreate the enchilada sauce a local Tex-Mex/Mexican restaurant near me uses for their enchiladas for years, but I've had no luck. It's very different from anything else I've encountered, being rather mild, not overly earthy (I assume minimal or no cumin), quite sweet, dark brown, on the thick side, and liberally applied.
I'm vaguely acquainted with the owner through my brother and small talk at random social events, but, especially for a white dude who's never been anywhere near Mexico, he's very secretive about the restaurant's secrets. I do know for certain its not made with real chilies, so I assume it's not "authentic" and either made with a blend of dried spices in a gravy of some sort or comes out of a can (or cans) and gets mixed with other stuff. Its not a very fancy place, so its likely pretty simple.
Being much sweeter and less spicy than the typical homemade enchilada sauce recopies, I had assumed it was one of those sauces made with chocolate. The couple times I tried that, however, I either horribly blundered it, or am completely on the wrong track. I tried Mole once too, but that just seemed wrong, its not that pungent, nor that almost black color mole sauces seem to normally have. Its also supposedly vegetarian, at least its advertised that way, though, in my experience, that's as often as not no meat included but it's anyone's guess if there's meat stock/broth as a base or its fried in lard. If it is made with stock, its definitely not a beef stock.
If its out of a can, its a much different sauce than the typical vinegar and tomato-based (I suspect there's no tomato at all) or vinegar and chile sauce ones they sell in the normal American supermarket. I can tell you pretty much by sight what food service brand an Italian sauce is, but I have no experience with what's available off the shelf for Mexican food, so it could even just be out of a can and I'm not familiar with it.

And no, I did not "diagnose myself using some random psychological test on google", I've been told this by my therapist.
Please cope with the unusual structure of my sentences, I am translating this from another language.
Before starting, a little bit of info about myself: `17M (14 days until my 18th birthday). I do 3D Modeling and Animation, and I have been accepted to a 3D Animation University at France, Montpellier. (I don't live at france, I live in Turkey.).
I don't feel anything, the world is empty, I have many things ahead of me, i even have someone i like, but even now i'm doubting those feelings. Maybe it's just my dying personality looking for excuses. I have no self-esteem, and I shy away from doing things with other people. From the beginning of 6th grade, I've always felt little to no interest in things, I've had many hobbies, but never the will to take them into the light. I have been like this for the past 6 years, and I will be graduating from school this Thursday.
All of my feelings just started disappearing one by one, first it was happiness, sadness, loneliness, satisfaction, pride and lastly, anger. I used to fight with my parents about some of our disagreements, and now I just sit there and take it, i cant even care enough to respond to it after a certain amount of time.
I have no real friends, sure, there has been some people talking to me from time to time, but never someone who liked me for my personality or my interests. At some point this year i tried using this website to find friends on various subreddits, hoping that i'd atleast catch wind of some people with good hearts, but to no avail. Every interaction ends with the first message or goes unanswered. Maybe it's just me, maybe I just can't give it any effort simply because I can't feel anything. I can't feel enthusiasm, sadness, desperation. I sit on the computer nearly all day, looking for some type of motivational energy. I have no one besides family, and I don't even have a stable relationship with them.
Sometimes they want to spend time with me, go to places, restaurants, do things, activities. But at the same time, we disagree on the smallest things ever. By the end of every angry disagreement, it usually ends with "you'll never change, you're [name] afterall.". Heck, it even happened today, my mom ended up telling me that she didn't want to go to the graduation ceremony of someone who didn't like her (Note: I do like her, she's my mom afterall. She usually says this at the end of every disagreement we have, which ends up with her actively trying to guilt trip me. Even now I doubt whether I'm in the right or wrong.). I simply said "ok" (she had been screaming at me for the past 30 minutes, and I had been tired from 2 1-hour long gym sessions with personal trainers.) because i was simply tired. I told her I didn't want to talk about it anymore right before she said that since it's not uncommon either. I then go to my room, and she just busts the door open, says "even after all of that, you still don't care enough to atleast try to say sorry?" and violently closes the door. I just sit there, and don't feel anything. (Note, I haven't told her about my emotional numbness.).
Now, here i sit, back on the internet, looking for something to fill the empty void in my head. Doubting every sort of feeling I have, and at the same time, refusing to establish a real friendship with someone because I figured it out the hard way that the majority of humanity has selfish desires. I do too, but I do not put someone in harm for my own selfish satisfaction, I want to feel enjoyment, satisfaction, happiness, genuine love. And I have no one to give it to me, as the effort I once had to meet new people no longer exist. I simply wait for a hand to reach for me from beyond the walls of a room with no door that I once called my head. It's almost comical how I don't care about anything and yet, still live considering I have no motive to strive for, no dream to chase after, no person to reach for, and no future to fight for.
I hope you found my weird mental status quite interesting. And no, this isn't a sui*ide message, i am still alive yes, sadly. if you do have some sort of advice to give, i appreciate you being out there for people that you haven't even seen before.
thank you for reading.

I applied to 20 schools. I’ve gotten 4 rejects, 4 waitlist at MSU, Chicago Kent, Hofstra, and Loyola New Orleans. Still waiting for a decision at U Idaho where I’ll get in state tuition. I’ve paid my seat deposit at SULC and Creighton University, I have an upcoming deposit deadline at TSU, however, they accepted me with no scholarships. Very confused on what to do and time is running out. Any tips or words of advice? Thank you in advance!