Good night meme gif

So I watched the finale last night and thought it touched all the bases it needed to. The whole neglected children's angle escaped me as I never had kids and don't think of childhood as a precious Faberge egg.
Having tried standup a few times myself, I simply wanted to point out how perfect her reference to her kids names was. Dunno how formal a rule this is but comedy works best in threes. She set up the joke pretending to fade on her kid's name and then midway she hits on her lapsed memory a second time setting up a tension that's resolved perfectly. Ending her monologue with the 3rd mention finally getting the names was as good as it gets and makes for a great exit line. "Callback", "bookend", "button" whatever you call it was dead on and very satisfying.
S5 surprised me with it's depth into the characters illustrated by the flashforwards. The showrunners actually gave thought to the entire lifetime arc of a generational talent with all the minuses that go with fame. How the kids and husband would turn out was fun.
I would have been perfectly happy with the series closing on Ford's anointment of "the Marvelous Mrs Maisel" because the penny finally dropped for me on why they gave the series such a long fussy title. The relationship closure of Midge and Lenny was sweet but Midge and Suzie making each other laugh watching TV was dead on.

Last night was definitely painful no doubt. I was at the game and I can honestly say that was probably the most painful way we could possibly lose that, I don’t even think Adam Silver could’ve wrote a better script for that game.
It seemed like everything went against us last night… Jimmy and Bam were not as good as they needed to be, they got outplayed by Brown and Tatum last night. Most of the other guys played well for us and picked up the slack. But the reality is if Jimmy and Bam lose that matchup by a large margin, it would take a miraculous effort for us to still win.
On top of that, the refs were definitely not calling the game both ways. It was so obvious I still can’t believe it. There are so many examples of inconsistencies last night, but i’m not going to traumatize anyone else by making them have to relive that.
I hate complaining about the refs but here’s the reality. Boston is a really good team, they don’t need the help from the refs to beat us. But they got it anyways and it is what it is. We still had enough to win.
All that being said, Im not feeling as bad as I initially was about a game 7 in Boston. In games 4 and 5, there really wasn’t any pressure on Boston. They played like they had nothing to lose and their backs were against the wall, but we never matched that intensity. Game 6 they had a lot of their way and it happens. But despite how bad jimmy and bam was for 3 quarters, we were right there.
Game 7 is the first game our backs are really against the wall, and we have to play like it. It’s also the first time in the series the pressure is really not on us, I don’t think there are many people out there betting we win game 7. If we play with a sense of urgency and Bam and Jimmy play with intention, everyone else will feed off of that.
We’re going to find out a lot about this team the next game. The last time I remember someone suffering a demoralizing loss like this was the Spurs in Game 6 after Ray Allen’s 3. It’s hard to bounce back next game after going through that. Even though the Spurs didn’t win Game 7, they played a great game and were in position to win. That’s what championship teams do. If we really are built like that, it’ll show on Monday, regardless of the outcome.

Hey All!
I've posted here a few times already. I've had an odd progression and been told three different things from various professionals about what my shoulder injury may be. The latest, a labrum tear, suggested by my first Physical Therapy appointment, makes the most sense so far. I've also seen 2 orthopedists. 1st suggested tendinitis, possible tear. Second suggested frozen shoulder (which didn't make much sense to me). This was all in the first 2 weeks or so post injury when I had a good amount of swelling a lack of ROM. My PT appointment was shortly after my ortho visits and the swelling and pain went down, yet albiet still there a bit. My ROM came back, but raising my injured arm to shoulder level at 90 degrees and angling my forearm back - there's not great ROM and it seems like it would get a pop in pain if I tried to stretch it anymore.
The pain initially was difficult to locate (i.e. at first it seemed lateral), but now with swelling gone, it's definitely more obviously posteriosomewhat lateral. It took some days post injury of OHP 80# for my shoulder, forearm, and fingers to swell. Then 8/10 pain, especially at night. The pain is more like a constant ache now, maybe a 2-3/10. It can increase to a 4-5/10 doing random movements.
I'm curious if those who have had a labrum tear wouldn't mind sharing your symptoms?
Could you explain where your pain/soreness is coming from, what the impact was like upon the tear (I also incurred damage on OHP), what the pain was upon occurrence/the first week/then weeks after (progression). What are your limitations?
I do intend to get an MRI, but I have to wait for my ortho follow up.
I would much prefer to avoid surgery (who doesn't), and would likely consider stem cell treatment before I try surgery (anyone do this)? I'm aware of the cost, but to me it would be worth it if it took.

So, a view years back, a friend of mine hinted that he was unhappy with his sexlife or the non-existence of it. We started talking and ever since then we have been eachothers places to vent about our frustrations, sadness and everything that comes with being in a sexless marriage. Today he told me that his wife surprised him in bed last night and that they had sex. After the sex they had a good talk, some tears and they agreed to have a datenight every 2 weeks or more, to make it better. Then when he woke up, it happened again. Needless to say he is walking on clouds today. He sounded so happy, so relieved. I am so happy for him, but I was happy it was via text so he couldn't see my face. I don't want to rain on his parade. So we talked and joked and we talked about where he wanted to take his wife on a date that they schedueled for next weekend. I suddenly felt so lonely. Like my safe place to express my feelings about being in a sexless marriage was gone. It sounds ridiculous, I know, but it helped so much that I wasn't alone in my situation. I know that there are many of us who are in the same situation, but it helped that I he was my friend already. It also made me see how far I am from feeling like he does now. Loved, light, happy..
Ugh

Hi! I’m Angie, and here’s my rp idea
My character: A mixed blood of a vampire and Albino demon who has always wanted a life where she wasn’t as alone as much as she in in this current life. So she’s been pretending to be a human by hiding her features that’d make her a monster and go partying every night with the humans.
I do have a reference photo for her as well!
Here’s the story!
Tonight was possibly the most fun and memorable night you’ll ever experience in your entire life, because you’ve meet this absolute beauty at a party. She was just like a lady straight out of a magazine! She was having a hell of a good time so you decided to join her. Let’s just say that it really hit it off because she was enjoying herself even more now. She was like a live wire and even for a moment she had these gorgeous red eyes but that might’ve just been the party lights messing with her eye color. And when the party ended she wanted to hang out at my place and get to know me more! How nice!
So that’s pretty much the starter and you can pick whoever or whatever you wanna be. Like it could be anything from a human to any other beastly think you can come up with.

We are a cosleeping family because I could not function without sleep in the newborn phases with my babes (I'm a teacher and energy is a requirement for my job). Cosleeping (same bed) worked and was wonderful. Now my big is 6.5 and my little is 2.5. At one in a half my husband helped the littlest transition to a twin bed (it's what we did with our big) both kids get tucked in and laid with until they fall asleep (in their own beds but they share a room b/c small house). However, now, the little won't stay asleep without me. He notices in minutes that I've left and he comes and finds me. I can put him back down and he'll fall asleep for a bit but when I leave it's just rinse and repeat. Sometimes I fall asleep before I make it out of his bed but then I'll wake in the middle of the night and not be able to get back to sleep. If his dad puts him to sleep he screams up to hours going down.... But I the long run it ends up being the same. I LOVE cosleeping. The cuddles, warmth and sweetness are all so heart warming BUT I'm back to not sleeping... And I'm no good with out sleep. Heeeeelllppp please. Or at least remind me that I'll be ok?

((I've been NC with Nmom for coming up on a year. I'm sharing this story because I've really benefited from reading stories I can relate to. I love this community and the support you guys offer each other. I hope I can help validate some of your experiences as well.))
I have narcolepsy. It's rarely found in multiple generations of the same family. I fall asleep in every single class I take and dream so vividly I forget where I am. I went undiagnosed for years, and my falling asleep in class caused nearly every professor I had to resent me. I worked extremely hard outside of the classroom to keep up and managed to be a very good student. I also was TERRIFIED of punishment, so my goody-goody behavior kept me from ever being disciplined for falling asleep in class.
I finally got diagnosed after my junior year of college after a professor decided, at the last minute, to fail me for class participation so I'd have to retake his course. He sarcastically told me to see a doctor, which was actually great advice, and I came back the next year with a prescription, accomodations, and a letter instructing him to change my grade back or be faced with discrimination charges (he was a huge dick about all of it, different story.)
Narcolepsy is a seemingly random condition. There's not a strong case for it being passed down, only in rare cases is it suspected. One of the things known to cause it is infections within the brain. And I had a super crazy intracranial infection when I was a kid. I don't know exactly when my narcoleptic symptoms started, but it would be shocking if it wasn't directly related to this.
Nobody else in my family has every struggled with staying awake in the classroom. BUT, because my mom falls asleep in front of the television late at night after a full day of work and a glass of wine, she decided that she's narcoleptic too. Whatever, I shrug it off. But she starts telling me that the medication I'm taking is a crutch. She sits in on one of my appointments to "help her understand what I'm dealing with" but actually spends it trying to convince the doctor that I got it from her and "my lifestyle" is why I experience daytime symptoms and she doesn't.
She interprets the doctor's refusal to entertain her ignorance as him admitting all of her suggestions are possible. I'm gatekeeping her, but she won't do a sleep study to get diagnosed. I'm exaggerating my condition for sympathy, and she knows this because she has the same condition.
Anyway, has anybody else dealt with this? Disability deniers, condition appropriators, or general gaslighting around health factors?

Hey all, For context I’m 18F (just turned 18) and last year completed my final year of school. After working really hard all year I got into my dream course, being law at one of Australia’s top unis. Last year was really difficult for me, and took a huge toll on my mental health. I’d been previously battling anxiety since 2020 covid lockdowns, but this was a whole new level. Along with doing my final year of school and having to perform at an A+ average, my grandfather who had been battling cancer died 3 days before my first exam. In fact, I had to bury him and then go straight back to school to revise with my teacher before one of my exams. Safe to say this was a low point in my life. I was drinking every night, and the doctor had even prescribed me Valium, which for someone of my age (17) was practically unheard of. Anyways, fast forward to January 2023 and I was in an amazing headspace. I won’t say I’d fully grieved, as I never will, but I managed to get myself off antidepressants, and my anxiety was basically at zero. I had a great summer, until about 2 weeks before University started. Then the anxiety came trickling in. Like bad. So bad I had to get back on lexapro after a 2 month hiatus to attempt to settle myself before starting law school. I lasted a total of 4 weeks before I decided to defer. I just couldn’t handle it. Work wise I was fine, but mentally I was having a panic attack every morning at the thought of going into uni. I’d have to take a beta blocker to even get me through the day. So I decided I needed a break from study. This was back in March, and we’re now in late May. I’m currently planning to go back for the second semester of uni which starts in late July, but I feel all of a sudden like my anxiety is slowly creeping back. I’m on 15mg of lexapro which has been doing a fairly good job of keeping me in check, but I sense the nerves coming back, even though I don’t have to enrol for a while still. My question is what the **** should I do? My theory, along with my therapist’s is that I now associate an educational context with the passing and traumatic time of my grandfather seeing as I was at school when I got the news? Or maybe I put too much pressure on myself to perform. Anyways, for the life of me I cannot figure out why this is freaking me out so much. Worth noting that in my short time at the uni I actually really liked the environment and the people, but my anxiety was absolutely relentless.
I would just like some advice or even any perspectives on how to attempt to reshape my approach and attitude towards uni, seeing as I really do want to get back to studying!

Over the past month I have noticed I’ve been sleeping a bit better but I think my mood swings are still bad, I’m on 60mg fluoxetine as well, so I’ve noticed that my depressive states haven’t been as bad as they used to but my ‘good’ moods are still weird af.
Friday - gave a stranger my number, we got talking, sexting and phone sex. Got bored ghosted them.
Saturday - napped on and off most of the day awake all night, can’t focus properly on anything and think my body temp is fucked, one minute I’m cold and the next I’m too warm.
Sunday - feel like this current of energy is running through me, like there are loads of things I want/need to do and I can force myself to do any of them, so I’m just kind of lying on my bed irritated at myself.

Join up! Nice casual PvE Server, "Willow Hill PvE 32player" restarted. North America.
Welcome to Willow Hill! IP: 194.140.197.193 PORT: 29900
DEDICATED PUBLIC SERVER:

• 16GB dedicated server, North America
• 32 players max.
• No PvP. Casual PvE. Not RPG.
• Shared Safehouses (mod). Faction Safehouse mod installed.
• Vanilla map

Zombie Lore:

• Zombification only transferred by Bites (good for newbies)
• slow zombie respawn - enabling you to clear out and hold an area. Mostly wandering hordes/random zombies passing through after that.
• Randomized Zombies (rare sprinters, crawlers, rare smart and tough zombies),
• 2x Peak Zombies at 1 year.
• Zombies aggressive at night, but they chill during the day.
• periodic Helicopter Events
• Time progession is slower (3h to 1d)

Admin is on daily, submit ticket for issues/questions - or just DM me directly.
Setting

• Many mods for more vehicle choices, RVs, motorbikes, ATVs, sports cars, military trucks, etc.
• Common sense mod - use crowbars to open locked doors!
• Tons of music, dancing, musical instruments, boom boxes
• tons of video games and movies
• Alpha MTG cards, Spiffo Cards - COLLECT THEM ALL!
• Loot doesn't respawn or despawn when dropped
• Bows, Crossbows, and Medieval Armaments (spawn in buildings that would have them)
• Crafted Knife/katana sheaths
• No Sleep Required.
• 10x faster books.
• Canning food/preservation possible.
• Map sharing and Map creation/annotation
• Proximity VOIP and walkie talkies active.
• Pantry Packing mod
• LY Skill books

Had idea a couple days ago and implemented it for a day and the results have been epic so I thought I would share the idea / strategy I haven't seen anyone else doing this.
The idea is in your main base you have a computer station and then you go out and place these surveillance nodes in areas you want to survey.
The node is a triangle foundation + TC with a door. The node detects heartbeats and sends an RF broadcast to your base, or a smart alarm ping to your phone. When you recieve the signal you hop on your computer station at home and each node also has with it a PTZ camera (as high up as you can get it, I stack door frames to get it up high).
I placed 4 of these nodes around my roaming area and I would get a blue light in my base when one of the nodes detects an enemy. I'd hop on, see what happens, get some good situational awareness, and then go after the loot if it looks promising.
I can get a view of my entire SE quadrant of the map nearly. The nodes are cheap.
The nodes also serve as farming safespaces, if you're out farming with a jackhammer and you have lots of resources, you can stop at one of your nodes and depo into your TC for later pickup with car or night run or what have you.
Node could be updated a little to contain a locker and bed.
I was getting notifications every hour or so last night, I'd pull the cam up and see what's going on and grab a kit and go after it, confident I won't be third partied because I see a pretty huge area with the elevated camera.
Thanks for reading.

I (m26) have been dating my partner (f27) for a little over a year now. At the beginning, things were great and everything seemed to be normal. I’m talking date nights multiple times a week, frequent intimate times, the works. But over the last few months I’ve been feeling that there has been a shift.
I should also preface this by saying I do not want to put any spin on the situation and hope I can be impartial in my telling.
I love my partner with everything I’ve got, but recently I feel like I’m a ‘partner in name only’. What I mean is that it seems like I’m only being asked out to events/get togethers if her friends/family are going to be there. By no means do I dislike her friends or family, but I miss just the two of us. And when it is just the two of us, I’ve been feeling like I’m not heard. Now, my partner is quite chatty, and I have absolutely no problem with it. I actually enjoy it, because I am not the most talkative person and it can really take the pressure off. However, when I do have something to say or add to the conversation, she frequently interrupts, changes topic, or just completely ignores me and continues with her line of thought. At first I didn’t pay any mind to it, just writing it off as a quirk, but now I’m not so sure.
Another thing that is concerning to me is our lack of intimate times. As I mentioned before, at the beginning of the relationship, our sex life was great. But now there we’re a year and some change into the relationship, it’s all but completely vanished. And it’s not for a lack of trying, I am still very attracted to her and want to satisfy her needs. Whenever we have been getting hot and heavy in the last few months, it inevitably ends with her not wanting to go past some tonsil tennis. When we’ve talked about it before, she said she her mental health wasn’t where she wanted it to be and that she needed time. I completely understand and want her to feel the best and the most comfortable in her skin. So we put sex on the side so we can work together for good mental health. In the last few weeks, she has all but said that things are back to where they once were. Normally I’d be excited, but it still doesn’t seem like she want to do anything with me beside holding hands and kissing. I don’t want it to seem like I’m in it for just the sex, but sex is a part of a relationship for me.
Maybe I’m just really in my head about this and am letting my anxiety take over. But I don’t feel like words she says to me and the actions she does line up and it really hurts. I want to get to a point together where this all seems silly and I was worried about nothing, but I’m really scared I’ll mess up and lose the best thing I have going for me right now

I (23F) do not want to attend my sister's (24F) wedding happening next year, overseas with her fiancé (27M).
For privacy reasons, I'll refer to my sister as Bella and her fiancé as Jacob (intentional twilight reference because they should not be together). There are many elements to this story but I will summarise it to my best ability.
Backstory: All my life, there was domestic and religious violence including emotional manipulation and physical harassment from both my parents, which forced me to run away from home for a second time 4 years ago. In the past few years, I've been working on becoming financially independent, continuing my degree, addressing my mental health issues (which my parents deny existed), and maintaining a distance between my parents and I.
Last year, Bella was freshly out of a breakup and met Jacob, who quickly became her 'religious mentor' and 'helped her' through her breakup. BTW I am agnostic after having religion shoved down my throat but don't care about other people's religious beliefs. Initially, I had good thoughts about Jacob because he wanted to strengthen her beliefs, but when I found out that Bella started a relationship with him after he told her that her name came to him in prayer, I immediately told her to run.
Here are dot points of almost every red flag:
- He 'scolded' Bella when she spent a Sunday in the ER instead of at church
- He forced Bella to tell my parents about the relationship after one month knowing that my parents will expect a marriage
- He convinced my parents that marrying a man this religious would give Bella a 'blessing'
- He wants 11 kids but isn't financially stable
- Bella is currently in the 6th year of her 3-year degree due to stress and anxiety, and he is a drop-out because he 'doesn't like studying'
- He is forcing the marriage even though she expressed multiple times that she does not want to marry so early
- To add a cherry on top, he gave me a religious scripture for my birthday saying that I should 'reconsider'
My last straw was when he invited my parents to the engagement party, which he promised would only consist of his siblings and mine. Bella's requirement was that I was there, and mine was that my parents weren't. He believed he could reunite our family that night.
I feel like I've lost all the privacy I had built for myself. My parents have seen my car's make/model/registration, they know where I work (he told them) and probably know where I live since he has dropped me home before. I do not trust this man after a very clear boundary was crossed and I have now blocked him and told him 'very kindly' to stay away from me. I responded with aggression which has now ruined my relationship with him (not complaining). I keep in contact with my sister because she was unaware that my parents would be coming, and she ignores the fact that I hate Jacob (I know deep down she probably does too).
Now, WIBTA for not attending their wedding?

Today marks 160 days since my last drink. It’s been a great change for me. Most days I don’t have cravings and on the off chance I do, I either grab a Coke or Dr. Pepper Zero and at times I’ll grab an NA Beer. I don’t miss the hangovers or guilt of drinking the night before. Life is pretty damn good!

Sorry if this post is all over the place; it's my first time posting on reddit. I thought I might describe the whole relationship we had and what went down, in case it changed the etiquette. I'll put the beginning of the current situation and the actual issue in bold if someone wants to skip the massive backstory.
So, the thing is, I (now 24F) became really close friends with a girl (now 23F) from my grup at university 3 years ago. We were both good students, liked similar things, watched some of the same movies and shows, loved cats etc., so we quickly bonded. We became nearly inseparable, we studied together, shared all our notes, hung out after classes, I met her gf and spent time with them, and when they unfortunately broke up, I did everything I could to support my friend (and I was really really worried about her mental health, I got like 3 hours of sleep that first night between physically staying with her and then texting, I started inviting her to my family outings etc.), eventually (near the end of the friendship last year) I was even invited to spend a week at her house with her family and while I was there, I was also invited to her older sister's wedding that was happening about a month later (a lot of people started saying they wouldn't attend so the thought was that if I came, then at least some of the money wouldn't go to waste, I suppose).
While things started off great, they changed over time. Like I mentioned, she got that gf and I didn't have the time for dating and wasn't even particularly interested in the guys around me to begin with. She also got cats and then fostered kittens. So her life got busier while mine didn't, and I understood that. The workload of sharing notes started shifting to where I was doing increasingly more. But I was doing it mainly for myself anyway, so I saw no harm in sharing what I had.
But I'm not going to lie, it started getting more and more irritating. Sometimes we'd agree to split the questions between the two of us 50/50 and the day before the test she'd text me saying she wouldn't be able to do her part because she had had a migraine (I got that) and then she took her cats for a long walk, and also her new gf showed up at her place too (that I didn't get). By the time I finished the whole thing, she was asleep and read what I had prepared in the morning. Whatever.
Things started getting bad a year and a half ago, around the time of her sister's wedding. I live in the city where we study but she only rents a flat for the two semesters and goes home halfway across the country for any longer breaks. She was looking for a new place and I went to see one of the flats for her but ultimately, it fell through. Later, she found a place and decided to take it without sending me there to look at it - but she did ask me to get the keys from the owner. It happened the day before I was leaving for that wedding so I could take the keys with me. I agreed no problem but then she changed her mind, calling the whole thing off - only to change it again after a few hours. I told her it's okay but to please let me know earlier if we're ever in a similar situation again (I still had to pack, also it was quite some distance for me to travel so I lost about an hour on public transport, and ofc I had to buy myself tickets - but I didn't mention any of that). Which apparently was a wrong thing to say 'cause she got mad and started ignoring my text messages, including the ones where I asked what time I was supposed to meet the owner (I didn't have the lady's number). When she finally responded, she said she didn't know. Always one to placate others, I started politely asking her to please find out because I didn't want the owner to wait for me, blah blah blah. Eventually, we figured it out, I handled it and went back to preparing.
The wedding was a disaster in itself. It involved her absurdly creepy cousin who clearly had never spoken to a girl and after just 1 day was convinced we were in love and would be together. I understand she found my following her irritating but I didn't really know anyone else and I was freaked out by the cousin - and her egging him on didn't help xd One of the instances was when he kept openly staring at me (y'know how when you look at somebody and they look your way, you look away? well, he didn't) and I decided to kind of show him I wasn't there specifically as his plus one, so I asked my friend's plus one (he's gay and we had met a few times before) to go dance with me, and he was happy to go with me - but my friend said that no, he was there with her and I could go dance with the cousin. And when I finally snapped and glared at her and said firmly but quietly (so no one else could hear) to stop (she was laughing about how he and I should get a photo together for the wedding photobook), she got mad at me. Well, fine, it was just a few hours, I could sit at the table and endure the creepy staring, it's not like he'd try anything with everyone watching. My friend's plus one had a cold or something so I decided to leave with him. Apparently, she was upset that we left so early. The next day, she wasn't speaking to me until we had to leave for the afterparty and did some shopping together etc. But during the party she kept to her sister and her bff and I didn't want to cause any more trouble between us so I stayed on my own - until the cousin showed up. Now, I'm the type of person who freezes when in a sudden, stressful situations, and that's exactly what happened. He tried holding my hands, again stared at me, didn't realise my constant fiddling with my phone was an indication that I didn't want to spend time with him, and generally made this whole day miserable for me. I was so stressed out I couldn't even eat anything. In the evening, hours later, my friend realised what was happening and decided to drive me to her house early. Ofc he tagged along but she made sure to take him back with her. He kept texting me, saying he was going to go to the train station the next morning to see me off and that he would soon come to my city to visit me, and he could stay at my place while he was there. The next day, my friend's mom drove me to the station (my friend woke up too late to go), and once I was on the train, I blocked him. I also texted with my friend and found out that she, as well as her other cousins who sat at our table at the wedding, had approached the dude to tell him to stop but he ignored them. They eventually got his parents involved and that was why he wasn't at the train station. It made me feel much better about the whole thing, since she didn't abandon me like I thought she had. And again, I understand I was kinda a nuisance - a shy stranger at a family gathering.
After that, things were good for a while. But then, the classes started again and it was becoming stressful and taxing again. We have extracurricular classes we have to attend, and our group needed to prepare a short "article" on a topic we chose. I wrote the whole thing but asked the others to please read through it and let me know if they were okay with what I managed so I could send it to the teacher (they did). I also reached out to my friend and asked her specifically to let me know when she had a moment to read it because I valued her opinion a little bit more, since she would tell me if she didn't like something and the others wouldn't (it wasn't even 2 pages long), and she told me she would. Well, she never did, she started sending me memes and talking about the tests she re-took instead. So at the end of the day (the deadline), I asked her how her test went but because I was quite fed up, I didn't stop myself from adding, "thanks btw. next time, let me know you don't feel like doing something we agreed on so I won't have to wait unnecessarily". Should I have just ignored it and went on with my life? Yeah, sure. But I was angry and I don't think what I said was all that bad. Well, to her it was.
I had already noticed she didn't like any sort of critique of herself, even if it was something like us disagreeing on how to perform an experiment (the difference between us was that I had read the instruction). I suppose we both instinctively assume a bit more of a leadership role and sometimes we clashed because of that. She would get very defensive, and I suppose I did too. But in this particular instance, she clearly misunderstood me and an actual argument ensued. What I wanted to say was that I didn't like what our dynamic was, how I was doing so much and was held to those previous standards while she changed her mind whenever she felt like it, was much less reliable and I had to accommodate her almost all the time. But she seemed to think I was looking for gratitude for some reason? That's not what I care about at all; whenever I had some notes or excel sheets or whatever before the rest of the group, I always shared it on our group chat, and never expected thanks or anything. When I discuss a question that may be on a test with somebody, once I find the correct answer, I send it to them, even if it's days later, simply because they wanted to know at one point. I don't care about gratitude and in fact, it makes me uncomfortable. I want to have a good relationship with everyone and if my openness with sharing means that in the future when I need some help, I can go ask one of those people and they will willingly help me, that's an added bonus. Idk why my friend would ever think that but once I realised there was that misunderstanding, I tried to explain what I meant before trying to placate her.
She, however, was really mad, and said a bunch of really hurtful stuff. That, in turn, made me remind her of how she had treated me at the wedding (apparently I was still salty about her initially egging her cousin off), and that prompted her to say that she never wanted me at that wedding in the first place and that I inject myself wherever I can. Now, I never told this to anyone other than my very best friend, but I think I might be somewhere on the autism spectrum and I really don't know how to read between the lines. It's not clear to me what's appropriate and what isn't. So when her mother came up with the idea of me coming to the wedding, my friend's sister gave me an invitation and my friend encouraged me to go, I simply thought it would be okay for me to do so. Now I know to keep to myself and to turn down any offers unless they come from my closest friends and family. But once I got those texts, I got really hurt and was desperately trying to just end the argument, let her be mad at me for a while and we could go back to normal again.
Well, she was apparently done. She ended the friendship and blocked me. Honestly, while it made me realise just how lonely I am, it also did me some good, I think. I focused on myself, my own studying, and haven't had to retake a single test up to this day. She, on the other hand, had to retake almost all of them. Idk if it was just her being used to me doing so much for her or if something else came up in her life, and frankly, I don't care anymore. I wasn't going to go out of my way to antagonise her or anything, we just ignored each other. Eventually, we had to work together on some project and that led to us sometimes talking to each other during a chat with other people from our group. We say hi when we see each other. But nothing beyond that. She unblocked me (idk if she needed to do that in order for us to be able to create a group chat with a third girl for the project, or if she just randomly decided to undo it, don't care) but we don't text or talk when it's just the two of us. I realised that even if she wanted to make amends, I wouldn't want to be friends with her anyway. I got burned and I learned my lesson. Sometimes I feel like I was being used, sometimes - like I overreacted and was too self-centered. At one point, she saw me crocheting something for a colleague (I picked up crocheting fairly recently, she didn't know about it) and asked if I would make something for her (a specific project that she'd pay me for). I was a bit hesitant and mentioned it to my best friend and she told me not to ever do it. She said my ex-friend treated me the way she did but wanted to still gain from me. So I decided not to do it after all. If she wants it, she can learn or find somebody else.
Now. After some time, when I was still blocked by her, I realised she had two of my books, and I had one of hers. I have been struggling with what to do since then. They're my books and I want them back. I have read one of them and the other one suddenly disappeared from all bookstores here so I couldn't get it if I tried. I'm upset over the fact but at this point I'd rather buy them again than have to reach out to her. But on the other hand, I have that one book of hers - and it's supposedly her favourite.
Now, we're probably going to see each other for the last time for an exam on Tuesday. The next time would be at our graduation in March of 2024. So here's my question: do I bring her book on Tuesday without saying anything? Do I hand it to her and tell her to keep my books or give them away to a library? Or do I keep her book as a hostage in case she ever wants it back?

Pretty disappointed, the kid slide is dismantled and they are putting it back together while we sail, pretty doubtful about it being ready anytime soon, brought 2 grand daughters and they were really looking forward to it, 2nd day, 1st night food not so good. I really wish we would have known about the slide!

PODCAST: https://ayearofwarandpeace.podbean.com/e/ep1572-hail-and-farewell-george-moore-vale-chapter-112/
PROMPTS: George does not care about you, whatsoever.
Today's Reading, via Project Gutenberg:
Borde could not enlighten him on that point, and I suggested that he should make application to the publisher of his Prayer-Book and get his money back. There is nobody. I said, like him. He is more wonderful than anything in literature. I prefer him to Sancho who was untroubled with a conscience and never thought of running to the Bishop of Toledo. All the same he is not without the shrewdness of his ancestors, and got the better of Archbishop Walsh, and for the last five years Vincent O'Brien has been beating time, and will beat it till the end of his life; and he will be succeeded by others, for Edward has, by deed, saved the Italian contrapuntalists till time everlasting from competition with modern composers. He certainly has gotten the better of Walsh. And I thought of a picture-gallery in Dublin with nothing in it but Botticelli and his school, and myself declaring that all painting that had been done since had no interest for me.... A smile began to spread over my face, for the story that was coming into my mind seemed oh! so humorous, so like Ireland, so like Edward, that I began to tell myself again the delightful story of the unrefined ears that, weary of erudite music, had left the cathedral and sought instinctively modern tunes and women's voices, and as these were to be found in Westland Row the church was soon overflowing with a happy congregation. But in a little while the collections grew scantier. This time it couldn't be Palestrina, and all kinds of reasons were adduced. At last the truth could no longer be denied—the professional Catholics of Merrion Square had been driven out of Westland Row by the searching smells of dirty clothes, and had gone away to the University Church in Stephen's Green. So if it weren't Palestrina directly it was Palestrina indirectly, and the brows of the priests began to knit when Edward Martyn's name was mentioned. Them fal-de-dals is well enough on the Continent, in Paris, where there is no faith, was the opinion of an important ecclesiastic. But we don't want them here, murmured a second ecclesiastic. All this counterpoint may make a very pretty background for Mr Martyn's prayers, but what about the poor people's? Good composer or bad composer, there is no congregation in him, said a third. There's too much congregation, put in the first, but not the kind we want! The second ecclesiastic took snuff, and the group were of opinion that steps should be taken to persuade dear Edward to make good their losses. The priests in Marlborough Street sympathised with the priests of Westland Row, and told them that they were so heavily out of pocket that Mr Martyn had agreed to do something for them. It seemed to the Westland Row priests that if Mr Martyn were making good the losses of the priests of the pro-Cathedral, he should make good their losses. It was natural that they should think so, and to acquit himself of all responsibility Edward no doubt consulted the best theologians on the subject, and I think that they assured him that he is not responsible for indirect losses. If he were, his whole fortune would not suffice. He was, of course, very sorry if a sudden influx of poor people had caused a falling-off in the collections of Westland Row, for he knew that the priests needed the money very much to pay for the new decorations, and to help them he wrote an article in the Independent praising the new blue ceiling, which seemed, so he wrote, a worthy canopy for the soaring strains of Palestrina.
Unfortunately rubbing salt into the wound, I said. A story that will amuse Dujardin and it will be great fun telling him in the shady garden at Fontainebleau how Edward, anxious to do something for his church, had succeeded in emptying two. All the way down the alleys he will wonder how Edward could have ever looked upon Palestrina's masses as religious music. The only music he will say, in which religious emotion transpires is plain-chant. Huysmans says that the Tantum Ergo or the Dies Irae, one or the other, reminds him of a soul being dragged out of purgatory, and it is possible that it does; but a plain-chant tune arranged in eight-part counterpoint cannot remind one of anything very terrible. Dujardin knows that Palestrina was a priest, and he will say: That fact deceived your friend, just as the fact of finding the Adeste Fideles among the plain-chant tunes deceived him. For of course I shall tell Dujardin that story too. It is too good to be missed. He is wonderful, Dujardin! I shall cry out in one of the sinuous alleys. There never was anybody like him! And I will tell him more soul-revealing anecdotes. I will say: Dujardin, listen. One evening he contended that the great duet at the end of Siegfried reminded him of mass by Palestrina. Dujardin will laugh, and, excited by his laughter, I will try to explain to him that what Edward sees is that Palestrina took a plain chant tune and gave fragments of it to the different voices, and in his mind these become confused with the motives of The Ring. You see, Dujardin, the essential always escapes him—the intention of the writer is hidden from him. I am beginning to understand your friend. He has, let us suppose, a musical ear that allows him to take pleasure in the music; but a musical ear will not help him to follow Wagner's idea—how, in a transport of sexual emotion, a young man and a young woman on a mountain-side awaken to the beauty of the life of the world. Dujardin's appreciations will provoke me, and I will say: Dujardin, you shouldn't be so appreciative. If I were telling you of a play I had written, it would be delightful to watch my idea dawning upon your consciousness; but I am telling you of a real man, and one that I shall never to able to get into literature. He will answer: We invent nothing; we can but perceive. And then, exhilarated, carried beyond myself, I will say: Dujardin, I will tell you something still more wonderful than the last gaffe. II gaffe dans les Quat'z Arts. He admires Ibsen, but you'd never guess the reason why—because he is very like Racine; both of them, he says, are classical writers. And do you know how he arrived at that point? Because nobody is killed on the stage in Racine or in Ibsen. He does not see that the intention of Racine is to represent men and women out of time and out of space, unconditioned by environment, and that the very first principle of Ibsen's art is the relation of his characters to their environment. In many passages he merely dramatises Darwin. There never was anybody so interesting as dear Edward, and there never will be anybody like him in literature ... I will explain why presently, but I must first tell you another anecdote. I went to see him one night, and he told me that the theme of the play he was writing was a man who had married a woman because he had lost faith in himself; the man did not know, however, that the woman had married him for the same reason, and the two of them were thinking—I have forgotten what they were thinking, but I remember Edward saying: I should like to suggest hopelessness. I urged many phrases, but he said: It isn't a phrase I want, but an actual thing. I was thinking of a broken anchor—that surely is a symbol of hopelessness. Yes, I said, no doubt, but how are you going to get a broken anchor into a drawing-room? I don't write about drawing-rooms. Well, living-rooms. It isn't likely that they would buy a broken anchor and put it up by the coal-scuttle.
There's that against it, he answered. If you could suggest anything better—What do you think of a library in which there is nothing but unacted plays? The characters could say, when there was nothing for them to do on the stage, that they were going to the library to read, and the library would have the advantage of reminding everybody of the garret in the Wild Duck. A very cruel answer, my friend, Dujardin will say, and I will tell him that I can't help seeing in Edward something beyond Shakespeare or Balzac. Now, tell me, which of these anecdotes I have told you is the most humorous? He will not answer my question, but a certain thoughtfulness will begin to settle in his face, and he will say: Everything with him is accidental, and when his memory fails him he falls into another mistake, and he amuses you because it is impossible for you to anticipate his next mistake. You know there is going to be one; there must be one, for he sees things separately rather than relatively. I am beginning to understand your friend.
You are, you are; you are doing splendidly. But you haven't told me, Dujardin, which anecdote you prefer. Stay, there is another one. Perhaps this one will help you to a still better understanding. When he brought The Heather Field and Yeats's play The Countess Cathleen to Dublin for performance, a great trouble of conscience awakened suddenly in him, and a few days before the performance he went to a theologian to ask him if The Countess Cathleen were a heretical work, and, if it were would Almighty God hold him responsible for the performance? But he couldn't withdraw Yeats's play without withdrawing his own, and it appears that he breathed a sigh of relief when a common friend referred the whole matter to two other theologians, and as these gave their consent Edward allowed the plays to go on; but Cardinal Logue intervened, and wrote a letter to the papers to say that the play seemed to him unfit for Catholic ears, and Edward would have withdrawn the plays if the Cardinal hadn't admitted in his letter that he had judged the play by certain extracts only.
He wishes to act rightly, but has little faith in himself; and what makes him so amusing is that he needs advice in aesthetics as well as in morals. We are, I said, Dujardin, at the roots of conscience. And I began to ponder the question what would happen to Edward if we lived in a world in which aesthetics ruled: I should be where Bishop Healy is, and he would be a thin, small voice crying in the wilderness—an amusing subject of meditation, from which I awoke suddenly.
I wonder how Dujardin is getting on with his Biblical studies? Last year he was calling into question the authorship of the Romans—a most eccentric view; and, remembering how weakly I had answered him, I took the Bible from the table and began to read the Epistle with a view to furnishing myself with arguments wherewith to confute him. My Bible opened at the ninth chapter, and I said: Why, here is the authority for the Countess Cathleen's sacrifice which Edward's theologian deemed untheological. It will be great fun to poke Edward up with St Paul, and on my way to Lincoln Place I thought how I might lead the conversation to The Countess Cathleen.
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A few minutes afterwards a light appeared on the staircase and the door slowly opened.
Come in, Siegfried, though you were off the key.
Well, my dear friend, it is a difficult matter to whistle above two trams passing simultaneously and six people jabbering round a public-house, to say nothing of a jarvey or two, and you perhaps dozing in your armchair, as your habit often is. You won't open to anything else except a motive from The Ring; and I stumbled up the stairs in front of Edward, who followed with a candle.
Wait a moment; let me go first and I'll turn up the gas.
You aren't sitting in the dark, are you?
No, but I read better by candle-light, and he blew out the candles in the tin candelabrum that he had made for himself. He is original even in his candelabrum; no one before him had ever thought of a caridelabrum in tin, and I fell to admiring his appearance more carefully than perhaps I had ever done before, so monumental did he seem lying on the little sofa sheltered from daughts by a screen, a shawl about his shoulders. His churchwarden was drawing famously, and I noticed his great square hands with strong fingers and square nails pared closely away, and as heretofore I admired the curve of the great belly, the thickness of the thighs, the length and breadth and the width of his foot hanging over the edge of the sofa, the apoplectic neck falling into great rolls of flesh, the humid eyes, the skull covered with short stubbly hair. I looked round the rooms and they seemed part of himself: the old green wallpaper on which he pins reproductions of the Italian masters. And I longed to peep once more into the bare bedroom into which he goes to fetch bottles of Apollinaris. Always original! Is there another man in this world whose income is two thousand a year, and who sleeps in a bare bedroom, without dressing-room, or bathroom, or servant in the house to brush his clothes, and who has to go to the baker's for his breakfast?
We had been talking for some time of the Gaelic League, and from Hyde it was easy to pass to Yeats and his plays.
His best play is The Countess Cathleen.
The Countess Cathleen is only a sketch.
But what I never could understand, Edward, was why you and the Cardinal could have had any doubts as to the orthodoxy of The Countess Cathleen.
What, a woman that sells her own soul in order to save the souls of others!
I suppose your theologian objected—
Of course he objected.
He cannot have read St Paul.
What do you mean?
He can't have read St Paul, or else he is prepared to throw over St Paul.
Mon ami Moore, mon ami Moore.
The supernatural idealism of a man who would sell his soul to save the souls of others fills me with awe.
But it wasn't a man; it was the Countess Cathleen, and women are never idealists.
Not the saints?
His face grew solemn at once.
If you give me the Epistles I will read the passage to you. And it was great fun to go to the bookshelves and read: I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.
Edward's face grew more and more solemn, and I wondered of what he was thinking.
Paul is a very difficult and a very obscure writer, and I think the Church is quite right not to encourage the reading of the Epistles, especially without comments.
Then you do think there is something in the passage I have read?
After looking down his dignified nose for a long time, he said:
Of course, the Church has an explanation. All the same, it's very odd that St Paul should have said such a thing—very odd.
There is no doubt that I owe a great deal of my happiness to Edward; all my life long he has been exquisite entertainment. And I fell to thinking that Nature was very cruel to have led me, like Moses, within sight of the Promised Land. A story would be necessary to bring Edward into literature, and it would be impossible to devise an action of which he should be a part. The sex of a woman is odious to him, and a man with two thousand a year does not rob nor steal, and he is so uninterested in his fellow-men that he has never an ill word to say about anybody. John Eglinton is a little thing; AE is a soul that few will understand; but Edward is universal—more universal than Yeats, than myself, than any of us, but for lack of a story I shall not be able to give him the immortality in literature which he seeks in sacraments. Shakespeare always took his stories from some other people. Turgenev's portrait of him would be thin, poor, and evasive, and Balzac would give us the portrait of a mere fool. And Edward is not a fool. As I understand him he is a temperament without a rudder; all he has to rely upon is his memory, which isn't a very good one, and so he tumbles from one mistake into another. My God! it is a terrible thing to happen to one, to understand a man better than he understands himself, and to be powerless to help him. If I had been able to undo his faith I should have raised him to the level of Sir Horace Plunkett, but he resisted me; and perhaps he did well, for he came into the world seeing things separately rather than relatively, and had to be a Catholic. He is a born Catholic, and I remembered one of his confessions—a partial confession, but a confession: If you had been brought up as strictly as I have been—I don't think he ever finished the sentence; he often leaves sentences unfinished, as if he fears to think things out. The end of the sentence should run: You would not dare to think independently. He thinks that his severe bringing-up has robbed him of something. But the prisoner ends by liking his prison-house, and on another occasion he said: If it hadn't been for the Church, I don't know what would have happened to me.
My thoughts stopped, and when I awoke I was thinking of Hughes. Perhaps the link between Hughes and Edward was Loughrea Cathedral. He had shown me a photograph of some saints modelled by Hughes. Hughes is away in Paris, I said, modelling saints for Loughrea Cathedral. The last time I saw him was at Walter Osborne's funeral, and Walter's death set me thinking of the woman I had lost, and little by little all she had told me about herself floated up in my mind like something that I had read. I had never seen her father nor the Putney villa in which she had been brought up, but she had made me familiar with both through her pleasant mode of conversation, which was never to describe anything, but just to talk about things, dropping phrases here and there, and the phrases she dropped were so well chosen that the comfort of the villa, its pompous meals and numerous servants, its gardens and greenhouses, with stables and coach-house just behind, are as well known to me as the house that I am living in, better known in a way, for I see it through the eyes of the imagination ... clearer eyes than the physical eyes.
It does not seem to me that any one was ever more conscious of whence she had come and of what she had been; she seemed to be able to see herself as a child again, and to describe her childhood with her brother (they were nearly the same age) in the villa and in the villa's garden. I seemed to see them always as two rather staid children who were being constantly dressed by diligent nurses and taken out for long drives in the family carriage. They did not like these drives and used to hide in the garden; but their governess was sent to fetch them, and they were brought back. Her father did not like to have the horses kept waiting, and one day as Stella stood with him in the passage, she saw her mother come out of her bedroom beautifully dressed. Her father whispered something in his wife's ear, and he followed her into her bedroom. Stella remembered how the door closed behind them. In my telling, the incident seems to lose some of its point, but in Stella's relation it seemed to put her father and his wife before me and so clearly that I could not help asking her what answer her father would make were she to tell him that she had a lover. A smile hovered in her grave face. He would look embarrassed, she said, and wonder why I should have told him such a thing, and then I think he would go to the greenhouse, and when he returned he would talk to me about something quite different. I don't think that Stella ever told me about the people that came to their house, but people must have come to it, and as an example of how a few words can convey an environment I will quote her: I always wanted to talk about Rossetti, she said, and these seven words seem to me to tell better than any description the life of a girl living with a formal father in a Putney villa, longing for something, not knowing exactly what, and anxious to get away from home.... I think she told me she was eighteen or nineteen and had started painting before she met Florence at the house of one of her father's friends; a somewhat sore point this meeting was, for Florence was looked upon by Stella's father as something of a Bohemian. She was a painter, and knew all the Art classes and the fees that had to be paid, and led Stella into the world of studios and models and girl friends. She knew how to find studios and could plan out a journey abroad. Stella's imagination was captured, and even if her father had tried to offer opposition to her leaving home he could not have prevented her, for she was an heiress (her mother was dead and had left her a considerable income); but he did not try, and the two girls set up house together in Chelsea; they travelled in Italy and Spain; they had a cottage in the country; they painted pictures and exhibited their pictures in the same exhibitions; they gave dances in their studios and were attracted by this young man and the other; but Stella did not give herself to any one, because, as she admitted to me, she was afraid that a lover would interrupt the devotion which she intended to give to Art. But life is forever casting itself into new shapes and forms, and no sooner had she begun to express herself in Art than she met me. I was about to go to Ireland to preach a new gospel, and must have seemed a very impulsive and fantastic person to her, but were not impulsiveness and fantasy just the qualities that would appeal to her? And were not gravity and good sense the qualities that would appeal to me, determined as I was then to indulge myself in a little madness?
I could not have chosen a saner companion than Stella; my instinct had led me to her; but because one man's instinct is a little more clear than another's, it does not follow that he has called reason to his aid. It must be remembered always that the art of painting is as inveterate in me as the art of writing, and that I am never altogether myself when far away from the smell of oil paint. Stella could talk to one about painting, and all through that wonderful summer described in Salve our talk flowed on as delightfully as a breeze in Maytime, and as irresponsible, flashing thoughts going by and avowals perfumed with memories. Only in her garden did conversation fail us, for in her garden Stella could think only of her flowers, and it seemed an indiscretion to follow her as she went through the twilight gathering dead blooms or freeing plants from noxious insects. But she would have had me follow her, and I think was always a little grieved that I wasn't as interested in her garden as I was in her painting; and my absent-mindedness when I followed her often vexed her and my mistakes distressed her.
You are interested, she said, only in what I say about flowers and not in the flowers themselves. You like to hear me tell about Miss —— whose business in life is to grow carnations, because you already see her, dimly, perhaps, but still you see her in a story. Forget her and look at this Miss Shifner!
Yes, it is beautiful, but we can only admire the flowers that we notice when we are children, I answered. Dahlias, china roses, red and yellow tulips, tawny wallflowers, purple pansies, are never long out of my thoughts, and all the wonderful varieties of the iris, the beautiful blue satin and the cream, some shining like porcelain, even the common iris that grows about the moat.
But there were carnations in your mother's garden?
Yes, and I remember seeing them being tied with bass. But what did you say yesterday about carnations? That they were the—
She laughed and would not tell me, and when the twilight stooped over the high trees and the bats flitted and the garden was silent except when a fish leaped, I begged her to come away to the wild growths that I loved better than the flowers.
But the mallow and willow-weed are the only two that you recognise. How many times have I told you the difference between self-heal and tufted vetch?
I like cow parsley and wild hyacinths and—
You have forgotten the name. As well speak of a woman that you loved but whose name you had forgotten.
Well, if I have, I love trees better than you do, Stella. You pass under a fir unstirred by the mystery of its branches, and I wonder at you, for I am a tree worshipper, even as my ancestors, and am moved as they were by the dizzy height of a great silver fir. You like to paint trees, and I should like to paint flowers if I could paint; there we are set forth, you and I.
I have told in Salve that in Rathfarnham she found many motives for painting; the shape of the land and the spire above the straggling village appealed to me, but she was not altogether herself in these pictures. She would have liked the village away, for man and his dwellings did not form part of her conception of a landscape; large trees and a flight of clouds above the trees were her selection, and the almost unconscious life of kine wandering or sheep seeking the shelter of a tree.
Stella was a good walker, and we followed the long road leading from Rathfarnham up the hills, stopping to admire the long plain which we could see through the comely trees shooting out of the shelving hillside.
If I have beguiled you into a country where there are no artists and few men of letters, you can't say that I have not shown you comely trees. And now if you can walk two miles farther up this steep road I will show you a lovely prospect.
And I enjoyed her grave admiration of the old Queen Anne dwelling-house, its rough masonry, the yew hedges, the path along the hillside leading to the Druid altar and the coast-line sweeping in beautiful curves, but she did not like to hear me say that the drawing of the shore reminded her of Corot.
It is a sad affectation, she said, to speak of Nature reminding one of pictures.
Well, the outlines of Howth are beautiful, I answered, and the haze is incomparable. I should like to have spoken about a piece of sculpture, but for your sake, Stella, I refrain.
She was interested in things rather than ideas, and I remember her saying to me that things interest us only because we know that they are always slipping from us. A strange thing for a woman to say to her lover. She noticed all the changes of the seasons and loved them, and taught me to love them. She brought a lamb back from Rathfarnham, a poor forlorn thing that had run bleating so pitifully across the windy field that she had asked the shepherd where the ewe was, and he had answered that she had been killed overnight by a golf-ball. The lamb will be dead before morning, he added. And it was that March that the donkey produced a foal, a poor ragged thing that did not look as if it ever could be larger than a goat, but the donkey loved her foal.
Do you know the names of those two birds flying up and down the river?
They look to me like two large wrens with white waistcoats.
They are water-ouzels, she said.
The birds flew with rapid strokes of the wings, like kingfishers, alighting constantly on the river, on large mossy stones, and though we saw them plunge into the water, it was not to swim, but to run along the bottom in search of worms.
But do worms live under water?
The rooks were building, and a little while after a great scuffling was heard in one of the chimneys and a young jackdaw came down and soon became tamer than any bird I had ever seen, tamer than a parrot, and at the end of May the corncrake called from the meadow that summer had come again, and the kine wandered in deeper and deeper and deeper herbage. The days seemed never to end, and looking through the branches of the chestnut in which the fruit had not begun to show, we caught sight of a strange spectacle. Stella said, A lunar rainbow, and I wondered, never having heard of or seen such a thing before.
I shall never forget that rainbow, Stella, and am glad that we saw it together.
In every love story lovers reprove each other for lack of affection, and Stella had often sent me angry letters which caused me many heart-burnings and brought me out to her; in the garden there were reconciliations, we picked up the thread again, and the summer had passed before the reason of these quarrels became clear to me. One September evening Stella said she would accompany me to the gate, and we had not gone very far before I began to notice that she was quarrelling with me. She spoke of the loneliness of the Moat House, and I had answered that she had not been alone two evenings that week. She admitted my devotion. And if you admit that there has been no neglect—
She would not tell me, but there was something she was not satisfied with, and before we reached the end of the avenue she said, I don't think I can tell you. But on being pressed she said:
Well, you don't make love to me often enough.
And full of apologies I answered, Let me go back.
No, I can't have you back now, not after having spoken like that.
But she yielded to my invitation, and we returned to the house, and next morning I went back to Dublin a little dazed, a little shaken.
A few days after she went away to Italy to spend the winter and wrote me long letters, interesting me in herself, in the villagers, in the walks and the things that she saw in her walks, setting me sighing that she was away from me, or that I was not with her. And going to the window I would stand for a long time watching the hawthorns in their bleak wintry discontent, thinking how the sunlight fell into the Italian gardens, and caught the corner of the ruin she was sketching; and I let my fancy stray for a time unchecked. It would be wonderful to be in Italy with her, but—
I turned from the window suspicious, for there was a feeling at the back of my mind that with her return an anxiety would come into my life that I would willingly be without. She had told me she had refrained from a lover because she wished to keep all herself for her painting, and now she had taken to herself a lover. She was twenty years younger than I was, and at forty-six or thereabouts one begins to feel that one's time for love is over; one is consultant rather than practitioner. But it was impossible to dismiss the subject with a jest, and I found myself face to face with the question—If these twenty years were removed, would things be different? It seemed to me that the difficulty that had arisen would have been the same earlier in my life as it was now, and returning to the window I watched the hawthorns blowing under the cold grey Dublin sky.
The problem is set, I said, for the married, and every couple has to solve it in one way or another, but they have to solve it; they have to come to terms with love, especially the man, for whom it is a question of life and death. But how do they come to terms? And I thought of the different married people I knew. Which would be most likely to advise me—the man or the woman? It would be no use to seek advice; every case is different, I said. If anybody were to advise me it would be the man, for the problem is not so difficult for a woman. She can escape from love more easily than her lover or her husband; she can plead, and her many pleadings were considered, one by one, and how in married life the solution that seems to lovers so difficult is solved by marriage itself, by propinquity. But not always, not always. The question is one of extraordinary interest and importance; more marriages come to shipwreck, I am convinced, on this very question than upon any other. In the divorce cases published we read of incompatibility of temper and lack of mutual tastes, mere euphemisms that deceive nobody. The image of a shipwreck rose up in me naturally. She will return, and like a ship our love for each other will be beaten on these rocks and broken. We shall not be able to get out to sea. She will return, and when she returns her temperament will have to be adjusted to mine, else she will lose me altogether, for men have died of love, though Shakespeare says they haven't. Manet and Daudet—both died of love; and the somewhat absurd spectacle of a lover waiting for his mistress to return, and yet dreading her returning, was constantly before me.
It often seemed to me that it was my own weakness that created our embarrassment. A stronger man would have been able to find a way out, but I am not one that can shape and mould another according to my desire; and when she returned from Italy I found myself more helpless than ever, and I remember, and with shame, how, to avoid being alone with her, I would run down the entire length of a train, avoiding the empty carriages, crying Not here, not here! at last opening the door of one occupied by three or four people, who all looked as if they were bound for a long journey. I remember, too, how about this time I came with friends to see Stella, whether by accident or design, frankly I know not; I only know that I brought many friends to see her, thinking they would interest her.
If you don't care to come to see me without a chaperon, I would rather you didn't come at all, she said, humiliating me very deeply.
It seemed to me, I answered, blushing, that you would like to see ——, and I mentioned the name of the man who had accompanied me.
If I am cross sometimes it is because I don't see enough of you.
It seems to me that it was then that the resolve hardened in my heart to become her friend ... if she would allow me to become her friend. But in what words should I frame my request and my apology? All the time our life was becoming less amiable, until one evening I nipped the quarrel that was beginning, stopping suddenly at the end of the avenue.
It is better that we should understand each other. The plain truth is that I must cease to be your lover unless my life is to be sacrificed.
Cease to be my lover!
That is impossible, but a change comes into every love story.
The explanation stuttered on. I remember her saying: I don't wish you to sacrifice your life. I have forgotten the end of her sentence. She drew her hand suddenly across her eyes. I will conquer this obsession.
A man would have whined and cried and besought and worried his mistress out of her wits. Women behave better than we; only once did her feelings overcome her. She spoke to me of the deception that life is. Again we were standing by the gate at the end of the chestnut avenue, and I remembered her telling me how a few years ago life had seemed to hold out its hands to her; her painting and her youth created her enjoyment.
But now life seems to have shrivelled up, she said; only a little dust is left.
Nothing is changed, so far as you and I are concerned. We see each other just the same.
I am no more to you than any other woman.
She went away again to Italy to paint and returned to Ireland, and one day she came to see me, and remained talking for an hour. I have no memory of what we said to each other, but a very clear memory of our walk through Dublin over Carlisle Bridge and along the quays. I had accompanied her as far as the Phoenix Park gates, and at the corner of the Conyngham Road, just as I was bidding her goodbye, she said:
I want to ask your advice on a matter of importance to me.
And to me, for what is important to you is equally important to me.
I am thinking, she said, of being married.
At the news it seems to me that I was unduly elated and tried to assume the interest that a friend should.

After taking 4 or so months off from the gym and my construction job due to post COVID dysautonomia, I started feeling very good the past two months and training hard again. I just went back to work like 2 weeks ago and I noticed this weekend my hrv went from 125-130 ish rather consistently to as low as 79 last night. My RHR went from around 50-55 and my systolic blood pressure increased about 6-7 points. I don’t really feel sick or anything. Is this a hallmark sign of early overtraining since I’m not quite acclimated to both my physical job and training.
Diet has remained mostly the same (clean) I had 2 not great nights of sleep Monday and Tuesday. Otherwise about 7.25 hrs per night

Part 2 of “The Exterminators RELOADED!”
A Fanfic of u/SpacePaladin15’s work “The nature of Predators” Thank you for the story!
IMPORTANT NOTICE. I AM WRITING ABOUT 247 EPISODES OF THE EXTERMINATORS. ANY IDEAS WOULD BE GREATLY WELCOMED! AS DETAILED OR NOT AS YOU WANT, I WILL CREDIT YOU FOR ANY HELP GIVEN!
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Memory transcription subject: Henry, Venlil Primary School Student
Sylvan’s dad gestured for us to get the show set up while he walked into the kitchen. I couldn’t bring myself to sit still as the sound of popcorn in the microwave bounced through the house. Sylvan threw himself next to me as the annoyingly long series of logos started to parade through the screen.
“C’mon Dad! It’s starting!” We both held our arms up and caught a bag of popcorn as Mr. Smith copied Sylvan and threw himself on the couch. As Sylvan started to juggle the burning hot bag I started to mockingly mimic him. “Oh shut up! You and your built-in oven mitts!”
I batted Sylvan in the face who didn’t hesitate to try and hold off my attacks by smooshing me down into the chair. We both stopped when the Deep heavy beat of the Exterminators RELOADED started to play. This time though the beat didn’t stop as the opening sequence ended. Instead it played dully in the background like we were hearing it through a wall.
Friotetzali stepped into the scene and sauntered his way through an alley. He stopped and looked at a poster hanging on the wall. It showed a picture of a carrot and tomato with forward facing eyes and silly little stick arms cowering in fear of a ravenous looking Venlil. Plastered above it was the episode's title! “THE HERBIVOROUS BEASTS FROM BEYOND THE STARS!!!”
Frio let out a light chuckle as his tail curled in delight. “Oh that looks hilarious. Gotta remember to go see that.” He gently shook his head as he continued to walk and drop into an indifferent attitude as he approached a lone Mazic by a door. The two stared at each other for a moment before the Mazic slowly turned and opened the door.
With a slow and droning voice he addressed our head investigator. “He’s waiting for you by the dance floor. Doubt you’ll miss him. Welcome back Frio. Try not to burn the place down.” As the door opened the tune picked back up and was almost deafening. Frio walked down the dark staircase and eventually into a room filled with neon signs decorating the walls, strobe lights, lasers, and dozens of people dancing everywhere.
Our Harchen Hero cut through the crowd and haze like a fish through water before finally sitting down at a table with a rather… sleazy looking Gojid. “FRIO! MY OLD PAL! Have a seat! Let me get ya a drink!” The greased back fur of the Gojid just looked out of place as he waved for the servers to bring colorful beverages with little umbrellas over.
I honestly couldn’t make out any words that came out of the Gojid’s mouth after that. The dude just seemed to talk and not say any words. But eventually Frio took a slow sip from his drink and turned his head to stare down the greasy porcupine who’s quills extended in a little bit of fear.
“Cut the crap Genseng. I want to know why by Inatala’s tits you’d think it's a good idea to smuggle terran animals here!” He slammed a pawfull of photos on the table. Each one showed the greasy Gojid buying and selling small animals like rabbits and chickens.
Genseng sputtered and pouted “COME ON! I haven’t done anything that puts anyone at risk! I just sell human’s xeno-safe pets! A bunny never ate a Dossur! Don’t you want humans to take care of the petting addiction on things that want to be pet?” Despite my body telling me this guy was bad news, I couldn’t help but agree. I’ve been ‘pet’ more times than I would like by strange humans… and a few Venlil… and one Kolshian… and I ran away from the Mazic.
Frio sat back in his chair and huffed. “Then WHY have I found NO civilians with one of your pets?” This time he slapped down a paper list of names and places that clearly documented each and every business he sold animals to.
The scumbag sat there with a look of shock on his face and started to sputter out several noncommittal and contradictory statements. ALl the while Frio stared at his “friend” with more and more disgust. Eventually Genseng just sighed, stood up, and shouted. "GUN! HES GOT A GUN! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!” and bolted for the back door as screaming began to fill the room
Frio just casually stood up and watched that douchebag flee! He pulled out his badge and announced to the crowd. “FALSE ALARM! FALSE ALARM! OFFICER FRIOTETZALI, HERE ON OFFICIAL BUSINESS OF THE AVALON CITY POLICE! REMAIN CALM YOU ARE IN NO DANGER!”
I couldn’t understand why he was just standing there as the bad guy ran away! The camera cut to Genseng who was sprinting full force down a narrow hall dodging all manner of obstacles like it was an action movie only for it to cut back to Frio slowly taking a sip of his drink!
Again it cut back Genseng huffing and wheezing as he sprinted through his own shipping operation. The only pauses he took were to open up cages causing a small whirlwind of feathers and bunnies to start in the warehouse. Yet Frio started to casually talk to the people in the room. He just slowly went around reassuring everyone that everything was fine and why he was here.
As I sat there in disbelief that he’d just let the bastard run away Genseng rounded a corner to see his getaway truck. Only to step around the corner and get punched squarely in the gut by Iloralia who was hiding there.
“Come on Genseng? Couldn’t you do something original? This is starting to get boring!” Ilo extended a cattle prod and let the end buzz with electricity as an Extermination Officer van pulled up behind her.
The Gojid let out raspy breaths. “Should have- … figured- … he’d send his- … BITCH! To wait in the alley!” The sleazy man sucked that insult back in when Ilo pressed the business end of her cattle prod to his throat.
“Shut the fuck up. You have the right to remain silent, but for your sake… I hope you’re smart enough to use it!” Ilo’s tail waved behind her with delight as Sephon climbed out of the van with a Gojid arrestor vest to cover Genseng’s quills and bind his arms.
I jumped as the video smash-cut to Sephon slamming down piece after piece of evidence on an interrogation room table in front of a nervous Gojid and his exhausted human lawyer. The angelic Tasamine sat on her perch gently drinking some tea as our perturbed Venlil explained each and every paper and photo that he threw on the table.
“Finally we have you on felony tax evasion. You do know you have to declare ALL sources of income right?” Genseng sheepishly looked to his lawyer, who just sat there with a defeated look on his face. “You are looking at forty years behind bars for this Genseng! FORTY!”
Tasamine let her voice coo out over her cup of tea. “We aren’t going to do you any favours over the tax stuff. The IRS is over our jurisdiction on that, BUT we are prepared to drop the rest of the charges.”
Genseng’s lawyer appeared to wake up in an instant and elbowed his client before he could open his filthy mouth. “So what do you want from my client in return for dropping the charges you have against him?”
Tas let out a little smile that set butterflies to flight in my stomach. “We want everyone that Tas sold animals to. And we do mean EVERYONE.”
Sephon started to pace back and forth as the Gojid and lawyer talked amongst themselves. Eventually Genseng relented and turned to our heroes. “Ok… SO I technically never really sold to a person per say… BUT I kept really good papers on all the businesses I did sell to!”
The conversation started to dull out as the camera began to pan back and into the observation room with Frio, Ilo, and a rather small Mazic. Frio stood stoically silent, his paw held gently under his jaw, lost in thought. Ilo was typing away on the computer crosschecking every business Genseng sold out.
The Mazic took a step forward. His badge now clearly showing that he was the Chief of the Avalon City Police. “I know those businesses… Why would he be selling pets to…” The Chief huffed and stormed out of the observation room leaving Frio and Ilo slightly confused only to watch with an ounce of shock as the Police Chief walked into the interrogation room.
“YOU FUCKING IDIOT! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU HAVE DONE?” Genseng recoiled away from the angry Chief as his lawyer was trying to figure out what was happening. “YOU HAVE BEEN SELLING HUMAN PETS AS FOOD TO HUMANS! YOU KNOW LESS THAN ONE PERCENT OF HUMANS EVEN EAT ONCE-LIVE MEAT! EVERYONE KNOWS THAT! MOST HUMANS GET VIOLENTLY ILL AT THE THOUGHT OF IT AND STRAIGHT VIOLENT IF TRICKED INTO IT! IF THIS GETS OUT THERE WILL BE RIOTS!”
Genseng’s lawyer slowly looked to his client with a look of anger and despair plastered on his face. The sleazy man just kinda shrugged. “I didn’t make them buy it!”
“BUT YOU DIDN’T TELL THEM WHERE YOU GOT THE MEAT FROM DID YOU?”
“no?”
“OF COURSE YOU DIDN’T ‘CAUSE, HOW THEN, WOULD YOU GET RID OF YOUR UNWANTED ANIMALS?”
“HEY! I’VE GOT A GUY WHO TAKES THEM IN! I MAKE SURE EVERYTHING IS HUMANE AND SAFE FOR CONSUMPTION AND ANYTHING UNWANTED GO TO THAT GUY! OK? NO MONEY TRANSACTION! … I think he ships them back to Earth or something. No unethical stuff… except maybe selling Once-live as Cloned… but that isn’t that bad! Humans only just considered Rabbits to be on par with dogs!”
The Chief of Police just stood there menacingly as the ever beautiful Tas asked a question. “Who is this man you give the animals to?”
Genseng slowly walked back to his seat. “I don’t have a name. Just some dude wearing the old face hiding masks and a Pleather trench coat. Kinda creepy and usually lets the fat Venlil do the talking, but they scratch my back I scratch thier’s.”
The screen faded to black before coming back to their conference room and joined by the Chief of Police. “So you think this individual is the same one behind the Sheep Operation?”
Ilo sat up in her chair. “It seems to meet up with his M.O. of undermining food production.”
Tas brought a pair of population maps up on their projector. “Just looking at the before and after, the invasive rabbit population was miniscule at best. We had been doing a great job of catching them faster than they could repopulate. At least until their population unpredictably exploded into the hundreds of thousands.”
She swapped out the maps for a single one that showed several areas circled in red. “DNA testing on the rabbits has shown that they aren’t spreading naturally. One population has no genetic relation to the others even though their areas overlap. It has to be someone introducing rabbits in waves to different locals.”
The Chief slowly shook his head. “Do we have any clues as to where the masked man is?”
Frio’s tail curled in delight. “Why yes! Yes we do! He has a meetup with my good buddy Genseng who desperately doesn’t want to spend the next forty years in jail.”
The small Mazic let out a low and insidious laugh “OH! I think I know where you are going with this. You have my support. Let's get this sting operation set up!”
In an instant the day flew by and night rose over the docks of Avalon City. Genseng drove down the roads and pulled around the corner of a large warehouse situated nearby. The sleazy man looked oddly calm. I wouldn’t be surprised if this isn’t his first time ratting.
Overlooking the docks from the warehouse was our team of heroes. Tas had set up a network of monitors and was observing the operation. Several disguised vans were parked nearby filled with Extermination Officers all biting to get a hold of their quarry.
Frio walked over and placed a paw on Tasamine’s wing, before speaking into a recorder. “Looking good Gen. Looks like I misplaced the paperwork on those charges. Get through this and I won’t have time to go looking for it!”
Gen let out a small chuckle. “Hey Frio… Do you miss when we were kids? Getting into trouble. Scraping enough money together to buy lunch when our parents couldn’t afford to feed us?”
Frio took a step back from the monitors. “You said that in a really weird way… but yeah. Just the two of us. Sometimes we were delinquents scamming someone out of five credits and sometimes we were the heroes helping people out. Guess we took different paths…”
The greasy Gojid leaned back in the driver seat of his van. “I- … I am kinda tired of living Frio… It’s just… One deal after another with barely enough money to get from one job to the next… Do- … Do you think I could get a job working with you guys?”
It almost looked like Frio was going to cry as his eyes watered up. “Well… we are a man down at the moment, but my team only hires experienced individuals. It would be hard work, but if you joined as an apprentice and applied yourself… I think you could make it.”
Genseng sat and fiddled with his paws for a few moments. “Even with my arrest record?”
“We are the Exterminators not the City Police. I doubt there isn’t a single one of us that hasn't done something that would get us blacklisted by them!”
Gen let out a light laugh. “Ah good point! They hired you! Well I’d- Wait. He's here.”
A long black limousine pulled up around the corner. Slowly and silently stopping beside them. Frio took a step back. “Alright everyone. It's go time. Gen, get ready to duck down if they open fire.”
With almost perfect unison every unmarked van and cruiser lit up with Yellow and Orange lights and started to race towards the Limo. But with a heart stopping ‘BWOOOOOM’ the Limo exploded into an inferno, sending metal flying through the docks at high speeds.
Gen’s voice screamed over the radio for a brief moment before falling silent.
The next sounds we heard were of a heart monitor. Frio sat at the bedside of what I assumed to be Genseng. His body was covered entirely in bandages, with tubes running into his head and arms. Wires tracked his vital signs and, while steady, didn’t look like they broadcasted good news.
Frio looked up to see Ilo leaning in the doorway. “The limo was automated. No one on board. Mask either knew it was a setup or intended to end Genseng one way or the other.” She slowly walked over to Frio and nuzzled the side of his head. “I talked with the Doctors. They think he’ll make it. Might be a few years, and he will have to learn how to do most things, but he will live.”
Ilo forced her way into awkwardly cuddling Frio. After a small moment of resisting he accepted the embrace and leaned back. “How are we on tracking down the leads?”
She somehow managed to wrap herself around Frio as she quietly responded. “The limo was a dead end. Everything was bought from scrap and assembled off-grid. Camera networks were wiped clean enough that even Tas couldn’t scrape something off of the hard drives. DNA results on the rabbits gave us enough to work with Earth and track down the suppliers on that side, but they were using Genseng as a scapegoat and intermediary for all of it. I don’t think he even realized that the man he was ‘giving’ rabbits to was the man that arranged for him to be able to buy them in the first place.”
Frio wrapped his arms around her. “So this whole operation was basically a money laundering scam with rabbits. They scarred him for life just to- to-” Tears ran down his cheeks as the pair embraced each other. The credits started to roll over the sounds of a heart monitor slowly pinging on. Gentle sobbing slowly faded away as the sound of claws on tile echoed through the speakers.
A rather portly Venlil was flanked on both sides by massive looking dogs. Sylvan’s Dad pointed out those where Karelian Bear Dogs. Bred to actually hunt one of Earth’s apex predators. The Fat Venlil, or Chublil as Sylvan said, walked into an immaculate office, where a man with a silvered mask and brown trench coat sat.
“Sir? Operation Clean House is over. The results are one Gojid launderer hospitalized. He is expected to recover in a few years. When the exterminators watching him clear out an agent will enter with an air-filled syringe and fake death by heart-attack. As you expected the last meetup was a sting operation. Police remain slightly aware of your presence.”
A robotic voice came from the man. “Good work Gavreg. Did you enjoy your trip to Earth?”
“Yessir. You were right. Bear meat is simply divine when prepared correctly.”
WHAT THE FUCK. WHY WOULD HE KNOW WHAT THAT TASTES LIKE?!?
“Glad to hear it. As for the Gojid, I think he’s gotten the message on what happens to people who cross us. Send him a normal fruit basket when he regains consciousness. Have it say… Sorry you got fired! Take a siesta!”
“Very well sir. Just to be clear, hold off on permanently silencing him?”
“Hrm… Yes. He was always amusing to work with.”
“Very well sir. If there is nothing else, I shall take my leave.”
The Fat Venlil turned and walked out of the room. Ending the episode and leaving the three of us sitting on the couch.
“You know Loural is going to throw a fit if she finds out we let both Sylvan and Henry watch this!”
I wasn’t proud but at least the humans screamed louder than I did.
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Special thanks to u/Dinomannick for the prompt
"I got a few ideas for the show. How about a few episodes have them dealing with invasive earth species on alien worlds, brought there for zoos, rich blokes pet, criminals, whatever. They have either catch or kill all of them before their establishing breeding populations and have the cane toad/rabbit problem like down-under. Think it might be interesting enough for future space TV?"
I hope this lived up to your expectations, and the bunny boom won't be relegated to just this episode either.
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Links are still broken cause reddit is more like brokeit... Will get around to fixing them soon, real life has been kinda hectic
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