Charmai woke up in a bed. She had not woken up in a bed since… well, since she had been alive. There was a faint sense of victory, a faint memory of being on the beach by her lake. Cormac was tied to a stone, the rock elves were there… there was more, but the idea of trying to put it all together right now felt burdensome.

Charmai’s eyes opened a little bit, straining at the harshness of the morning light. Her limbs felt sore and heavy.

A warm presence stood over Charmai and lightly brushed the hair out of her face. Charmai felt safe. There was an urge to allow herself to fall back to sleep, and she did.

-

Hours passed. Charmai’s foot pressed up against something wet. Was it water? Was she back at the body of water that held her captive for so long?

Maybe she had never left after all. Charmai panicked at the thought. The rock elves on the beach…. one of them had said something. “The trade has been made… she will stay, but must return to the lake… return so she can leave, return to move on.…. ” Charmai was not sure what all this meant, but she panicked at the thought that she had to go back to her watery prison. She had just been freed. She would lose her mind if she were trapped there once again. She could not, could not.

“I CANNOT!” she cried out. The sound of her own voice jolted her out of sleep, and Charmai bolted upright. She looked around and was relieved to find herself indoors, in a bed. Her heart beat slowed, her breath calmed down.

She looked at the foot of her mattress and saw Isaac, asleep. He slept peacefully, not the slightest bit disturbed by Charmai’s feet pressed into his little face. He had been the source of the moisture she felt. He drooled heartily onto his pillow and her toes as well. Charmai laughed. It hurt to laugh. Her whole body hurt. But the sight of Isaac was a great comfort. As long as she was not at the lake, she was fine.

Charmai cleared her eyes of sleep and took a good look at the room in which she had woken up. She recognized it: the four walls, the thatched roof, the sunlight coming through the window and spilling onto the floor in such a way…it was her room. And it was almost unchanged since she last occupied it, ten years prior. The only change was the addition of keepsakes from the forest: dried leaves, a neat row of pebbles on the windowsill, a small table with rocks and branches…

She pondered about the child who now occupied the space. Its new tenant must have a big heart for nature, just like Isaac, her little friend.

But how had Isaac gotten here? How had she? Charmai squinted her eyes and thought back to the previous day’s events. She remembered their plot against Cormac, her struggle with the awful man, him dropping to the ground in pain… someone had struck him, someone had helped her.

But who? Isaac? No, he were too small. Perhaps a faerie? It could not be - they seldom involved themselves with human affairs. Charmai brought her hands to her face and concentrated. She remembered a tall form standing above her, a tall form who hit Cormac with a giant stone. And then it stooped down to comfort her. Charmai remembered the feeling of sturdy arms rocking her gently, remembered how this person’s smell was instantly familiar. It was her mother. She had been saved by her mother.

The mother Charmai had been separated from for a decade had somehow arrived when she was needed most. With miraculous strength, Samantha picked up the Blarney stone and used it to slam Cormac in the face - just as Charmai had done ten years prior.

Her mother had survived Charmai’s disappearance, made a new life for herself and had another child - a boy. Charmai had a brother.

Isaac. Isaac!

She looked across the bed at this funny little lad, who spent his days in the woods and brought pieces of the forest back home. He had been her little brother this whole time. His sweetness, his innocence, and the funny things he said, giving her hope when she had none.

It was his room she was in.

Charmai felt a swell of tenderness in her chest. She leaned over and brushed the hair out of his face, just as someone had to her earlier that morning. “Thank you, Isaac.” The child remained asleep.

“He’s a heavy sleeper.” Said a familiar voice. “Just like you, when you were his age. You never drooled quite that much though.”

Charmai turned around to see her mother. Samantha had been watching Charmai, just as Charmai had been watching Isaac.

“Hi, mum.” Charmai said shyly.

Samantha pulled up a chair to the side of the bed. Charmai studied the mother she had not seen in a decade, and noted the lines of pain and loss etched into her face. Charmai spoke.

“You are still alive…”

“Barely, child. It’s as if I scarcely lived a day since you disappeared.”

“I am sorry, mum. I never meant to leave you. And I wanted to come back home, but I could not.”

Samantha’s gaze sharpened with curiosity and anticipated sadness. “My child, what happened to you?”

Charmai’s throat felt dry. She had recounted the story so many times in her head, but talking about it out loud was difficult. “I was attacked.” Samantha took her daughter’s hand. “On the night I disappeared, I was on my way back from singing at a wedding. Cormac - he followed me home. He chased me in the forest. And then he … hurt me. And threw me into the lake… and I remained there. For a very long time.”

“I don’t understand, why weren’t you able to come home?”

“I could not. He killed me, mother. But still I woke up. He cursed me before putting my body in the water and I woke up. And I couldn’t leave.”

“He killed you? How is it that you appear to be alive if you are dead?”

“I don’t know, mum.”

Charmai’s mother nodded. A long silence passed before Samantha replied.

“When you disappeared, people said you must have run away, perhaps relocated to a city up North to sing and become famous. But not my girl. Not my girl, who loved her mum and who loved the forest. I knew something happened to you.”

“Every day I wanted to go home.”

“You know I searched for you? Walked every inch of the wood. Spoke to every person in town. No one had an idea where you’d gone. But that son of a bitch, Cormac… he said he knew nothing, but I knew. He would never look me in the eye after you left. All these years… The number of times I could have killed him in my tavern… poisoned his drink, poisoned his food…”

“Peace, Mum-”

“But I didn’t. Instead I tried to forget about you. I married. Had Isaac. But I couldn’t forget. I thought working would help. And it did. At least for part of the day. But whenever I saw Isaac… that little boy who loved the forest as much as you, who looked so like you when he played and frollicked and told stories… my heart broke every time I saw his little face. So I tried not to see it. I looked away.”

Samantha’s brow furrowed. There was a look in her eye like something internal was falling apart. She covered her face and spoke in a voice that sounded like it was breaking.

“Why couldn’t he be different? It would be easier if he were different. So I didn’t tell him any stories like I told you, or sing him any songs like I sang to you. But he continued to grow like you. He’d beg for stories, he’d beg for songs…”

Charmai gently placed a hand on her mother’s shoulder.

“And I ignored him. My heart broke in two when I lost you, Charmai. So somewhere I decided I would never love him as much as I loved you. Because if I ever lost him, it would destroy whatever was left of me. Everything that was good in me died when you died, Charmai. And the fact that you must leave me again, right after I found you…”

The scattered memories of the rock elves on the beach and the message they had for Charmai suddenly made sense. Charmai remembered the conditions of her return to normal life.

“I know mother, I know.”

Charmai hugged Samantha. They held each other for some time, crying from a place deep inside where we hold pain and try to hide it. Eventually Charmai spoke.

“Mother, every day I spent at the bottom of that horrible lake, I cried because I could not talk to you. And it overtook me, too. Until I met Isaac. He is a special boy, mum. You need to tell him stories, just like you told me. Even when I’m gone.”

“I don’t know if I can”

“You must, mum. He needs it. I cannot guarantee that nothing in life will take him away from you. But you have him here. Now. Don’t waste the time you have with him. I’ll find ways to still be here. It won’t be the same but I will be here.”

Isaac snorted suddenly, bringing Charmai and Samantha’s tearful reunion to an abrupt stop. The ladies laughed as Isaac sat up, rubbing his eyes with little fists.

Isaac sat up and pointed to Charmai excitedly. “That’s my sister, Mum!”

“I know, child,” said Samantha, smiling.

Mother, daughter, son. The three of them were together. This in itself was something to be grateful for. The ladies’ tears dried as sunlight spilled in through the small bedroom window. Isaac, feeling at peace, laid his head back down to fall fast asleep.

Samantha embraced her little girl fiercely. There was still heartache to mend, there were still tears that would be cried. But there was also life to celebrate, and a day ahead that could not be wasted.

The ladies stood up and made their way to the kitchen to prepare food and break the last evening’s fast; and perhaps make something extra special for the small sleeping lad.

A few days ago I turned 40. It’s funny, when I was younger, I never thought I would be this old. And you know what else is funny? When I turned 26, I never thought I’d be that old, either. But looking back at 26, I realize how young I still was at the time. In fact, I can’t believe I ever thought that any age between 19 and 30 was old at all.

To me, our perception of age says a lot about human beings as a species. As kids, we look forward: each annual birth celebration is one more notch until we are 10, or 13, or 18. Finally more grown up. Finally more independent. But once we get into our adult years, say 26 and older, we start looking backward: I wish I was still a kid. I wish I was still 18. I wish I was 25.

And yet, a couple years after we turn 26, we inevitably hit 30 and 26 starts to look pretty young again. And by the time we hit 50, we’d do anything to be 30.

What a juvenile mentality. I guess it’s just engrained into our cultural psyche that we look forward or backwards, but never in front. Never right here. I think it’s more of a Western perspective, to be honest, and I think it has some capitalist roots, too. For example,

a 10 year old who wishes they were 13 is easy to market to: offer a product that makes a kid feel older, and they will eat it up.

A 40 year old who wishes they were 25 is also easy to market to: offer a product that makes a middle aged person look younger, and they will eat it up.

Now let me be clear, I am not above this marketing: I own a bevy of anti-aging products. But the older I get, the more spiritual I become, the more detached I feel from the results. And I don’t just mean the results of a K-beauty dark spot treatment, but detached from results in general. And it’s freeing: not caring about what happens in the end kind of liberates me to enjoy the present.

I have a rough idea of what the next 5, 10 years may look like, but I’m not married to any particular end result. What’s more important to me is that I know, I know, that I am going to end up where I’m meant to.

I want to wrap this up by thanking a few people, because I wouldn’t have made it to 40 without them: my mother, who taught me to hope and dream. My father, who taught me to work hard and focus. My spiritual teacher, who taught me to grow up. And lastly myself, for allowing me to learn and evolve.

And a final note for my young readers stressing out about how they can be 40 years old like me: don’t stress it. I promise, you too will age out of your 20s and 30s, and then you also can reflect on it publicly on your LiveJournal, or WordPress, or whatever this is. Wishing you peace and love in the meantime, and an open heart for whatever comes next.

Last week I watched Obsession, the hit indie horror flick that has sparked much discourse about relationships and partner control. Having had time to process the film, I realize what scares me most about Obsession is not Bear, or Freaky Nikki, or the uncanny-valley makeup applied to Inde Navarrette. No, what scares me most about Obsession is us.

Let me explain.

We were all once 25. We have all gone through some sort of depression. We have all been naive and selfish enough to act without thinking about the consequences of our actions. These things are all ordinary.

And Bear, while he is naive, selfish, and cowardly, is ordinary.

He is not You’s Joe Goldberg. He is not American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman. And he’s not Barry’s Barry Berkman. He is not a sociopath, clinically narcissistic, or suffering from PTSD (as far as we know). I’ll even argue he’s not evil - at the very least, he doesn’t start off that way.

No - he’s an ordinary guy, presented with extraordinary circumstances: he makes a wish, and it comes true.

Now let me be clear, Bear’s ordinariness does not excuse his actions. Once his wish is “granted” (albeit in a horrific way), he uses his newfound power to control, neglect and rape. It’s despicable.

And this leads me to what really scares me about Obsession - how many of us, like Bear, would act despicably when given control over another human being?

I think back to my twenties and the way I obsessed over my crushes. Every day I wished and dreamed that whomever I was doting on at the time pined for me the way I pined for them. The only difference between Bear and twenty-something me is that my wish(es) did not come true.

But what would have happened if did? What if I’d been presented with an opportunity to change the feelings of someone who didn’t reciprocate mine? I’d like to think I’d be mature enough to respect that person’s autonomy, and not magic them into loving me back, but I can’t say for sure.

Because there were a lot of things that were selfish, cowardly, and naive about me when I was twenty-five. I used relationships to run and hide from a lot my problems. And as a result, many of relationships I was in, I was in for the wrong reasons. I’ve had relationships where I knew I did not feel romantically towards the guy, but remained involved because I was lonely.

I’ve had relationships where I knew the relationship was wrong, but I stayed because I didn’t want to deal with the fallout of a breakup.

And I’ve had relationships where I was unhealthily obsessed, and would have done just about anything to prevent my partner from breaking up with me. If there were a One Wish Willow I could have snapped to keep them by my side, I would have done so in a heartbeat.

I don’t think Bear sets out to control or destroy a person. I feel the narrative in his head is that he’s in love. But like twenty-something me (and maybe like twenty-something you), he has a lot more problems on his hand than being in love with a person who may not love him back.

The director shines some light on Bear’s psyche at the start of Obsession, when we see the state of Bear’s house. Here’s an excerpt from the movie’s script: “[Interior], Bear’s kitchen. Countertops cluttered with junk. On the tile floor: a straw basket, pills, and candle wax from a shattered candle.” The screenplay paints the picture of a guy who’s shit ain’t together. His house is a mess, he’s depressed, and he’s neglectful. Not only that, he is abusing OxyContin (a prescription presumably left behind by his deceased grandmother, whose house Bear lives in). I’m not even going to get into the cat.

And with all of these issues that need addressing, Bear’s fixated on Nikki. More specifically, he’s fixated on telling Nikki how he feels, and having Nikki tell him she likes him back. It almost seems like Bear (similar to twenty-something me, and perhaps to twenty-something you) feels this romance will fix all of his issues.

As I mentioned above, I am guilty of pursuing love as a means of hiding from uncomfortable truths. I never went into a romance with the intension of hiding or running, but it has happened. It’s only with time and maturity that I could look back at my relationships and see how desperately I was avoiding myself.

Bear is a 25 year old kid who hasn’t taken the time to figure out his patterns. And I wonder what a 35 year old version of this character would look like, with the grace and wisdom that only time can provide.

To go back to my thesis, what scares me most about Obsession is that we are all capable of being Bear. I’ve fixed a lot of the youthful selfishness that made me like this character, but in my weakest moments I may still be capable of cowardice, desperation, and manipulation. We are all so fast to condemn the movie’s antagonist, but many of us are guilty of manipulating the people we love as well.

My point here isn’t to get everyone feeling poorly about themselves. And it certainly isn’t to condone Bear’s behavior. My point is that we may need to wake up, and see that Obsession may not just be about someone else and how selfish they are. It might be about us, and what selfishness we are capable of in the right circumstances.

I hope we all collectively do the work to become less like Bear, and more like the best version of ourselves. And I wish for all of us a love that is healthy, balanced, and not, well - obsessed.

Have a good weekend. Be safe.

*****

My teacher, Guru Enlightment, teaches her students to “look in the mirror” and find solutions within, as opposed to looking for answers in another human being. If this message resonates with you and you’d like to learn more, check out her Instagram: @guruenlightment

Some people are born for the outdoors. That old adage does not apply to me.

I have the sensitive, sun-hating skin of an Irishman (I am Irish). I’m not great at carrying heavy equipment (though I will insist at my BMI I’m not a total weakling). And when it comes to navigating directions, I have no internal compass (and wouldn’t know what to do with an external one).

I’m not a total lost cause though when it comes to nature, though. At the very least, I have a big heart for the outdoors. My grandmother grew up in Colorado and spent many seasons in her family’s cabin. I have that love for the wilderness and open streams in my blood, and I have enough hand-eye coordination that I do okay on a kayak.

But for the aforementioned reasons, a recent paddle boarding trip on the Salt River ended up being messy. I went with several spiritual family members. My spiritual sister, Bobcat, was kind enough to plan everything out with the paddle board rentals, as well as the wheres and whens of our outdoor excursion. I assumed the rest of this trip would be easy enough: establish a starting point for our ride down the river, park one of our cars at the endpoint, then enjoy the ride downstream. How foolish of me to think it were that simple.

I think all five of us city kids were out of our league. Not one of us is an Arizona native, not one of us grew up doing this nature shit. Me personally, I was not familiar with the torture of finding a parking space at a popular location. We had four cars to park at an already full parking lot, and the hour plus spent looking for four open spaces was a great introduction to Dante’s first circle of hell. We found a dirt lot about half a mile away, but didn’t consider how long half a mile is when you’re carrying an inflated paddle board.

The process of transporting said paddle boards, which somehow weigh forty pounds more when full of air, is the entryway to Dante’s second circle of hell. I was convinced I’d die of a heat stroke, and one of us tapped out before getting to the beach (that same person later punctured her paddle board on chickenwire, diva down).

We eventually made it to the water, and I will say the ride downstream was worth the trouble. The heart that I have for nature and adventure woke me up and I felt alive. The wild horses the Salt River is known for came out and splashed in the surf. Walt Disney himself couldn’t have planned it out better

However, our trip ended on the same note of chaos with which it began. Three of us got off at the wrong beach - where our pickup car was NOT located - and essentially hitched a ride to the correct one.

There was so much in between the start and end of this journey that I don’t have the energy to fully recount: a small fender bender, swearing at the top of my lungs in my car, peeing in the woods (which weren’t woodsy enough to hide me from other paddle boarders), and being slightly terrified that my ride in a strangers’ suburban was the beginning of a true crime podcast. I’m sure my spiritual family members have their own misadventures they could share as well, but they aren’t writing this so you know, tough for them.

Anyway, we survived in one piece. None of us killed each other, which is saying a lot. And we all played a role in getting ourselves home. I am grateful for Bobcat for planning this excursion and getting me out of my usual weekend rut. I am grateful for Kangaroo who inflated all of our rafts. I am grateful for Ram who DID get off at the correct beach. I am grateful for my sister-wife-roomie, Warrior, who helped me laugh at this craziness later on that night. I am VERY grateful to the kind family who picked up a dusty stranger in a parking lot and dropped her off to where she needed to go (I offered money and the father declined: “I hope someone would do the same for my daughter.”)

Lastly I’d like to thank my sun-proof getup, which shielded me from the elements and from being attractive to any of the single men on the river. As a fair skinned person, sometimes you have to choose between sun protection and getting laid. You just can’t have both.

Note to city people vacationing out West: when it comes to nature, know what you’re getting into before you get into it. And if you do decide to raw dog it without doing any research, do so with people you won’t kill in the process.

For fun, I recently started posting regularly on TikTok. For those unfamiliar, it’s a social media app where you can record yourself talking and then post whatever it is you said (I’ve been focusing on things I’ve learned as an almost 40-year-old; I think my age is glaringly apparent by my above description of TikTok). The app has a lot of filters that you can use while recording, and some are randomized generators that will tell you various things about yourself. For example, one is called “Your Celebrity Doppleganger”. When you select it, three empty boxes will appear above your head, you click the box area, and various pictures of celebrities will flash by, like a slot machine, until they land on the three that supposedly resemble you. The celebes I got were Gemma Chan, Zendaya, and Drake. So obviously, this feature is based on science.

I recently tried a “Who’s Got a Crush on You?” generator. A little grey box popped up by my head, I clicked on it, and… nothing. I waited. Still nothing. The box remained grey and empty.

Lolz. I remember talking to one of my best friends back in my twenties about being “Super Single”, when there is nobody you are dating and there are no romantic prospects. I described this phenomenon as being in the middle of the ocean: there are no boats on the horizon, no distant landmasses, and there certainly aren’t any single guys.

Those periods in my life used to feel a little meaningless, and I’d bet money that I am not the only person who felt this way. We are all primed to look for meaning and purpose in another person, and not in ourselves. Women especially were raised like this, especially women raised on the Disney Classics, like me. The Disney Classics from the 90s and earlier have plots that are almost all romantic in nature. Conflicts are resolved at the end in tandem with the union of the hero and heroine; often they get married. The music swells, the lovebirds kiss surrounded by everyone they know (a little weird), the screen goes to black and the Disney logo pops up. The end. Me and my little girl psyche processed all this to mean that in the end, when I find a man to love, my problems would be resolved and I’d be happy. I have a feeling that a lot of millennial women would agree that they were sold this lie.

To further drive home the message, girls seemed to be the primary demographic for the toy sales of these movies. We bought Disney Princess plushes, Barbies, dresses, backpacks… guys didn’t have the same degree of Disney merchandise shoved down their throats, if I remember correctly. It was engrained in us to seek out relationships in an attempt to find meaning and happiness in life, and this was done by design. So it’s no wonder that when I was a young woman in my twenties, life felt empty when there weren’t any romantic prospects. The tv shows, magazines, comic books, and pop music of the time echoed this sentiment, as well.

So let’s bring this back to my present day life. I am almost 40, I’m Super Single, and there is an empty space that is not being filled by romantic prospects. Well, guess what emptiness is? It’s a vacuum (the space kind). And I can put whatever I want in a (space) vacuum: I can fill it with desperation, sadness and pining, or I can fill it writing, hanging out with friends, and things I love.

And I think this goes for all of us single people. And it doesn’t mean you can’t date and put yourself out there, but being single doesn’t have to be like - our identity, you know? Because once you find your prince or princess, and the finale music plays, and all your friends are staring at you while you make out in front of a rainbow or whatever, life goes on. New problems will arise and there will be new things you want in life. So you might as well enjoy the moments in between the big things, and find fulfillment within you, you know? All right peace out. I need to talk to TikTok about my estrogen levels or something. Byeeeeee.

The Wo were peaceful extra terrestrials. When they stepped in to prevent mankind from destroying itself, they did so gently.i

Initially humans were terrified of their new overlords from outer space, but over time came to realize that the aliens meant no harm. And Wo technology so exceeded ours, that any of our attempts to destroy them and their ships with our weapons (both crude and advanced) had no impact on the Wo whatsoever. They snuffed our violence easily - the way an adult snuffs a burning candle to protect a child that’s getting too close to fire.

100 years passed, 1,000.

They worked with mankind, guided them towards greater discoveries; taught spirituality and science like they were one, because they are, and to a degree the intellectual capacities of man advanced.

But emotionally, people remained juvenile. Time and time again, without fail, the humans tried to make the aliens into gods - or the modern day version of a god: a celebrity. And nothing the Wo could teach would convince the humans that this was unnecessary.

So the humans created entertainment that idolized the Wo. And the humans tried to emulate their physical characteristics. The Wo had bellies that looked used and wrinkled, so humans went to clinics to have their bellies stretched.

The Wo faces had blemishes and scars, so humans applied grease to their faces to encourage acne, and darkening serums where skin looked too even.

Wo eyes were surrounded by lines of experience and weariness, so people applied under eye drying creams to give the appearance of tired eyes.

The Wo breasts sagged, so women stopped wearing push up bras.

The Wo had never told humans to look a certain way, to dress a certain way. They taught humanity that the body was just a container for something more powerful. And that the powerful thing within the container was the thing that people should focus on.

And the people said “uh-huh” and continued to create media that made them feel inadequate. And they went on “fixing” these inadequacies with face lag procedures and breast deflation surgeries.

And no matter how many times the Wo would intervene and pull the plug on the beauty and the entertainment industries, human kind would reinvent them.

So the Wo watched in exasperation as humans had lipofushion treatments and collagen removal therapy. They observed, dumbfounded as women stood in the mirror and cried over flat stomachs and unclogged pores.

The Wo thanked the higher power that this ridiculous population had become more or less peaceful, but fell to their knees in frustration, because what was it that the human population didn’t get?

Meanwhile, below on earth, a woman stepped on a scale and smiled at the 13 pounds she had gained, and posted on social media about her thigh closure. #fitspro. The Wo looked down in utter incredulity and cried.

Hello friends!
I wrote this several years ago right after Pete Davidson and Kim Kardashian split. In light of Pete D. being back in the news cycle and me taking a week-long break from writing, I am sharing this piece on Substack.

I hope you enjoy! On a serious note, ladies please do take this quiz seriously as you may be dating Pete Davidson and just not know it yet.

xoxox

Are you dating Pete Davidson?

Pete Davidson has been romantically linked with a roster of beautiful women for over a decade now. We’ve all marveled at how the kid does it. I enjoy observing from a distance and “getting the tea” on who the goofy, affable guy is dating presently. But the other day I had to ask myself, “What if I’m dating Pete Davidson?” Now I know that sounds like a silly question, but the gent is so romantically prolific that there’s a good chance he’s dating me. Or my sister. Or you! How can we know for sure? Take this quiz NOW to find out if you are dating Pete Davidson.

1- Are you famous?
The answer to this question may seem obvious: no! But it’s not that simple. Just the
other year, I got 34 likes on IG when I posted a picture of myself dressed as Marty McFly for Halloween. 34 likes? Who. ARE. these people. There are like 3 friends who I text regularly so where did these other 31 individuals come from? I realize that PD only dates famous women, but what if I’m famous and I just never noticed? If you have ever received 30+ likes on a photo, add one point to your score. You may be dating Pete Davidson.

2- Have you watched “King of Staten Island”?
If you’re like me, you remember seeing the trailers for this movie. It looked cute! Bill Burr was in it, Judd Aptow directed, the previews felt cheery. But “The King of Staten Island” is not easy to see. It’s not carried by major streaming platforms and let’s be real, it’s not going to be played on cable. Even if it were, no female under 30 can afford cable, and no female under 25 knows what it is. So if you saw “King of Staten Island,” you probably rented it on YouTube for $3.99 and dutifully watched it, like the supportive girlfriend you are. Good for you. Add one point to your score.

3- Has his mother called you recently?
Pete loves his mother. Up until recently, he lived with her in Staten Island in a house that he bought for the two of them. What a mensch. So if you are dating Petey D, at some point Mama D will call and size you up to see if you are worthy of her son. Do you have a missed phone call from a 718 area code? You may be committed to Amy Davidson’s boy. Add one point to your score.

4- Were you born before 1987?
Pete Davidson is notorious for dating famous, older women. His past gf, Kim Kardashian, had 12 years on the guy. So if you are an elder Millenial and your knees are giving out, there’s a 97% chance you’re dating Pete. This young cad probably charmed the pants off of you at some SNL cast party. He caught your gaze from across the room, sauntered over to you in his tie dyed sweatsuit or thrifted ConEd uniform. At first you thought, “This kid can’t be serious.” But his big ole sweet eyes and earnest nature won you over. This may have never happened to you, but it just as well may have. Add a point to your score.

BUT, If you were born after 1987 you can subtract a point from your total. In fact, click out of this tab, close the laptop and walk away. You haven’t dated Pete nor will you ever. Petey likes his ladies older, nnkay? So you 1988+ bitches can leave. I don’t mean to be callous, but this is the one time society has chosen us over you. That’s a victory I will take. Don’t worry though. One day you too will be 35.

5- Has SNL avoided discussing your exes on Weekend Update?
Years ago, when KK + PD were a thing, there was a leaked text conversation that insinuated Pete had stopped SNL writers from making jokes about Ye (Kim Kardashian’s ex). Classy move. Pete sounds like the kinda guy who protects his lady from drama. And when I think about it, SNL hasn’t roasted any of my ex-boyfriends, either. And I have to ask, why? I had a boyfriend who felt the need to mansplain the sun. “Babe, I’m telling you! When the sun rises in the morning, it’s bright.” This conversation, which really happened by the way, was worthy of national attention and received none. Has SNL not made fun of your ridiculous exes, either? Add a point, ladies. You may be dating Pete Davidson.

6- Have you shown up on any of Pete Davidson’s tattoos?
Check google. Has he recently gotten a tattoo of your name? Or your lunar zodiac sign? Or the brand logo for your loungewear company? These are the kinds of questions we have to be asking ourselves. Add one point if Pete has inked any detail of your life onto his clavicle recently.

Okay ladies. Time to tally your results. Have you counted your points yet? Good. If you scored anywhere between 1 - 6 points, you may be dating Pete Davidson.

I wish I could get more specific than that. I wish I could give you a definitive answer. But the difficult truth is, none of us can really know for sure. But maybe it never mattered whether or not we dated the Pete Davidson. What matters is that we are a part of a sisterhood; a network of 35+ women who have received tens of likes on one of our Instagram photos. We can rely on and support each other in times of difficulty and in times of maybe having dated Pete Davidson.

So on that note I embrace you, sister, and I wish you well as you continue to live and grow in an era where being single isn’t easy. Seriously. We should get some sort of tax deduction for trying to date the man boys out there. Maybe you and I will meet one day. Or maybe we will both occupy space on Mr. Davidson’s tattooed skin. Either way, we are one. With love and solidarity, your Sister Wife Butterfly. Namaste.

Charmai took a good look at her murderer. He had aged. Gained a good bit of weight, too. And the damage she had done to his face ten years prior had taken its toll: he was no longer handsome. He was ugly. The man’s true nature had surfaced, aided by Charmai’s long ago blows.

She responded to his question, “Ay sir. Yon stone in the center of this forest clearing is powerful, and I am but a mite of a thing. I stand behind this rock to protect meself. Only a strong and bold man can be gettin’ close to the Blarney Stone.”

The flattery seemed to work on Cormac, whose expression softened.

“What do I do next?”

“You must pick up the stone, sir, and carry it to the lake over yonder, past yon oak tree. The witch be livin’ there. You must kneel down on the bank of the lake, thank her for the gift, and ask her to bestow its protection, charm, and everlasting life upon ye. Then go home.”

Cormac looked at the stone and then looked at the lake. His forehead creased.

“I see no witch.”

Charmai’s heart skipped a beat before she answered the man:

“She seldom makes herself seen, sir. But she be there as sure as I am a boy who love the forest. Your words will appease her and she will bless the stone in your favor. Now proceed, sir. The hour will be gettin’ dark.”

Cormac stood firm where he was.

“Why should I have to walk to the lake to thank her?”

“Well the witch -”

“‘The witch, the witch, the witch.’ Is this powerful witch so feeble that she cannot hear me from where I stand?”

Cormac was picking at the logic of this made-up fairytale, and Charmai could feel herself losing ground.

“She can, but…well... these be her rules, sir! And who are we ordinary beings to question her rules! Even such a great man as yourself. So make haste, pick up the stone and make your way to the lake bank. If this part is not done before sundown, the charm will take no effect.”

Cormac stood still and locked Charmai in a stare, making no move to walk over toward the lake bank.

“These rules…” he began, “it feels as if these rules become more numerous and complicated by the moment. As if they were made up by a conniving boy, instead of some mighty witch.”

Charmai, for once in her life, was at a loss for words.

“Tell me, boy, about the cap on your head.”

The question took Charmai off guard.

“My cap? Uhhh, it was knit by me mother, sir.”

“I see. Is it a magic cap?” Cormac spoke with scorn.

“It is plain and ordinary, sir, just as me.”

“Nay, it must be magic, child.” Cormac slowly walked closer to Charmai, who was still crouched behind her boulder. She felt her body freeze. “For you lost this cap earlier in the woods. A branch took it off your head while you ran ahead of me. You didn’t notice and so you failed to retrieve it. But you wear it now. Curious, no? It is no ordinary cap that is forgotten but remembers to find its owner.”

A chill went through Charmai. She thought back to when she saw Isaac enter the clearing: his head was uncovered, his hair loose. Cormac was right. He was not wearing his cap. But Charmai, who was now pretending to be Isaac, still had her cap on.

“Stand up, creature.”

“No, sir.”

“Stand up or I will make you stand.”

Charmai feebly stood up.

“Good. Not a little boy, I don’t think. Turn around.”

Charmai glared at him with hatred but obeyed.

“Nay, certainly not a little boy.” His gaze intensified and he licked his teeth. “Remove your cap.”

Charmai didn’t move.

“Take it off. Unless you want me to take it off for you.”

Charmai backed away. Cormac laughed.

“Take it off, or I will start poking around for your little friend.”

An icy sensation went up Charmai’s spine. The thought of this tyrant finding Isaac…. She removed the cap. Her hair fell down, framing her face.

Cormac stared at her, recognition washing across his face.

“You. Her. That… that singer girl… from the wedding, many years ago...” Cormac spoke slowly, piecing his memories together as he spoke them out loud.

“I offered myself to you. You turned me down. I followed you to the woods to get my kiss, and -” He felt for his ugly face.

“You struck me. You struck me with a rock.” Fury lit his eyes.

“You terrible bitch. You did this to me. You made me look this way. So then I struck you. I struck you and then I-” suddenly he grinned.

“That’s right. And after that, I tied you to a rock. And put you to bed at the bottom of a lake. But you were dead… You were dead. How is it..?”

The chill in her spine seized the rest of her body. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t run. She couldn’t even break eye contact with the man who drowned her in a lake. Charmai cried.

“How did you live?” Cormac’s eyes widened with some revelation. “A witch. YOU’RE the witch. You bewitched me with a song at that wedding. You made me pursue you. You cursed me with this face. And now you lure me here to curse me again!”

Cormac was close to Charmai now. She could smell his sweat, see the spittle as he spoke through his teeth.

“You awful bitch. I will get another kiss.”

Suddenly Cormac cried out and clutched between his legs. Before Charmai could register what was happening, she saw Isaac clutching a large branch, which he had used to club the nobleman.

Cormac turned around and roared, “You filthy rat!” and swung at Isaac with his fist, missing, but still in hot pursuit of the little boy. Now in the center of the clearing, Cormac stooped down to pick up the Blarney Stone, and it was clear where he intended to throw it. His eyes were fixed on Isaac, his biceps strained as he worked to hoist the stone from the ground. Charmai lunged at Cormac and bit him. And the lord, as if remembering that she was his original target, turned around and grabbed her by the hair. Charmai managed to elbow him in the nose but he did not loosen his grip. With blood running down his face he lowered Charmai to the ground and got on his knees.

Charmai looked skyward at the tops of the trees. Cormac loomed over her.

“I. Will. Get. My. Kiss.”

Isaac shrieked. He ran to Cormac and used his little fists to pound on the nobleman’s back. Cormac swatted him away with ease.

“Run, Isaac!” Charmai choked out.

“NO, ma’am!” He lunged again at Cormac, who knocked Isaac to the ground.

Charmai used Isaac’s brief distraction to grab a fistfull of dirt and blow it into Cormac’s face. This hardened his resolve and he pinned both of Charmai’s arms to her side.

Charmai was crying. She knew what fate awaited her, but Isaac…. He didn’t need to see this.

“Child, leave. Please, leave. I am already dead.” But Isaac attacked Cormac again, pummeling the monster’s back until the little boy had no more strength. Isaac fell back on the forest floor, his face anguished, his mouth open in a quiet sob. He released a ragged breath and gasped, “But… you will die again... you will die again….”

Cormac had worked his awful, thick hands down Charmai’s side, and seemed to be pulling at her garments. Charmai felt numb as Cormac’s blood pooled in her eyes. The tops of the trees were disappearing, but she would fix her gaze there as long as she could. Perhaps if she looked skyward, focused on the light between the leaves and branches, it would break her mind away from reality. It couldn’t happen again. It couldn’t happen again…

Isaac’s cries seemed to fade away. Maybe Charmai was fading away, too….

Then, BANG! A crack as something unseen swept past Charmai’s face and made contact with Cormac’s. He cried out, and his weight fell from her. Charmai was free. She scrambled away as quickly as she could.

She couldn’t see much, but she could make out the outline of a woman, a woman who was holding something quite large. She stood above a sorry form on the ground, who seemed to be clutching at his face.

“You son of a BITCH.”

She kicked him.

“You took my child away from me once.”

She kicked him another time.

“I’ll be damned if you do it again.”

The woman dropped the mighty thing she was holding squarely onto Cormac’s groin. Charmai could see well enough now to realize the weapon she had used was the Blarney Stone. Cormac shuddered. He was severely damaged, and would never hurt a woman again. With great effort he leaned over to his side and the large stone rolled to the woman’s feet, brushing the hem of her barmaiden’s dress.

Isaac had watched all of this from his seat on the ground. His little eyes were round like saucers and he choked out, “MUM!” The child crawled to the woman. Samantha kneeled down and embraced her son.

After a moment, she looked in Charmai’s direction. Shakily, on all fours, the living dead girl made her way over to Isaac and Samantha. Samantha brushed her daughter’s hair back and said her name just above a whisper. “Charmai.”

They were all of them crying - tears of pain, tears of relief.

The tears washed Cormac’s blood from Charmai’s eyes, and if it weren’t clear before, she could see for certain the woman who had saved her. Mother. It was her mother.

The three of them held each other, for the first time in nearly a decade, as a family. Samantha spoke to them softly and wept, clutching her babies, holding them as close to her as she possibly could. “My children…. My children.”

Edited by Kat Colado

Charmai had found a level of calm in spite of the urgent and dangerous situation she was in. The last step of the plan was the most delicate; she and Isaac had planned it out like this:

When Isaac arrived, he would hide behind a grand oak tree by the lake, and Charmai, dressed the same as Isaac, would crouch behind a boulder on the edge of the clearing, with only her shoulders and head exposed. She would take Isaac’s place in his interactions with Cormac, but needed to cover herself to pull off this switch as Charmai was taller than the little boy. Once Cormac arrived she would instruct him to pick up the Blarney Stone, walk it to the lake, and thank the witch for the gift of the blessed rock. But if all went according to plan, Cormac would never make it that far. When he passed the oak where Isaac hid, that was Isaac’s cue to pull a rope tied to another oak on the clearing, creating a tripwire for Cormac. Both man and stone would fall. Charmai and Isaac would then come out from hiding, club the man, and tie his unconscious form to the rock. Both rock and man would be dumped into the lake, sealing the exchange required by the curse placed on Charmai, a curse that Cormac unknowingly placed upon Charmai himself when he had killed her with coldness and malice. Charmai– having tied another soul to the stone that once held her captive– would be free.

Charmai, who was a very gifted story teller, knew a plot hole when she saw one, and there were plenty in this plan. It was flimsy, with many opportunities for things to go awry. For one, they depended on Cormac doing exactly what they told him to do, a tall order for a headstrong tyrant. But this was as dynamic as they could get with the many limitations they faced. One of those limitations being that, due to the curse of the stone, Charmai could not leave the lake or the area around it. This meant Isaac was the only one capable of fulfilling the dangerous task of engaging Cormac and leading him into the woods. Isaac also wanted to be the one to communicate with Cormac in the forest clearing and have Charmai hide behind the oak tree instead, but Charmai wouldn’t allow it. That put Isaac in too much peril, having him interact with Cormac when the plan was at its most feeble. The least she could do was participate where possible, and protect Isaac when she could. And she was determined to protect Isaac.

Suddenly there was the distinct sound of an ungainly person traveling clumsily through the woods, followed by a bellowing call:

“Forest rat, slow down!”

It was Cormac. The nobleman was a distance away but fast approaching, and it was time to act. But where was Isaac? She looked about the clearing: no little boy. Just before Charmai started to panic, Isaac bolted onto the scene frantically: his eyes were wide and his hair loose and wild. But he was all right. He stopped a moment to catch his breath.

The voice of Cormac cried out again, closer than it was before: “Forest rat, Stop!”

Young Isaac’s eyes flared with dread. Charmai ran to him and stooped down so she could address the little boy at his height, but Isaac spoke first:

“He doubts our story. Cormac don’t believe us.”

“How do you know, Isaac?”

“I feel it. He is suspicious of me. What if the plan don’t work? I failed, ma’am, I failed!”

Charmai could see the boy fight to keep himself from crying.

“My brave lad, you have done well. You got the man here, so he must believe enough. Stay strong…we are almost done.” Isaac hugged her fiercely and then tore away to take his place behind the oak. With the little boy safely out of sight, Charmai assumed her position behind the boulder.

The sounds of a large, angry creature coarsely making his way through forest grew louder.

“Child! I insist you show yourself immediately!”

Charmai took a deep breath, and spoke in her best impression of Isaac.

“Ayy, sir. I am but a little ways ahead. Follow the sound of me voice.”

Charmai was surprised (and emboldened) by how much she sounded like Isaac. The little man himself peaked around the tree for a moment, looking impressed. Perhaps this plan could work afterall…

This boost in morale faded though once Charmai saw Cormac’s face. He was visible now as he moved ever closer to the clearing. When he stopped to catch his breath, Charmai got a good look at him: the man who had hit her, abused her, and separated her from everything she loved in this world.

And her body went numb. Her heart beat slowly as if the blood in her veins were made of something thick. She felt her head was in a fog, her tongue heavy and dumb. The determination that gripped her earlier in the clearing had snuffed out. The urge to lie down behind the boulder and hide herself completely was overwhelming. Charmai was ready to lay down and give up the fight.

But from the corner of her eye, she saw Isaac glance around his tree again to check up on her. His face was red and his eyes glassy with the effort to keep from crying. She thought about what would happen to Isaac if Cormac found him hiding…figured out their plan was a ruse…. He would punish Isaac. There was no question. And the violence the man was capable of… the abuse… she couldn’t allow Isaac to experience any of that. A little bit of Charmai’s determination came back, just enough for her to find her ground and stay in the fight.

Cormac entered the clearing, frantic and feral. Charmai steeled herself, tucked errant strands of long hair firmly into her cap, and spoke in the voice of her small young friend:

“Welcome Lord Cormac. Your everlasting life awaits you.”

Edited by Kat Colado

The afternoon light waned and Samantha was still lost, gazing at the flickering glow of the old candles in the pub she managed. The bar was famous for these statuesque, columns of wax – built candle by melted candle – over thousands of late nights. The grooves and curves of these pillars had suddenly become entrancing to Samantha, present to her even when she closed her eyes. Isaac, her son, who was off playing somewhere in the forest, had always found them fascinating as well.

There was a distant noise somewhere, someone calling her name, but it felt unimportant. Her thoughts remained on her son, which was unusual. Isaac was not a child that needed thinking about. He managed himself, minded himself.

“Samantha!” The voice of Breccan, a kitchen assistant she employed at her pub, broke through her trance-like state.

“Ay! What is it, Breccan?”

“Ma’am, I’ve cleaned and cut the spuds n’ carrots. Patrick’s put them over fire for tonight’s stew. I also have six loaves worth of dough cooling in the cellar for tomorrow’s bread. Is there anything more I can do before I leave?”

“No, Breccan. That’s it for today.”

“Ay. You know, it’s not the same these past weeks without Isaac stopping in to check on his mum. I worry sometimes we may lose him completely to the forest. Is the wee lad all right?”

How odd was it that she was just thinking of her son, and Breccan chose this moment to speak of him? It was as if a force greater than Samantha was also looking out for her boy. And while normally Samantha bristled at any sort of commentary on her child or her parenting, she presently felt gratitude for Breccan’s concern. She smiled and replied,

“Ay, Breccan. My wee rascal of the woods is fine.”

Breccan left, and the afternoon light continued to dim. Samantha returned her gaze to the ancient cream colored candles, and found herself nodding off. It was rare for Samantha to be sleepy like this. She was always in charge of her faculties, able to work double shifts and stay alert until she returned home and collapsed into bed. One could say she was tired or exhausted, but never sleepy.

Yet here she was, in the middle of a shift, her eyes fluttering closed as the flickering candle light lulled her, unwillingly, to sleep.

And when her eyes did close, it was as if her mind went somewhere else entirely. There was someone humming, and it both warmed and ached her heart. A voice she hadn’t heard in years. A voice that…No. That was not possible.

Suddenly the gentle voice stopped humming, and the silence left behind was filled with dread. Isaac, where is Isaac? Samantha saw images of her child running as if being chased by someone - - his face twisted in horror as he watched something Samantha could not see. A voice cried out, “Run, Isaac!”

Samantha woke with a start, the pub and its soft, copper lighting returning in an instant. Her sudden movement jolted the table she was resting on, causing one of the tall candles to fall to the ground and crack in half. The few guests who were in the pub turned their heads towards the commotion. A potman came by to clean up the mess. “My son,” Samantha said. “I need to get to my son.”

Written by Olivia Spiritual Butterfly Whelan
Edited by Kat Colado

A tall, ugly man named Lord Cormac stood at the edge of a forest in the Blarney region of Southern Ireland.

Two pence laid flat in the palm of his hand. The small boy standing a little distance away from him had requested this payment moments ago, and now refused it.

“I change my mind, sir! I do not wish for the money now. Follow me”

The payment was for the child’s service in chaperoning the lord to a powerful stone located in the forest. This stone, the child claimed, would offer protection and longevity to the man who claimed it. Cormac wanted the stone for himself and his safety. He had wronged many people in his past, and while a normal human soul would feel remorse for his actions, Cormac merely felt paranoid: he grew increasingly concerned for his wellbeing as the number of his moral debts increased.

Cormac put the two pence back in his pocket, and stood for a moment before following the scrappy lad into the wood. There was something peculiar about this whole arrangement. Cormac recognized the child as a local, an imbecile who spent all of his time in the forest. But the nobleman was quickly getting the impression that the forest rat was more calculating than he let on. Why would anyone deny money? Was that not peculiar? Cormac sensed some sort of strategy at play.

Perhaps he should abandon this entire pursuit, walk the other way and head back to his castle. But the prize he was pursuing - a stone that promised sanctuary, and even gave eternal life - was far too valuable to turn down. Cormac decided the reward outweighed the risk, and so he followed the child into the forest.

The little urchin moved lithely around the rocks and tree branches. Cormac found the easiest way to keep track of him was to train his eye on the cap the child wore. It was blue and brighter (and cleaner) than the rest of the boy’s ensemble. It looked as if it were made of wool, and the nobleman mused it was probably the one fine thing the little boy owned. Cormac felt momentary pride in the sheer number of expensive and fine things he possessed in comparison to this waif. And for a while, the nobleman was able to ignore the feeling of unease that grew as he marched further into the forest.

Time passed, the light changed, afternoon became evening. The pathway narrowed as the forest thickened: rocks turned into small boulders, the tree branches dipped lower. And the feeling of unease returned, as if Cormac were missing something. Maybe he had traveled this path once before?

The nobleman stopped for a moment to catch his breath. He took in wooded surroundings and a vague memory surfaced: yes, he had been here before. But it had been night. And he wasn’t uneasy then, no. He had felt eager, predatory. But why?

Cormac continued the path.

The forest rat was now about twenty steps ahead of Cormac. A low hanging branch picked his blue cap clean off his head; the child was so focused on rocks and the trees that he did not notice. Cormac laughed at the little boy’s misfortune.

This child must be an imbecile, for who would spend all his idle time in the Blarney Wood? Everyone knew this land was dangerous: the forest was the favored terrain of faeries, territorial and vicious creatures. Most villagers had sense enough to stay away. Except for this ridiculous, harmless child. And that girl. That girl who he had followed into the woods - Cormac stopped in his tracks.

That girl. That singer girl. He had pursued her one drunken night in his youth. There was a wedding at a pub, there was music, a village lass whose ordinary face became beautiful when she sang…. He advanced on her, followed her out of the bar and into the forest…then what?

Then… then, he was leaving the woods as the sun was rising, his knuckles raw, his head bloodied. He’d walked in with a handsome face and left with a crooked one. What had happened between night and morning? And why was the boy leading him down the same path?

The forest rat was now far ahead of Cormac, threatening to leave his field of vision altogether.

Cormac called after him. “Forest rat, slow down.”

The boy kept his pace. Did he not hear? “Forest rat, stop!” The child ducked under a large decayed log and did not reappear.

Cormac felt a surge of panic. He began running, sprinting. He was afraid of being alone, afraid of the memories resurfacing in his psyche, furious that this insignificant, feral brat had somehow gained the upper hand in this situation.

“Child! I insist you show yourself immediately!”

Silence. Cormac was about to yell again when he received an answer.

“Ay, sir. I am but a little ways ahead. Follow the sound of me voice.”

Cormac exhaled with relief and walked in the direction where he had heard the child. The nobleman entered a clearing with a sizable stone in the middle, with some witchy looking writing scribbled in the dirt around it. That must be the charmed rock he was here to retrieve.

The boy was behind a boulder at the opposite edge of the clearing, his head just peaking up above the top. He spoke:

“Welcome, Lord Cormac. Your everlasting life awaits you.”

I don’t know about other women, and I don’t know about other women from my generation, but seeing the resurgence of the thin movement in pop culture has been an interesting walk down memory lane. At moments I feel grateful, because as a kid growing up I never developed a severe eating disorder that wreaked havoc on my body and made me dangerously thin.

But on the other hand, there was definitely disordered behavior that interrupted my life and made me unhappy.

But on the other hand, I was naturally lean so it was easy for me to skate by without anyone having much to say about my body.

But on the other hand, when I did gain weight, it became a topic to the people in my life who voiced negative opinions about the way my body changed.

Now let me back track a little bit, because maybe some of you aren’t familiar with the thin movement I’m talking about: in the 90s, it became popular for women to be very, very skinny. Thin was in. And not just thin, but dangerously underweight. Sometimes this trend was called Heroin Chic, referencing the tired, emaciated looks that are associated with heroin addicts.

This glamorization of underweight female bodies led a lot of young women to develop eating disorders. And without social media or internet forums like Reddit, there weren’t as many outlets for women to gain an understanding for what they were going through (or realize there was pushback to this extreme diet culture). I happened to be very fortunate in that I went to a school that educated its students about anorexia and bulimia. These words weren’t a mystery to us, and learning about these diseases emboldened some students to come forward and get help when they were suffering.

I was also very fortunate in that I never had an extreme case of an eating disorder. I never starved myself to a severe degree, and I never became dangerously underweight. But still, my relationship with my body wasn’t quite right.

And I feel like this is pretty standard for many females from my generation: most of us didn’t have life threatening eating disorders, but all of us went through periods of having unhealthy relationships with our bodies. And for a while I just kind of accepted that this as a norm for women, regardless of what generation we grew up in. After all, the ultrathin movement has come in and out of fashion for awhile. The 90s was not the first time we saw this. There are also a slew of professions that have historically pressured women to look a certain way and weigh a certain amount, for example ballet dancing, acting and modeling (even PanAM stewardesses had to stay trim).

But the fact that it’s “normal” for ALL women to have or have had some kind of eating disorder (even if mild), is disturbing when you stop and think about it. Why have we accepted this as the norm? And being as this is “normal” for us, how many hours have we wasted with worrying? Worrying about calories, dessert, the pounds we want to lose before a wedding, the weight we want to lose after giving birth? It’s ridiculous. Even if we haven’t suffered severe bodily damage from obsessing about weight, we’ve lost hours and days and weeks of time. There are so many better ways we could have spent our time. I am angry that this slow burn suffering is an accepted part of western femininity. And as of recent, I’ve been reminded of how absurd it is whenever I go on Instagram, and see beautiful, talented actresses looking malnourished. This is a mental disease embraced as glamour. And this is what the younger generation is being served as “chic.”

I’ve wanted to write something about the current iteration of the skinny trend for a bit now, but what do you say that hasn’t been said? “We all need to love our bodies”? I mean yes, but we repeat that stale mantra and then go back to loathing ourselves. That’s not cutting in 2026.

I guess I could blame society, and dive into how media and corporations bombard women with propaganda that makes us hate our bodies. But like, how are we still scandalized by this? Especially since the release of the Epstein Email Library, because now we know that many beauty trends are helmed by pedophiles. Are we really surprised that 0% body fat and ageless beauty are trending? And if we know these depraved assholes hurt children, are we really surprised that they aren’t playing fair with women? If we keep playing the victim card here, we are never going to find a powerful leg to stand on. So no, the blame game isn’t vibing for the big 2 6, either.

So here’s where I am landing: we need to take shit into our own hands. And I don’t mean we need to release a body positive campaign or boycott brands that glamorize ultra-thin bodies (because let’s be real, they all fucking do). But we need to become stronger and tune this shit out. Because marketing that exploits women’s weaknesses is not going away. As long as women are alive and have spending power, there will be media that attacks us.

We can’t keep falling for this shit, and really we should know better by now. We need to look beauty trends dead in the eye and decide that we are going to “be the bigger bitch” (borrowing a phrase that my teacher has used in a variety of contexts). And what’s more, we need to stop talking shit about our bodies. And stop looking at our bodies like they’ve failed us.

And how do we accomplish this? Well, I can’t answer that for you, but I can answer for myself: I’ve learned to be more confident with my body by becoming confident with who I am as a person. I am not perfect, and if you read what I write you know some of the areas where I struggle and have insecurities. One thing I have to say for myself though is I’m always driven to improve, and I don’t give up. That drive and tenacity led me to my spiritual teacher, and over the years that I’ve worked with her I have made personal improvements. And as I become stronger and more at peace, that peace and strength flows to how I view my physical self.

If you are struggling with your body and how you see yourself, maybe you need to talk to someone. It doesn’t have to be my teacher, but find a professional you like and trust: someone who is equipped to help you get to the bottom of what makes you unhappy. I genuinely believe if we are miserable about our bodies, the root to that misery is more than skin deep.

We’re all smart enough to know at this point that the world is never going to turn around and tell women that we are beautiful the way they are. There is no money to be made in that. So we need to stop blaming society for the self-hate we harbor. We need to fix our shit.

To paraphrase one of Guru’s lessons, “There’s not a great deal you can do to change the world out there, but there’s a great deal you can do to change yourself.” If we learn to accept and be proud of our bodies, the young women and men around us will see that. So in other words, we have a chance to help younger people navigate the return of this odious, deathly skinny beauty trend. And that is great.

One more thing I’ll drop here before I sign off (and again, I’m paraphrasing my teacher and sharing one of her lessons as I understood it), if you do want to make a healthy change to your body, keep it to yourself and do it in a healthy way. Please make sure you are not punishing yourself with diet pills, fasting, extreme weight loss programs, or jumping into an American Ninja Warrior training program. Getting healthy doesn’t need to be extreme or fast, so take time and be patient with yourself. (If you have more questions about Guru’s lessons, feel free to reach out to her: IG @guruenlightment)

So in conclusion: fuck beauty standards, but fuck us, too, if we choose to follow them. I hope you can look in the mirror and love the body you have, but first and foremost love the mind and heart that comes with it. Happy Sunday.

It would be nice to think that after so many years of working on myself, and after penning many posts discussing these years of working on myself, that I would have no problem when it comes to failure. Because that’s what growth is, right? It’s the willingness to fail and learn.

But the truth is I still hate failing. Hate it. HHAAAAATE it.

It gives me the cringe, it gives me the ick. It brings me right back to high school, when an academic setback made me paranoid that I wouldn’t get into college, and that Jesus was upset with me (it was a Catholic high school I went to, after all).

I’ve been spiritual for a very long time now, and sometimes I fancy that the issues I had when I was a teenage girl are ancient history. After all, I’ve spent all this time in front of the mirror addressing where I’m weak, addressing where I feel inadequate, reminding myself that I am strong and powerful and worthy. So you’d think after, you know, 16 years plus of doing that, that I’d be fixed. The insecurities would be all used up.

But it only took one bad stand-up set to send me back to that 15 year old mind set of “I failed and it’s the end of the damn world.” I swear, if I could write down the dialogue of my subconscious when I’m processing failure as a 39 year old woman, the dialogue would look something like, “I’m never getting into college and Jesus is upset at me.”

And you’d think - you’d think! - that particular insecurity about going to college would have expired once I got into college. And graduated from college. And graduated with a good GPA. But the insecurity is still there. Because, of course, it never had to do with college. It had to do with me feeling like my value was based on me performing perfectly.

And I’m a very dramatic person when I fail. I hole up, become solemn, stare at the wall, walk around like I lost a patient on the operating table…

Eventually I make peace with that disappointed feeling and I find the value in the failure and I shake it off and I’m aight. And maybe that’s just my process: the being hard on myself, the out-of-proportion shame, and the eventual forgiveness.

But, I don’t know. I think at a deeper level that this “process” is something learned, coming from a “girls should be perfect” mentality that many women are so familiar with. And we’re familiar with it because it’s taught to us at a very young age. I know it’s got a choke hold on my generation, at the very least. There are so many ways in which we as females are expected to succeed, and with all that success we are supposed to have there’s hardly any room for failure.

(On a side note, I’m realizing this relates back to a project I produced called, “Nothing is Perfect”, which looks at the different roles us ladies play in Western society. I focused on how these societal roles put daunting pressure on women to perform and excel at everything. So note to self, this perfection thing is something I’ve been puzzling through for awhile.)

I don’t have a neat little bow to put on all of this because I’m still finding my way through it. And I’d rather go streaking in my apartment complex than watch the video of my stand-up to give myself objective feedback.

But I feel it’s enough to say this: I hope other ladies dealing with perfectionism know they’re not alone, and it’s okay. We will fail, and that’s okay too. And if you are currently mourning a failure, just realize it’s not the worst thing you could ever do. And if you are pushing against that instinct to be hard on yourself and you’re working through the messy shameful emotions that come with it, I applaud you. I really feel by dissecting those uncomfortable feelings we can find a happier way to get through life, and that we are setting a better example for younger generations of women: we’re showing that it’s okay to fail and not feel, like, the worst about it.

Nkay? Nkay. Happy Friday people. If you want to see my last stand-up set, don’t ask me for it because it may never see the light of day.

*******

If you are dealing with serious issues of feeling down on yourself, and you’re looking to build up your self esteem, here’s a link to my Spiritual Teacher’s website. She’s helped me a lot and maybe she can help you too: https://www.guruenlightment.com/

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Originally penned in April of 2022.

PS - Thank you to the male allies who support women, in comedy and elsewhere.

The first woman to be funny was Euphora Benedictus in 736 AD. Her husband, Leo, had just returned from the local marketplace where he sold linens. He complained about working all day in the hot and humid weather and the chaffing it caused around his midsection, where his toga fit snug. Leo then added, “Women do not understand what it is to be in physical discomfort.” Euphora then rolled her eyes and said, “Yes darling, because giving birth to your five children was a walk in the hortus.” Friends and family were so shocked by Euphora’s cleverness that they immediately brought her to a local physician to make sure she was of sound health. Once the physician confirmed that Euphora’s health was robust and that making a joke had not caused her uterus to evacuate her body, the crowd collectively sighed in relief and escorted Euphora back to her villa. On returning home, her husband immediately recorded the event in the household’s almanac before asking Euphora when dinner would be ready. Since then, there have been at least a dozen situations in which a woman has been funny.

SAMANTHA
It was a slow day at the pub. Few guests had come in for meals, fewer still for drinks.

Samantha finished her daily chores at the tavern. She stationed herself behind the bar and scanned the room for anything she missed: an empty pint of beer, a dropped utensil, a small mess that needed to be cleaned or swept away. There was nothing.

Her eyes landed on the tavern candles, the only unruly elements allowed to flourish in the bar. There were a half dozen of them or so, and they were probably as old as the pub itself.

Each one of them must have begun as a single candle in a single candlestick holder long ago. Someone must have wedged a second candle into the melted remains of the first, and the next night a third candle forced into the remains of the second. Presumably the tradition was upheld over the years, resulting in the wide, wild, columns of wax Samantha now observed. When she began her employment as the tavern’s alewife ten years ago, she was instructed to never trim or scrape any of the candles’ drippings, and she never did.

So the candles kept growing. Each new rivulet of wax heated and cooled and stilled, moments in time preserved and frozen.

What a funny thing it was, Samantha thought, to see time stuck in place. Everything else from those prior nights were gone, but the small wax canyons looked the same today as they did when they first formed. Samantha’s eyes followed the lines of the candles, the columns and grooves they made, tracing their stories down and up.

A solitary man in the back of the pub sang a melody about the moon.

One of Samantha’s cooks, Breccan, observed his manager in this calm, almost removed state. This was unusual for Samantha.

While Breccan sorted through a new delivery of potatoes, he also noticed that Lord Cormac’s foot soldiers were absent from the bar. The pair had a daily 3 o’clock appointment with a pitcher of beer, and it was not normal for them to miss it.

Isaac had also been absent from the bar recently, scarcely making any visits the past few weeks. Breccan wondered if Samantha had noticed. She scarcely noticed anything when it came to her son, which was inconsistent with Samantha’s eagle eyed vigilance when it came to her work at the tavern. Breccan had on a few occasions pointed this out to Samantha, but she brushed off his comments, just like she brushed off the painful past that had led her to this profession in the first place.

Breccan was happy to see Samantha relaxed, but his thoughts wandered back to Isaac, and where the little forest urchin may be.

ISAAC
Isaac had arrived at the edge of the forest where his meeting with Lord Cormac was to take place. The nobleman was already there, and had brought two guards with him. This came as a surprise to Isaac, who realized he’d have to find a way to get rid of them.

Isaac looked up at Lord’s ugly face and spoke:

“Lord Cormac, I am here to take you to yon stone, sir. If you are able to pick it up and take it back to your household, the old witch of the lake will grant you eternal protec -”

“Enough, child. Am I stupid? I know why we are here.”

Isaac was used to people cutting him off. He was used to people thinking him stupid. But at this moment, the harsh words of an adult affected him.

Isaac was dealing with so much more than a boy his size and age should be dealing with: the well-being of his friend, Charmai, depended on him and his ability to lure this dangerous man into a trap. Although Isaac was a brave and capable boy, he was tempted to give into his overwhelmed feelings and cry.

But Isaac did not have the time for tears or overwhelmed feelings, so he swallowed his hurt and continued.

“Beggin’ your apologies sir, but I must ask your permission to speak again –”

“‘Zounds! Out with it child.”

“I must insist thee to dismiss your guards, sir.”

Cormac looked incredulous.

“Tell me, boy, who informed you that Lord Cormac answers to unbathed forest rats? I arrived at this wood with my guards and I will enter this wood with my guards.”

But Isaac could not allow for the guards to come with them to the woods, for Charmai and Isaac would be grossly outnumbered if they were up against Cormac and his patrol. Isaac also knew that there was no use debating a headstrong man like Cormac. So the forest urchin tried a different tactic:

“Indeed, sir. I suppose it will be right fine with the witch for you three to fetch the stone. Perhaps your guards can all share in its blessed protection, as ye all be present to retrieve it.”

Cormac’s expression turned sour as he contemplated sharing. He replied quickly:

“Nevermind, child, nevermind. I shall fetch it unaccompanied. Grim and Bog, be gone. Boy, lead the way.” The guards shrugged and walked back towards town, but Isaac firmly stood his ground.

“Are you stupid and still, forest rat? Why do you delay?”

“I be needing one more thing, m’Lord: me payment of seven pence.”

Isaac knew Cormac would not appreciate this request, but Isaac also knew that there were few in this world who did anything for free. He did not want to raise Cormac’s suspicions by neglecting to ask for his compensation (Isaac was also looking forward to spending his compensation, provided he survived this ordeal.)

At first the Lord’s face twisted up in an ugly way, but then he laughed and said:

“Payment before the prize is received. You are an enterprising rogue, aren’t you?” Cormac pulled two pence from his pocket and laid them flat in his palm. “Two pence now, and five more when I have my hands on the stone. Retrieve your coin, child, and come close so I may get a good look at the youth who speaks so brazenly.”

Isaac had assumed the wealthy Lord would drop the payment on the forest floor in a little sac (Isaac heard about that happening in a story once), or figured the money would be thrown on the ground for Isaac to collect. But the Lord had requested for Isaac to get close to him for Cormac to observe his face. Isaac couldn’t afford for Cormac to become familiar with his looks: part of the plan he hatched with Charmai involved the two of them switching places, and they could only accomplish this with Cormac mistaking Charmai for Isaac.

Without a smooth way to get himself out of this corner, Isaac spoke abruptly: “I change my mind, sir! I do not wish for the money now. Follow me.”

Isaac turned on his heel and walked toward the forest, and eventually the trudging footstep of Lord Cormac followed.

But Isaac could feel Cormac’s suspicion rising, and Cormac was known to become violent when he sensed mischief. Isaac might not live to spend his seven pence, after all.

CHARMAI
Charmai sat on the stone that had once been tied to her torso, which had once kept her prisoner to the bottom of a lake, and which still kept her prisoner to the land around it. She woke that morning with a pit of dread in her stomach: she was terrified to confront Cormac.

She was not made for stealth and lying and tricks. She was not made to fight powerful, hateful men. But here she was.

Charmai spent most of the day leading up to this confrontation pacing anxiously around the lake. Her only reprieve from her nerves had been a visit from Isaac, who dropped off an extra pair of his clothes for Charmai to change into. Whenever Isaac visited it was easy for her to be strong because she had someone to be strong for. But once he left, her psyche fell to pieces all over again.

At some point though, whilst making her anxious rounds about the water, she began to sing. The singing regulated her breathing and slowed her racing heart, and gradually Charmai was able to calm down. Currently she sat on the fateful stone that had been so impactful to the last ten years of her life, and she hummed a melody her mother had taught her as a child. In an absent minded sort of way, she picked up a stick and began tracing shapes in the dirt around the stone: circling, spiraling shapes that wove in and out of each other.

As she did this her thoughts wandered, and Charmai realized she was tired of her own fear, and no longer wanted to hide from Cormac. It was normal to feel afraid, but she had spent ten years in a state of inaction.

And wasn’t it time that she act? That she stood up to her captor? Technically it was the magicked stone that had kept her prisoner, but Cormac had been the one that tied her to it. When she had nightmares, they weren’t about the rock, they were about Cormac. And hadn’t she had enough of being afraid of this pathetic man? It was high time she faced him. She owed it to Isaac, who was fighting for her freedom. And she owed it to herself. No more sitting back and accepting this half alive fate that had been given to her.

Suddenly, a man’s voice roared from the woods: “Forest rat, slow down!”

She had not heard that voice for ten years, but there was no mistaking who it belonged to: Lord Cormac. The time for her confrontation with this awful man was now, and she was ready. But where was Isaac?

I don’t claim to be the most news savvy person. At all. I can’t say I’m above celebrity gossip. I can’t deny that I’ve spent hours on Reddit going down one rabbit hole or another (e.g. Jim Carrey at that awards show in Paris. I firmly believe that’s an imposter, and you can’t convince me otherwise).

But you don’t have to be on top of current events to understand how a magic trick works: your eyes are drawn to something flashy that the right hand is doing, distracting us from the work that’s being done by the left hand. And before you know it, voila, something is there that wasn’t there before, and we are amazed. It must be magic, but in reality it wasn’t magic at all: it was just that the flashy thing was distracting us from the important thing.

And I think that the true value of the Jim Carrey thing is that it was a distraction from something more important going on. Because while I was freaking out about that off brand Jim Carrey doppelgänger (whose red carpet interview portrayed him as some soft spoken Hollywood shill, just fucking titillated by the French award ceremony he’s attending, all this being outrageously off brand to the outspoken Jim Carrey we all know and love) Kansas passed a law that makes it illegal for trans citizens to drive.

“Letters were sent to impacted drivers this week notifying them their licenses are no longer valid. ‘They need those to go when they’re applying for passports. Or potentially for other types of identification, elsewhere. So, it actually is very dangerous,’ said Merrique Jenson, a nationally recognized transgender activist.” (Www.kctv5.com)

This is segregation.

Now I am going to go ahead and take a leap here and say that every human being, regardless of religion, sex, race, creed, or gender identity, has the right to drive their damn car. In fact, I’m going to say the right to drive is a basic human right. I know technically that’s not accurate, but in the real world application it is: if you want to live, work, and participate in a community that’s not New York City, you’re going to need a driver’s license to do so.

Now there is a work-around to this piece of legislation known as SB 244, and I’ll tell you what it is: you can avoid driving illegally as a trans person in Kansas if you change the gender on your license back to the one you were born with. So in other words, in order to legally be on the road, you have to surrender the legal identity of the gender you identify with.

We were talking about magic tricks before, and the workaround to law SB 244 is about as dirty a trick as they come. Why do I say law SB 244 is a trick? Because there is the illusion of freedom of choice here, as you have the option to comply. But in reality, you really don’t have an option - not one that doesn’t strip you of some humanity, anyway. Because let’s say you do something outrageous and exercise two freedoms at once, and go for a drive as a trans person with a license that confirms the gender you transitioned to, well then you’re breaking the law.

And I know there are going to be people out there who will say this law is fair, because these trans individuals shouldn’t have transitioned genders in the first place. People who support SB 244 may sight their religion, quoting scriptures that encourage punitive actions for self expression (while ignoring the scriptures that encourage acceptance). Or they may feel that SB 244 is actually very American, and reinforces the way a Western society is supposed to be.

To these people who stand on whatever kind of moral high ground, are you blind to the fact that taking away a human being’s right is morally wrong? Do you really believe that certain populations of people aren’t deserving or equal? Aren’t human?

Because that’s what laws like SB-244 do - they dehumanize. Not just by stigmatizing a minority population so that majority populations hate them, but by teaching minority population to hate themselves.

And while I am not a part of the trans population, I am a part of another minority group, and I know first hand that the propaganda to make a minority population hate itself can be very effective. The minority population I belong to is that of women, and I think any woman can attest to the hatred that we experience legally.1 And socially?2 Forget about it. I can tell you from experience that the world will feed you hatred and tell you to swallow, and without realizing it you do just that.

In some ways, the issue of minority populations being stripped of their rights isn’t entirely separate from the Jim Carrey thing: in both situations people will try to tell you that everything is just normal, fine, and dandy with this new reality (or this new Jim Carrey), that this new reality is actually the correct reality (or the correct Jim Carrey), and that the people who see and experience things differently are just supposed to shut up and fucking accept it.

#notmyjimcarrey

And to those people who so readily accept these new realities being presented to us, where certain minority populations deserve to have certain rights repealed, I have to ask - do you really lack the foresight that it’s just a matter of time before this segregation, this HATRED, trickles down to the minority group you happen to be a part of? That one day it will be you who has some basic right taken away? I just wonder when that time comes, when you experience real hatred for being different, if you’ll still be wearing a MAGA hat, clutching a book of your religion, and waving an American flag. I guess we’ll see.

I’d like to acknowledge my parents and my aunt in this post. We are all four of us artists in one way or another, and I learned from an early age to be accepting of people who are different from me. The focus was on the creative and empathetic gifts that people possess, as opposed to race, sexuality and socioeconomic standing.

I’d also like to acknowledge Guru. While my teacher’s teachings did not come up in this post specifically, I want to take a moment to share the first lesson she gives her students: “Don’t believe in what I say, believe in what I see.” We are all empowered with the gift to take a look at any situation and come to our own conclusion, even if it differs from that of the popular narrative. As a person who keeps an open mind (while still being distracted by plenty of doom scrolling), I encourage you to exercise this gift frequently, especially now.

And on that note…

My writing style is deeply indebted to my years as a student of Marymount School. Marymount is proficient in teaching its students many things, but for my era I feel it’s the writing and the tech skills that really set our graduates apart.

I learned to write with a point, with my story driving towards a particular theme and conclusion. One teacher in particular, who I’ll call Ms. E, pushed us to refine our style and structure. I think the first time I heard the word “thesis” was from her. Ever since then I’ve been writing with a thesis in mind, and I feel it’s served me tremendously in organizing my thoughts and figuring out what matters to me. I tend to approach my day to day living with a thesis mindset as well, with the belief that a 24 hour period should have a “point”.

Today however, I am trying to put the thesis aside.

I have my Sunday off from work to grocery shop and do some errands, and I stopped by my home Starbucks to eat and have some tea before charging on with my day. My colleagues greeted me warmly, my tea tastes fresh, and I think that’s sufficient for me right now.

I don’t know what the thesis for the day, week, or month will be, what the point of this short essay is, or how the year or any particular journey will conclude. I lack the foresight to see how everything will tie together, but I have my health and a job and the ability to write and that’s enough.

(Another plus for the day, Starbucks Radio started playing Fleetwood Mac’s Silver Springs. Really, life can be very good).

Wishing you all a peaceful day, even if has no particular thesis, moral or message.

But there are times, my friends, times when we must call out “uncle” and admit defeat. And one of those times, is at the Cold Bar.

The “Cold Bar” is what us Starbucks folks call the blender and refresher station. This is where we make frappuccinos, ice matcha lattes, and berry refreshers. When you are stationed at the Cold Bar, you receive a ticket that tells you what drink to make. You place said ticket on the appropriate sized cup, make the drink, and then leave it at the hand off station. During rush hour, the tickets in your cue will increase. For me, anything above a cue of 4 drinks gets me a little panicky. A cue of 9 or 10? My anxiety meds start to fail. 14 and I’m having an existential crisis.

And if you fuck up a drink while your cue is building? You’re kinda done. You might as well be 20 drinks behind. You might as well throw in the towel, and shut the whole operation down. The chances of recovery are very small, hombre. I’m watching “One Battle After Another” while I pen this, and I think it’s bringing out an aggressive tone in my writing.

Anyway, while baristas make drinks, we strive to keep the drink cue low. But I think this becomes a point of pride more than it is a point of necessity, and many of us are privately determined to “not need help” and do it all on our own. When someone is assigned to help you make drinks, it can feel like a commentary on your performance. Even worse is when you are switched out of the cold bar. That’s like being benched by your coach.

And the state I’m in when I’m benched is embarrassing: I usually have a blender in one hand and a Venti cup in another, and I’m just staring at the fruit inclusions completely paralyzed. The shift lead will switch me out and I just want to scream, “Leave me alone! I got this!” And I just don’t.

But recently I observed a partner ask for help before she was drowning in orders. And when she asked for help, there was no sense of crushing defeat or shame.

And I realized, it can be that easy: when you need help, ask for it. We are not going to be great at everything all the time, and some days are going to be busier than others when we can’t handle the workload all on our own. And some days, no matter how many times you read “iced matcha latte, made with almond milk” you will make an iced matcha latte with half and half. And it doesn’t have to take on a deeper meaning about who you are as as a human being (unless you allow it to). And I have to say, when I embraced this radical idea of separating my identity from how well I can produce a Strawberry Shortcake Frappaccino, it took a lot of pressure off.

I am doing my best to apply this zen, ego-free attitude to life outside of Starbucks. It takes the pressure off of other things, too. I feel my generation is sooooo steeped in basing our self worth on professional performance, and Jesus that just takes the life out of life.

The lesson here is obvious and I’m not trying to preach, but I’m happy I can share my journey to finding a more chilled out state of being that doesn’t make me want to disassociate on the couch after work.

Sending peace and love, my friends.

CORMAC

It was noon. The sun was positioned in the middle of the sky, casting a golden light over the Southern Countryside in Ireland. There was a village, a castle under construction, and a forest. A man in noble clothes and a broken face arrived at the edge of the wood. He walked slowly, serenely. He had spent the previous evening pent up in a room filled with his talismans and good luck charms, nearly driven mad by the misfortune of the past week. After a few hours of sleep though, he woke up with a calm sense of drive and resolve.

Cormac had a four o’clock appointment at this forest entrance. In several hours time, a child would meet and lead him to a bewitched stone that would grant him protection, the kind of protection he’d been chasing after for a long time.

The child - a boy from the village - had requested payment in exchange for intel of this magic rock. He would be rewarded seven pence after Cormac had possession of the item. The cost was nothing for Cormac, who was born noble and married rich. The little boy could have asked for a great deal more; enough so that this mother would not have to work at a pub, enough so this dirty little urchin could buy clean clothes. Cormac laughed at the child’s small-mindedness, and felt superior to him.

This noble gentleman had asked his guards to be present for the arrival of the child, so that they could chaperone their Lord into the woods. The filthy urchin, who thus far had only interacted with Cormac’s security team of two, had insisted on a private audience with the Lord. He did not know Cormac’s guards would be there, as well. Cormac liked that he had this edge over the little boy. Who did this lad think he was, setting the terms for their engagement anyway?

Cormac was at the forest entrance three and a half hours before the guards would arrive, four before the child. He liked to be the first to arrive at the scene. It established who had control, and it gave Cormac time to think and review the situation in his head. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and thought about the day ahead of him.

CHARMAI

Charmai leaned against a boulder by a lake that had been her home for ten years. For the first time in a decade, she was dressed in something other than the dress she had been killed in: today she wore pants, a boy’s tunic, and a cap with her hair tucked in. Marks of dirt had been added to her face to complete the wild look she was going for. She hummed a song she used to sing while she were still alive, a song about bravery. But Charmai was feeling anything but brave.

In a short amount of time, she would confront the man who had killed her ten years ago. His killing of her was so spiteful and brutal that it locked her to the lake she had died in, as well as the land around it.

He beat and drowned her, tying her unconscious body to a heavy stone which he released into a forest lake. That same rock had been used to bloody this offender moments earlier: Charmai had (miraculously) picked it up from the forest floor in self defense, using it to smash her opponent in the face. But this was not enough to thwart the man who wanted to punish her for denying his romantic advances. This man went by the name of Lord Cormac.

Cormac’s spite and hatred attached itself to that stone, and the stone was attached to Charmai. Charmai died and drowned, but still woke up at the bottom of the lake, where she was trapped for a ten year period.

Eventually, with the help of a rock elf who lived by the shore of her grave, Charmai was able to free herself of the stone and emerge from the water. But she still remained captive to the land and the lake where she had died. She longed to be free. And the only way to free Charmai, according to the rock elf who saved her? To attach another soul to the same rock, and leave them in the same lake. And the soul she chose to drown was the only one who deserved such a fate: Lord Cormac.

She had the help of her young friend, Isaac, who knew of Charmai’s predicament and was still young enough to believe in the magic that bound her. Together they made a plan to trap Cormac, and today was the day they’d put their plan into action. Part of that plan involved Charmai looking like Isaac, and this morning he had dropped off an extra set of his clothes to help achieve this effect.

While Charmai wasn’t very tall for a girl, she certainly wasn’t as little as an eight year old boy. Isaac’s pants came just below her knees and the boy’s tunic came to her elbows. Could this plan actually work?

Looking at her reflection in the lake, her face did look a bit like the boy’s, but not enough to fool anyone up close.

No, the only thing Charmai and Isaac really had going for them was Charmai’s voice: gifted as she was with song and storytelling, Charmai was able to manipulate her voice to sound more like Isaac’s.

They tested this vocal mimicry on Matthew, the rock elf who saved Charmai, and who also happened to be friendly with Isaac. Matthew would usually appear when Isaac called for him, so Charmai cried out “Matthew” in her best imitation of Isaac’s voice. Sure enough the elf appeared. The small creature was halfway changed into a tiny nightgown and his little undergarments were showing. Flustered, and trying his best to cover himself, Matthew demanded, “What is it, boy?” Charmai and Isaac laughed with excitement and mischief when they saw that their trick was successful (and when they saw Matthew in his skivvies). Matthew looked at their giddy faces, and disappeared himself once he realized he was the butt of some sort of trick.

Charmai hadn’t laughed so hard since - well, since she had been alive. Isaac had been responsible for most of the joy she had experienced recently.

Oh, sweet little Isaac. It wasn’t fair for him to be tied up in all of this. He was a kind, albeit odd boy, who for some reason made it his mission to help a forgotten dead girl. Her renewed sense of hope, her drive to release herself from her predicament, was due in large to Isaac and his determination to free Charmai. Feelings of guilt about Isaac layered on top of her feelings of fear for Cormac, and Charmai was overwhelmed. She wanted to get up and pace. She wanted to scream. She wanted to be anywhere but here by this lake, but the lake was the only place she was allowed to be.

With her nerves and thoughts everywhere, she took a deep breath and made a choice to be still. She needed to conserve her energy and she needed to control her nerves. She focused on the task at hand, which was waiting. But her head continued to race to what came next, and what was at stake if they failed.

CORMAC

First the boy comes, then we go to the forest, then I take the stone home. Then I live forever.

Cormac reviewed the situation over and over in his mind.

Supposedly, all Cormac had to do was follow this little boy, pick up a stone in the forest, and carry it home to his castle. Once the stone passed the threshold of his house, Cormac would be granted eternal life and safety. Apparently some witch had blessed the rock, giving it these powers of protection.

And Cormac needed to be protected. After decades of inflicting harm to others, and taking things that did not belong to him, Cormac had become famous in his village for the wrongs he had committed. He was smart enough to realize there was a mark on his back, and plenty of people with reason to seek revenge on this noble creature. Cormac needed safety. He needed control. And finally, he would have it. But something didn’t seem quite right.

His breath picked up pace as he turned the situation over again in his mind. He searched for what bothered him, what made him feel … fear. He hated to admit it, but it was fear that he felt.

As he stood - eyes closed and deep in thought - a woman entered the clearing in front of the forest entrance and was startled by the site of Lord Cormac. She had heard stories about him stalking young women and insisting on romance. There was one particular story about him following a girl into the woods, a girl who was never heard from again. Suddenly, the woman found herself alone with this predator. She stopped in her tracks, dropped whatever she were carrying, and ran back towards civilization.

Cormac sensed the woman near him, but he let her go. In his younger days he would have given up his current pursuit to follow her, but today was not about that. So he remained where he was, listening as she dropped her belongings, listening as her urgent footsteps took her away from him. Her panic rejuvenated him. She reminded Cormac that even in his middle age, he was still feared. So he should have nothing to be afraid of. And yet…

First the boy comes, then we go to the forest, then I take the stone home. Then I live forever. Could it really be that easy? First the boy comes, then we go to the forest…

Cormac reviewed the situation over and over in his head.

ISAAC

A little forest urchin named Isaac ran through the woods, jumping over rocks and navigating around trees. It was the time of day when the light is bright yellow. And Isaac knew “bright yellow” meant “a bit after 3 o’clock.” He had to be at the forest entrance by 4:00, and had plenty of time to get there. But still he ran.

His nerves were big and this surplus of energy propelled him faster than he remembered ever running before.

Charmai said she was confident about the plan they laid out, but Isaac had a feeling that she was putting on a brave face for him (just as Isaac was putting on a brave face for her). He knew what was at stake, and he knew there was a lot that could go wrong. If Cormac were to catch them in their lie, with all of his strength and fury…

Isaac ducked under a low branch which snagged the cap he was wearing, and almost took it clean off before he secured it back on his head. He wasn’t used to wearing a cap, but it had a purpose. It was part of their plan.

Isaac’s bare feet hitting the earth made a rhythmic pattern, and in his head he repeated the speech he would recite to Cormac once he met him at the forest entrance:

“Honorable Lord Cormac, I am here to take you to yon stone. If you are able to pick it up and carry it back to your household, the Old Witch of the lake will grant you eternal protection and eternal life. I swear upon it so’s long as I am a boy of the woods. Follow me, and enjoy eternal livin’.”

The plan seemed simple enough. Greet Cormac at the entrance of the woods, say the speech, bring him to the stone where he’d meet Charmai dressed as Isaac, and Isaac, now in hiding, would do his part to fell the giant man…

There really was nothing to be nervous about, no, not at all. Isaac and Charmai had planned it all out. And Isaac had decided to arrive at the forest entrance early, giving him a further advantage. He’d have time to calm down and become comfortable before Cormac had a chance to arrive. Everything was under their control.

But as Isaac reached the edge of the forest he saw Cormac was already there, watching the young boy as Isaac ran toward him. Cormac had arrived earlier than early, and he had fixed his gaze on Isaac before Isaac even knew that he was being looked at. Then Isaac noticed that there were two foot soldiers there, the same ones he’d spoken to about the stone in the first place. Isaac had told them both that they weren’t needed for the journey to the woods, but here they were. The plan hadn’t even started yet, and already it wasn’t going to plan. Isaac felt thrown. He felt smaller than small. He was was now only a few paces away from the forest entrance where Cormac stood, and it took every fiber of his strength to stop him from turning around and running away. But Isaac slowed his pace, took a brave breath, and stepped forward to begin what he and Charmai had planned. He forced his voice to be steady, and spoke:

“Lord Cormac, I am here to take you to yon stone, sir…”

The plan had finally begun.

I must have assumed these historic moments would all be positive things, because whenever something terrible happened in the world, it never felt like I was part of some great adventure. In fact, I think all of us Millennials, Baby Boomers, Gen X, Gen Z and even Gen Alpha have had our fill of history making moments. We’ve watched people lose basic human rights, we’ve watched innocent people be attacked and killed, we’ve watched wars unfold. And the aftermath of this senselessness and ignorance just seems to be more senselessness and ignorance. The gains made in the Feminist, Civil Rights, LGBTQ, and Environmental movements (and additional movements that I don’t know well enough to mention) are being repealed.

I feel the most disappointing, the most terrifying thing to witness is this second wave of a Nazi movement; a second wave of Jim Crow laws;* a third, fourth or fifth wave of KKK activity (but did it ever really go away).

A family friend of mine who is American, a Veteran, and a Deputy in Arizona was recently detained by ICE, likely targeted because he isn’t white. In his words:

“The day it happened was a sobering experience, thinking it could never happen to me ‘cause I am in Law Enforcement and I’m a Puerto Rican, born in the Bronx. [My] first thought during the event was how am I going to get word out to my wife if they do some stupid shit? Even when I showed them my badge and agency ID, they treated it like something that was made up. Only after my direct supervisor was contacted is when we were released.”

Families are being divided, deported, enslaved. Protestors and innocent bystanders are being attacked and killed. Secret police are waiting outside of schools and places of worship, targeting immigrant children and parents.

When I think about it, life in America turned out to be very similar to the adventure trilogies I loved so much as a kid: like Indiana Jones, we have to fend off Nazis. Like the Rebel Alliance in Star Wars, we are oppressed by the Republic. Like Marty McFly, our sworn enemy is an orange, political megalomaniac with bad hair.

But we aren’t Indiana Jones, Princess Leia, or Marty McFly. So what do us regular, non-movie-protagonist people do? What is the answer to all this? Is there an answer to all this?

The answer I keep coming back to (for myself) is that I have to keep pursuing my journey. And I think that goes for all of us, whether we are artists, teachers, creators, doctors, lawyers, etc., because right now the world needs art, compassion, healers, and defenders. I also feel I can use my journey (and the writing skills I’ve picked up along the way) to speak up about what’s going on in the world, to inform, and share perspectives.

If you are searching for answers and if you are feeling helpless, I encourage you to reach out to my Spiritual Teacher, Guru Enlightment, who is a tremendous guide and resource. Her guidance is always free and she can help you on your journey. Guru is the one to always remind me (and her other students) that we must NEVER give up on our journeys, no matter how chaotic the world may be.

If you feel the need to speak up and act up in these dangerous times, that’s amazing but please take precaution - especially if you are a woman or a parent.

Below I’ve shared some resources for immigrants, Native Americans, other US Citizens and protestors, in case any of you reading this and are looking to get informed. I’ve also shared a link to Guru’s website.

Thank you to everyone on social media for speaking up and sharing your information and outrage. Thank you to my Spiritual Teacher for always reminding me to follow my journey, no matter what.

Peace and love. Be safe.

*I first heard the ICE tactics compared to the Jim Crow Laws from @kikiraereal on tiktok.

YOU ARE BEING HARASSED BY ICE. NOW WHAT?

IMMIGRANT RIGHTS
***never sign anything***

NATIVE AMERICAN RIGHTS

CITIZEN RIGHTS

PROTESTOR RIGHTS

HOW TO HELP

GETTING SPIRITUAL HELP