Authors Note: after my first story had been so grim with its descriptions of mass genocide, I wanted to write something light hearted and fun but which actually asked the question-‘what COULD humans actually do to compete in the universe; what do we do have that IS actually possibly a unique weapon?’ So I wrote this. Still ended up with mass genocide but we can laugh about it...
Transcript of broadcast; SNN News Hour; Special report; Broadcast Live 8:03pm EST June 19th 2089; SNN Host Meredith Walker presenting Transcript begins 6 seconds in:
Meredith Walker: ...thank you for joining us here as we continue our coverage of the first annual Victory Day celebrations with SNN’s exclusive interview with all three ‘Heroes of the Liberation’. They have not been seen in public since Victory Day itself and we are very honoured to have them all here.
SNN News Hour Ident; return to studio
Meredith Walker: So on my right is Dr Li Huning, Head of Xenobiology at the University of Beijing, former member of the U.N.A.L.C. and recently appointed member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo of the People’s Republic of China...
Dr Li Huning: Hello Ms. Walker
Meredith Walker: Of course we have Admiral Sir William Patterson, of the British Royal Navy, named by Time Magazine ‘the greatest military genius in human history’ and newly appointed Commander in Chief of the Allied Earth Interstellar Fleet...
Sir William Patterson: Thank You Meredith. Good evening everyone.
Meredith Walker: And finally we have Yolanda Yaltzer, writer, director, producer, fashion designer, social media influencer and author of the best selling book ‘Don’t you screw with me alien boi’
Yolanda Yaltzer: I am like stoked to be here right now. Like we are actually talking to like the ENTIRE world? That’s wild!
Meredith Walker: Thank you Miss Yaltzer
Yolanda Yaltzer: Call me Yo-Yo as in the Haus of Yo-Yo. That’s my new fashion range name by the way.
Meredith Walker: Indeed. Thank you. Now before we start a brief reminder of the achievements of the Three Heroes and our glorious victory...
(Video segment; 6 minutes long; video ends; commercial; end of commercial Meredith Walker reintroduced the three)
Meredith Walker: So, I have to ask- 26 years ago- 2063; where were you when the invasion took place?
Yolanda Yaltzer: Like OhMYGawd, I was in bed. So, I was at High School but was at home that day cos I had mono. My family lived in San Fernando and I remember seeing those spaceships on TV and was all ‘Am I tripping balls?’ cos I was like worried the mono was making me all freaky...
Sir William Patterson: I was at also at my parents home when they arrived. We lived in Wiltshire. I’d just graduated from Queens Cambridge.
Meredith Walker: So you were not a member of the military back then Sir William?
Sir William Patterson: Far from it. I was a newly minted holder of a masters in 18th Century European Literature. I joined the Royal Navy a week after our surrender. Many people joined their militaries after that back then.
Yolanda Yaltzer: You know what’s weird? I’ve liked watched EVERY single Hollywood movie ever made about aliens invading Earth and like they ALWAYS show space ships over America and shiz. But when it happened? They all freaking appeared over China! Like China! No offence Doc. But I think we were not prepared for the reality of an alien invasion.
Sir William Patterson: Well, they targeted the top 24 largest cities on Earth as you know and only New York made that list; China ended up with six ships hovering above them and India had five, with Lahore being close but...
Dr Li Huning: I was in Shanghai when they arrived
Yolanda Yaltzer: No! Freaking! Way! You never told me that Doc! Gee, you think you know a guy...
Dr Li Huning: I remember the panic. The vast leviathan above us. Its immensity. I knew then, I think we all knew then, that there would be little fighting. Their sheer size. The absolute power of them.
Meredith Walker: Indeed Doctor. And three weeks later Prime Minister Akoshi of Japan surrendered on behalf of the human species. Some feel that he acted hastily, unilaterally, that we should have at least tried...
Sir William Patterson: No, I’m sorry Meredith, but that’s revisionism. We had then, as now, no weapons capable of combatting the Vorton. I’ve seen what their ships can do. We would have been annihilated.
Dr Li Huning: Akoshi was Prime Minister of Japan and Tokyo was the largest city in Earth. The Vorton believed it was the main centre of human life. They insisted upon him representing all humans. My government, all governments, agreed.
Meredith Walker: The North Koreans didn’t.
Sir William Patterson: And that’s why there is no North Korea anymore Meredith.
Dr Li Huning: What happened there convinced us all. All governments. It was pointless fighting them. Akoshi was just unlucky to be the man who had to kowtow.
Meredith Walker: And with that, as we all know, the occupation began...
Dr Li Huning: It was hardly an occupation Miss Walker. Only a handful of Vorton ever came to Earth.
Meredith Walker: You met with the Vorton very early on didn’t you Dr Li?
Dr Li Huning: Yes. My position then was Head of Astrobiology at University of Shanghai. My government felt this would give me some insight into the creatures. So I was asked to join the United Nations Alien Liaison Committee in Geneva. We alone would meet with the Exarch and it’s three advisors.
Yolanda Yaltzer: And Vorton were like SO freaky. First time I actually met one? Half of me wanted to scream and half of me wanted to hurl. Like super-chunks. They were so large and weirdly shaped. Kinda like some kinky dildo.
Meredith Walker: The first nine years then of the occupation...
Dr Li Huning: Again. Not an occupation. We humans had submitted. We were a client planet for the Vorton Ascendency. One of a dozen such planets. They demand we provide whatever they wished for and in return for allowing them take it we would be left alone.
Meredith Walker: But members of the race would travel to earth to destroy large parts of the planet, the operations they carried out...
Dr Li Huning: When they stripped mined Alberta? Only five Vorton operated those machines. They sought the shale gas, informed us of their intention, landed, and took it. Five Vorton, two machines. Not an occupation.
Meredith Walker: But they destroyed over 43 million hectors of virgin wilderness...
Dr Li Huning: I do not justify what they did. Nor try to present it in a way other than what it was. We had encountered an alien species many times more powerful than us. They could have destroyed the human race in a moment. We just complied because we had no choice.
Meredith Walker: And yet critics maintain an active resistance would have dissuaded them from doing such things.
Sir William Patterson: Those critics are idiots.
Meredith Walker: Harsh words Sir William.
Sir William Patterson: Yes they only had a handful of Vorton on Earth but they only NEEDED a handful. They were a hive mind. What one saw they all saw.
Dr Li Huning: Many, even today, say we should have killed isolated Vorton as a sign of resistance. This would have been foolish. If we killed one the whole race would know.
Meredith Walker: But those critics insist that had we acted fast enough...
Dr Li Huning: They do not understand quantum biology Ms Walker. Those critics brandish ideas around like ‘a bomb acts quicker than the speed of thought’. These ideas are foolish. Vorton minds were linked in a much more complex way. Complex Quantum entanglement captured in biological form. If we killed one the entire species would know of its death. Instant communication over a dozen planets.
Yolanda Yaltzer: Like, can you IMAGINE taking a dump and EVERYONE knows your dropping? Like GAWD!
Sir William Patterson: I must echo Dr Li’s words here Meredith. The Vorton species was, until recently, the most formidable race in the galaxy. A collective hive mind, driven by a single purpose. I dedicated my life to fighting them as you know, and have been told I helped defeat them. Well then, with those credentials allow me say- Those critics who wish we had done more those first ten years or so, they do not know what they are talking about.
Dr Li Huning: The Vorton didn’t occupy us. They took what they wanted and left us alone. They desired all subject races be useful for them is all. We were not and until we could be, our planet was judged useful. This was why they took the shale and the copper and the zinc...
Meredith Walker: Useful. Interesting choice of words Dr Li. You refer, of course, to the Paris experiments?
Dr Li Huning: I was not involved in those projects.
Meredith Walker: But you knew off them?
Dr Li Huning: The Liaison Committee approved of the attempt to see if humans could connect to the Vorton hive mind.
Meredith Walker: Even at the cost...
Dr Li Huning: All those who died were volunteers.
Yolanda Yaltzer: Ohhhhhh the brain melting? Oh that was SUPER gnarly. I saw pictures of that stuff after I got security clearance. Like we are talking Mr Bufu! I mean Lord-God-King-Bufu. It was as grim as balls.
Dr Li Huning: Human brains could not merge with Vorton. We had the base structure but in their words their brains were a million times more complex. We were not as useful to them as our planet was. We would not be seen as useful until after the creation of the films.
Meredith Walker: Now that leads us onto a subject many are curious about. The Human-Vorton film industry. Dr Li- how did it all start?
Dr Li Huning: I would ask Miss Yeltzer, she was the most successful exponent of it.
Meredith Walker: Yes but who was it who brought her in- whose idea it in the first place?
Dr Li Huning: You misunderstand. We did not bring Miss Yeltzer into this. She brought us into it.
Meredith Walker: Miss Yeltzer?
Yolanda Yaltzer: Hel-Lo! Yeah. Oh I know this one. So it’s likes SUPER convoluted. But like really if you gotta pick a day when the whole thing started it’s when those cops in India like raided that call centre...
Meredith Walker: India?
Yolanda Yaltzer: Yah. There was this guy, some minor dweeb working there, real sweaty cubical meerkat, and he was making memes about the Vortons in his work time. Like super weird stuff, little animated films of Vortons screwing elephants. Cos like they were SO large.
Dr Li Huning: This part of the story has not been declassified yet Miss Yaltzer.
Yolanda Yaltzer: Oops. My bad.
Dr Li Huning: Miss Yeltzer refers to a raid carried out by the Mumbai police force on a warrant issued by the Liaison Committee in Setember 2072. A series of short animations about the Vortons had began appearing on the internet, each growing in extreme content. We worried that if even one of the Vortons saw them they would all know and we would face an overreaction so we ordered the creator arrested.
Meredith Walker: Sir William? You were not involved in this at the time?
Sir William Patterson: No, I was simply a junior officer in Whitehall at the time. It’s all Yolanda.
Yolanda Yaltzer: So like I was there yar? I was freakin Ground Zero. Like not in the raid in India, obviously BUT... well I was working at a SPFX company in LA at the time. I’d graduated from the animation department at UCLA by then and like EVERYONE went there to work for Pixar and I was like ‘no way I’m gonna work for the damned mouse’. So I ended up at this little place that specialised in high end late stage rendering of CGI. And like someone sent us a copy of the Indian meme animations. And immediately I was like ‘WHOAH DUDE!’ Cos I could see there was something special.
Meredith Walker: What drew you to it?
Yolanda Yaltzer: The detail. Like whomever rendered the image- he’d SEEN a Vorton up close. Not on TV but in the flesh. They rendered it really well. Like, maybe cos of the nature of their bodies but it was easier to cross the uncanny valley with Vorton than with humans.
Meredith Walker: Cross the uncanny valley?
Yolanda Yaltzer: Oh yar. So when we do computer generated people on screen there is always that little thing that makes them look off. It isn’t much but we can usually always tell- that’s not a fricken human yeah? But Vorton have much more simplistic facial features. They like are easier to render on screen and make look real. To then anyway.
Meredith Walker: So what led you to make that first film?
Yolanda Yaltzer: Well, I’d JUST dumped this guy, he was like a yoga instructor from San Diego, and he was super into Tantra, but like, not willing to BE in the moment. And so I was like ‘no way is it worth trying to get him to actualise his feelings’ so I’d dumped his ass and I went on this super big creative trip and so was all up in my desire to make something. So I used those animations and improved on them. Improved on them a LOT.
Meredith Walker: What inspired you to make a film with an all Vorton cast?
Yolanda Yaltzer: Like it was easy. I could use the template from the Mumbai animation and just adjusted it. Did a short film about two Vorton encountering an automated food vendor. You KNOW how fustrating those things are- you have to be SO precise. So I did this short film about two Vorton trying to get it to work.
Meredith Walker: Entirely computer generated?
Yolanda Yaltzer: Obviously. Its not like I could like ASK a Vorton to show up.
Meredith Walker: And the language barrier?
Yolanda Yaltzer: I used a standard translation matrix. Their language was pretty basic.
Meredith Walker: Professor- why was Miss Irwins animation accepted and the previous ones not?
Dr Li Huning: Miss Irwin’s short film was not mocking Vorton. If anything it mocked the weakness of human AI. It was satire on our technology. The Vorton came across as very realistic, disdainfully trying to work out how to fathom something even we humans had issues with.
Meredith Walker: Is this why you decided to show the Vorton delegation the film?
Dr Li Huning: Partly. Also we were desperate. We wanted to distract them. They were talking about a new quota. 186 million tonnes of hardwood. They were after the Indonesian rainforests. All the Indonesian rainforests. Everyone was trying to find a way for us to be ‘useful’ for them. Any idea was being considered. I saw a copy of Miss Yeltzer’s short film and decided to show it to them.
Meredith Walker: And their reaction?
Dr Li Huning: They enjoyed it.
Meredith Walker: The Exarch and his advisors?
Dr Li Huning: No, all of them. The entire species. The Vorton hive mind. Four watched it, 23 billion enjoyed it. They wanted more.
Yolanda Yaltzer: And hey presto- 2074, the Human Vorton Entertainment industry was born. You’re welcome humanity.
Meredith Walker: Which leads us to the question that many have asked over the years- why DO you think they enjoyed our movies so much?
Yolanda Yaltzer: Oh GAWD so many reasons. Partly it was like you know, we had been making films for SO long. Like Hollywood was SO good at it..
Dr Li Huning: The Vorton had never needed visual portrayals of themselves Ms Walker. They communicated with themselves instantly after all. So seeing themselves on a screen was a novelty for them.
Sir William Patterson: And our film industry was merely a continuation of a long tradition of story telling, humans have been creating stories for centuries, thousands of years, after all.
Yolanda Yaltzer: TOTALLY! I mean like we forget- we watch some Hollywood movie and are all like ‘its derivative and commercial’ blah blah. We forget like movies are just an extension of the human need to create narratives so as to find a sense of the freakin’ numinous. To get a small hit of what the Vorton got on a daily. Since the first ever dramatists, Kālidāsa in India, Aristophanes in Ancient Greece, narrative tales had been man’s attempt to create meaning.
Meredith Walker: Er...
Yolanda Yaltzer: Humans seek desperatly to connect with one another. That dude Huxley said we are all ‘island universes’ you know? Each consciousness profoundly trapped within our own minds, desperately seeking commonality of experience. It’s why we are drawn to fictional tales. We want to find a sense of empathy, of connection with one another. Movies and books and all our stories were like the Vorton hive mind. But basic you know. Like super basic. Yet even the most crude low budget film is an attempt to unite us as a species. Take porn.
Meredith Walker: Porn?
Yolanda Yaltzer: Oh yar. Perfect example. Everyone who clicks on porn? Bottom line their need is to see something that makes them go ‘I want that to be me’ or ‘I want to make that happen’ yar? So like porn is just like reading something weird like Lord of the Rings but without the need to imagine yourself with pointy ears.
Meredith Walker: I had not...
Yolanda Yaltzer: Ultimately, we had been making films and doing books, hell just telling stories for aeons and it was all a low-key attempt to replicate the advanced central intelligence and experiences of the Vorton. We humans are alone and through stories and narratives seek to create constructs that allow us unite as a species. So given we had been doing that for freakin CENTURIES it meant we had such a head start when it came to translating such ideas into a moving visual medium that we were easily able to adapt to facilitate complex, nuanced and sophistication empathic responses within an alien audience.
Meredith Walker: Well. I don’t think our viewers have ever heard such an explanation... Er...
Sir William Patterson: You know, despite how Yolanda is portrayed in the media, she does have an IQ of 163.
Dr Li Huning: Yes. She would have a doctorate now if she would only maintain her studies.
Yolanda Yaltzer: Please Doc. Academia is like super boring.
Meredith Walker: Moving on, Professor? So Yolanda’s theory that human films replicated Vorton hive thinking was the reason they liked them?
Dr Li Huning: Partly. There was also a fascination with moving images of them. Vorton had a mixed sense of self. They do not exist as individuals. They are Collective. So seeing a Vorton always meant knowing a Vorton. ‘They’ and ‘me’ are one. Until they saw images of Vorton on screen. These high resolution computer images looked like them highly accurately but they could not connect to them telepathically. It intrigued them. They would focus on the images with all their attention.
Sir William Patterson: And this is where language became crucial.
Meredith Walker: How so Sir William?
Sir William Patterson: The Vorton had never developed a native language. They had not needed to. Since the species evolution they had communicated telepathically. This had allowed them evolve into apex predators on their home world. Had facilitated their technological ascendency. They only created the spoken Vorton language to communicate with the dozen client Worlds they conquered. They invented language so as to talk to non telepaths.
Dr Li Huning: Yes and the language was, by their standards, simplistic and crude. After all, all other species were crude by their standards. Yet in this simplicity lay the potential for vast amounts of systemic resonance.
Meredith Walker: Systemic resonance?
Sir William Patterson: Consider it this way Meredith. Suppose I say the word ‘blue’ to you. What comes into your mind?
Meredith Walker: The colour blue.
Sir William Patterson: Right. But someone else may think automatically of the sky. Or the ocean. Or the wallpaper in their nursery.
Yolanda Yaltzer: Totally. It’s dependent upon the individual. Like I hear ‘blue’ and I think of the music of Robert Johnson and BB King and the blues...
Sir William Patterson: Someone may think of the uniforms of Union soldiers in the American civil war. Others will think of cold. Or sadness.
Dr Li Huning: A person from China would hear the word and think of wood or immortality or spring...
Yolanda Yaltzer: Exactly, or be like ‘oh GAWD that blue dress Shawna was wearing last week made her ass look SO fat’...
Sir William Patterson: But each link, each connection we can infer from the word is kept within our minds, these ‘island universes’ as Yolanda said.
Dr Li Huning: But the Vorton shared all these connections with one another in real time. You say blue to a Vorton and they would instantaneously have all these thoughts and connections at once, even divergent ones and be able to reconcile these divergent reactions all within moments.
Sir William Patterson: By using their simplistic language we could communicate vast amounts of meaning.
Yolanda Yaltzer: It made writing scripts SUPER easy you know? Who needs careful dialogue to show a growing attraction between two Vorton? Just have one say ‘Meal. Tomorrow. Together?’ and they would fill in the blanks with like a billion variations and ideas and so forth. Not that they understood romance.
Dr Li Huning: This was why for the next 12 years we humans provided films and entertainments for the Vortons. Which they rewarded with payments. Usually in the form of gold.
Meredith Walker: And the Vorton just accepted these films without reservations?
Yolanda Yaltzer: Have you SEEN the size of my mansion?
Dr Li Huning: There were suspicions at first. But Miss Yolanda and a few others could produce movies showing Vortons doing things and saying things which they would watch with utter fascination. Their collective minds would fill simplistic plot and narrative with vast amounts of context, subtext and culture detail we could never guess at. Our films entertained them. And we would make sure they fit within world views the Vorton approved. We earned trust and became useful.
Meredith Walker: And on that note we need a word from our sponsors. We will be right back...
(Cut to advertisements; upon return video segment of clips of films targeted at Vorton audiences between 2077 and 2087 including ‘Destemper’ (YoYoFilms 2078); ‘Encounter on Farjo’ (UniversalWarner 2080); ‘The Enral Connundrum’ (YoYoFilms 2083; Winner Best Visual Effects; Best Sound Editing Academy Awards) and ‘Isolation’ (YoYoFilms 2086; Winner Best Adapted Screenplay; Best Director; Best Film Academy Awards)
Meredith Walker: Isolation was your biggest hit wasn’t it?
Yolanda Yaltzer: Oh MY Gawd. They adored it. The story of one of their own cut off from the hive mind by mysterious alien tech and battling his way back to connect to his own people? They fricken LOVED that. So did the Academy Awards! But like I didn’t have to blow anyone to get liked by the Vortons!
Meredith Walker: Sir William when did the military become involved?
Sir William Patterson: We were monitoring the growth of the entertainment industry from the earliest days but we only seriously became involved in 2083.
Meredith Walker: And you led that involvement?
Sir William Patterson: Eventually, yes. I had developed a theory at the time that the film industry would be useful to us. British Intelligence put me in contact with someone in America and this was how I became involved in Yolanda’s productions.
Meredith Walker: And your first joint project?
Sir William Patterson: ‘Twen’.
(Cut to clip of the film ‘Twen’ (YoYoFilms 2087) The fictional account of the famed warleader of the Vorton species who led their first three subjugations; the clip shows the image of Twen stood before his Legions during the Battle of Nebebabn Station; the image of Twen turns to his soldiers and begins speaking- human subtitles reveal the dialogue; ‘Forward again. Forward siblings. Or neglect the dead. Before now, harmonious being was purpose. Now war. Reject briefly harmonious. Be like a feral Braan....’ clip ends)
Meredith Walker: The Vorton enjoyed Twen?
Yolanda Yaltzer: A fricken understatement lady!
Dr Li Huning: It wasn’t that they enjoyed it. It was that we made it knowing they were about to invade the Gasteibians. It was basically a war movie made just before they went to war. And it actually aided them.
Meredith Walker: Aided them?
Dr Li Huning: The Vorton Exarch informed us that the species watched Twen three times before the attack on Gasteibian. It drove them to a heightened almost fanatical sense of combat readiness. Indeed by all accounts they felt Twen helped them ruthlessly destroy all Gasteiban resistance.
Meredith Walker: And Sir William was involved in making Twen?
Yolanda Yaltzer: Are you kidding me? He wrote the damn script.
Meredith Walker: You wrote the script Admiral?
Sir William Patterson: Not really. Its Shakespeare. Henry V. ‘Once More onto the breach dear friends once more...’. Just simplified it to fit the Vorton language and allowed the words and images inspire their collective mind. They did the rest.
Meredith Walker: But Twen was what convinced your superiors about your theory?
Sir William Patterson: Convinced them? No. But my superiors took my idea to NATO high command and they submitted it to the U.N. Liason Committee.
Dr Li Huning: And I saw the merits in his idea. Yes. I approved the plan. Invited William and Miss Yaltzer to join me in Geneva.
Meredith Walker: And that was how you all started working together then?
Dr Li Huning: On the Werther project? Yes.
Meredith Walker: What made this special?
Yolanda Yaltzer: Well like firstly, the basic set up I gave them was TOTALLY killer. So the opening sequence was gonna be a magnatar crashing into a black hole and there is this massive disruption of spacetime but also at a quantum level and BOOM! The Vortons in our story suddenly found themselves unable to talk with their minds.
Dr Li Huning: The basis for the movie wasn’t scientifically accurate...
Yolanda Yaltzer: Oh PLEASE Doc. It was a disaster movie. No disaster movie is EVER scientifically accurate. It’s all about narrative. Disaster happens. Hero copes. Standard template. Blah blah. And cos we hadn’t like ever made a disaster movie for em before we could use like EVERY trope like cos they hadn’t seen the tropes before. It was ideal.
Meredith Walker: But there was more to the film than that?
Yolanda Yaltzer: Oh yar! That was where sailor boy came in. He insisted we base what followed on some old book.
Meredith Walker: Sir William?
Sir William Patterson: Yes it was imperative we use a novel called ‘The Sorrows of Young Werther’ by Johann Von Goethe. This is the book that established Von Goethe as one of the greats of German literature when it was published in 1774. I tried to tell Yolanda it was imperative we used this book as the basis of the story we were telling...
Yolanda Yaltzer: And I was like NO way. Like sure, I could see that we needed a narrative structure about individuals ‘Cos like all disaster movies do the big ‘arrrgghhhh im dying I’m dying’ routine but always make the story about basically boy meet girl and they get together while everything is blowing up, like ALL disaster movies you know, but this book? Oh GAWD!
Sir William Patterson: It’s one of the greats of European literature.
Yolanda Yaltzer: Its super boring Sailor Boy! Like the protagonist, Young Werther, he is SUCH a fricken Mary Sue. He is SO what the Goethe guy wanted to be. Super super intelligent and super super sensitive. Oh so goddamn sensitive. Like BARF!
Sir William Patterson: The book was chosen for a reason Yolanda...
Meredith Walker: Rumour has it, it was you who solved the creative arguments Dr Li?
Dr Li Huning: Yes. I saw the dilemma- where had two vehicles designed to tell two very differing stories. On the one hand Miss Yeltzer’s desire to use a disaster movie, which we could see would work at providing an exciting narrative structure. But on the other hand we had Williams need to use the novel by Goethe. Which we needed, to fit within his overall plan. At the same time I also saw a need to include narrative elements showing the Vorton coping with their loss of telepathic abilities and wanted images showing them coming together to overcome this as a way of reinforcing Vorton belief systems.
Meredith Walker: So how did you solve these conflicting ideas Dr Li?
Dr Li Huning: I suggested we scrap making a film and turn it into a mini series.
Yolanda Yaltzer: A freakin MINI SERIES. Screw Hollywood- do Netflix. It was great. We could take our time, work in somehow all we wanted.
Meredith Walker: And the Vorton enjoyed it?
Dr Li Huning: They could not get enough of it. The series introduced concepts they had never encountered before. Ideas they had never conceptualised. They would spend days engaged in complex debates based upon the themes we raised. And for the Vorton? Debates that last that long were unprecedented.
Meredith Walker: And they didn’t suspect any ulterior purpose?
Dr Li Huning: They saw us react truthfully. They would invite myself and Miss Yeltzer to their mothercraft in orbit above Earth to answer questions directly from their exarch after each episode on behalf of their species.
Yolanda Yaltzer: It was like a SUPER intense Q and A. Sailor boy came along with us as our bodyguard each time.
Dr Li Huning: And we appeared as what we were. Humans eager to entertain them and engage them.
Meredith Walker: Did you know the show would have the effect it did?
Dr Li Huning: Of course the possibility had been raised by Sir William.
Sir William Patterson: I didn’t KNOW at all. There was a small chance it could happen. That was all.
Meredith Walker: So what was it about that book that made it so important? Its a classic of literature as you said Sir William...
Yolanda Yaltzer: Oh please. Its a crap book. Don’t look at me like that sailor boy. It is. The Sorrows of Young Werther. Gimme a break. It’s all boring exposition. And the central story? So you have this guy Werther and he falls for this hottie but he never says anything cos he is as wet as it comes. And the hottie gets together with this older gentlemen- which is creepy but there it is. And Werther is always hanging around the couple in a super cringe way to ‘win her back’ or some crap like that.
Sir William Patterson: There is a little more to it than that Yolander...
Yolanda Yaltzer: Really? Where? Its insipid. He realises that the chicks Sugar Daddy? He’s ok. The girl he loves? She’s happy. So guess what? He decides it’s in everyone’s best interest to...kill himself.
Sir William Patterson: Seriously, there is a lot more to it, it was part of the Strum und Drang poetic movement and...
Yolanda Yaltzer: What a TOTAL incel! I mean Jebus! But guess what? Uber Incel can’t even kill himself right. He puts some old pistol to his head, pulls the trigger but doesn’t die. So lies there, like his brain’s bleeding out and it’s all woe is me and afterwards this girl and her Sugar Daddy are all sad...
Sir William Patterson: Honestly, it...
Dr Li Huning: There is a degree of accuracy here Sir William.
Yolanda Yaltzer: Thank you Doc. Anyway there THEN follows this huge over the top reaction apparently. Young men all over fricken Europe read this book and start dressing as this character. Like a whole new fashion craze all based on this Werther Incel Guy. Let’s face it- Goethe invented fanboys!
Sir William Patterson: Goethe did NOT invent fanboys.
Dr Li Huning: It could be argued that ‘Werther Fever’ was the first manifestation of what is today called ‘fangirl syndrome’ yes.
Yolanda Yaltzer: ANYWAY- that’s what we had to work into our disaster flick. That! How the hell do we work in that?
Meredith Walker: But you all clearly did?
Dr Li Huning: We were able to harmonise the themes in the novel into conventions the Vorton’s could conceptualise. Human romanticism became Vorton desires for unity; connotations of desire were made into a longing to be re-connect as a species; crucially we showed the Vortons they were not weakened by this horrendous situation but retained agency. It was important they became invested in the story.
Meredith Walker: Because of the Werther Fever Effect?
Dr Li Huning: Because of that, yes.
Meredith Walker: Sir William, you insisted upon the story being used because you of this after effect. Did you hope somehow using the book by Goethe that the Vorton’s would change their minds about us. Sway our conquerors with a good story?
Dr Li Huning: The original made Napoleon a huge fan I have noticed.
Sir William Patterson: Well not quite. Werther Fever erupted across Europe as translations of the novel came out, as Yolanda described, but there was an additional side effect to this. Across Europe there began a series of copycat suicides as these impressionable young men would emulate their hero...
Meredith Walker: So the book inspired suicide?
Sir William Patterson: Not quite. The link between the novel and the spate of suicides that erupted across Europe is still hotly debated within academic circles...
Yolanda Yaltzer: There was a fricken wave of 18th century Incel fanboys blowing their brains out after reading this book I swear!
Sir William Patterson: I felt that perhaps this effect could be replicated to a degree; given the complexity of Vorton psychology, I didn’t expect a simple replication of the impact upon 18th century readers but that was the gist of the plan. I simply weaponised our ability to tell stories.
Meredith Walker: And Professor the hope within the liason committee was that this miniseries would cause some suicides amidst the Vorton race?
Dr Li Huning: No. Given they had once said we humans were but a millionth of them, we earnestly hoped for a much stronger reaction. And we all know the results.
Meredith Walker: The entire Vorton species.
Dr Li Huning: Every last one of them. We imagine it was a cascade effect. The climax of the series, the Vorton version of Werther discovering that the race had lost its telepathic abilities forever and that his furious determination to regain this skill was in fact holding back his species from evolving to maintain their position as dominant was crucial. They had to see him rationalise that he was hurting the species by his continued existence
Sir William Patterson: The aim was to introduce the very human idea of noble sacrifice to the Vorton... you know ‘it’s a Far far better thing that I do now...’
Yolanda Yaltzer: BUT punch it home with a 28 hour lead up designed to get the entire race to identify with one fricken over-sensitive milkbaby. The results? Splat!
Meredith Walker: Splat?
Dr Li Huning: Quantum biological effect. Autopsies reveal the Vorton suffered cerebral implosions as we imagine a cascade effect of the desire to self destruct took over.
Meredith Walker: They willed themselves to death?
Yolanda Yaltzer: Hey- you ever stood on the edge of a drop and gazed down and had that brief urge to just like jump!? Imagine that but that urge amplified by 23 billion people, your entire species thinking it at the exact same time and now imagine just how powerful that urge would become. Splat!
Meredith Walker: None of you seem bothered by the fact you annihilated an entire species?
Yolanda Yaltzer: They had wanted to wipe out the Orangutans. I’d take Orangutans over the aliens who screwed Canada any time.
Dr Li Huning: Ultimately it was about survival. Either we destroyed them or we remained slaves. I have no issue with that.
Sir William Patterson: They were the enemy. And this was the only weapon we could use. We won. They lost. Its war.
Meredith Walker: And Admiral you were able to take control of their ship instantly?
Sir William Patterson: We had spent 18 months carefully studying how they piloted their ships and in the weeks during the serialisation of the show I had familerised myself with the controls yes.
Meredith Walker: Now there are some who feel that there was a degree of calculation in what came next...
Sir William Patterson: The entire Vorton Ascendency was gone. The species was no more. But the 13 subservient planets didn’t know we had just wiped them out. What followed was a strategic decision.
Dr Li Huning: Presidents Lu of China, McKindrick of the United States, and Prime Ministers of Israel, Great Britain, Japan and Indonesia all agree upon us travelling to the Vorton homeworld and taking control of its resources.
Yolanda Yaltzer: I am SO gonna turn that trip into a film...
Dr Li Huning: Miss Yaltzer, much of the operation and the aftermath is still classified...
Yolanda Yaltzer: Doc, PLEASE! Like anyone needs accuracy to make a good movie... of course I’d need to make me and sailor boy have a romance to make it work...
Sir William Patterson: A romance Yolanda? Well I hardly think...
Yolanda Yaltzer: Hey sailor boy. Chill. Its a movie not real life. We both agreed on the way back to remain as sex buddies...
Meredith Walker: And coming up- the new Human Space Empire; one year on- are we ready to rule the galaxy? I’d like to thank my guests for their time...
(Transcripts end)
I could tear open my bosom with vexation to think how little we are capable of influencing the feelings of each other
No one can communicate to me those sensations of love, joy, rapture, and delight which I do not naturally possess; and though my heart may glow with the most lively affection, I cannot make the happiness of one in whom the same warmth is not inherent
The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Hey guys, been re-evaluting my stacking priority and going a different route. so Im putting up most of my stack for sale. I was more of a collector than a stacker and im looking to turn that around.
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Im looking for cash or trades for gold. DUCATs especially. possibly accept cryptos but zelle/PPFF preferred. I dont have venmo or cashApp but could possibly be talked into getting it for large orders.
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$2 risky ship is available for small light orders up to 2 ounces will secure as best as possible.
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All other orders will be $8 shipping in priority flat rate boxes. I have been shipping Agates, Copper, and rocks (Dammit Marie! They're Minerals!!!) for years without a single incident. I pack extremely well. Boxes arrive secured tighter than a ducks ass.
that being said, once its out of my hands and into the possession of USPS I assume no responsibility from then on out. order will be shipped out same day if possible next day for sure.
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Orders over $250 ship free
all orders over $250 will come with a free non-PM gift. what its going to be...who knows. could be a leaf, could be a dollar, could be a ladybug, most likely something much cooler than that.
WARNING! HD PROOF Coming your way: https://imgur.com/a/2fLijZV
timestamp is in last picture.
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Dont like my prices, feel free to shoot me an offer!
PPFF or Zelle preferred. PayPal GS + 3%
NO NOTES!!!!!! absolutely no notes. if there are any notes, funds will be immediately refunded and you will be excluded from all future sale posts.
Cryptos considered but which ones accepted or if accepted at my discretion. Possibly Google pay but not first choice
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Dont bother with chats, Its a pain in the ass and I likely wont see it. PMs PLEASE!!
thank you all for looking.
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products: https://imgur.com/a/2fLijZV
https://imgur.com/gallery/gEmvJOY
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I am heading to bed soon If I dont get back to you im probably sleeping. will get back to you all asap in the order messages were received
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PRODUCT	PRICE	AVAILABLE
1 oz maple leaf assorted years	$30	13
1 oz 2016 RvProof Maple leaf MarkV tank Privy (loose, handled)	$35 SOLD	0
1984 onza Libertad	$35SOLD!	0
2020 Maple leaf	$35	12
2016 Reverse Proof Maple Leaf MarkV Tank Privy full tube of 25 BU 50,000 limited mintage	$1025 free shipping	2
5g PAMP rose	$25SOLD	0
1/20 oz Silver Reverse proof slabbed and graded Maple leaf $1	$75SOLD!	0
1/10 oz silver liberty replica nice toning	$7	8
1/4 oz silver buffalo replica some with nice toning	$10	8
1/2 oz silver Indian head incluse	$15.50	2
1 oz generic holiday rounds	$29	8 PENDING
1 oz international trade unit with panda obverse nicely toned (rare)	$40	1
1 oz copper rounds	$2 risky ship available	2
1oz new millenium group liberty bar. narrow and chunky serialized (low mintage)	$45	2
1 oz Mayan Calendar	$36	1
1 1/2 oz Canada Polar bear	$55	1 SOLD 1 LEFT
1 oz silver town bars in orginal plastic	$29	5
5 oz vintage Silvertown bar serialized	$150 SOLD!	0
5 oz Silvertown bar	$145 SOLD!	0
New Queensland Mint $5 dollar 1991 Hutt River Province Desert Storm commemorative round .999 silver	$35	1
apmex liberty bar with eagle obverse in plastic	$30	1
2000 UNC Britannia (RvProof like) absolutely gorgeous	$45	1
1914 quarter	$12	1
2019 ATB quarter proof set. 99.9% silver box+COA	$80	1
1/2 oz 2018 year of the dog half ounce bar very hard to come by in original plastic	$35	1
2011 gettysburg silver proof quarter 90%	$10	1
2011 Chickasaw silver proof quarter 90%	$10	1
5g PAMP rose low serial number	$25SOLD	0
20g PAMP Fortuna	$SOLD	0
Route 66 Kansas Rainbow arch bridge in custom fit airtite	$40	1
2012 1oz libertad	$35 SOLD!	1
9fine Mint industrial Logo	$29	1
"Float" copper ore. the green one left of the apmex bar. Float copper is virtually pure copper smoothed from glacial till. Hand mined myself in Michigan (will update with weight asap)	willing to trade for gold/silver	1
Copper "Preform" (right front of Apmex bar) manually hammered by ancient native americans of upper michigan, called a preform as this was the first step before being made into spears, knives, etc..	$85 willing to sell or trade for silver	1
Copper Chisel Chip. from Cliff Mine, Keweenaw County Mi. One of the earliest underground mines in america. Hand chiseled from massive underground deposits of pure copper ore in the early 1800s	$10/inch open to trades	20+?
Massive Copper ore personally Mined from Keweenaw county Michigan. very heavy. Will update weight ASAP (behind the Desert Storm round)	$$$$ offers in cash entertained WTT for shiny stuff	1
queens Beast Lion in airtite	$65	1
1 oz Geiger square	$45	1

Hi /Collapse! I have been working on an ongoing project for 5 years now nick-named “[Signs of collapse]”.
I try my best to not make this series into a rant about every little problem or mishap that’s going on. Even in a sustainable society accidents would happen and natural catastrophes would occur, seasons would vary in intensity from year to year and so on. So what I present here is my best attempt at distilling out anthropogenic anomalies.
I define a “sign of collapse” as a negative market externality that the current socioeconomic system for whatever reason hasn’t dealt with and is now ending up hurting people or the ecosystem. I try to pick studies and news that shows the occurring consequences of the current system’s failure to deal with externalities.
You are not the intended audience for this project, you're already agreeing with everything it presents. I post it here so that you can help me spread it and use/reuse the material elsewhere. Also feel free to solve any or all of the mentioned problems, it's fine if you only pick one.
Previous posts:

• Signs of collapse 2020 Q3
  
• Signs of collapse 2020 Q2
  
• Signs of collapse 2020 Q1
  
• Signs of collapse 2019
  
• Signs of collapse 2018
  
• Signs of collapse 2017
  
• Signs of collapse 2016
  

Signs of Collapse 2020 Summary of the Year

Human well-being & non-specific climate change

• 'Past a point of no return': Reducing greenhouse gas emissions to zero still won't stop global warming, study says
• 75% of young want to escape South Korean ‘Hell’
• Coronavirus: Hundreds dead in Iran from drinking methanol amid fake reports it cures disease
• ‘Collapse of civilisation is the most likely outcome’: top climate scientists
• Violence and looting point to food crisis in S.Africa lockdown
• WATCH: Lebanese citizens vent their ire by TORCHING bank, army vehicle, as at least 1 protester shot dead
• "I'm starving now": World faces unprecedented hunger crisis amid coronavirus pandemic
• 'We don't know how it will end': Hunger stalks amid virus - The Mainichi
• Coronavirus-related hunger in the US spikes, with food programs struggling to keep up
• 15 US states now hit by rare inflammatory syndrome impacting children
• Yemen: ‘Hanging on by a thread’, UN chief requests funding to meet staggering humanitarian crisis
• Leaders to UN: If virus doesn't kill us, climate change will
• Global methane emissions soar to record high
• Top Scientists Just Ruled Out Best-Case Global Warming Scenarios
• Residents still without drinking water more than six months after bushfire emergency
• Thousands in Puerto Rico still without housing since Maria
• Hungry New Yorkers form quarter-mile line for free food in Queens
• Workers Keeping Americans Fed Are Going Hungry in the Heartland
• Reports of bizarre menstrual cycles emerge after tear gas exposure from Seattle protests
• UN warns that world risks becoming 'uninhabitable hell' for millions
• As World Teeters on Brink, Over 250 Scientists and Scholars Warn of Full-Fledged 'Societal Collapse'
• Humanity has killed 75% of all wildlife. Like a tumor that becomes metastatic and spreads through the body, so to do humans pervade through every rock and crevice on earth.
• UN: Food has run out for nearly 100,000 refugees in Ethiopia
• Millions of hungry Americans turn to food banks for 1st time
• Ice loss to add 0.4 degrees Celsius to global temperatures: study
• Dreaded Methane Deposits in Arctic Start to Escape; Scientists Warn of Abrupt Climate Change in Future

Economy, Politics & Industry

• Germany has offered companies 'unlimited' loans to stop them from collapsing because of the coronavirus pandemic
• It's not just toilet paper: People line up to buy guns, ammo over coronavirus concerns
• Wife of Spain’s prime minister tests positive for virus
• Canada shuts Parliament, Trudeau in quarantine, no travel
• Coronavirus: Italian army called in as crematorium struggles to cope with deaths
• 'Bolsonaro Out!' From Balconies and Windows, Millions Demand Ouster of Brazilian President Over Handling of Coronavirus
• Tokyo 2020: Olympics to be postponed until 2021, says IOC member
• Coronavirus: Prince Charles tests positive for COVID-19
• Coronavirus measures could cause global food shortage, UN warns
• Boris Johnson Has Tested Positive For The Coronavirus
• Jobless claims soar past 3 million to record high
• Dow drops nearly 3,000 points, as coronavirus collapse continues; worst day since ’87
• Brazilian President Bolsonaro Rejects Calls for Coronavirus Lockdown, Says 'We're All Going to Die One Day'
• IMF officially declares global economic recession
• Hungary Parliament Grants Prime Minister Orban Unlimited Power In Coronavirus Fight
• Coronavirus closes meat plants in Canada and the United States as world’s largest pork producer warns of shortages
• Piglets aborted, chickens gassed as pandemic slams meat sector
• One in five Wendy's is out of beef, analyst says
• 'We may have to ration': US food banks face shortages as demand surges | US news
• Stirrings of unrest around the world could portend turmoil as economies collapse
• Study: 71 percent of jobless Americans didn’t receive March unemployment benefits
• Hungary no longer a democracy: report
• Michigan dam failures force 10,000 to evacuate and could leave one city under 9 feet of water
• China annexes 60 square km of India in Ladakh as simmering tensions erupt between two superpowers
• Trump has officially begun to withdraw the US from the World Health Organization as pandemic spikes
• Coronavirus data has already disappeared after Trump administration shifted control from CDC
• 'Wave of silence' spread around world during coronavirus pandemic | Science
• California severely short on firefighting crews after COVID-19 lockdown at prison camps
• Ontario farmers ‘concerned’ as crops continue to die amid drought: ‘It’s bad’
• ‘I Can’t Keep Doing This:’ Small-Business Owners Are Giving Up
• Yelp data shows 60% of business closures due to the coronavirus pandemic are now permanent
• What You Need To Know About The Battle of Portland
• Camouflaged federal agents have descended on Portland. Trump's DHS is out of control
• Trump Plans to Expand the Federal Invasion of American Cities
• Here's Why Cities Won't Be Able to Stop Trump's Secret Police
• Feds Sending Tactical Team to Seattle, Expanding Presence Beyond Portland
• Coronavirus has fuelled authoritarian trends around the world, Australia's Dfat warns
• The Trump campaign is reportedly 'discussing contingency plans to bypass election results'
• What is water theft, and how big a problem is it?
• Still no country doing enough to meet goals of Paris Agreement, says climate report
• Alleged domestic terrorists used armed protests at Michigan capitol for recruitment
• 17 states tell Supreme Court they support Texas bid to reverse Biden win
• QAnon Supporters, Paramilitary Groups Promise ‘Fight' Over Election At Pro-Trump Rally Near Nevada’s Capitol
• Ethiopia's conflict spills over border as thousands flee
• 250 million Indian workers and farmers strike, breaking world record
• ‘Attack of the debt tsunami’: Coronavirus pushes global debt to record high
• U.S. Officially Leaving Paris Climate Agreement

Police riots in the US

• Shooting of Breonna Taylor
• ‘I Can’t Breathe!’: Video Of Fatal Arrest Shows Minneapolis Officer Kneeling On George Floyd’s Neck For Several Minutes
• The Police Are Rioting. We Need to Talk About It.
• Watch Police Instigate & Escalate All Across The U.S.
• Police actively seeking out fights compilation
• Tug of war over an umbrella sends police into violent frenzy
• We Crunched the Numbers: Police — Not Protesters — Are Overwhelmingly Responsible for Attacking Journalists
• Minnesota police arrest CNN reporter and camera crew as they report from protests in Minneapolis
• After shouting press multiple times and raising my press card in the air, I was thrown to the ground and pepper sprayed while being held down
• Police Shoot Tear Gas Toward MSNBC Crew, Protesters, 'There Was No Warning Whatsoever' | MSNBC
• LMPD officer fires pepper balls at WAVE 3 News reporter, photographer during Louisville protest
• Minneapolis Police shoot reporter and permanently blind her left eye
• Police attack peaceful protestors & press in Washington D.C.
• 'I’m getting shot': attacks on journalists surge in US protests
• Police targeted journalists covering the George Floyd protests
• Police act nice for the media, then turn on protesters once journalists are gone
• Cops sneak up to confiscate & destroy water and other supplies peaceful protestors are using in Louisville, KY
• Video shows police destroying medical station at North Carolina protest [2] [3]
• Austin Police Shoot Teen in Head with Rubber Bullet at Protest
• Police aims rubber bullets at protester with toddler on shoulders
• Protester lost his eye when a FWPD Officer unnecessarily fired a tear gas canister at his head’
• Woman walking home from grocery shot in head by police
• Man shot by police on I street Sacramento 5/30/2020
• San Diego Police Department shot an unarmed woman in the head.
• Woman shot in head with rubber bullet during protest
• Police fire tear gas canister at unarmed man after macing him
• APD gets water splashed on them and immediately fires into the crowd.
• Homeless man in wheelchair shot in head with rubber bullet
• Seattle PD hit a 21 year old female directly in the chest with a stun grenade.
• Cops Pepper Spray Amputee, Steal His Legs
• a girl here was peacefully protesting, after 15 minutes she was maced and kicked
• Unprovoked police fire pepper pellet at protester
• Police fire at people on their porch after shooting ‘light them up’
• 1 week of brutality in 11 minutes
• 190 clips of Police Brutality in the wake of George Floyd's murder.
• Activists Catalog Nearly 600 Videos of Officer Violence Against Protesters

Biodiversity

• More Than One Billion Animals Killed in Australia Wildfires Called a 'Very Conservative' Estimate
• Up to 23 feet long, the Chinese paddlefish was the giant of the Yangtze. And we killed it
• Wildlife destruction 'not a slippery slope but a series of cliff edges' | Environment
• Planet's largest ecosystems collapse faster than previously forecast
• The vultures aren't soaring over Africa – and that's bad news | Environment
• Mass die-offs in marine mammals are accelerating, and climate change will only make it worse
• The pesticide that caused bee colonies to collapse is killing birds now
• 'Staggering loss' of endangered species in Canada
• Survey finds 71 per cent of koala populations died in some NSW fires
• Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US | Environment
• Botswana says toxins in water killed hundreds of elephants
• 40% of world’s plant species at risk of extinction
• 95% of Marine Life on Sea Floor Killed in Kamchatka Eco-Disaster, Scientists Say
• Mass die-off of birds in south-western US 'caused by starvation'

Pests, viruses and bacterial infections

• Locust swarms as big as cities are causing a crisis in Africa as experts warn they could get 400 times bigger
• World Health Organization declares the coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic
• Austria closing schools over coronavirus as border checks take effect
• India quarantines itself from world for a month to fight coronavirus
• Italy closes bars, restaurants and most shops as coronavirus death toll jumps 30%
• Belgium closes schools, bars and restaurants
• Iran has let its covid-19 outbreak get out of hand
• Coronavirus: Spain and France announce sweeping restrictions
• Italians over 80 'will be left to die' as country overwhelmed by coronavirus
• 80% of COVID-19 spreads from people who don't know they are sick
• Coronavirus can survive both hot, humid climates: WHO
• Health official: One person dying every 10 minutes from coronavirus in Iran
• Madagascar confirms first cases of coronavirus
• Just When You Thought Things Couldn’t Get Worse, Neo-Nazis Are Trying to Weaponize Coronavirus India shuts down for 21 days as coronavirus spreads across south Asia
• ‘If the govt doesn’t fix it, we will’: Brazil’s GANGS impose night-time curfews in Rio’s slums
• Coronavirus: At least 59% of cases in Wuhan, China went unreported, study says
• Satellite images show Iran has built mass graves amid coronavirus outbreak
• Intensive care for coronavirus patients now limited to those 'reasonably certain' to survive, NHS London trust admits
• China reports new African swine fever cases in Gansu province
• Ecuador struggles to collect the dead as coronavirus spreads
• Body-bag stocks are running out, suppliers say
• 'The food supply chain is breaking,' Tyson says as plants close
• Russia’s Ambulance Crews Are Running on Empty as They Fight Coronavirus - The Moscow Times
• Coronavirus city branded 'new Wuhan' as corpses pile up in streets
• ‘Murder Hornets’ in the U.S.: The Rush to Stop the Asian Giant Hornet
• Second wave of locusts causing havoc in East Africa
• Worst locust attack in 26 years: All about the latest threat amid Covid-19 outbreak - india news
• Swarms of desert locusts reach Delhi outskirts after Gurugram
• A Deadly Bacteria Kills Olive Trees Across Southern Europe
• Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro tests positive for coronavirus
• A Second Coronavirus Death Surge Is Coming
• WHO sounds alarm as coronavirus cases rise by one million in five days
• Texas battling influx of coronavirus cases: "Our hospitals look like war zones"
• Fauci says outbreak exploding because US didn't shut down
• Trump Tests Positive for the Coronavirus
• Doctors Are Calling It Quits Under Stress of the Pandemic
• ‘There’s No Place for Them to Go’: I.C.U. Beds Near Capacity Across U.S.
• Covid Overload: U.S. Hospitals Are Running Out of Beds for Patients
• COVID-19: French president Emmanuel Macron tests positive for coronavirus | World News
• A flesh-eating bacteria lurking in the ocean is killing people in the Carolinas
• Germany: Plagues of field mice are devouring crops on a massive scale
• Climate change is bringing back long-lost forms of food poisoning
• As Europe's governments lose control of Covid, revolt is in the air | Europe

Coral reefs

• Great Barrier Reef hit by third major bleaching event in five years
• The Great Barrier Reef has lost half its corals within 3 decades
• Australia's Great Barrier Reef status lowered to "critical" and deteriorating

Ice and water

• Jakarta floods: cloud seeding planes try to break up heavy rain | Environment
• The Worst Drought in 40 Years Has Turned Bangkok Tap Water Salty
• Polar ice caps melting six times faster than in 1990s
• 'A third of Bangladesh underwater' after heavy rains, floods
• ‘Doomsday glacier’ in Antarctica melting due to warm water channels under surface, scientists discover
• Ice sheets melting at 'worst-case scenario rate', research warns
• Greenland ice sheet reached tipping point 20 years ago, new study finds
• After Covid, China’s Leaders Face New Challenges From Flooding
• India and Bangladesh floods leave more than 1,000 dead
• Arctic Sea Ice Is Failing to Form, Raising a Huge ‘Red Flag’
• Canada's last intact ice shelf broke off. It took our research station with it
• 'The Arctic Ocean Is Dying': Grim Conclusion as Biggest North Pole Mission Returns

Hurricanes, storms and winds

• At $1.6B, Hurricane Laura did more agriculture damage in Louisiana than Katrina and Rita combined
• The 2020 Hurricane Season Breaks Record For Most Named Storms Ever

Heat waves, forest fires and tree loss

• Canberra's air quality is 'the worst in the world' as bushfire smoke shrouds capital
• ‘It’s Going to Be a Blast Furnace’: Australia Fires Intensify
• Tens of thousands stranded while attempting to flee Australia fires – Cashless economy collapses as ATMs fail, supermarket looted – “We have no capacity to contain these fires”
• May 2020 tied for hottest on record for the globe
• The emergence of heat and humidity too severe for human tolerance
• Arctic records its hottest temperature ever
• There Have Never Been This Many Fires in the Northern Arctic
• Last month was the world’s third-hottest July on record | Living
• About 11,000 lightning bolts strike California, igniting hundreds of fires in a state facing multiple crises
• The worst fire season ever. Again.
• Tens of thousands of fires are pushing the Amazon to a tipping point
• Brazil's Amazon rainforest suffers worst fires in a decade
• Wildfires tear through drought-racked Paraguay amid record heat
• California wildfires spawn first ‘gigafire’ in modern history
• 100,000 under evacuation orders as strong winds fan California wildfire - About 1 million people in the dark as state cuts power to prevent new blazes
• Tens of thousands without power, hundreds evacuated as new fires erupt in California
• September was world's hottest on record
• Australia's Bushfire Season Is Back, With a Whole New Set of Complications
• Paraguay declares state of emergency as forest fires rage
• Colorado wildfires show "climate change is here and now"
• The world's largest wetlands are on fire. That's a disaster for all of us

Pollution

• Plastic dust is blowing into U.S. national parks—more than 1000 tons each year
• Plants absorb nanoplastics through the roots, which block proper absorption of water, hinder growth, and harm seedling development. Worse, plastic alters the RNA sequence, hurting the plant’s ability to resist disease.
• Ozone Destruction Hasn't Gone Away -- It's Merely Hidden Away
• Study finds 14 million metric tons of microplastics on the seafloor
• The number of global methane hot spots has soared this year despite the economic slowdown
• The Ozone Hole Over Antarctica Has Grown Much Deeper And Wider in 2020

This is probably going to be a really long vent... I've just wanted to write a lot down and post it somewhere that it might be heard and just, understood, if that makes sense?... It's a lot so no pressure for anyone to read it. And I'm not asking for advice or help so I don't want anyone to feel pressured to help either, but any kind comments or advice is still welcome <3....
I'm tired. Tired of everything. I'm 19, turning 20 this year. I started taking my gender doubt seriously in Sept of 2018, dropped out of highschool Jan 2019, started HRT August of 2019, tried going back to school the following September and also got a job, but dropped out again and quit the following November when my ex outed me to my mum and I broke up with them...
Since then, for an entire year I've... I've been doing nothing. Nothing but sleeping, sitting around, browsing the web, chatting on discord, playing games or watching shows... I've spent so much time in bed and so much time sleeping but I'm still so, so tired all the time... Even though I've done nothing, I've still just been overwhelmed and put through so much that, idk feels it could have been avoidable but... Idk, the life of someone online is so strange and odd... People tend to joke and say "Lmao how is cyberbullying real, just log off" or "How can internet stuff affect you, it's not the real world?", but it's been my real world for the past year+.
To preface, I've had signs of dysphoria and issues with my assigned gender since I was young. Memories stand out, thoughts, wishes, confusion. I had a dream I was a girl and then taught myself how to lucid dream just so I could be a girl again. I've always been confused about who I'm supposed to be, or what I want to be, or what my sexuality is, or if I can even feel romantic love... I wrote a lot of it out in a letter to my mum a year ago, maybe I should go back and read that for comfort, it's kind of my "proof" that I'm trans, or at least that's how I see it. It's the observable thoughts and feelings I've had as long as I can remember that line up with what it means to be transgendetransexual/whatever. I don't know why I'm like this, I wish I wasn't, I wish I could have just been normal and happy...
To summarize the past 2 years or so, starting September 2019... It's the dumbest thing but, there was a meme in me_irl, back when I used to frequent reddit, and it was the one with the knights pointing their swords at the table, and each sword was a different "_irl" subreddit (I'm sure you can see where this is going). I saw the egg one and thought it was funny memes like the Long Egg or "Don't forget WOWEE! Waller, phOne, Wkeys, Egg, Egg (backup)" type stuff. And when it wasn't, and instead it was tons of relatable jokes and memes, all the thoughts I had when I was younger and the memories of lying awake at night making wishes all came back to me. It's not that I had forgotten them entirely, I just had decided to ignore them, or not believe in them. The usual, that it was a phase or, it was just a fetish, ect ect. But seeing all the egg_irl memes made me feel like that was the wrong decision. Made me feel like it would never go away, like I needed to do something about it sooner than later, or even that it was already too late (I was 17 at the time). So I made a new reddit account (this one), joined lots of trans related subs, started looking for answers, asking questions, trying to figure things out. It was fine at first, honestly. I wish it had stayed that way. I was learning things, feeling things out, I was optimistic about what HRT and transition could do for me, I was kind of happy that there seemed to be more trans people than I had thought. I was open-minded and willing to learn all the stuff I'd never thought down to think about before, different sexualities and genders and such (I wont deny I had that phase of transphobia early where I mocked transpeople alongside my peers because I felt I had to and it was "the norm", and I guess maybe cause I didn't want to be one?... idk). I absorbed a lot, always tried to be kind and understanding, after all this wasn't a community I felt I was a part of yet, just one I was maybe dipping my toes into to see if the water was cold or warm.
Time went on, I at least admitted to myself that I had depression, something I'd been struggling with in the background for several years at that point, told my mom about it too. And all this sudden "trans stuff" had definitely made my depression worse. I stopped paying attention in class because I was busy on my phone trying to learn and figure out what I was and what I was supposed to do about it. With my mum's help I saw a doctor, got diagnosed with major depressive and generalized anxiety, started trying meds to see what worked, got a therapist for a while, he was really cool and chill but only had like 3 sessions with him before he switched locations or smth... And I dropped out of highschool, second semester of my 12th year. I just couldn't do it anymore, I didn't care about school at all. I had other priorities, and got increasingly depressed and suicidal.
I still was closeted irl at that point, only out online on reddit and to some trans discords I had found. The main one I spent time in was pretty in the middle, which I'm happy for tbh. It was a small community, it wasn't political, people were mostly chill. It was the kind of server that you could jokingly say trap or tranny in without getting instabanned, but it also still had non-binary people and people were often supportive no matter one's situation. (I feel like now there's no servers like that, any support/trans servers are extreme one way or the other, it's either a hyperwoke heccin valid space where 90% of the people are xey/xem DID ADHD Autism Depression Anxiety OCD havers and if you have a "wrong opinion" you are banned and chainblocked by everyone, or it's 4chan-like servers where most of the people are racist and transphobic, repressing and coping with being trans in insane ways)
But anyways.. Things were still oddly okay back then? I met some good friends that are still close friends (and one is my gf now going on a year), I was still in the middle with a lot of things, but I didn't care so much about stuff, I was just focusing on myself and figuring it out yknow? I eventually got close with a classmate and we started dating pretty quickly, they were out as afab transmasc, and on our second date I basically came out to them. They were super comforting and supportive and understanding which was something I never thought I'd have IRL. I thought this terrible secret, that I was transgender, was something I'd have to hide or be hated for. They shared a lot of my opinions about "trans stuff" too which was nice... Despite all that I had mentioned, I still felt very conflicted about the whole "transgender community" stuff. On the outside I was smiling, kind, and always accepting and open minded. But on the inside I was confused, and not entirely sure if I agreed with the things I was nodding my head along to. So me and them would have conversations here and there, where I always was scared they'd suddenly turn on me and hate me, but surprisingly they were chill and either agreed or disagreed but made conversation out of it, not arguments. They did describe themselves as "transmedicalist" and struggled with a lot of dysphoria, upset with the non-binary community and how many people in it weren't "actually trans". As much as I could understand their anger at the time and I had thought similar thoughts, but I didn't like the idea of so much negativity towards strangers, energy wasted being upset. Again I was very closeted and had very little experience interacting with most of the online trans communities. What they were upset about didn't affect me (at the time..) because I was just focused on myself and figuring things out. I still didn't think of myself as LGBTQ.
Time went on, I contacted a non-profit in my city and slowly got some support, all while lying to my parents everytime I went out. I talked to some people irl, the gender therapists they had there. Then I got a letter of recommendation sent to a doctor and waited some more. Summer rolled around. My partner took me shopping to thrift stores, I started trying fem clothes and feeling nice (but also shitty at the same time cause my body wasnt right for these clothes...). Support and kindness and validation from my partner was really important at that time I think, and I'm grateful for it despite what eventually happened. Maybe that's why things feel like they were better back then in comparison... So my life was taking meds, going to school when I was feeling up for it (I was allowed to attend classes still but I was no longer like, in the books. The principal knew me well since I was an "exceptional student" and so she was very kind and wanting to help as much as possible. Being able to go to school and not have to stress but still be able to socialize was good I think...), going to visit my partner (who I hadn't really told my parents about but my mum kinda knew/suspected considering how often I went over to their place and even slept over), and just spending time at home either sleeping or being online.
It was a shitty summer cause when I got a call back from the doctor to finally get an appointment it was a Friday. We had a family trip planned on the Monday. It wasnt strict though, it was our annual cabin place, and everyone had been kinda been doubting if it was a good idea. I could have easily stayed home and just my mom and brother went, but being the person I am I felt guilty and sad and didn't want to hurt my mum's feelings by saying I didn't want to go, so I booked the appointment a week sooner and went.
When we got back home I went to the appointment but, I had kinda been a little sick for 3 weeks at that point. Mild sore throat on and off. I had gotten my bloodwork done before the vacation and when I saw the doctor he said I couldnt start Estrogen yet because he wanted to be "extra safe" cause he thought I had strep based on something in the bloodwork. So my HRT got delayed another week, and then two until I was better... When I was, and I went to book an appointment, the doctor was away on his own vacation for another week.... All those 4 weeks were hell. But eventually I started the usual 2mg E and 25mg Cypro (Canadian). One thing that scared me though was, when the doctor asked me "Why do you want to start HRT?". I knew my reason, it was to alleviate my dysphoria, I wanted my body to change and be more female so that I could eventually pass and live stealth. That's all I'd ever wanted, even back when I was little and wishing I was simply a girl. I hated the idea of "being trans"... But I was afraid to give my reason, because I worried that this doctor might react how some people online would... Something I had started to see within trans communities at this point was that attitude of "You dont need dysphoria to be trans!", or the extremes of "Wanting to pass is transphobic, passing is a cis concept and you're a cis bootlicker. If you're transitioning just to pass then you're doing it for the wrong reasons" (I'm not exaggerating, this is something I had seen a few people here and there say in some servers, on reddit, on twitter...). At the time, I personally saw the debate as more of a misunderstanding, that the phrase wasn't supposed to be interpreted literally and broken down semantically. It was simply broadcasted as a reminder to ease the minds of people early in transition who were doubting themselves. It didn't literally mean "You do not need gender dysphoria in order to be trans!", it just meant moreso "You don't need to be constantly dysphoric 24/7 to be trans, and your dysphoria doesn't have to be as extreme as wanting to cut things off yourself! Feeling affirmed and euphoric from presenting or being seen as your desired gender is also valid!" (Now I feel like that's.... Not usually the case, but I still cling to the cope that it is or else I'll overthink too much and get all frustrated and upset and sad yknow...). So I ended up awkwardly telling the doctor something like "Well, I want it to change my, physical appearance to be more feminine I guess... Ideally I want to just, eventually pass as a woman, b-but! I know that's, not important and I dont mean to suggest that like, all trans people want that or.." and he kinda just interrupted me and was like "Yeah that's fine". I still remember the tiny panic I had when I was asked that, because I was afraid of being "wrong" about what I wanted, or afraid to possibly invalidate people who weren't even in the room. I remember that experience still as an example of how those beliefs and attitudes, and those types of people within the community do affect people and the world (because I sometimes see people to tell me to stop caring or worrying because "those people dont affect you or the real world, or the perception of trans people")...
Now... To rewind a little bit. Earlier in the summer I was in VC in that main server I mentioned, when suddenly a friend who I hadnt heard from in a long time joined. When I had known them they had identified as a trans girl, but now they said they realized they had been "pinkpilled" and were actually a cis male femboy. They were still taking HRT with no plans to stop though. They ended up mentioning a server they ran that was more "edgy" and less restrictive. At the time I was still kinda at odds with myself, both with the usual "being a good/bad person" dilemma I had struggled with for years, and also at this point I was started to see more of the online trans community and, felt like I couldn't put forward thoughts or ideas that might be "wrong" without getting told off. So I asked to join the server. It was a 4chan based server called /femgen/. Right away I adjusted my personality to be all edgy and "cool" to fit in there, cause the owner invited me as like "This is my babytrans friend" type thing. At the time I felt like I wanted this type of space, to explore the side of me that I felt like pushed down. The "mean things" my brain would shout at me but I would never say. I always had a hard time figuring out what thoughts were mine and what thoughts were intrusive or anxiety or just based on my upraising/parents. I was consistently a social chameleon, and always adjusted my likes, opinions, and beliefs based on the group I was around, because I was afraid to be attacked by someone who maybe didn't agree. And this led me to really, not knowing what I actually believed. "For every thought, the opposite thought exists equally" is something that the therapist I had mentioned said when we were trying to put it into words. And it was true. I knew what opinions or beliefs would be seen as good or bad depending on the crowd, so I'd always just opt for the perceived "good" one. I didn't like discourse, it would always affect me too much and just engulf me. Maybe it's just who I am, maybe it stems from some sorta mental disorder like anxiety, but I had already gone through a phase of having pointless arguments with strangers back when I was 15, (tiny dumb things I still remember, like when someone told me I was stupid for thinking a tabletop microphone had better sound quality than the pinhole mic of a pair of Bose earbuds, or when someone started arguing with me because I made a joke about american obesity and they claimed that actually Canada had a bigger obesity problem). And it had only caused me stress and frustration.
So, that new server had become my second active server I used. Again I was dropped out and jobless and spent most of my time online, discord was the entirety of my social life. I did still have my irl friends from HS but I was distancing myself from them because I wasn't out to them. It was the thing where I felt like I was being my "true self" online in these spaces, but irl I was just putting on the visage I had been wearing for years. At the time it felt like I had finally found the right people. The server at the time was a mix of trans women and gnc guys (as well as non-binary people technically, but they called themselves cis femboys). It felt like I didn't really have to act a certain way or an overly feminine way in order to be valid (I hate that word but there's no good synonym so...). I also wasn't afraid to share thoughts I had, or the feelings I felt about being trans and whatnot. But more importantly, the people there were very knowledgeable about HRT. I had done my own research before in February when I was considering DIY, so I was aware of the whole WPATH being outdated and often ineffective. The server even had an HRT channel for all the trans people and the cis males taking estrogen. So I made some friends there and now I felt like I had my two spaces, one where I could be edgy and whatever, and the other where I was always kind and agreeable. I also liked it better because people seemed more honest and realistic. The other server was very hugboxy, and it bothered me a lot. It also affected how I saw myself. I'm sorry but, when a server has a selfie channel where a 30 year old transwoman with drag queen make-up, stubble, and a wig gets called "Cute!" and "Adorable omg!!!", and I post my own selfies where I'm asking how I'm doing in terms of passing and get the same responses... Not only is it not helpful, but it's actually harmful. It made me feel even uglier and devalue myself more because I knew "The people in this server lie in order to not step on toes or hurt feelings", and I wasn’t actually getting any helpful advice or criticism to look more feminine.
Back to irl, I had finally gotten HRT. I had been on SSRI's for several months. The school year was starting again and I felt like maybe I could go back and finish the two classes I needed in order to graduate, so I did. I also got a job at a dinner theatre as a waiteadcast. It was stressful but fun (I was a theatre kid so it felt less like work and more like theatre), and it was okay at first. School was fine as well, I still had my supportive partner to visit and I only had two classes to worry about. I knew HRT was happening in the background now which eased my mind, and as weeks went by I noticed the usual small first changes like sensitive chest and buds, libido and emotional changes, ect ect. I was still closeted irl for the most part, I had come out to my 4 HS friends but that was really it. I still spent a lot of time socializing on discord. I had some freakouts abt "What if my HRT is wrong??" and I worried about being "hondosed", and I was still struggling a lot with depression, so I'd vent in the vent channel there. Since I was in that server, I also started frequenting 4chan's /lgbt/, which I thought was good so long as you ignored the transphobic trolls. It was such a contrast to the trans communities I had been in and seen on reddit, and it felt like the realistic side of the trans community.
Obviously, now having been on both extreme sides, I can say that neither are helpful for questioning trans people, or just… Trans people at any stage. They’re both too far to one side in terms of just, everything. A hugbox and a hurtbox. It’s sad that it’s hard to find an intermediary (I feel like this subreddit does a decent job? It’s good at being that place for people to come to and be honest and question the trans community without having to go to /lgbt/. Obviously sites themselves aren’t 100% one group and it just depends who/what you follow, but for the most part reddit and twitter are dominated by the egg_irl and traaaaaa types). It feels really hard to find people similar who are just, wanting to pass and just be the opposite sex. It’s either people who block me because I indirectly associated being trans with having dysphoria (this really happened…), people who think ALL nb people aren’t real trans people and are like hardcore medicalist, people who sincerely believe in Blanchardism, ect ect… Idk I still kind of float around, like the title says I’m just, I don’t know what to think or believe anymore. It’s just too overwhelming but… I’ll get to that I guess…
Slowly my job got tiring and I guess I got increasingly dysphoric for some reason. At the time, my character was a beatnick stereotype so I talked like a chill hippy and slapped on a fake goatee. I think maybe I just kept thinking about how I wanted to act and do theatre as a woman, not as a man. I had considered maybe coming out at work and doing a female character (I had some people urge me to…) but obviously I knew that was a terrible idea. I didn’t pass and I’d just be seen as a drag weirdo (The servers sometimes crossdressed for a character, but usually it was women dressing as male character which, cause of society n gender roles and such, people never cared or judged and it wasnt something to ridicule, it was just for fun. A woman wearing jeans, a dress shirt, a fake mustache, and a short haired wig and talking in that goofy low dude voice is fine. A man wearing a skirt or dress, makeup, fake tits, long hair, and talking in a stereotypical gay voice is hardly the same…). So that built up, suddenly school felt overwhelming and pointless again too, and then the breaking point was in November, when my ex outed my to my mom… I think the post I made when it happened is still up if anyone is for some reason interested in the details, but TL;DR: I sent my mom a text just saying that “There are things I’m going through that I cant tell you right now, I’m sorry” after being urged by my partner to just communicate something to her cause she was worried about me. I was not at all planning on coming out to my mom, however I did think it was possible she knew so if she wanted to talk and ask me questions I would answer and be truthful. Unfortunately my partner beat me to the punch and texted my mom, playing a sort of 20 questions with her until she inevitably figured it out with lots of hints from them. They lied to me about it and did it the morning after I had sent my mom the text the previous night. Eventually that night I did come out, moreso because my mom knew and wanted me to say it. Thankfully she’s been really good and supportive and was open to learning lots. She was never transphobic moreso just, a bit old fashioned and not quite understanding. But as for my partner… I had told them before that if they ever outed me to my parents I would leave them and never forgive them (because they frequently nagged me to come out), and so after thinking about things, talking to some friends, and making a post here on reddit, I realized they had been somewhat abusive and manipulative... I texted them a message breaking up and saying “I don’t know what this means in the long term, but for now just give me and my mom space”. They said “Ok” and I havent spoken with them since. They moved to Vancouver for school which was a plan they’d set in motion a few weeks earlier.
Now that my mom knew, I spent the time explaining things to her, telling her I was already on HRT, and all those times I went out to “hang with friends” was actually doctor’s appointments and such. I made a youtube playlist of videos I thought would help her understand, and they did. We watched them together on a laptop in bed. She also found Gigi Gorgeous on her own (I don’t know much about her..) and watched lots of her videos and cried and said it was really helpful to see an example of someone else's like, journey. I got her involved with the non-profit I did things through, she joined their parent facebook group and attended some of the in person meetups for parents which helped her a lot. I dropped out of school again and quit my job. I still wasnt out to my dad or my younger brother, and I didn’t want to come out to either of them anytime soon. I had explained to my mom that, I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. I didn’t want people to know, I was ashamed and scared, I just wanted to transition and come out when I passed, and she respected that. So time went on, after a few weeks I ended up dating one of the friends I had known for several months through that original discord server. We had kind of been flirting with each other on and off for a month and a bit at that point, and she was really helpful and caring and understanding. I was now in a long distance relationship which was new and, much different than what I had just had (that partner was my first ever relationship). I knew that physical affection was my main love language so it was hard, but she only lived an hour plane ride away, so I planned to meet her irl eventually.
Christmas happened, my mom did a little separate small Christmas alone with me. I had told her I didn’t really care about gifts or anything and I didn’t want her to worry or stress about it, but she last minute ended up buying a bunch of little small stuff at the drugstore (makeup things, a little stuffed animal, basically what she thought of as “girl stuff”). It was a nice surprise and I love her a lot. New years happened too, that was kind of a depressing night for me. I had fallen back down and didn’t see myself getting up anytime soon… January came along and then something really shitty happened. I mentioned that 4chan server, and it had become my main server at that point. They ended up changing the server direction drastically and decided to ban all the trans women, making it a place exclusively for feminine cis men, especially those interested in HRT. There had been jokes about a “trans purge” frequently in the past, but my friend always said I would be an exception. Well, I wasn't. And without getting into it, it wasn’t at all about changing the space of the server. It was just the owner and mods wanting to get rid of people they didnt like, most of which were the trans women. They made several arbitrary exceptions for a few of the trans women there, like “Oh she’s dating one of the femboys here so she can stay” “She’s hot and she flirts with lots of the femboys, she’s based and can stay”. They’re all fairly transphobic 4chan femboy types so I don’t know why I was surprised. But gender shit aside, that was my main social group, and a place where I thought I belonged and fit in and had friends. Then suddenly those friends didn’t care about me. I guess I had just, gotten too comfortable there, used the venting channel one too many times, they stopped caring about me the person, and just thought of me as a sad tranner venting about dysphoria or whatever. So that month was so much mental turmoil. Fighting, trying to stay, even starting to question my identity so that I could stay (“No wait, I think I’m actually a cis HRT femboy too! I mean look at me, I’m not a girlmoder, I don’t present, and I don’t think I ever will..”), inevitably getting kicked, lots of crying, joining back on an alt later on and lurking to constantly search my name and see if I was being talked bad about (I was extremely vocal about not wanting to leave and being sad about it, which was an invitation to be mocked and made fun of).
It took a long time, several weeks of checking the server on my alt every morning and night, reading every single message. It wasnt healthy, it was terrible. Slowly after many many months I eventually left on the alt, I blocked 4chan on my router so I wouldnt “relapse”, and while all that happened still affects me a lot, I’m mostly moved on. And in hindsight, it was not a good place to be. I learned who my real friends were (I am still really good and close friends with one of the trans girls from that server, she was really helpful and kind and supportive during the whole ban stuff), and I got away from that whole toxic, transphobic, narcissistic server. There was this other discord thing that had happened in that timeframe as well, basically just this schizophrenic trans girl I had tried to help who had like, this whole drama surrounding her or smth, who ended up really fucking with my head when she threatened to kill herself because of me… but I was able to get over all that a lot easier and it doesnt cross my mind or affect me as much as the 4chan server thing. That was a look into this whole community and group of people… I still get stressed when I hear or see the word femboy, and also seeing lots of stuff on twitter or on subreddits about “femboys on HRT” and other stuff idk… Sadly I could write a lot about that whole topic, and it’ll come up later but, yeah… So, after losing a community I felt I belonged in and suffering through so much terrible fucking, emotional turmoil, I was in a really bad place. I think my depression got psychotic because I started having really terrible episodes. Panic, suicidal thoughts and fantasies, dissociation and depersonalization, I even had 4 paranoia episodes over the course of a few months where I just, I got so disconnected from reality and felt like hidden cameras were watching me, my family and friends were all actors, and I was in some torture experiment to push the limits of a person and see if they committed suicide… I wont get into it (I did but it was a lot and kind of off-topic), but basically in that vulnerable state I was in, I fell down the rabbit hole of “being plural” which is basically a bunch of people appropriating Dissociative Identity Disorder, formerly Multiple Personality Disorder, a serious trauma disorder caused by childhood abuse and trauma that halts the brain’s development and prevents it from developing into a whole person properly.. But basically yes, I started thinking I had separate personalities, to the point that my brain perpetuated it and it was real for a while. Thinking back to it all, it feels so unreal. I want to mention that I have since been diagnosed with ADHD after a long wait, and I think that also contributed to me experiencing what I did, hyperfixating on this new thing and thinking I had it, to the point of sincerely imitating it. And with that experience it gave me a unique perspective now… Most people think all that stuff is just people pretending, lying, and larping. And sure, I think a small percent could be people who are consciously faking it. But I think most of it is just similar situations as mine. First of all, most of the people in “plural communities” are young (like 13-17), and it’s normal for kids to get confused and have that whole coming of age, figure out who I am thing. A lot of the people I think also have mental disorders like ADHD or Autism or Bi-Polar and such. During all that I had also learned about tulpas which is basically, when you intentionally, consciously pretend to have a second personality. You “create” it and eventually it does become real, as in subconscious. Brains are extremely malleable and this has been like, proven scientifically that tulpas are separate personalities (They did studies with people who made em and observing the brain at different times, when the different created personalities were the ones “in charge” so as to say, and saw differences in brain activity and other stuff). Obviously it’s not perfect confirmed science but I’m just trying to say that, thinking something is true, especially separate voices in your head, can eventually lead them to being real. That’s what had happened to me, and that’s what I think has happened to most of what you see in the “plural community”. I try not to think about it anymore because it disturbs me and frustrates me, but all I can really do is hope that, like me, most of them realize and stop perpetuating it. It is normal to have different emotions, contradicting thoughts, to sometimes think to yourself or think in third person. That community uses those as examples of proof you might be plural
So that went on, but what really helped me get out of it was finally visiting my girlfriend in person. Late March I travelled and lived with her for 3 weeks. I burst into tears the second I saw her at the baggage pickup, she came up and hugged me and I just couldn't stop crying. I was shaking and just overwhelmed with a lot of emotion. I was quiet the drive to her house and ended up crying again sitting on her bed when we got there. She was really good and just hugged me and held me, got me water and a snack, just reassured and sat next to me. Eventually I calmed down enough and we just played some Smash Bros Ultimate. I had originally only planned to say for 1 week, but that one week went by too fast and so I convinced my mum to reschedule the flight home, and I got 2 more weeks to stay. It was just, so good for my mental health. It got me out of my head and out of that isolation, away from all that online shit. I had told her about it before, that I felt confused and stuff, and she didn’t really get it but she said she didn’t care and loved me always. I did have one depressive episode while I was there, where I felt like I dissociated a lot and thought it was a separate personality… But after that visit, I kinda just, stopped. I simply stopped “being plural”. I realized what I said earlier, that it was just a result of the isolation and my bad mental state and falling down the rabbit hole of that community… And since I stopped perpetuating it, it went away. I found some instances of the same thing happening to others, specifically an ADHD instance, and that was comforting. Dissociation and depersonalization are somewhat common alongside different types of episodes (depression, anxiety, ect). Dissociating does not mean you become someone else… I walked away from all that, deleted my twitter cause I just couldn’t anymore, and yeah…
When I got back home though, my mom told me that my dad had found out I was trans somehow. He claimed he was told by someone, but refused to say who. He was okay about it though… He didn’t confront me about it and gave me space. I started avoiding him a lot though, to the point that I literally didn’t see him for months at a time despite living in the same house. My bedroom and office are both in the basement, and I became completely nocturnal, sleeping from 8am to 6pm to completely avoid him. But besides that stress, the next couple months were pretty alright. I got into DnD which was really great for socializing and also practicing voice training in order to pass in VCs with strangers. I know covid happening was big and stuff but if it wasn’t obvious, it didn’t really affect me. My life was already isolation. While at first I was upset about seeing people complain about having to isolate, like “Yeah that’s been my life for half a year because of depression”, I don't care as much anymore and see it more as a positive kinda. If it weren’t for covid restricting a lot of people who are usually functioning normally, my own dysfunction and bedwridden depression doesn't stand out as much so I'm not as chastised for it. People don’t really say “Just stop being depressed lol, just go outside, you need to do things to feel better” because it’s now socially acceptable not to do things. Before covid restrictions increased, I was able to visit my girlfriend two more times, once for a few weeks in July, and again in September. Since then though I’m back to just… Doing nothing...
I came out to my brother right before Christmas because my mom really wanted me to and I didn’t want gift opening to be awkward… I sent him a letter and he basically said like “Okay. Maybe we can talk about it sometime. For now is it okay if I just like, ignore it?” and that might sound bad but it’s both what I expected and kind of wanted, and had emphasised in the letter I sent. I didn’t want things to become weird, I didn’t want him to worry about pronouns and names, I didn’t want our relationship to change too much. We were already kinda distant because of my depression and isolating, but we would still sometimes run into each other in the evening and just talk about stuff, life, he’d update me on school and friends, and I also got him into anime this last year so he’d talk about shows he watched and recommend them to me. And yeah things are alright. Now my dad is trying to use name and pronouns, nothing’s changed with my brother which is okay for now, and now I don’t have to feel like I’m keeping secrets, or randomly lower my voice around him and stuff.
I’m reaching the character limit and I feel like I’m taking the longer road to get to the point that I was wanting to make… I’m over a year HRT but it feels like hardly anything has changed. I just have fat man-boobs, I cry a lot, and I have zero libido. I feel no closer to passing or presenting publicly. I got onto injections in December at least, and my levels are finally not just “slightly higher male” levels, and maybe I’ll look into prog soon… But I’m again living online and it’s just such a headache. I don’t know what to think anymore, about all this trans shit. I’m considering not transitioning maybe, or just not socially. I don't want to present until I pass and stealth but that will take several more years if it happens at all. I promised myself when I started HRT that I’d wait 5 years before killing myself. If after 5 years of HRT I still felt no better, then it would be okay to just give up. At times that promise became really hard to keep, and now it’s feeling that way again… I havent self harmed since August 4th of this year which is good but… I just feel hopeless again. Pointless. I’m starting to have bad depressive episodes again. I was doing okay for a while when I got diagnosed with ADHD and got on meds, it felt like it reset my brain and made me capable of doing things again. But now the meds feel no different, I’m struggling to keep my sleep normal even with the help of prescribed sleeping pills… I still hate my body so fucking much, I just want to be a normal woman. I don’t want to be visibly trans, I dont want to be trans at all. Sometimes I wish this was all a bad dream… I just want to wake up… I had a bad dissociative episode a week ago where I literally tried to wake up from reality the same way I know how to wake up from dreams… I just feel like such a failure and a disappointment, like my life has no meaning and I have no happy future. I love my mom so much and she’s trying her best but I’m just not salvageable it feels… Things with my girlfriend have also changed, she’s been declining mental health wise and things aren't the same anymore, she’s not emotionally supportive, she’s avoidant and sometimes it feels like she’s only attracted to me and not in love with me… I know it’s just because she’s struggling and I do not think she is bad or anything like that, but it’s just we’ve become less compatible, and long distance has become a lot harder since we’ve lived with each other for the equivalent of over 2 months. And now covid restrictions are tight and I wanted to visit soon but I dont think I’ll be able to… But that’s also just a band aid solution. And nowadays, seeing anything trans related makes me so upset and depressed and suicidal… Words have no meaning anymore, anyone can be trans, I want to think it’s all a big shitpost and people aren't serious, the same way I want to think that about Flat Earthers. People aren’t serious right? It’s just an elaborate joke, they’re all larping and laughing at people taking them seriously right? Xenogenders, neopronouns.. I feel like gnc people are also facing issues because handfuls of trans people cope as gnc to avoid transphobia and to be “based femboys!”. I don't know how to stop letting it all affect me. I can't just ignore it or pretend it’s not real because it happens and affects me. I feel like the world is going crazy and I don’t know what to think anymore. What if I’m not trans and I’m just a femboy? What if I’m non-binary? What if this was all just a result of a mix of mental disorders?

Apologies for the delay in posting this. As mentioned yesterday, there was a small chance I would be unable to have full access to the internet today and, as I guess the time of post indicates, that did occur.
Data is taken from the Covid-19 portal and today's media availability by Dr Deena Hinshaw. Dr Hinshaw's next scheduled media availability is Wednesday.
In an effort to reduce clutter in these posts, the updates to outbreak facilities is shown here. As there are a lot of new outbreaks, you may wish to look at the full list on the Alberta website in case you are associated with any of them.
There are currently enhanced measures in effect for multiple regions of Alberta. This link provides a quick summary of which ones are in effect for different regions of Alberta.

• For values where "Current" and "Total" are the same, I have left results under Total
• Due to the ongoing technical issue, exact test numbers aren't available for the weekend and today

Top line numbers:

Value	Current	Change (since Friday)	Total
Total cases	—	+2,877	40,189
Active cases	10,031	+1,438	—
Cases with "Unknown source"	5,333 (88.2%) in last 7 days	+639 (+2.2%))	—
Tests	—	Unknown	Unknown (1,842,754 on Nov 4)
People tested	—	Unknown	Unknown (1,295,058 on Nov 4)
Hospitalizations	264	+24/+35 based on Friday's post/portal data	1,434 (+109)
ICU	57	+3/+4 based on Friday's post/portal data	249 (+21)
Deaths	—	+29 (1x 50-59, 6x 60-69, 4x 70-79, 18x 80+)	427
Recoveries	—	+1,410	29,731

Division of top line numbers by day (where available):

• Because of the database issues, test numbers are not known
• The date would refer to the date of reporting, had the Alberta website updated over the weekend

Value	Nov 14	Nov 15	Nov 16
Cases	1,026	991	860
Tests	Unknown	Unknown	~12,000
Test positive rate	Unknown	Unknown	~7.17%
People tested (approximate)	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
Hospital usage	245	257	264
ICU	55	58	57
Deaths	3	6	20

Spatial distribution of people tested, cases, and deaths (since Friday):

• For the number of new people tested is still not available
• For all other values, an reported change values is compared with respect to Friday

Zone	Active Cases (Change)	New People Tested	Total (as of Nov 4)	New Cases	Total	New Deaths	Total
Calgary	4,141 (+588)	Unknown	520,268	+1,212	17,384	+9	173
Central	447 (+94)	Unknown	110,089	+141	1,556	+1	10
Edmonton	4,134 (+562)	Unknown	434,824	+1,144	15,137	+15	168
North	665 (+112)	Unknown	125,218	+197	2,855	+1	41
South	556 (+44)	Unknown	83,628	+142	3,102	+3	35
Unknown	88 (+38)	Unknown	21,031	+40	155	+0	0

Spatial distribution of cases for select cities and regions (change since Friday) (cities proper for Calgary and Edmonton):

City/Municipality	Total	Active	Recovered	Deaths
Calgary	14,593 (+986)	3,353 (+442)	11,082 (+535)	158 (+9)
Edmonton	12,747 (+915)	3,309 (+454)	9,284 (+448)	154 (+13)
Brooks	1,235 (+6)	37 (-6)	1187 (+11)	11 (+1)
Lethbridge	757 (+41)	168 (-6)	582 (+46)	7 (+1)
High River county	576 (+5)	10 (+4)	559 (+1)	7 (+0)
Fort McMurray	523 (+28)	129 (+8)	392 (+19)	2 (+1)
Mackenzie county	423 (+2)	4 (-1)	406 (+3)	13 (+0)
Grande Prairie	399 (+26)	92 (+8)	305 (+18)	2 (+0)
Red Deer	333 (+29)	116 (+22)	217 (+7)	0
Medicine Hat	152 (+17)	50 (+16)	100 (+1)	2 (+0)
Cardston county	134 (+11)	21 (+10)	108 (+1)	5 (+0)
Wheatland county	121 (+2)	29 (-2)	92 (+4)	0
Warner county	84 (+2)	10 (+0)	73 (+2)	1 (+0)
Wood Buffalo municipality	81 (+8)	10 (+8)	71 (+0)	0
Rest of Alberta	8,031 (+799)	2,693 (+481)	5,273 (+314)	65 (+4)

Municipalities with 10+ active cases is given at this link
Schools with outbreaks are listed online.
Quick numbers (since Friday):

• 65 schools are on Watch (+3)
• 108 schools have 2-4 cases (-4)

Spatial distribution of hospital usage (change based on Friday's post):

• Hospitalization zone are where the patient is receiving care, not zone of residence

Zone	Hospitalized	ICU
Calgary	78 (+0)	14 (+1)
Edmonton	153 (+21)	36 (+6)
Central	3 (-4)	0 (+0)
South	21 (+6)	6 (-2)
North	9 (+1)	1 (-2)

Statements by Dr Hinshaw:
Opening Statements

• Delay was caused by technical issue
• Recognizes the efforts of Albertans' efforts in "enhanced" regions
• Knows it will be difficult, but next while will be critical
• Too many cases of people heading to work while symptomatic and encouraging work between employers and employees to encourage staying home when sick. Specifically notes CRSB

Cases

• While statements are heavily focused on Edmonton because of hospitalization and surgery delays, cases and hospitalization a concern across province
• Outbreak at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Grande Prairie (2 workers, 1 patient)
• Outbreaks ended at Chinook Regional Hospital, Bow Island Heath Centre, and Cardiac Unit of Foothills Hospital
• "The choices Albertans make right now are literally a matter of life and death"
• Schools: Active Alerts/Outbreaks (1+ active cases) in 309 schools (~13%), with 1,046 cases
• In-school transmission likely at 151 schools, about 79 with only 1 new case

Hospitalization of Covid vs Influenza

• Often asked about differences between Covid and influenza hospital burden (in particular, why Covid's are challenging)
• An important difference is rate of spread...influenza outbreaks happen less frequently and have less severe outcomes (even despite aggressive control measures)
• Also notes significant use of PPE and hospital bed consumption (e.g. - a Covid patient in a multi-bed room means other beds will not be used), resulting in impact on resources
• Staff isolation and positive cases also burdens available resources
• Continuing care outbreaks are an issue as transfer from acute to continuing care is limited during an outbreak

Contact Tracing

• Every case has about 15 close contacts in infectious period. So at 1,000 cases, 15,000 people may need to be contacted
• This is impossible, leading to online portal app
• Since November 12, about 25% of notified cases have used it. Good start, but need to do more
• Encourages use - it is anonymous
• If you receive a text from AHS, please note response options and respond

Q&A

• Lots of calls for circuit breaker lockdown. Thoughts?: (Interjection: This and the next question were asked in tandem. I don't think Dr Hinshaw answered this one)
• Does the hospital system have more capacity?: AHS able to manage current numbers, though at a cost of fewer non-urgent surgeries in Edmonton. Given case numbers, demand will likely increase. So more cases may mean other aspects of healthcare impacted
• There is a critical Maclean's article. Thoughts?: Has read article. Feels job description is very clear in Public Health Act - role is to monitor population and make recommendations to Minister of Health. It is in line with legislative role and has worked with all aspects of health
• ICU beds use is rising and some are arguing we can't wait to see how last round of measures work. Thoughts?: Cases will certainly rise in the next two weeks. The choice to wait to see the impact of the last set of restrictions or implement now does not offer a "perfect decision" and notes struggles elsewhere
• Discussion of lockdowns in public health circles? Is a mask mandate possible?: Looking at other jurisdictions to see what is effective. Specific policy not decided on, but looking at a broad range of options
• 20 deaths is a lot and a lot of them are in care homes. What is being offered to help with that?: Working with AHS to determine available options. Most common point of introduction is staff and working to ensure measures from Spring aren't being followed
• Despite Dr Hinshaw and Premier Kenney putting their faith in Albertans, there were people marching in downtown Calgary claiming the science is fictional. Is there a point where we stop trusting the people?: Disappointing to hear that people think she takes the health of Alberatns lightly. Sent a letter to police to help with enforcing measures. This, burden acute care system, and deaths are evidence of need for measures. Will continue to provide information and rationale for the measures
• Is the load lightening for contact tracers?: Unfortunately, the higher number of cases mean they are under heavy workloads and, in discussion with supervisors, they appear to be struggling with keeping up. Suggests there are still some who react poorly to a call from contact tracers and asks Albertans to work with them
• Doubling time is about a month. Given it'll take time to get more contact tracers, can we actually get Covid under control?: Notes we are in an exponential growth period. Growth is still rising (Reproductive Value, R, is above 1). Will bring forward recommendations if current measures not enough as exponential growth means cases will rise very quickly
• With cases rising, is this a second wave?: Yes

Additional information will be logged below:

Like so many others, I wrote a NOVEL and I’m sorry!! I love reading this community’s MDs and am so thankful for this supportive sub and for the opportunity to share.
Section 1: Assets and Debt
My husband and I share all finances except for our retirement and savings accounts (we each have savings accts in our own names but realistically we share the funds within them). We have separate credit cards as well.

• Retirement Balance: My 403b - $47k, I put in 3% and my employer matched 10% (ah-mazing), but COVID put that on pause. Spouse’s 401k - $285k, he also has a generous company match.
• Equity: about $110k. We bought a house last September; it was listed for 440k, we bought for 435k, and it was appraised at 455k. We put 20% down with money from my husband’s savings + 30k in cash as a gift from his parents. We currently owe 342k on the mortgage.
• Savings account: Currently 18k. This took a hit due to some home maintenance costs and a new car purchase.
• Checking account balance: About $2500, typically between 1k-3k. We also currently have about 3k in a piggybank fund that’s technically a savings account but is linked to our checking account and has an abysmal interest rate. We use that for house/auto maintenance, dog expenses, holiday/birthday gifts, vacation, etc.
• Credit card debt: 0 down from 10k, no excuse for the credit card debt except lifestyle creep and stress spending. We floated a balance for a while and then buckled down early last year to pay it off in 5 months.
• Student loan debt: 57k down from 110k (principal was originally 90k ugh) for my BA. I refinance every 6 months or so for better interest rates. I had a lot of shame and buried my head in the sand with these for a long time and only really began aggressively attacking them in the last 4 years. I also have an M.Ed that was paid through tuition remission from my job (60%) and academic scholarships (40%). My husband has a BA but no student loans thanks to his parents.
• Car loan: 29k (we put 5k down in cash + 8k for our trade in) We made it 7 months with 3 kids and a dog in our compact SUV before we finally buckled and bought a minivan in September – it’s a plug in electric/hybrid minivan so we save a lot on gas plus will get a $7500 tax credit, which we’ll put on my loans. Plus, you know, the world is on fire and everything so we weren’t looking for a gas guzzler.

Section 2: Income

• · Income Progression:

- My first jobs were babysitting and working as a camp counselor in my teens. Throughout my late teens and early 20s I mostly worked as a bartender and/or barista, as well as tutoring (I lived in France for a little bit in high school so tutoring rich kids in French was always a moneymaker), dance teacher for budding ballerinas, and a bit of writing/editing. I graduated college over the course of 4 years but took a circuitous route (didn’t love college tbh), including taking two semesters off to travel and taking a full year leave of absence to live and work in Santa Fe when I was 20. When I wasn’t enrolled in college I was responsible for my all of my expenses. When I was enrolled in college my parents paid for housing and tuition as much as they could, and I covered my personal expenses.
- After graduating I continued to bartend for about a year and then I got a job as an advisor in higher ed, because it was one of the few industries hiring during the recession. I made 40k but with no benefits besides PTO. After 2 years, I moved to university where I currently work with the same salary but far better benefits including healthcare, retirement, paid family leave and tuition remission.
- My job hasn’t changed much in the last 8 years -- salary increases were mostly inflation adjustments masked as bonuses -- but it’s ideal for me right now. I enjoy the people I work with and have a lot of flexibility (outside of meetings I mostly work when and how I want) with great benefits that allow me to contribute to retirement and stay in the workforce as a young mom. When my daughter was born 8 years ago, I went part time and then PT with 90% telework when my son was born 5 years ago. I went back to full time while teleworking 2 years ago. So I was doing the work-from-home-parent thing for a while before COVID, but uh at least with some childcare.
- I met my husband in my early 20s and we knew within a few months (excuse the mush) we were it for each other. He’s 8 years older and we were both in a place where we wanted to start a family, so I had kids about 7-10 younger than most of my social group. This could be pretty isolating at times, but overall I don’t regret it and recognize that I'm fortunate to be able to make the choices I have. We’re putting the baby (8 months old) in full time daycare next fall and I plan to begin to start my career in earnest then (I’m very interested in the intersection of education policy and law especially w/t the equity gap). My friends lovingly refer to my approach as the Nancy Pelosi method – I’ll take it.

• Monthly Take Home:

Mine- $2,760 (paid biweekly after taxes, healthcare, 403b, savings transfer)
Spouse - $5900 (paid 2x/month after taxes, 401k and savings transfer)
Total HH - $8660 ($9260 incl. savings contributions)
Section 3: Expenses

• Savings - $600… more focused on student loans right now
• Mortgage - $2035, includes escrow payment that covers taxes and insurance
• Car - $550 (min payment is $450 but we pay extra to shave a year off the loan term)
• Student loans - $2000-2500 (min payment is $1045 but we’re trying to rid us of these in 3 years or less)
• Cable/internet - $120
• Phone - $210 for a 4 line family plan with my parents (we pay)
• Utilities - $320 average for water, electricity, gas, and sewage
• Hulu/Spotify/Disney+ - $22 we share with fam
• Netflix/Prime/HBO – $0 we take from fam
• Yearly Subscriptions - $19.50/month (YNAB $84, Washington Post $90, Costco $60)
• Life insurance - $75 (750k policy for my husband & 500k for me)
• Farm CSA - $70/month for weekly veggies
• Meat CSA - $65/month for 15lb meat delivery every other month
• Car insurance - $70 (monthly cost, we pay premium in full every 6 months for savings) This covers the minivan and our 2003 Corolla which is still chugging along like a champ.
• Kids Activities fund: $150/month --for sports, camps, classes, etc., padded right now due to COVID
• Piggybank funds: $600
• Donations: about $200. We donate $100 to a small charity we run that raises money for treatment scholarships for people seeking recovery from substance abuse and addiction after my brother in law died from an overdose a few years ago. We usually spend between $50-100 in other donations per month, but nothing regular.
• College funds: We aim for $2500/year funded through gift money, selling things, and minor side gig money I get from writing/editing. My in-laws started 529s for our kids when each was born with a seed of $30k. We are immensely lucky, and I’d like to shout very loudly that both my husband and me have benefitted greatly from generational wealth, as will our children. Our privilege is well noted, and we center many conversations about this with our kids.

Section 4 – The rundown

• Food + Drink: $264.86
• Fun / Entertainment: $4.95
• Home + Health: $103
• Clothes + Beauty: $50
• Transport: 0
• Gifts: $477

Total: $899.81
Day 1, Wednesday:
8am -- The baby cooing wakes me up after a rough night of sleep. I nurse him a little and then hand him off to his almost-8-years-old sister (J.) who happily takes him to her room to cuddle and play before virtual school starts up at 9.
My husband wakes up around 7:00 to clean up the kitchen and basically take care of everything house or kid related before heading to work around 8:30, but I get breakfast for everyone and make sure the kids are (mostly) dressed. My five year old son (C.) settles on “bee cereal” i.e. Honey Nut Cheerios, and that’s good enough for the group, except for the baby who gets sweet potato puffs and a blueberry-banana breakfast bar. The big kids play video games for about 10 minutes before school starts at 9am.
C. should be in Kindergarten, but he was having meltdown after meltdown trying to stay logged into virtual school for 5-6 hours a day, so he watches the recorded zoom meetings on his own time and spends most of the day playing outside or watching tv. We try to do one academic-ish thing a day outside of listening to the zoom lessons (playing alphabet games, practicing writing, making an art project, or finding patterns). Schools in our area have been closed for in-person learning continuously since March. This morning C. turns on the Netflix du Jour, a riveting show called “Trash Truck” about - you guessed it - a trash truck, and I sit down to catch up on work e-mails while the baby crawls around investigating the bucket of toys I overturned for him. Or maybe those are the dog’s toys? Whatever, he’s entertained.
10:30am -- I finish up my work emails in between letting the dog out (and back in) and tending to the baby a bit, and then make a payment on two of our credit cards to cover spending in the last week. We use reward credit cards for everyday spending, so I make payments a couple of times a week to make sure we don’t carry a balance. I also reconcile YNAB.
$0, but a lot of money management (I didn’t include the credit card payments because I count that spending when we actually… spend it…)
11am -- Baby is down for his morning nap, C. is climbing trees outside, and J. is finishing up her homework at the end of the school day (Wednesdays are half days). I turn on Price is Right and throw a load of laundry in, straighten up a little, and then make lunch. Usually my husband makes the kids’ lunches in the morning, but C. complained of too much redundancy yesterday, so today I offered to make them a hot lunch: dino nuggets, Annie’s mac and cheese, and ants on a log. My plan is to make myself an everything bagel breakfast sandwich with prosciutto, cheese, fried egg and a side salad and sit down to work before the baby wakes up. Sounds great, right? Well just as I’m finishing the big kids lunch, our meat CSA is delivered so our dog goes bonkers and wakes the baby up. I try to nurse the baby back to sleep while responding to a work email on my phone but the big kids each interrupt twice, so he’s up for good. I haphazardly slap some cream cheese on my sad bagel and throw some olive oil and Parmesan on some greens and try to scarf down something while managing chaos.
1pm - I give the baby lunch (puréed carrots and shredded provolone cheese). After clean up he wants to nurse for about 10 minutes. A full belly did the trick and he’s down for his nap again.
3pm - We make some slime with a kit our neighbor gave us. My daughter complains it’s too slimy
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ We then sit down to plan her birthday party for next weekend, which will be a virtual tea party. I buy a $5 digital invitation template on Etsy to send out to family and friends and try to make it a little more fun since we can’t do a normal birthday party for her this year. When I check out, I still have in my Etsy cart a wooden train set I was planning on buying for my new baby niece for Christmas. I buy that too. Total - $54.95
4pm - I heat up some tomato soup as a snack for the big kids and nurse the baby. We head out to run some errands — I have to drop off a birthday card in the mail and it’s the veggie csa pick up day at the farm (curbside so no contact). I swing though McDonald’s and get two ice cream cones for the big kids and a coffee for me as a treat since the farm is about an hour round trip. The baby takes a nap during the drive. Total - $4.64
5:30pm - Home again and I switch the laundry, straighten up, nurse the baby and check in on work.
6:30pm - I throw some personal pizzas into the toaster oven and serve them with carrot sticks and dressing for dinner for the big kids. They watch a show about a flamingo that delivers baby animals to animal parents.
7:30pm - I nurse the baby (he loves his milk and his mama) and then head downstairs to straighten up and ask the big kids to clear their plates. My daughter does; my son plays video games. We spar; I’m tired. My husband is trying to work on leaving for work earlier in the day so he can get home earlier because honestly after 6pm I’m spent, and my patience reserve feels especially low today. My husband finally arrives a little before 8 and immediately takes over baby duty and feeds him dinner (green beans and sweet corn) while entertaining the big kids. I heat up some leftovers and scarf them down while chatting with my friends on WhatsApp.
8:30pm - bedtime routine for all kids start. I spar with C. again over brushing his teeth. It escalates and I get pretty angry. C. is smart and spirited and strong willed and this pandemic has been so hard on him. It’s been hard on me. We sometimes take it out on each other. I put J. and the baby to sleep and then sneak into C.‘s room while my husband is reading to him to give C. a hug and apologize to him for my temper.
9:30pm - I have a beer and some hummus and pita chips while finishing up some work. My husband eats some leftovers and we watch an old season of The Amazing Race, and then go to bed around midnight after I dream feed the baby.
Daily Total: $59.59
****
Day 2, Thursday:
8:30am - I wake up to our 45lb shepherd mix lying on top of me for a snuggle and quickly get out of bed and for some reason get dressed in real clothes. Jeans even. Amazing. My husband has just left for work, so I take the baby and get him dressed. In the living room, C. has already poured cereal and milk for him and his sister, but is also totally naked. I bring him some clothes. I give the baby some plain Cheerios, help J. log into school, and cuddle a little bit with C. while he watches a Disney Nature show before getting up to make some toast and eggs for myself. I’m planning on trying to get some work done but end up making hand turkeys with the kids instead.
11am - I nurse the baby and put him down for a nap. I get the big kids a snack (chips and hummus), do the breakfast dishes, and give J. some encouragement in virtual learning. Then I refill my coffee and finally sit down to work.
11:30am - Baby’s awake. So I guess half hour naps is a thing now.
12:00pm- I’m on lunch duty again so I make some cheese quesadillas with apple slices and grapes while trying to finish a report I need to send out before my 1pm meeting. I reheat my coffee for lunch and send the kids outside to play while I nurse the baby and text with my sister after the report is out.
1pm - I give the baby a bit of butternut squash for lunch and log in for my meeting with him in tow because he doesn’t seem sleepy yet. I have two meetings and a parent/teacher conference today so I asked (/demanded) my husband work from home this afternoon and he’s on his way now. My employer is much more flexible and accommodating than his — babies on zoom don’t phase them— but it’s almost worse this way because it means less boundaries and more stress/shuffling for me. He is pretty isolated at work (masked with his own office, no in person group meetings), so it’s kind of ridiculous he has to go to the office at all, but he doesn’t have much of a choice.
2pm - my husband got home a half hour ago and my first meeting is done, so I nurse the baby to sleep for his nap. I grab a cliff bar and my husband and I log in to a zoom parent teacher conference with C.’s Kindergarten teacher. He hasn’t attended virtual school live in 6 weeks, but she’s not worried about it and neither are we. I straighten up a little bit and then am back in the office for my 3pm meeting.
4pm - The big kids are having a tea party and request tea snacks so I make them s’mores and peppermint tea and then stress eat a s’more (or maybe two) myself because skipping lunch is a terrible idea when you’re constantly breastfeeding a giant baby. I send out J.’s virtual tea party invites and finish up work e-mail and then straighten up a little bit.
6:30pm - My husband stops working and says he’ll make dinner and watch the kids so I can take a much needed shower and relax a little. He starts on the ingredients for an epic taco bar dinner with roasted corn, and I throw together a spinach salad before getting in the shower. I take a long shower and savor the silence. When I emerge I can hear the baby screaming, but (mercifully) my husband is never phased by crying children so I take my time getting into PJs and submit my answers for a daily trivia league I play in.
9:00pm - Kids are all in bed. I clean up the house, which is a disaster zone, because I hate clutter. My husband and I then eat our tacos and salad, and I make myself a hot chocolate. I tell myself I’m going to get some work done but instead I spend two hours updating my fantasy football teams and texting with my sister.
11:30pm - we watch the end of an episode of David Letterman's Netflix show and then the daily show. I fall asleep on the couch and then migrate to bed.
Daily Total: $0
*****
Day 3, Friday:
8amish - I’m slow to get out of bed. The baby and C. are both cranky and my husband (who works at home on Fridays) and I play chicken to see who’s going to get up first to do stuff. Eventually he’s up to change the baby and then clean up the kitchen and make ice and coffee. I pull on some sweatpants and a tshirt and get breakfast for the big kids. They want a bagel and cream cheese (daughter) and a bagel with peanut butter (son), so I oblige because friyay. My daughter logs into school, and is sad I made the wrong kind of bagel for her (everything instead of cinnamon raisin, the horror). I pop the right bagel in the toaster and eat her everything bagel instead. The baby eats a few blueberry bars and shares what he can with the dog.
11am - Baby down for his nap. I got paid last night so I budget that money in YNAB and work.
1pm - Baby awake. I make dino nuggets and carrots for kids’ lunch and I’m starving but don’t have the energy to make anything, so I just start eating prosciutto and goldfish by the fistful. #momlunch (FYI you can buy like 1lb of prosciutto at Costco for $8).
3pm - There is a mega kids consignment sale that happens in our metro area at a few locations several times a year. I frequently consign old kids clothes and toys at these and also buy a lot of the kids’ stuff here too (the steals on really nice quality things is amazing… plus seeing one of these sales reinforces the insane amount of things already in the world. We don’t need to make/buy more.). With COVID they started an online model for their sales which includes curbside drop off for sold items and pick up for bought items. I have to drop off my sold items this afternoon. Due to time and stress I wasn’t able to consign as much, so it’s only about 18 items. I make $52.00 (70% of the total price, sale organizers keep 30%). I pick up a latte from the neighborhood coffee shop on the way and jam out to Betty Who in the minivan. ($5.64 + tip = $7.64)
5pm - Pandemonium when I get back. C. had a couple of rage fits, the baby was asleep but had been crying most of the time (I never set out to be an attachment parent but being born at the start of a pandemic kind of forced it on us, and the baby is really, really attached to me.) My husband looks exhausted from juggling all the kids and wrapping up a few projects from work. We know it’ll be a take out night for us. Take-out is our biggest weakness. I don’t mind cooking but I also don’t love it, so it’s something that I easily pass on if I can. I’m trying to shift to cooking dinner midday when I have more time and energy, and I do meal plan (though it’s more like meal opportunities… I grocery shop and stock the kitchen for scheduled meals at the start of every month but I often hop around the schedule). But take out is one of our few indulgences, and it calls to us far too frequently. It doesn’t help that we live in an area with phenomenal food choices.
7pm - After straightening up and getting the big kids an easy dinner (my daughter actually wanted spaghetti and not take out), I run out to pick up steak fajitas and sopapillas for my husband and me; I order online and do curbside pick up. $49.65. I also run into a beer and wine store to get a 12-pack variety IPA for my husband and a 12-pack of Guinness for me. $45.76
Total: $95.41
9pm- Home, bedtime for kids, clean up as much as I can. While my husband tucks my son in I lay out our Mexican food feast in the family room. He logs into a virtual call with a bunch of his college friends and we eat and catch up with them as we relax. My husband has opted for straight vodka instead of a beer tonight (thanks, pandemic parenting), and I savor a nice cold Guinness. The call ends around 11pm and we watch an episode or two of the Amazing Race, clean up dinner, and then slink to bed around 1am.
Daily Total: $103.05
****
Day 4 - Saturday
8am - Baby awake. The big kids take him into their rooms to play. I get up thirty minutes later when I hear the big kids banish the baby to the hallway, because he started annoying them. Poor baby. He’s smelly because he pooped overnight and the poop is now encrusted on his legs under his PJs, so it’s bath time now. Kids are fun.
10am - I’m starving and the baby is cranky from teething so I have chips and queso for breakfast because it’s 2020 and idgaf. I make my daughter a bagel and cream cheese and give my son cheerios before making a mental note to order a grocery delivery for tomorrow because we’re out of milk. My husband pours me a coffee and we relax a little bit as I nurse the baby. I catch up with my sister via text.
12pm - Baby is asleep and the big kids and my husband are playing video games, so I sit down to do all the things - Work! Bills! Grocery delivery! -- first I make myself a couple fajitas from last night’s leftovers.
I reconcile YNAB transactions and then pay a $25 co-pay bill from a doctor’s tele-visit last month. I’ve had mild to moderate anxiety most of my adult life, and it’s gotten particularly bad in the last few months (um obviously), so my doctor prescribed me low dose Zoloft and it’s been wonderful. Social media likes to tell parents (read: moms) about all the things they should do to raise children (“stop using negative language!” “be supportive of big feelings!”) … but I’m a working mother with three kids in a pandemic, and you know what helps me be a better parent? Medication. Because maybe the pressures of modern American parenthood are unrealistic, and we just need more help. (Descends from soapbox…)
Baby awake before I complete the grocery order.
3pm - I’ve been nursing the baby and doing housework (there are 7 loads of laundry so help me god) before I finally get a chance to finish the grocery order while the kids are outside playing with my husband. I order milk, sprite zero, broccoli, blueberries, queso, cereal, oatmeal, tea (to send out to the virtual party guests), and chai concentrate. Plus a $3 delivery fee = $51.17 We usually do a large Costco trip once a month for staples (about $400), and then I make 2-3 grocery deliveries throughout the month like this to re-stock.
6pm - Somehow the big kids got turned onto this game where they call me The Queen and my husband The King and they’re the maids who have to do whatever we say. I assume it’s divine intervention that they came up with this so I never tempt fate. While they play (slash clean up the house) the King makes dinner - shrimp scampi and a big broccoli, arugula and lentil salad - while I read the paper. I eat a big portion of the salad topped with just a few shrimp because I need the greens like whoa.
9pm - Bedtime routines and the rest of the night is a bit of a blur to be honest. We watched the Great British Baking Show and had a couple beers and cuddled probably. Not sure when we went to bed.
Daily Total - $76.17
****
Day 5 - Sunday
2am - While “awake” nursing the baby I suddenly snap up and remember that the Best Buy and Game Stop Black Friday sales started at midnight. The kids currently play a retro Super Nintendo complete with games from the mid 90s (what can I say, they’re awed by my donkey Kong skills), and we finally figured they were old enough now it’s probably time to bring them into the 21st century. I snag a Nintendo Switch bundle with Mario Kart for $299 from Best Buy after waiting a few minutes (they released stock in waves to prevent an immediate sellout), which we’ll give them for Christmas. Total with tax - $317
9am - up for real now and we’re late. We hurry out the door with a pitstop at Starbucks for coffee, peppermint hot chocolates, pumpkin bread, and bagels ($32). We’re headed up to do a curbside pickup of the stuff I bought from the consignment sale. For Christmas, we try to keep the kids gifts to one big gift (often to share, like the Nintendo Switch), one medium gift, and two small gifts per kid. I managed to finish all the kids Christmas shopping in one fell swoop at the online consignment sale (including gifts for my nephew and two nieces). We also got a bike trailer for kids for about $50 that retails new at REI for $400, plus a lot of clothes. All in I spent $196, and Christmas shopping is mostly done.
11am - after picking up the consignment sale goods, we head to a drive thru covid testing site. I was around a larger group of people (20 or so) for a memorial last week, and I’ve been isolating to household as much as possible since then. I had a negative covid test last Monday, but both my husband and I are getting tested again today. The testing line is looooong in advance of Thanksgiving, and it takes us just under 2 hours to get through. Yikes. The kids are screaming for lunch so we zoom home and I make a quick grilled cheese and serve it with bunches of grapes.
2pm - my brother, sister and I are chatting about a vacation at the lake (about 2 hours away) we had booked for all of us and my parents over New Years. It’s looking increasingly like that would be an irresponsible trip to take given the current covid climate, so we decide to move it to the end of April. My sister and her family live in Canada and we’re going to have to miss it anyway, so at least this way they have a chance at joining us. My brother will call the rental company and move the dates and pay the new deposit ($300). We lose the old deposit, but my card’s travel insurance should reimburse us. I make a mental note to call their claim center this week.
4pm - We log onto zoom for a Friendsgiving get together with friends - there’s about 20 participants, many with young children - and it’s a little crazy. By the time we log off it’s too dark to take the bike ride my son was hoping for, and he has a meltdown.
6pm – I take a shower and then start a K-pop dance party in the kitchen to try to brighten up C. who is still angry about not being able to bike. He eventually succumbs to the BTS beat. Once upon a time I was that music snob that would only go to concerts in tiny venues with obscurely known indie bands, and now I’m moonwalking to Dynamite. Life comes at you fast, friends.
7pm - We decide on takeout again because we definitely fall into a “it’s the weekend, treat yo self” trap and decide to order Thai for lots of leftovers as a way of lessening our guilt over ordering. Our local Thai restaurant will deliver to us. We get curry puffs, yum watercress, pad Thai with shrimp, pad see ew with chicken, and massaman curry. ($74 with tip and tax)
9pm - Kids are all in bed. I do about an hour of work and then tell myself I’m going to fold laundry or do something else productive, but we’re exhausted so we just watch an episode of the Queen’s Gambit and then go to bed around 11:30.
Daily Total - $619 ouch
*****
Day 6 – Monday
8:30am - I’m going to get up early and get some work done today, I told myself last night. Spoiler: I did not do that. I emerge from bed and find my family in the kitchen — my husband finishing up chores and all the kids eating oatmeal with blueberries. I get my daughter set up with school as my husband departs. She’s out of underwear, so it looks like that seven loads of undone laundry is starting to be an issue.
10:30am - baby down for nap. I feel very unproductive. I put a load of laundry in and sit down to work but instead somehow end up browsing political memes on Instagram instead.
12pm - by the time the baby wakes up I have gotten a little more work done. I nurse the baby and then play a few rounds of Crazy 8s with my son. I text my husband the info for our zoom parent/teacher conference with my daughter’s teacher so he can login from work. Conference is at 12:50. I heat up leftovers to eat for lunch and get the kids lunches out (husband made them this morning). I give the baby some apple sauce and rice for lunch.
3pm - Baby is down for another nap. I make myself a chai latte and switch the laundry before sitting down to do more work. It’s half days for my daughter this week because of Thanksgiving, and she and her brother are actually getting along well, so they spend a lot of the afternoon playing outside together. I take a 20 minute break to prep dinner, which is Ina Garten’s Turkey Hash, so it should only take about 20 minutes to throw together at dinner time. I get a good chunk of work done, possibly motivated by the announcement that we get Wednesday off. My husband texts to say his boss gave the green light to go back to full time telework after thanksgiving due to the surging covid numbers. Micro good news, macro bad news.
6pm - I do some more laundry and ”pretend” to sleep in a fort J. and C. built before getting dinner together. I make a few eggs to throw on top of the Turkey hash and toss together a big salad as well. We all eat dinner when my husband gets home a little after 7. Baby has bananas and strawberries for dinner.
8:30pm - Bedtime for all kids. I do a little work and we watch our old standby, the amazing race, while I have a Sprite Zero and a s’more for dessert. The baby isn’t sleeping well tonight so I spend a good chunk of time trying to get him to settle before heading to bed around midnight.
Daily Total - $0
******
Day 7 – Tuesday
8:45am - I’m up! I’m up. I help the kids all get dressed and change the baby. I make a few eggs for myself, a bagel and cream cheese for J., and oatmeal for C. The baby has cheerios and a few slices of banana. I do some housework and try to motivate myself to get some work done.
10am - The baby broke my glasses when playing with them -- probably should have seen (ha) that coming. I hop on Zenni and they have a Black Friday sale (oh no) for 20% off $30 or more. I get two pairs of glasses for me, plus a pair of prescription aviator sunglasses for my husband to put in his stocking. Total with $5 shipping - $48
12pm - Baby is napping and I’m trying to get some work done. The big kids eat their packed lunches and I see my husband has also made a sandwich for me, so I scarf that down over reports. I’m really sluggish again today. I make a chai but it feels like I can’t concentrate. The dog and I usually go for runs 2-3 times a week on a local trail, but since semi-isolating I’ve stayed in and I think it’s starting to really affect my overall state. It probably doesn’t help that I often catch the pup looking longingly at her running harness and then back at me, disappointment evident in her eyes.
1pm - I set up Zoom Thanksgiving for my family. It’ll just be us with my mother and father in law, who live 20 minutes away, for Thanksgiving in person. I spend 40 minutes making a Jeopardy game to play online for my family and then immediately text everyone about how excited I am to play it. I continue to do no legitimate work.
2pm - The baby wakes up the very minute a team meeting is supposed to start. I grab him, turn my video off (no Toobin slips here thanks) and nurse him for the first half of the meeting that goes for about an hour. Afterwards I officially say sayonara to work until next week. During my meeting the big kids have gotten into an argument over video games and it gets uglier than it should. When people ask how it’s going with the kids in quarantine, I relay it this way: imagine you’re a kid again and your sibling(s) are your only playmate or social contact for 8+ months. Even if you get along with them, that’s batshit insane. Sometimes I’m shocked they haven’t done more damage to each other. I’m feeling particularly kumbaya-like and crunchy today so after I calm them down I make us all tell each other two things we love about each other. They tell the baby the two things they love about him are his sweet personality and his fat thighs; better him than me.
4pm - My daughter got a baking cookbook and utensils from my brother and sister in law as an early birthday present in the mail today, and she’s been hankering to make brownies all day. We make a pan and afterwards we veg out and watch tv together for a bit while playing with snapchat filters until my husband gets home.
6pm - I throw together a mongolian beef-esque marinade and toss that with some sirloin cuts in the instant pot, steam some rice, and roast broccoli and green beans for dinner. It’s pretty good but the marinade is a little too sweet for me --- my son eats all the vegetables and none of the beef and rice. He truly is an enigma.
7pm - My husband and the kids go outside to play some catch (in the dark, whatevs), and I work like a tasmanian devil cleaning up the house. When unencumbered by children I think I could set records for how quickly I clean up. I finish by changing out sheets on all the beds, and then take a shower.
8:30pm - Bedtime for the kids; they’re down by 9.
9:30pm - I indulge in one of my favorite teas - African Nectar by mighty leaf; I’ve loved mighty leaf since I worked at a coffee shop that carried their collection, but I try not to drink them too often since I find it’s pricier than your everyday tea. We watch the rest of the Queen’s Gambit. I fall asleep on the couch around 11:30, I’m told, and zombie walk to bed around midnight. I fall asleep reveling in the wonderfulness of the sensation of fresh sheets on shaven legs.
Daily Total: $48
Total Spent: $899.81
**********
Section 5: Reflection
This was a bit of an atypical week for me, because I bought a lot of Christmas presents, which mostly come from our piggybank fund. Gifts and food are for sure my weakness; if I could eat take out all day while shopping for other people I’d be good for life, and I think that was reflected this week a little bit. I was definitely more conscious of my gift spending this week since I had to record it all though. Throughout this year I’ve struggled to find the right balance between giving myself a little grace on spending because oh em gee does my day-to-day feel stressful sometimes, while also being mindful of overspending. Recording everything this week definitely hit home for me that sort of guilt trap I fall into with money (but also how I feel guilty about pretty much everything).