1425 Attatchments.

Nina is not one who was brought up in a shame based family. Her experiences are not framed in the same kinds of shadows as other people. That should be fun for Ed…

I am sitting at the table helping The Teen with her homework. I’m only sitting at the table because I can write at the same time as she ruminates over questions. In this way I am saving time before I fall asleep. I very much want to go to bed now. It’s 6PM where I am and I’m ready to go to sleep because my schedule is a tad out of whack. That’s also why I failed to tweet the update on Monday. I slept through all my alarms. At the moment I’m going to sleep at about 5 and getting up around 3. Which actually works pretty well. It gives me a good number of hours that no one else is awake. At the same time the Teen wants me to watch tv with her, but I just want to sleep. What ends up happening is that I fall asleep in her closet, which is really hard on my hip.

Right now The Teen is telling me about social services getting called about some of her friends. So that’s… fun. I’ve tried to tell the kid to make friends with rich people but she steadfastly refuses to make friends based solely on financial income. I never did that either, but in retrospect I should have been cool to the rich dicks and moved up in the world that way. XD Yeah that probably wouldn’t have ever worked.

I went to the doctor today. It was stressful. I associate that office so much with bad situations now I basically have an insanely strong panic response after being in the waiting room for a few minutes. I tried to schedule my appointment so there wouldn’t be a lot of waiting, but I still ended up waiting for an hour, laying in the fetal position, waiting for the doctor. The thing is that the panic is not like the kind I’m used to. It doesn’t come on in the same way, or manifest in the normal manner.

37 Comments

Not the normal panic that you’re more comfortable with!!

there are several different forms of panicking, for instance there is the ive lost my keys and im going to be late for work panicking, and the “holyfuck I just stepped in a mine if i move im going to freaking die” panicking as well as the various levels inbetween.

a lot of us get used to the lower forms of panic, other losing your keys is equal to standing on a landmine.when im panicking, I start to lose my ability to communicate, and my triggers are often random, since ive started
getting out of my home more, they have become less frequent, but yes, there are forms of panicking I prefer, most of them are the ones where i dont need assistance calming down from

For what it’s worth, I’ve been living with the understanding I wouldn’t see the person I care about the most after I left school ever for 28 years now. For that entire time, I’ve lived with at least a low grade sense of panic that I’m either about to mess up my life royally or I am actively in the process of messing up my life. One learns to live with it. I’m not immune to other types of panic. I mean, OK, the panic from realizing I just made a major mistake and I might be about to be fired isn’t bad. At this point, that’s just another sort of I’m doomed. But I’m already doomed, I’ve been doomed for 28 years now. But seeing my second favorite person in the world faint and collapse completely uncontrolled, while she was too far away for me to catch her… that was a huge panic. Maybe I’m doomed, but she shouldn’t be. (Prognosis summary: hydration is really important, especially if you normally have low blood pressure. If you feel you’re about to faint, sitting or laying can be very helpful. And she had the best root canal ever, because dentistry has actually advanced in the past 30 years. She’s fine now, for values of fine that include being a fainting risk for the rest of her life because she has a genetic disposition to it.)

Can i just say that I really appreciate how you handle your relationships in this story? Like a lot of writers pair their characters at the most dramatic moments possible which means really dragging shit out or contriving excuses for characters not to get together. You let your characters hook up when it’s natural for them to do so. You let them dictate the story you tell instead of forcing them to contrive to the story you want to tell. It’s very refreshing and I really appreciate it.

You’re very kind. I try to let them decide the whens and hows so that it seems more like regular life. People rarely wait for dramatic plot points to decide to pair up. But the very act of making that choice gives weight to what would otherwise be a regular moment.

Wow. I can be kind of/very timid, in some situations, but…Well Done to Ed. I’d probably have fallen silent after panel 3! :D

Darn. I’m sorry to hear about your medical issues + panic issues, Jackie.
I hope that you’re doing better, now.

I guess a threesome is out of the way then…

… OR IS IT?

Actually, making friends with the rich dicks works pretty well. At least half the reason the 1% have so much goddamn money is the old-boy network.

I totally did not mean to leave that as a reply to the “threesome” comment XD

*ahem* Nina might be down with a threesome as long as she’s the only woman involved….

Doc: “threesome”
El Streak: “rich dicks”
“reason… have… money is the old-boy network.”

Me: Waaaah?! *brain develops gas* O_O’

*scrolls down*

Oooh, thank goodness, you really put a new spin on how the old-boy network was supposed to function in my head for a minute there…

Nina: You are wise to take advice from a properly informed expert but remember, when possible, there is no substitute for “hands-on” learning.

“It’s only by probing the edges that we grow.” ;) ;) *nudge nudge*

Ed: You can stop ANY time now…

_______________________

Did we already have a page titled “Sex Ed”? If not I feel this title may see some use soon.

We didn’t have many rich dicks in my high school. It was a University community, and we had Professors’ kids, who were usually the snobby assholes.

The Teen would need to learn that the rich consider the population to be divided into four groups:

LIONS: these are the Old Money faction, the ones who either made their money the hard way long ago, or inherited it from their parents (or late spouses).
TIGERS: these are the Nouveau Riche, like Stock Market traders or Dot Com billionaires. They can also be the hangers-on, the sycophants (oh, look it up), the Old School Chums, the suave wannabees.
MONKEYS: the Rock Stars and gauche Nouveau Riche, lacking in any style, class or other redeeming qualities.
DOGS: the other 99 percent; that is to say, me and thee.

Not all women have vaginas, not all men have penises. A well-read person like Nina should know that.

I understand that this can be a subject of great sensitivity, but I suggest re-reading the dialog and noting that Nina is talking about an experience with a girl … so, her conversation with Ed does not reveal anything about whether she has considered the possibility of transsexuality.

She writes Dumbledore fanfiction that includes “magical nookie” . She probably knows all those possible possibilities plus all the impossible ones (well till science catches up anyway) as well as things with tentacles on…

But this dialogue immediately follows a part of the conversation about JessJo (Joss?) from which she inferred, extremely correctly, what type of physical relationship Ed was specifically talking about.

Still more cuteness, I am enjoying this plotline, keep it going. Also, I thought it was funny looking at the ad for Between Failures on the sidebar. I was tempted to click on it, but was afraid it would trigger a loop that I would get trapped in.

Why can’t I come up with witty and totally appropriate rejoinders on the fly like that? When faced with an unabashable young thing who tosses me the ball and the air is full of “Think Fast!”, I gape and shuffle until she tacks away for more entertaining climes. Then the perfect response wakes me in the middle of the night, and I gnash my teeth. Doomed to ever be known as good hearted, but not clever.

I mean, there are girls who do indeed have that penisy quality, if that’s why she thinks she couldn’t possibility of have a relationship with another woman.

Hey Jackie —
I’m sorry you’ve been having such a terrible time. I’m sincerely impressed with how you keep up your steady high quality output despite all the problems you’ve been dealing with.

I hope time, your improved diet, and maybe even the medical profession help you get back up on your (unswollen) feet soon!

Jackie, I love how you write people. They are so real. I feel so invested in these people, in you, and I am a SERIOUS introvert. The number of people I like can be counted on one hand… Until now.

I even feel some sort of fellowship with the commenters on this page, which is likely insane because I am mere words and light to them.

Take care, man. I’m trying desperately to get an art business off the ground, but once I do, I plan on giving you as much of my hard-earned cash as I can. You need it, and more to the point, deserve it.

They say that you attract the kinds of people who resonate with you when you post things online. Maybe that’s why you feel a kinship with us. We all sort of agree on life generally. XD. In any case thanks for the compliment. You’re very kind.

ED: “In fact, I can CONFIRM those sort of attachments exist. I’ve found them in the dishwasher at home, and had to eat breakfast off of a cutting board for want of a plate… in a corner at the farthest end of our apartment from…that thing.”
Nina: “I can’t decide which of you is more hilarious; you or your sister. I’m going to have to compromise and say both together is entertainment without end. 5 years from now, if you and I get married, I insist your sister gets to live in our house too!”
ED: “Please don’t tell her that; she’ll take it that you’re trying to arrange a threesome… and I’m not confident her answer would be a ‘no’.”

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