Self serve car wash near me

So let me tell some background of the story. Me and my now ex were solid for 2 1\2 years and rocky the last 2 months. The reason is because he thinks something is going on or I'm cheating. Which I've never even gave reason for him to think so I've always been honest with him. So about 7 am he calls and said he wants to go see 2 movies. I said that's a long time to be in the movies but ya ill go. So then he starts the what's going on youR cheating thing. so by the end of the conversation he decides he's taking a "friend" instead and it will be funnier then going with me. In my opinion I think he called to just be a jerk and make me believe he was taking someone to the movies. so happened to be door dashing and the drop off was right next to the .movie theater. Now its out of my character but I drive through and to my surprise his car was there. So I park next it to wait and see if a girl comes out with him. Well at that moment I was putting on lotion and a childish idea popped in my head. You could tell he just washed the car so rubbed lotion all over the windshield. Then I moved a few parking spots back to still see if there was a girl. So there was no girl. Like I thought it was just to be mean. But then I get a call from the police Department to come home. He called to cops over lotion on his windshield. Might I add there's a carwash in the same parking lot. So 12 hrs later I get released with one count criminal damage domestic violence and my 16 yr old sister was with me so one count contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Would you of called the cops on someone you " love" over lotion on your windshield?

READ COMMENTS 4 THE REST OF THE STORY! Reddit wont let me upload the whole thing in one post.
Hello. This story has a lot of lore, but I’m not going to get into everything because it would take much too long. Instead, i’m just going to write the most notable incidents, in my opinion. If you have any questions, comment them and I’ll answer to the best of my abilities. This is a throwaway account for obvious reasons, and please don’t ask for any personal information because i’ve been on the news multiple times and it’s really easy to find me, and I don’t want that happening. I’m also quite young so please excuse my bad writing.
From birth to age 8, me and my mother lived in an abusive household at the hands of my father. He was physically and emotionally abusive, and it took my mom almost 20 years to file for a divorce, simply because she was much too scared. She fought for custody in family court for almost 3 years, and when the case was finally resolved I was officially living with her, one of the best days of my life. I started seeing my father every week for visitation, only in public spaces as the court recognised the risk of bringing me home to an unsupervised environment. This went fine, I hated the visits but I endured them for he sake of my father not blowing a fit and taking us back to court. During this time I was diagnosed with autism, ptsd, and geberal anxiety disorder. I also started self harming and I also started getting bullied at my primary school, just people being mean to me in general plus the occasional physical abuse. Long story short; My father sexually assaulted me in the bathroom of a museum on one of our visits, and I started going downhill even faster than I was before. I started expressing suicidal thoughts to my therapist at age 10, mainly just me wanting to jump off of the balcony of our local library, which would have definitely killed me. I talked to some police about the sexual assault, which ended up bringing back some repressed memories of my dad doing similar things to me back at home when my mom and him were still married. I got worse, and so did the self harm and anti social tendencies. I didn’t have any friends, plus all the police did was talk to my dad about why abusing his daughter is probably not a very good things to do and suspend our visits for 2 weeks. At age 11 I stole some of my mothers panadol and kept it on my room hidden as a last resort. I also started smashing glass cups to cut myself as my mom started hiding the knives. My mom pulled me out of school but because my father got mad at me for not consulting with him about moving schools he threatened to sue all the primary schools near us. I ended up just doing virtual school, which was honestly a life saver in a way. (1)

I need an outside perspective. As a teen I got into drug culture and due to an alcoholic parent and my own personal crimes, I spent some time in the CA juvenile system culminating in a fire camp which helped clean me up. I got a lot of therapy for the traumas I dealt with as a minor that led me to those places and I excelled as a member of society after I served my time. The things I learned in therapy helped me immensely and I still use them to this day.
The problem is now I'm 37 and I'm struggling pretty bad. My brain always wants to move full speed ahead, which is great when I'm focused on positive tasks, but every day now after spending a huge amount of energy on work, cleaning, cooking, and all the other shit I need to do as an adult. I just want to drink and and then turn my brain off until I need to do the same thing again tomorrow.
So then I do, I get trashed until I don't need to worry anymore and can sleep, then it's back on the saddle when I wake up and I don't know how to break the cycle. When I try and stop the self destructive behaviors, worry and guilt and anxiety bubble up until it's unbearable.
Now it's causing problems in my relationship and interpersonal relationships and even though I learned things in therapy to manage these feelings, I don't know how to let go of the constant fucking worry and anxiety that if I stop trying as hard as I can, that everything will fall apart for me and the people I'm trying to take care of. It's constant and I know I probably need a new therapist, but because of economic conditions I can't afford one right now and I'm just fucking hoping somebody knows how I feel.
When the ball of stress and worry is so heavy you feel it physically, how do you unwind it?

I’m going to be ranting/venting about my experiences as a banana (Ethically Chinese). My malay, mandarin, and mandarin dialect skills are nearly nonexistent. I only speak fluent english.
When my parents found out about me they made a plan. My mom would speak to me in english and my dad would speak to me in mandarin in order for me to learn both languages. It was a great plan, if and only if my dad followed through and actually spoke to me in mandarin (He didn’t, he only spoke to me in english. He didn’t even speak to me in hokkiean like he does with my mom all the time). So off to a great start. For my school life my parents never ever sent me to a chinese or gov school, they sent me to international schools which didn’t allow other languages than english to be spoken (exceptions are for language classes of course). Growing up with astro I watched all the english movie channels (21st Century Fox, AXN, HBO, Cinemax, Disney XD, Cartoon Network, Nikolodiean) and listened to HITZ FM every car ride to school.
My parents and my extended family then started to catch on to the fact that I did not know how to speak any other language other than english (They were more concerned about me not knowing any sort of mandarin). They were more surprised that I didn’t know any hokkiean because they thought I would passively or sub consciously pick it up just by hearing my parents speak it to each other without ever directly speaking to me in hokkiean (Guess how that worked out). My parent’s solution was to send me to Mandarin tuition every Saturday morning when I was always half asleep. I went to the same Mandarin tuition for 4 years and during that time I was relentlessly shamed by parents, tuition teachers, and extended family for not knowing any malay, mandarin, and mandarin dialects for years.
Every CNY I go to my Ah Ma’s house and it’s always the same questions and insults thrown at me:
“Can you speak chinese?”
“How come you don’t know chinese!?”
“You are chinese, you must also know chinese.”
“If you go overseas to find job and cannot speak chinese you cannot find a job, you see how!” (They think you got to know mandarin in-order to get employed any where in the world because the rise of china and all that)
When my older cousins try to teach me a mandarin phrase and I mispronounce just a little bit the whole room would erupt in laughter. My own dad yells at me for not knowing how to speak mandarin while still knowing he didn’t teach me when I was young like he said he would to my mom. Once after coming back from mandarin tuition my dad and I had some argument, I can’t remember how it started, and when we got home he threatened and motioned to hit me and yelled at me saying that I wasn’t chinese. (I notice this pattern in other banana related posts where a lot of people consider not speaking mandarin is a shame to the chinese race. Like okay are we trying be build some pure ethno-state or some shit?)
As for not speaking malay, my parents also thought that I would learn malay if I were surrounded by people who spoke malay even if those people never talked to me directly in malay. I guess they thought that since I grew up in a malay speaking country I would naturally know how to speak malay, even without having an environment/routine that would involve the malay language. I did take mandatory malay classes in school but they were half assed and once per week after school.
Safe to say that all of this has damaged me to a degree, to the point where I don’t even feel comfortable being close to someone with the same race/ethnicity as me because now I have this constant fear that they would eventually find out I don’t know mandarin and they would shame me for it. Whenever I hear a non-chinese person speak mandarin (even if it’s not completely fluent) I get MASSIVELY insecure and I try to stay as far away from them as possible. I now yearn for the day I leave this country and go to the UK or AUS where speaking english is the norm.
So why is language is extremely important in this country? How has it gotten to this point? I’d love to see your answers 😊

I feel pretty bad about saying that tonight. I realized too late how thoughtless it was. I am in a bit of a state worrying about all the times I probably have said and done similarly self serving things not even aware of what others needed. I can tell why this is. I never has my own feelings considered. I learned this relatively recently talking to you my love.
It's hard to explain but I never ever met my own needs. I never self advocated. I never gave myself space. I never thought about my own feelings. I understand people fairly well. But I don't think until I met you I ever tried to do truly good for someone. Also hard to explain. I've been functioning on this believe I had no value. That I was an evil person and that to be around me was a misfortune. Now that I actually value myself...care about myself I'm seeing all these ways I've let people I love down.
I just tried to be as kind as I could. I never treated myself kindly. It's left me with a very concerning manner in regards to emotions. I want to do good. I love and care for people but I don't actually know how to be that because I've never really built myself up. I've torn myself down. In realizing what I need I see how much better I can be.
I'm sorry that I am not very good at being at service to others in an emotionally connected way. You know about how I've avoided emotional intimacy most of my life. I feel I cut myself off from understanding and being there for people. I'm sure that's what Dayton is good at. Why I admire him so much. He gets that aspect on a deep level.
Well. Time to stop feeling bad about it. Like TJ said. My mistakes are a badge of armor. I've been there. I can just continue to be better. I can be a better lover to you and for you. I'm in your corner and I'm truly sorry that is difficult for me to actually...express? Do? I'm not always building you up but shit I'm not not trying my best. I'm lucky to have you because you are so patient and loving towards me.

Searched the sub and only found the opposite situation (being asked by landlord to pay many months up from). This happened almost a year ago and I shut down contact with the because it didn't smell right. Curious whether it was a scam attempt or not. Long story because I think the details adding up are important.
Partner and I were moving out of our owned house and wanted to rent it out, so first time looking for tenants. Listed on Facebook and Zillow. One person, jerry contacted me via phone. Basically he said that he lives in Atlanta (we are about 1,000 miles away in the US midwest) and that he is looking for a place for his mother, who lives in our town. He sounded 30s to 40s. Okay. The weirdness detector first went off because he elaborated that he is a very successful owner of Mutiple businesses in that he has multiple millions of dollars. This is why he wanted to get a place for his mom. Okay...maybe true but I would expect someone like that would look to buy rather than rent, and our house was like a typical midwest starter house. Probably on the nicer end of that class of house, but not millionaire renting a house for mom from across the country. And in particular the neighborhood is right on the edge of a rougher part of town. This is not a tucked away subdivision, it's an old part of town, a loud street. Still, fine, maybe. He says in that initial phone call that he wants to set a time for mom to come tour it, and also that he will be looking to pay 6 months of front. I was already feeling off about it so I did say we probably wouldn't be interested in that. He ignored that. We set up a time for mom. We were going to be there cleaning anyway. Robbery scam crossed my mind but we had already moved out and the house was empty and I made sure to mention that offhand in the call.
​
So mom does show and is the age expected. However she's also with a man that age, which wasn't mentioned. Fair enough maybe. Women are unfortunately not safe by themselves. But it's the many small things adding up the suspicion. They were also in an awful beater car. Idk, you're going to rent mom a house but you have her car-less and being around by this type of guy? This guy was also just very odd as they toured the house. Comically gravelly voice. Him and mom moved fast. It's far less than what you would expect from someone trying to pick out a place to live. Barely asked any questions and didn't seem interested in any of the facts I told them. So maybe she just could tell right away it wasn't for her? Nah, at the end they both definitely yet unenthusiastically said it was perfect for her. She would be contacting her son to set up the payment and sign the lease. I mention I'll still need her to fill out the little free background check thing on the Zillow listing since she'll be living there.
​
Maybe a day later i get an email from supposedly Jerry's secretary or assistant or something. Says they want to sign and again pay 6 months up front. I say in the email that both mom as tenant and Jerry as the person signing the lease need to do the background check thing. Again, very easy. There might have been a couple emails after of him/her saying something like he is paying 6 months up front, that's more valuable that a credit score check anyway. He absolutely refused to do the background check or have his mom do it. Or that might have been something he said on the call. Because soon enough he called me, not quite angry, but close, saying stuff to the tune of that. Reiterating that he is a multi millionaire and very successful. Here's where he got very angry and was yelling at me on the phone.
​
I essentially told him it's my first time doing this, we're just trying to be smart and we aren't anywhere near desperate to get the lease signed right now, plus we have other tour requests. I said from my perspective and in my experience (I work in a finance related field), a person or company would nearly always rather pay later than now, assuming no interest on paying later. It's cash flow. I know there are plenty of examples of the opposite, but I said this and some of the other things adding up are why it smells off (and that he is getting very mad). He said it's just convenient to pay and then not think about it, because such small amounts of money to him are rounding errors and not worth his time to think about every month. I did mention we could set up an auto-pay. He rambled loudly for an impressive amount of time, I wish i remember everything he said. But it was truly not believable at this point and was pretty funny - He kept just talking about how successful he was but the specific things he said sounded like things that someone very not successful (or a 12 year old) would think a very successful person would say. Hopefully this makes sense and you would be sketched out too. I think at this point I shut it down.
​
I couldn't quite figure out what scam this could be but I just didn't like it and we had other good prospects and no time crunch. Similar-ish things I found online weren't quite this situation. Most assumed scouting for burglary. Closest hits had that upfront payment not going through. Then either 1 they live there a few months free before we notice and evict or 2 something about they would change their mind, ask for a refund, we send the refund, but in reality what they initially sent bounces so they just got wired money form me worth 6 months rent. But we wouldn't have let them move in before the payment cleared nor would we have sent a refund if they signed a lease. Super curious.
So tl;dr someone cross country with a story that didn't smell right about his wealth and success wanted to rent our house for his mom. He refused to do the Zillow background check or have his mom do it, and he insisted on paying 6 months up front. He got very angry on the phone when I pushed back on those points and explained I believe politely why those points made me uncomfortable. Was this a scam and if so what was it?

Long story short, my ex had me set up. I took the bait, I was drunk and he had me arrested. My life has fallen apart; my alcoholism has gotten worse, I feel useless, I’m back to being sexually self destructive, I fucking hate myself, I got kicked out of Oxford, I lost my job and relapsed, and I have no car. I’m so tired of this and just don’t even want to live.
I hate this feeling and feeling utterly worthless and feel like my ex succeeded in making me a piece of shit. I fucking hate myself.

Question: If April flowers bring May showers, what do May flowers bring?
Answer: Puritans and misery.
Part 1 - May Flower Moon
I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure this is a ghost story. It all started in early May under the, "Flower Moon".
In the still of the night, I awoke from a deep sleep to witness a moonlight so spectacular it hurt my eyes.
Fumbling for my glasses, I found them, dropped them, cursed, then almost stepped on them. I finally got them where they belonged thinking I needed to use the bathroom. I glanced at the digital clock on my desk.
3:33 am. Again.
Willow weep for me
Bend your branches down along the ground and cover me
-Ann Ronell as sung by Billie Holiday
The birds were chirping loudly. I shuffled to the window. I looked up wide-eyed at the sky. There was the moon; big, round and golden like it didn't mind a big electricity bill. As I used the bathroom, I remember thinking that I didn't ever remember a full moon so bright it could light up my apartment.
I washed my hands then splashed warm water on my face. I cracked my neck. I dried my hands and face with a towel. I remember thinking if I didn't get back to sleep the day was going to suck.
Shuffling back into my bedroom I thought to look for my ski hat. I figured I could pull it over my eyes and escape the light under the blanket. Flower Moon was beautiful but so too is sleep. If I could just hide under the blanket perhaps it wasn't too late for sleep to creep up on me.
I have been renting the same sunny shoebox in old Brooklyn for more than 20 years. It's a corner apartment on the second floor of a 19th century walkup. Across the street, diagonally resides a community garden fronted by a very tall and expansive weeping willow tree that won't let me move away. I didn't know it's age until recently. But it's younger than me. Most things are these days.
I shuffled to the corner window to squeeze the blinds tight and that's when I felt grateful, grateful I had decided to use the bathroom first.
There, at the base of the hundred-foot-tall willow, behind the wrought iron fence, illuminated beneath the moon's glow, I witnessed something that froze my blood and tested my aging bladder. Standing beneath the moonlight, I saw, clear as day, a little boy in footed pajamas with a trap door. The little boy was holding a blue stuffed Grover Muppet in one hand and crying.
Trying to get a good look at the boy was like trying to look at something from behind a campfire. There was a shimmering distortion. What I could clearly see was that he was pointing down at the ground in front of his feet with the non-Grover hand. Suddenly, the little boy spun his head up and around looking directly at me. Eye contact occurred and then too, something I can't explain.
First, a truck transporting fuel broke loudly for the red light at the corner. Through the open windows I smelled what seemed like diesel. I grew light-headed. The room spun around. I remember thinking this feeling smelled both nauseating as well as timeless.
I reached down to try and pick up the floor and that's when it hit me in the face. A sharp pain across my cheek like I had been slapped in a 3 Stooges short. I felt icy fingers grab the hair I had not had in over 30 years and jerk my head back. I smelled more diesel. I grabbed the edge of the desk to keep from losing my balance.
Holding on to the desk, I noticed my mind's eye was playing the little boy's face like a movie. The camera panned in. His little boy face filled my consciousness like I was watching from the front row. He was about four or five years old with long dirty blonde hair. His face looked familiar from a dream.
Then, another slapping pain turned my last good cheek. Losing my balance, I fell ass first to the floor.
Out the window, from on my ass, I watched the traffic light turn green. I heard the truck lurch into gear, rev it's engine then drive away. As it rumbled off into the distance my equilibrium returned.
Muttering my life sucked I gently shook my head and felt for damage. Just my non-existent pride. I got myself vertical, yet once again; feeling a distinct twinge of anxiety.
I looked out the window but the little boy was gone. An FDNY ambulance took his place, it's siren jarring me back to reality. I closed the blinds and got under the blanket. I never did really get back to sleep that night. Or ever since.
Part II - Unhappily Ever Since
Sad as I can be Hear me willow and weep for me... -Billie I keep seeing a little boy under the tree... - me ...
The first thing I want to say is that I keep waking up for decades at exactly 3:33 am.
It's the exact time my decrepit birth certificate claims I was introduced to this world. Can't say why, but ever since digital clocks became a thing, I'm up more often than not to witness 3:33 am transpire. Never remember it happening before digital.
One of my friends recently told me it was an angel number. I don't know anything about angels. Never met one. But I for sure have met some demons in my day. In fact. you might say I was born of demon mother, and I might not be offended. Back to my birth certificate. I was born and yes, still live in Brooklyn, New York. There were gaps but it's my home.
I moved to this particular apartment building a few months after 9/11. I had moved in with a woman at the tail end of doing a romantic nickel, but that fell apart like Madoff, Abramoff or Fuckoff, and she married another dude a year later. So, there in 2002, I and my faithful golden retriever, Spenser, found ourselves, for the very first time, on our own. And, we liked it.
Like I mentioned, Spenser and I lived diagonal to a community garden that fronts a big and beautiful weeping willow tree. I felt an immediate kinship as my favorite book as a child had been, "The Giving Tree" and that's what she reminded me of; only more beautiful.
There will be more about the tree. Anyway, the tree and I dwell in an old part of south Brooklyn called Park Slope, infamous for being the stomping grounds of a young Al Capone, and, believe it or not, young me.
That was a long time ago. Things have changed a lot since Al and I, were separately roaming the streets of Park Slope, looking for adventure and whatever came our way. I came up in the day when if you cried your mother would give you something to cry about. And, not going to lie, I cried a lot. I don't remember my dad that much.
I remember he was a hippie. I remember he had a big beard and moustache and long hair. I remember his denim jacket was always cold, smelling like weed and cigarettes. I remember he gave me, "The Giving Tree" and taught me how to read it. And then, I remember he was; gone. Just. Gone.
I also remember my mother. I remember her never talking much. I remember her just smelling like hair spray, cigarettes and instant coffee with sour milk. I never was able to drink milk, not even as a child, and to this very day just the sight of a milk carton turns my stomach to acid.
I lived alone with the old lady about half a mile from where I live now. Yeah, in over thirty years I made it a whole thirteen blocks. Like I said, my pride was non-existent these days unless I was sitting on it. Another, weird thing besides waking up at 3:33 am is I have a lot of memory lapses. It has been getting worse the last few years. Especially, since old Spenser had a seizure in my arms back on the 9/11 of '09. He was fifteen and my best friend. I'd always loved dogs. But after losing Spenser, I couldn't quite remember things right all the time.
Sometimes, it was little things. Like did I turn off the stove or lock the front door. Other times, it was deep things, like did the telephone repair man try to do something to me when I was five and left home alone. Like did I pull a kitchen knife on him before he scampered out like a thief in the night; scared he'd be caught by my screams for Batman? Did I remember my mother having strange guests over late at night? Did I remember being locked in my room? I just couldn't remember anymore.
I had taken to obsessively keeping lists. But you can't put ghost-busting on a list, can you? And that was my real problem. Ever since, the May Flower Moon the haunting just kept rinsing and repeating. Eat edibles, Nyquil, and Advil PM and still wake up at 3:33am. Smell diesel. Wave of nausea. Little boy in garden. Little boy crying. Little boy pointing at something. Little boy looking up at me. Little boy. Little boy. Little boy.
By last Friday, I was a mess.
My work is suffering. I am too embarrassed to tell my aunt or besties I see a little boy. They already think I am weird enough and last thing I need is a wellness check.
To remain scientific, I have continued my daytime visits to the garden whenever it is open. Everything seems so lovely in the day. I even brought the new woman I am seeing. She fell in love with the tree at first sight. The flowers are gorgeous. And the roses; so mesmerizing. Even the fish in the koi pond are happy.
But at night. Something isn't right.
...Weeping willow tree Weeping sympathy Bend your branches down along the ground and cover me Listen to me plead Hear me willow and weep for me...
My new friend at work I mentioned, who told me about angel numbers, asked me recently if something was bothering me. She told me when we met, she is in the midst of a spiritual awakening.
Part of it includes awakening every morning to read the Tarot cards and commune with who, or what, she calls, "spirit".
I cracked and told her about the little boy under the tree. She didn't bat an eye. She told me spirit wants something from me. I didn't know what to say to that so I just left it alone. I guess I'm afraid what if she's right. And what if I don't like what, "spirit" wants?
Last night was Saturday. I had a dream.
That night I dreamed about a collie I had when I was a very young boy right after my dad split. Her name was Pearl. I had found her on the street on my block and for some inexplicable reason had been allowed to keep her.
Not long after, one hot summer day in Prospect Park, when my mother was going to give me something to cry about, Pearl suddenly ran down the hill she was frolicking on, making a wide sweeping arc that screamed, "ride or die, full throttle, and damn the fucking torpedoes," it's trajectory directly between my mother's legs. Fur overcame flesh just in the nick before I was given something to cry about.
Instead, I laughed.
I laughed so fucking hysterically at the sight of her on the grass, on her ass; smug look gone with the wind; replaced by an expression seething red menace that would have been McCarthy's wet dream.
And, like the little boy at 3:33 am, Pearl's eyes met mine. She seemed to nod her collie head, as if she were acknowledging that, yes, she was the best dog and don't you forget it. I didn't cry much for a while after that till I came home from school and Pearl was gone. Just gone. To some farm I was told. Where she could be happier. So, I guess I did get something to cry about after all.
And then last night I had a dream.
Part III - It weeps for me?
I dreamed of Peter Pan and buried treasure. I dreamed of Stove Stop stuffing and commercials loud enough to drown out a breech birth. I dreamed of Spider-Man letting Uncle Ben's killer go free. I dreamed of being American. I dreamed of Watergate, the fall of the Berlin wall, 9/11 and watching people jump out windows to avoid burning to death out the window of my office.
I dreamed of Iraq and Afghanistan and George Floyd and Covid and never-ending cycles of boom and bust. I dreamed of a golden carrot on what started out as a stick but soon morphed into what I realized was a branch. A long flowing beautiful branch covered in red. A branch that hung low. It swayed along the ground, swayed above my head and there I was.
I was in the garden. Under the tree. I felt drops of warm dew caressing my face. I was about to reach up to caress the tree. My tree. I noticed I was wearing pajamas. Not the black satin jammies I had been wearing for decades but old footie pajamas. They were Star Trek pajamas. With three golden rings on the cuffs and a trap door.
A drop of dew fell in my eye. I wiped it away and looked at my hand. It was red. Red with blood. My Mickey Mouse watch involuntarily color-coordinated with the blood. It appeared to be just after 3:30 am.
Suddenly, a dog appeared. It was Pearl. Then another, it was Spenser. They jammed their snouts into my flannel covered crotch. I pet them both and noticed my tears mixing with the dewy blood drops turning them a soft pink under the moonlight.
"Good boy. Good girl." I said.
"Hi," a voice I recognized but couldn't place said.
I looked around. And there, was, the little boy. And, in his hand was Grover.
"Hi," I heard myself say.
"Who's the dog?" he said.
"That's Pearl. And this is Spenser." I answered.
"I know Pearl, silly. She's my dog," then, "Hi, Spenser."
Spenser left my crotch for the little boy's. They went together like peanut butter and sandwiches.
"Where are your parents?" I heard myself ask.
"Dad left. Mom told me to stay here until she comes back."
"When was that?" I asked.
The little boy shrugged then, "Been a while I guess," and he started to cry. Spenser got agitated and started to whine. I approached. I went to put my hand on the boy's shoulder and he jumped.
"Hey, it's okay." I took my hand back.
He looked up at me. Then he said, "You want to see something?
I said, "Yes."
The little boy fished around in his pajamas and pulled out something, it looked like a piece of rolled up construction paper secured with a red ribbon that matched the bloody dew drops.
He un-scrolled it then solemnly showed it to me.
It appeared to be a child's treasure map. That ended in the garden. Only it wasn't a garden. It said, "JUNK YARD" and there was a big X next to the corner of the rectangle the words were written in. I looked down at him.
"There's no junk yard here, son," I said.
The little boy looked away from Spenser and up at me. Pearl ran to his side. I felt six eyes on me.
"That's what you think," he said
A moment later there was the loud cracking of fireworks being detonated. I awoke in my bed. Fumbling for my glasses, I found them, dropped them, cursed, then almost stepped on them. I finally got them where they belonged thinking I needed to use the bathroom. I glanced at the digital clock on my desk.
3:33 am. Again.
I ran to the window to look out. But, unlike every other time for the past month, the boy was not in residence. He was gone. Just. Gone.
Part IV - The is The End
Gone my lovely dreams To weep my tears along the stream Sad as I can be Hear me willow and weep for me
...
This was fucking ridiculous. I am sane. I am not mad. I'd been reading, "The Giving Tree," too much. Spending too much time alone working from home. Maybe I just needed to get away. Take a trip somewhere.
I realized getting back to sleep was going to be impossible. So, I went into the kitchen and made a pot of tea. No milk.
Back at my desk, my "SHIT. FUCK. DAMN." glass mug of tea firmly in hand, I took a deep breath. There was no point in giving myself a heart attack. Maybe it was just anxiety. Maybe panic attacks. I had dated lots of neurotic women. That could be it. Maybe some Lexapro and I'd be good as new. I decided to check my email.
A woman I used to date from Queens and stayed friends with had sent me a link entitled, "Birth of a community garden." It was video to my garden. Before it was a garden. Over forty years ago. It was a decrepit vacant lot filled with dead cars and refuse and apparently had been a neighborhood drug bazaar. Like I said, things have changed a lot since Al and I were young as springtime.
By the time I moved back you would have never known what things had used to look like. Spray painted signs that read, "NO DRUGS SOLD HERE!" and the like. Just like the Batman, Dark Knight, the 80s were a time when Urban Renewal was striking back. And before you could say, "corruption at City Hall," there was fecund soil where once had stood God knows what.
It gave me hope that humanity wasn't so bad. Maybe I had just been going through a tough time. Maybe I should quit while I am ahead and get a good night's rest. So, I closed the blinds and went to bed.
Why I am never sleeping again
That night I dreamed I was part of the junk yard's saviors. Hauling out decades of festering trash and replacing it with good old Mother Earth. A whole community coming together to commune with nature. I felt myself smile.
All day we hoed the rows. The fecundity of the soil filling my nostrils. There was food and laughter and soon day turned to night. One by one all the gardeners left into the dusk. Soon I stood alone next to a young woman. She held a green army duffle bag. And two shovels.
"You look like a big, strong man. They're going to be planting a weeping willow tree here soon. But first, I wanted to leave the earth a special gift to grow up with the tree. This time I think we should give to the tree. Won't you help me?"
I felt a passing twinge of disgust. I rubbed my upper lip with the back of my hand and thought I smelled the faint smell of diesel. I heard myself say, "Hand me a shovel."
An hour later I had fulfilled the lady's request to deposit the duffel bag deep within the new garden's soil. She lit a cigarette I recognized. She blew some smoke in my face and it smelled like sour milk.
"Ever read a boy and his dog?" she asked.
I nodded.
"This is the opposite," she said. I smelled the diesel again and then remembered no more.
This morning I awoke feeling none too swell. I got my glasses on without dropping them for a change then sort of hobbled to the kitchen area to make some tea. I opened the blinds and there was my weeping willow tree. Swaying gently in the Sunday early June overcast chill.
Implacable. Inscrutable. True to it's nature. The day was gray as a widow's anniversary.
Well, there's always tea, I thought, ever the optimist. And then I dropped my, "SHIT. FUCK. DAMN." mug on my foot, simultaneously battering and scalding it. I let out a yelp.
Then, mouth agape, I smelled the diesel waft in the window by the fire escape. The window, where, leaning against the fire escape's stairs I witnessed something that froze my blood and tested my aging bladder.
I spied two shovels and an empty duffle bag.
I wonder what spirit will have to say about that?
Gone my lovely dreams To weep my tears along the stream Sad as I can be Hear me willow and weep for me
Willow Weep For Me?

2013 1.8 LT Sedan. Bought in 2016 with 8k on clock, now 147k.
Was really hoping it would last another year or two, but appears to be entering money sink territory.
Always meticulously maintained. You could eat off the underside of the valve cover. Driven softly enough that I could squeeze 40mpg out of in on my morning commute and didn't need brake pads until 125k. Except for the galvanized exhaust, not a spec of rust underneath thanks to regular undercarriage washes, especially in winter. Has never been garaged despite being in New England and still looks beautiful.
Saturday night, heard a new intermittent squeal. Figured it was the serpentine belt on it's way out. 9am this morning, I'm at the shop having it replaced. Did not fix the problem. They started it with the belt removed and it still made the sound which means it's likely the crank pulley. Also have a fresh P0171, but that could be related to the pulley; if it actually is an emissions thing, there is still about 2500 miles left on the extended exhaust warranty they can fix it under after I trade it in.
Being that I commute 22k mi/yr, if this is the start of the more expensive breakdowns then it's time to cut my losses. I'm going to miss this car, it's been a rock of reliability for me over the years; inexpensive to fix most things, a lot just doesn't break.
Local dealer has a 2023 Trailblazer base model for $23k and change. I'm probably going to switch to that in the morning. Was really hoping the car would last long enough for the new Trax to hit close by, but no such luck. This is one of those times where a car will be needed TODAY as opposed to ordering.
I'll still be around for a bit to share my experiences with this car, at least until the suits finish gutting all of Reddit for IPO money via API price gouging.

Long story short, my ex had me set up. I took the bait, I was drunk and he had me arrested. My life has fallen apart; my alcoholism has gotten worse, I feel useless, I’m back to being sexually self destructive, I fucking hate myself, I got kicked out of Oxford, I lost my job and relapsed, and I have no car. I’m so tired of this and just don’t even want to live.
I hate this feeling and feeling utterly worthless and feel like my ex succeeded in making me a piece of shit. I fucking hate myself.

The day seemed like it would be ordinary until the aeronautical community’s most sought after document showed up on my doorstep.
It came wrapped in brown kraft paper tied off with twine, and the exterior packaging had no return address nor any indication of a postage stamp. It was as though it had been simply bundled up and dropped into my wall-mounted mailbox by a random passerby.
No part of me was willing to surrender the strange parcel without opening it first. Regardless of who its contents truly belonged to, my eyes would be the first to see it. I removed the twine and then dug a thumb under a fold in the packaging paper before clawing it away to expose a brown tan notebook circa 1900. It was full grain buffalo leather with a crisscross of cord for the spine and a thick hand cut string keeping it sealed shut.
When I undid the string, the pages that had been gripped tight by the leather fanned out gently then returned to their original position, my eyes landing on the front page. It was without a printer’s mark and read in big handwritten type: “THE DIARY AND RECORD OF HENRY H. HELGELAND.”
I knew in that instant the package was in the hands of who it was rightfully sent out for. Not just because I’d recently lost my job as an associate at our city’s art museum but because of a separate, much deeper connection to the diary’s author.
Perhaps it’s in my best interests to turn it over to the National Archives, or the US Arctic Research Commission, or maybe even the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, but at the risk of seeing it blue-penciled to death, I’ve elected to instead share it here and now.
The world needs to know what happened.
---
Henry H. Helgeland — my great grandfather — was a severe looking man with a walrus mustache and a bone to pick with anyone who ever doubted him. He was born in Oakland, California in 1871 and was, by all available accounts relayed to me, well-behaved and well-liked. His father worked a lucrative job in the shipping industry, transporting timber between San Francisco and the Central Valley. Two years into Henry’s life, his mother would contract a fatal case of diphtheria and die shortly thereafter; when he was old enough to understand what had happened, Henry “yearn[ed] fervently for a reunion to mend [his] great anguish and sorrow.”
Near the turn of the 20th century, Henry attended Stanford University’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, where he learned everything from thermodynamics to machine design. But it was a lecture about polar transportation that would ultimately kindle his interest in a separate enterprise: arctic exploration. Indeed, the race to the North Pole was well underway, with naval officers, geologists, and aeronauts around the globe vying for the chance to make history. My great grandfather, like many of his peers, propounded the theory that he, and he alone, would be the first to reach the Great White North.
In 1895, Henry graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering and sought to expand the member list of the so called Ascension Society, a student organization he’d assembled to aid engineering graduates with materials science. Many of its constituents had engaged in research projects and experimental setups to hone their craft of mechanical systems, but in time, however, the venture would instead prove a hotspot for investors and philanthropists. Donations averaging up to $5,000 helped fund and promote the fantastic ambitions of my great grandfather. So long as the Ascension Society was gracing him with their support, he’d be the first to reach the North Pole.
In early 1898, armed with enough capital, Henry used the proceeds to purchase the materials required for the balloon.
---
A notable circus at the forefront of traveling attractions in the early twentieth century was The Fielding Troupe. With its impressive lineup of talent — from fire eaters and aerialists to equestrians and strongmen — the ensemble drew crowds from nearly every town in western America during its historic run. Its wide reach would ultimately reel in many notable faces, including my great grandfather.
Prior to a performance in Oakland, the Fielding Troupe led a procession through the town around Stanford University, announcing their arrival with a parade of wagons, floats, and animals. The strategy, as it were, was to drum up as much publicity and fanfare as possible. Evidently it worked, as a healthy fraction of the faculty and student body at Stanford made the trip over to Oakland in order to see the troupe in action.
Surrounding their arena with two hundred feet of heavy duty tent canvas, the troupe put on a show for the ages the night Henry was in attendance, with extravagant acrobatics, trained animal performances, and a special appearance from Curtis the Clown. Following a skillful display of juggling and good natured audience ribbing, Curtis’s master stroke was an intricate stunt involving balloons and wire flying. Firstly, he would inflate several multi-colored balloons and tie them off with string, securing them firmly in his grip. They served as a flashy distraction from the piece of flexible metal snaking out from the harness he had concealed under his equally flashy costume. Then, with a whisper of strength, a couple stagehands hoisted the balloon-carrying clown thirty feet into the air to make it appear as though he was levitating by virtue of the balloons alone. A separate performer — a marksman — showed off his sharpshooting skills with a Winchester model rifle and gunned down the balloons, exploding each one as the stagehands loosened their hold on Curtis’s harness until he was eased to the ground.
Henry watched the routine with eager delight. Seeing Curtis the Clown float above a hundred or so onlookers helped stir within him a plan. The ceiling of the Big Top Tent where Curtis had concluded his ascent represented more than the centerpiece of a traveling circus.
“Ascendancy,” Henry muttered to his wife Ruth. “This is how we get to the top of the world.”
---
The spherical vessel measured sixty-five feet in diameter, with a capacity of over 200,000 cubic feet. Its construction was overseen by Henry and a couple french engineers who installed in its gondola three berths and ample ballast to keep it stable. The gondola, a carefully constructed assemblage of wicker and chestnut wood, was built as such to bar any interference to the magnetic instruments of the explorers. Keeping it shielded against severe weather conditions was a varnished silk calotte and a vaselined net composed of over four-hundred hemp cords. A bamboo pole was attached bellow the carrying ring to attach the side sails and, perhaps most notably, the balloon was fitted with hemp and cocoa nut fiber guide ropes to help steer and maintain a consistent altitude.
After two years of exhaustive construction, work on the balloon was completed in 1900. Henry named it Ascension, after the society that funded its creation.
---
What follows are several selected passages lifted directly from Henry’s memorandum, transcribed by me. The first entry reads:
“At nine o'clock on the forenoon, May 5, 1900, under the auspices of the Ascension Society, we embarked from the 71st parallel on our quest of the Pole. Our great journey sets off from Point Barrow, Alaska following a grueling adventure aboard the steamer Sursum. I, Henry Helgeland, travel forth, accompanied by Charles Ringvold, esteemed navigator, and Edward Meyer, long celebrated physician, into the arctic wilderness. Together, our efforts will generate a most formidable team and an unwavering spirit. We will ascend.”
Indeed, the SS Sursum disembarked from a port in San Francisco in mid May of that year; it offered easy access to the Pacific Ocean and sailed through the Bering Strait, covering over 3,000 nautical miles before reaching Point Barrow on July 2.
When the balloon took off, carried by a fierce north east wind, it was to a thunderous applause from those that had come to bear witness to the bold endeavor. Among them were crew members of the SS Sursum, high ranking associates of the Ascension Society, and carpenters tasked with helping the balloon reach its initial phase of liftoff.
As it elevated to 300 hundred feet and passed around an onlooking whaler, Henry was reported to have shouted: “To the top of the world, hurrah!”
---
36 hours would elapse before a second entry was made.
“July 4, 1900, Lat. 77° 48' N, Long. 143° 4' W. We are soaring at a height of 600 feet above the Earth's surface, traveling at a speed of approximately seven kilometers per hour. Our morale remains similarly aloft. Charles relayed to me that, God willing, we anticipate reaching the pole in roughly 800 miles. Beyond the drag ropes lending their ballast to our journey, optimism is our guiding force. We will ascend.”
Turbulent air currents had a different plan in mind, however.
“July 5, 1900, Lat. 80° 8' N, Long. 138° 37' W. Alas! Our aerial journey came to an abrupt halt yestereve on the 80th parallel. We voyaged as many as 500 miles before a forceful downdraft spun our vehicle on its vertical axle and compelled it into a sharp descent; we had lost what we estimate to be just over 100 cubic feet of gas.
“Edward suffered severe injuries during the initial impact and claims his vertebrae have been shattered, leaving him immobile. We’re at the mercy of the floe on which we now rest, at the mercy of the Polar Sea. Should we face the specter of death, we shall meet it with unwavering honor. We will ascend.”
---
“July 6, 1900. We find ourselves solitary in the barren expanse, accompanied only by bergs, ice-fields, and majestic glaciers. Our rations encompass a container’s worth of hardtack, enough salted beef for approximately one week, canned stew, dried apricots, some chocolate bars, and seven bottles of ale.
“Edward’s outlook remains grim; he suspects he’ll never walk again. In witness of his current state, I’m beginning to share in such apprehensions. Edward, whom we have reposed on on of our sledges, fears that the opportunity to make known the great love he holds for his mistress Rebecca is one he’ll never be granted. ‘You shall be reunited at once,’ I assured him. ‘Our journey to triumph will not be thwarted by minor inconveniences.’
“We’ve plotted the course to our next destination: that being Herschel Island, located off the coast of Canada in the Beaufort Sea. Charles — who shares in Edward’s dismay — estimates a three month footslog spanning just under one thousand miles is in store for us, perhaps more given Edward’s ailment. I am determined to see this mission to its completion, yet survival remains a paramount desire. Who’s to recount our extraordinary journey should we fail?
“While establishing our encampment and scouting the local flora of the area for additional sources of sustenance, I happened upon a plant of an unknown species. Half a meter tall, bulbous tubers, and thin roots terminating in clusters of white flowers; intuition suggests this is a water hemlock, which precludes it from edibility. Nevertheless, I shall regard this finding as one of great fortune. A portent of divine value. We will ascend.”
---
Two days later, gold prospectors off the Alaskan coast at Nome beach were in the process of emptying their sluice boxes when from the sky flew a carrier pigeon directly to their mining site. It bore a label with the inscription “Helgeland” and contained the following dispatch:
“July 7, 1900. First dog watch. Three southerly traveling carrier-pigeons were sent off at approximately 7 h. 40 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, the following among them. This is Rear Admiral Charles Ringvold of the United States Navy and the Helgeland Balloon Expedition of 1900. Our hopes of reaching the pole have been reduced to naught. Assistance urgently needed. Our destinies have hitherto been unknown, and now my fears have been actualized. GO IN TERROR OF HENRY HELGELAND. He is not who he proclaims to be. I volunteered for a man of honorable stature and venturesome drive. The man before me betrays neither.”
The remainder of the message was a hasty scrawl, decrypted only by the best in linguistics and modern codebreaking.
“UNASSISTED WE WILL PERISH HELPED WE WILL PERSEVERE PLEASE GOD HELP US HENRY WILL KILL US ALL DO NOT BELIEVE WHAT HE PROCLAIMS.”
The communication was immediately passed off to the Smithsonian Institution, where word fell within the earshot of Ascension Society proponents and additional members of the US Navy. A follow-up expedition — a rescue team led by Captain S. P. Matthews — was put together at once with the authorization of the Secretary of War.
Months later, after a congressional bill introduced to secure grant funding for arctic exploration — and thereby a rescue mission for Helgeland’s lost expedition — was successfully passed, the USS Greenwich departed from the San Francisco Naval Shipyard with a crew of thirty boatswains, medics, and deck officers among others.
What they would ultimately uncover puzzled them all.
---
“July 7, 1900. The team has fractured. We are without our provisions and without the morale that has served us thusly.
“Charles and I set upon the pursuit and capture of a walrus, a most strenuous task in the Arctic Circle. Furnished with a Winchester model .40-82, the sport skews in our favor but we are in no short supply of peril. These are one ton beasts with the strength of a hundred strongmen as they stave the ice, and yet it is not them I should have feared.
“’I can’t allow you to proceed further.’ I heard the click clack racket of the Winchester as Charles chambered a round and raised the rifle, training its twenty inch barrel toward my back after I had volunteered — quite ignorantly — to take the vanguard.
“’Charles?’ I managed between clattering teeth.
“’You’re a man of bold stature. An honorable man at that. But not honorable enough to die for. And that’s it, Henry. I will not die for you.’
“’You speak out of distress, not rationality.’
“’I’m as rational as one permits when I say we won’t all make it to Canada. You can’t expect us to sledge Edward for the next month and retain our strength. Our sanities.” I could hear him gulp, ‘our lives.’
“’You’re not who you say you are.’ I realized in that moment. ‘Not even an ensign would renounce his own crew. Who are you really, Charles?’
“His credentials were a farce; a clever scheme to scrape through the expedition’s vetting process. He was no navy-man nor expert nor navigator and if you piled his life’s accomplishments on top of one another, they’d be equal to that of a cretin.
“’Doesn’t matter any more, Henry.’
“’Then why haven’t you shot me?’
“I sensed beyond his terror a hint of reluctance and felt within him the trepidation of an amateur. The man had never wielded a firearm in his life and wouldn’t start hence.
“’In Your infinite mercy, hear my prayer. In Your boundless grace, grant me Your forgiveness,’ he muttered below his breath. I could’ve believed he’d have squeezed the trigger if not for the unexpected convulsion that suddenly brought him to his knees. Befallen by the strange attack, Charles unhanded the Winchester and collapsed to the ice in the midst of a crippling seizure. And in a matter of moments, he had succumbed to death.
“With some activated charcoal or perhaps an emetic, he could have eluded such a painful demise. I stepped over to look upon his body, his pupils dilated to the size of dimes. Reviewing the immediate symptoms, intuition tells me he’s become the latest victim of hemlock poisoning, the kind of amateur mistake I’d expect from someone such as Charles. Ideal timing, if I may speak candidly.
“Hope remains alive. I will ascend.”
---
Investigators with the crew of S. P. Matthews found everything except answers.
It took them all of three months to zero in on the campsite left behind by Helgeland’s expedition. Any prospect of finding the balloon itself was dropped by the wayside to preserve manpower and time.
The camp was discovered on the 79th parallel, not in any particular state of disarray but with enough evidence to suggest conflict had broken out between the members. Edward was discovered in a tent with the rest of the rations and a bullet hole stamped in the side of his head. There was no telling how long he’d been dead for.
Forty-five meters away from the camp, buried under a stalagmitic gathering of ice and snow, was the body of Charles Ringvold. A followup inquiry would prove my great grandfather’s claims that he was a fraud, but like Charles himself, the truth is buried deep under the surface. Edward and Charles are commemorated for their failed — albeit honorable — efforts in the face of great opposition.
The body of my great grandfather, however, was never found. Theories thus abound in the saga of Henry H. Helgeland and we are no more the wiser now than we were a century ago. He is remembered for murdering his men in cold blood, deserting them, and then yielding to the elements somewhere in the frozen hell of the arctic. The carrier-pigeon message sent by Charles corroborated the apparent facts.
But I know the truth. Because only I have the answers.
“July 8, 1900. All that remains is me, for everyone else has vanished. Edward and I regaled each other with stories of our mistresses as night fell upon our place in the arctic wasteland. Rebecca, Edward’s beloved, works as an expert seamstress in San Francisco and will no doubt be devastated when news of his fate reaches her. But the great memories they shared together, I assured him, will serve her well in the years to come.
“‘You shall be reunited at once,’ I whispered to him once more before executing the dying man with the Winchester. It is my turn to face whatever awaits me on the ice.
“My great anguish and sorrow have been mended.
“Ruth is calling to me now. Our son promptly requires our presence.
“I shall go to them."
The fruitless search for my great grandfather peaked at last with the unearthing of a path of footprints snaking away from the tent where Edward’s body lay. Investigators followed them for approximately ten meters before they abruptly ceased. Captain Matthews is quoted as saying: “it was as though the walker had simply floated away.”
And indeed, it was our family that won in the end, for my great grandfather received exactly what he wanted. The final, undated entry of his diary is comprised of but three simple words:
“I have ascended.”

So I went on a first date with a guy from Tinder and he seemed a bit off. He’s super cute, like 10/10 but socially awkward. I get in the car, and we’re trying to figure out where to go or what to do. I suggest a bunch of things but he turns them all down, and we sit in the car for 20 minutes while he looks at the maps trying to figure out where to go, and we’re kinda making small talk too but I’m wondering why we’ve been sitting there for so long, and that point I’m just like “we can go anywhere, just pick a place!” So we finally go, and he decides to just drive around and talk to me. Then we go back to his place, since this is a casual hookup kinda thing, and the sex is great until he stops in the middle of it to tell me that he didn’t take me out anywhere and was stalling in the car because my outfit was “too eccentric” and had too much of the color pink and strawberries all over it and he dresses very plainly so I guess he didn’t wanna be seen with me, which is basically what he said.. which made me feel very bad, and then he apologized profusely and said it was nothing personal, he just wished I dressed more basic or plainly because he didn’t want all of that attention to drawn to him because he has social anxiety. I’m very confused by this interaction and not sure whether to be offended or not? Like at first I was very offended but then I thought what if he’s autistic or something. Then does that make it okay? Am I overreacting by being offended? Or am I losing all self-respect if I dress down for him the next time so he actually takes me out? This is a weird situation to be in. I felt super cute before I went out and him saying that absolutely crushed me, but now I’m wondering if my eccentric, bold and bright colored fashion is a big turn off for most guys. So my main questions are should I be offended? And do I need to tone down my fashion choices because it’s a turn off for men?

Γεια σας! My partner and I will be traveling to Crete for one week this September and I was hoping I might be able to get some feedback on my proposed itinerary. I've done a fair amount of research both on this subreddit and in general, so I think I have a fairly good idea about what to do, but I have two general questions:

1. I know this is probably too much stuff (to me, vacation is about seeing and experiencing a new place more than it is about relaxing). What, if anything, would you remove from my plan? Would you replace it with anything in particular?
   
2. Is there anything absolutely essential that I'm missing?
   

Here's my rough itinerary (nothing is reserved so the order of the days is more or less irrelevant so far):
Day 0: Fly from Athens to Chania, landing around 2pm. Get rental car and check in at hotel (west side of Chania). Lunch nearby if we're hungry. Relax and get dinner in Chania.
Day 1: Drive (or take a boat?) to Balos/Gramvousa
Day 2: Drive to Elafonissi Beach (if we're ambitious, I've considered combining this with Balos into the same day, but I know that's a lot)
Day 3: Samaria Gorge (probably via a tour group for simplicity, but I'm not opposed to driving to Xyloskalo and then taking the ferry + bus back to our car provided that it is easy and straightforward)
Day 4: Ntounias (and more? I'm not sure if we want to just get a meal at Ntounias or do a whole workshop or what. It's a bit of a drive but not crazy far so I think we could fit something else in if we want)
Day 5: Minoan Palace of Phaistos + Iliana Malihin Winery + Rethymno (lunch and/or dinner) -- this is a long day, I know, but it looks like everything flows together from one place to the next
Day 6: Heraklion/Knossos + Psychro Cave
Day 6 Alternate: Psychro Cave + Elounda/Agios Nikolaos (beaches and food)
Day 6 Alternate 2: Heraklion/Knossos + Elounda/Agios Nikolaos
Day 6 Ambitious: Heraklion/Knossos + Psychro Cave + Elounda/Agios Nikolaos
Day 7: Fly back to Athens around 2:30pm for one last night before flying home to California.
I'm not worried about food/restaurants since that's where I've focused most of my research. We don't really eat breakfast so I figure we'll maybe grab a small bite at the hotel before heading out for the day and grabbing lunch near wherever we are, then either returning to Chania for dinner or heading to dinner near our activities too (e.g. I really want to go to Avli in Rethymno since I've heard a lot of wonderful things about it).
I suspect Day 6 is the first thing we would cut or at least simplify, since everything is so far from Chania (but that's also why I would want to condense it all into one day). I also know my partner wants to get out on a boat at least once while we're in Crete, so maybe it might be better to replace the entire Heraklion area stuff with a trip to Gavdos or something? I know that's a long day too, and maybe not worth it since we wouldn't end up with a ton of time there.
Sorry if this seems like a repetitive kind of post; I tried to do as much research as I could beforehand. Thanks for reading all of this. I'd love to get a few other opinions about my trip!
Ευχαριστώ πολύ!

I (30m) think I may be in love with my gf (27f) but she has shown signs of a lack of grace and empathy
I'm very conflicted. I genuinely love her and she can be so sweet to me, but I'm noticing a pattern.
Her doing something insensitive and then I have to bring it up.
Example. Me asking her if her family even liked me. She got frustrated at me for asking. She basically wanted me to explain myself and I felt sort of shamed. Several days later I set her down and told her that I did not feel sorry for asking. I did say I knew my attitude was not great and I understand if that was the issue. Her response was okay, but still admitted the question itself bothered her. Not just my attituds. I felt it was a red flag that she behaved that way when I got vulnerable with her. I told her that it was important to me to be able to be vulnerable with a partner without being shamed.
Same week we went out with my brother and her brother. We went to grab drinks. I was excited for us all four to talk. Multiple times her and her brother were having their own conversation on a tv show we didn't want spoiled and weren't caught up on. Also people we didn't know. It felt like we were alienated from the conversation. I also brought this up to her afterwords. I basically told her I really enjoyed time with her brother, but I felt their conversation were creating barriers for inclusive conversation.
A few other things happened this week as well.
Also she seems to get angry quick in the car and I've seen her almost get short with people at Costco.
She also can get frustrated at situations quick lyrics
I've had so many good times with her and love her. She can be so sweet to me.
But even when I've vented to some family they were concerned about her character.
My choice now has been to watch for patterns. If I continue to see a pattern of a lack empathy and grace towards others and myself I may be forced to make a decision.
I don't know what to do. I'm crazy about her. There many things I really like about her.
But I feel like I have to be really self aware. Any advice?
Falling asleep while writing this so may need to fix typos in the morning

So I went on a first date with a guy from Tinder and he seemed a bit off. He’s super cute, like 10/10 but socially awkward. I get in the car, and we’re trying to figure out where to go or what to do. I suggest a bunch of things but he turns them all down, and we sit in the car for 20 minutes while he looks at the maps trying to figure out where to go, and we’re kinda making small talk too but I’m wondering why we’ve been sitting there for so long, and that point I’m just like “we can go anywhere, just pick a place!” So we finally go, and he decides to just drive around and talk to me. Then we go back to his place, since this is a casual hookup kinda thing, and the sex is great until he stops in the middle of it to tell me that he didn’t take me out anywhere and was stalling in the car because my outfit was “too eccentric” and had too much of the color pink and strawberries all over it and he dresses very plainly so I guess he didn’t wanna be seen with me, which is basically what he said.. which made me feel very bad, and then he apologized profusely and said it was nothing personal, he just wished I dressed more basic or plainly because he didn’t want all of that attention to drawn to him because he has social anxiety. I’m very confused by this interaction and not sure whether to be offended or not? Like at first I was very offended but then I thought what if he’s autistic or something. Then does that make it okay? Am I overreacting by being offended? Or am I losing all self-respect if I dress down for him the next time so he actually takes me out? This is a weird situation to be in. I felt super cute before I went out and him saying that absolutely crushed me, but now I’m wondering if my eccentric, bold and bright colored fashion is a big turn off for most guys. So my main questions are should I be offended? And do I need to tone down my fashion choices because it’s a turn off for men?

So I'm curious if anybody else has this problem. It almost feels like Old people are out to kill me. I'm talking about these 70-90 year old fossils who are constantly flying through red lights, not noticing traffic signs, nearly drifting into me on the highway. My gf works in pulmonary and they have this problem in the parking lot, old patients regularly dinging up cars and nearly running people over. Had one old fart nearly back right into my parked car waiting to pick her up, if I didn't start laying into the horn this jackass would've smashed right into me. When I was young I thought the country Kitchen Buffet episode of South Park was just humor. No man, these seniors are out for real and they're out for blood!!

Hey guys, this is a throwaway account, but I could really use some general advice on a few things I'm dealing with right now. Some background information, Im a 20M going into my third year at college and have dealt with self hate most of my life. I've grown a lot in the past year after a particularly nasty breakup that showed me the error of many of my ways, but I continue to deal with a constant "self critic" that gets pretty harsh at times. Along with mood issues, I also struggle to stay on top of my finances. I have an old truck that I love, but it seems like every single time I fix an issue with it, something else comes up and recently it has been extremely discouraging and depressing. I have absolutely no savings, and I struggle to prioritize and control my spending habits. All this works to make me hate myself even more, and the cycle of self hate that goes on on a daily basis is one of the main reasons for the aforementioned breakup that was (mostly) my fault. I worry that I'll always be this way and I honestly have no idea where to start, with my own mental well being and with my finances and car. I was going to therapy for a while, but due to the price I had to quit going. Really I'm just looking for any kind of guidance as I'm new to all of this and feel like I'm beginning to lose all of the progress that I've made in the past year

Ok, So my name is Mayah and I have previously come here last year to ask for someone to contact me about being their roommate since I was moving into Dallas in order to attend the college in person. Well, I managed to find someone last year and have had a blast living here and attending said college.
I am now taking summer classes and will be attending in the Fall 2023 semester.
Here are some things about me -
I am 21, Latina, Trans woman and 1 year on HRT. I do not like to bother people who don't wanna be bothered, I always keep to myself and make sure to respect every ones space and privacy. I don't smoke, don't have people over and don't go out much, for I do not have a car. So you do not have to worry about the parking space! I usually just remain within my space, so I wont bother you or make a mess.
I really want to keep going to this college, it means the world to me and I have to money to always pay and never miss any deadline set up. The only things I ask for is that the apartment is near or next to the Comet Cruiser public transport system, since that is how I get to UTD without a car.
The lease I am currently rooming for ends in mid July, so I would need to move out the LATEST in July 13th.
If you are interested, feel free to contact me via Reddit Messages and we can talk about it and I will give any sort of information needed for this. Thank you.

Yo glue. You don't use this place so you'll never hear this but I got to tell someone and I'm not going to send it to you and sound even crazier I don't want you thinking I'm some kind of psychopathic stalker and I want you to feel comfortable and respected with your boundaries. So let's get down to brass tacks.
Girl when I think about you and all this s*** that went on and I think about me. It reminds me of when in pulp fiction Bruce Willis is popping Marcellus Wallace (Ving rhames) in the face saying "you feel that?" That's your pride f****** with you or some s*** like that.
Man glue how the hell are my feelings going to be hurt and how can I be so selfish as to even think that I deserve to be respected or put any expectations on you I'm not going to go into huge detail. Reason being is because the rest of the world will hear it but you probably won't but at least out there in the void I'm going to make it to where the respect you deserve this voiced from me and that you're honored for the things that you've done selflessly. Being thet our sister birthday was yesterday and she's no longer with us I think she would smile from above knowing that I finally said something like this.
Hey let me say thank you for real. Thank you for shutting my ass down and thank you for this list I'm about to go through which I will go into detail at a later time.
I'm going to write a story about our lives. I'm telling you it's going to happen. I started three separate writings and I'm ready to scrap them all to tell our story. I'm going to focus on that in my writings anyways on to the summary of what glue means to me or what I acknowledge about glue.
What you were up against.
When we met. You a teenage girl. Abandoned by one parent in a very vile way. The other parent was raising you. We were running around, you got sick, and you were in the hospital for weeks with some very serious troubles. Towards the end of the hospital stay cuz I was in there with you the whole time. The other parent came said that they won't going to deal with you and for you to figure it out a young girl in the hospital. The crazy part is you had done nothing wrong. That was my first real dose of surrealism in people next to some childhood stuff from one of my mother's boyfriends. And shortly after you were told you didn't have a home to come back to as a teenage girl in the hospital the doctors came in and said you would never be able to get pregnant or bare children. You moved in with us me my mom and my sister. And after all that you have been through you would think that you'll be nervous or anxious or things will be awkward. No. You stepped into the home and you immediately brought light into it that it was missing. You immediately were a part of the family and you were a part that was missing the whole time that no one ever knew about. You became a daughter to my mother a sister to my sister and more important things than my words can express right now to me. You kept a strong mentality and glue you were always the caretaker. You dealt with me a young pig-headed man very much in love with you with the drug addiction you catered to me. But not like a slave you catered to my soul there is never someone that I can ever dream of to treat me the way you did. You were loyal man you were my everything. I was yours. None of this is going to be an order but I've traveled with you across the country. We moved to Louisiana. I got a job on the tugboats. You were in the middle of a new scary town. And here I was gone 30 days at a time. But you held on. That was a really stressful time when I look back and that was a time when even though it was an experience I regret that decision because being gone that long from you at that young seemed okay then but even though my buddy's family was around I should have been there. But we did it the best we could. Eventually that didn't work out I'll never forget two cats in a 1984 Ford escort and all our s*** driving all the way to the East Coast. That escort could do some runs now. Anyways we moved to the beach. Being close to home my drug addiction was still an active Factor at all times you held on every time you could. When we move to the beach we decided we were going to do other things we came back to the city. That's what my sister move to the beach with her friend and we were in the city and got to call she had been in a car wreck.
We fly down to the beach before that even cut my sister out of the car we made a 2-hour drive in about 45 minutes. They will my sister in you were right by her side by my side you were there fam you were going through it with me, with her, with the parents. The wheel her in she said she couldn't feel her legs. Boom paralyzed never going to walk again. Thank God she lived and thank God she has such an amazing sister beside her during it all.
After rehabilitation the situation that it happened put my mom into a absolute mental tailspin. So we stuck around as my mother could barely function to tend to my sister.. to your sister. So you a young young woman who had been s*** on by her family. Took over my mother's role and began caretaking for my sister, all the while taking care of my mom with her mental episodes and and down time, and taking care of a loving man with an addiction that had selfish tendencies and you filled the role of all three caretakers and still manage to love me and show me affection with a smile on your face. You took care of the whole house. You took care of the animals. I'm not talking about any of the good really that I did or anybody else did I just want you to be recognized here.
We decided to move to Florida after a long time of you taking care of my paralyzed sister and helping her acclimate until she started lighting it up. What she took off and became president the Honor society went back to school started doing fundraisers was in the Miss wheelchair state runnings eyeballing Ms wheelchair America..once she got in her groove... We went on to Florida.
In Florida you dealt with a man that had just found the purest cocaine he had done in a long time for dirt cheap prices. Through pretty much the whole stay we were there the years we were there. But I wasn't completely a lost cause so in Florida you became a business partner, an entrepreneur, an inventor, a teammate, a valuable asset, Chief cornerstone that all things business relied on between us and my buddy that we went into business with. Your pragmatic approach and abilities dominated with mine. The things I fell short in you could put into place... I don't want to say my inventiveness and idealism was the exact complimentary opposite to that where you lacked. But I'm going to be straight up with you you were just as inventive, sellable, full of ideas, practical enough to make it happen, and able to execute. So you were still at a young age early twenties the most amazing business partner I could ever ask for. Not to mention the fun in the sun the palm trees the tacky gold the new cars living on the beach man I was built for that s*** and I know you were. Eventually when the big collapse of the towers came, and us with our lack of savings which was a big part my fault. After September 11th the market just crashed and we didn't do business and s*** started going backwards and we sold our debt for what a couple thousand bucks? To watch my friend hold on to that business and buy us out of all that debt until it finally bankrupted was insane he really held on to that dream.
Anyways by the time we get back to our hometown not only is my sister been in a wheelchair now my sister develops a tumor on her pituitary gland Cushing's disease. My drug addiction is full force when we pull back into town. You jump right into action taking care of her everyone and by this time your family had got back in your life your parents. And you forgave them and let them in boy I'll never forget to work it took for you to get over that I remember the days that I sit with you and helped you work through that stuff. But you forgave you opened your heart and you opened your arms and embrace family. And you took care of everyone.
We get married. I get you pregnant the first child. I'm so far in addiction now that we're back home ground zero for those old habits. You're neglected, I'm high, selfish,I'm ashamed so basically I either don't come home because I've been up all night High s*** spending all of our money. And I mean all of it taking right out of my pregnant wife's and the baby's mouth to serve my f****** addiction. and you just held on. Remainder Rock still taking care of my sister. Still being there for my mom. And absolutely the polar opposite of what the doctor said when we first met about not being able to have kids. So after neglecting you constantly pawning off tons of responsibilities on you and spending every penny we had and expecting you to take care of the kids and never being home and being unavailable because I had a disgusting ratchet ass bottom of the barrel love affair that started with cocaine but once I tried to sling and learn how to cook cocaine became Crack to be exact. I traded you, businesses, vehicles, Mom Dad the kids, stability love, God, futures, anything everything I traded for that nasty b**** crack. Mind body Spirit trade it at all.
And what did you do you kept managing with what you we had you kept trying to hold it together and you held on for dear life.
Now you had already become a daughter to my mother and you were a sister to my sister so my part to play in that has nothing to do with y'all's relationship at this point. There's a very painful thing that I'm even scared to talk about maybe one day. Anyways finally you said you couldn't do it anymore I had driven us in the dirt I had literally turned us into basically homeless people with kids and I just could not stop when I would get to the bottom I'd bring a jackhammer and I'd find a new bottom. And you finally took your eyes off of me and you looked at what was the most important our child and you said it's time to separate you had to do it. Our separation you still tried to work with me as I got off the drug short-term and you came back and that's when I got you pregnant. That's what I want to talk to you about one day when we have time. But that has nothing to do with the honor you deserve because you are always were and not a doubt my mind always will be a loyal honorable commendable Royal woman a true virtuous woman.
Anyways when we started talking again during the separation I got you pregnant again. We got back together to try to make it work for both our kids now. But I wasn't going to give up crack for you all the families all the religion all the money and all the happiness in the world. I was that f****** stupid. God is good because I didn't 12 step my s*** out of there with that God come down and put a disgust and a chill in my bones about that s*** and made it disappear overnight. Maybe another time because it was way too late when it happened. Anyways I got you to raise two kids stole all of our money stole all of our food stole everything we didn't even have gas half the time. You hold on. You held one. I still have the claw marks in my soul from where you didn't want to let me go because you were that committed and that good of a woman. That in tune with family.
You went on to raise the kids by yourself you hooked up with another dude he got you pregnant then you dealt with him abusing you physically. Torturing that household. I know he's changed but I know some of this s*** that he did to my kids because I could see it in their eyes every time I would drop a fork. Thank God they healed from that. Whether they healed fully especially one of them I don't know. But then the question would have to be raised does the pain in the issues they go through revolve around him or revolve around the traumas from me. Cuz a dad supposed to be there. You basically dealt with him terrorizing y'all raising hell you've told me some of the things that he used to do to you I don't see how you can still talk to me like he needs you and you've got to be there for him but that's on you and I respect it but the way that you explain some of the things that he did to you to me it makes me sick to my stomach because I could just never see myself like harming you physically over and over and over again and doing things to you in other forms of physical abuse and getting pleasure or control out of it. But I can see taking you everything you ever owned and never given our kids a chance or anybody else and giving it all to crack can I so I don't know there. I just know it blows my mind. But I think it comes a lot from the fact I left us so bottom of the barrel out back from my addiction that as long as somebody was providing you felt some form of security over top of what I left you with which was complete insecurity. Maybe that's why you stuck around for the abuse and still justifiy it over top of the things I've done to this day.
You raised his kid, you raised my kids, you were the one true parent you were two dads you were one mom. You were a counselor, a provider a mediator a caretaker a teacher a protector a shelter a guide a mentor a motivator a problem solver you were a parent and you played the role of three parents. Plus you worked plus you were there for my family whenever they needed you. You were there for my sister all through her Cushing's disease. And there's so much more because you were building towards the future on your own establishing financial security vision for yourself holding the fort down getting damn near no financial help from me none 00.
I incurred 135,000 child support debt with you. How's that for deadbeat dead? See this isn't about the arrogant narcissistic guy you think I am this is about who you are. Let's just fast forward so we getting locked up for child support even though you had already told me you weren't working on getting all of that got rid of. And yes you may not believe this but my whole f****** inheritance is going to you not one red cent goes to me because you earned that. Yo you earned like 50,000 times that times a hundred times 50. All of the money in the world in my opinion is still not enough compensation if it was given all to you for the things you've done.
Now fast forward to my sister dying she's on her deathbed she's checking out. you stay and active part of her life and you check on her and you stay by her side and you are there with her as a friend you coming you become her caretaker in the end you help my mother you stand by my family side we see my sister into the Afterlife and we live the lives we live.
I come to the city out of the blue I'll come to find out there was a warrant out I get arrested. With some help from another family member if y'all bond me out with $13,000 cash. A week later I'm called by the courts they said we didn't have to show the decision could be made without us there and when we pop up they walk out and they say here here's your piece of paper sir. You owe $14.75. I'll look at the piece of paper it says Mr so and so your debt with child support enforcement has been cleared in full please pay us these $14 processing fees and your case is closed. You smiled me a smile at you.
And you said the most horrific thing I've ever heard in my life from someone. I'm being cynical here because it was really the most amazing thing but I hate the term because I'm a basket case. You looked at me and said be better do better.
Fast forward after that I started trying to get my s*** together started trying to help you with vehicles and stuff around the house and somehow... Some f****** way... I had the audacity to get offended by the way you were treating me. And I had a nervous breakdown. And I begin saying things to you the absolutely weren't true that I absolutely didn't mean and I f****** flaked.
You with no contact to protect yourself.
Look at what you have done how could I have done that?
Anyways I've seen my mom turn on you with her words. I've seen your parents turn on you, I've turned on you, seen your friends turn on you, I've seen a world I've seen your ex's turn on you, but you know what I've never seen you turn on the people that you give your ability and your honor to and your bonds to I've never seen you turn on them ever.
You didn't turn on me you were protecting yourself.
Glue you were the strongest f****** woman I've ever met and you are worthy of an award that his world renowned and recognized because there are so many things that I haven't said here.
You are The Rock, you are the glue, you are the ties that bind... You are the virtuous woman. Proverbs 31 versus 10 to 31 is the description of who You are. Even to the point of where our kids were raised by you to place the dwelling now that you're at. You have taken in so many other people's kids you're like a parent to everyone. You excel at every job that you do. Vital asset to every team that you join. Highly efficient highly intelligent. Insanely gorgeous. Smart funny. God your sense of humor is so f****** awesome.
I'll see things in pictures my brain sees things in pictures and I just see pictures of you sometimes where always if we were around somebody that was down you would do the goofiest s*** you had to do to get them to smile because that's what you do. Just like sis did and this is her birthday gift from me because she told me several times to think about how hard you have worked. And she begged me to draw that picture before she died I got it toward the day before she died it was so important to her that picture is me holding her hand and her grabbing a star and her feet rooted to the ground and the roots coming into my feet and it says my brother taught me to reach for the stars my sister taught me to remain grounded.
And it's weird because I look at that and I think about how much of a icon and how much of a aura and presence glue was see y'all were glue one and two. And I'll go get that picture that she had me draw and it brings these overwhelming senses of things because I miss her so much but it brings you into the picture too because you always kept me grounded and I could envision anything anything on vision and you could take it for what it was and you could be like okay it's not that practical but it can be done and you would make the systems that made it happen no matter what it was I could create anything with you. You are after all Earth. I'm air. Reach for the Stars grounded etc.
Do you have so many amazing qualities and you have done so many honorable things. And for my sister's birthday I honor you her sister because the things that she said really ring true now. If you never talk to me again I respect it, if you want us to try to have some kind of working amicable relation I respect it but I have to have communication, you are so much of everything good and honestly I still love you so much thatI fall apart in your presence. But forget me man for real f*** me. Glue I want you to be happy you deserve happiness and if I take away from that then I need to shut my f****** mouth and I need to take that s*** so I went down and I need to smile because I know that you're happier. I truly know what it's like to want something so bad because I have for years but I never got healthy I'm just now getting around to taking care of myself. But I have for years wanted you and when I couldn't have you that's when you became Bruce Willis and you was popping my ass in the face saying you feel that boy that's your pride f****** with you.
Will glue I'm swallowing my pride. I want you to be happy no matter what I want you to be honored. If you ever do decide you want me in your life in any form please give me the communication I need to approach it healthily if not I'll f*** it up. I'm not even going to ask you what you want I'm not going to bug you but if by some chance in hell you ever find this letter just know at any point anytime you can reach out to me and ask for anything. I have taken and taken and taken and you have given and given and given it's time for me to sit the f*** down shut the f****** and love you the way you're supposed to be loved. And that means unconditionally loving you for who you are not loving you for me loving you because I absolutely adore who You are and I want to see the best life you can have happen.
You probably can't see your value and priceless coming out of my mouth or anyone else still does not do it justice.
Going to write a story about us glue.
And I promise to never promise again and just show you by allowing you the power dynamic you deserve to make your own choices and get the happiest healthiest life you can without me interjecting you've done it well this far better than me. Have made myself look like a total helpless loser in this but we both know what I'm capable of and what I'm about. If you need a roll for me just communicate it. I'll give it my all even if giving it my all means standing outside the box looking in but never burdening you with the fact that I am anymore.
And I'm not going to bring it up. Man I hope one day you get all the things you deserve.
You're admired appreciated loved and honored. By many. You are the Chief cornerstone woman. You are woman all woman.
I love you always will. Have my power dynamics take what you need and should you ever need me to flex my power because we both know all you got to do is make the call and I'll flex on whatever the hell you need me to as hard as you need me to and I'll scoop my ass right on out the way if that's what you need after it's done
Thank you glue
Buy some odd chance should you ever want me to be the one to try to love you communicate with me and point me in the direction I'm so f***** up out here I need direction and I know that they could be poisonous to you so you being The logical thinker that you are take that for what you will.
I've never been able to fully give myself to anyone else because I truly feel that to this day I will take my love for you to the grave.
You're that special.
Should I ever get a chance to love you and stand by your side of your man again you're going to have to let me die and and come out of the death of at least once because I'll die of happiness and wake up I just I wouldn't know how to handle it.
To me it's like imagine somebody said hey here's this egg but it doesn't have a shell that's just made of the rubber stuff that holds the shell together and you've got to run this egg 3 MI of mountain terrain in 20 minutes or the whole world ends.
Well I would just take the f****** egg and throw it on the ground. That's how I've been treating things. That's what I'm relearning everything.
It could be a detriment to you you know the sign of this always protect yourself and do what's best for your happiness but if I could love you again and be your man the things I would do I can't tell you because that would be the same old same old and honestly I just don't know.
I just know I love you you've always been everything to me and there will never be anyone that compares and there never has been.
Thank you for who you are

This is a follow up to my previous analysis here:
https://www.reddit.com/IntoTheSpiderverse/comments/13yomdh/the_worst_thing_beyond_the_spiderverse_could_do/
So there are a couple more incredible story and visual details I wanted to bring up and encourage some discussion on (I've seen the film four times now, I have a problem).
Pavitr:
The film makes sure to note how new Pavitr is to being Spider-Man. He's only six months in and he claims that being Spider-Man is "sooooo easy!" (something we know is absolutely not true). He's given his (implied) first "playbook" Spider-Man challenge when saving civilians from the collapsing Alchemax building. While holding onto a bus filled with people, including his love interest, he sees that Inspector Singh is in mortal danger and tells himself that he "can do both", he can save everyone. This directly mirrors Miles's current situation as well as Miles's current attitude. However, Pavitr isn't the main protagonist of the story, we can see that he can't do both (while reassuring himself he can "do both" he begins to wrap the single thread of web suspending the bus full of people onto one of the small concrete grid rods sticking out of the collapsed bridge he's hanging onto), he can't save everyone, Miles had to intervene for everyone to be saved. Miles's intervention is mirrored by Gwen and her band's intervention in helping Miles in the next film. However, Pavitr's dimension collapsing could foreshadow that the band's help won't actually address and resolve the moral problem presented. To note, Pavitr was spared the pain of losing Inspector Singh, but he was also denied this opportunity to grow, he wasn't challenged to forge ahead in the face of the death of someone close to him.
George Stacy:
Aside all the current analysis on George Stacy's role in proving that canon can be subverted as well as Gwen's "coming out" character arc to her father, there's a parallel between George and Miles that I don't see anyone talking about. One of the core themes of Across the Spider-Verse is responsibilities, specifically conflicting responsibilities (the moral dilemma). George Stacy does not only possess responsibility as a father, but he possesses responsibility as a cop. When Gwen is revealed to be Spider-Woman to him, his two responsibilities are immediately made incompatible with one another. He's forced into a position to choose one responsibility over another, he chooses to be a father over being a cop. This further plays into another theme in the film, "you can't have it all". In George Stacy's little monologue, "police captain" is interchangeable with "Spider-Man", the mask is the badge and vice versa. Miles is in a position now where, with the information given to him and us the audience, his responsibility as Spider-Man is in conflict with his responsibility as a son. He may ultimately have to make a choice to uphold one responsibility and abandon the other. We want Gwen Stacy to come out on top, so having George quit the responsibility of police captain is great for her and for us, but having Miles quite the responsibility of being Spider-Man is a much more morally challenging choice.
Clearing up Jeff Davis's role in Prowler Miles / Miles-42's life:
I've been seeing some debate online on whether Miles-42's dad had been absent from his upbringing or whether he had died recently (similarly to the timeline of Uncle Aaron's death). When the "camera" follows Miles-1610 around his Earth-42 home variant, the family photos only contain him and his mom. When the camera follows Gwen around Miles's Earth-1610 home variant, the family photos contain all three members of the Davis/Morales family. Both characters are used as tour guides to subtly inform the audience that Jeff has been dead for most of Miles-42's life and wasn't a large part of his upbringing (not a recent death).
Peter B. Parker:
I absolutely love Peter's monologue to Miles about "good" things and "bad" things happening. His message to Miles is a much more emotionally touching and charitable version of the current status quo of what it means to be Spider-Man. The message highlights that there will always be bad things that happen, you can't always stop them from happening, you probably often can't stop them from happening, but you have to take the good with the bad, you have to find a reason to keep going (rest in power Uncle Aaron), you have to make a reason to keep going. Struggling and fighting more and more against the bad actively prevents you from finding that good and those reasons, trying to shut down the all the harm and all the pain now furiously and stubbornly creates more harm by shutting down the good you could've fostered in healing and moving on (a much better version of Miguel's point). Peter is a more optimistic and emotionally charitable version of Miguel in reiterating this point and approach on Spider-Man as a character, and this compassion encouraged Miles to begin processing this point of view. However, the watch's beeper prevented us from getting to see Miles begin to seriously consider this approach.
Miles's Strength:
Miles speech to his Earth-42 variant of his mom was incredible. The line "I know how strong I am now" has beat me with an emotional stick during each of my four viewings. To go through exactly what his mom foreshadowed he would go through and to come out with an experience that validates his identity and his claim to the Spider-Man mantle of power is the kind of self-discovery that inspires us to be strong, assertive, independent, and charitable to ourselves. But here's the thing, Miles's strength hasn't faced the ultimate test yet. He hasn't yet come face to face with the death of his dad and the destruction of his universe. His immediate and current moral decision is to still risk the safety of everything else and everyone else to rescue his father (see Pavitr). He thinks he can save everyone, he thinks he can have it all, he doesn't actually know how strong he is yet.
Miles being a "unique" Spider-Man:
I've seen a lot of sentiment that because Mile's is a "unique" Spider-Man, he is, or should be, exempt from the "rules" of canon. Miles isn't actually all that unique though. He's "unique" in the sense that he's the main character, so we're meant to empathize with him and focus on the differences between his journey as Spider-Man from the journeys of other Spider-People. However, showing us an absolutely TON of Spider-People in Spider-Society isn't just fanservice. We get so many different costumes, color schemes, body-types, voices/accents, and artstyles between the Spider-People that it's difficult to find any two that look nearly identical in any scene where we see the Spider-Society. Each Spider-Person is "unique" the same way Miles is, they each have their own stories and their own aesthetic. I think the writers' deliberately chose to highlight how unique each Spider-Person is as well as highlight how they are all still the same because of the common narrative threads between all their stories. Despite how unique any of the Spider-People are, their experiences have broadly given them the same moral lessons.