Drunk driving essay opening sentence

I just got out of a very serious relationship. My ex and I still live together! Woops! However, she quickly recovered and got a girlfriend. We’re mostly on good terms with some obvious silent resentment. We moved into different rooms leaving another room open.
Well, we needed someone to help with rent and found someone via Facebook. They were very chill and nice and responsible and totally well-adjusted. She’s been living with us for a week and a half. A couple days of her living with us on Friday night we got drunk with some friends and we were talking and I made a joke about how she gave me a weird look when she first met me in person and I had to assume it’s because I’m much shorter than I look in my profile photo. She had an uncomfortable laugh and got really shy and the subject changed.
Well, this weekend, we had a great bonding experience where we were on the couch playing video games and getting to know each other even better and laughing, it was a great time. Randomly she confessed to me that that “weird look” she gave me wasn’t cause I was short, it’s because I was cute and she was hoping I’d be less attractive in person because she knew she’d have to behave herself.
Wow, massive confidence boost, especially because she herself is very attractive and I didn’t expect it at all. I told her she was cute too, I still felt like it was mostly a friendly vibe but the conversation would get very casually flirty and suggestive. I kinda got the feeling that if I wanted to I could probably take it further, but I stopped. Is that a healthy situation for us to be in? Brand new roommates having sex? I do not want a relationship, I just got out of one and she did too, although it seems like she might be looking for a new man (she’s dating around and she does not have trouble at all). I of course have no idea of her intentions though, she very well might just want casual.
On the other hand, we’re young [25M, 26F], we’re horny, and you only live once and I really want to have sex with her.
Ever since she has acted very bashful and flirty and it’s adorable and I can’t help but flirt a little bit back.
What boundaries do I need to set here? What potential problems could this cause? How should I proceed?
TLDR; roommate I’ve known for a week that I found on Facebook finds me attractive and I kind of want to sleep with her, should I do it and if I do what do I need to know to keep it a healthy dynamic?

https://abc11.com/post/2-killed-crash-child-hurt-us-business-70-garne14879255/
Don't drive impaired. Stop your friends if you see them even hinting at driving drunk or high. An innocent family lost due to one person's selfish decision.

Title is pretty self-explanatory. :D I'm not going to wax poetic about my (numerous) virtues and I'm not going to write a thirtythousand-word essay about the life and adventures of the great quiet_dissonance. Just come on over and let's shoot the breeze for a while.
I'm a huge book lover. Currently reading Battle Royale by Koushun Takami. I'd previously read the manga (a long, long time ago), and I'm noticing a big difference between the original source material and the manga adaptation. I'm quite enjoying it so far.
I love video games. I recently finished Inside, and I must profess myself an enthusiastic fan. It was such an atmospheric experience, both chilling and soothing. If anyone has similar games to recommend, I will happily welcome them. I'm playing Digimon Survive (not for everyone, but I personally like the slower pace and the Visual Novel format) and Ni No Kuni. I started Little Nightmares a few days ago, and it's been great. The puzzles aren't all that challenging but still fun to solve, the horror elements are well-executed. I'm having the most trouble with the platforming, BUT only because my controller is a little dysfunctional... yes yes, that's what they all say, but I swear it's true this time. 😂 The left analog stick has developed a mind of its own! It gets super annoying during the chase scenes.
I watch various shows, including anime. Right now, I'm on season 6 of Brooklyn 99, and season 2 of The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. Very different stories, yet immensely enjoyable in their own right.
I like to go on long drives, as well as long walks. Anything that allows for the quiet contemplation of the world around me.
How's your day going? Let's talk soon.

I have a friend visiting town and the other night we were talking about things to do, and I remembered the book store. I read him some of the reviews and we decided to check it out. We went in with a plan; no phones in hand, and we both had specific authors to ask for. First off, in front of the place on the sidewalk, they have a table with some books on it, and also a few random kids toys, giving the impression that they’d like for you to browse, and perhaps purchase something. The moment the door opened, the woman and the man behind the corner looked at each other with some kind of an “ok, here we go” expression. She greeted us, we said hello, and then she asked if there was anything we were looking for. My friend said he was looking for anything from Dr. Bruce Perry, and she immediately said they didn’t have it. I said I was looking for a 1st edition of Fast Times at Ridgemont High and I’m not sure if I had even finished my sentence before she said they didn’t have it. She then said they have an appointment coming up and we needed to leave. I then said there’s a new Stephen King book I wanted, and she said they didn’t have that either, and started pointing at the door for us to leave. The entire time, the man behind the counter was standing, almost in a 3 point stance, just staring at us. We then said we’d just like to look around because we like finding new things to read, to which she replied “we don’t allow that here”. My friend and I both started laughing and I said “well that’s pretty odd”. I then looked at the books next to me and saw a whole shelf of Stephen King books. I pointed at one and said “Actually, this is the book I was looking for!” The woman said “No, sorry”. At this point she was ushering us towards the door and since our bit was basically over, we followed her. When she opened the door for us and pushed us out, there was a couple browsing the sidewalk book table, and I told them they should definitely go inside because these people are weird as fuck. We were parked right across the street, so we got in the car and waited for a second to see if the couple would go inside. After a bit, they did make an attempt to go inside, but the owner had locked the door. I would 10/10 recommend checking this place out. If anyone can get them to actually sell you a book, I’ll pay for it. I’ll need a receipt as proof.

Hey everyone.
I (28M) know “infrequently” is up to interpretation, but I suppose I mean every few weeks.
When I get together with friends, I really push the limits on my drinking. I’m very socially anxious/a big overthinker and drinking is like the magic pill for my anxiety. After a couple beers I feel like I’m on top of the world - very quick-witted, energetic, good at making others feel good with compliments and jokes.
Inevitably though I’ll push it to four or so drinks, and after that it’s like the alcohol floodgates open, and I have a really hard time stopping myself before I’m too drunk. I’ll drink my beer fast and start saying things that I’ll regret the next day. When my friends and I go out I’m usually the drunkest person of the group.
Over the last couple years my hangovers have become vicious, with hangxiety and the usual physical reactions coupled together.
I want to be better and am trying to limit myself, and have toyed around with the idea of not drinking at all. It’s really tough to break away from this when I’ve relied on it so long as a crutch.

Posting because I’m struggling. I don’t want advice but thoughtful feedback is appreciated- especially from guys who identify as exclusive tops/ bottoms experienced in navigating open relationships.
Me and my bf (ftm) went to an event this weekend geared towards t4t people. In this event space people are pretty much free to have sex wherever. We have talked before about looking for someone for a threesome and we were both looking forward to this event. So we both had some drinks and found someone pretty quick.
I was pretty much on the fence about this person - they were cute but I wasn’t sure if our dynamic would work. They seemed way more into my boyfriend (who exclusively tops) than me (I exclusively bottom). So my bf asked if I was interested and I kind of shrugged and nodded. I wanted him to make the decision because I was curious to see where it would go.
The image of them fucking and me just laying there keeps playing over and over again in my head. There were parts where I was participating but I could tell the other person was reluctant to top me. Their words said they were a switch but their actions said they were a bottom seeking a top, and I felt like I fit in nowhere. Like I was just a piece of furniture. I had told my bf in the past that I was only really interested in a dynamic with two tops and looking back I’m mad at myself for not holding the line.
For anyone who has experience with being in an open relationship with strict sexual roles… how do you navigate that? How do you navigate finding someone who gives sexual attention to both of you in a validating way? I truly cherish the sexual dynamic we have and only want to let people in who are into our deal. After this though the hurt part of me wants to close the relationship but I’m afraid of driving my bf away. This hurt a lot though. Thanks for reading.

Title is pretty self-explanatory. :D I'm not going to wax poetic about my (numerous) virtues and I'm not going to write a thirtythousand-word essay about the life and adventures of the great quiet_dissonance. Just come on over and let's shoot the breeze for a while.
I'm a huge book lover. Currently reading Battle Royale by Koushun Takami. I'd previously read the manga (a long, long time ago), and I'm noticing a big difference between the original source material and the manga adaptation. I'm quite enjoying it so far.
I love video games. I recently finished Inside, and I must profess myself an enthusiastic fan. It was such an atmospheric experience, both chilling and soothing. If anyone has similar games to recommend, I will happily welcome them. I'm playing Digimon Survive (not for everyone, but I personally like the slower pace and the Visual Novel format) and Ni No Kuni. I started Little Nightmares a few days ago, and it's been great. The puzzles aren't all that challenging but still fun to solve, the horror elements are well-executed. I'm having the most trouble with the platforming, BUT only because my controller is a little dysfunctional... yes yes, that's what they all say, but I swear it's true this time. 😂 The left analog stick has developed a mind of its own! It gets super annoying during the chase scenes.
I watch various shows, including anime. Right now, I'm on season 6 of Brooklyn 99, and season 2 of The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. Very different stories, yet immensely enjoyable in their own right.
I like to go on long drives, as well as long walks. Anything that allows for the quiet contemplation of the world around me.
How's your day going? Let's talk soon.

I am pre T and start T tomorrow. I grew up strictly into really feminine girls, specifically a type. I brought my girlfriend into my appointment and the doctor mentioned how sexual desires/orientation has a possibility of changing, which scared her and she even began crying. I really love my girlfriend and I’m confident these things won’t change, even then I feel like I’d have a higher sex drive with her. I’ve never peeled an eye to a guy, never thought sexually or anything. I cannot even fathom getting penetrated, it’s just a heck no to me. As a kid I grew up only liking guy things, dressing more on the masculine side, liking more “masculine” toys. I’m just worried on hurting my girlfriend. I just feel like I’d be more open with my kinks where I am the top.
Has anyone else been in a similar situation where you’re confident you’re straight yet it changed?

It happened. He didn't deny that. Not like he was a suspect or anything—not yet—but he never denied it to himself. At the same time, this all happened over a decade ago—twelve years to be exact.
He didn't think of it every day; in fact, sometimes an entire month would go by where it barely crossed his mind.
In a way, that whole experience—he thought of all the abductions and murders as a singular event—now felt as if it belonged to somebody else.
It was a time in his life when he was confused, mixed-up, searching; a dark time, you know, like a phase. Who didn't have one of those in their past?
Plus, he was married now. His wife, Dee, obviously didn't know about it and he felt no obligation to tell her. Did he ask about her former lovers?
Sometimes there are things in the past and you just let them be. Whether it was Dee losing her virginity to the quarterback of the football team in the backseat at a drive-in or him using multiple black garbage bags and masking tape on that thing he didn't have time to bury in rural Tennessee, everyone has things they would rather forget about. Sometimes you just leave things where they lie.
So that's what Ned Doyle did.
Until that Sunday morning, November 6th, 1988.
He was a having a glass of Dee's pulpy homemade orange juice, waiting for his coffee to percolate, when he opened his heavy weekend edition of the New York Times (probably Ned's greatest extravagance—he liked its heft; and how the Arts & Leisure section made him feel culturally superior to his Ohio townsfolk, “the Philistines of Findlay,” he called them) when he saw the article buried in the back.
The country was two days from heading to the polls for the General Election—Bush v. Dukakis—so most everything else that week had been relegated to the back.
He read the article twice before he could even begin to make sense of it. It seemed to be a story about something called "DNA fingerprinting" and a 27-year-old baker in Great Britain named Colin Pitchfork who had confessed to raping and murdering two 15-year-old girls, in separate incidents a few years apart, after a new scientific process had been used to extract information from semen which he, Colin Pitchfork, had left at the crime scenes (likely inside the victims) some five years earlier.
Now if they could do all that after five years, why not ten years—or maybe even… twelve?
"Interesting story here," he said to Dee. It wasn't uncommon for Ned to read a news story twice—once for himself and a second time aloud to Dee while she brewed his coffee and burnt her toast. But this was his third reading and Ned acted as if it were his first.
"What do you make of that?" he asked. It somehow got worse each time he read it. After the third time, he felt as if he had been sucker punched in the stomach.
"Science Fiction is what it sounds like," Dee said matter-of-factly, pouring Ned his coffee in a mug that bore the Marathon Oil insignia. Findlay, Ohio was Marathon’s headquarters although there had been rumors circulating about a move to Texas.
"And unconstitutional," he said. "Cops running a dragnet like that, taking blood samples from 5,000 townspeople. Thankfully, that would never pass the muster here."
"They did catch the killer so maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea," she said, buttering her burnt toast. "Otherwise, who knows? They could have convicted the wrong man.”
Ned had already gotten lucky once – astonishingly so. Griffin Gerald Jones, the famed “I-75 Corridor Child Killer,” had claimed responsibility for all but one of Ned’s victims before dying in Florida’s electric chair.
"You can't have police in this country running around, sticking everyone with needles, drawing blood for some sort of science experiment,” he said. “Nevermind the Constitution, what about AIDS?”
“What about it?” she asked.
“There's been hundreds, thousands of cases now where people have been infected by giving blood,” he said. “That's a medical fact. Get accused of a crime and AIDS too?"
"It doesn't sound like any of the townspeople there in England got AIDS, darling. Unless there's more to the story, besides what you read to me."
He watched her spread orange marmalade over her burnt toast and take a bite. She had a dead tooth and he saw it every time she opened her mouth. He loved Dee but had never been sexually attracted to her. Not in the way he had been attracted to others.
"It really is just a matter of time before that stuff makes it over here," she said with her mouth full. "To this side of the pond, as they say." She took a sip of his orange juice. "Isn’t that how it always works? Things start over there in England, or in California, and then phht, before you know it, it makes its way to Findlay."
He held his hand over his stomach. She saw him wince.
"Was it my orange juice again? Was it still pulpy? I squeezed it by hand and even strained it twice this time."
"It’s not your fault,” he said. “I think it’s me. Orange juice is getting too… acidic for me." He looked at the clock on the coffee maker. "I'm going to be late."
He turned the page.
He played the 8 o'clock Mass by rote as he had many a bleary-eyed Sunday morning. It was pure muscle memory at this point. He made a few mistakes here and there, missed a key or two, but it was nothing the organ's sustain pedal couldn't mask – not that anyone would complain (not at the 8 o'clock anyway).
On Sundays Ned had four Masses: the 8, the 9:30, the big one at 11, and the 12:30 for the dilettantes who couldn't get their acts together for the 11.
He turned the page.
Today he was using Glory and Praise, AKA "the blue hymnal" for songs he knew by heart.
Turning the pages of his sheet music, reading each note, he was able to keep his mind off it.
Ned abhorred cliches (especially those involving sports) but he made an exception for “Out of sight, out of mind.” For Ned, that wasn’t a cliché; it was a way of life. He was a man who preferred to be heard, not seen, which made St. Bartholomew (or St. Bart’s) the perfect home for him.
In a spectacular architectural oversight, the church's pipe organ was situated so the organist's back was to the altar and pews. The organist of course needs to see what's going on in the Mass to read certain non-verbal cues but the arrangement suited Ned just fine. The congregation was comprised of many young families who had many young children—boys in particular—and it wasn't so much that he couldn't control himself because he was now firmly in control of all that; it was more that he didn't need any reminders of that time when he couldn't.
Especially during church.
So to see the altar behind him, Ned had installed an actual rearview mirror, the type you'd find on an old Buick, and he used a special type of putty to affix it to the mantle of the pipe organ. Having been the church organist at St. Bart's for nine years, he seldom needed it anymore—he could do it in his sleep—but it came in handy today as he found his attention drifting and he nearly missed the oratory refrain at the 9:30 Mass.
His real problems didn't start until the 35-minute break between the 8 and 9:30.
He was reorganizing his sheet music after the first wave of churchgoers had cleared out, when he began thinking about Colin Pitchfork again. The article said he was a baker in England somewhere—did it say he baked cakes or was that Ned's invention?
Even though no picture was provided in the Times article, Ned spent the balance of the 9:30 service picturing the 27- year-old ex-rapist/murderer working in his small English bakery, quietly going about his business, baking his cakes, when the police (Bobbies?) came.
Was he expecting them?
He played the offertory hymn, "On Eagle's Wings," as the ushers began taking up the collections and a family of parishioners he’d never seen before brought the gifts up.
And what was going through Pitchfork's head when he saw the Bobbies there? When they began asking him about rapes and murders that happened almost five years ago? The article said that he had initially given investigators someone else's blood when “the enquiry” began. Had he somehow caught wind of this “DNA Fingerprinting?”
There was a new usher, Ned noticed, in his makeshift rearview mirror.
The Times article said that one of Pitchfork's co-workers at the bakery had taken the blood test masquerading as Pitchfork because Pitchfork had told the co-worker that ‘he could not give blood under his own name because he had already given blood while pretending to be a friend of his who had wanted to avoid being harassed by police because of a youthful conviction for burglary.’ This story was later overheard by a woman in a pub who immediately went to the police.
Ned realized he had missed the homily twice now. Not that it mattered. Heard one you've heard them all and Ned was pretty sure there would be no surprises. Plus, he'd have two more chances to catch it. He knew he would have to really focus for the 11 o'clock. That was always the main event. He was going to play "I Will Raise Him Up," a complex hymn, which required his full attention. He would scratch that one now if he hadn’t read that article and if the Sunday programs hadn't already been printed. People liked that one –it was a real barn burner, as they say—and if he skipped it, there might be questions.
The last thing Ned needed right now were fucking questions.
Who was this new usher, by the way?

By the start of the 11 o'clock Mass, Ned wondered whether anyone would even show for the 12:30, seeing that it was already standing room only. The 11 was always the most popular Mass, but today felt different; it was packed like Christmas Eve. What was the occasion? Was the predominantly conservative town that afraid of Dukakis winning the presidency? Ohio was a swing state after all and that image of the little Greek man in the tank was unnerving, sure, but was it enough to warrant this sort of turnout for the 11 AM Mass at St. Bart's in Findlay?
Or was something else going on?
Ned didn’t believe they had come to hear his rendition of "I Will Raise Him Up."
Or could there be another reason? Maybe they had all read the same Times article. Maybe there had long been simmering suspicion of Ned in the community and maybe the article finally prompted the townspeople to join together and take arms. With pitchforks.
On March 31, 1892, the only known lynching in the history of Hancock County occurred when a mob of 1,000 men, many "respectable citizens," broke into the county jail in Findlay. They lynched Mr. Lytle, a man who had killed his wife and two daughters with a hatchet the day before. The townsfolk hanged the man twice (first from the bridge, then a telegraph pole) and then, in a classic case of overkill, shot his body over a dozen times. The authorities had intended to transfer the prisoner out of town at 1 o'clock in secret, where a train was scheduled to transport him to Lima, but someone talked.
Ned had only confessed what he had done to one person – a priest eight years prior. The priest was set to retire as he was dying of pancreatic cancer and visiting from a nearby parish. For years Ned had heard this priest was “of the old school” – i.e., your word to God’s ear, and it went no further. He was as safe as they come. Still, even then, Ned used the screened side of the Confessional, lowered his voice a full octave, and spoke of what he had done obliquely and in generalities. They were mortal sins. His penance severe: to repent and refrain from repeating the act again. The priest was now long dead. There’s no way he could have tracked Ned down and told anyone. Was there?
The last one was named Derek. That was the only one left unsolved.
He would play "I Will Raise Him Up" during Communion. Because of the crowds, he knew the communion lines would be longer and would thus require him to stretch the already difficult song a few minutes longer. If he was going to supply the masses, he was going to need a bigger yield. In a way it was like baking a cake, wasn't it?
He met Derek at a Dairy Queen in Paducah, Kentucky. It was Labor Day 1976. It must have been 100 degrees out, but it felt even hotter with the humidity. It was a real scorcher.
Derek had a bicycle with an American flag banana seat. It was the summer of Bicentennial Fever. The Dairy Queen was in an area known as Noble Park. It had a tin canopy that kept cars cool in the shade.
Ned missed a note as he turned the page. He stepped on the sustain pedal and his mistake sounded deliberate and beautiful even.
It was early evening; fireflies were out in full force and Ned was blotto. He had been drinking beer—cans of Schlitz—all day at the picnic of a friend (technically, the friend of an acquaintance so basically a stranger). A born introvert who still lived alone (this was pre-Dee), Ned was very drunk and primed for small talk. You must also remember this was a very different time. This was back when you still opened cans with an opener; drunk driving was frowned upon but not the cardinal sin it is today; and a grown man could still park outside a Dairy Queen and strike up an innocent conversation with a prepubescent boy on a bike.
"What da ya' got there?" Ned asked.
"Butterscotch Sundae," the boy said. The boy was blonde with brown eyes.
"Butterscotch, eh?"
The boy licked his plastic spoon and stared somewhere beyond the pea-green 1974 Buick Riviera Ned had inherited from his old man after he had kicked the bucket.
"For the life of me, I can't remember if I like butterscotch or not," Ned said. "That probably sounds pretty screwy, I bet."
"Get a free sample at the window,” the kid said. “They're free."
"Looks awfully busy over there. Mind if I have a taste of yours? I don't have any cooties, I promise."
The kid dragged his spoon over his ice cream as he mulled it over. Maybe seeing that he was almost done with it anyway, he figured what's the harm. He handed Ned the Styrofoam cup.
Ned looked at the boy as he stirred it a little and then placed the curved side of the spoon on his tongue and kept it there.
"I do like butterscotch," Ned said, giving it back. "Thank you for sharing that with me, that was awfully kind of you—say, what is your name?"
"Derek," the boy said.
"Derek. What a nice boy you are. Do you like dogs, Derek?"
"Sure," Derek said.
"Do you have a dog?"
"Not anymore. Used to. We had a beagle named Eleanor but she went blind and then lame and then..."
"What kind of dog was she?" Ned asked.
"A beagle," the boy said.
"A beagle, yes you said that. You like Golden Retrievers?"
"Sure," the boy said.
"Cause I have a Golden Retriever. It's a girl too. A bitch."
Derek smiled.
"She's pregnant. I mean she was. But… she just gave birth."
"To puppies?"
"You betcha. It was just a few weeks ago. She had a whole litter of 'em. Boys, girls. Cutest little pups you've ever seen. The thing is, Derek, I don't know what to do with them all. You're a nice boy. You just shared your Butterscotch Sundae with me and I'd care to return the favor. Would you… like a puppy?"
"How much?"
"For nothing,” Ned said. “For free.”
"You'll give me a puppy for nothing? And I can pick the one I want?"
"Sure can. They're at my place just down the road. Thing is, it's probably too far to bike there. And you're going to need both hands to hold on to the puppy. Hop in, I’ll give you a lift."
"What about my bike?"
"We could put it in the trunk but we're not going to be long. We'll be right back. It'll be safe here. People don't take things that aren’t theirs around here – especially when there's a lot of people around."
He remembered waking up on the floor of his apartment disoriented. He was late for work. He was still working as a salesman at the piano store. There was a big Labor Day sale still going on. Labor Day was always a big day for retail. The owner was a nice man and Ned wanted to call him and apologize but he wasn't sure what to say yet.
He hadn't planned on sleeping in. Forgetting work on Labor Day. The irony.
He saw the boy's underwear on his floor. They were tighty-whities from Fruit of the Loom. He thought of that every time he saw an ad for that company afterward.
They weren’t bloody but they were torn.
He remembered the sound of the filter on the aquarium he used to keep in his apartment. It was noisy but sometimes that was a good thing. He was very into Japanese Fighting Fish for a while until it became too expensive as they always killed each other.
There were no puppies obviously.
His apartment did not allow dogs.
His sense of disorientation and the ensuing panic prevented him from experiencing any of the usual remorse he felt afterward.
There would be plenty of time for that later.
The boy's body was in the bathroom just off the bedroom and he needed to get rid of it. He needed to get out of town. Out of Paducah. Out of Kentucky.
He placed the boy in a hardshell Samsonite suitcase, carried it out of his apartment, walked down the one flight of steps. He saw no one and he was confident no one had seen him. The suitcase was lighter than it should have been—a detail he never forgot—and he walked out to the carport where he saw his Riviera parked sloppily between the lines. He felt a wave of nausea come over him but he suppressed it. He opened his trunk, placed the suitcase in the back, and then looked around the apartment complex before walking back inside. He cleaned up with bleach. Showered. Hit the road.
There were no police gathered outside the Dairy Queen. It wasn’t a crime scene. He didn't look to see if the boy’s bike was still there; he didn’t want to appear suspicious.
He needed to get out of Paducah so he headed toward the freeway.
For a moment he briefly considered the Shawnee National Forest, which was to the north, but he stuck to his gut and took the newly-constructed Interstate 24 East toward Tennessee. Aside from getting out of Kentucky, he didn't have a plan. The asphalt was brand new and at times he felt as though he were floating across the highway. It took about two hours to get to the state line and once he was over, he filled up at a 76 Station in Clarksville, Tennessee. Only when he was filling his tank and had a moment to reflect, did he think about what was in the trunk. He imagined he had Superman's X-Ray vision and pictured the suitcase in the back, the boy's tiny body folded like a pretzel inside.
He missed both the readings, the Gospel, and the homily again. Then came the Consecration which was over before he knew it. It was time. He began to play "I Will Raise Him Up." In his rearview, he saw the communion lines forming and he thought he caught a glimpse of the new usher staring at him, but he couldn't be sure. He needed to concentrate on the song. People knew this one; people wanted to hear it exactly as they remembered it, and it was a full house, so the sustain pedal wouldn't save him this time.
Once he made it through the chorus, he knew he could relax a little.
The "DNA fingerprinting" in Pitchfork's case came from semen that was left inside of the victims.
Ned had made it to the outskirts of Nashville faster than he expected. He still hadn't checked in with Mr. Cory, the owner of the piano store. He desperately needed an alibi. Old Mr. Cory could probably send Ned to the electric chair if he wasn't careful.
He got on Highway 386 and headed north. After 20 minutes, he exited in Gallatin and drove around until he found an area he thought was remote. There was a road called Cages Bend.
He liked the sound of that.
It sounded hopeful.
He took that until he came to a gravel road, which looked as if it led to an even more secluded wooded area.
In the rearview, he remembered the cloud of dust kicked up by the tires of the Riviera he had inherited from his father, the drunk, who had done to him what he had gone on to do to others.
In the rearview, the communion lines were still going strong. No sign of that new usher.
He came upon a bend in the road that looked totally secluded, as if no one had been there in years. He cut the engine and listened for a moment. The invisible cicadas high up in the trees made it sound as if a giant rattle snake was slithering around him, preparing to strike. He got out of the car.
He didn't know if it was the trees or the fields of tall grass, but something smelled like semen.
He opened the trunk with his keys and pulled out the hardshell suitcase. When he closed the trunk there was a rustling in the tall grass but when he looked, he saw only a herd of white tail deer scattering.
Initially he had planned on dumping the body and taking the suitcase home with him. He didn't think to bring a shovel. Then he heard the sound of a bush hog—a piece of farm equipment with spinning blades that cut vegetation and cleared the land. He couldn't tell which direction it was coming from. He checked to make sure his suitcase didn't have any labels on it or name tags. He then two black trash bags in his back seat and wrapped the suitcase – one bag around the top, the other on the bottom, and secured it with masking tape. Then he carried it into the woods and set it down in some brush. He began snapping tree branches off to make cover but as the bush hog got louder and closer he panicked, leaving it only partially covered.
The communion lines had dissipated. Everyone was sitting now, even the priest.
Everyone always knelt until the priest sat and Ned should never be playing if the priest was sitting but somehow, Ned had missed his cue.
He concluded "I Will Raise Him Up" softly, using the sustain to ease himself out.
He looked in the rearview and saw the priest staring at him.
As was the rest of the congregation.
They would all be coming for him soon enough.
Unless he could make it back down to Tennessee and get rid of that thing once and for all – assuming it hadn’t been found yet.
Somehow, deep down, Ned always knew it was going to happen.
He was raised up, alright.
Now it was just a matter of time.

I dont wana ruminate. But I cant help wonder if I missed an opportunity. I know everyone is going to say f that. A week ago he told me he doesn’t see as a wife, he doesn’t see having kids with me, that he never considered us together over these past 5 years. a week later he sends a message asking to be friends and he’s not looking for a relationship, but we’ll see what the future holds. Last night he was drunk and asked to hook up and I said that we couldn’t and that I wasn’t ready. He replied by saying I boosted his ego, that he would never ask again after being denied. I was just so hurt and flabbergasted. He crushed my heart a week ago and now he’s offended? I got upset and went off in text message, an hour later he responded and said he wasn’t trying to be hurtful that it was just his ego. Now I’m wondering if I made a mistake. If I said yes, would that have also meant he’d be open to considering a relationship? I know people say if a man wants you, he’ll topple the whole world to make it happen. And I know the right man would’ve said, I’ll wait till you’re ready, or what can we do to change that. And he wasn’t saying he wanted me or wanted to please me, he wanted me to please him. He says he cares about me and I’m his best friend and he trusts me and knows how much I love him. But why/is he using me for sex? I just don’t get it. Did I miss an opportunity?

My wife recently accepted a job she couldn’t turn down in another state while I’m away finishing up my AIT as a 68C. I can be anywhere with my civilian job so no big deal there. Problem is, the unit will now be an 8hr drive from my new location. I understand there’s some reimbursement perks but they’re not promised to always be available. I looked on HRC vacancy map and there’s nothing open near me for my rank, I’m a SPC and all positions open near me are E5 and above . Is there anyway around this in transferring? Any other suggestions or advice welcome.

Today was my 8dpo apt. Everything was perfect. Surgeon said incisions looked great and was so impressed with how well I’d taken care of them. I was no longer taking pain medications and felt comfortable.
On my way home from this apt (which is about 30 mins away) I get to 7 mins from my house and have an intense shock of pain with immediate swelling on my right breast. I had my fiance call the doctor immediately who told us to come back to the office. The entire drive there I’m hysterical and in agonizing pain, it felt like my boob was ready to bust open. My boob was rock hard.
I see the doc and he says yes that’s a large hematoma and walked out mid conversation to call the hospital to get me in for emergency surgery for exploration and evacuation of the hematoma.
After a couple hours of intense pain and anxiety, I finally get through the ER (took so long due to confusion of a scheduled emergent case and having to triage first - a mess of a story for another day), I nearly passed out with blood pressure dropping to the 80s. The swelling went from my boob to my clavicle and under my armpit.
Long story short, I had to have emergency surgery for a hematoma after 8dpo with no complications and feeling great. I’m devastated and so sad with this set back. I was supposed to return to work next week which I was excited about. I’m in pain again and the doc said this doesn’t usually happen this far out, usually within 1-2 days PO.
Had this happened to anyone else??? He didn’t find an active bleed which means it clotted off on its own. I’m just so sad ☹️☹️☹️

PLAYBOY Interview With Conan O'Brien Interview by Kevin Cook For Playboy Magazine February 1998
A candid conversation with the preppie prince of "Late Night" about his rocky start, his show's secret one-day cancellation and how David Letterman saved the day.
He was polite. He was funny. He gave us a communicable disease.
At 34 Conan O'Brien is hotter than the fever he was running when we met in his private domain above the "Late Night" sound stage. A gangly freckle-faced ex-high school geek he is "one of TV's hottest properties" according to "People" magazine. The host of "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" has become his generation's king of comedy.
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. Congested too, but O'Brien has far more to worry about than his head cold. A perfectionist who broods over one bad minute in an otherwise perfect hour of TV, he worries he might be anhedonic, "I have trouble with success," he says, "I was raised to believe that if something good happens something bad is coming." Sure things look good now "Rolling Stone" calls "Late Night" "the hottest comedy show on TV." Ratings are better than ever, particularly among 18- to 34-year-olds, the viewers advertisers crave.
But O'Brien only works harder. Despite his illness he taped two shows in 26 hours on three hours' sleep. He smoothly interviewed Elton John then burst into coughing fits during commercials. Later in his crammed corner office overlooking Manhattan traffic Conan the Cool gulped Dayquil gel caps. He coughed spewing microbes.
"Sorry, sorry," he said. Of course O'Brien can't complain. He came seriously close to falling to being banished behind the scenes as just another failed talk show host.
At his first "Late Night" press conference he corrected a reporter who called him a relative unknown, "Sir I am a complete unknown," he said. That line got a laugh, but soon O'Brien looked doomed. His September 13, 1993 debut began with O'Brien in his dressing room preparing to hang himself only to be interrupted by the start of his show. Before long his career was hanging by a thread. Ratings were terrible. Critics hated the show. Tom Shales of "The Washington Post" called it as "lifeless and messy as roadkill." Shales said O'Brien should quit.
Network officials held urgent meetings discussing the Conan O'Brien debacle. Should they fire him? How should they explain their mistake?
In the end of course he turned it around. The network hung with him long enough for the ratings to improve and the host of the cooler-than-ever "Late Night" now defines comedy's cutting edge just as Letterman did ten years ago.
Even Shales loves "Late Night" these days. He calls O'Brien's turnaround "one of the most amazing transformations in television history."
O'Brien was born on April 18, 1963 in Brookline, Massachusetts. His father, a doctor, is a professor at Harvard Medical School. His mother, a lawyer, is a partner at an elite Boston Law firm. Conan, the third of six children became a lector at church and a misfit at school. Tall and goofy, bedeviled with acne, he tried to impress girls with jokes. That plan usually bombed, but O'Brien eventually found his niche at Harvard where he won the presidency of the "Harvard Lampoon" in 1983 and again in 1984 - the first two-time "Lampoon" president since humorist Robert Benchley held the honor 85 years ago.
After graduating magna cum laude with a double major in literature and American history he turned pro. Writing for HBO's "Not Necessarily The News." O'Brien was earning $100,000 a year before his 24th birthday. But writing was never enough.
He honed his performance skills with the Groundlings, a Los Angeles improv group. There he worked with his onetime girlfriend Lisa Kudrow, now starring on "Friends." But Conan was not such a standout. In 1988 he landed a job at "Saturday Night Live" - but as a writer, not as on-air talent. In almost four years on the show O'Brien made only fleeting appearances, usually as a crowd member or security guard. His writing was more memorable. He wrote (or co-wrote) Tom hanks' "Mr Short-Term Memory" skits as well as the "pump you up" infosatire of Hanz and Franz and the nude beach sketch in which Matthew Broderick and "SNL" members played nudists admiring one another's penises. With dozens of mentions of the word that hit was the most penis-heavy moment in TV history. It helped O'Brien win an Emmy for comedy writing.
In 1991 he quit "SNL" and moved on to "The Simpsons" where he worked for two years. His urge to perform came out in wall-bouncing antics in writers' meetings. "Conan makes you fall out of your chair" said "Simpsons" creator Matt Groening. O'Brien's yen to act out was so strong that he spurned Fox's reported seven-figure offer to continue as a writer. He was driving for the spotlight.
By then David Letterman had announced he was turning shin - leaving NBC taking his ton-rated act to CBS. Suddenly NBC was up a creek without a host. The network turned to Lorne Michaels, O'Brien's "Saturday Night Live" boss. Michaels enlisted Conan's help in the host search planning to use him in a behind-the-scenes job. But when Garry Shandling, Dana Carvey and almost every other star turned down the chore of following Letterman, Michaels finally listened to Conan's crazy suggestion, "Let me do it!" Michaels persuaded the network to entrust it's 12:30 slot which Letterman had turned into a gold mine to an untested wiseass from Harvard.
O'Brien was working on one of his last "Simpsons" episodes when he got the news. He turned "paler than usual," Groening recalled. The Conan moseyed back to where the other writers were working, "I'll come back with the Homer Simspon joke later. I have to go replace Letterman," he said.
NBC executives now get credit for their foresight during those dark days of 1993 and 1994. They snared the axe and now reap the multimillion-dollar spoils of that decision. In fact, the story is not so simple. We sent Contributing Editor Kevin Cook to unravel the tale of O'Brien's survival, which he tells here for the first time. Cook reports:
"His office is chock-full of significa. There's a three-foot plastic pickle the Letterman staff left behind in 1993 - perhaps to suggest what a predicament he was in. There's a copy of Jack Paar's 'I Kid You Not' and a coffee-table book called 'Saturday Night Live: The First 20 Years.' His bulletin board features letters from fans such as John Watters and Bob Dole and an 8" x 10" glossy of Andy Richter with the inscription: "To Conan - Your bitter jealousy warms my black heart. Love and Kisses Andy."
"Of course it's all for show. From the photos of kitch icons Adam West and Robert Stack to the framed Stan Laurel autograph, from the deathbed painting of Abraham Lincoln, to the ironic star taped to Conan's door - they're all clever signals that tell a visitor how to view the star. Lincoln was his collegiate preoccupation: stardom is his occupation. Somewhere between the two I hoped to find the real O'Brien.
"As a Playboy reader he wanted to give me a better-than-average interview. I wanted something more - a definitive look at the guy who may end up being the Johnny Carson of his generation."
"Here's hoping we succeeded. If not I carried his germs 3000 miles and infected dozens of Californians for no good reason.
O'Brien: Yes, this is how to do a Playboy Interview -- completely tanked on cold medicine. I'll pick it up and read, "Yes, I'm gay."
Playboy: We could talk another time. O'Brien: (coughing) No, it's OK. I memorized Dennis Rodman's answers. Can I use them?
Playboy: You sound really sick. Do you ever take a day off? O'Brien: No. The age of talk show hosts taking days off is over. Johnny Carson could go to Africa when he was the only game in town -- "See you in two weeks!" But nobody does that now. I will give you a million dollars on the first day Jay takes off for illness.
Playboy: Do you ever slow down and enjoy your success? O'Brien: If anything, the pace is picking up. Restaurateurs insist on giving me a table even if I'm only passing by, so I'm eating nine meals a night. Women stop me on the street and hand me their phone numbers.
Playboy: So you have groupies? O'Brien: Oh yes. And other fans. Drifters. Prisoners. Insomniacs. Cab Drivers, who must watch a lot of late night TV, seem to love me lately. They keep saying, "You will not pay, you will not pay, you make me happy!"
Playboy: How happy did your new contract make you? O'Brien: Terrified. The network said, "We're all set for five years." I said, "Shut up, shut up! I can't think that far ahead." Tonight, for instance, I do my jokes, then interview Elton John and Tim Meadows. We finished taping about 6:30. By 6:45 my memory was erased and my only thought was, Tomorrow: John Tesh. And I started to obsess about John Tesh. Sad, don't you think?
Playboy: Not too sad. You got off to a rocky start but now you're so hot that People magazine recently said, "that was then, this is wow." O'Brien: I try not to pay much attention. Since I ignored the critics who said I should shoot myself in the head with a German Luger, it would be cheating to tear out nice reviews now and rub them all over my body, giggling. Though I have thought about it.
Playboy: Tell us about your trademark gag. You interview a photo of Bill Clinton or some other celeb, and a pair of superimposed lips provide outrageous answers. O'Brien: We call it the Clutch Cargo bit, after that terrible old cartoon series. They saved money on animation by superimposing real lips on the cartoons. I wanted to do topical jokes in a cartoony way -- not just Conan doing quips at a desk. TV is visual; I want things to look funny. But we're not Saturday Night Live; we couldn't spend $100,000 on it. Hence, the cheap, cheesy lips, You'd be surprised how many people we fool.
Playboy: Viewers believe that's really the president yelling, "Yee-haw! Who's got a joint?" O'Brien: It's strange. You may know intellectually that Clinton doesn't talk like Foghorn Leghorn. Ninety-eight percent of your brain knows the president wouldn't say, "Whoa Conan get a load of that girl!" But there are a few brain cells that aren't sure. When Bob Dole was running for president we had him doing a past-life regression: "My cave, get away." And then back further, "Must form flippers to crawl on to rocky soil," he says. There may be people out there who believe that Bob Dole was the first amphibian.
Playboy: Do you ever go too far? O'Brien: The fun is in going too far. It's a nice device because you get Bill Clinton to do the nastiest Bill Clinton jokes. We'll have Clinton making fart noises while I say "Sir! Please!"
Playboy: Are you enjoying your job now, with your new success? O'Brien: Well, there are surprises. I hate surprises. Like most comics, I'm a control freak. But I am learning that the show works best when things are out of control. Tonight I ask Elton John if he likes being neighbors with Joan Collins. He says he isn't neighbors with Joan Collins. He lives next door to Tina Turner. So I panic -- huge mistake! But Elton saves the day. "Joan Collins, Tina Turner, it doesn't matter. Either way I could borrow a wig," he says. Huge laugh, all because I fucked up. Later he surprised me by blurting out that he's hung like a horse. The camera cuts to me shaking my head: That crazy Elton. What can I do? Of course, I'm delighted that he went too far.
Playboy: That "What can I do?" look resembles a classic take of Jack Benny's. O'Brien: There's an old saying in literature: "Good poets borrow; great poets steal." I think T.S. Eliot stole it from Ezra Pound. Comics steal, too. Constantly. When I watched Johnny Carson, I noticed that he got a few takes from Benny and Bob Hope. When a comedy writer told me how much Woody Allen had borrowed from Hope, I thought, What? They're nothing alike. Then I went back and watched Son of Paleface, and there's Hope, the nervous city guy backing up on his heels, wringing his hands and saying, "Sorry, I'll just be moving along." Now look at early Woody Allen. You see big authority figures and Woody nervously saying, "Look, I'll just be on my way." Of course Woody made it his own, but he must have watched and loved Bob Hope.
Playboy: Who are your role models? O'Brien: Carson. Woody Allen. SCTV. Peter Sellers. When Peter Sellers died I felt such a loss, thinking, There won't be anymore of that. There's some Steve Martin in my false bravado with female guests: "Why, hel-lo there!" And I won't deny having some Letterman in my bones.
Playboy: You were surprise as Letterman's successor. At first you seemed like the wrong choice. O'Brien: I didn't get ratings. That doesn't mean I didn't get laughs. Yes, I had a giant pompadour and I looked like a rockabilly freak. I was too excited, pushed too hard, and people said, "That guy isn't a polished performer." Fine! But it isn't my goal to be Joe Handsomehead cool, smooth talk show host. Late Night with Conan O'Brien is supposed to be a work in progress, and now that we've had some success there's a danger of our getting too polished and morphing into something smoothly professional. Which would suck.
Do you know why I wanted this show? Because Late Night with David Letterman played with the rules and it looked like fun. Here was a place where people did risky comedy every night for millions of people. We had to keep this thing alive. There should be a place on a big network where people are still messing around.
Playboy: How bad were your early days on the show? O'Brien: Bad. Dave left here under a cloud: his fans and the media were angry with NBC. Then NBC picks a guy with crazy hair and a weird name. And the world says, "Harvard? Those guys are assholes." I sincerely hope that the winter of December 1993, our first winter, was the worst time I will ever have. I'd go out to do the warm up and the back two rows of seats would be empty. That's hard to look at. I would tell a joke and then hear someone whisper, "Who's he? Where's Dave?"
Playboy: You had trouble getting guests. O'Brien: Bob Denver canceled on us. We shot a test show with Al Lewis of The Munsters. We did the clutch cargo thing with a photo of Herman Munster. Unfortunately, Fred Gwynne, who played Herman, had recently died, and Al Lewis kept pointing at the screen, saying, "You're dead! I was at your funeral!"
Playboy: For months you got worried notes from network executives. What did they say? O'Brien: They were worried. The fact that Lorne Michaels was involved bought me some time. But Lorne had turned to me at the start and said, "OK, Conan. What do you want to do?" Now television critics were after me and the network was starting to realize what a risk I was. Suggestions came fast and furious. I kept the note that said, "Why don't you just die?"
Playboy: Did they suggest ways to be funnier? O'Brien: They were more specific and tactical. The network gets very specific data. Say there was a drop in ratings between 12:44 and 12:48 when I was talking to Jon Bon Jovi. I'll be told, "Don't ever talk to him again" Or they'll want me to tease viewers into staying with us: "You should tease that -- say, 'We'll have nudity coming up next!'"
Playboy: You did come close to being cancelled. O'Brien: We were cancelled.
Playboy: Really? You have never admitted that. O'Brien: This is the first time I've talked about it. When I had been on for about a year, there was a meeting at the network. They decided to cancel my show. They said, "It's cancelled." Next day they realized they had nothing to put in the 12:30 slot, so we got a reprieve.
Playboy: Were you worried sick? O'Brien: I went into denial. I tried hard not to think, Yes, I'm bad on the air and my show has none of the things a TV show needs to survive. We had no ratings. No critics in our corner. Advertisers didn't like us. Affiliates wanted to drop us. Sometimes I'd meet a programming director from a local station where we had no rating at all. The guy would show me a printout with no number for Late Night's rating, just a hash mark or pound sign. I didn't dare think about that when I went out to do the show.
Playboy: Are you defending denial? O'Brien: How else does anyone get through a terrible experience? The odds were against me. Rationally, I didn't have much chance. Denial was my only friend. When I look back on the first year, it's like a scene from an old war movie: Ordinary guy gets thrown into combat, somehow beats impossible odds, staggers to safety. His buddy say, "You could have been killed!" The guy stops and thinks. "Could have been killed?" he says. His eyes cross and he faints.
Playboy: How did you dodge the bullet? O'Brien: There were people at NBC who stood up for me. I will always be indebted to Don Ohlmeyer, who stuck to his guns. Don said, "We chose this guy. We should stick with him unless we get a better plan." He was brutally honest. He came to me and said, "Give me about a 15 percent bump in the ratings and you'll stay on the air. If not, we're going to move on."
Playboy: Ohlmeyer started his career in the sports division. O'Brien: Exactly, his take was, "You're on our team." Of course, it wasn't exactly rational of Don to hope I'd be 15 percent funnier. It was like telling a farmer, "It better rain this week or we'll take your farm away."
Playboy: What did you say to Ohlmeyer? O'Brien: There wasn't time. I had to go out and do a monologue. But I will always be indebted to Don because he told me the truth. Wait a minute -- you have tricked me into talking lovingly about an NBC executive. Let me say that there were others who were beneath contempt -- executives who wouldn't know a good show if it swam up their asses and lit a campfire.
Playboy: Finally the ratings went your way. Hard work rewarded? O'Brien: Well, I also paid off the Nielsen people. That was $140,000 well spent.
Playboy: Ohlmeyer plus bribery saved you? O'Brien: There was something else. Just when everyone was kicking the crap out of the show, Letterman defended me.
Playboy: Letterman had signed off on NBC saying, "I don't really know Conan O'Brien, but I heard he killed someone." O'Brien: Then I pick up the paper and he's saying he thinks I am going to make it. "They do some interesting, innovative stuff over there," he says. "I think Conan will prevail." And then he came on as a guest. Remember, this was when we were at our nadir. There was no Machiavellian reason for David Letterman, who at the time was the biggest thing in show business, to be on my show.
Playboy: Why did he do it? O'Brien: I'm still not sure. Maybe out of a sense of honor. Fair play. And it woke me up. It made me think. Hey, we have a real fucking television show here.
Of six or seven pivotal points in my short history here, that was the first and maybe the biggest. I wouldn't be sitting here -- I probably wouldn't even exist today -- if he hadn't done our show.
Playboy: The Late Night wars were hardly noted for friendly gestures. O'Brien: How little you understand. Jay, Dave and I pal around all the time. We often ride a bicycle built for three up to the country. "Nice job with Fran Drescher!" "Thanks, pal. You weren't so bad with John Tesh." We sleep in triple-decker bunk beds and snore in unison like the Three Stooges.
Playboy: You talk more about Letterman than your NBC teammate Leno. O'Brien: I hate the "Leno or Letterman, who's better?" question. I can tell you that Jay has been great to me. He calls me occasionally.
Playboy: To say what? O'Brien: (Doing Leno's voice) "Hey, liked that bit you did last night." Or he'll say he saw we got a good rating. I call him at work, too. It can be a strange conversation because we're so different. Jay, for instance, really loves cars. He's got antique cars with kerosene lanterns, cars that run on peat moss. He'll be telling me about some classic car he has, made entirely of brass and leather, and I'll say, "Yeah, man, I got the Taurus with the vinyl." One thing we have in common is bad guests. There are certain actors, celebrities with nothing to say, who move through the talk show world wreaking havoc. They lay waste to Dave's town and Jay's town, then head my way.
Playboy: You must be getting some good guests. Your ratings have shown a marked improvement. O'Brien: Remember, when you're on at 12:30 the Nielsens are based on 80 people. My ratings drop if one person has a head cold and goes to bed early.
Playboy: Actually, you're seen by about 3 million people a night. Your ratings would be even higher if college dorms weren't excluded from the Nielsens. How many points does that cost you? O'Brien: I told you I'm an idiot. Now I have to do math too?
Playboy: Do you still get suggestions from NBC executives? O'Brien: Not as many. The number of notes you get is inversely proportional to your ratings.
Playboy: What keeps you motivated? O'Brien: Superstition. We have a stagehand, Bobby Bowman, who holds up the curtain when I run out for the monologue. He is the last person I see before the show starts, and I have to make him laugh before I go out. It started with mild jabs: "Bobby, you're drunk again." Bobby laughs, "Heehee."" Then it was, "Still having trouble with the wife, Bobby?" But after hundreds of shows, you find yourself running out of lines. It's gotten to where I do crass things at the last second. I'll put his hand on my ass and yell, "You fucking pervert!" Or drop to my knees and say, "Come on, Bobby, I'll give you a blow job!"
"Ha-ha. Conan, you're crazy," he says. But even that stuff wears off. Soon, I'll be making the writers work late to give me new jokes for Bobby.
Playboy: Did you plan to be a talk show host or did you fall into the job? O'Brien: I was an Irish Catholic kid from St. Ignatius parish in Brookline, outside of Boston. And that meant: Don't call attention to yourself. Don't ask for too much when the pie comes around. Don't get a girl pregnant and fuck up your life.
Playboy: Were you an alter boy? O'Brien: I wanted to be an alter boy, but the priest at St. Ignatius said, "No, no. You're good on your feet, kid," and made me a lector. A scripture reader at Mass. He was the one who spotted my talent.
Playboy: What did you think of sex in those days? O'Brien: I was sexually repressed. At 16 I still thought human reproduction was by mitosis.
Playboy: How did you get over your sexual repression? O'Brien: Who says I got over it? My leg has been jiggling this whole time.
Playboy: What were you like in high school? O'Brien: Like a crane galumphing down the hall. A crane with weird hair, bad skin and Clearasil. Big enough for basketball but lousy at it. My older brothers were better. I would compensate by running around the court doing comedy, saying, "Look out, this player has a drug addiction. He's incredibly egotistical."
I was an asshole at home, too. My little brother Justin loved playing cops and robbers, but I kept tying him up with bureaucratic bullshit. When he'd catch me, I'd say, "I get to call my lawyer." Then it was, "OK, Justin, we're at trial and you've been charged with illegal arrest. Fill out these forms in triplicate." Justin was eight; he hated all the lawsuits and countersuits. He just cried.
Playboy: Were you a class clown? O'Brien: Never. I was never someone who walked into a room full of strangers and started telling jokes. You had to get to know me before I could make you laugh. The same thing happened with Late Night. I needed to get the right rhythm with Andy and Max and the audience.
Playboy: So how did you finally learn about sex? O'Brien: My parents gave me a book, but it was useless. At the crucial moment, all it showed was a man and a woman with the bed covers pulled up to their chins. I tried to find out more from friends, but it didn't help. One childhood friend told me it was like parking a car in a garage. I kept worrying about poisonous fumes. What if the fumes build up? Should you shut off the engine?
Playboy: For all your talk about being repressed, you can be rowdy on the air. O'Brien: The show is my escape valve. When I tear off my shirt and gyrate my pelvis like Robert Plant, feigning orgasm into the microphone, that shows how repressed I am -- a guy who wants to push his sex at the lens but can only do it as a joke.
Playboy: Aren't you tempted to live it up? O'Brien: I always imagined that if I were a TV star I would live the way I pictured Johnny Carson living. Carousing, stepping out of a limo wearing a velvet ascot with a model on my arm. Now that I have the TV show, I drive up to Connecticut on the weekends and tool around in my car. I could probably join a free-sex cult, smoke crack between orgies and drive sports cars into swimming pools, and my Catholic guilt would still be there, throbbing like a toothache. Be careful. If something good happens, something bad is on the way.
Playboy: Yet you don't mind licking the supermodels. O'Brien: At one point a few of them lived in my building, women who are so beautiful they almost look weird, like aliens. To me, a woman who has a certain approachable amount of beauty becomes almost funny. It's the same with male supermodels. They look like big puppets. So while I admire their beauty I probably won't be "romantically linked" with a model. I'd catch my reflection in a ballroom mirror and break up laughing.
Playboy: The horny Roy Orbison growl you use on gorgeous guests sounds real enough -- O'Brien: Oh, I've been doing that shit since high school. It just never worked before.
Playboy: Your father is a doctor, your mother an attorney. What do they think of their son the comedian? O'Brien: My dad was the one who told me denial was a virtue. "Denial is how people get through horrible things," he said. He also cut out a newspaper article in which I said I was making money off something for which I should probably be treated. So true, he thought. But when I got an Emmy for helping write Saturday Night Live, my parents put it on the mantel next to the crucifix. Here's Jesus looking over, saying, "Wow, I saved mankind from sin, but I wish I had an Emmy."
Playboy: Ever been in therapy? O'Brien: Yes. I don't trust it. I have told therapists that I don't particularly want to feel good. "Repression and fear, that's my fuel." But the therapists said that I had nothing to worry about. "Don't worry Conan you will always be plenty fucked up."
Playboy: When a female guest comes out, how do you know whether to shake her hand or kiss her? Is that rehearsed O'Brien: No, and it's awkward. If you go to shake her hand and her head starts coming right at you, you have to change strategy fast. I have thought about using the show to make women kiss me, but that would probably creep out the people at home. I decided not to kiss Elton John.
Playboy: Do you get all fired up if Cindy Crawford or Rebecca Romijn does the show? O'Brien: I like making women laugh. Always have, ever since I discovered you can get girls' attention by acting like an ass. That's one of the joys of the show -- I'm working my eyebrows and going grrr and she's laughing, the audience is laughing. It's all a big put-on and I'm thinking. This is great. Here is a beautiful woman who has no choice but to put up with this shit.
But it's not always put on. Sometimes they flirt back. Sometimes there's a bit of chemistry. That happened with Jennifer Connelly of The Rocketeer.
Playboy: One guest, Jill Hennessy, took off her pants for you. Then you removed yours. Even Penn and Teller took off their pants. O'Brien: Something comes over me. It happened with Rebecca Romijn -- I was practically climbing her. Those are the times when Andy and the audience seem to disappear and it's just me and this lovely woman sitting there flirting. I keep expecting a waiter to say, "More wine, Monsieur?"
Playboy: Would you lick the wine bottle? O'Brien: It's true, there's a lot of licking on the show. I have licked guests. I have licked Andy. Comedy professionals will read this and say, "Great work, Conan. Impressive." But I have learned that if you lick a guest, people laugh. If I pick this shoe off the floor, examine it, Hmmm, and then lick it, people laugh. I learned this lesson on The Simpsons, where I was the writer who was forever trying to entertain the other writers. I still try desperately to make our writers laugh, which is probably a sign of sickness since they work for me now. Licking is one of those things that look funny.
Playboy: Johnny Carson never licked Ed McMahon. O'Brien: We are much more physical and more stupid than the old Tonight Show. Even in our offices before the show there's always some writer acting out a scene crashing his head through my door. A behind-the-scenes look at our show might frighten people.
Playboy: One night you showed a doctored photo of Craig T. Nelson having sex with Jerry Van Dyke. Did they complain about it? O'Brien: I haven't heard from them. Of course I'm blessed not to be a part of the celebrity pond. I have a television show in New York, an NBC outpost. I don't run with or even run into many Hollywood people.
Playboy: You also announced that Tori Spelling has a penis. O'Brien: I did not. Polly the Peacock said that.
Playboy: Another character you use to say the outrageous stuff. O'Brien: Polly is not popular with the network.
Playboy: You mock Fabio, too. O'Brien: If he sues me, it'll be the best thing that ever happened. A publicity bonanza: Courtroom sketches of Fabio with his man-boobs quivering, shaking his fist, and me shouting at him across the courtroom. I'm not afraid of Fabio. He knows where to find me. I'm saying it right here for the record: Fabio, let's get it on.
Playboy: Ever have a run-in with an angry celeb? O'Brien: I did a Kelsey Grammar joke a few years ago, something about his interesting lifestyle, then heard through the network that he was upset. He had appeared on my show and expected some support. At this point my intellect says, "Kelsey Grammar is a public figure. I was in the right." Then I saw him in an airport. Kelsey didn't see me at first: I could have kept walking. But there he was, eating a cruller in the airport lounge. I thought I should go over. I said hello and then said, "Kelsey, I'm sorry if I upset you." And he was glad. He looked relieved. He said, "Oh, that's OK." We both felt better.
....See my other post with the last third of the interview

This summer, my family will be driving 10-12 hours each way to attend my late grandma’s gravestone unveiling ceremony. Due to mourning traditions, my dad (her son) is avoiding concerts, sports games, comic entertainment, etc. until the end of the year. He asked me to look around for something to listen to on the drive, specifying that he doesn’t want something “funny” like a comedy or laugh-out-loud book to respect the mourning period.
In the past, Dad has liked The Lonely Hearts Book Club and Remarkably Bright Creatures — I wasn’t as interested. I liked What If? by xkcd and Defunctland’s Disney Channel Theme Song documentary, but he thought they were super pedantic. (I did get him to like some of the docs by BobbyBroccoli). We both really liked the radio comedy Cabin Pressure but that’s way too funny lol.
We both like fiction books, some sci fi (I like fantasy, he likes star wars and star trek), and interesting nonfiction memoirs. Maybe we could find a book that is fairly normie and popular but has an interesting and weird enough story to keep me interested too — Demon Copperhead, maybe? Or an autobiography like Wavewalker by Suzanne Heywood but one that is a little less drawn out. (Along the lines of I’m Glad My Mom Died but obviously not that one LOL).
I’m also open to good podcasts and long youtube video recommendations. Thanks!!

This summer, my family will be driving 10-12 hours each way to attend my late grandma’s gravestone unveiling ceremony. Due to mourning traditions, my dad (her son) is avoiding concerts, sports games, comic entertainment, etc. until the end of the year. He asked me to look around for something to listen to on the drive, specifying that he doesn’t want something “funny” like a comedy or laugh-out-loud book to respect the mourning period.
In the past, Dad has liked The Lonely Hearts Book Club and Remarkably Bright Creatures — I wasn’t as interested. I liked What If? by xkcd and Defunctland’s Disney Channel Theme Song documentary, but he thought they were super pedantic. (I did get him to like some of the docs by BobbyBroccoli). We both really liked the radio comedy Cabin Pressure but that’s way too funny lol.
We both like fiction books, some sci fi (I like fantasy, he likes star wars and star trek), and interesting nonfiction memoirs. Maybe we could find a book that is fairly normie and popular but has an interesting and weird enough story to keep me interested too — Demon Copperhead, maybe? Or an autobiography like Wavewalker by Suzanne Heywood but one that is a little less drawn out. (Along the lines of I’m Glad My Mom Died but obviously not that one LOL).
I’m also open to good podcasts and long youtube video recommendations. Thanks!!

Here is the man. Drifting through the vast emptiness of space, where his only spectacle are a multitude of twinkling stars. He floats in the void, ragged and tired, though was born with an undeniable power he himself cannot wish to comprehend. Wrapped with linen cloth, what once was his willing spirit is now scattered into fragments of a lost boy.
Here is the man. His folks are known to lights of the world, but in truth, his mother was a musician now dead, and his father a reckless drunk. The life as damaged as his was rot with death and destruction. And now he lays there, staring vacantly at his ancestors turned into magnificent balls of flame. Hatred, fear, and death permeate in his conscious heart, still in him is hope.
Here is the man. He sees the stars fall from the far east. "The night you were born, '73,'" his father told. "They called them the 'PERSEIDS.' Your mother and I saw you as our miracle boy." The man follows the falling stars with a tear streaming down. His father never spoke the mother's name altogether; the man does not bother. He had a brother in that world he'll never see again. But in him carried the legacy of a blues lover, and in him carried optimism and a brighter outlook.
Here is the man, and he's neither big nor strong, but in him brews already the eagerness to save the world from its demise. Though outwardly his soul is shattered, inwardly he is renewed. Hope coursing through him, around him. He will win. For the lives he lost, he will win. For the lives he killed, he will win. Beyond the grave, he will win. He is the harbinger of good news. The presence beyond worlds. And those who witness will stare in awe, saying;
"BEHOLD, HERE IS THE MAN. BOBBY FACE!"
(I do apologise for the name drop lol. I'm planning on using this for one of my books. And if you're wondering, yes, this was inspired by the opening monologue in Blood Meridian.)

Last year Fall, I met two men, both friends. I found them very sweet and friendly. I didn’t think anything much of them. The friendship grew and certain interest developed but I was not sure which one I liked more. After a few months they hosted a party at their house (they are also roommies). I got so drunk, one of them (man A) offered his room, he later joined me later that night. He made moves, but I insisted I had to be sober for anything to happen. The next day he visited me at my place and we talked of our interest and stuff and agreed to take it slow. He later came the next day and one thing led to another, we did it. I traveled to another country for a month then came back. We kept talking the whole time and most of our conversation was how we’d hang out and couldn’t wait to explore places together. I returned during the peak of Winter so there was really nothing much to do outside. We mostly hand indoors. We one day hang out the three of us during the winter and I realized me and the other guy(man B) had so much in common and we had the same sense of humor. Man B also mentioned that he has a girlfriend. Later that night I suggested to Man A to ask his friend if he would be open to a double date. He said he’d ask. He never did.
Winter passed and it got warmer, the guy I chose never took me out on a date. I had to insist we hang outside his apartment/my apartment. He once agreed to take me to a park near his place, he kept complaining the whole time, we spent less than 1 hour in the park. There was once I went to the movies by myself, he never picked his phone that time. Earlier this month I asked him twice if he was okay to go grab ice-cream(my treat), he agreed and stood me up both times. I called him told him how much that hurt and how we never leave the apartment. I stopped hanging out at his place for about a week he called me and took me to a restaurant near his place, btw he was insisting we get take out and eat at his place. Man B and his girlfriend achieved something this month, I’m fond of the girl. I suggested to her that we could take them out to celebrate, she asked her man and said yes. I told my guy and he said that’s fine but didn’t ask any details or suggest any places. So I took matters to my own hands and planned everything. I chose a place I have always wanted/suggested to try when with him. We had dinner and it all was well. We all had fun, they loved the place. My man claimed he had never heard of the place. During the dinner, it all hit me that man A takes me for granted, he’d talk to everyone very calmly and politely apart from me. He never behaves like a gentleman, Man B would treat me and his girlfriend with so much respect(he’s such a gentleman). Afterwards we all hang out at their apartment, everything was fun. After some minutes my man left the room without excusing himself and went to sleep in his room. He later called me after midnight and asking me if I had got back to my place safely. Told him I had not left but I was about to leave, I went to his room to bade him goodbye and pay him back for half of the bill for the diner earlier(as we had agreed). He thanked me for choosing such a wonderful place for diner then he asked me if I could spend the night being all touchy and romantic. I told him I want a break up. He never said anything. He’s been calling me asking about my day and inviting me at his place.

Me and my friends (all early 20's) went to a concert/festival last weekend. Concert was 2 hours away. I offered to drive; since all of my friends are literally 20 minutes in different directions, I just had them meet at my place. Told them they can drink if they want and just crash at my place.
My friend Kim is a mooch who will try to weasel you out of anything. If you pay for something on her behalf you have to hassle her for that money back. Ever since she had a kid, her mooch tendencies have gotten worse. I want her to have fun w us despite being a mother and struggling financially; but sometimes I end up feeling used.
My friend Franny drove Kim to my house. Then I drove those two and my other 2 friends to the concert. Otw down I asked everyone for $5 gas; everyone venmoed me but her.
Anywhom, concert was fun.
Otw home, Kim starts asking me to drive her to my house instead of going back to my house and driving back to her place w/ Fran. I told her no, that she was welcome to crash at my place, but I wasnt driving her home. She said it was on the way; to a degree, she's correct, but it would've added 20 minutes to the trip, and I was on a highway heading in a different direction, and I dont like driving in that area at night. It's poorly lit. And it was already almost 12:30 am at this point.
She's pissed off the whole ride home. Fran wanted to sleep over bc she still felt drunk. Kim starts complaining bc she wants to see her baby and she's chewing me out for not taking her home. I told her she couldve drove herself and that I wasnt going out of my way for her when I just drove for 4 hours. My 2 other friends drove home bc they werent drunk. When I woke up the next morning, Kim was gone. Idk who picked her up.
Im thinking I might be TA bc we live in a rural area, so she couldnt have ubecabbed. She probs didnt get to see her 10m/o that night, and it wouldve only been an extra 20 minutes to drive her to her place. I basically inconvenienced her. So Reddit, AITA?