Heights restaurant edinburgh

Hi! I am 21F, American, looking for men ~21-25. About me- I’m average height and slim- I am conventionally attractive. I prefer men on the taller side with a thin to athletic build. I have no tolerance for substance use/smoking/alcohol and looking for the same (social drinking is OK). I am an atheist and not looking for someone religious. I’m also not political. I am located on the East Coast but open to starting with a LDR with the right person.
I earned my degree early and have been working ever since. Seeking someone well-educated and driven in his career, and finances. I am heavily family oriented and value stability- marrying and having kids, setting them up for success, etc. and leaning more traditional in this regard. My family is everything to me!
I am looking for a man I can trust and is motivated to and aspires to provide a good life for his partner and eventual children. I also value reliability, maturity, generosity, and kindness- to me, actions and consistency are key. Lastly, all the love languages are important to me but Acts of Service is my #1.
In my free time I like to bake, paint, try new restaurants, shop, and video game (looking for my forever player 2!). Generally lean more towards being a homebody for solo plans but enjoy going out with friends to eat, shop, salon, etc. I also love to travel and hope to see as much of the world as I can together with my loved ones. And of course when I’m in a relationship I want to spend as much time as I can with my s/o :)
I value my time and don’t want to waste anyone else’s, either- DM me if you’re interested.

Hi! I am 21F, American, looking for men ~21-25. About me- I’m average height and slim- I am conventionally attractive. I prefer men on the taller side with a thin to athletic build. I have no tolerance for substance use/smoking/alcohol and looking for the same (social drinking is OK). I am an atheist and not looking for someone religious. I’m also not political. I am located on the East Coast but open to starting with a LDR with the right person.
I earned my degree early and have been working ever since. Seeking someone well-educated and driven in his career, and finances. I am heavily family oriented and value stability- marriage and kids, a good education, etc. and leaning more traditional in this regard. My family is everything to me!
I am looking for a man I can trust and aspires to/believes in providing a good life for his partner and eventual children. I also value reliability, maturity, generosity, and kindness- to me, actions and consistency are key. Lastly, all the love languages are important to me but Acts of Service is my #1.
In my free time I like to bake, paint, try new restaurants, shop, and video game (looking for my forever player 2!). Generally lean more towards being a homebody for solo plans but enjoy going out with friends to eat, shop, salon, etc. I also love to travel and hope to see as much of the world as I can together with my loved ones. And of course when I’m in a relationship I want to spend as much time as I can with my s/o :)
I value my time and don’t want to waste anyone else’s, either- DM me if you’re interested.

Simple question. Emaina annukondi... About 13 years ago, 2010, 2011 aa time lo, there were movies like Inception, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 1), Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol etc. Movies that had been shot for IMAX. Back then, we in Hyderabad had the facility in Prasads to watch these films in their intended format. The IMAX big-screen cinematic experience had become a staple for films in Hyderabad. Daani taravaata, ye cinema aina, whether it was IMAX or not, we opted to watch it on that massive screen.
Then, something changed.

1. Interstellar became the last IMAX film ever shown on Prasads screen 6, as an IMAX film. To this day, every single time when there is the topic of theatres and Prasads especially, everybody in the city refers to it as IMAX. The road alongside Prasads is called the 'IMAX road'. Prasads screen 6 was the third-largest screen in the world during its initial launch in 2003 and people (film lovers) had literally flown in from other countries to watch films in their proper intended format.

Last year, films like Oppenheimer, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and EVEN Indian films such as Pathaan and Animal were all meant for IMAX. They were made - FOR IMAX. The whole point of IMAX is for it to completely immerse you into the world of the film. The IMAX screen is that massive, because anywhere you sit in the hall, it manages to cover every part of your two eyeballs, to a point where you have to physically move your head to see each part of the screen. I mean, there is a reason that it is a three-floor screen. Hyderabad is a single city, and the TFI audience is the one audience that I know who will stand by a film. Once we own a film, there is no way we will let that film down. I am only saying, why shouldn't we stand up for the theatre and the experience of that film as well? Hyderabad right now, is the only major city in India without an IMAX facility. This was all because of the conversion to digital projection. We used to get IMAX films in reels that were printed and shipped from the US (and wherever the films were made). When all these countries and major Hollywood industries were sending in massive, 11-mile film reels after printing, packaging and shipping, the costs were just too high when they compared it with digital projection. The projector that we had in Prasads was a proper film projector. A manual projector that didn't manage to adapt to the digital form. Prasads was running the IMAX theatre on a loss in the first place because the ticket price back then had to be much lower when compared to a proper IMAX film cost. All the profit they gained was from the commercial aspects of the mall like the shops and restaurants that were there at the time.
On top of this: there came the shift in location. The entire city somehow gravitated away from the Necklace Road and Tank Bund area. The main booming area of the city (for films especially) are areas like Gachibowli, with theatres like AMB Cinemas in Sharath City Capital Mall, Platinum Cinemas in SLN Terminus, PVR in Atrium, PVR in Preston Prime, and PVR Icon in Next Galleria Mall. When there are five theatres, in the proximity of within 5 kilometres from each of them, not a single one has an IMAX in them. AMB even has screens that are in the 4:3 ration, where IMAX films can be shown, in the intended size. Their screens, 2, 3, 5 and 6 are all 4:3 ratio screens which can show films that are filmed in that ratio. For example, I went to Barbie in Atrium mall, where it was playing within a box, within the 16:9 screen and then I went to Oppenheimer in AMB (to at least watch it in their screen 1, to compensate for IMAX), when I peaked into the next screen (screen 2), where Barbie was playing, The size of the screen was compatible with the aspect ratio that it was shot in - 4:3.
All over India right now (at least in major cities, excluding Hyderabad), PVR has created IMAX screens, but they are all digital IMAX screens that are 68.1 ft wide. Prasads has a 70mm IMAX screen (95 feet wide and 71 feet tall). This is the normal height of a five floor, commercial building. Just imagine that. It is a window into a whole another world. When we have a screen, we do not have the projector, and when others have the projectors, they simply just do not have the screens.
Here is the simple question to conclude it...
Do we want IMAX in Hyderabad, yes or no?

I thought this could be a fun game.
Here’s how it works. I’m going to give a quick description of a person in a scenario. Give me the first name that pops into your head for them. The “rule” is to think fast and just go with your gut. Don’t analyze name popularity, origin, or meaning. Just the first name you think of.

1. You’re out for a walk. You hear a little girl exclaiming “Lemonade! Fresh lemonade here!” You see a girl who looks about 8 or 9 sitting at a lemonade stand. She has dark brown hair and olive skin. She has a confident smile. She’s dressed in sporty clothes and looks a bit tomboyish. What’s her name?
   
2. You’re at a graduation party for a coworker’s child. As you mingle, you meet the graduate’s best friend. She’s 18. She has long red hair tied back in a ponytail. Her skin is very fair and she has freckles on her cheeks. She’s soft-spoken but not too shy. She met the graduate in band class and she’s going to school on a music scholarship next year. What’s her name?
   
3. You go to a fancy restaurant. Your waiter is a man in his twenties. He’s tall and thin. He’s black. Through small talk, you learn he’s waiting tables to help pay for grad school. He’s studying to become a psychologist. He’s very personable and seems extroverted. What’s his name?
   
4. You meet the wife of an acquaintance at a party. She’s in her late thirties. She’s a petite woman of Chinese descent. You learn she’s a saleswoman and a mother of two. She has a beautiful smile and a great sense of humor. What’s her name?
   
5. You have to see the emergency dentist. A man in his late fifties walks in. He’s short with light brown hair that’s starting to have a little gray. He’s very matter of fact when he addresses you. Not mean, but certainly curt. What’s his name?
   
6. You help your friend install a bookshelf for his grandfather, a man in his 80s. His hair is white. He’s average height but walks a bit hunched over. He’s very polite and has a dry sense of humor. What’s his name?
   

tl;dr: Initially amazing girlfriend dropped the ball on effort, her love for me seems to now be at least partially dependent on me financially taking care of her, I believe there is some financial abuse trauma involved, and I'll see her soon.
My long-distance girlfriend of 11 months, over most of our relationship, has been great. She is very sweet, kind, seemed to love me very much (as in, will rush to me after work and will always try to find ways to maximize her time with me). She also made me lovely gifts such as a personalized hoodie, drew me paintings and little details like that, although mostly on the first half of the relationship. Intimacy is great. When I see her I'm very happy.
We have lived together for 1 month once, 2 months once, and I fly (return trips cost me about 80 euro total) every 2 weeks to spend a weekend with her. We have also visited about 10 cities in 6 different countries together, I have visited her parents and grandmas about 3 times now and she has met my nuclear family too.
However she seems to be a bit obsessed about money. I quit my job to be able to join her (mistake yes, but tbh I would've quit anyways) for that first month I lived with her. 2 weeks in she tells me "I thought you were going to buy me more things" because she wants someone that takes care of her. I'm shocked as I'm unemployed and she knows she influenced me to quit my full-time job to be able to be with her, nevermind that I'm paying rent to the landlord for a month out of my savings, and I'm attempting to join in her in her country (leaving my family and friends behind), for which I require a visa (she doesn't for mine, but she doesn't want to learn the language, and I know hers) still in process and so far has cost me about 1000-12000 euro. I also bought more groceries for us (I'd say 70/30), restaurants, etc. all with my savings. I told her that I'm shocked she said that, that I was hurt and that I paid for every single flight when either I visited or she visited, every 2 weeks.
She admits she was wrong, I tell her I would love to improve (including financially) improve my partner's quality of life through a certain income-sharing method when I get married. But I would still ofc take her on dates and from time to time buy her gifts. She agrees and we move on, everything goes ok for a couple of months. Then I start living with her again for 2 months. Everything's good and normal, we do many activities, I meet her friends etc. and she belittles me on a physical trait I can't change (height). We're the same height and I have other friends who say I'm not even that small (170 cm), she said it's not a big thing but that it bothers her sometimes on pictures or when walking side by side. I felt very hurt and nearly broke up but somehow my ego didn't take much of a hit and was able to think nothing more of it.
Then, 5 days before I left back to my country, we're at a library. She wants to get a bike to get faster to work, finds a 2nd hand one for 40 euro and proposes a deal where I pay half because I'll be able to use it too. I repeatedly refuse because I would barely use it (once every 2 weekends) and I should be able to anyway because I'm her boyfriend. She gets mad, tells me she wants to go home and hits me with the "I don't think it's going to work out between us", tells me that I don't buy her enough things, that I'm so transactional (not true, I only list her the things I buy when she accuses me of this as to defend myself) and mentions again my height (for about 5% of the rant but still). I was very vulnerable and told her she needs to wait until I get a better job, she accepted to wait and we got back together the same night.
That was 3 weeks ago. I told her it was very hurtful and have been feeling a mix of sadness, rage, and shock. I will gladly make gifts to my partner to make them happy, but she seems super entitled and ungrateful. Even if, it's simply not true, I have gotten her many things and I paid for most of common expenses when we lived together. 2 weeks ago she had the audacity to tell me it's unattractive if I'm not further ahead in my career, btw she's working a retail job not earning much but I think she's very prone to lifestyle creep and still will go to college for ~3 years and wants me to support her.
The reason I endured all this shit so far you ask? Because of 2 mitigating factors:

1. She suffered financial abuse by her previous boyfriend. He was an asshole, she broke up with him after 5 years but still lived in his flat when we met, then when the bf noticed she was going out at night he started hiding her things, took money from her and refused to pay her for work she did for his business. 4 months into our relationship she told me he had also indebted her for 10k during the 5 years (it's still there and I haven't paid anything of it, but I stayed with her). She also told me she didn't care about money before this happened so the causality is pretty clear.
2. I work in the field and I believe she has signs of combined ADHD (inattentive, but especially impulsive and hyperactive, she has 0 patience for things like small lines and sometimes I wonder if I can keep up with how many activities she wants to do) and dyscalculia (it's not being bad at math, when playing monopoly she struggles to count the dots on dice, uses calculators for basic arithmetic and sometimes doesn't understand discounts at stores). Does not make her any less deserving of love but I fear this combined with her money obsession makes for a ticking time bomb, and initially I was willing to put up with it because I loved her for who she was.

I told her to go to a psychologist to try to fix her issues, she has looked into it but I fear she's not looking into it as much as I'd want to despite my multiple reminders, she doesn't even have an appointment scheduled after almost a month. She does little effort beyond words to give me back security in the relationship, does nothing to demonstrate it under the excuse she can't from afar (she could do something as small as painting me things again). In current society I believe in being committed to the maximum to my relationship, and would be open to couple's counselling if there were trouble, my dream is to build my own happy family (which she supposedly shares with me), so breaking up would have to be a last resort. But I believe she has been entitled, ungrateful, impatient, and has taken me for granted, so I think it's time, and I'm seeing her again in a few days.
So I ask you, how can I muster up the courage to break up? In addition, if I manage to do it, what if she tries getting back together after? Should I be open to that and if yes, what would the conditions be?

I noticed a lot of people are starting to look for things to do with their kids for the summer. I just finished this list and thought I’d share. Took me 3 hours. I’m sure it’s not comprehensive, feel free to add anything you see missing. Keep in mind, this list was made for a 6-year-old autistic child, and I was trying to avoid outdoor stuff and touristy strip stuff, although some made it on the list. Also, sorry for the bad handwriting.

Hi guys,
Love, love, and love. A wandering hopeful romantic searching for love.
Me:
A Texan through and through, with roots in small towns and residence in the big city. I am currently pursuing a career in health-care as a medical student, and I moved to Chicago for that reason. Finally, I am of South Asian descent, which adds a touch of cultural richness to the mix.
Hobbies/Interests: If we share the same interests, then that is great. It's not necessary, though. I value a connection over shared hobbies.
One of my favorite pastimes is watching movies. I have frequent movie nights. Some showings include: "Inception", "Godzilla Minus One", "The Thing" (1982), "Whiplash", and "Shutter Island". Snacks and drinks are included. Terence Fletcher is mean, but my cooking is meaner. I enjoy exploring various cuisines at restaurants, and I enjoy trying new recipes when cooking at home. A few of my favorite cuisines are: Thai, Mediterranean, and Indian. I balance out the snacking, drinking (virgin), and eating by being active. I frequently run, walk, and lift. You might have seen me running on Bloomingdale Park Trail or walking along Union Park. A few other interests are reading, boardgames, videogames, and learning a language. I love the competitiveness, strategizing, and fantasy involved in boardgames, but I think Robinson Crusoe (novel character) has the upper hand in those areas. I think it would be fun to have our conversations in another language and whisper sweet nothings to each other. Mon amour. Mahal ko.
Personality:
I am a combination of reserved and adventurous, leaning towards seriousness yet showcasing a playful side when I'm comfortable with someone. I find comfort in being a homebody, but I do emerge from my cave. I strive to go the extra mile for my partner, and I always try to showcase of my love for someone through cards, poems (albeit poorly written), and physical affection.
Physical Description:
My hair cascades in subtle curles at mid-neck-length. I am a fan of the clean-shaven aesthetic, but I occasionally sport well-maintained stubble. My complexion is caramel that is accompanied by dark brown eyes. I have a slim-to-average physique, and I stand at a height of 5'7".
You:
I am searching for someone who values a healthy and active lifestyle, someone who takes care of themselves physically. While physical compatibility is important, I value a shared commitment to overall wellness. Intimacy and romance (sweet sweet love) are important to me, and I like physical affection a lot (a lot). Admittedly, I do like someone that is slightly clingy. It's nice to feel wanted. I would like someone that is vulnerable because it builds a stronger connection. I deeply appreciate the intimacy it fosters. I desire a partner who values companionship and reciprocity, understanding that mutual effort and appreciation are fundamental. I'm drawn to qualities like open-mindedness, calmness, and versatility in a potential partner. A lot of sweetness, a dash of spice, and a little chemical X.
Stuff:
Religion & Politics:
I'm personally not religious. I'm open-minded towards all religious affiliations and welcome the opportunity to learn about different faiths. Similarly, my political stance isn't easily boxed into conservative or democratic ideologies. I value the continuous evolution of my political beliefs, emphasizing independent thinking and the avoidance of polarizing partisan politics.
Kids & Pets:
I've made the decision not to have children. For me, it's about prioritizing my partner, hobbies, and career. I opt not to have pets due to lifestyle constraints, financial considerations, and personal preferences. I simply have no interest in having pets, but I'd be willing to accommodate.

• Consistent communication and a genuine desire to converse are all that I ask. Please. If you're not interested, honesty is appreciated – I won't take it personally.

I noticed that in gurugram wine and beer shops are decorated with lights as if they are highway dhabas/restaurants or hi-fi malls. Just real malls and thekas decorated as malls. That's the only thing that exists in gurgaon for fun. During my childhood we used to have games period only once or twice a week. Even during those periods all were busy preparing for jee. Indian kids are least interested in sports. I used to make bow and arrows out of broom sticks and try to imitate ramayan Mahabharat characters by holding the arrow in front of my forehead, murmur some gibberish and then letting go of the drawn arrow on some toy placed at a distance. My father snapped and broke my bow and arrows. He was like, "not sending you to such an expensive school just so that you could become a tribal hunter. Go study". One of my father's friends had once gifted me a mouser bb gun for fifth or sixth birthday. My father was furious and angry at him for gifting his son a gun. He was like guns are banned in USA. Guns as toys are for bad kids. I used to like watching martial arts based movies and imitate their actions alone. Father gaslit me by saying that I was trying to be a future criminal. As martial arts are only for goons, thugs, killer, police, army or ultra rich people who just want to show off medals as status symbol. He wanted me to focus only on studies.
Rich shitty kids in my school had Xbox, PlayStation and PC games. They discriminated against me because of obvious status difference. So I had no friends, no siblings or any good memories while growing up. Girls in my class only wanted to hang with those boys who used to play football or basketball for school team. I was good at goalkeeping because of my natural reflexes and height and was also good at taking penalty kicks because of brute strength. But I wasn't good at tackling or dribbling. I used to do a lot of fouls. That's not the reason for which I wasn't allowed to play by the way. The real reason was that they didn't want to get embarassed by me who was a "poor loser" according to them. They used to belittle me because of my looks, skin colour and lack of money. So getting humbled by me on playground obviously used to hurt their ego. Because of that they didn't use to let me play.
Every one in my office just smokes tobacco or drinks alcohol. That is the definition of having a good time or celebration according to them. I noticed that Indians just drink(alcohol), spit(paan gutka), smoke (tobacco) and do drugs. Like isn't there anything else for recreational activities? In urban areas there's malls and I think one can go for hiking or trekking too. But even there Indian gen z and millennials just want to do gaanja and charas at Manali or any other hill station. Why are Indians so much into drugs?
Most of the MMA coaching centres are frauds as per the reviews on Google pages. They charge a leg or an arm but whatever they teach isn't that good as per the reviews.
I want to go to uttrakhand for river rafting, bunjee jumping, sky diving or para gliding. But don't feel brave enough because of the fact that it's India after all. What if the parachute doesn't open, what if the chord breaks, what if the bunjee cable breaks, what if I drown....and also the charges as per Indian economy is too high. As per Indian economy the charges should not be as high as they are. Maybe within a year or two I will finally got for it.

"You gotta know that there's an art to it, Ezra," Hitch said, cutting another piece of duct tape.
The sleeves of his weather-beaten coat were shoved all the way up his arms, to stop the fabric from falling over his knuckles while he was working, and goosebumps lined his skin. He was strapping a rubber chicken to the back of his truck, over the lens of the shattered backup camera, with the legs pointing down so that they hung a couple inches above the ground. There were dents in the hood from the crash last week, and scratches along the door from scraping into a curb. The chicken, hopefully, would keep him from breaking anything else.
"You can't go cheap," Hitch said. "The cheap rubber chickens only make noise when pressure lets go. That's no good. As soon as I back up into something, I want this chicken to be screaming like it’s in the depths of hell."
“Sure thing,” I said in a monotone, leaning against the side of the truck.
There were scrambled electronic parts piled in the back of the truck, the innards of a radio, a broken computer, tangled wires, a couple loose pairs of earbuds. He found the parts in alleyways or bummed them off his friends for a couple bucks or stole them from the vacation homes that were left empty for most of the year. Then he sold them for a profit at the scrapyard. Hitch had bounced between minimum-wage jobs for a while after high school, spending a couple months as a bagger at the grocery store or as a seasonal worker at the farm two hours down the highway. He'd never stuck with it. At the very least, the scrapyard got him enough money to eat and occasionally spend a night in a motel when he got tired of sleeping in his car.
Hitch pressed the last piece of tape in place and grinned up at me. "I've got something for you, duck."
The nickname came from when I’d broken my leg as a child and waddled around in a cast until it was healed. I hated it with a burning passion, and I glared at Hitch with the ease of twenty-one years of practice. He had a duck tattoo at the base of his thumb that he’d gotten in a back-alley shop as a teenager. He said that he’d gotten it to remind him of me, and the fact that I hated the nickname was just a bonus. It was shaky-lined, with an uneven face, but he loved it anyway.
The handle stuck when Hitch tried to open the door, a consequence of the rust collecting in the crevices of the car and running down the sides like blood from a cut. The car groaned when the door finally popped open, a metal against metal screech that had me flinching away. Hitch dug through the cluttered fast food containers in the passenger-side footwell, eventually coming up with a crinkly paper bag. He waved away the flies buzzing around the opening of the bag and held it out to me.
The last time Hitch had brought me food, I’d gotten food poisoning because he’d left it out in the midday sun for two days. The donut was squished slightly, and the icing was stuck to the bag. I still ate it, grimacing at the harsh citrus flavor. Taking Hitch’s food was an instinct engraved from the days when Dad had given us a can of kidney beans for dinner and Hitch had drank the juice, leaving the beans for me.
I rarely went hungry anymore, three mostly square meals a day and granola in my pockets just in case, but habits didn’t die easy.
These days, Hitch only brought me food when he wanted my help, like when he saw a place he wanted to hit but was worried about doing it alone.
I got in the car, like I always did.
We drove past the cluster of seafood-themed restaurants with chipped paint decks, the beachfront park where there were always shifty-eyed men sitting under the slide, the single room library where all the books had been water damaged in the flood last year. The change was quick as we drove across Main Street, heading closer to the beach. The roads were freshly paved, the concrete a smooth black except where the sun had already started to pick away at it. The three-story homes lining the sides of the street were crouched on elegant stilts, with space underneath for a car or three. Most of the garages were empty, with the lights off and curtains drawn in the house. Come summer, the streets would be swarming with tourists and vacationers, but until then, most of the buildings nearest to the beach were unoccupied.
Hitch stopped as the sun started to go down at a house that was leaning precariously out towards the beach, tilted ever so slightly, the edge of its foundation buried in the shifting sand of the beach. It certainly looked deserted, with an overgrown yard and blue paint peeling off the door in sheets.
Hitch took his hammer out of the backseat, hoisting it over his shoulder. It was two feet of solid metal with rags wrapped around the head to muffle the sound of the hits. Hitch squared up, bending his knees and holding the hammer like a baseball bat. Before he could swing, though, the door creaked open on its own, the hinges squeaking. The house beyond was dark enough that I could only make out general shapes, glimpsing the curve of a sofa to the left, what was maybe the shimmer of a chandelier on the other side.
Hitch lowered his hammer, looking vaguely disappointed that he didn’t get to use it. “That’s…weird as hell.”
“Maybe the deadbolt broke, maybe they forgot to lock it, it doesn’t matter,” I hissed, checking our surroundings for other people again. “Just hurry up and get inside before someone calls the cops.”
Hitch flicked the lightswitch on the wall, and the lights flickered on. They were dim, buzzing audibly and blinking off occasionally. The walls were plastered with contrasting swatches of wallpaper and splattered with random colors. There was neon orange behind the dining table, a galaxy swirl in the kitchen, and on the ceiling there was a repeating floral pattern covered in nametag stickers. Each of the stickers was filled out with The Erlking. Chandeliers hung in every room, three or four for each, and rubber ducks sat on every table. A miniature carousel sat in the corner along with a towering model rocket.
Sand was heaped on every surface, at least a couple inches everywhere. It was piled in the corners and stuck to the walls, and it covered the floor in a thick blanket. Our hesitant steps into the house left footprints clearly outlined in the sand.
Hitch took a cursory look around and headed immediately for the TV mounted on the wall. “Look out the windows and tell me if anyone is coming.”
I shook the sand out of the blinds and pulled them open, then had to brush sand off of the window before I could see anything.
Hitch was quick, practiced at finding and appropriating the things that were worth taking. He came back to me with an armful of electronics and chandeliers, dumping it at my feet before turning to head deeper into the house again.
There was a thump, somewhere upstairs, and then footsteps, slow and deliberate. Hitch froze at the threshold of the room, then ran for the door with me just ahead of him, sand flying out from under our feet.
My hand was almost brushing the doorknob, close enough that I could see the light from the streetlamp outside streaming in through the cracks in the door. My fingers touched the wood and it gave under my touch, becoming malleable and warm. I yelped, stumbling backwards, and the door started to melt. The paint ran down in thick drops, pooling at the bottom of the door, and the wood warped like metal being welded. The soft edges of the door ran into the walls until there was no sign of an exit ever being there.
“Well, well, well,” said a cultured voice with just an edge of snooty elitism. “What do we have here?”
The man was well over eight feet tall, with long black hair covering his eyes. He was wearing a yellow raincoat with holes cut out of the hood to accommodate the deer antlers jutting upwards from his head. There was sand settled on his shoulders and hovering around his head like a halo.
“Who the fuck are you?” Hitch said, inching towards a window.
He smiled, just a little bit, and his teeth shone in the dim light. “I am the Erlking.”
Hitch nodded, and seemed about to respond. I grabbed him by the hand and pulled him towards the window. I could feel sand in the wind roaring against my back as the Erlking growled in anger, the grains scraping harshly against my cheeks.
We were almost to the window when Hitch was ripped away from me, and I came to a startled halt. The sand had formed long grasping arms that pressed Hitch against the floral wallpaper. His wrists were held tight, and as I watched, a sandy hand wrapped around his mouth and forced its way between his teeth. He gagged, and sand trickled out of the corners of his mouth.
The Erlking strolled towards him, not seeming to be in any sort of rush. “You know, I’m not very fond of your yapping.”
He made an idle gesture and the sand wrapped around my ankles, tethering me in place.
“I yap all the time,” Hitch said. “Three-time olympic yapper, that’s me. Best to just let me go now and save yourself some trouble.”
The Erlking tapped a manicured nail against Hitch’s mouth, hard enough to hurt, judging by the way he flinched away. “But why would I ever let you go when I’ve gone to this much trouble to catch you and your sister? It’s so hard, these days, to find people that no one will miss.”
Hitch struggled against the sand, trying to escape and failing. “What do you want with us, then? You just said it, we’re nobody.”
“I’m fae, dear one,” the Erlking said. “I get my power from my followers. And I think that you two will make lovely additions to my flock.”

He flicked Hitch's nose and Hitch gasped. Feathers started to form on his arms, popping out from under his skin in a spray of blood.
Hitch pushed off the wall, using his bound hands as a fulcrum, and his knees crashed into the Erlking’s stomach. The Erlking fell backwards, wheezing, and the sand around my ankles loosened.
Hitch made desperate eye contact with me as feathers shot up his neck and jerked his head towards the window. The message was obvious. Run.
The last thing I saw before crashing out the window and into freedom was Hitch’s body twisting, his arms wrenching into wings and feathers covering every inch of his skin. By the time I landed on the concrete outside, he was a small black bird, held tightly in the Erlking’s hands. The whole building was sinking into the ground, burnished-gold sand piling up over top and streaming from the windows.
Thirty years later, I saw Sam’s Supernatural Consultation and Neutralization written in neat, looping handwriting on a piece of paper taped to the door. The tape was peeling at the corners and the paper was yellowed with age, but there was obviously care put into the sign, in its perfectly centered text and looping floral designs drawn over the edges in gold marker.
I knocked, hesitantly, drawing my woolen coat closer around my shoulders. I’d bought it as a fiftieth birthday gift for myself, and I took comfort in the heavy weight of it over my shoulders.
“Coming!” someone called from within the depths of the office.
There were a couple crashes, and the sound of paper shuffling. Eventually, the door was opened by a young woman with ketchup stains on her shirt and pencils stuck through her hair.
“Hi, I’m Sam, I specialize in supernatural consultation and hunting, how may I help you today?” Sam said, customer-service pep in her voice. She stood in the doorway, solidly blocking entry into the office.
“My name is Ezra, I’m for a consultation. I emailed you but you didn’t respond?” I shifted in place, suddenly feeling awkward.
“Oh! Yeah, I lost the password for the email ages ago. Sorry for the bad welcome, I get lots of people thinking I’m crazy or pulling a prank and harassing me.”
She ushered me into the office, clearing papers off one of the chairs to make room for me to sit down. There was a collection of swords along one wall, all of them polished to perfection, several with deep knicks in the metal which indicated that they’d been used heavily.
“So what can I help you with?” Sam asked again, more sincere this time.
“Thirty years ago, my brother was turned into a bird,” I started. I’d told this story so many times that it barely felt ridiculous to say anymore. I was used to the disbelieving looks, the careful pity. But Sam just nodded along, face open and welcoming.
“I’ve almost given up on finding him, at this point,” I said. “But I saw your ad in the newspaper, and…here I am, I suppose.”
“Here you are,” Sam echoed, smiling. She pulled one of the pencils out of her hair and took a bit of paperwork off of one of her stacks, turning it over so that the blank side sat neatly in front of her. “Tell me everything.”
I told Sam everything, and she wrote it all down, pencil scratching along the paper.
The last part of the story was always the hardest to tell. “I left him there. I ran and I didn’t look back.”
I had been to dozens of detectives and investigators over the years, once the police had dropped Hitch’s case. I’d been to professional offices with smartly-dressed secretaries and met scraggly men in coffee shops. All of them had given me the same look, pity and annoyance all mixed up into a humor-the-crazy-lady soup. Sam, though, just seemed thoughtful.
Sam leaned forward and put a hand over mine, carefully, like she thought that I would pull away. “Sometimes you have to leave people behind.”
I tightened her hold on Sam’s hand and drew it towards me, like I could make Sam listen if only I squeezed tight enough. “But that’s why I’m here. I don’t want to leave him behind.”
“Okay then. I’ll do my best to help you.” Sam agreed, finally. Then she paused, and said softly, “You know…I think I met your brother once. He might have saved my life. He’s certainly why I started in this business.”
“Really? What happened?” I asked.
This is the story that Sam told me, related to the best of my abilities:
It was a new moon, so the only illumination came from the stars gazing idly down and distant porch lights shining across the scraggly brush of the dunes. Sam’s neighbors were decent people who cared about baby turtles, so the lights were a low, unobtrusive red, and the ocean sloshed like blood. Sam walked on the beach almost every night, drawing back the gauzy pink curtains and clambering out her bedroom window. She didn’t often bother to be quiet; her mama worked the late shift and came home exhausted. As long as Sam got home before the sun, her mama would never find out that she paced the shoreline and dreamed of inhaling sand until her lungs became their own beach.
The sky was lightening. The sun would come up soon, and that meant Sam’s time on the beach was over. She needed to get back to her real life, go to her fifth grade class and stop that nonsense, as her mother would say. Her mother loved to say things like that, pushing Sam into her proper place by implication alone.
“She’s a good kid, of course, but she’s a bit…” Her mother would trail off there, usually getting a commiserating expression from whoever she was talking to. Sam always wondered how that sentence would have finished. She’s a bit strange, maybe. She’s a bit intense. She’s a bit abrasive. She’s quiet enough but when Jason tried to steal her pencil in math class, she stabbed him in the hand so hard that the lead tattooed him.
Her mother was better, for the most part. The days of her stocking up the fridge, and leaving a post-it note on the counter, and leaving for days at a time were gone. But Sam still stepped around the place on the kitchen tile where her mother had collapsed and caved her head in, even though the bloodstains had been replaced with new tile.
“Your auntie got an abortion, you know,” her mother had said from her place on the couch, slurring her words. “Pill in the mail and then bam, no more baby.”
She had clapped her hands together to illustrate her point. Her mother jerked forward and grabbed Sam by the wrist, then, staring up at her until Sam met her eyes.
“I love you, you know? But sometimes I wonder…” She settled back onto the couch. “Yeah. I wonder.”
She’d gotten up, then, back to the kitchen. She’d been stumbling, a shambling zombie of a woman. The ground in the entryway of the kitchen was raised, ever so slightly, and her mother went down hard. Her head cracked against the tile, chin first, and she didn’t move.
Sam had been the one to call the ambulance. She had stared at the scattering of loose teeth on the ground while she waited, and considered what her life would be like with a dead mom. Not so bad, she thought, and immediately felt guilty for it.
Her mom was better, now, for the most part. But Sam still stepped around the place on the kitchen floor where she had collapsed. There was still a matchbox hidden under her bed with the gleaming shine of her mother’s lost teeth, two canines and a molar. It was nice, having a piece of her mom to keep. Even if she left again, Sam would still have part of her.
Sam sighed, and turned away from the ocean. As she faced towards the low dunes further up the beach, she saw a sandcastle sitting nestled among them. It was such a strange sight that her eyes skipped over it at first, almost automatically, disregarding it because it was so out of place.
Sam found sandcastles out on the beach sometimes, usually half-collapsed and on the verge of being washed away by the waves, but she had never seen anything like the sandcastle in front of her. It was life-sized, something that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Scottish highlands, with spires shooting up above her head and carefully etched out bricks lining each side. The front wall was dominated by an arched set of double doors, twice her height, with a portcullis nestled at the top, ready to be dropped. All of it was lovingly detailed, down to the rust on the tips of the towers and the wood grain of the door. It was made out of wet, densely-packed sand, held together impossibly. It had not been there two hours ago, when she had come to the beach.
There was a bird sitting on the overhang of the door, small and black.
As soon as she took a step towards the sandcastle, the bird shook out its feathers and swooped down towards Sam, landing at her feet with a little stumble.
“Hey, kid, get out of here,” said the bird.
Sam closed her eyes, very deliberately. When she opened them, the bird was still there. Sam considered herself a very reasonable person, so she immediately drew the most logical conclusion. The bird was, she was almost certain, a demon.
“Trust me, you don’t want to run into Mr. Salty, the queen bitch himself,” the bird said.
“Mr. Salty?” Sam inquired, polite as she knew how to be. She edged to the side, trying to get a good angle to kick the bird like a soccer ball.
The bird did something similar to a wince, all its feathers fluffing up then settling back down. “Ah, don’t call him that. He’d turn you into a toad.”
The bird gestured with its head, towards the looming sand structure. “That’s his castle. He’s in there, probably scuttling along the ceiling or some shit because that’s the sort of weirdo he is.”
Sam nodded, encouraging. She pulled back her foot and lined up her shot, the way she’d seen athletes do on TV. She aimed right for its sharp beak and let loose. The bird saw it coming, its beady eyes widening, and it cawed in distress. It flapped away, avoiding her kick only to fall backward into the sand in a scramble of wings.
“What’s your fucking problem?” it squawked. “I was trying to help you!”
“I don’t need the help of a demon,” Sam yelled, trying to remember the exorcism that her mama had taught her once, because her mama believed in being prepared for anything.
“I’m not a demon,” the bird said indignantly.
It was at about that moment that Sam gave up and just decided to roll with it.
“What are you, then?” Sam asked.
The bird shuffled its clawed feet, looking about as awkward as it could, given that it didn’t really have recognizable facial expressions. “Technically I’m a familiar of the Erlking, prince of the fae, but I prefer to be called Hitch.”
“You can’t blame me for assuming, though,” Sam said. “Ravens do tend to be associated with murder.”
“Hey, excuse you,” Hitch said. “I’m a rook, not a raven. Ravens are way bigger.”
“Sure,” Sam said, not really paying attention. Her eyes had caught on the details of the sandcastle, and she was transfixed by the slow spirals of the sand, the strange beauty of it. She found herself stepping towards the great doors, lifting a hand to knock, and as she did, the sand warped in front of her eyes, heaving itself towards her with bulging slowness. The door creaked open before her, revealing a vast, empty room. Just before she stepped inside, she felt a piercing pain in her foot, and she yelped, leaping backwards.
Hitch pecked her again, really digging his beak in. “Don’t be an idiot.”
Sam glared at him, rubbing her foot. About to retort, she finally really took in the room inside the sandcastle, and her words died in her throat.
There was a body just past the threshold of the door, face down and limbs hanging limp at its sides. Long hair splayed out in a halo around its head.
“Don’t,” Hitch warned, suddenly serious. “Just leave, kid, I mean it. I’ve seen too many people go down this road and you don’t want to be one of them.”
Sam ignored him. She made her way across the beach, slipping with every step. The sand felt deeper, piling up around her feet in silent drifts. She picked up the nearest stick and poked the body with it through the door, ready to leap back if anything went wrong, staying firmly outside of the sandcastle.
This close, Sam could tell that it used to be a woman. Her head wasn’t attached to her body. It hadn’t been a clean amputation, either. Her upper body was bruised, with chunks taken out of it, and the bones in her neck hung mangled, not connected to anything.
“Well, I warned you,” Hitch said, defeated. “I did warn you.”
Sam nudged the head with the end of the stick, nudging it over so that she could see the face. Her mother stared back at her, torn to pieces, breath still wheezing from her lungs. She wasn’t blinking, just gazing forward with glazed eyes. Sweat dripped down from her hairline.
Sam screamed and dropped the stick, tripping over herself in her haste to get away.
Her mother’s eyes were wide and pleading, and she was mouthing desperate words at Sam. Her vocal cords were broken to bits, and the only sound that came out was a strained groan.
The head rolled, inching closer to Sam like a grotesque caterpillar.
Her mother gasped for air, torn lips fluttering. Finally, comprehensible words came out. “Help. Help me, daughter.”
“That’s not your mother,” Hitch said, quiet.
Sam knew that. Her mother was sleeping back at home, and anyways her mom had never asked for her help. She had an aversion to accepting charity, as she put it.
“Okay,” Sam said, shaking all over. “Okay.”
She backed away from the sandcastle, not looking away.
“Failure,” her mother hissed as she stepped away. “I never wanted a daughter like you.”
The sun came up over the horizon. The sandcastle, Hitch, and her mom all disintegrated into sand as the light hit them.
The beach, the next night, was almost exactly how I remembered it. The beams of our flashlights sent light bouncing across the dunes, illuminating the waves, and I imagined faces in the foam of the waves.
“I’ve been back here a hundred times. There’s nothing left,” I said.
Sam took the car key out of her purse and pointed it at the sand, adjusting the sword slung over her shoulder in order to do it. The key had belonged to Hitch; Sam had requested an item of his, and it was the only thing I had left. She rested the key on the sand and drew a circle around it, inscribing symbols around the borders.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
Sam shrugged. “Not much, really. I’m…I guess you could say that I’m knocking.”
The key laid inert on the sand for long enough that I was just about to give up and go home, admit to myself that Hitch was dead and that I was a fool to believe that Sam could actually help me. Then a building started to take shape, flickering in and out like it was struggling to get away. With a pop of displaced air, the sandcastle settled into existence.
Sam banged on the entryway. Nothing happened. She did it again, harder, and scowled when the door still didn’t open.
“We demand entrance, under your honor,” Sam yelled. There was a hard rush of wind, and I gripped Sam’s arm to keep my balance, but the doors cracked open reluctantly.
The inside of the sandcastle consisted of one enormous hall, the roof arching up out of sight. Rafters crisscrossed from wall to wall, and a cobbled path led further into the building, but other than that, it was completely empty, except for the birds. There were thousands of them, perched on the rafters or hopping along the ground. They parted in front of Sam and I, and reformed behind us, leaving us in a small pocket of open space. They were all black-feathered, with sharp beaks and beady eyes.
The Erlking sat on a throne at the end of the hall, lounging across it with his feet up on the armrest. He watched them as they came forward, the soft caw of the birds the only sound.
“I am here to bargain for the life of my brother,” I said, with as much dignity as I could muster, before the Erlking could say anything.
The Erlking ignored her, tilting his head to look at Sam. “I remember you. I almost got you, once.”

Sam glared at him but didn’t respond.
“You want your brother,” The Erlking said to me, and he almost sounded amused. “Then go get him.”
As if by some sort of silent signal, every bird in the room took flight at once, and their cawing made me think of screams. I covered my head against the flapping of their wings, and my vision was quickly obscured by the chaotic movement of them. I found myself on my knees, just trying to escape them.
A hand met my shoulder. Sam urged me to my feet, and together we ran for the edge of the room, where the swarm was the thinnest. We pressed ourselves into the corner and the swarm spiraled tighter and tighter at the center of the room. It went on until there seemed to be no differentiation between the birds, all of them fused together into one creature.
When the chaos died down, the birds had become one mass, with wings and eyes and talons sticking out of its flesh, thrashing and chirping. Human body parts stuck out of it, bulging out from the feathers. It was hands, mostly, with a couple knees or staring eyes. The bird amalgamation had no recognizable facial features, but there was one long beak extending from the front of its head. Most of the body parts were concentrated around the beak, and they peeked out from where the beak connected with muscle, or grew from the tongue, nestled between the two crushing halves of the beak.
It turned its beak down and crawled forward, using the hands to balance. The fingers scrambled over the ground. I was afraid of centipedes as a child, and I felt that same crawling dread when it started moving.
“Holy shit,” Sam whispered, which was rather disappointing, because I had been hoping that at least one of us knew what to do.
The creature turned, a lurching movement that crushed some of the hands underneath it, and started heaving itself slowly towards our corner.
“Better hurry up!” the Erlking called from his throne.
It was blocking the exit, by then. The shifting body of it had moved to block us off. It ambled towards us and I tried to sink further into the corner.
As it approached, getting close enough that I could smell the stink of it, I saw a flash of a tattoo on one of the hands. I leaned in, trying to find it again, like looking for dolphins surfacing in the ocean. And again, I caught a glimpse of a duck tattoo, the tattoo that Hitch had gotten on his hand as a teenager.
I ripped away from Sam’s death grip and ran for the monster.
I fell to my knees in front of it, wincing as I impacted the ground, and reached into the nest of hands. I could feel them tearing at my forearms and ripping into me with their sharp nails, but I kept going. I pressed further in, up to my shoulder in a writhing mass of limbs, aiming for the spot where I had last seen that tattoo.
The hands were tugging at me, wrapping around my back and hair. They were pulling together, trying to draw me completely into the mass of them. I was aware of Sam at my side, anchoring me in place and bashing any hand that got too close with her sword or the sparks that leapt from her hands with muttered words. But I didn’t think it would be enough. They were too strong, and there were too many of them.
I was up to my waist in the hands when something grabbed my palm. I felt the way it clung to me, and the calluses on its palm, and I knew that I had found my brother.
I flung herself back. The hands didn’t want to let me go, and they fought the whole way, but slowly, I made progress. I kept hold of Hitch’s hand in mine the whole time, gripping it as hard as I could. I finally broke free, Hitch with me, and Sam was immediately charging the creature, able to use her sword with much greater strength without being worried about injuring Hitch. She swung it forward, and it sliced through the wrist of one of the hands. It fell without a sound, red sand flowing out of it. It deflated until it looked like dirty laundry, just a piece of limp flesh. The creature shrieked, scuttling away enough that the door was finally accessible. The three of us ran for it, Sam and I supporting Hitch between us.
I looked back as I left and found the Erlking staring right at me.
“Interesting,” he murmured, his voice carrying impossibly across the vast space between us.
The sandcastle collapsed behind us, the great walls falling in on themselves. We were out in the morning sun, the sandcastle disappearing as we watched. Hitch was on the ground in front of me, as young as he’d been thirty years ago, when he was captured. He started laughing, feathers puffing out of his mouth. He laughed until he cried and I hugged him in the way that he’d held me when I was young, in the times when my life had been defined by hunger and fear.
Hitch left, afterwards. He scratched at the pinhole scars covering his body, where feathers burst through his skin, and pulled his long sleeves down around his wrists. He didn’t know where he was going but he told me that he needed time
I had spent thirty years worth of time without him. I wanted to grab my brother by the shoulders and beg him to stay. But he flinched when I hugged him goodbye and he refused to go near sand and he stared distrustfully at the birds chirping in the trees. Hitch needed to go away and I loved him too much to stop him.
I sat out on the beach every morning. I felt the sun on my face and I waited for Hitch to come home.

I always have visions and thoughts of falling or flying through the air. It’s the feeling of freedom. But I never want to go splat.
I’ve had passive ideation for a few months now. And today I was so exhausted of this feeling of long-lasting underlying sadness that doesn’t go away. I was so happy in the morning. And in the afternoon I went for a walk, went to the cafe, went book shopping, went to a restaurant. I enjoyed it. But on the walk home in the park the feeling came back, the feeling that always keeps coming back, the feeling that won’t leave no matter what I do, the dull melancholy and exhaustion.
I sat down at a bench facing the river. I thought it would calm me down or bring me a sense of peace like before. I just felt like crying instead. Whenever I get a chance to breathe, to think, to be, I just feel like crying. I’m so tired, so exhausted of it.
I stood at the bridge crossing the river. I had no plans of jumping at all really. I just wanted to feel that control, the feeling of being able to stare down death, to look down at the water, to know that my choices matter. I can still make choices. I have agency.
But the bridge is not high enough. I don’t feel fear looking down. I know I won’t die if I jump. I don’t get the satisfaction from looking down the barrel. It’s not enough. I’m disappointed. And there’s too many people around. I can’t even cry or lean too hard on the railing because it would make a show. Too much attention.
I don’t know what drove me to go to the bridge. It’s not like I was planning to jump. But something about being able to stare down death brings me comfort, for the railing to be the only thing separating you from life and death. It’s a calming feeling, to feel so close to death but without crossing the line. I fear death. But I need reprieve.
I’m worried that my passive suicidal ideation is developing into something more active. I still don’t plan or have concrete plans. But the fact that I went to the bridge, considered its height, the potential outcomes of jumping, it worries me.
I’m scared for myself. But it’s exciting knowing there’s something out there that can calm me again. But I know it’s dangerous. It’s so sickening.

A couple months back some Chinese food was mistakenly delivered to my house in the NE heights, near constitution and Eubank. I wasn’t home when it happened but I checked the doorbell cam and sure enough, a doordash driver plops it on my patio. I’m a broke bitch and it wasn’t long before I got home and found the food, checked the cameras, weighed the risks and decided to take the plunge. Now let me tell you. This was some of the best Chinese food I’ve had in my life! There was absolutely no indication of where it was from, no receipts or anything on the bag. All I can say is that I must have this food again. I dream of it. I’m hoping I can describe what I had and maybe someone knows of a place that serves something similar. There were two dishes- the first one was maybe a sweet and sour or sesame chicken. Identifying characteristics: it was breaded/battered and CRISPY. Even with the sauce, and I had it for leftovers after it was in the fridge for a day, the crisp absolutely remained strong. There were no vegetables in with the chicken either. It was served with a separate plain white rice in one of those classic looking paper folding containers.
The other dish is probably more recognizable because Id never had anything like it. It was suuuuper thin stir fried noodles (think like, angel hair thickness or a bit wider, but thinner than spaghetti) with thin slices of beef or pork, no more than a few mm thick, 1-2cm wide, 5-10 cm long, so pretty small thin pieces. It had maybe a few veggies in there, but not many, maybe just some onions and maybe bok Choi? It was all perfectly seasoned in a perfectly salted, umami sauce that turned everything a reddish-brown.
Containers were white styrofoam boxes that were not divided for multiple items. I remember the soy sauce packet brand they used was not the super common one with the panda bear that most restaurants have, and the chopsticks were also not the super common brand either.
I know this is a long shot but it’s gonna take me a while to try every Chinese place in my area to find this spot, which I will absolutely do.
PS: I’m sorry if this was your food. There was no way I could have gotten it to you, but rest assured it did not go to waste.

Friends, I did the first two nights from different sections. I was second row in 207 the first night, and then second row of 307 the second night. (I'll be doing third night in the 100s for a floor comparison and can update this later with a third experience.)
Note: I turned on the spoiler tag because of the level of detail, but have tried to not give anything away other than as needed to report.
(Edited to add details.)
Yes, it's worth it. It is incredible. Bob sings Standing on the Moon but the Sphere makes you believe that you are. It is like getting an entire second show visually on top of the music. They have put something really special together. No reason to be on the fence: if you can make it, you should.
Section comparison. I don't think there is a bad seat in the Sphere, and everyone I talked to enjoyed it wherever they were (though I didn't talk to anyone with an obstructed view).
That said, there are some tradeoffs. Down on the floor seemed to be the die hard fans and best energy. Several people said they thought the overall view in the 300s was probably the best for taking everything in with the height and that little extra distance. I found the 300s a little bit less immersive and little more chill--a great night 2 seat for me. The 200s are a balance between the Sphere and the Band and best of both worlds. I definitely felt more "in it" in the 200s.
I do think that being towards a center section of the Sphere is more important than being down a level or a few rows closer. On the wings it seems like the visuals would be less immersive because you have a stronger sense of where the wall is in your vision field.
I didn't find the 200s to be steep, but the 300s were a bit as you're getting in and out. It took a few minutes to adjust, but I had no issues. This does seem to be a bigger concern in the 400s, so consider moving down if you don't care for heights and if that will impact your experience.
Compared to other venues (especially baseball stadiums) that are a bit cramped, I found the seats themselves comfortable and had plenty of space. The incline also makes it easy to see the band from anywhere.
I really liked seeing shows from different seats the last two nights and encourage that if it's an option for you. It's a different view and experience each time and keeps it fresh.
Visuals. I don't know who dreamed this up but it is surreal. It fills your vision, like wearing a VR headset with 15k other fans. It feels at times like you're in a space ship, or on a roller coaster. It's a ride-- Photos and video cannot capture it because of the sheer scale.
The opening visuals for the first song are chill, then they blow the doors off the place with the second song. Because of that, I think opening set songs will lean a little more warm up, and the second song in the first set will start the energy. The closing visuals appear to also be the same night to night.
In between, they do repeat many of the visuals night to night, but several of them are generic enough where they can be used for many different songs (and still fun to watch and impressive). Some of those are more "static" than the headline videos that are circulating, and that puts the emphasis back on the music for stretches.
There were some new visuals on Night 2, maybe 20% or so of them. We'll see in time as they continue to roll new ones out and mix and match what songs they play to what.
The visuals can be a little disorienting. Even when you know it's a screen, it is so big it tricks you. Night 1 I found myself needing to sit down for a minute. Two things that helped me: One, turn around and look back at the seating, especially where the screen ends at the top. That helped my brain remember where we were. Second, looking at it through my phone when I took a few videos also grounded me. Overall, this was minor for me, I bounced back in a minute or so, and I loved it.
Sound. I found it plenty loud, but saw some comments that it wasn't enough for some others liking. I think if you are acclimated to the outdoor tour amphitheater experience, that tends to be louder because they push volume out further outdoors. In the Sphere they don't need to do that. What you get in exchange is a more balanced sound. No complaints here.
They did seem to dial it in a bit and got more bass second night. I didn't notice it so much, but a few folks around me commented. Making some minor adjustments as they learn by playing the venue and getting fan feedback is to be expected, and I'm glad to see it.
Haptics. Night one there were a few songs where they turned on the seat haptics, but it did not feel sync'd to the music until D&S. Night 2 they were only used for drums and space, and somehow Mickey controls them or they are sync'd to certain of his kit. I thought it was very cool N2 and how I hope it goes. They are amazing for D&S and I highly recommend sitting for that and not treating it like a second intermission. The seats and the visuals make it a totally different experience.
Encore. They will do an encore-type song, but they don't leave the stage. Without spoiling, there is a short visual presentation (about a minute) after set 2 closer and then they play one more. This was consistent both nights.
Intermission. The bathroom lines really did get long. I guess that's always true at intermissions, but this felt longer than other venues, though they did keep it moving. This was the only minor complaint I had.
If the line on your floor is long, it moved faster and was less crowded on the lower levels. Sphere staff was excellent, and were telling fans they could go down a level for a shorter line.
Food and drinks at the Sphere. They have a bit of both, but a lot more barstands than food. I didn't eat there, but they had decent cocktails. There are bars on each level, and for beer and seltzers they had some wall coolers grab-and-go style. Other than intermission, the lines were never too bad. Stadium pricing hurts, but is to be expected.
Comfort. The best decision I made all weekend was to just wear my Brooks running shoes. It is a lot of walking even just around, to, and from The Venetian.
One difference I have not seen mentioned elsewhere is that I caught a bit of a draft in the 300s. I was fine, but consider bringing a layer if you're up higher.
Dead Experience at the Venetian. This was cool to see and is easy to check out while you're around. You can do it all in 30-60 minutes. It is on the lower level where Palazzo starts by the LOVE sign, near the restaurants and shopping. There are some fun photo ops, and staff to help take pictures.
Be sure to go upstairs: the photo collection exhibit and Mickey's artwork are up there and both neat. There was no line when I went. They do sell tour posters, but were already selling out morning of Day 2.
Merch. The merch at the Dead Experience at the Venetian during the day is different than what they have at the Sphere during shows. There is overlap, but there were some of the same styles in different colors. So far, none of it is available online.
Posters. Yes, there is a different poster each night. They also have weekend posters (with all three nights on them) and full tour posters. Tour posters had a limited run in foil, and then regular matte posters.
Security. They did not seem to be checking or care about vapes. It looked like every third person in line held theirs up in their hand with their phone as they walked through.
Getting in and out of the Venue. This overall ran really smoothly. I am not staying at the Venetian, so the first night I took a cab from the south end of the strip for about $20. Some traffic getting in, but once I was dropped off it was really quick getting into general entrance. Second night I got dinner at Venetian and took their sky bridge. That was a longer line, but still got through in about 15 minutes.
So if you're having dinner at the Venetian, I'd plan to walk over by about 645. It was about a fifteen minute walk, then a bit of line at security, but you'll get in with no stress and should have time to grab a drink. A 5pm reservation somewhere should give you plenty of time if you tell your server.
Shows get out around 11.30, and then it's either a walk back to Venetian or to the cab line. I was getting back to my hotel around midnight. If you started with dinner at 5 before the show, it's a long night.
Pace Yourself. Three days is a lot anywhere, but in Vegas you're on your feet during the day, it's hot, and the Sphere is an intense experience. It'll add up. Take it easy where you can.
Travel safe, and may the four winds blow you all safely home.

Title. So for some context, we live in a pretty small apartment, 740 sqft.
Let me give a lay of the land: living area, dining area, kitchen are all technically in the same (biggest) room. Living area fits loveseat, sofa, TV facing. Small fridge in the corner. Dining area adjacent to sofa, seats 4. Cutaway "bar top" wall separates, dining and kitchen. Bedroom about 120 sqft.
Now for the stuff:
Loveseat cannot be used, entirely filled with items to greater than the backrest height. Half the dining table is filled with stuff. Two of the dining chairs are filled with stuff and clothes slung over them. The entire bar top (L shape that you go around and leads to kitchen) has stuff on top. Pretty much nearly every surface we could use in the kitchen is in use / has stuff. All of our cupboards are pretty much filled up. The small ottomans have stuff inside them. I open stuff atop the range or the sink because of no space. In our room, my half (third now) has a few clothes on the floor that I pick up and do laundry, 75% of her "half" of the rooms carpet has stuff or stacks of clothes. Our bedroom closet can be opened halfway because of stuff. 1/3 of the content in there is mine (including "shared" items like the vacuum)
Anyways, now for justifications.
She has long days at work in the restaurant, often 12+ hours. A lot of the BS and negativity gets absorbed with her and she tries her very best to not bring it home. But a decent amount of it spills into. So she has a habit of bringing home some cheap knick knack, or snack, or something to make her feel better as to not go crazy. Problem is, this stuff collects after a while , as you can probably tell above. She is very particular about knowing exactly where everything is and me not touching anything while she is gone. When she is home usually she pushes back. If I bring up the idea of cleaning up. She needs to be in the right headspace. This usually comes maybe once a year or biennially. Aside from that, develops strong attachments to the things she gets. Including expired food, if there was some some form of memory attached to it.
We've had many arguments and long talks over time about this , and she feels that the world is a place where everyone takes (particularly stemming from the entitlement from guests and servers she manages) and she needs a means to give something to herself. I am adding to this feeling of "people taking from her" when I propose cleaning up.
Now for my own preferences. I am relatively minimalist and get very uncomfortable when there's too much stuff around, I feel like my space is closing in on me. It's quite hard for me to move around the house, I always have to move something over if I want to eat or fix something up to eat , or sit at the couch, etc. I get very self-conscious about inviting people over (I generally just don't these days) because of Just how messy everything is. Literally our space can accommodate perhaps one guest- they could sit at couch while I'll sit at the dinner table and we can watch something or talk to each other like that. I also just generally feel like your living space is a reflection of yourself and when it's all cluttered like this It can affect your mental space.
Tl;Dr: our place is a mess. I want to clean up, but she has attachments to the things that I want to throw out. Arguments -usually- lead to putting it off another month, another year. The stuff builds.
AITAH? Thank you for reading.

I was out at dinner just having a burger and fries. Though I’d never been to this restaurant before, I’ve had plenty of burgers and fries. All of a sudden, I started feeling lightheaded and sweaty and sent my husband to get the check so we could leave. In the time it took him to run to the bar, my heart rate went from 60bm (my resting is 55) to 166bpm. I lost all vision, had severe chest pains, and sweat literal buckets. It was pooling around me. My throat started stinging like I swallowed bees. I was so embarrassed because it was a busy place, so my husband got me to an alley where I collapsed. We called 911 and they suspected a heart attack and I was rushed to the hospital. My blood pressure was 155/100 at the hospital, presumably higher during the height of the episode.
At the hospital, I was stable with a consistent heart rate of 130-140bpm. The throat stinging has gone away, but the chest pains and dizziness were severe. All imaging and lab work ruled out a heart attack, so they assumed allergic reaction and administered a GI cocktail, Benadryl, and Valium. That dropped my heart rate to 70-80bpm within half an hour. They did not administer epinephrine. I was discharged after my heart rate was consistently in the 70s and will be following up with my primary and likely a cardiologist or allergist. I got the ingredient list from the restaurant and there was a type of pepper I don't recall every having before, though it is closely related to peppers I have all the time and wasn't very spicy. I live in Texas, so I've probably had it before in a dish.
I am a very healthy 22yo female, other than ankylosing spondylitis. I have been stressed with closing on our house next week, but have never had a panic attack and was in a great mood and not anxious at all. What do you think happened to me? As I said, I am not looking for a diagnosis and will certainly be seeing a doctor soon. I’m just looking for similar experiences.

When I was looking through the finished chapter folder today, one was missing, and I got worried that I deleted it on accident. Turns out it was at the top of the folder instead of the bottom, because I put a space in the title that wasn't supposed to be there. So, crisis averted, I guess.
Many thanks to u/SpacePaladin15 for the universe.
Enjoy.
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Chapter 14: Hydrophobic
- Memory Transcription Subject: Meba, Venlil Computer Scientist
Date [Standardized Human Time]: October 20th, 2136
It was comfy.
I wasn’t sure about the whole ‘scarf’ thing, but after finishing it, and putting it on, I actually liked it quite a bit. Finishing it wasn’t even hard, all I had to do was bring the end of the yarn through the last loop and weave in the end, which was a breeze with a little help from Arlene.
She helped me put it on. Apparently, there was a nearly infinite number of ways to wear the garment. Anything from braids, to knots, to wraps, to simply dangling from the neck. It was truly amazing how many ways humans managed to use a simple strip of fabric.
She showed me several different ways to tie it. First only draping it around my neck, then showing me how to do the ‘once around’, next tying a ‘Parisian’ knot, and finally showing me a braided one that was really just a modified version of the Parisian, where instead of bringing both ends through the loop, you only put one through, and then give it a half turn, put the other end in, and repeat until the ends are completely integrated into the braid.
Arlene made a weird squealing noise. “Okay hold on, I need to take a picture of this.” She pulled out her phone and took shots of me from several angles, even pulling the camera right up to my snout at one point, and causing me to flinch.
She turned the phone around to reveal an extremely distorted, and equally unflattering close up of my face. “Everybody loves a fish eye filter.”
I didn’t know what to say. The disrespect was palpable.
“Oh, let me show you a trick.” She undid the braid, taking the scarf and wrapping it around front to back, and bringing the ends back around and down through the loop at the front. Then she took the back part, and brought it over the back of my head in a hood, having a bit of trouble getting it past my wool, and pressing my ears down towards the front of my face. I liked the Parisian better.
“This is really uncomfortable.” My voice sounded muffled with the hood flattening my ears.
“Okay, okay. Just let me get one picture.” She pointed the phone at me again.
Once she was done with her ‘photoshoot’, I took off the scarf. “Is this really that enjoyable for you?”
“Extremely. You have no idea how cute this is. I’ll make one with ear holes for you so you can wear the hood comfortably next time.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever need that much insulation.”
“You never know. What if you go to the night for some reason?”
“Despite my heritage, I don’t have much of a thing for freezing temperatures.”
“Well, it’s up to you. Do you like it?”
I folded up the scarf and put it into my bag. “It’s comfy. Like a hug.”
She smiled. “It looks good on you too.”
My tail wagged of its own accord. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Hold on, let’s get one more picture.” She pulled out her phone again, and crouched next to me to match my height, pointing the camera towards us both. “Smile!”
Flustered, I struggled to make the foreign expression. Arlene put her arm around my shoulder, and took the picture.
“There we go, Dad’s gonna get a kick out of that… once I actually get a way to send it to him.” She tapped away at the screen for a moment. “How much time do we have before we need to leave for dinner?”
“A quarter claw or so.”
“Okay, perfect. Since we have some time…” She smiled. “You wanna learn how to spin thread?”
“Sure.”
Her smile deepened. “Okay okay, come on, let me show you how.” She nearly sprinted over to the spinning wheel.
I followed, though not nearly as eager.
“Sit down.” She ordered, bringing up a chair next to the contraption.
I obliged. Arlene loomed over me, looking even larger while I sat in the wooden seat. A pointless shiver went up my spine.
She brought a little bag of rolags next to the wheel, placing it on the ground, then turning to the wheel.
“It’s already set up, but I’ll redo it so you can see how.” She removed the bobbin from its spot. “Before you start, you need a bit of yarn to start off, so you can attach the new fibers to it.” She tied a loop in the end of the yarn, and slotted the bobbin back in with a clack. “It goes in like this. Then we set the tension, which is how much the bobbin will pull on your side of the yarn. You change it using this little knob down here.” She twisted the knob back and forth a few times for effect. “It should be fine for you, just tell me if it’s pulling too hard.”
I flicked an ear.
“Okay, so we bring the yarn along the hooks here, towards this hole, which is called the orifice. I have a little hook here to pull the yarn through.” She stuck it in, then pulled the yarn back through, and handed it to me.
The yarn was fine; a single strand of wool, though I knew it was actually a tangle of several. As I slid my paw pad along the yarn, it felt slightly fuzzy in my paws, with a few errant hairs struggling to escape.
“Don’t grab it so hard. Try to be firm, but gentle.”
I adjusted my grip. “Better?”
“I wont really know for sure until you start. Let’s try the treadle. You play an instrument?”
“No, why?”
What would music have to do with this?
“Well, just pretend that you do. You need to keep a steady beat so the speed stays constant. Put your foot on the treadle and give it a try.” She smiled.
“Okay then.” I put my paw down, and gave it a push. As the wheel turned, my paw was soon lifted back up from the floor, then reaching the apex of the turn. Instinctively, I pushed down again, and the wheel gained yet more speed. Then, I misplaced my next push, and sent the wheel turning the other way.
A pat on my shoulder. I didn’t realize I was so tense. “Relax, it’s hard at first. Just keep trying. You gotta be gentle with it; you don’t want it to go too fast. You had the right idea before, just let it move your foot, and give it a little tap when needed… oh, and be careful not to let go of the yarn.”
“Uh huh… thanks.” I tried again, paying more attention to my timing now. Keeping the speed consistent was harder than it looked. However, while I didn’t think of myself as more coordinated than the average venlil, I think I was getting the hang of it.
“There ya’ go. That’s pretty good. Can you try changing directions?”
How the brahk am I supposed to do that?
I looked up at her, then back to the wheel, when my concentration faltered.
“Just push down before it goes over the top of the spin. It’s basically what you’re doing now, but in reverse.”
Just keeping it spinning was hard enough. Turning it around? Nope, that wasn’t gonna happen.
“Come on, you can do it.”
Ugh.
I attempted to get it to turn in the other way, to no avail; when I pushed down, it still went over the apex of the turn, and I didn’t take the pressure off fast enough, so it sped up way more than before, throwing me off beat.
“Brahk.” I spat, claws from my free paw digging into my thigh. My face burned with bloom.
The wheel slowed to a crawl, then a stop, lifeless. My eyes fixed on it like hooks to meat.
“Hey, don’t worry, just give it another shot.”
“Y-yeah.” I gave it another push, repeating until it was up to speed. The machine made a gentle whirring as it turned.
I watched the treadle, and the plank that attached it to the wheel. After a few more rotations, I gave it a big push in the other direction, and it slowed greatly. The next rotation, I gave it another push, and it turned around.
“Woo! You did it!”
Arlene’s yelling startled me, and I stopped.
“Let’s get you spinning some thread now.” She gave me a big teeth bearing grin.
I tried not to look at her mouth too hard. “Okay.”
She grabbed a rolag from the pile. “It’s probably best if I just show you.”
“Alright.”
Arlene roughed up the end of the rolag, then she grabbed the yarn from my hand, and looped the fibers around the loop. “Could you start it up again?”
“Yeah.”
Once the wheel was spinning, she slid her fingers down the rolag; the whole thing constricted into a length of yarn, due to the twist.
After it twisted up, she fed it into the orifice, which promptly swallowed it up, and then she repeated the process: thinning out the rolag a bit, sliding the twist in, and feeding it into the machine. She did this 6 times before she ran out of fiber. But that didn’t stop her; she just grabbed another rolag and pressed the feathery end into the yarn, and continued. Three more times, and she stopped.
She motioned for me to stop pedaling. “You get all that?”
I blinked. “It doesn’t look too hard.”
“Let’s get to it then.” She handed me the fibers, and stood back, a thumb pointing up to the sky.
I took them in my paws, and held them in a firm grip, so they wouldn’t come out of my hands when I started pedaling. The wheel came up to speed, blurring slightly. My vision narrowed to the singular point in front of me: the fiber. Heartbeats felt like footsteps in my chest, my breathing slow. I felt the fiber; how it pulled against my paws, the roughness of the strands, the texture of the wool. Drafting a bit of the fibers out, I slid my paw pads along the fiber, to let a little twist into it. It strangled into a single line of yarn. Slowly, carefully, I fed it into the orifice, all while keeping the wheel turning at a reasonable speed. There were bits where the yarn was thicker, and thinner, where I failed to keep the fibers consistent. Particles of dust played in the corner of my vision.
Repeat.
The bumps slid against my paw pads like thorns, though I tried to squish them down. I didn’t know how you were supposed to get rid of them. I pulled along the fiber, feeling the twist rub against me. Another length into the bobbin.
Repeat.
My claws slid along the fibers, twist came in, I fed it into the orifice. Repeat. I drafted more fiber, slid along it, and fed it into the orifice. Repeat. I struggled to pull apart the fibers, so I slowed down the wheel’s speed. Repeat. When I untwisted part of the yarn in my paws, the fiber came apart easier. Repeat. Every now and then, I would grab more yarn from the pile, and attach it to the yarn. My leg burned from the constant motion. Repeat.
Repeat, repeat, repeat,
Instead of hitting wool, my paw struck air. I was out. I sopped pedaling, and the wheel came to a stop.
Arlene struck her hands together in a rhythmic motion. “Good job!” She had moved to the other side of the machine from her original place beside me, and I didn’t even notice. “I was going to show you how to feed the yarn evenly onto the bobbin, but you were so focused I just decided to change the hooks for you. Seriously, you’re a natural; I’ve never seen someone get it so fast.”
My mouth was dry from thirst. How long had I been spinning? I glanced around the room. “W-what time is it?”
Arlene grabbed the end of the fibers from my paws and tied it around an extrusion on the machine. “I think you started about forty minutes ago.” She scratched at her head. “Sorry, that’s uh…”
“So not long?” I asked. My perception of time was completely off. It felt like I had just sat down, though that was obviously not the case.
“Yeah.” She replied. “Wanna take a look at your yarn?”
An ear flick later, and she was humming some Earth tune while removing the bobbing from the spinning wheel, tying off the end of the fiber in an overhand knot to keep it from unraveling. After a moment of inspection, she passed the bobbin to me.
“It’s damn good work for your first time.” She said bluntly.
I ran a paw along the bundled yarn. “There’s a bunch of bumps.”
“Come on, I didn’t even show you how to control the thickness yet. You should be proud.” Arlene ordered, with a slap on the back that struck a cough out of me.
She was just being nice, I knew. Arlene was like that; she would probably praise me even if I somehow managed to destroy the wheel. Yet, I couldn’t help but feel a little bit happy about it. I made this. I was holding it in my own two paws.
“Thanks.” I tried to smile.
“Aw, you’re welcome.” Arlene smiled back. It was warm.
“We should get going, or we’ll be late.” I said, handing her the bobbin back.
“Sure, give me a sec.” She replied, grabbing a pocket umbrella from the other room. I considered the claim that humans could smell rain before it started dubious at best. Though, it might have been a good idea to check the weather report.
---
I should have listened.
So much rain, and that’s not even mentioning the wind. Anything that wasn’t blown away was pummeled, including us. We huddled under the singular human umbrella, which was wholly insufficient to shield us from the raindrops. We were shuffling towards the restaurant at a painfully slow pace, Arlene unbuttoning her coat to drape its hydrophobic veil around the both of us. From the outside, we probably looked like a horrid chimera of venlil and human, with tough stitched skin, stretching under powerful muscles. It’s a good thing we didn’t have to worry about other pedestrians. It was too late to go back now.
Arlene said something, but I couldn’t hear it over the rain and the wind.
“What?!” I asked.
“I said! Are we close!?” She yelled in response.
“What?!”
She brought the coat around our heads to shield from the wind. “Are we almost there?!”
“Almost!” I said, throat scratchy.
On the horizon—no, it wasn’t the horizon, it was just the edge of our vision in the wet hell we were trapped in—a spattering of warm neon lights shot through the endless layers of water like a photon cannon, while each speck of liquid reflected the shiny oasis, beckoning us closer with promises of warmth and comfort. Arlene slipped on a puddle, her boots caked thick with mud, the rubber treads no longer providing traction. I helped her to steady herself, and almost fell myself.
I saw movement in the window of the establishment, the details of which I couldn’t place. A drop of rain charged straight into my eye, and I lost focus.
There was a small awning above the door, but it didn’t do much to help against the rain, completely useless against the nearly sideways path of the water. Though, at least we weren’t completely soaked. Arlene’s coat was a boon I couldn’t have predicted. I was beginning to see the appeal of human apparel; I couldn’t imagine traveling through such weather with just my wool, or, stars forbid, nothing but skin. Though, that wouldn’t stop my brain from trying.
The rain like gunfire, wind stinging like nettles, piercing right through your insignificant form. Bones rattling with imminent death, breath frozen in the lungs.
We both wiped our feet on the doormat, which was as soaked as everything else. Arlene heaved the door open with excessive force, completely void of concern for the reaction of those inside the building, which was… sub-optimal, to say the least.
I had not yet noticed what an expensive place it was, but as soon as I spotted the two waitstaff near the entrance, I couldn’t help but say a prayer for my wallet, and our survival. Both of them nearly jumped out of their wool as soon as we entered, and almost immediately after, the more confident of the two stepped forward to shove us right back out the doors.
“Get out, get out! You’ll scare the patrons!” He hissed, below the chatter of the dining area.
“We’re not going back into the storm.” Arlene informed him.
“Oh yes you are, human.” The waitstaff corrected.
“We do not serve predators in this establishment.” The second educated further.
You’re not going to let them speak to her like that, are you?
I flicked my tail in disgust, and my voice bounded forth with unprecedented spirit. “Are you brahking dense? You can’t refuse service because she’s human.”
“What a farce. Do you seriously expect the exterminators to comply with that drivel?” The first questioned.
“Who in their right mind would let a blood thirsty animal into a place for eating? Do you want to get someone killed? Or are you just as mad?” Reiterated the second.
“What the fuck did you just say?” I inquired calmly.
Arlene grabbed me by the shoulders. “Hey, calm down. They’re just doing their jobs.”
Jobs? What do jobs have to do with this?
“You must be some sort of mad if you think we’re going back into that storm.” I explained.
The first waitstaff sighed. “Do you even have a reservation?”
“Of course we do!” I pulled my datapad out from its pocket. It wouldn’t turn on.
“What’s wrong?” Arlene asked.
“The rain killed it.” I replied.
“No reservation? I figured.” Said the first waitstaff, with an extremely punchable look on his face. “Then, if you please. Get. Out.”
“Now hold on just a second,” Arlene said, with palms raised in some sort of odd threat display. “it’s murder out there. Won’t you let us stay at least until the rain lets up?”
“Most certainly not.” Said the first.
“Not a chance.” Echoed the second.
“Look, I’m sorry about my friend, he’s on edge because of the storm. We won’t be long, just until it’s safe to leave.” She pleaded.
Some of the people dining noticed the commotion at the door, and more than a few shot sidelong glances at us. Gusts of wind blew against the door, shaking it against the little foyer we were standing in.
As the waitstaff were about to give their rebuttal, I spotted a familiar coat near the back of the dining room, ducking out from behind a covered booth. A small figure, with sandy fur, and a look of endless confidence on his face: Gram. He made his way towards the entrance, stopped a few paces from the foyer, rubbed his eyes, pinched himself, rubbed his eyes again, and then hid a deranged snicker behind his paw.
“H-hey Meba.” He let out a muffled giggle. “Doormen giving you trouble?”
I rolled my eyes.
Gram addressed the waitstaff. “Don’t worry, he’s with me.”