I had been dating this guy, for roughly 7 months. Was crazy about him. One day I came over, and we were lounging around together, and someone named Riley called his phone. I asked him who that was, and he said it was his friend who was a guy. I believed him.
Two months or so after that, I got in contact with somebody named Riley, who claimed to be his girlfriend of roughly a year. I am 25, she is 38, and he is 36. I have a toddler, and they both have teenage daughters, who are very close. He lied extensively about his whereabouts to me and her so she asked me to call him with her on three-way, and I did. During this call he continues to deny her existence, and he even took it as far as telling me that he had a death in the family, and he had to go to New York to help his family. In fact, he took her on a family trip with the two of their children. I have never met the daughter, he wanted to wait until we hit a year to make sure I was permanent according to him lol.
He told her that he had to work on Valentine's Day, and Mother's Day, but he, in fact, was with me on Valentine's Day, and spent Mother's Day with me and my son. She even got to hear him telling me that he loves me, and that there's nowhere else that he would rather be, she doesn't exist, just a buddy from work. So the woman gets enraged and tells me to invite him to my house and that she wants to pop up.
I invite him over, and we engage in role-play as we normally do. On this particular night, I was dressed up as a very sexy nurse. He entered the house, and I made him strip naked at the door, I handcuffed him up in a chair in my bedroom. I took his vitals, perform oral sex on him. I teased him for a bit, making him answer questions before uncuffing him and engaging in sex with him. I wildly rode him in the chair. I placed my feet on the pegs on the bottom of the chair using it for positive control. I had a belt around his neck and rode him while I choked him with the belt. I flicked his nipples with my free hand. He stood up out the chair, carrying me to the bed where we engaged in very emotional sex. I told him I would always care about him, and that I just want him to be a better person. He said "I know baby". But I don't think he really knew.
He finished in me, (I'm on BC). We kissed and cuddled for a bit. I almost wanted to call the whole thing off. But kept my word and I recuffed him to the chair to finish my role playing. I owed it to the woman at this point, I clearly was the mistress. She was there before me. She met the daughter. She was older. More established. I did care for him. I know it sounds sick. But I needed that farewell. Emotions were still there, regardless to the fact.
I tie him up and the dynamic changes. I pull out my whip, and my candle wax, and some pins and needles. Fighting back tears, I take a needle and drag it across the bottom of his feet. He clearly was uneasy, I then ask him "do you like this and you want me to keep going?". I had my camcorder going also. I just need your consent. He says "yes baby". I then drip baby oil all over him. And I ask "who is Riley". "What? My buddy from work". I whip him 10 times violently. "Jesus, what the fuck!". I ask him again. And this continues. For about fifteen minutes. "Do you want me to stop?". I ask him. He was welped up, literally shaking in the chair. "Just ease up a bit".
I ask him about the death in the family. He lied again so I dropped candle wax down his legs and back. He moaned. Through all of this he was erect and it took everything in me not to ride it again. This is what we did. We had rough, kinky sex. He would choke me out with items, put me over his legs and whip me, etc. but this time was different. I heard the front door open. "Did you lock the door" he asked. Yes I did". I responded.
I walked up to him. I looked him in his eyes. "I care about you. You're a great father, you pay your taxes, and you take care of your mother. But you have lost your relationship with god. You don't love yourself. And that makes it hard for you to love women properly. I want better for you. I want to see you do better, and become better. Don't let your karma for how to treat women, be passed to your daughter. I hate that I have to be the one to teach you this lesson. I want you to learn from this. Change, and come back and find me." I shed a tear. I kissed him deeply. He looked so dazed. And I walked out the room and passed his woman the whip.
She enters the room. Immediately picks up the hot wax and pours it on him from his head down. He hollers with pain. She then violently uppercut him and began to beat him. He stood up with the chair, and ran out naked with his hands behind his back tied to the chair. I called her when it was over and I apologized for being apart of her pain. She said she was done with him, and disgusted. I told her I wasn't sure, but I wasn't going to talk to him for a while. I told her that I would check on her mentally here and there. To see your man like that has to be a lot. There's some childhood sexual abuse that he had disclosed to me that he never told her, and there's things we talked about about his depression and mental health that was hard for me to shake. I had him so vulnerable and let her in to do that, I felt guilty in a sense but my emotions are so mixed.
A week after that she blocked me on everything. She posted a picture in a club with red lipstick on. She either went back, or she can't stand to see the site of me and that reminder. I did send him Versace to his home with a letter. I just wanted to know how much of it was real. I know he's a narcissist, you lied about a death in the family to cheat. You lied and you carried on a affair with me for almost a year. But did you really get molested as child? Was it real to you? The laughing. The bonding. The late nights, and early mornings. Coming to my home playing our favorite song. Showing up to the hospital for me when I had panic attacks. Building a bond with my child. Was all that just for gain? What exactly did you gain? And the fact that she blocked me leads me to believe she went back. But that doesn't erase what we had at all. I'd rather go down as the one who got away. But it's still hurtful.
Okay I'm done.

Am I crazy? I bought a used 2019 Honda Crv touring in October after I found out I was pregnant. Before that I had a 2020 civic sport. I like the crv, but lately I’m really missing a sedan style car. There’s an accord sport that’s really catching my eye lately. Should I give up the crv for a car? Or do I just suck it up and keep the crv. We have one baby and a 7 year old.

09 secend ago- Watch 2023 F1 Monaco Grand Prix live and free Broadcast On TV Channel On 28 May 2023. F1 Monaco Grand Prix: Free live stream, TV schedule, how to watch the race ================================================================= Tickets Available Watch From Home
​
Watch Link➡️►https://4k.megaeventlive.xyz/Monaco2k23/
Watch Link➡️►https://4k.megaeventlive.xyz/Monaco2k23/

It’s race day in Monte Carlo as we get set for one of the biggest dates on the F1 schedule. It’s the 2023 Monaco Grand Prix. Sunday’s race coverage will air on TV via ABC. Fans can watch Formula 1 racing for free by signing up for a free trial of fuboT
Reigning Formula 1 champ Max Verstappen remains the leader in the drivers’ championship, but his Red Bull teammate is close on his heels. Sergio Perez, who took home the win in the 2022 Monaco Grand Prix, has been giving Verstappen a run for his money this season. Meanwhile, the rest of the grid will be looking to shake up the standings. Monaco native Charles LeClerc will be looking to finally make a splash at his home race while stars like Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton try to make their way onto the podiums.
How to watch the 2023 Monaco Grand Prix (F1 race in Monte Carlo) What time does qualifying start? What TV channel will it air on? – Coverage will start at 7:30 a.m. EST at the Circuit de Monaco in Monte Carlo, Monaco. The TV channel for Saturday’s coverage is ABC.
Live stream info: Sling fuboTV DirecTV – Fans who don’t have cable can also stream the matches via a la carte streaming services like DirecTV and fuboTV, which have free trials. Fans can also check out streaming services like Sling, which is one of the cheapest options on the market.
Fans who have cable can use login credentials from their TV provider to watch via WatchESPN or the ESPN app.
MONACO (AP) — World champion Max Verstappen considers Honda’s decision to team up with Aston Martin in 2026 “a bit of a shame” given its successful relationship with Red Bull.
Honda officially pulled out as a works program with Red Bull after 2021 — the year Verstappen won the first of his two world titles — and since then Honda has worked as a technical partner for Red Bull and its junior team AlphaTauri.
But the Japanese manufacturer announced its return as a factory F1 supplier with Aston Martin in 2026, when F1 introduces new engine regulations in a bid to become carbon neutral by 2030.
“I think from our side, of course, it’s a bit unfortunate how all of that turned out because a few years ago, they say ‘We’re gonna stop’, so then Red Bull sets up its own engine division,’” Verstappen said Thursday at the Monaco Grand Prix. “Unfortunately, once you’re already in the process of building a whole engine yourself, you can’t really work together anymore. We always have and had a really good relationship with them, and then seeing them go to Aston Martin is a bit of a shame.”
Honda was lured back into a more prominent role because of the upcoming new regulations starting in 2026 — when engines will have an engine/electric motor maximum power output ratio of 50/50 and use 100% sustainable fuel.
“For Aston Martin as well, it’s really good, they have a great engine, we all know that,” he said. “I love working with them (Honda), we’ve had a lot of success already, so of course I will be sad to see them go.”
Ford plans to return to F1 in 2026, with Red Bull.
“We are also very excited from our side from 2026 onwards to see what’s going to happen together,” said Verstappen, who won an F1 record 15 races last year and has 38 victories overall.
Despite being only 25 years old, he’s already won six more races than 41-year-old Fernando Alonso, who is Aston Martin’s star driver.
Two-time F1 champion Alonso is in exceptional form, despite his advancing years. He has four third-place finishes from five races this season and is third in the standings.
“I will lie if I tell you that I know right now. For sure, I feel fresh, I feel motivated, I feel sharp, still fast. If I keep enjoying I will love to keep racing,” he said. “I will be the first one to raise my hand and say, you know, maybe it’s time (to stop). So let’s see, I think it’s a long way until 2026.” zfgf

09 secend ago- Watch 2023 F1 Monaco Grand Prix live and free Broadcast On TV Channel On 28 May 2023. F1 Monaco Grand Prix: Free live stream, TV schedule, how to watch the race

Tickets Available Watch From Home
​
Watch Link➡️►https://4k.megaeventlive.xyz/Monaco2k23/
Watch Link➡️►https://4k.megaeventlive.xyz/Monaco2k23/

It’s race day in Monte Carlo as we get set for one of the biggest dates on the F1 schedule. It’s the 2023 Monaco Grand Prix. Sunday’s race coverage will air on TV via ABC. Fans can watch Formula 1 racing for free by signing up for a free trial of fuboT
Reigning Formula 1 champ Max Verstappen remains the leader in the drivers’ championship, but his Red Bull teammate is close on his heels. Sergio Perez, who took home the win in the 2022 Monaco Grand Prix, has been giving Verstappen a run for his money this season. Meanwhile, the rest of the grid will be looking to shake up the standings. Monaco native Charles LeClerc will be looking to finally make a splash at his home race while stars like Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton try to make their way onto the podiums.
How to watch the 2023 Monaco Grand Prix (F1 race in Monte Carlo) What time does qualifying start? What TV channel will it air on? – Coverage will start at 7:30 a.m. EST at the Circuit de Monaco in Monte Carlo, Monaco. The TV channel for Saturday’s coverage is ABC.
Live stream info: Sling fuboTV DirecTV – Fans who don’t have cable can also stream the matches via a la carte streaming services like DirecTV and fuboTV, which have free trials. Fans can also check out streaming services like Sling, which is one of the cheapest options on the market.
Fans who have cable can use login credentials from their TV provider to watch via WatchESPN or the ESPN app.
MONACO (AP) — World champion Max Verstappen considers Honda’s decision to team up with Aston Martin in 2026 “a bit of a shame” given its successful relationship with Red Bull.
Honda officially pulled out as a works program with Red Bull after 2021 — the year Verstappen won the first of his two world titles — and since then Honda has worked as a technical partner for Red Bull and its junior team AlphaTauri.
But the Japanese manufacturer announced its return as a factory F1 supplier with Aston Martin in 2026, when F1 introduces new engine regulations in a bid to become carbon neutral by 2030.
“I think from our side, of course, it’s a bit unfortunate how all of that turned out because a few years ago, they say ‘We’re gonna stop’, so then Red Bull sets up its own engine division,’” Verstappen said Thursday at the Monaco Grand Prix. “Unfortunately, once you’re already in the process of building a whole engine yourself, you can’t really work together anymore. We always have and had a really good relationship with them, and then seeing them go to Aston Martin is a bit of a shame.”
Honda was lured back into a more prominent role because of the upcoming new regulations starting in 2026 — when engines will have an engine/electric motor maximum power output ratio of 50/50 and use 100% sustainable fuel.
“For Aston Martin as well, it’s really good, they have a great engine, we all know that,” he said. “I love working with them (Honda), we’ve had a lot of success already, so of course I will be sad to see them go.”
Ford plans to return to F1 in 2026, with Red Bull.
“We are also very excited from our side from 2026 onwards to see what’s going to happen together,” said Verstappen, who won an F1 record 15 races last year and has 38 victories overall.
Despite being only 25 years old, he’s already won six more races than 41-year-old Fernando Alonso, who is Aston Martin’s star driver.
Two-time F1 champion Alonso is in exceptional form, despite his advancing years. He has four third-place finishes from five races this season and is third in the standings.
“I will lie if I tell you that I know right now. For sure, I feel fresh, I feel motivated, I feel sharp, still fast. If I keep enjoying I will love to keep racing,” he said. “I will be the first one to raise my hand and say, you know, maybe it’s time (to stop). So let’s see, I think it’s a long way until 2026.”

The abysmal 2021 reverse retro with the silver stripes was on sale for under $60. I had to grab it reluctantly. Who should I get put on the back? I really wanted my next jersey to be a Mickey Redmond but I think that would look better on a red sweater. I was thinking maybe Fedorov since it sort of matches his style with the white skates. Anyone have a suggestion that isn't "burn it"?

PODCAST: https://ayearofwarandpeace.podbean.com/e/ep1572-hail-and-farewell-george-moore-vale-chapter-112/
PROMPTS: George does not care about you, whatsoever.
Today's Reading, via Project Gutenberg:
Borde could not enlighten him on that point, and I suggested that he should make application to the publisher of his Prayer-Book and get his money back. There is nobody. I said, like him. He is more wonderful than anything in literature. I prefer him to Sancho who was untroubled with a conscience and never thought of running to the Bishop of Toledo. All the same he is not without the shrewdness of his ancestors, and got the better of Archbishop Walsh, and for the last five years Vincent O'Brien has been beating time, and will beat it till the end of his life; and he will be succeeded by others, for Edward has, by deed, saved the Italian contrapuntalists till time everlasting from competition with modern composers. He certainly has gotten the better of Walsh. And I thought of a picture-gallery in Dublin with nothing in it but Botticelli and his school, and myself declaring that all painting that had been done since had no interest for me.... A smile began to spread over my face, for the story that was coming into my mind seemed oh! so humorous, so like Ireland, so like Edward, that I began to tell myself again the delightful story of the unrefined ears that, weary of erudite music, had left the cathedral and sought instinctively modern tunes and women's voices, and as these were to be found in Westland Row the church was soon overflowing with a happy congregation. But in a little while the collections grew scantier. This time it couldn't be Palestrina, and all kinds of reasons were adduced. At last the truth could no longer be denied—the professional Catholics of Merrion Square had been driven out of Westland Row by the searching smells of dirty clothes, and had gone away to the University Church in Stephen's Green. So if it weren't Palestrina directly it was Palestrina indirectly, and the brows of the priests began to knit when Edward Martyn's name was mentioned. Them fal-de-dals is well enough on the Continent, in Paris, where there is no faith, was the opinion of an important ecclesiastic. But we don't want them here, murmured a second ecclesiastic. All this counterpoint may make a very pretty background for Mr Martyn's prayers, but what about the poor people's? Good composer or bad composer, there is no congregation in him, said a third. There's too much congregation, put in the first, but not the kind we want! The second ecclesiastic took snuff, and the group were of opinion that steps should be taken to persuade dear Edward to make good their losses. The priests in Marlborough Street sympathised with the priests of Westland Row, and told them that they were so heavily out of pocket that Mr Martyn had agreed to do something for them. It seemed to the Westland Row priests that if Mr Martyn were making good the losses of the priests of the pro-Cathedral, he should make good their losses. It was natural that they should think so, and to acquit himself of all responsibility Edward no doubt consulted the best theologians on the subject, and I think that they assured him that he is not responsible for indirect losses. If he were, his whole fortune would not suffice. He was, of course, very sorry if a sudden influx of poor people had caused a falling-off in the collections of Westland Row, for he knew that the priests needed the money very much to pay for the new decorations, and to help them he wrote an article in the Independent praising the new blue ceiling, which seemed, so he wrote, a worthy canopy for the soaring strains of Palestrina.
Unfortunately rubbing salt into the wound, I said. A story that will amuse Dujardin and it will be great fun telling him in the shady garden at Fontainebleau how Edward, anxious to do something for his church, had succeeded in emptying two. All the way down the alleys he will wonder how Edward could have ever looked upon Palestrina's masses as religious music. The only music he will say, in which religious emotion transpires is plain-chant. Huysmans says that the Tantum Ergo or the Dies Irae, one or the other, reminds him of a soul being dragged out of purgatory, and it is possible that it does; but a plain-chant tune arranged in eight-part counterpoint cannot remind one of anything very terrible. Dujardin knows that Palestrina was a priest, and he will say: That fact deceived your friend, just as the fact of finding the Adeste Fideles among the plain-chant tunes deceived him. For of course I shall tell Dujardin that story too. It is too good to be missed. He is wonderful, Dujardin! I shall cry out in one of the sinuous alleys. There never was anybody like him! And I will tell him more soul-revealing anecdotes. I will say: Dujardin, listen. One evening he contended that the great duet at the end of Siegfried reminded him of mass by Palestrina. Dujardin will laugh, and, excited by his laughter, I will try to explain to him that what Edward sees is that Palestrina took a plain chant tune and gave fragments of it to the different voices, and in his mind these become confused with the motives of The Ring. You see, Dujardin, the essential always escapes him—the intention of the writer is hidden from him. I am beginning to understand your friend. He has, let us suppose, a musical ear that allows him to take pleasure in the music; but a musical ear will not help him to follow Wagner's idea—how, in a transport of sexual emotion, a young man and a young woman on a mountain-side awaken to the beauty of the life of the world. Dujardin's appreciations will provoke me, and I will say: Dujardin, you shouldn't be so appreciative. If I were telling you of a play I had written, it would be delightful to watch my idea dawning upon your consciousness; but I am telling you of a real man, and one that I shall never to able to get into literature. He will answer: We invent nothing; we can but perceive. And then, exhilarated, carried beyond myself, I will say: Dujardin, I will tell you something still more wonderful than the last gaffe. II gaffe dans les Quat'z Arts. He admires Ibsen, but you'd never guess the reason why—because he is very like Racine; both of them, he says, are classical writers. And do you know how he arrived at that point? Because nobody is killed on the stage in Racine or in Ibsen. He does not see that the intention of Racine is to represent men and women out of time and out of space, unconditioned by environment, and that the very first principle of Ibsen's art is the relation of his characters to their environment. In many passages he merely dramatises Darwin. There never was anybody so interesting as dear Edward, and there never will be anybody like him in literature ... I will explain why presently, but I must first tell you another anecdote. I went to see him one night, and he told me that the theme of the play he was writing was a man who had married a woman because he had lost faith in himself; the man did not know, however, that the woman had married him for the same reason, and the two of them were thinking—I have forgotten what they were thinking, but I remember Edward saying: I should like to suggest hopelessness. I urged many phrases, but he said: It isn't a phrase I want, but an actual thing. I was thinking of a broken anchor—that surely is a symbol of hopelessness. Yes, I said, no doubt, but how are you going to get a broken anchor into a drawing-room? I don't write about drawing-rooms. Well, living-rooms. It isn't likely that they would buy a broken anchor and put it up by the coal-scuttle.
There's that against it, he answered. If you could suggest anything better—What do you think of a library in which there is nothing but unacted plays? The characters could say, when there was nothing for them to do on the stage, that they were going to the library to read, and the library would have the advantage of reminding everybody of the garret in the Wild Duck. A very cruel answer, my friend, Dujardin will say, and I will tell him that I can't help seeing in Edward something beyond Shakespeare or Balzac. Now, tell me, which of these anecdotes I have told you is the most humorous? He will not answer my question, but a certain thoughtfulness will begin to settle in his face, and he will say: Everything with him is accidental, and when his memory fails him he falls into another mistake, and he amuses you because it is impossible for you to anticipate his next mistake. You know there is going to be one; there must be one, for he sees things separately rather than relatively. I am beginning to understand your friend.
You are, you are; you are doing splendidly. But you haven't told me, Dujardin, which anecdote you prefer. Stay, there is another one. Perhaps this one will help you to a still better understanding. When he brought The Heather Field and Yeats's play The Countess Cathleen to Dublin for performance, a great trouble of conscience awakened suddenly in him, and a few days before the performance he went to a theologian to ask him if The Countess Cathleen were a heretical work, and, if it were would Almighty God hold him responsible for the performance? But he couldn't withdraw Yeats's play without withdrawing his own, and it appears that he breathed a sigh of relief when a common friend referred the whole matter to two other theologians, and as these gave their consent Edward allowed the plays to go on; but Cardinal Logue intervened, and wrote a letter to the papers to say that the play seemed to him unfit for Catholic ears, and Edward would have withdrawn the plays if the Cardinal hadn't admitted in his letter that he had judged the play by certain extracts only.
He wishes to act rightly, but has little faith in himself; and what makes him so amusing is that he needs advice in aesthetics as well as in morals. We are, I said, Dujardin, at the roots of conscience. And I began to ponder the question what would happen to Edward if we lived in a world in which aesthetics ruled: I should be where Bishop Healy is, and he would be a thin, small voice crying in the wilderness—an amusing subject of meditation, from which I awoke suddenly.
I wonder how Dujardin is getting on with his Biblical studies? Last year he was calling into question the authorship of the Romans—a most eccentric view; and, remembering how weakly I had answered him, I took the Bible from the table and began to read the Epistle with a view to furnishing myself with arguments wherewith to confute him. My Bible opened at the ninth chapter, and I said: Why, here is the authority for the Countess Cathleen's sacrifice which Edward's theologian deemed untheological. It will be great fun to poke Edward up with St Paul, and on my way to Lincoln Place I thought how I might lead the conversation to The Countess Cathleen.
📷
A few minutes afterwards a light appeared on the staircase and the door slowly opened.
Come in, Siegfried, though you were off the key.
Well, my dear friend, it is a difficult matter to whistle above two trams passing simultaneously and six people jabbering round a public-house, to say nothing of a jarvey or two, and you perhaps dozing in your armchair, as your habit often is. You won't open to anything else except a motive from The Ring; and I stumbled up the stairs in front of Edward, who followed with a candle.
Wait a moment; let me go first and I'll turn up the gas.
You aren't sitting in the dark, are you?
No, but I read better by candle-light, and he blew out the candles in the tin candelabrum that he had made for himself. He is original even in his candelabrum; no one before him had ever thought of a caridelabrum in tin, and I fell to admiring his appearance more carefully than perhaps I had ever done before, so monumental did he seem lying on the little sofa sheltered from daughts by a screen, a shawl about his shoulders. His churchwarden was drawing famously, and I noticed his great square hands with strong fingers and square nails pared closely away, and as heretofore I admired the curve of the great belly, the thickness of the thighs, the length and breadth and the width of his foot hanging over the edge of the sofa, the apoplectic neck falling into great rolls of flesh, the humid eyes, the skull covered with short stubbly hair. I looked round the rooms and they seemed part of himself: the old green wallpaper on which he pins reproductions of the Italian masters. And I longed to peep once more into the bare bedroom into which he goes to fetch bottles of Apollinaris. Always original! Is there another man in this world whose income is two thousand a year, and who sleeps in a bare bedroom, without dressing-room, or bathroom, or servant in the house to brush his clothes, and who has to go to the baker's for his breakfast?
We had been talking for some time of the Gaelic League, and from Hyde it was easy to pass to Yeats and his plays.
His best play is The Countess Cathleen.
The Countess Cathleen is only a sketch.
But what I never could understand, Edward, was why you and the Cardinal could have had any doubts as to the orthodoxy of The Countess Cathleen.
What, a woman that sells her own soul in order to save the souls of others!
I suppose your theologian objected—
Of course he objected.
He cannot have read St Paul.
What do you mean?
He can't have read St Paul, or else he is prepared to throw over St Paul.
Mon ami Moore, mon ami Moore.
The supernatural idealism of a man who would sell his soul to save the souls of others fills me with awe.
But it wasn't a man; it was the Countess Cathleen, and women are never idealists.
Not the saints?
His face grew solemn at once.
If you give me the Epistles I will read the passage to you. And it was great fun to go to the bookshelves and read: I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.
Edward's face grew more and more solemn, and I wondered of what he was thinking.
Paul is a very difficult and a very obscure writer, and I think the Church is quite right not to encourage the reading of the Epistles, especially without comments.
Then you do think there is something in the passage I have read?
After looking down his dignified nose for a long time, he said:
Of course, the Church has an explanation. All the same, it's very odd that St Paul should have said such a thing—very odd.
There is no doubt that I owe a great deal of my happiness to Edward; all my life long he has been exquisite entertainment. And I fell to thinking that Nature was very cruel to have led me, like Moses, within sight of the Promised Land. A story would be necessary to bring Edward into literature, and it would be impossible to devise an action of which he should be a part. The sex of a woman is odious to him, and a man with two thousand a year does not rob nor steal, and he is so uninterested in his fellow-men that he has never an ill word to say about anybody. John Eglinton is a little thing; AE is a soul that few will understand; but Edward is universal—more universal than Yeats, than myself, than any of us, but for lack of a story I shall not be able to give him the immortality in literature which he seeks in sacraments. Shakespeare always took his stories from some other people. Turgenev's portrait of him would be thin, poor, and evasive, and Balzac would give us the portrait of a mere fool. And Edward is not a fool. As I understand him he is a temperament without a rudder; all he has to rely upon is his memory, which isn't a very good one, and so he tumbles from one mistake into another. My God! it is a terrible thing to happen to one, to understand a man better than he understands himself, and to be powerless to help him. If I had been able to undo his faith I should have raised him to the level of Sir Horace Plunkett, but he resisted me; and perhaps he did well, for he came into the world seeing things separately rather than relatively, and had to be a Catholic. He is a born Catholic, and I remembered one of his confessions—a partial confession, but a confession: If you had been brought up as strictly as I have been—I don't think he ever finished the sentence; he often leaves sentences unfinished, as if he fears to think things out. The end of the sentence should run: You would not dare to think independently. He thinks that his severe bringing-up has robbed him of something. But the prisoner ends by liking his prison-house, and on another occasion he said: If it hadn't been for the Church, I don't know what would have happened to me.
My thoughts stopped, and when I awoke I was thinking of Hughes. Perhaps the link between Hughes and Edward was Loughrea Cathedral. He had shown me a photograph of some saints modelled by Hughes. Hughes is away in Paris, I said, modelling saints for Loughrea Cathedral. The last time I saw him was at Walter Osborne's funeral, and Walter's death set me thinking of the woman I had lost, and little by little all she had told me about herself floated up in my mind like something that I had read. I had never seen her father nor the Putney villa in which she had been brought up, but she had made me familiar with both through her pleasant mode of conversation, which was never to describe anything, but just to talk about things, dropping phrases here and there, and the phrases she dropped were so well chosen that the comfort of the villa, its pompous meals and numerous servants, its gardens and greenhouses, with stables and coach-house just behind, are as well known to me as the house that I am living in, better known in a way, for I see it through the eyes of the imagination ... clearer eyes than the physical eyes.
It does not seem to me that any one was ever more conscious of whence she had come and of what she had been; she seemed to be able to see herself as a child again, and to describe her childhood with her brother (they were nearly the same age) in the villa and in the villa's garden. I seemed to see them always as two rather staid children who were being constantly dressed by diligent nurses and taken out for long drives in the family carriage. They did not like these drives and used to hide in the garden; but their governess was sent to fetch them, and they were brought back. Her father did not like to have the horses kept waiting, and one day as Stella stood with him in the passage, she saw her mother come out of her bedroom beautifully dressed. Her father whispered something in his wife's ear, and he followed her into her bedroom. Stella remembered how the door closed behind them. In my telling, the incident seems to lose some of its point, but in Stella's relation it seemed to put her father and his wife before me and so clearly that I could not help asking her what answer her father would make were she to tell him that she had a lover. A smile hovered in her grave face. He would look embarrassed, she said, and wonder why I should have told him such a thing, and then I think he would go to the greenhouse, and when he returned he would talk to me about something quite different. I don't think that Stella ever told me about the people that came to their house, but people must have come to it, and as an example of how a few words can convey an environment I will quote her: I always wanted to talk about Rossetti, she said, and these seven words seem to me to tell better than any description the life of a girl living with a formal father in a Putney villa, longing for something, not knowing exactly what, and anxious to get away from home.... I think she told me she was eighteen or nineteen and had started painting before she met Florence at the house of one of her father's friends; a somewhat sore point this meeting was, for Florence was looked upon by Stella's father as something of a Bohemian. She was a painter, and knew all the Art classes and the fees that had to be paid, and led Stella into the world of studios and models and girl friends. She knew how to find studios and could plan out a journey abroad. Stella's imagination was captured, and even if her father had tried to offer opposition to her leaving home he could not have prevented her, for she was an heiress (her mother was dead and had left her a considerable income); but he did not try, and the two girls set up house together in Chelsea; they travelled in Italy and Spain; they had a cottage in the country; they painted pictures and exhibited their pictures in the same exhibitions; they gave dances in their studios and were attracted by this young man and the other; but Stella did not give herself to any one, because, as she admitted to me, she was afraid that a lover would interrupt the devotion which she intended to give to Art. But life is forever casting itself into new shapes and forms, and no sooner had she begun to express herself in Art than she met me. I was about to go to Ireland to preach a new gospel, and must have seemed a very impulsive and fantastic person to her, but were not impulsiveness and fantasy just the qualities that would appeal to her? And were not gravity and good sense the qualities that would appeal to me, determined as I was then to indulge myself in a little madness?
I could not have chosen a saner companion than Stella; my instinct had led me to her; but because one man's instinct is a little more clear than another's, it does not follow that he has called reason to his aid. It must be remembered always that the art of painting is as inveterate in me as the art of writing, and that I am never altogether myself when far away from the smell of oil paint. Stella could talk to one about painting, and all through that wonderful summer described in Salve our talk flowed on as delightfully as a breeze in Maytime, and as irresponsible, flashing thoughts going by and avowals perfumed with memories. Only in her garden did conversation fail us, for in her garden Stella could think only of her flowers, and it seemed an indiscretion to follow her as she went through the twilight gathering dead blooms or freeing plants from noxious insects. But she would have had me follow her, and I think was always a little grieved that I wasn't as interested in her garden as I was in her painting; and my absent-mindedness when I followed her often vexed her and my mistakes distressed her.
You are interested, she said, only in what I say about flowers and not in the flowers themselves. You like to hear me tell about Miss —— whose business in life is to grow carnations, because you already see her, dimly, perhaps, but still you see her in a story. Forget her and look at this Miss Shifner!
Yes, it is beautiful, but we can only admire the flowers that we notice when we are children, I answered. Dahlias, china roses, red and yellow tulips, tawny wallflowers, purple pansies, are never long out of my thoughts, and all the wonderful varieties of the iris, the beautiful blue satin and the cream, some shining like porcelain, even the common iris that grows about the moat.
But there were carnations in your mother's garden?
Yes, and I remember seeing them being tied with bass. But what did you say yesterday about carnations? That they were the—
She laughed and would not tell me, and when the twilight stooped over the high trees and the bats flitted and the garden was silent except when a fish leaped, I begged her to come away to the wild growths that I loved better than the flowers.
But the mallow and willow-weed are the only two that you recognise. How many times have I told you the difference between self-heal and tufted vetch?
I like cow parsley and wild hyacinths and—
You have forgotten the name. As well speak of a woman that you loved but whose name you had forgotten.
Well, if I have, I love trees better than you do, Stella. You pass under a fir unstirred by the mystery of its branches, and I wonder at you, for I am a tree worshipper, even as my ancestors, and am moved as they were by the dizzy height of a great silver fir. You like to paint trees, and I should like to paint flowers if I could paint; there we are set forth, you and I.
I have told in Salve that in Rathfarnham she found many motives for painting; the shape of the land and the spire above the straggling village appealed to me, but she was not altogether herself in these pictures. She would have liked the village away, for man and his dwellings did not form part of her conception of a landscape; large trees and a flight of clouds above the trees were her selection, and the almost unconscious life of kine wandering or sheep seeking the shelter of a tree.
Stella was a good walker, and we followed the long road leading from Rathfarnham up the hills, stopping to admire the long plain which we could see through the comely trees shooting out of the shelving hillside.
If I have beguiled you into a country where there are no artists and few men of letters, you can't say that I have not shown you comely trees. And now if you can walk two miles farther up this steep road I will show you a lovely prospect.
And I enjoyed her grave admiration of the old Queen Anne dwelling-house, its rough masonry, the yew hedges, the path along the hillside leading to the Druid altar and the coast-line sweeping in beautiful curves, but she did not like to hear me say that the drawing of the shore reminded her of Corot.
It is a sad affectation, she said, to speak of Nature reminding one of pictures.
Well, the outlines of Howth are beautiful, I answered, and the haze is incomparable. I should like to have spoken about a piece of sculpture, but for your sake, Stella, I refrain.
She was interested in things rather than ideas, and I remember her saying to me that things interest us only because we know that they are always slipping from us. A strange thing for a woman to say to her lover. She noticed all the changes of the seasons and loved them, and taught me to love them. She brought a lamb back from Rathfarnham, a poor forlorn thing that had run bleating so pitifully across the windy field that she had asked the shepherd where the ewe was, and he had answered that she had been killed overnight by a golf-ball. The lamb will be dead before morning, he added. And it was that March that the donkey produced a foal, a poor ragged thing that did not look as if it ever could be larger than a goat, but the donkey loved her foal.
Do you know the names of those two birds flying up and down the river?
They look to me like two large wrens with white waistcoats.
They are water-ouzels, she said.
The birds flew with rapid strokes of the wings, like kingfishers, alighting constantly on the river, on large mossy stones, and though we saw them plunge into the water, it was not to swim, but to run along the bottom in search of worms.
But do worms live under water?
The rooks were building, and a little while after a great scuffling was heard in one of the chimneys and a young jackdaw came down and soon became tamer than any bird I had ever seen, tamer than a parrot, and at the end of May the corncrake called from the meadow that summer had come again, and the kine wandered in deeper and deeper and deeper herbage. The days seemed never to end, and looking through the branches of the chestnut in which the fruit had not begun to show, we caught sight of a strange spectacle. Stella said, A lunar rainbow, and I wondered, never having heard of or seen such a thing before.
I shall never forget that rainbow, Stella, and am glad that we saw it together.
In every love story lovers reprove each other for lack of affection, and Stella had often sent me angry letters which caused me many heart-burnings and brought me out to her; in the garden there were reconciliations, we picked up the thread again, and the summer had passed before the reason of these quarrels became clear to me. One September evening Stella said she would accompany me to the gate, and we had not gone very far before I began to notice that she was quarrelling with me. She spoke of the loneliness of the Moat House, and I had answered that she had not been alone two evenings that week. She admitted my devotion. And if you admit that there has been no neglect—
She would not tell me, but there was something she was not satisfied with, and before we reached the end of the avenue she said, I don't think I can tell you. But on being pressed she said:
Well, you don't make love to me often enough.
And full of apologies I answered, Let me go back.
No, I can't have you back now, not after having spoken like that.
But she yielded to my invitation, and we returned to the house, and next morning I went back to Dublin a little dazed, a little shaken.
A few days after she went away to Italy to spend the winter and wrote me long letters, interesting me in herself, in the villagers, in the walks and the things that she saw in her walks, setting me sighing that she was away from me, or that I was not with her. And going to the window I would stand for a long time watching the hawthorns in their bleak wintry discontent, thinking how the sunlight fell into the Italian gardens, and caught the corner of the ruin she was sketching; and I let my fancy stray for a time unchecked. It would be wonderful to be in Italy with her, but—
I turned from the window suspicious, for there was a feeling at the back of my mind that with her return an anxiety would come into my life that I would willingly be without. She had told me she had refrained from a lover because she wished to keep all herself for her painting, and now she had taken to herself a lover. She was twenty years younger than I was, and at forty-six or thereabouts one begins to feel that one's time for love is over; one is consultant rather than practitioner. But it was impossible to dismiss the subject with a jest, and I found myself face to face with the question—If these twenty years were removed, would things be different? It seemed to me that the difficulty that had arisen would have been the same earlier in my life as it was now, and returning to the window I watched the hawthorns blowing under the cold grey Dublin sky.
The problem is set, I said, for the married, and every couple has to solve it in one way or another, but they have to solve it; they have to come to terms with love, especially the man, for whom it is a question of life and death. But how do they come to terms? And I thought of the different married people I knew. Which would be most likely to advise me—the man or the woman? It would be no use to seek advice; every case is different, I said. If anybody were to advise me it would be the man, for the problem is not so difficult for a woman. She can escape from love more easily than her lover or her husband; she can plead, and her many pleadings were considered, one by one, and how in married life the solution that seems to lovers so difficult is solved by marriage itself, by propinquity. But not always, not always. The question is one of extraordinary interest and importance; more marriages come to shipwreck, I am convinced, on this very question than upon any other. In the divorce cases published we read of incompatibility of temper and lack of mutual tastes, mere euphemisms that deceive nobody. The image of a shipwreck rose up in me naturally. She will return, and like a ship our love for each other will be beaten on these rocks and broken. We shall not be able to get out to sea. She will return, and when she returns her temperament will have to be adjusted to mine, else she will lose me altogether, for men have died of love, though Shakespeare says they haven't. Manet and Daudet—both died of love; and the somewhat absurd spectacle of a lover waiting for his mistress to return, and yet dreading her returning, was constantly before me.
It often seemed to me that it was my own weakness that created our embarrassment. A stronger man would have been able to find a way out, but I am not one that can shape and mould another according to my desire; and when she returned from Italy I found myself more helpless than ever, and I remember, and with shame, how, to avoid being alone with her, I would run down the entire length of a train, avoiding the empty carriages, crying Not here, not here! at last opening the door of one occupied by three or four people, who all looked as if they were bound for a long journey. I remember, too, how about this time I came with friends to see Stella, whether by accident or design, frankly I know not; I only know that I brought many friends to see her, thinking they would interest her.
If you don't care to come to see me without a chaperon, I would rather you didn't come at all, she said, humiliating me very deeply.
It seemed to me, I answered, blushing, that you would like to see ——, and I mentioned the name of the man who had accompanied me.
If I am cross sometimes it is because I don't see enough of you.
It seems to me that it was then that the resolve hardened in my heart to become her friend ... if she would allow me to become her friend. But in what words should I frame my request and my apology? All the time our life was becoming less amiable, until one evening I nipped the quarrel that was beginning, stopping suddenly at the end of the avenue.
It is better that we should understand each other. The plain truth is that I must cease to be your lover unless my life is to be sacrificed.
Cease to be my lover!
That is impossible, but a change comes into every love story.
The explanation stuttered on. I remember her saying: I don't wish you to sacrifice your life. I have forgotten the end of her sentence. She drew her hand suddenly across her eyes. I will conquer this obsession.
A man would have whined and cried and besought and worried his mistress out of her wits. Women behave better than we; only once did her feelings overcome her. She spoke to me of the deception that life is. Again we were standing by the gate at the end of the chestnut avenue, and I remembered her telling me how a few years ago life had seemed to hold out its hands to her; her painting and her youth created her enjoyment.
But now life seems to have shrivelled up, she said; only a little dust is left.
Nothing is changed, so far as you and I are concerned. We see each other just the same.
I am no more to you than any other woman.
She went away again to Italy to paint and returned to Ireland, and one day she came to see me, and remained talking for an hour. I have no memory of what we said to each other, but a very clear memory of our walk through Dublin over Carlisle Bridge and along the quays. I had accompanied her as far as the Phoenix Park gates, and at the corner of the Conyngham Road, just as I was bidding her goodbye, she said:
I want to ask your advice on a matter of importance to me.
And to me, for what is important to you is equally important to me.
I am thinking, she said, of being married.
At the news it seems to me that I was unduly elated and tried to assume the interest that a friend should.

Happy Sunday! I added even more stuff today. Shipping is $5, no minimum, and I ship in a few days.
DESTASH
ALCHEMIC MUSE
-jezebel(5 mL, $10): warm amber, animalistic musk, sweet frankincense, and myrrh accented with a touch of dark patchouli and vanilla
ALKEMIA
-tea garden alchemy: $15
-cherry blossom alchemy: $15
-madam pearl($15):
-perfume fixative(5 mL, $10):
-The traveler and the moon(sample $2): Silver leaf tea brewed in an iron kettle, galbanum, sandalwood, petitgrain, tobacco and bamboo leaves, wild currants, raw honey, fresh hay, and a cool splash of rice wine.
-Roll In the Hay(sample $2): A delightful romp through dried hay, fresh green grass, early summer wildflower honey, vanilla grass, vanilla leaf, and wild poppy.
-Baiser Du Soleil(sample $2): black coconut musk, white musk, vanilla orchid, star jasmine, white hyacinth
-More Light!(sample $2):
-aphrodisia(sample $2):
ANDROMEDA’S CURSE
-Pumpkin Magic:(5 mL, $10) pumpkin, marshmallow, vanilla.
-bat orchid(sample, $2): Orchid, Tea, Jasmine, Incense, Oakmoss, Sandalwood, Vanilla
-the call of the void(sample, $2): French Lavender, Nag Champa, Egyptian Amber, Sandalwood, Cedarwood & Vanilla
-undead undead undead(sample, $2): Clove, Orange, Incense, Frankincense, Myrrh, Vetiver, Patchouli, Black Musk
ARCANA
-Vanilla Craves 90s Malls(5mL, $15): The scent of rebellious young punks and toothachingly sweet innocence. Bright fluorescent lights, glossy watermelon-flavored lip gloss, a ziplock baggie of fresh, green bud, and sticky vanilla-laced marshmallow treats.
-pumpkin layering note($3 shop sample)
-sugar(decant, $2)
ASTRID
-Merci no. 39:
BLACK HEARTED TART
-hips like cinderella:
BPAL(samples, $2 each of all for $10!)
-satyr:
-tlazolteotl:
-dance of death:
-tweedledum:
-death on a pale horse
-al-azif:
-plunder:
-white rabbit:
-lawful:
-black tower:
CHERRY KA’S TRUNK(samples, $3)
-a palaver:
-come and reap:
-sandalwood guns:
DEATH AND FLORAL
-honeybush($10, 5mL roller): Herbal black tea and honey with a slight floral undertone, CO2 extract
HEXENNACHT
-Fougere Accord:($3 Ajevie large sample): My prized, personal house-blended fougère (also used as part of the Wuthering Heights blend): Bulgarian lavender, silvanone, oakmoss absolute, vetiver, tonka, jasmine, cetalox, bergamot, vanillin.
-ghost of christmas past(store sample; $3): ranges, and a petrified clump of old-fashioned ribbon candies stuck to Grandma’s candy dish since 1957.
-honey moon(decant; $2): My prized, personal house-blended fougère (also used as part of the Wuthering Heights blend): Bulgarian lavender, silvanone, oakmoss absolute, vetiver, tonka, jasmine, cetalox, bergamot, vanillin.
-raspberry rosemallow(Ajevie sample, $2)
-curiouser and curiouser(shop chonk, $5)
-french kiss(store chonk, 1/2 full): $2
NAVA:
-spirits of the dead(ajevie slink; $3)
POESIE:
-boudicca(sample, $3):
SEANCE (1 mL(?) samples direct from shop; $6)
-cemetary: dragonsblood resin, grass, earth, moss, wood, with hints of vanilla and patchouli
-La Femme Fantome: neroli, ylang-ylang, iris, jasmine, orris root, rose, lily of the valley, vetiver, oakmoss, civetta, Apple, red current, tulip, freesia, heliotrope, white rose, and a touch of amber and musk.
SIXTEEN92
-once more, with feeling(10 mL roller, $15): Autumnal woods, misty hayrides, brown sugar, pumpkin crumb cakes
STEREOPLASM
-enjoy your waffles(sample, label is damaged, $2)
-reverie(sample roller, $3)
WHISPER SISTERS(5mL $8)
-Ghosts of Christmas Past: marshmallow, vanilla, smoke, frankincense essential, Tunisian frankincense, myrrh essentia
-Sturnidae: Madagascscar vanilla, vanilla bean, tonka bean, geranium, violet, cedar, vetiver, white musk, with hints of jasmine and black vanilla.
-worm cake:
-butterfly’s boots:
-harpactira:
(1 mL sample, $3)
-ezra: dark amber, black amber, dark vanilla, blood orange, teak, patchouli
-hurdy gurdy: black musk, amber dragons blood, tonka bean, aged patchouli, black vanilla, smoked vanilla.
-bellatrix:

تقدم شركة جلي رخام بالقاهرة كافة خدمات ترميم الرخام في مصر والشرق الأوسط وشمال أفريقيا عن طريق التبلور هو طريقة لإنهاء الأرضيات الرخامية. يجلب لمعانا "يشبه المرآة" عن طريق التفاعل الكيميائي على سطح الرخام، تستطيع شركة جلى ارضيات رخام من فحص سطح الأرضية و إعداد التقارير والعمل على لتلميع والتبلور، تقدم الشركة كافة الأعمال الخاصة جلى رخام باستخدام التقنيات الحديثة الخاصة بهذا المجال تستخدمه الشركة مواد تنظيف فعالة في القضاء على كافة البقع والاتساخات على الرخام دون التأثير السلبى عليها لأنها الشركة على دراية كاملة بالتركيب الكيميائي المكون للمواد المنظفة التي تستخدمه، كما انه شركة جلى رخام بالقاهرة توجد منذ زمن طويل وهذا مكنها من تكوين خبرة ومعرفة كبيرة في انواع المنظفات المناسب والأكثر فاعلية لذا لا تتردد عزيزي العميل في التعامل مع شركة جلى رخام بالقاهرة هي الوحيدة القادرة على تحقيق كل ماتريد بجودة عالية وسرعة كبيرة وسعر مميز، لأنها تعتبر رائدة هذا المجال، تعتبر شركتنا هي الحل الأمثل للقضاء على كل ملوثات الرخام مع التعقيم الجيد لها والعمل على جلى وتلميع الرخام بأفضل صورة، تؤدي شركة الديب ماربل خدمات اخرى:
جرانيت حلايب
شركات تصدير الرخام في مصر
جرانيت مستورد
الفرق بين الرخام والجرانيت
حوض مطبخ جرانيت
ديكورات رخام
تركيب حوائط وارضيات رخام
رخام جلالة
انواع الجرانيت المصري والمستورد
تركيب ارضيات رخام
درج رخام جاهز
انواع رخام وجرانيت المطابخ
تركيب درج سلم
مطابخ جلاكسي
ترابيع رخام جاهزة
تركيب ارضيات رخام وجرانيت
ديكورات ميكا
سعر متر الحجر الرملي
اسعار الرخام
تركيب درج السلالم
ارقام تليفونات مصانع الرخام في شق الثعبان
تركيب الرخام والجرانيت
جلى حوائط
تركيب احواض رخام
سعر متر الرخام والجرانيت للمطابخ
انواع الجرانيت المصري
شركة جلى بلاط بالقاهرة
شركة جلى وتلميع الرخام
تركيب مطابخ
تلميع الجرانيت بالكريستال
افضل مطابخ رخام
مطابخ رخام
جرانيت حلايب
واجهات رخام
درج سلالم جرانيت
حجر هاشمي
ارضيات جرانيت
مطابخ رخام
معرض الرخام والجرانيت
احواض رخام
انواع الرخام
جرانيت نفرتيتي احمر
جرانيت ابلادور
جرانيت احمر اسوان
جرانيت غردقة
رخام صني منيا
رخام كلاكتا
جرانيت جندولا
جرانيت فيردي غزال
رخام سلفيا مصري
جرانيت نيو حلايب
رخام بريشيا
لاند سكيب حدائق منزلية
جرانيت اسود اسوان
تلميع رخام
احواض مطابخ جرانيت
تركيب حوائط رخام
شركة جلى رخام بالجيزة
تركيب جرانيت للارضيات
تنظيف البلاط من الاسمنت
شركة جلى وتلميع رخام في العجمي
شركة جلى وتلميع رخام فى اكتوبر
دفاية رخام
نوافير رخام
تركيب رخام ميكانيكي
اعمدة رخام
شركة تركيب رخام
رخام جلاكسي
رخام اسود

تضم شركتنا أكبر عدد من دفاية الرخام بأكثر من تصميم وأعلي جودة وخامات أكثر متانة
تعتبر شركتنا من أفضل شركات الرخام لانها تمتلك خامات عالية الجود وتصميمات ذات رقي وتمتلك ايضا فريق ذات كفاءة عالية من العمالة الماهرة المدربة في تركيب الدفايات واعمال الصيانة الخاصة بها
دفايات رخام للبيع
تمتلك شركتنا كافة التصميمات بكافة الأسعار التي تناسب جميع الطبقات بنفس جودة الخامات وفخامة التصميمات
تعمل ديكور دفاية رخام علي زيادة جمال القصور والفلل والبيوت فهي تعطي اناقة و رقي وتجعل شكل المكان عصري
توفر شركتنا دفايات رخام ديكور اجمل التصميمات للحدائق والمحلات بأفضل الأسعار
تقدم شركة الديب ماربل خدمات أخري:
جرانيت حلايب
شركات تصدير الرخام في مصر
جرانيت مستورد
الفرق بين الرخام والجرانيت
حوض مطبخ جرانيت
ديكورات رخام
تركيب حوائط وارضيات رخام
رخام جلالة
انواع الجرانيت المصري والمستورد
تركيب ارضيات رخام
درج رخام جاهز
انواع رخام وجرانيت المطابخ
تركيب درج سلم
مطابخ جلاكسي
ترابيع رخام جاهزة
تركيب ارضيات رخام وجرانيت
ديكورات ميكا
سعر متر الحجر الرملي
اسعار الرخام
تركيب درج السلالم
ارقام تليفونات مصانع الرخام في شق الثعبان
تركيب الرخام والجرانيت
جلى حوائط
تركيب احواض رخام
سعر متر الرخام والجرانيت للمطابخ
انواع الجرانيت المصري
شركة جلى بلاط بالقاهرة
شركة جلى وتلميع الرخام
تركيب مطابخ
تلميع الجرانيت بالكريستال
افضل مطابخ رخام
مطابخ رخام
جرانيت حلايب
واجهات رخام
درج سلالم جرانيت
حجر هاشمي
ارضيات جرانيت
مطابخ رخام
معرض الرخام والجرانيت
احواض رخام
انواع الرخام
جرانيت نفرتيتي احمر
جرانيت ابلادور
جرانيت احمر اسوان
جرانيت غردقة
رخام صني منيا
رخام كلاكتا
جرانيت جندولا
جرانيت فيردي غزال
رخام سلفيا مصري
جرانيت نيو حلايب
رخام بريشيا
لاند سكيب حدائق منزلية
جرانيت اسود اسوان
تلميع رخام
احواض مطابخ جرانيت
تركيب حوائط رخام
شركة جلى رخام بالجيزة
تركيب جرانيت للارضيات
تنظيف البلاط من الاسمنت
شركة جلى وتلميع رخام في العجمي
شركة جلى وتلميع رخام فى اكتوبر
دفاية رخام
نوافير رخام
تركيب رخام ميكانيكي
اعمدة رخام
شركة تركيب رخام
رخام جلاكسي
رخام اسود

Seem all-the-rage on social media.
I see them for sale on aliexpress at very reasonable costs.
Curious whether anyone has experienced benefit from them, or are they just a passing fad?
As I understand, NASA recognized their benefit when it was observed subjects healed faster under red light, then the cosmetics industry incorporated the concept.
Thoughts/experiences with them?
Is one device similar to another?
i.e. be it one mask brand to another?

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/27/politics/ken-paxton-impeachment-texas-house/index.html
The Texas House of Representatives has voted to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton, an unprecedented move following a legislative probe that faulted the third-term Republican for a years-long pattern of corruption, including abusing his office’s powers, retaliating against whistleblowers and obstructing justice.
Under state law, Paxton is now temporarily suspended from his duties as attorney general and will await a Senate trial.
The vote was 121-23, with two members voting “present.”
“The evidence is substantial. It is alarming and unnerving,” said GOP Rep. Andrew Murr, chair of the General Investigating Committee, during his closing statement following hours of debate. The committee recommended 20 counts of impeachment against Paxton.
Democrat Rep. Harold Dutton was one of the members voting present. He said the impeachment vote had been rushed. “The process by which we’re getting this done seems to be abbreviated to the point that it just encroaches on due process,” said Dutton.
Paxton denied wrongdoing in a Friday news conference, but focused his statements against the impeachment this week on his record as a key opponent of President Joe Biden. Paxton’s office has filed dozens of lawsuits against the Biden administration.
The now-suspended attorney general called the impeachment a “politically motivated sham” in a statement just minutes after the vote.
“The ugly spectacle in the Texas House today confirmed the outrageous impeachment plot against me was never meant to be fair or just,” he said.
Paxton said he was never given a chance to present evidence refuting the findings of an investigation that he abused his office. He has cast House Speaker Dade Phelan, a Republican who presides over a chamber where his party currently holds 85 seats to Democrats’ 64, as a “liberal.” He continued his attack on Phelan saying, “Phelan’s coalition of Democrats and liberal Republicans is now in lockstep with the Biden Administration, the abortion industry, anti-gun zealots, and woke corporations.”
The Office of the Attorney General issued its own “comprehensive report” about the allegations following the impeachment vote, saying it “unequivocally refutes incorrect testimony” against Paxton. The office also released a report it commissioned from an outside law firm, although the report from Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard and Smith LLP notes it is based only on information and testimony provided by the attorney general’s office.
Republican Governor Greg Abbott can appoint a provisional replacement while Paxton is temporarily suspended. Paxton would be reinstated if he is acquitted at his Senate trial.
The impeachment vote had its origins in an investigation launched in March by the General Investigating Committee of the Texas House after Paxton had asked the legislature to approve $3.3 million in government funds to settle a lawsuit with four whistleblowers who were fired from his office.
That investigation led the committee – a five-member panel investigating corruption in state government – to approve 20 articles of impeachment Thursday, setting up the vote in the full House.
During the debate Saturday, Rep. Charlie Geren, who is a Republican, claimed Paxton had threatened fellow House members.
“I would like to point out that several members of this House, while on the floor of this House doing the state’s business, received telephone calls from General Paxton personally threatening them with political consequences in their next election,” Geren said.
Opponents of the impeachment largely declined to address the allegations against him, instead focusing on the investigation leading up to the proceedings. “I don’t think today is about whether there’s guilt or innocence. It’s about the process,” said Rep. Tony Tinderholt.
“I’m not here to defend Ken Paxton,” Rep. John T. Smithee stated on the floor. He went on to say, “What you’re being asked to do today is to impeach without evidence. It is all rumor. It is all innuendo. It is all speculation.”
Paxton’s impeachment is a stunning rebuke of a Republican official in a state where the GOP controls all levers of state government. Voters in Texas shrugged off the swirling scandals around Paxton last year, handing him a third term in November’s election. Paxton had earlier fought off multiple opponents for the GOP nomination, including Bush family scion George P. Bush, the state land commissioner, whom he easily bested in a runoff.
Paxton has long been a controversial figure who has clashed with Texas legislative leadership. A conservative who has aligned himself with former President Donald Trump, he led a lawsuit in 2020 seeking to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election.
He retains support within the Texas GOP. In a statement Friday, state party chairman Matt Rinaldi blasted Phelan for what he called a “sham impeachment.”
“The voters have supported General Paxton through three elections – and his popularity has only grown despite millions of dollars spent to try to defeat him. Now the Texas House is trying to overturn the election results,” Rinaldi said, adding that he was looking to the “principled leadership” of the Senate to “restore sanity and reason for our state.”
In Texas, no attorney general has ever been impeached and removed from office. The only two elected officials to lose office as a result of impeachment were Gov. James Ferguson in 1917 and District Judge O.P. Carrillo in 1975.
For Paxton to be removed from office, two-thirds of the Texas Senate’s members who are present will have to vote to convict him. His wife, Angela Paxton, is a state senator representing a Dallas-area district.
It’s not yet clear when the Senate, where Republicans have a 19-12 majority over Democrats, will conduct its trial. The state’s legislative session is scheduled to end Monday.
While only the governor can call special sessions once the legislature is out of the biennial regular session, the Texas Constitution states that impeachment is the one issue for which the state House and Senate lawmakers can bring themselves into session without the governor, according to Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University.
Litany of legal trouble
The impeachment proceedings are the latest in a series of legal troubles for Paxton.
CNN has previously reported he was facing an FBI investigation for abuse of office and that Justice Department prosecutors in Washington, DC, took over a corruption investigation into Paxton. He is also under indictment for securities fraud in a separate, unrelated case. Paxton has denied all charges and allegations.
The state House probe came after Paxton had sought to settle a lawsuit with four former employees of the attorney general’s office. Whistleblowers had accused him of using his authority to benefit political friend Nate Paul, a real estate investor who had donated tens of thousands of dollars to Paxton’s campaign. In the settlement, Paxton apologized but did not admit fault or accept liability. He denied wrongdoing and said in a statement he had agreed to the settlement “to put this issue to rest.”
One of the impeachment articles accuses Paxton of using employees of the attorney general’s office to write a legal opinion intended to help Paul avoid the foreclosure sale of properties owned by Paul and his businesses.
It was among a series of articles focused on Paxton’s relationship with Paul, including accusations he hired an outside attorney who issued more than 30 grand jury subpoenas while investigating a “baseless complaint” made by Paul, benefited from Paul hiring a woman with whom Paxton “was having an extramarital affair,” and provided Paul with favorable legal help in exchange for renovations on Paxton’s home.
The articles of impeachment also detail what are described as Paxton’s efforts to cause “protracted” delays in the securities fraud investigation.
And the articles say voters in November did not have a full understanding of Paxton’s legal troubles because he had intentionally obscured the details of the charges he faces.
“Paxton then concealed the facts underlying his criminal charges from voters by causing protracted delay of the trial, which deprived the electorate of its opportunity to make an informed decision when voting for attorney general,” the impeachment articles state.
A wild week
The impeachment of Paxton follows a wild week in which the attorney general accused House Speaker Phelan of presiding over the House chamber while drunk and called for the speaker’s resignation.
On Tuesday, Paxton posted on Twitter a letter to the state House ethics panel, asking for an investigation into Phelan for performing his duties in what Paxton described as “an obviously intoxicated state.”
Paxton’s call for Phelan’s resignation came after video circulated on social media last weekend of Phelan appearing to slur his words as he presided over the House chamber at the end of a late-night session. Paxton did not present any evidence beyond the video clips to support his claim Phelan was drunk.
“It is with profound disappointment that I call on Speaker Dade Phelan to resign at the end of this legislative session,” Paxton said in a statement he posted on Twitter. “Texans were dismayed to witness his performance presiding over the Texas House in a state of apparent debilitating intoxication.”
Less than an hour later, the state House General Investigating Committee revealed it had subpoenaed records from Paxton’s office as part of an investigation Phelan’s office said had started in March. The committee, whose members are appointed by Phelan, voted unanimously Thursday to recommend Paxton’s impeachment.
Phelan’s office said Paxton’s allegation was merely retaliation for the House ethics panel’s probe.
“Mr. Paxton’s statement today amounts to little more than a last-ditch effort to save face,” Phelan communications director Cait Wittman said in a statement Tuesday.
Democratic Rep. Terry Canales said the broader context of last week’s all-day session made clear Phelan “was not under the influence.”
“At that point in the night the House had been in session over 13 hours and we had been doing so for multiple days in a row. We were all exhausted,” Canales said in a statement. “Nevertheless, I had multiple interactions with the speaker throughout the day and that night and I can say unequivocally he was not under the influence.”

1
I live in a suburb surrounded by forest. My house is in a row of other properties built next to a tree line. The neighborhood was always quiet. The sounds of crickets, birds, and sight of black bears were routine on most summer days.
The scenic area was something I was always grateful for. I lived completely alone since the death of my parents. An accidental fire took both of their lives. Once I collected my inheritance, I relocated to a much more peaceful region. I had always fantasized about moving there.
I tried to start a relationship with Samantha. I had gone to High School with her sixteen years before. She had gone on to become a respected Detective. My attempt at something long lasting with her failed. She was too career oriented. I was reeling from grief. Focusing on building something meaningful with her was a pipe dream.
Things around my community changed once the Murphy family went missing.
The first sign that something was off on that Wednesday was how their blinds had closed. Their silver Chevy Chrysler remained parked in the driveway.
A tennis instructor at the country club noticed the wife of that house did not show up for the program. He called their number to make sure everything was alright. When no one responded, he notified the authorities. Rumors abounded immediately among the home owners association about an alleged affair. The gossip only furthered when the married couple and their three kids were not found in the abode.
I watched from my balcony as the patrolmen roped the place off with caution tape. The domicile was a three story building with brick chimney’s and a few peaked roofs in the style of English towers. They were beige, light blue and crimson.
On the morning of the Murphy’s desertion of society, the architecture became a hollow image. It was one that was once filled with activity and life.
The law did what they could. Any success they may have had in the investigation was secret. A few months passed by and they removed the caution tape.
I followed the on-line police logs. The weather was pristine and clear the day they vanished. The fact that there were no witnesses to what direction they may have gone disturbed me.
I had heard how the man, Frank Murphy, had a bit of a temper and always had a bourbon in hand. I had heard mutual friends describe him as an alcoholic in denial of his servitude to liquor. He was an indignant individual who knew no true repercussions for his behavior. He always had bail money from a software company he founded and sold a long time ago.
I was never close to that family, but I peered out at their vacant house far more than I ever had. I was in need of an answer. What could have happened?
2
I called Samantha one evening as I sat on my bed, wondering how she would respond to my reaching out. We were never argumentative or on bad terms. I still worried about her reaction, and hoped it would not be a dismissive one.
I heard her say hello. Her voice still impressed me. I had almost forgotten how silky her tone was. I knew it could change to a much firmer pitch when she was interviewing a suspect.
“Hi, Sam. I’d like to know if you’d be free tomorrow for a cup of coffee. We can go to that place, The Bean Field, off Pond road. It’s been a while and I know you have a lot to tell me about what’s new in your life.”
There was a pause on the other end, and for a second a bout of anxiety hit me. I judged my own words as robotic, stilted, and sure to push her away. I reasoned she was summoning an excuse to get out of having to interact with me. How dare I presume she would even entertain the notion of having a meeting.
“That sounds great,” she said. “Tomorrow is my day off, luckily for you. I’m in the middle of an incident right now. It’s a five car pile-up about forty minutes from where you live. I’ve gotta run. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
When she hung up, I was triumphant. I looked at our old text conversations. I realized we had not been in communication with each other for over twelve months. Now was my opportunity to reconcile that gap of unintended avoidance. I knew it would be an undeserved opportunity.
3
I sat outside of the cafe the next morning at a black metal table. I had a view of rolling hills dotted with trees. A highway with multitudinous shrubberies sat on either side of it. I sipped a piccolo latte while waiting for her.
When she arrived and stepped out of her hatchback in the parking lot, her appearance floored me. She had not dressed up for our supposed date, but that did not make a difference. She had arrived from the gym and wore shorts and a top set. She donned a gray and green hoodie.
She sat across from me and reached for the menu.
“Can you go to the front and order me avocado toast?” Samantha asked. “I’ll also take a mocha with a few shots of espresso. Please.”
I did exactly that. When I returned with her items, she apologized for consuming her meal in less than two minutes.
“I hadn’t eaten since five PM yesterday,” she said between sips.
“I understand,” I said. “I doubt you ever have a consistent schedule anymore.”
“You’re right, but that’s why I have to enjoy my free time when I can.”
We settled into talking about what had happened since we last saw each other. I referenced my trying to learn another language (French) with the hopes of moving to Europe or Canada.
After fifteen minutes of small talk, I asked her about work, but I did so with caution. It started with me wondering about what the call she was on when we were on the phone was about.
“A drunk driver blew a stop sign and hit two other vehicles,” she said. “It was ugly. A few people died. We’ll see if the man in silk pajamas gives him the proper sentence or a traffic citation.”
“You know, I’m curious about what happened to the Murphy’s, if they’re hurt or not.”
“You and everyone else,” she said. “We’ve been getting so many witness accounts, and so far they’ve all been bogus. All I know is what I saw when I got there.”
“I didn’t know you were one of the responders,” I said.
“Yeah. Something about the place was off from the moment I walked in. I found heavy items in placed they should not have been in. The toolbox was not in the garage but on the second story. A disassembled snowblower lay scattered everywhere in pieces. The oven door was on their bed. Frank Murphy was not the strongest guy in the world, either. For him to cause the kind of property damage I saw doesn’t make a lot of sense. At the risk of sounding crazy, inexplicable things happened when I was there.”
“Like what?”
“I was under the impression that something was playing a trick on me. Electrical outlets sparked a few times out of nowhere. The ceiling fan would go from still to spinning when I looked up at it. Books would fall off of the shelves. A volume on black magic, of all things, almost hit the top of my head when I walked on by. Another book about fairies collapsed with it.”
“So the home intruder set up a bunch of weird diversions,” I said. “I’ve heard of that before. These killers or kidnappers want the victims to think there was more than one of them. It’s so their account’s disputed in court.”
I’ll tell you right now,” she said, “we didn’t find any outside DNA.”
“So it’s a case of family annihilation,” I said as I took a long swig of my beverage. “I don’t know if you can substantiate the facts, but a few people have said that Emily had a big life insurance policy. Frank knew about. He may have been using steroids and having an affair, and that could have contributed to-“
It occurred to me that she eyed me with suspicion, as though I was digging too deep. I could also tell she regretted letting information about the forensic results slip.
She stood up and stared at me with a flash of anger in her eyes.
“I thought you wanted to piece something back together with me,” she said. “I didn’t know you wanted to play armchair investigator like every true crime fan. You know, your parents were kind. I wish you’d follow their example. I’ll let you get the bill.”
She walked back to her vehicle and I knew it would be a while before we conversed again.
Later that night, I stared out my window at the Murphy home. I saw a star shoot across the sky, and it almost seemed ready to plummet into the side of their house.
4
The next evening, I took a walk around the suburb. I spotted a thin line of dried red fluid along a path which led into the woods.
I was attempting to get in some movement to get my mind off of the events of the day before. Negativity and self-deprecation were all-consuming. I felt the need for a long saunter to try and release some of the meandering and pessimistic energy I accrued.
When I saw the carmine ribbon along the dark soil, a sense of worry filled me. I was not that far removed from a cul-de-sac with palatial manors a block away. There was no way I could speculate on me being the first to see it.
Could it be a hint where they are? I thought.
The notion seemed absurd, a reach.
I had read in the local newspaper that there was an uptick in bobcat sightings due to recent wildfires. The animals relocated during prior summers. I reasoned it could have been a house pet which became a victim after it got snatched away into the overgrowth.
I followed it, and the uneven road of red stretched on past many bushes and over logs. A shrill chirping in the background became louder. I moved between two conifers with petrified wood and found myself in a part of the forest I had never been in.
There were so many branches that it blacked out the falling sun. Ahead of me was a clearing. A swarm of gnats and mosquitos descended upon it. The sea of insects soared together in chaotic unison as a wave among the sedges and lichen.
I looked towards the right of the meadow and saw a ramshackle tree house. I trailed the red line towards it. I peered in through one of the windows and saw a statue of a woman with wings. I knew she was not an angel. There was no halo, nor were her organs of flight feathery, but rather they were thin and bat-like.
I entered the place knowing the danger I was putting myself in. I had tracked mud in and was oblivious to the incriminating actions I partook in. I was trespassing and risking stumbling into whoever may have owned the land. My curiosity got the better of me and caused me to keep moving forward.
The room was sparse but decorated. The walls had carvings of men and women, also with wings. Their bodies held yogic-like positions as they reached out to one another mid-air.
A piece of parchment with a few words sat in the corner. I picked it up and read it:
‘Humans are the greatest living beings to play tricks on. Especially when they go through a time of drought and extreme cold.’
I sat it down where I found it, unsure of what to make of it.
I touched the central figure’s neck. The chiseling was not only cold, but below freezing, as though I had submerged my hand in a polar pool.
The noise of some kind of bird attempting to escape a confined space reverberated below me.
Something brushed against my leg. I looked down and saw an army of glow bugs float up between the cracks, and they circled around me. They were like dragon flies. At the time I had labeled them as such, but in reality their shapes were far too humanoid.
I walked back home. I went to bed and slept. I was still perturbed at the wine-colored avenue and cabin.
I awoke in the middle of the night after something tapped at my walls from the outside. I peered out and saw the Murphy home, and observed how the blinds over their casements were wide open. A hive of mites filled every inch of the interior.
5
I found the decomposing body of a chipmunk stuffed into the tailpipe of my vehicle the next day.
This horrified me, because the deliberation of the act was too evident to ignore. While I did have a surveillance camera on my porch, the coverage of my vehicle was non-existent. I calmed myself down by thinking it was likely a tempestuous child. I retrieved a pair of medical gloves and disposed of the creature before going on with the errand. The rotting body had a horrible smell. It was like an onion left out in humidity for days, and my stomach turned as I sealed it off in the garbage with the lid.
The next morning, I looked in my closet. Some of my favorite shirts had disintegrated. Holes and patches of destroyed fabric littered them. I found it odd, and even searched on-line for possible answers before I decided it had to be a moth infestation. I sprayed lavender. Information on a website statEd that was a cure-all, but the problem persisted. It bothered me that I had not seen a single aphid, but I pushed that concern away.
A few days afterward, when I had tossed my disheveled pieces of attire, the power in my house went out. This was not such an unusual occurrence during the heavy winter months. For it to occur in the summer was strange.
It was a rolling blackout. Once my house had electricity again, I noticed how someone moved items around.
Something turned my kitchen table on its side and stuffed into a part of the kitchen I would have never placed it in.
I grabbed a butcher knife and did a sweep of the premises, and I did not find anything. There were no footprints or signs of anything else tampered with. When I got to the second story, birds nested along the tree tops, and the repugnant odor of fish attacked me.
My allergies became insufferable over the next month. Nothing purchased over the counter which helped it.
6
I went to the beach on an overcast day. After roughly half a mile of walking, I saw an illustration someone had drawn in the sand with a stick. It was of a being with airfoils.
A light precipitation had fallen earlier. As I trailed along the former part of the sand, a glint in the corner of my eye caught my attention. I looked out at the water and saw what appeared to be a light blue outline of wings beneath the surface.
A phosphorescent wall of creatures surrounded me.
As the days march on, I know I am stalked by something I cannot rebel against, let alone have any agency or autonomy over. My pillowcases have shredded, the pipes in my basement have burst, and someone left me a gift at my front door. When I opened it, I saw mice scurry away. It was a book, and it was one about the history of fairies.
I picked it up and had to blow the dust off of it. Someone had stolen it from a musty subterranean chamber and brought it here.
I theorized that it was Samantha, passive aggressive with her disappointment in me. Yet I flip through its pages and find it all too familiar. I cannot help but wonder if this is a sign of something far more dangerous.

I live in a suburb surrounded by forest. My house is in a row of other properties built next to a tree line. The neighborhood was always quiet. The sounds of crickets, birds, and sight of black bears were routine on most summer days.
The scenic area was something I was always grateful for. I lived completely alone since the death of my parents. An accidental fire took both of their lives. Once I collected my inheritance, I relocated to a much more peaceful region. I had always fantasized about moving there.
I tried to start a relationship with Samantha. I had gone to High School with her sixteen years before. She had gone on to become a respected Detective. My attempt at something long lasting with her failed. She was too career oriented. I was reeling from grief. Focusing on building something meaningful with her was a pipe dream.
Things around my community changed once the Murphy family went missing.
The first sign that something was off on that Wednesday was how their blinds had closed. Their silver Chevy Chrysler remained parked in the driveway.
A tennis instructor at the country club noticed the wife of that house did not show up for the program. He called their number to make sure everything was alright. When no one responded, he notified the authorities. Rumors abounded immediately among the home owners association about an alleged affair. The gossip only furthered when the married couple and their three kids were not found in the abode.
I watched from my balcony as the patrolmen roped the place off with caution tape. The domicile was a three story building with brick chimney’s and a few peaked roofs in the style of English towers. They were beige, light blue and crimson.
On the morning of the Murphy’s desertion of society, the architecture became a hollow image. It was one that was once filled with activity and life.
The law did what they could. Any success they may have had in the investigation was secret. A few months passed by and they removed the caution tape.
I followed the on-line police logs. The weather was pristine and clear the day they vanished. The fact that there were no witnesses to what direction they may have gone disturbed me.
I had heard how the man, Frank Murphy, had a bit of a temper and always had a bourbon in hand. I had heard mutual friends describe him as an alcoholic in denial of his servitude to liquor. He was an indignant individual who knew no true repercussions for his behavior. He always had bail money from a software company he founded and sold a long time ago.
I was never close to that family, but I peered out at their vacant house far more than I ever had. I was in need of an answer. What could have happened?
*
I called Samantha one evening as I sat on my bed, wondering how she would respond to my reaching out. We were never argumentative or on bad terms. I still worried about her reaction, and hoped it would not be a dismissive one.
I heard her say hello. Her voice still impressed me. I had almost forgotten how silky her tone was. I knew it could change to a much firmer pitch when she was interviewing a suspect.
“Hi, Sam. I’d like to know if you’d be free tomorrow for a cup of coffee. We can go to that place, The Bean Field, off Pond road. It’s been a while and I know you have a lot to tell me about what’s new in your life.”
There was a pause on the other end, and for a second a bout of anxiety hit me. I judged my own words as robotic, stilted, and sure to push her away. I reasoned she was summoning an excuse to get out of having to interact with me. How dare I presume she would even entertain the notion of having a meeting.
“That sounds great,” she said. “Tomorrow is my day off, luckily for you. I’m in the middle of an incident right now. It’s a five car pile-up about forty minutes from where you live. I’ve gotta run. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
When she hung up, I was triumphant. I looked at our old text conversations. I realized we had not been in communication with each other for over twelve months. Now was my opportunity to reconcile that gap of unintended avoidance. I knew it would be an undeserved opportunity.
*
I sat outside of the cafe the next morning at a black metal table. I had a view of rolling hills dotted with trees. A highway with multitudinous shrubberies sat on either side of it. I sipped a piccolo latte while waiting for her.
When she arrived and stepped out of her hatchback in the parking lot, her appearance floored me. She had not dressed up for our supposed date, but that did not make a difference. She had arrived from the gym and wore shorts and a top set. She donned a gray and green hoodie.
She sat across from me and reached for the menu.
“Can you go to the front and order me avocado toast?” Samantha asked. “I’ll also take a mocha with a few shots of espresso. Please.”
I did exactly that. When I returned with her items, she apologized for consuming her meal in less than two minutes.
“I hadn’t eaten since five PM yesterday,” she said between sips.
“I understand,” I said. “I doubt you ever have a consistent schedule anymore.”
“You’re right, but that’s why I have to enjoy my free time when I can.”
We settled into talking about what had happened since we last saw each other. I referenced my trying to learn another language (French) with the hopes of moving to Europe or Canada.
After fifteen minutes of small talk, I asked her about work, but I did so with caution. It started with me wondering about what the call she was on when we were on the phone was about.
“A drunk driver blew a stop sign and hit two other vehicles,” she said. “It was ugly. A few people died. We’ll see if the man in silk pajamas gives him the proper sentence or a traffic citation.”
“You know, I’m curious about what happened to the Murphy’s, if they’re hurt or not.”
“You and everyone else,” she said. “We’ve been getting so many witness accounts, and so far they’ve all been bogus. All I know is what I saw when I got there.”
“I didn’t know you were one of the responders,” I said.
“Yeah. Something about the place was off from the moment I walked in. I found heavy items in placed they should not have been in. The toolbox was not in the garage but on the second story. A disassembled snowblower lay scattered everywhere in pieces. The oven door was on their bed. Frank Murphy was not the strongest guy in the world, either. For him to cause the kind of property damage I saw doesn’t make a lot of sense. At the risk of sounding crazy, inexplicable things happened when I was there.”
“Like what?”
“I was under the impression that something was playing a trick on me. Electrical outlets sparked a few times out of nowhere. The ceiling fan would go from still to spinning when I looked up at it. Books would fall off of the shelves. A volume on black magic, of all things, almost hit the top of my head when I walked on by. Another book about fairies collapsed with it.”
“So the home intruder set up a bunch of weird diversions,” I said. “I’ve heard of that before. These killers or kidnappers want the victims to think there was more than one of them. It’s so their account’s disputed in court.”
I’ll tell you right now,” she said, “we didn’t find any outside DNA.”
“So it’s a case of family annihilation,” I said as I took a long swig of my beverage. “I don’t know if you can substantiate the facts, but a few people have said that Emily had a big life insurance policy. Frank knew about. He may have been using steroids and having an affair, and that could have contributed to-“
It occurred to me that she eyed me with suspicion, as though I was digging too deep. I could also tell she regretted letting information about the forensic results slip.
She stood up and stared at me with a flash of anger in her eyes.
“I thought you wanted to piece something back together with me,” she said. “I didn’t know you wanted to play armchair investigator like every true crime fan. You know, your parents were kind. I wish you’d follow their example. I’ll let you get the bill.”
She walked back to her vehicle and I knew it would be a while before we conversed again.
Later that night, I stared out my window at the Murphy home. I saw a star shoot across the sky, and it almost seemed ready to plummet into the side of their house.
*
The next evening, I took a walk around the suburb. I spotted a thin line of dried red fluid along a path which led into the woods.
I was attempting to get in some movement to get my mind off of the events of the day before. Negativity and self-deprecation were all-consuming. I felt the need for a long saunter to try and release some of the meandering and pessimistic energy I accrued.
When I saw the carmine ribbon along the dark soil, a sense of worry filled me. I was not that far removed from a cul-de-sac with palatial manors a block away. There was no way I could speculate on me being the first to see it.
Could it be a hint where they are? I thought.
The notion seemed absurd, a reach.
I had read in the local newspaper that there was an uptick in bobcat sightings due to recent wildfires. The animals relocated during prior summers. I reasoned it could have been a house pet which became a victim after it got snatched away into the overgrowth.
I followed it, and the uneven road of red stretched on past many bushes and over logs. A shrill chirping in the background became louder. I moved between two conifers with petrified wood and found myself in a part of the forest I had never been in.
There were so many branches that it blacked out the falling sun. Ahead of me was a clearing. A swarm of gnats and mosquitos descended upon it. The sea of insects soared together in chaotic unison as a wave among the sedges and lichen.
I looked towards the right of the meadow and saw a ramshackle tree house. I trailed the red line towards it. I peered in through one of the windows and saw a statue of a woman with wings. I knew she was not an angel. There was no halo, nor were her organs of flight feathery, but rather they were thin and bat-like.
I entered the place knowing the danger I was putting myself in. I had tracked mud in and was oblivious to the incriminating actions I partook in. I was trespassing and risking stumbling into whoever may have owned the land. My curiosity got the better of me and caused me to keep moving forward.
The room was sparse but decorated. The walls had carvings of men and women, also with wings. Their bodies held yogic-like positions as they reached out to one another mid-air.
A piece of parchment with a few words sat in the corner. I picked it up and read it:
‘Humans are the greatest living beings to play tricks on. Especially when they go through a time of drought and extreme cold.’
I sat it down where I found it, unsure of what to make of it.
I touched the central figure’s neck. The chiseling was not only cold, but below freezing, as though I had submerged my hand in a polar pool.
The noise of some kind of bird attempting to escape a confined space reverberated below me.
Something brushed against my leg. I looked down and saw an army of glow bugs float up between the cracks, and they circled around me. They were like dragon flies. At the time I had labeled them as such, but in reality their shapes were far too humanoid.
I walked back home. I went to bed and slept. I was still perturbed at the wine-colored avenue and cabin.
I awoke in the middle of the night after something tapped at my walls from the outside. I peered out and saw the Murphy home, and observed how the blinds over their casements were wide open. A hive of mites filled every inch of the interior.
*
I found the decomposing body of a chipmunk stuffed into the tailpipe of my vehicle the next day.
This horrified me, because the deliberation of the act was too evident to ignore. While I did have a surveillance camera on my porch, the coverage of my vehicle was non-existent. I calmed myself down by thinking it was likely a tempestuous child. I retrieved a pair of medical gloves and disposed of the creature before going on with the errand. The rotting body had a horrible smell. It was like an onion left out in humidity for days, and my stomach turned as I sealed it off in the garbage with the lid.
The next morning, I looked in my closet. Some of my favorite shirts had disintegrated. Holes and patches of destroyed fabric littered them. I found it odd, and even searched on-line for possible answers before I decided it had to be a moth infestation. I sprayed lavender. Information on a website statEd that was a cure-all, but the problem persisted. It bothered me that I had not seen a single aphid, but I pushed that concern away.
A few days afterward, when I had tossed my disheveled pieces of attire, the power in my house went out. This was not such an unusual occurrence during the heavy winter months. For it to occur in the summer was strange.
It was a rolling blackout. Once my house had electricity again, I noticed how someone moved items around.
Something turned my kitchen table on its side and stuffed into a part of the kitchen I would have never placed it in.
I grabbed a butcher knife and did a sweep of the premises, and I did not find anything. There were no footprints or signs of anything else tampered with. When I got to the second story, birds nested along the tree tops, and the repugnant odor of fish attacked me.
My allergies became insufferable over the next month. Nothing purchased over the counter which helped it.
*
I went to the beach on an overcast day. After roughly half a mile of walking, I saw an illustration someone had drawn in the sand with a stick. It was of a being with airfoils.
A light precipitation had fallen earlier. As I trailed along the former part of the sand, a glint in the corner of my eye caught my attention. I looked out at the water and saw what appeared to be a light blue outline of wings beneath the surface.
A phosphorescent wall of creatures surrounded me.
As the days march on, I know I am stalked by something I cannot rebel against, let alone have any agency or autonomy over. My pillowcases have shredded, the pipes in my basement have burst, and someone left me a gift at my front door. When I opened it, I saw mice scurry away. It was a book, and it was one about the history of fairies.
I picked it up and had to blow the dust off of it. Someone had stolen it from a musty subterranean chamber and brought it here.
I theorized that it was Samantha, passive aggressive with her disappointment in me. Yet I flip through its pages and find it all too familiar. I cannot help but wonder if this is a sign of something far more dangerous.

Inefficient Light Bulb Ban Bill

A
B I L L
T O
Ban the sale and use of environmentally inefficient light bulbs.
BE IT ENACTED by the King’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—
Section 1: Definitions
(1) "Incandescent light bulb" means a general service lamp that produces light by heating a filament in a glass bulb filled with an inert gas or a vacuum.
(2) "Halogen light bulb" means a type of incandescent light bulb that uses a halogen gas to increase energy efficiency and lifespan.
(3) "Fluorescent light bulb" means a type of light bulb that uses an electric current to excite a gas, which then produces ultraviolet light that is converted to visible light by a phosphor coating on the inside of the bulb.
(4) "LED" refers to inorganic light-emitting diodes, and means a technology which -

(a) light is produced from a solid state device embodying a p-n junction of inorganic material, and
(b) the junction emits optical radiation when excited by an electrical current

Section 2: Ban on Incandescent, Halogen and Fluorescent Light Bulbs
(1) The import, manufacture, distribution, and sale of incandescent, halogen, and fluorescent light bulbs shall be prohibited.
(2) No later than three years after the date of assent, the use of incandescent, halogen, and fluorescent light bulbs in all public buildings shall be banned.
Section 3: Exemptions
(1) This Act does not apply to incandescent, halogen or fluorescent light bulbs specifically tested and approved to operate --

(a) in potentially explosive atmospheres,
(b) for emergency use,
(c) in radiological installations,
(d) in or on military or civil defence establishments, equipment, ground vehicles, marine equipment or aircraft,
(e) in or on motor vehicles, their trailers and systems, interchangeable towed equipment, components and separate technical units,
(f) in or on civil aviation aircraft,
(g) in railway vehicle lighting,
(h) in medical devices.

(2) For the purposes of this paragraph “specifically tested and approved” means that, in relation to an operating condition or application, the light source or separate control gear—

(a) has been specifically tested for that operating condition or application, in accordance with standards produced by an international standardising body;
(b) is accompanied by evidence in the form of a certificate, type approval mark or test report that the product has been specifically approved for that operating condition or application; and
(c) is placed on the market specifically for that operating condition or application, as evidenced by
(i) the information in the technical documentation; and
(ii) except in a case to which sub-paragraph (1)(d) applies, information on the packaging and any advertising or marketing materials.

(3) The government may grant exemptions to this Act for certain areas or industries where alternative options are not yet available or would impose undue financial burden.
(4) This act does not apply to sodium vapour lamps.
Section 4: LED procurement
(1) Subject to Section 3, replacement of light bulbs as required under section 2 shall be of LED-type.
Section 5: Penalties
(1) Any person found guilty of being concerned in the import, manufacture, distribution or sale of any goods prohibited in this Act, shall be liable—

(a) on summary conviction, to a penalty of £20,000 or of three times the value of the goods, whichever is the greater, or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months, or to both; or
(b) on conviction on indictment, to a penalty of any amount, or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 7 years, or to both.

Section 6: Extent, commencement and short title
(1) This Act extends to England only.
(2) This bill shall come into force six months after receiving Royal Assent.
(3) This Act may be cited as the Inefficient Light Bulb Ban Act 2023.
This Bill was written by Ruijormar, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change on behalf of His Majesty’s 32nd Government and was inspired by the real life Ecodesign for Energy-Related Products and Energy Information (Lighting Products) Regulations 2021
​
Opening Speech:
My Lords,
As of today, close to two thirds of light bulbs sold in the UK are LED lights. These have, on average, a 5 times longer lifetime and 80% less power consumption than the alternatives. A complete shift to LED would reduce carbon emissions by 1.26 million tonnes per year, while also saving consumers an average of 75£ per year on energy bills. I urge the House to support this bill, so that we may turn off the power on inefficient lighting and shine a light on a more sustainable future.
This reading shall end on Wednesday 31st May at 10pm.

I admire the hairpin turn of his curls rushed away into the float of sky behind him.
In the same way that a thrown rock never could, even if it was a light rock, because gravity weight shames and rocks get offended very easily, especially when tossed to prove this.
Sometimes though, they try to imitate me, Jesus, skipped over the surface of the water, trying to cross before drowning.
Seeking out more fish to feed the thousands because no matter what they said in my autobiography, 2 fish and five loaves was not enough for all those people stoned on miracles.
The vampire son of "God" at the red cross donation bus allowing everyone to drink of him before midnight mass.
And now it is time to alter... Boys, my body is that of a waif, eat me.
Make sandwiches of my wonder bread, mayo you be blessed and sing hymns of that one band named H.I.M. that Bam Margera helped to make popular, it's 12 members with names I cannot pronounce all of because I am not Finnish, representing my 12 disciples.
I remember that last time we all got together for supper, those were the good times.
If only someone had painted and reproduced millions of pictures of that feast, and hung it on the wall of their living room in remembrance.
Placed next to an idol of me barely clothed and nailed to a cross, like back in my college days when I actually cared about working out and getting nailed.
Yes, those were the good times.
I was quite the magician back then, I was even the hide and go seek, me, champion of all of Jerusalem.
My best match, I must admit, was a bit of a fluke, as I mistook a very brightly colored mushroom for an Easter egg.
I seriously thought I was dying, and I was so embarrassed that I hid in a cave for 3 days tripping balls.
By the time I got back, the lie had already grown to such an insurmountable accord, that I had no choice but to go along with it and claim resurrection.
In all actuality, I just didn't want anyone else to find out about those mushrooms because I was not willing to share the stash I had collected on the way back.
And I had a date scheduled with the lovely Mary Magdalene, and she was one hot ticket who seemed very into me after the resurrection.
Although when I heard the rumor that she put out on the first date, I didn't realize they were talking about babies.
So if you can conceive the idea of Mary, getting rawdogged by my holy spirit, you will understand just how immaculate this date had the possibility of being.
But according to some historians, who claim that Mary is also my mother, I am reminded of that one scene in Back to the Future when Michael J Foxes mother has a crush on him, and it brings some relief, even though that is some mother and son taboo that has been banned from most pornographic sites, unless you use stepmom and son in the search bar.
Anyways, coat hangers had not been invented yet, even though most states would have preferred their use over actually supporting women's reproductive rights, and so we had the baby.
And for a small moment in time, everything was still, and then that moment passed, and everything was still still, and it made me question not only the complex stupidity of language, but also whether or not the batteries in my remote had died before I could take my television off of pause.
This my children, is why we call it the missionary position, and how I inspired the Trojans to invent condoms, but that is a magnum opus of a story for another time. Amen
https://www.reddit.com/OCPoetry/comments/13teo0b/my_father_used_to_hang_cds_from_the_trees/jlxkm2g?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
https://www.reddit.com/OCPoetry/comments/13ttq2a/raw/jlxkawe?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

TL;DR: Sort each table by the expectation (Exp.) column and pick accordingly.

Resources

• I have made a DPC Fantasy Tracker to help you evaluate your results.
• The exponentially weighted averages across each player's 50 most recent tier 1 and 2 pro matches is available in this Google Sheet.

Gold/Silver Card Bonuses

Please refer to this Google Sheet for what to look for for each individual player, or the table below for what to look for for each role in general.
**Table 1:* The percentage of fantasy points earned by each indicator for each role.*

Indicator	Core	Mid	Support
Camps Stacked	6.75	3.47	9.36
Creep Score	7.51	5.67	1.60
Deaths	13.79	12.17	8.17
First Blood	3.04	1.99	3.21
GPM	9.00	7.25	4.63
Kills	12.66	14.43	6.77
Obs Wards	0.76	4.67	30.02
Roshan Kills	2.64	1.72	0.36
Runes Grabbed	6.01	17.01	8.78
Stuns	10.49	11.32	10.39
Teamfight	13.98	13.83	15.01
Tower Kills	13.37	6.47	1.69

NA

**Table 2:* The schedule.*

Team 1	Team 2	Series	Time
Shopify Rebellion	felt	Bo3	2023-05-29 22:00 UTC
SAND KING GÓMEZ	nouns	Bo3	2023-05-30 01:00 UTC
B8	DogChamp	Bo3	2023-05-31 22:00 UTC
SAND KING GÓMEZ	felt	Bo3	2023-06-01 01:00 UTC
felt	ALPHA	Bo3	2023-06-02 22:00 UTC
Shopify Rebellion	nouns	Bo3	2023-06-03 01:00 UTC
Shopify Rebellion	DogChamp	Bo3	2023-06-03 19:00 UTC
SAND KING GÓMEZ	TSM	Bo3	2023-06-03 22:00 UTC
nouns	ALPHA	Bo3	2023-06-04 01:00 UTC
felt	B8	Bo3	2023-06-05 01:00 UTC

**Table 3:* The potential choices for the Core role.*

Player	Team	Series	Avg.	Std.	Exp.
HitinmunE	felt	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	14.83	5.65	38.35
天鸽	Shopify Rebellion	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	15.20	4.95	36.87
Yamsun	nouns	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	14.19	5.87	36.23
StoneBank	B8	Bo3 + Bo3	14.17	6.92	35.30
dnm	DogChamp	Bo3 + Bo3	13.87	5.06	33.00
Moo	nouns	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	12.17	5.21	31.30
Leônidas	SAND KING GÓMEZ	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	12.18	5.53	31.29
Timado	TSM	Bo3	14.09	5.77	30.53
Fayde	felt	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	12.08	3.97	30.28
SaberLight	Shopify Rebellion	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	11.84	3.74	28.57
Speeed	DogChamp	Bo3 + Bo3	11.79	4.17	27.90
ducho0	SAND KING GÓMEZ	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	10.58	4.50	27.22
Funn1k	B8	Bo3 + Bo3	11.41	3.93	26.77
Satoshi-	ALPHA	Bo3 + Bo3	9.37	4.13	22.85
kasane	TSM	Bo3	10.37	4.02	22.38

**Table 4:* The potential choices for the Mid role.*

Player	Team	Series	Avg.	Std.	Exp.
Abed	Shopify Rebellion	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	16.41	4.95	39.22
Gunnar	nouns	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	15.87	4.92	38.32
red2	DogChamp	Bo3 + Bo3	16.11	5.17	37.59
lundd	SAND KING GÓMEZ	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	14.39	5.60	36.31
steel-	ALPHA	Bo3 + Bo3	14.46	6.07	35.12
Dendi	B8	Bo3 + Bo3	13.33	5.12	31.79
Blessed kid	ALPHA	Bo3 + Bo3	12.41	5.82	30.31
Bryle	TSM	Bo3	13.87	4.39	29.53
솔지xx	felt	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	11.33	3.32	27.77

**Table 5:* The potential choices for the Support role.*

Player	Team	Series	Avg.	Std.	Exp.
Tokaya	ALPHA	Bo3 + Bo3	14.81	5.62	35.35
Fly	Shopify Rebellion	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	14.84	4.15	35.10
Kitzz	felt	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	14.00	4.29	34.52
CTOMAHEH1	B8	Bo3 + Bo3	13.90	4.97	32.82
Husky	nouns	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	13.25	3.43	31.08
Lelis	nouns	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	12.40	4.47	30.77
Cr1t-	Shopify Rebellion	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	12.79	3.95	30.74
Bloody Nine	DogChamp	Bo3 + Bo3	12.97	4.23	30.33
Braxie-	ALPHA	Bo3 + Bo3	12.74	4.64	30.19
MoOz	DogChamp	Bo3 + Bo3	13.22	3.07	29.62
Whitemon	TSM	Bo3	14.04	3.36	29.46
albinozebra1	felt	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	11.88	3.49	29.12
Lodine	B8	Bo3 + Bo3	12.08	4.30	28.47
Yanbura	SAND KING GÓMEZ	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	12.25	2.48	27.83
N1ne	SAND KING GÓMEZ	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	11.54	3.41	27.67
Ari	TSM	Bo3	11.49	3.37	24.35

SA

**Table 6:* The schedule.*

Team 1	Team 2	Series	Time
Thunder Awaken	Infinity	Bo3	2023-05-30 20:00 UTC
beastcoast	Balrogs Esports™	Bo3	2023-05-30 23:00 UTC
Thunder Awaken	Hokori	Bo3	2023-06-01 17:00 UTC
Infamous Gaming	Infinity	Bo3	2023-06-01 20:00 UTC
Evil Geniuses	Mad Kings Esports	Bo3	2023-06-01 23:00 UTC
Infamous Gaming	Hokori	Bo3	2023-06-04 17:00 UTC
Mad Kings Esports	Balrogs Esports™	Bo3	2023-06-04 20:00 UTC
beastcoast	Evil Geniuses	Bo3	2023-06-04 23:00 UTC

**Table 7:* The potential choices for the Core role.*

Player	Team	Series	Avg.	Std.	Exp.
Lumière	Hokori	Bo3 + Bo3	16.29	5.70	38.49
DCMC	Balrogs Esports™	Bo3 + Bo3	16.01	5.90	38.08
Knight~	Thunder Awaken	Bo3 + Bo3	16.52	4.69	37.84
mini	Infamous Gaming	Bo3 + Bo3	15.64	5.88	37.33
Adrian <	Infinity	Bo3 + Bo3	15.25	6.33	36.91
DaaD-	Mad Kings Esports	Bo3 + Bo3	14.22	6.36	34.97
Pakazs	Evil Geniuses	Bo3 + Bo3	14.95	5.14	34.93
K1 tqmD	beastcoast	Bo3 + Bo3	14.70	5.07	34.61
ILICH-	Thunder Awaken	Bo3 + Bo3	12.38	3.84	28.67
Wisper	Evil Geniuses	Bo3 + Bo3	11.80	3.12	26.64
ArzenT	Mad Kings Esports	Bo3 + Bo3	10.76	4.49	26.07
hyko	Infamous Gaming	Bo3 + Bo3	11.04	3.76	25.94
Vitaly 誇り	Hokori	Bo3 + Bo3	11.14	3.46	25.86
Devil	Infinity	Bo3 + Bo3	10.75	3.81	25.35
Sacred	beastcoast	Bo3 + Bo3	10.67	3.74	25.22
Arkano	Balrogs Esports™	Bo3 + Bo3	10.50	3.51	24.61

**Table 8:* The potential choices for the Mid role.*

Player	Team	Series	Avg.	Std.	Exp.
DarkMago♡	beastcoast	Bo3 + Bo3	16.97	4.98	39.11
C.smile <	Evil Geniuses	Bo3 + Bo3	16.33	5.12	37.66
Leostyle!	Infinity	Bo3 + Bo3	16.03	4.84	36.96
PiPi	Mad Kings Esports	Bo3 + Bo3	15.35	3.99	34.79
4dr <3 Déia	Infamous Gaming	Bo3 + Bo3	15.00	4.83	34.76
Alone <	Hokori	Bo3 + Bo3	14.10	5.48	33.73
Ñengo	Balrogs Esports™	Bo3 + Bo3	14.49	4.56	33.66
SLATEM$	Thunder Awaken	Bo3 + Bo3	14.52	4.13	33.31

**Table 9:* The potential choices for the Support role.*

Player	Team	Series	Avg.	Std.	Exp.
grpx1 <01	Infamous Gaming	Bo3 + Bo3	15.52	4.76	35.94
Kiri <	Infinity	Bo3 + Bo3	15.92	3.71	35.58
RedMonster	Mad Kings Esports	Bo3 + Bo3	13.86	4.94	32.73
Gardιck 鬼	Hokori	Bo3 + Bo3	14.28	3.16	31.83
Shaka	Balrogs Esports™	Bo3 + Bo3	13.68	3.76	31.22
Scofield	beastcoast	Bo3 + Bo3	13.25	4.54	31.21
n1ght	Thunder Awaken	Bo3 + Bo3	13.67	3.07	30.50
stingeR	beastcoast	Bo3 + Bo3	13.05	4.19	30.44
Panda	Evil Geniuses	Bo3 + Bo3	13.58	3.34	30.42
nuages	Infamous Gaming	Bo3 + Bo3	12.96	3.85	29.89
Genek	Mad Kings Esports	Bo3 + Bo3	12.94	3.11	29.08
Michael~	Hokori	Bo3 + Bo3	12.88	3.03	28.86
Matthew	Evil Geniuses	Bo3 + Bo3	12.70	2.85	28.19
Demon	Balrogs Esports™	Bo3 + Bo3	12.39	2.49	27.32
Mjz	Thunder Awaken	Bo3 + Bo3	11.87	3.27	27.13
Prada	Infinity	Bo3 + Bo3	11.25	3.06	25.62

WEU

**Table 10:* The schedule.*

Team 1	Team 2	Series	Time
Team Liquid	Tundra Esports	Bo3	2023-05-29 13:00 UTC
OG	Gaimin Gladiators	Bo3	2023-05-29 16:00 UTC
Team Secret	Quest Esports	Bo3	2023-05-29 19:00 UTC
D1 Hustlers	Entity	Bo3	2023-05-31 13:00 UTC
Tundra Esports	Gaimin Gladiators	Bo3	2023-05-31 16:00 UTC
Team Liquid	Quest Esports	Bo3	2023-05-31 19:00 UTC
Team Secret	Tundra Esports	Bo3	2023-06-02 13:00 UTC
OG	Entity	Bo3	2023-06-02 16:00 UTC
D1 Hustlers	Gaimin Gladiators	Bo3	2023-06-02 19:00 UTC
OG	D1 Hustlers	Bo3	2023-06-04 19:00 UTC

**Table 11:* The potential choices for the Core role.*

Player	Team	Series	Avg.	Std.	Exp.
dyrachyo	Gaimin Gladiators	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	16.13	5.16	38.89
TA2000	Quest Esports	Bo3 + Bo3	16.59	5.50	38.88
医者watson`	Entity	Bo3 + Bo3	14.99	6.58	36.65
skiter	Tundra Esports	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	14.94	4.61	35.84
yuragi	OG	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	14.26	5.26	35.56
m1CKe	Team Liquid	Bo3 + Bo3	15.56	4.21	35.27
33	Tundra Esports	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	14.83	3.99	34.84
Crystallis	Team Secret	Bo3 + Bo3	14.07	5.72	34.07
Shad	D1 Hustlers	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	12.65	5.42	32.56
Davai Lama	D1 Hustlers	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	12.11	4.92	30.83
Ace ♠	Gaimin Gladiators	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	12.80	3.34	29.90
zai	Team Liquid	Bo3 + Bo3	11.75	4.25	27.70
AMMAR_THE_F	Quest Esports	Bo3 + Bo3	11.19	3.35	25.84
DM	OG	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	10.15	2.96	24.23
Tobi	Entity	Bo3 + Bo3	9.82	3.62	23.32

**Table 12:* The potential choices for the Mid role.*

Player	Team	Series	Avg.	Std.	Exp.
Nisha	Team Liquid	Bo3 + Bo3	16.99	4.83	38.76
bzm	OG	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	15.31	5.72	38.29
Quinn	Gaimin Gladiators	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	15.65	5.13	37.90
Armel	Team Secret	Bo3 + Bo3	15.52	5.02	36.23
Stormstormer	Entity	Bo3 + Bo3	15.31	4.73	35.44
Adzantick	D1 Hustlers	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	14.70	4.33	35.22
No!ob™	Quest Esports	Bo3 + Bo3	15.03	4.06	34.27
Nine	Tundra Esports	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	13.83	4.27	33.19
BOOM	Team Secret	Bo3 + Bo3	12.19	3.92	28.45

**Table 13:* The potential choices for the Support role.*

Player	Team	Series	Avg.	Std.	Exp.
Saksa	Tundra Esports	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	15.65	4.73	37.40
Xakoda	D1 Hustlers	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	15.24	4.21	36.14
Insania	Team Liquid	Bo3 + Bo3	15.70	3.92	35.28
yamich	Team Secret	Bo3 + Bo3	14.85	5.10	34.99
Boxi	Team Liquid	Bo3 + Bo3	14.80	3.66	33.14
kaori	Quest Esports	Bo3 + Bo3	14.35	4.20	33.06
Sneyking	Tundra Esports	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	14.13	3.54	32.85
Seleri	Gaimin Gladiators	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	13.96	3.61	32.57
Thiolicor	D1 Hustlers	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	13.02	4.62	32.25
Taiga	OG	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	13.28	4.21	32.21
tOfu	Gaimin Gladiators	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	13.98	2.84	31.62
Kataomi`	Entity	Bo3 + Bo3	13.59	4.28	31.54
Fishman	Entity	Bo3 + Bo3	13.69	4.00	31.45
Chu	OG	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	12.13	4.50	30.23
Puppey	Team Secret	Bo3 + Bo3	12.65	3.70	29.13
OmaR	Quest Esports	Bo3 + Bo3	12.12	3.05	27.41

EEU

**Table 14:* The schedule.*

Team 1	Team 2	Series	Time
9Pandas	Virtus.pro	Bo3	2023-05-30 11:00 UTC
Team Spirit	BetBoom Team	Bo3	2023-05-30 14:00 UTC
9Pandas	HYDRA	Bo3	2023-06-01 11:00 UTC
Team Spirit	One Move	Bo3	2023-06-01 14:00 UTC
Nemiga Gaming	Virtus.pro	Bo3	2023-06-03 11:00 UTC
BetBoom Team	UALEIKUMNIHAO	Bo3	2023-06-03 14:00 UTC
Team Spirit	9Pandas	Bo3	2023-06-03 17:00 UTC
Nemiga Gaming	BetBoom Team	Bo3	2023-06-04 14:00 UTC
Virtus.pro	UALEIKUMNIHAO	Bo3	2023-06-04 17:00 UTC

**Table 15:* The potential choices for the Core role.*

Player	Team	Series	Avg.	Std.	Exp.
Yatoro雨	Team Spirit	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	14.93	5.62	37.37
Pure~	BetBoom Team	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	15.19	5.36	37.32
Kiritych~	Virtus.pro	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	13.97	6.35	36.47
v1olent`	Nemiga Gaming	Bo3 + Bo3	14.74	5.42	34.97
Nightfall	BetBoom Team	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	14.09	4.50	34.13
Palantimos	UALEIKUMNIHAO	Bo3 + Bo3	13.81	5.92	33.72
RAMZES666	9Pandas	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	13.25	5.36	33.70
Kami	HYDRA	Bo3	15.33	4.95	32.75
Collapse	Team Spirit	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	13.24	4.22	32.13
Munkushi~太阳	One Move	Bo3	14.44	5.67	31.22
Vazya	Nemiga Gaming	Bo3 + Bo3	11.99	3.86	27.95
MieRo`	9Pandas	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	11.28	3.56	27.36
Noticed	Virtus.pro	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	11.25	3.48	27.17
Shergarat (Vladimir)	UALEIKUMNIHAO	Bo3 + Bo3	10.65	3.75	25.17
Cloud	HYDRA	Bo3	11.51	4.52	24.92
AfterLife	One Move	Bo3	11.44	4.34	24.67

**Table 16:* The potential choices for the Mid role.*

Player	Team	Series	Avg.	Std.	Exp.
kiyotaka	9Pandas	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	16.23	5.83	40.30
gpk~	BetBoom Team	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	16.11	4.93	38.73
squad1x	Virtus.pro	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	15.80	4.60	37.78
Malr1ne	Nemiga Gaming	Bo3 + Bo3	16.23	4.51	37.09
CHIRA_JUNIOR	UALEIKUMNIHAO	Bo3 + Bo3	14.39	4.74	33.58
Ainkrad	One Move	Bo3	15.42	4.73	32.79
Larl	Team Spirit	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	13.85	3.42	32.29
Worick	HYDRA	Bo3	14.70	3.94	31.07

**Table 17:* The potential choices for the Support role.*

Player	Team	Series	Avg.	Std.	Exp.
Miposhka	Team Spirit	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	14.06	3.81	33.22
TORONTOTOKYO	BetBoom Team	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	13.96	3.68	32.77
Antares	9Pandas	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	13.67	3.60	32.18
Solo	9Pandas	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	13.38	3.83	31.89
Fng	Virtus.pro	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	12.63	3.81	30.38
pantomem	One Move	Bo3	14.24	4.16	30.18
so bad	Nemiga Gaming	Bo3 + Bo3	13.08	3.85	30.11
Save-	BetBoom Team	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	12.67	3.25	29.63
Mary_y	UALEIKUMNIHAO	Bo3 + Bo3	12.73	4.03	29.62
sayuw	Virtus.pro	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	12.28	3.70	29.55
HappyDyurara	HYDRA	Bo3	13.75	3.33	28.89
Mira	Team Spirit	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	12.36	2.87	28.57
Hellscream	Nemiga Gaming	Bo3 + Bo3	12.56	3.25	28.46
Bekzhan	UALEIKUMNIHAO	Bo3 + Bo3	11.83	3.55	27.33
LIL	HYDRA	Bo3	12.48	3.71	26.48
Gilgir	One Move	Bo3	12.37	3.42	26.14

CN

**Table 18:* The schedule.*

Team 1	Team 2	Series	Time
Aster.Aries	Piggy Killer	Bo3	2023-05-30 04:00 UTC
Azure Ray	Team Bright	Bo3	2023-05-30 07:00 UTC
Aster.Aries	Team Bright	Bo3	2023-06-03 04:00 UTC
INVICTUS GAMING	Team Aster	Bo3	2023-06-03 07:00 UTC
PSG.LGD	Xtreme Gaming	Bo3	2023-06-03 10:00 UTC
Azure Ray	Piggy Killer	Bo3	2023-06-04 04:00 UTC
INVICTUS GAMING	Xtreme Gaming	Bo3	2023-06-04 07:00 UTC
PSG.LGD	Team Aster	Bo3	2023-06-04 10:00 UTC

**Table 19:* The potential choices for the Core role.*

Player	Team	Series	Avg.	Std.	Exp.
Ghost	Xtreme Gaming	Bo3 + Bo3	16.18	6.75	39.33
shiro	PSG.LGD	Bo3 + Bo3	16.41	5.52	38.34
Lou	Azure Ray	Bo3 + Bo3	14.93	5.32	35.32
Monet	Team Aster	Bo3 + Bo3	14.51	5.27	34.33
Dust	INVICTUS GAMING	Bo3 + Bo3	13.70	4.47	32.01
flyfly	Piggy Killer	Bo3 + Bo3	13.00	4.74	30.91
Hea2t.	Team Bright	Bo3 + Bo3	12.38	6.02	30.71
chalice	Azure Ray	Bo3 + Bo3	12.27	5.17	29.90
Ulu	Aster.Aries	Bo3 + Bo3	12.35	4.65	29.12
JT-	Xtreme Gaming	Bo3 + Bo3	12.21	4.11	28.66
Ava阿发	Piggy Killer	Bo3 + Bo3	11.49	3.54	26.64
项羽	INVICTUS GAMING	Bo3 + Bo3	11.23	3.97	26.57
Xxs	Team Aster	Bo3 + Bo3	11.25	3.54	26.06
Irving	Team Bright	Bo3 + Bo3	10.86	4.06	25.81
niu	PSG.LGD	Bo3 + Bo3	10.85	3.07	24.80
生死	Aster.Aries	Bo3 + Bo3	9.89	4.46	24.00

**Table 20:* The potential choices for the Mid role.*

Player	Team	Series	Avg.	Std.	Exp.
Somnus	Azure Ray	Bo3 + Bo3	16.05	5.64	37.94
Emo	INVICTUS GAMING	Bo3 + Bo3	16.03	5.69	37.94
Suma1L-	Team Aster	Bo3 + Bo3	15.88	5.36	37.17
Paparazi灬	Xtreme Gaming	Bo3 + Bo3	15.93	4.91	36.93
Xm	Piggy Killer	Bo3 + Bo3	15.12	4.88	35.26
NothingToSay	PSG.LGD	Bo3 + Bo3	14.54	3.83	32.91
phoenix	Team Bright	Bo3 + Bo3	13.67	4.57	32.00
Xwy	Aster.Aries	Bo3 + Bo3	13.13	4.41	30.43

**Table 21:* The potential choices for the Support role.*

Player	Team	Series	Avg.	Std.	Exp.
Kaka	Xtreme Gaming	Bo3 + Bo3	14.73	4.95	34.57
皮球	Team Aster	Bo3 + Bo3	15.01	3.52	33.57
planet	PSG.LGD	Bo3 + Bo3	14.83	3.77	33.43
Pyw	INVICTUS GAMING	Bo3 + Bo3	14.66	3.18	32.61
Dy	Xtreme Gaming	Bo3 + Bo3	13.91	3.93	31.87
Mercy	Piggy Killer	Bo3 + Bo3	14.02	3.53	31.58
天命	Azure Ray	Bo3 + Bo3	14.02	3.37	31.51
imitator	Team Bright	Bo3 + Bo3	13.57	3.93	31.17
WhyouSm1Le	PSG.LGD	Bo3 + Bo3	13.70	3.31	30.76
qyqx	INVICTUS GAMING	Bo3 + Bo3	13.06	4.11	30.37
fy	Azure Ray	Bo3 + Bo3	13.29	3.48	30.19
Frisk	Piggy Killer	Bo3 + Bo3	12.74	3.66	29.27
Redpanda	Aster.Aries	Bo3 + Bo3	12.33	3.42	27.89
BoBoKa	Team Aster	Bo3 + Bo3	12.00	3.66	27.67
TK	Aster.Aries	Bo3 + Bo3	11.45	3.51	26.19
Undyne_	Team Bright	Bo3 + Bo3	10.95	2.75	24.73

SEA

**Table 22:* The schedule.*

Team 1	Team 2	Series	Time
BLEED	Blacklist Rivalry	Bo3	2023-05-29 08:00 UTC
Team SMG	Xerxia	Bo3	2023-05-29 11:00 UTC
Team SMG	Execration	Bo3	2023-05-31 05:00 UTC
BOOM Esports	Xerxia	Bo3	2023-05-31 08:00 UTC
BLEED	Army Geniuses Mansion	Bo3	2023-05-31 11:00 UTC
BLEED	Xerxia	Bo3	2023-06-02 05:00 UTC
BOOM Esports	Team SMG	Bo3	2023-06-02 08:00 UTC
Execration	Talon	Bo3	2023-06-02 11:00 UTC
Team SMG	Blacklist Rivalry	Bo3	2023-06-05 05:00 UTC

**Table 23:* The potential choices for the Core role.*

Player	Team	Series	Avg.	Std.	Exp.
Natsumi	BOOM Esports	Bo3 + Bo3	18.42	5.21	42.22
JACKKY	BLEED	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	16.86	6.03	41.81
Raven^	Blacklist Rivalry	Bo3 + Bo3	16.24	6.06	38.77
Palos	Execration	Bo3 + Bo3	14.39	6.59	35.60
CDR	Team SMG	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	13.10	5.76	35.00
MidOne	Team SMG	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	12.22	6.69	34.65
23	Talon	Bo3	16.00	6.01	34.44
YoungGod	Xerxia	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	14.01	4.70	34.07
在你的梦里丶	Army Geniuses Mansion	Bo3	15.23	7.00	33.42
iceiceice	BLEED	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	12.58	5.40	32.35
Jabz	Talon	Bo3	14.68	5.73	31.69
BossKu^	Blacklist Rivalry	Bo3 + Bo3	12.91	4.27	30.26
Tino	Execration	Bo3 + Bo3	12.61	4.78	30.17
Masaros	Team SMG	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	10.35	4.57	27.60
Fbz	BOOM Esports	Bo3 + Bo3	12.06	3.03	27.24
Rupido	Xerxia	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	10.75	4.02	26.91
kpii	Blacklist Rivalry	Bo3 + Bo3	11.31	3.96	26.71
db-	Army Geniuses Mansion	Bo3	11.30	5.03	24.73

**Table 24:* The potential choices for the Mid role.*

Player	Team	Series	Avg.	Std.	Exp.
Yopaj-	BOOM Esports	Bo3 + Bo3	17.19	4.43	38.96
JG	Xerxia	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	15.01	5.63	37.59
Mikoto	Talon	Bo3	16.78	4.77	35.51
Karl	Blacklist Rivalry	Bo3 + Bo3	15.42	4.49	35.50
Kordan	BLEED	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	14.78	4.17	35.17
Yowe	Army Geniuses Mansion	Bo3	15.94	6.09	34.46
Bob	Execration	Bo3 + Bo3	14.15	5.61	34.11

**Table 25:* The potential choices for the Support role.*

Player	Team	Series	Avg.	Std.	Exp.
bombi	Xerxia	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	16.20	7.15	42.01
Carlo	Execration	Bo3 + Bo3	16.65	4.46	37.92
Jaunuel	Team SMG	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	15.16	4.55	37.33
DuBu	BLEED	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	15.36	4.38	36.60
DJ	BLEED	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	14.61	4.91	35.76
xNova	BOOM Esports	Bo3 + Bo3	15.24	3.51	34.09
Varizh	Army Geniuses Mansion	Bo3	15.45	4.74	32.91
TIMS	Blacklist Rivalry	Bo3 + Bo3	13.89	3.61	31.52
- 米克 -	Team SMG	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	12.33	3.76	30.41
Oli~	Talon	Bo3	14.33	3.94	30.25
Shanks	Execration	Bo3 + Bo3	12.94	3.96	29.97
Jaja	Xerxia	Bo3 + Bo3 + Bo3	12.32	3.75	29.68
Xepher	BOOM Esports	Bo3 + Bo3	12.18	2.35	26.79
Q	Talon	Bo3	11.83	4.01	25.29
Jhocam	Army Geniuses Mansion	Bo3	11.31	4.51	24.53

Notes

• The data has been acquired from OpenDota and datdota.
• The numbers here are based on each player's 50 most recent tier 1 and 2 pro matches.
• Each match has been exponentially weighted such that the most recent matches have the biggest impact.

Glossary

• Avg.: Average.
• Std.: Standard deviation.
• Exp.: Expectation / expected value.
• Bas. Exp.: Baseline expectation, i.e. the expectation if only the confirmed series are played.
• Pot. Exp.: Potential expectation, i.e. the expectation if all potential series are played.
• (BoX): Denotes series that could potentially be played depending on the outcome of earlier series.

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