I Need This - Blog Posts

Have you written a book? I need a book from this.

Emergency cleaning: Unfuck your whole house in the shortest time possible

So, your landlord/parents/home inspector/favorite movie star is dropping by, and your place is a disaster. You don’t have much time to clean it up. You’re in emergency mode. Let’s get started.

Don’t panic. Panic leads to fear, fear leads to procrastination, procrastination leads to the dark side. You can do this, but you have to stay calm.

Unlike maintenance cleaning, we’re not looking to completely unfuck one space at a time. Instead, we want to decrease the overall mess in stages, spread evenly across the whole area that we’re concerned about. If you think your home is at Level 10 filth, we want to bring the whole thing down to a Level 9, and then down from there. One really clean spot in an otherwise messy home is not going to be helpful here.

Get prepared. You’ll want to shut the computer down (or turn the modem off if you need your computer to play music). Trust me. Get your music going. Gather up trash bags, your vacuum and mop, some rags or paper towel, sponges, and other cleaning supplies. Use what you have on hand. Don’t get distracted running to the store and spending an hour browsing cleaning supplies. A multi-purpose cleaning concentrate or a jug of vinegar will be just fine.

Breaks are very important. Depending on your time constraints, work in 20/10s (20 minutes working, 10-minute break) or 45/15s. But take breaks because otherwise you’re marathoning, and marathon cleaning is no one’s friend. Keep hydrated, don’t forget to eat, and check in with yourself frequently to make sure you’re physically doing OK.

Make your bed. This will be your home base if you get overwhelmed or need somewhere clear to take a break.

Start with the garbage. Going from room to room, throw out anything that is obvious trash. Once you fill a bag, take it out. Repeat as many times as necessary.

Move on to dishes. Gather the dishes from all over your house and bring them to the kitchen. If you can, start them soaking in a sink of hot, soapy water or start loading the dishwasher. After the dishes are all in one place, spend one 20/10 getting started getting them under control.

Now it’s time for your flat surfaces. Countertops, tables, dresser tops, etc. Clear them off and wipe them down. Don’t get distracted in too much sorting and organizing. We’re in crisis mode here. There will be time to get in-depth once this is all done. The same applies to cabinets and closets. Unless you have reason to believe people will be opening closed doors, leave these alone for now.

Attack the floordrobe and shoe pile. Get your clothes either put away or in the hamper. Start a load of laundry if you need to, but keep in mind that laundry and dishes have three steps: wash, dry, and put it away, goddammit!

Get random stuff up off the floors. If something is trash-worthy, throw it away now rather than just move it around a bunch of times. Otherwise, put stuff where it belongs.

Take another 20/10 or 45/15 to catch up on more dishes, if needed.

Head into the bathroom. Pour some cleaner in the toilet bowl, fill the sink with hot water and cleaner, and either spray the tub and shower with cleaner, or fill the tub up with some hot water and add cleaner and let it soak. Put everything away that’s out and shouldn’t be, clean the mirror, counters, and toilet seat. Sweep or dry mop the floor. Wipe down the sink and tub/shower, and give the toilet bowl a scrub. Mop the floor.

Sweep and mop the kitchen floor.

Vacuum everything you can, and sweep everything you can’t.

Walk outside of your house (don’t lock yourself out, please). Walk back in and see what catches your eye first. Go and deal with that.

If you’re being inspected or your landlord is coming in for repairs, spend time on whatever area they’ll be focusing on.

Give the whole place one more once-over and pay attention to anything you’ve missed so far.

It’s an old trick, but if your place is a little funky-smelling, put a pan of water on the stove on low heat and add some citrus or cinnamon or vanilla. Don’t leave it unattended or forget about it.

Take a shower, put on something clean, and eat something.

You can do this. It’s overwhelming, yes, but it is not impossible. You just need to do it. You have a list. You have directions. You have a whole bunch of Internet strangers who have been there before and who are cheering you on. You can do this, but you need to get started.

Why are you still here? GO. START. NOW.

pidge,,, I have no clue if the prompt post you reblogged was supposed to be for suggestions,,, but the one about character A moving around character B and trying to turn the light of mid cuddle is just,, so javid. Javid who will do ANYTHING to prevent disturbing the other, no matter how urgent a task is,, (the 2am delirium is setting in)

(yes they were indeed!! and if anyone else would like to put something in the suggestion box you can do so here

thank you jasper for choosing the prompt i wanted to do the most)

"Jack," Davey murmurs into the comforter, "what are you doing?"

"Nothing," Jack whispers, "go back to sleep."

Davey makes a childish little hum in the back of his throat, clearly very upset about things he doesn't currently know about, but settles further into the cradle of Jack's arms with a soft sigh.

Jack breathes slowly, his whole body boiling over with Davey - Davey's warmth, Davey's weight, Davey... He's never going to get used to holding him, just... Touching him. Being allowed to do that. It'd taken him at least a week into being 'official' - three and a half weeks from their very first date and two months, three weeks and four days from first trying to work up the nerve (but who's counting) - to even feel like he really was allowed. Like Davey wasn't just waiting for him to reach out only to jump away from him and ask what the hell he was doing, as if he might've somehow misread all the flirtatious comments and obvious dates and Davey actually, literally telling him, "I want to be your boyfriend," word for word.

It'd honestly taken Davey pointing it out to him - trying very hard to be polite and chaste about it and failing miserably, because Davey doesn't like being denied, as much as he might pretend otherwise - for Jack to even realize, oh, yes, he can touch his boyfriend if he wants - and he has to think that Davey might regret giving him that realization, because those words went deep, deep into his chest, into something aching and wanting that he'd kept hidden away for years, and activated what Crutchie accurately calls his 'grab drive'; and now Jack can't turn it off.

It goes something like this: Davey will be making breakfast, still looking perfectly sleep-rumpled from the night before in nothing but Jack's sweater and a pair of long pyjama pants that, while Jack maintains are dorky as hell, make him look so heartwrenchingly soft. His hair will still be a mess of brush-stroke curls, not being bothered to've found a brush yet, and his eyes will still have just a bit of a sheen to them as he pulls himself into wakefulness, and he'll be punching the spatula into the frying pan in tiny jolts of movement, his limbs still sleep-weak and numb in some places. And then Jack, without even realizing, will be right behind him, arms around his waist and squeezing - not too hard - just to know that yes, Davey is real. He'll lean up on his tiptoes and prop his head on Davey's shoulder, nudging at the bare skin of his neck until Davey laughs once - a soft and sleepy sound - and turns himself into Jack's weight, flopping over him like a blanket, surrendering the spatula to Jack's more experienced hands (bless Davey's cooking skills, but the man is not patient enough for scramble). Grab drive.

There's more, of course - Davey's doing his 'tism pacing' (his words, not Jacks), wandering back and forth in the fog of overthinking? Jack's pulling him gently into his lap, letting him giggle and sigh and rest against Jack's shoulder as he works. Grab drive. Davey's reading on the couch, flat on his back, his shirt riding over the sharp jut of his hipbone, curls tumbling over the cushions? Jack's suddenly blanketing him, snuffling at Davey's neck, as Davey props his book against Jack's head, resting his wrists and rubbing little circles into Jack's scalp. Grab drive. Davey brushes his fingertips against Jack's wrists, slowly working his thumbs into the sore muscles? Jack's tipping his forehead into Davey's chest, nuzzling his forehead against the crest of his collarbone like he might fuse them at the marrow, and humming happily as Davey works out the kinks in his wrists and chides him for not warming up properly. Grab drive.

It's not his fault - mostly. If anything, Davey's the one who made him realize how very touch-starved he'd been all his life, denying himself hugs and head-pats and cheek-kisses from the time he was a child, because he'd done nothing to deserve them. Touch was earned, in Jack's experience, whether it was a soft stroke of his hair or a good, hard smack. It wasn't right to just expect someone to want you. It was rude, annoying, childish, bratty-

And then Davey showed up and gave him everything, without question - and Jack hadn't looked back since. He takes every touch Davey'll give him and does it with a smile - and he'd hope he gave back as well as he got.

Except - selfishly, perhaps - he does wish Davey might roll off his arm just a bit.

He should've said something, yes, but 'such is the hubris of man' or whatever else Davey might say if he were awake. It's Jack's fault, really, and he can't even bring himself to be that embarrassed about it. Davey likes to read himself to sleep most nights, which is fine, because Jack likes to tip his head onto Davey's shoulder while he scrolls aimlessly on his phone, so they can both trade memes or funny passages or whatever else - but this time, Jack had gotten just a tiny, tiny bit distracted. They were in the same position they are now, therabouts, Davey on his side with his book resting on the pillow and Jack hugging his face into Davey's chest like a koala (grab drive, baby) - and with every chapter Davey passed, he seeped further and further into the pillows, so enraptured in Alys Conran that he didn't even notice he was falling asleep. Jack did, though, of course, because Jack notices everything about Davey - particularly the way he fell asleep with his whole face nuzzled inside the pages, soft paper tickling his nose as he snuffles and hums. Usually, Jack's able to grab him right before he dozes off, nudge his way over Davey's long waist and click off his reading light without Davey so much as noticing, too caught up in the limbo of wake and sleep. But this was an image Jack had needed to just stare at for a bit, hold it in his hands, slip it into a scrapbook and doodle over it in glitter-pink gel pen, and by the time it'd even occurred to him to turn off the lamp, Davey was out like a light (ha-ha, irony) and sleeping like a rock on Jack's arm.

He tries to peel his left arm away from where it curls around Davey's shoulders, to stretch his joints until he can reach the switch, but no luck. He can almost hear Crutchie mocking him in the back of his tired mind-

("Alas, another victim of Jack Kelly's wee little nerd arms."

"You play DnD, motherfucker, don't start-"

"And I fuck at it, Cowboy, you wish you were me!")

Damn Crutchie and his noodle limbs - Jack can turn off a light. He shifts forward a little, tries to turn Davey just enough to let him reach over him - and Davey makes a noise like a baby rhino, shoving his weight indignantly against Jack's own.

"Come on, Jack, I'm tired..." He whines petulantly.

"I know, baby," Jack says soothingly, pitching his voice down to where he knows Davey's weak for it. "S'okay, go back to sleep."

"M'trying..." Davey mutters. "What're you doing?"

"Cheating on you. Go back to sleep."

"Oh?" Davey hums. "With who?"

"Hank Green. Go to sleep."

"Mm, that's so weird..." He can feel Davey smirking against his temple, which means Davey's at the very least awake enough to mock him - shit. "Hank never mentioned you."

"Oh? Are we on a first name basis with Hank now?"

"Yup," Davey nods, slow and sleepy, "we get brunch, like, every Sunday. Never mentioned you."

Jack laughs quietly, because the day Davey wakes up before noon on a Sunday is the day the world ends.

"Well, we just have that kind of relationship, y'know? We don't need to go bragging about it, we have that kind of..." He yawns into Davey's shirt, and feels Davey's soft chuff of laughter through his chest. "Natural intimacy."

Davey hums, stretching from his spine to his toes like a cat.

"I guess we'll have to share."

"Tragedy." Jack smirks. "Go to sleep."

"I can't if you're bothering me," Davey scoffs. Jack winces - if Davey can manage a word with three or more consecutive syllables, he has to be awake now. "What's going..."

Jack looks up in time to see Davey blinking awake, star-blue eyes still glossy with sleep. He frowns, penny-wide pupils shrinking at the sudden light - it's a battle for Jack not to clutch his chest and aw at the sight - and shakes his nose out of his book, twitching like a rabbit.

"Did I read-sleep again?" He asks, and Jack can't help his soft, confirming laugh. Davey giggles with him, glancing over his shoulder. "Did I leave the light on?"

"Yeaahhh," Jack winces. "I was gonna get it."

"You...?" Davey turns back to him, his frown turning soft at the edges as a smile toys at his lips. "Jack, is that seriously it? You just wanted to turn the light off?"

Jack laughs indignantly, shoving his palm against Davey's shoulder.

"You try moving when there's a six foot loser on your arm!"

"Five-nine, Jack, you're just little." Davey scoffs. "And you could've just woken me up."

Jack stuffs his face into the pillows and grumbles, glaring at his horrible, lovely boyfriend from over the fabric. He's going for cute, maybe a little 'so weird Davey's into it' if he's lucky, but Davey only stares at him in delight, eyes wide and calculating.

"Oh, Jack," he grins, his voice gilded with a teasing edge, "is that what that was? You didn't want to wake me!"

"I-!" Jack splutters, his face going warm. "You - you were sleeping, I didn't-!"

"Jackie..." Davey drawls, the just-barely-awake rasp in his voice doing very terrible things to Jack's mind. "You didn't want to wake me..."

"Stop it. That's your I'm right voice, and you haven't even proven anything-"

"You wanted boyfriend points," Davey snickers, "you wanted a good grade in cuddling, something that is both possible to achieve and-"

"Don't fucking Tumblr me, you menace."

Davey rolls his eyes, leaning over to drop his crumpled book on the bedside table, and hovers his hand over the switch with a teasing look.

"Can I turn this off, or will I be undermining your valiant efforts?"

"Mm, keep talkin' dirty to me, babe."

"Menace." Davey scoffs as he flicks off the light. They shuffle back to each other - Davey has a habit of pushing and shoving at his bedding, Jack included, until it's suitably comfortable for him - the two of them bathing in darkness, warmth and the whispers of each other's breath, already wrapped in soft slumber. Jack squeezes his waist with a contented sigh, one arm laid between them, the other pressed, palm flat, to the small of his back.

Yes. Very real. Good to know.

"Goodnight, Jackie."

"G'night, Davey."

WHAT IS THIS CAKE?

i went to my friend birthday party

how the hell did you get this like wtf

New Transformers: One Poster

Need a site that tells me the amount of screen time each actor has in a movie so when I become attached to a new actor and start desperately scouring their filmography, I do not waste my money or hours of my time only to find out they only have a three minute cameo or something or die before we're even midway through