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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 23rd, 2023

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  • I would move both of your pothos. I’d slide the one over the oven closer to the corner and find a way to allow the vines (limbs?) of it to ‘climb’ along the wall above your sink. I would also consider a way to have the other ‘side’ of it branch out between the rafters. (Maybe not screws for the rafters, but perhaps something fun like vintage clamps?) Same for the other pothos, move it over so more of the green is exposed on the wall above that bigger window.
    Pick up a small bit of stained glass art and stick it in the window, too.
    Mess up the design aesthetic some - Get an earth-tone placemat and a craft-y looking bowl and fill it with fruit or if you’re not a fruit person, something pretty and useful enough that it won’t get dust covered. (Grab and go snacks in bright packages?)
    I’d reconsider the lights above the cooktop. Maybe find ones that are a bit more decorative, or certainly ones that aren’t just black.
    Put a cork board or a chalk board over the cabinet to the left of the oven, and keep colored post-its or chalk handy.
    Maybe replace the handles on your cabinets with something brightly colored or with a bit more character/individual craftsmanship.

    I guess the idea behind most of what I’m suggesting is to make it look lived in, and to give it some warm tones/break up the stark whiteness of it. The individual suggestions probably aren’t as important as the overall idea.



  • What I’m seeing through your comments here is that your kid trusts you enough to get you into the weeds with them on this problem, has a good enough sense of judgement not to want to just fudge their name to follow the path of least resistance (don’t want to do election fraud in a technical, though not real, sense), and you all have thought through it all and realized it’s a battle not worth having, given your local and statewide political makeup as well as the stress it would cause your kid. It seems like your kid is comfortable with you, self-aware, and capable of making the sorts of pragmatic decisions that many adults cannot make.
    Damn. Do you mind asking your kid what it feels like to have good parents that are preparing them to tackle life’s challenges?

    Presented kind of as a joke, but good job. Seriously.




  • In retrospect I think my comment sounds like I’m just excusing being sort of crappy if you’re humble about it.
    I wish I’d included the sentiment that we’re all trying the best we can — because being a good partner should be the goal for any relationship.

    Even though I’m currently only with my wife, I’m right there with you. I don’t want to add anyone to the mix unless their addition is very carefully considered.
    I speak better in metaphor sometimes: It’s kind of like physics, almost. Imagine that we’re touching everyone in our life. If we allow someone to connect to us, they are going to impart their own momentum and direction. That is going to ripple through every connection we have, even if we aren’t able to measure or observe it. So we better make sure they don’t hit us so hard that pieces break apart or get damaged in the process.


  • If you’re somewhere in the world that has a TJ Maxx/TK Maxx or similar, go buy their random products that are on sale. Not all are winners, but if you change up your products and just experiment, you’ll find something you like.

    I have long wavy hair, and right now I’m on a Shea Moisture curl and shine kick, but before then it was the Verb Ghost line of products for a long time.
    Don’t sleep on after shower crap, either. My hair has been really dry lately, so I’ve been using a leave in conditioner by Shea, too (now discontinued, sadly). In the rotation is also the Verb Ghost Oil, and some random peptide leave in. JVN (Johnathon Van Ness) also has some excellent products, but we haven’t found them on sale in awhile.

    I don’t use all the after shower products at once, but each has their use. Once you get a feel for what you’re going for, it’s like having a shelf full of tools.
    And if you got a beard, well… use something and tell me if you figure out what works, because I still can’t figure that out. My hair looks great and my beard looks like it got lost in the desert.


  • That sucks, man.

    I’ve been some stripe or other of non-monogamous for most of my adult life, and those types of relationships are often the ones that people experience first when they dip their toes in.
    It’s honestly kind of maddening, because beyond making it seem like everyone who is poly/nm/whatever are all horny sociopaths (because almost everyone has something like that as a first story), it’s harmful. It’s physically and emotionally unsafe for the person who gets shafted. It treats people like they’re disposable and frankly, it’s selfish, insecure, and sometimes malevolent bullshit dressed up as a hippy-dippy love-fest.

    It’s really fucking hard to be ethically nonmonogamous, and I wish people would stop pretending they knew what they were doing. No one knows, and it’s the faked confidence that gets so many people in trouble. People just trust someone to take care of them, and then the other person fails because they’re human, and humans fail. And yet… I can’t imagine not being this way, for some dumb fucking reason.


  • Toxic polyamory situation. A partner I lived with and was once very in love with fell away when she got interested in someone new. It was messy and shitty. I wound up dating someone new, who I had a great relationship with, and it was very physical. But I still lived in a 2 bedroom apartment with my ex.

    My ex was a bit weird. She sort of viewed relationships as whatever things with no boundaries. Folks just do whatever they want in the moment and there’s no fidelity according to her. (Things I learned after I fell in love with her. Woof.) She also had intoned a few times that my new partner was a slut, which was sort of funny, given that my new partner had a pretty strong moral code.

    My ex got a little less interested in her new guy, and tried to seduce me one night. And I rejected her. We had officially ended things, and I did not want to revisit that.
    My ex sneered at me. “Fine. I hope you’re happy with [New Partner], and I hope [NP] is happy with you and your… magical penis!

    She practically spat that out at me, and… yeah. It was as funny then as it is now.

    And for the record, it’s not magical. I just like to put top hats and little capes on it sometimes.




  • “I don’t really want to look at my body any more,” he said, noting it was too painful to see photos from the hospital. “Every time I see myself, I have flashbacks. And every time I see cops, I think, is he after me? And I know in my head it’s not true, but it just comes up.” He said he questions whether he could’ve done something differently. “I have to keep telling myself … I didn’t deserve this.”
    He added: “I just want the Department of Justice to take care of them and fix what they say they’re going to fix … I’m not trying to get attention, I just want my story to be heard because I hurt.”

    Oof.