Thanks. The scars are still there, but things are getting better.

The best thing to come out of my dad’s death was me becoming closer to his sisters. They’re mostly lovely. Like, they have blind spots, but they’re minor and sometimes adorable. (Example: one of them kept talking about her daughter and her daughter’s roommate. After a couple months of this, I asked directly “are they dating?” Yes, yes they were. They’re now married. My aunt was just awkward about saying her daughter was dating a woman because she lived through times when that could have been a fight, and I think it was habit.)

I get those, too! I end up remembering I have a master’s degree. I tell high school to pound sand, then I go off flying or something fun.

My brother was adopted and my grandmother was similarly biased against him, asking my mom if we got any money from the state for taking care of him. Like, no, he’s her son! There wasn’t even the excuse of racism–my brother is blond-haired and blue-eyed. He just wasn’t her blood.

Eventually she started liking him as dementia kicked in and she forget his origin. Still messed him up.

I’m glad your nephew didn’t have to deal with her for all that long, though it sounds like it was already long enough.

Mom always thought she was a good person and not racist. The cracks started to show when she’d express options on Facebook, like that sure, black people go to jail for much longer that white people for the same crimes, but it’s their fault for being criminals.

Lots of little things like that. I started therapy in my late 20s for anger management. A couple months in, my parents and brother came from out of state to visit. It was a Bad Time. My mom and brother kept needling me constantly. They mocked my opinions. They told me I was wrong about local facts. They asked a local for directions then mocked him for having a Boston accent. In Boston.

The several-day visit ended with me driving them back to their hotel room and my mom telling me the whole trip had been a waste, we were probably the sort of family that should only see each other at funerals, preferably hers.

Poor dad was hard of hearing, so missed a lot of what was said. He apologized for any part he played in it.

A few years later in December 2020, my mom brought COVID home from what she described as a mandatory work Christmas breakfast potluck. My dad caught it from her and spent a month in hospital. I don’t know how mandatory that potluck could have been, tbh–she retired a few months later after my dad died. She was all shocked Pikachu that my dad, who was known to be immunocompromised, could die from COVID.

She also lamented to me, the week before he died, that dating as a widow sucks. Either you date too soon and everyone thinks it’s inappropriate OR you don’t and everyone thinks you’re sad. (Not saying she shouldn’t have thought ahead to her widowhood, but don’t say these things to your kid.)

Anyways, she sucks and is blocked on my phone. She could email if she cared. My dad was the Good Parent and he had his warts, but he at least tried to relate to me and explain things instead of just assuming I could read minds.

De minimus exemption is still dead, right?

They might get auto-renewed for another 4 weeks, unless someone’s requested the book (which usually disables auto-renewal).

Some of those titles may have been requested from other libraries in the same library system. My library limits me to, say, 20 books. But I can request another 20 from Second Library one town over, and another 15 from Third Library two towns over. The books all get sent to My Library and placed on the hold shelf for me, and checked out at My Library. Each library has their own lending policy.

Yeah, it’s messed up. Grumble grumble rude butthead that would check out 80+ DVDs at a time and yell at you if you didn’t check in his returns fast enough (so he could max out his checkouts again).

Yeah. I had to carefully word my dad’s obituary to not gender me–I wasn’t out yet, but it would have added more pain to the event if I’d been misgendered in it. Luckily, I have a sibling, so I able to rework the first draft from “survived by his son ___ and daughter ___” to be “survived by his children __ and __”.

Anyways, if I had a kid I think I’d just go by my name, or any nickname they came up with. I called my binary parents by their names so it doesn’t feel weird to me.

Addition through subtraction 😢

I think lots of libraries do that. It’s awesome! (Source: my last 3 libraries in New England did that.)

Be sure to return the pass on time, though. You might screw up someone else’s trip to the museum if you return it late :( (that’s also why they tend to have higher late fees)

Lemmy, Sharkey, and YouTube for me. I’m on Facebook, but less than an hour a week. A friend posts a weekly “how’s everyone doing?” post and I usually comment on that.

Oof, and back then that would mean losing the whole roll of film, right? Screw that.

You think folks will try and pull a Corporal Klinger?

(Obligatory cross dressing and being trans aren’t the same, but it’s a 50 year old reference)

Yep, but I’d want to know the statistics for the general population vs fathers of autistics before I draw any conclusions. A ton of fathers of my generation (millennials) smoked.

In theory once you stay at a dosage of metformin for long enough the unfortunate side effects go away. In practice it’s been a year and I still can’t trust a fart.

It’s a type of folk dance popular in New England. Think line or square dancing, with the moves called by a caller.

Edit: it’s been described to me as a couples dance where you spend most of your time dancing with people other than your partner.

Just go to a contra or square dance and meet folk. They’re not class-locked.

I’d

1. replace my laundry dryer,
2. give each of my 2 favorite niephews a $3000 investment for when they graduate high school (tbh, probably more for the older niephew because he’s 10 years closer to graduating, so has less time to accrue interest), and
3. give the rest to the student-run food pantry at my college

Tbh, I’m financially doing ok.

Sadly, Florida doesn’t have the right geology for mines.

Partner was all “hey, you have too much stuff in your purse/backpack” so we sat down and sorted my backpack items into

• Need at work (this pile turned out to be empty, since anything I need at work I might need on a hike)
• Need when hiking
• Both

And now my backpack just has “both” in it. It’s a tad lighter. I’m still worried I’ll need something and not have it because anxiety.

I’m making up two “hiking” bags with the same items and we’ll keep one in each of our cars, so I can grab it and add it to my backpack as needed.

I’m still not confident this will solve any problem I had, I was OK with the weight of my backpack before.