This misses the point; if we cannot alter the past or see the future, we must recognize that the now is what we can influence.

My first thought when I see someone with a ton of tattoos is “Fuck that looks terrible/painful/expensive.”

It’s only after that I try to appreciate them as a personal choice and artistic thing.

That said, I do want one tattoo, from the show Fringe, episode White Tulip. Just haven’t made it a priority at all.

Spiritualists conducting scam seances in 1850s Boston, the Fox sisters. Their scam was done by “knocking noises” that were generated by the sisters cracking joints or even just tapping on the table or floor.

The circles they traveled in included Quakers, suffragettes, high society, and financiers. (Some of their early seances centered on stock market predictions, and made them a good deal of money.)

I just love that intersection of societies coming together to be scammed by some pretty bright women, in a really interesting time in our national history. Strict religious beliefs in a marriage with new age free thought.

I have kind of wanted to write a book centered on that time but never found a good hook.

My grandmother was an eventual product of that generation in Boston. Very equal rights for women while in a weird religious sect, Christian Science, founded by feminist Mary Baker Eddy.

That was actually Flavor-Aid, a knock-off. The meme stuck anyway.

Fuck the bullies, learn to cook the few basic foods you love, and see if the love of cooking grabs you.

Or don’t, I am certainly not trying to bully you into doing something you dread. I just get a ton of satisfaction from trying new things now that I am older and give less fucks.

I wish I snapped pics of the calzones I made yesterday. They weren’t perfect but tasty and my wife loved em.

I saw it in the theater and loved it then. Still do.

Maybe he was slurring ‘train engineer’.

This should’ve been pipes and pipeweed.

Warrior.

I seem to want to protect and defend things. Plus I am big and strong.

I’m a little bit rogue though, as I tend to overlook rules if it gets the job done.

And mage? I am bright but terrible at book learning and arcane sigils.

My wife and I started Widow’s Bay and we are loving it. She typically doesn’t like horror and it is too much horror for her.

But the humor softens it a little, and she enjoys horror a bit more since we got married as she just feels safer. (And yes that warms my heart.)

LuxeBidet is the model I got.

Totally entry level, hooks up to the water supply to the toilet tank. No heat or special features, stupid easy to install. Price around $50.

To my mind, no need to go more expensive until you know more what you might want.

I do have an aunt and uncle who got an expensive toilet bidet unit with heated seat and all the features… after having tried my bidet while visiting.

Plus with the cheap unit you get the bonus of hearing the startled yelps of your uninitiated guests as cold water hits their asshole for the first time.

I am identifying obstacles to making this clinic able to operate without being overrun by lawsuits.

I am not at all opposed to workarounds - it’s why I am pointing out the obstacles. We need to update laws so that minors have bodily autonomy.

In my opinion, that’s the legal solution. It doesn’t mean there aren’t other ways to make it work that Mamdani might embrace, because as a mayor he cannot enact that kind of legislation in the first place.

There was a terrible standup bit that I loved. I believe it was from An Evening at the Improv.

Guy is doing a bad private eye shtick: “Either this man was stabbed to death with a spoon, or his entire body is breaking out in little smiles.”

I have searched online for the clip for literally over a decade, and I know this because I searched once a few years ago and found… myself asking the exact same question on a forum a decade earlier.

The unfortunate reality is that not having that policy would mean 80% of their funding would go to legal defense for lawsuits from aggrieved right wing parents who have outside funding for their suits.

Until the laws state clearly that minors can make their own medical decisions independent of their parents, this is the correct decision. And even in that case this clinic would still be under attack.

Reality still sucks, and we still need to keep trying to make it better. Mamdani is a ray of hope, but he isn’t in and of himself hope incarnate, nor is he a perfect ray of light.

He’s just human. So are we. He’s trying to make things better, and so can we.

I watched video about it (from the Astrum channel I believe) and they speculated it (or any of the six related Russian spy satellites) might be downloading a large packet at the nearby GPS frequency so it wouldn’t be spotted.

That’s just in addition to assuming it is intended to block the GPS range entirely.

Man, I am so glad my eye doctor told me it wasn’t worth it rather than just taking the money!

The answer is that Lasik isn’t a cure-all.

I had the same experience. My vision was getting kinda bad and I wanted Lasik. I went to an eye doctor, and while I am farsighted in the left eye, the right is 20/20.

Lasik would fix the farsightedness, but having that in one eye is an asset for driving. So now I have driving glasses and won’t worry about Lasik.

Aww, thanks!

Just to number 3, I wouldn’t read anything more into that than he wanted to say it.

Sometimes you just say something awkwardly or forget you’d already said it, but wanted to be sure you did.

He wants to stay in touch. Maybe get his email so you can keep chatting.

And it could be that he is hoping for more. That’s the cost of pursuing friendships. Sometimes people want different things. It is what it is. The search for human connection doesn’t have a predefined conclusion.

Better Call Sol.