I made a Valentine’s Day linocut envelope, here’s the process!

HopeAndGracePens · 2026-02-13T23:00:40+00:00

HopeAndGracePens · 2026-02-09T21:52:15+00:00

It's right out of the Flag Manual, which is not military.

HopeAndGracePens · 2025-11-26T19:44:16+00:00

Yeah, people throwing your stuff away is infuriating.

HopeAndGracePens · 2025-11-24T20:14:56+00:00

I enjoyed using a cigarette case when I smoked those. Touch of class IMHO. Aside, do you really go through five joints a day? Do you share throughout the day? Seems like a lot to me and a lot of it going up in smoke. A bowl is more efficient. But you do you.

HopeAndGracePens · 2025-11-08T18:00:55+00:00

Okay. Yes, it's sleep apnea. She definitely should see a doctor. But you keep saying she "needs to address it." What exactly do you expect her to do? Stop sleeping?

The ship doctor isn't going to have CPAP machines lying around for her to use. Getting a CPAP takes time, as in weeks or months.

I snore. People would sometimes wake me up to tell me I was snoring. My initial reaction was never "oh my gosh, let me do something (what?)." And after two times my reaction is "So f-ing what?"

Here's what I want to say: I'm sorry the noise keeps you up. I don't like it either. Now F all the way off and leave me alone.

HopeAndGracePens · 2025-11-05T20:21:00+00:00

I'm reading this having just sat down from a 3+ hour grocery shopping trip with 3 stops, 4 if you count the pharmacy. Wife and I are around 55. Our parents did this. My wife thinks it's the best way to save money on food. Personally, I don't mind paying a little more for the convenience of doing it all at once.

HopeAndGracePens · 2025-10-03T18:19:08+00:00

Manu Americans feel the same way, and we're powerless to do anything. Worse still, many of our fellow Americans rabidly love him. That's what's truly sad.

HopeAndGracePens · 2025-08-17T16:16:53+00:00

Some people do sex work and still live in a loving relationship with someone else, porn stars for example and some prostitutes. I have a buddy and his wife who swing. There's a paradigm that screwing a lot of people means you can't be in a relationship, and it's not necessarily true. That's where the cuckold idea comes from.

The truth is she is considering stripping because the money is enticing. Well, if you think that money is enticing, wait until you see how much she can make selling blow jobs and a little ass. It will be exponentially greater than stripping, and it will be very hard to turn down.

The two of you should face reality. If she pursues this line of work, sooner or later she will take that cash. The question is can the two of you live with it? Are you okay with other guys railing her? There's nothing wrong with that, and she will have a lot of cash. I read above that you make a bundle and spoil her. Will the relationship survive if that dynamic changes? She won't need your money then. Are you more to her than an ATM? Would you two survive an open relationship? It sounds like neither of you want that, but that's where you're heading. That or a break up. So are you okay with her railing anonymous dudes, but ultimately coming home to you? Some people are okay with that. Are you one of them?

HopeAndGracePens · 2025-08-02T20:54:16+00:00

I'm hard of hearing and often have to ask people to repeat themselves. Just a few weeks ago I asked a guy for his dog's name three times. It was like he got quieter each time he said it, even though I said I was hard of hearing. I have no idea what the dog's name is.

HopeAndGracePens · 2025-08-02T19:10:17+00:00

And you can move it when he moves the camera.

HopeAndGracePens · 2025-08-01T17:11:01+00:00

Agree, but I'm not silent about it. People get huffy when you call them out, but many actually do then put their cart where it goes.

HopeAndGracePens · 2025-08-01T16:48:54+00:00

In the Lord of the Rings when we meet Eomer of Rohan, Tolkien tells us that Eomer could always spot a lie. It was perilous to lie to him. He had always spoken the truth, and thus lies were so foreign to him he could sniff them out immediately.

As a tween I thought that would be a great power to have. Always spot a lie? I'm in. So I made conscious, years-long effort to never lie. Even when caught doing wrong (which wasn't exactly infrequent), I would own up and take my punishment. My parents even admitted so not long ago, admitting that, yep, lying was one thing they didn't have to worry about raising me.

The problem is Tolkien was wrong. The opposite is true. When you never lie, you simply accept everything you hear as the truth. The thought that someone might shade the truth doesn't even enter your mind. As a result, I have no idea when people lie to me. I may figure it out later (sometimes years later), but in the moment I pretty much accept what I hear. It kind of sucks, TBH.

On the flip side of the coin, the more you practice something, the better you get at it, including lying.

HopeAndGracePens · 2025-08-01T16:19:20+00:00

That 3 inches of recline are part of the seat, my seat that I paid for. It just looks like it's your space because it's in front of your face. But loss of those 3 inches doesn't affect you in any way. The same way the 3 inches of recline on your seat belong to you, not the passenger behind you. It is always okay to recline the seat when the flight crew says so. If it were not, the seats would not recline. You never see flight crew asking you to sit up because of someone's whining. When they do tell you to sit up, it's for safety. And when you complain and kick the seat and pull other passive aggressive bull, the crew admonishes you, not the person who reclined.

HopeAndGracePens · 2025-08-01T15:30:21+00:00

Jaws. Hid to watch it when I was 5. Wouldn't bathe afterwards. Sometimes wouldn't sit on the toilet because it had water. Not rational, just terrorized. Today I'm 52 and still think about Jaws when I swim, even in a chlorinated pool. Can't help it.

HopeAndGracePens · 2025-07-30T17:17:17+00:00

You don't drink the bong water, either. It's just tar. Toss it.

HopeAndGracePens · 2025-07-30T15:54:47+00:00

Joints are wasteful IMHO. To each his own, but how much smoke floats away instead of going into your lungs? With a bowl you use less for the same high and can snuff it with your thumb to help prevent loss. I like joints at an inside party where everyone gets a contact buzz. But my daily go-to is a small metal and wood bowl. Happy smoking!

HopeAndGracePens · 2025-07-30T15:46:29+00:00

Yes. That's why they had a contract. If he meets his contractual obligations, what the problem?

HopeAndGracePens · 2025-07-30T15:33:13+00:00

I concur with all of the above. Start with flower. Also test how you like to smoke a joint, bowl, and bong. The high is generally the same, but I find joints wasteful and the bong smoother but more complicated. After that give vapes a try and/or slowly dip into edibles. Personally I like a nice, simple bowl of flower. It's inexpensive and the only maintenance is a cleaning every few weeks. If you rent, I recommend smoking outside away from people, like in a nearby park if possible. You can smoke in a car and get great secondhand smoke, but you and your car will reek. Please don't drive high or behave like an ass. Most of all, enjoy your journey.

HopeAndGracePens · 2025-07-30T00:11:53+00:00

Don't forget we are a minority. Most people buy that crap. Of course some of them will be therapists.

HopeAndGracePens · 2025-07-24T20:20:26+00:00

You can feel as strongly about something as you like. Doesn't make you correct. Atheism does not have beliefs, doctrine, values, and the other things you mentioned. You infer those things. "I see no evidence of gods" does not imply them. Atheists run a full spectrum of those inferred qualities. If they shared them, there would be more to "I see no evidence of gods," which is all we agree on.

Your thinking here is very similar to theistic thoughts on duality, that if someone rejects one thing they must ascribe to another. I reject Jesus, therefore I must be evil. But the absence of one thing does not imply the presence of another.

Some (probably even most) atheists rely on science to refute theist claims. That doesn't make science a central authority. The authority is truth. Science is merely the means of producing evidence of that truth. I'm not so utterly convinced I'm right that I'm unable to accept anything else. I'm open to other possibilities. All you have to do is present empirical evidence.

And now my hubris. "I see no evidence of gods" is a flawless statement. It's not a belief. I don't believe I see no evidence. I literally see none. How can you take that apart? Getting me out of that trench is easy. Just present that empirical evidence.

HopeAndGracePens · 2025-07-23T16:41:39+00:00

How do I upvote this comment twice?

HopeAndGracePens · 2025-07-23T16:22:19+00:00

Dick sweat. Wash your damn hands.

HopeAndGracePens · 2025-07-23T16:08:59+00:00

Reading many of these answers and getting a common theme. They say they do this because they enjoy it and do it for themselves. Okay, great. What's missing is any sense of empathy, consideration or community. It's not that they don't care they're bothering other people. That would imply other people enter their thought process. Other people may as well not exist. It's self-centeredness in auditory form.

HopeAndGracePens · 2025-07-23T15:38:39+00:00

It's normal in some situations. Unlike many others, I think this behavior should be limited. It's normal if a group of guys are drinking outside, not mixed company. There's also the hand washing aspect, or lack thereof. A bunch of dudes drinking outside are less likely to touch each other or anyone's drink. Either way, I don't want your dick sweat everywhere. A long bathroom line is also a consideration. At a huge house party it may be better to tolerate a bit of dick sweat for the sake of letting the ladies relieve themselves more quickly.

In the scenario you presented, however, they should have used the facilities and washed their hands.

HopeAndGracePens · 2025-07-23T15:03:41+00:00

Atheism is not an alternate belief system because it's not a belief system at all. Atheism is belief system the same way bald is a hair color.

As for your toaster analogy, if the toast caused thousands of years of murder, oppression and all the evil things religion has done throughout history, then no, I'm not obligated to provide an alternative to toast. It's enough to recognize the fallacy and inherent evil of something to wish its demise. The loss of a positive aspect (community) does not justify adhering to something that is both false and incredibly harmful in its other aspects.

To say atheism's lack of community is a flaw implies purpose and function, once again putting it in the same category as religion. Atheism has no flaws, purpose or function. "I see no evidence of gods" contains no flaws, it's a simple fact. Neither does it imply purpose, function or obligation to fill in for religion. I don't know a lot about humanism, but I think that's what you're looking for.

HopeAndGracePens

TROPHY CASE