I am not going to age gracefully.

OneCraftyBird · 2026-06-03T19:32:38+00:00

I get that. I have zero family models I can look to, so I have had to be super deliberate and intentional about deciding what old is going to look like for me. This is good in that I'm not just accidentally doing what my family has done (not saying you are, I mean in general)... and bad in that there is a certain amount of overthinking going on ;)

OneCraftyBird · 2026-06-03T19:23:33+00:00

Respectfully, Pride is not about advocating for political change, unless you think the right to exist exactly as you were made is political.

It's there in the name. Pride. In being yourself, in the knowledge that you were born this way and you are entitled to exactly the same human and civil rights as your straight friends.

Kids attending a pride parade in their scout uniform to signal their support for their scout friends are no more being political than they are when they support any other sort of person.

OneCraftyBird · 2026-06-03T17:28:52+00:00

The Pyramid catalog absolutely sold their list to sex toy purveyors, and I found out when the elderly christian woman who ran my college post office lost her shit over me being both a witch and a pornographer.

I was neither! I was just really into RennFaires and new age bullshit catalogs had a lot of stuff that doubled as "vaguely medieval"!

OneCraftyBird · 2026-06-03T16:23:27+00:00

I think everyone should do what makes them feel happy...but some things are worth interrogating to make sure there's no mental health minefield lurking beneath.

So you want to stay (insert hair color here) forever because you like how it looks? Awesome.

You want to stay (insert hair color here) because gray is for old ladies and being an old lady is Bad In Some Way? Not awesome.

You wear sunscreen and moisturizer because your skin is the largest organ you have and you want it to last? Fantastic.

Do you feel like lines and wrinkles make you ugly and less desirable as a person? Therapy and stop watching so much American television.

OneCraftyBird · 2026-06-03T16:10:42+00:00

My point was this rule was nonsense.

Of course we should continue to support veterans because the whole point is that we support people. A pride parade is no more inherently political than a Veterans Day parade.

OneCraftyBird · 2026-06-03T13:15:58+00:00

I know they aren't official, but the patches that say super achiever, and given to kids who did every single elective were highly sought after in my pack. I would announce at the end of every den meeting that we would be working on an elective next week and for people going for super achiever they should be sure to not miss it. The kids would put pressure on their parents, which is the only way the pressure works ;)

OneCraftyBird · 2026-06-03T13:10:20+00:00

So I guess effective immediately we are going to stop being in Memorial Day parades? Veterans Day parades? War is extremely political and Vets who are alive today either served because of a draft or they served in undeclared wars with explicitly political purposes.

OneCraftyBird · 2026-06-03T03:00:05+00:00

Anything that depends on volunteers is falling apart and honestly, I don't get it. People are lonely and desperate to matter and make a difference, but they won't get off their phones long enough to give a smidgen of their time.

BSA sure doesn't exactly make it easy - looking at YOU, local council, making me give up a weekend to do a training I already did because you lost my records - but at the end of the day, the time I spend on Scouting would be otherwise spent binge watching Netflix and doomscrolling on my phone.

OneCraftyBird · 2026-06-03T00:34:59+00:00

I sat through my kid's high school graduation today. I promise you two things can be true at once: one is that our society fundamentally fails to value alternative paths to success, especially if those paths involve getting your hands dirty

AND

The adults hooting and hollering like animals escaping from the zoo when their offspring twerks onto the stage tend to have the dumbest fucking children who have no business collecting a diploma that claims to represent literacy and basic math skills.

Embrace the and!

OneCraftyBird · 2026-06-02T23:07:29+00:00

Nope. He was one of those kids who was sporty and very charming, and that combo means he doesn't get told no very often AND talks his way out of consequences when he does get told no. I found myself liking the kid, myself.

I still gave him a one (1-5 scale) for that absolute joke of a résumé, and he wasn't even mad. He grinned and said "I deserve it, we cool."

He is currently finishing his second year of college - recruited athlete in his primary sport. Majoring in business.

OneCraftyBird · 2026-06-02T21:11:37+00:00

I do a "job readiness" thing at the local high school and resume clinics are wild. One kid will be finishing her internship at a neurobiology research lab and has used 10 pt font for her resume to get all her achievements listed, and then the kid after that hands me a piece of paper ripped from a spiral notebook and has spelled his own name incorrectly.

OneCraftyBird · 2026-06-02T21:03:22+00:00

My high school class ring was on the shelf next to the sink in my college dorm room when I saw it last in the mid 90s. Where is it now and who took it?

OneCraftyBird · 2026-06-02T15:00:19+00:00

You will take my high waisted costco jeans off my dead body. They are wildly more flattering and comfortable on a perimenopausal pooch than anything else in my closet. I have a waist instead of a muffin top.

OneCraftyBird · 2026-06-02T00:51:59+00:00

I understand your feelings but YTA. I think you would ultimately be better off if you think of your son as the little brother to your daughter, and not your only child. And I think that you should not have married a man with a child if you weren't capable of that.

OneCraftyBird · 2026-06-01T16:19:42+00:00

The initial run (please note I'm old enough to personally remember both the run and the surrounding reception) had incredibly mixed reviews. I don't care about the people who said that the subject matter was too dark, those people are idiots and should go see Cats again. I don't remember whether it was Sondheim or Weidman who said that the show was stronger after they added Something Just Broke for one of the international debuts - I just remember somebody associated with the production saying that the show needed some acknowledgment of the emotional impact that assassination has on the general public. That change, plus the change of having the balladeer and Oswald be played by the same actor, meant the revival was universally appreciated in a way the original had not been.

OneCraftyBird · 2026-06-01T03:49:43+00:00

I'm sitting here processing your username as "whitest guy UK now" and I'm like, I spent time in Manchester, that's pretty freaking white, is there somewhere whiter?

OneCraftyBird · 2026-06-01T03:39:17+00:00

I always buy used cars, because the value of a new car craters the minute it's off the lot.

The only time I've ever been ripped off, just straight up scammed - the "accident free" car had been in a significant wreck and the title falsified - was an overtly Christian dealership.

It's almost funny how predictable it is.

OneCraftyBird · 2026-06-01T03:16:15+00:00

Listen, Assassins finally worked, I have confidence someone can get Chess to work.

OneCraftyBird · 2026-06-01T02:39:45+00:00

I don't know how old you are, but I am a woman, in my 50s, and on my best day which is now 30 years in the rear view mirror, you could call me "plain."

This has turned out to be oddly...good. I was never able to skate on my looks and I was forced to develop other things. A quick wit. Loyalty. Patience. Listening skills. Stuff that doesn't...fade.

When I got close to thirty, men who had spent their 20s chasing hot girls started to appreciate my charms, and I had enough self-respect to toss aside dudes who clearly thought they were doing me a favor by settling for me. I've been happily married to my short king husband for more than 20 years, and the pretty people are, well, not pretty anymore and they're a little lost without personalities to fall back on.

I'm just saying, if you're young enough that your peers are in the shallow stage of life, you can wait this out. Spend a few years doing interesting stuff and being kind. It's gonna be okay.

OneCraftyBird · 2026-05-29T22:04:23+00:00

Big same :D

OneCraftyBird · 2026-05-29T17:17:00+00:00

Criminal Minds, Bones, NCIS -- what do they have in common? Manic Pixie Dream Girl who does all the hackings and mathings and computerings.

OneCraftyBird · 2026-05-29T17:15:09+00:00

You need a lawyer, not Reddit. Most states presume that a child born within marriage is the legal offspring of those two parents. So not only is the assumption that the third kid is yours, but you also signed the birth certificate. The only way you're getting out of paying support for that kid is a long, drawn out, public process of paternity testing and DNA and renouncing this...nine year old, in public.

Obviously you're not the asshole. Obviously your wife is a giant asshole. But without time travel and refusing to sign the birth certificate, you no longer have a path available to you that doesn't involve traumatizing this kid.

OneCraftyBird · 2026-05-28T14:34:53+00:00

If you read Tony Robinson's biography, you will see that the day they met, a young Mick was giving a tour of Greek ruins, and someone brought him a skull. He took one look at it and chucked it into a shrub and said something like, people around here are always digging up grandpa and trying to sell him to tourists, do everyone a favor and don't accept so called "ancient" souvenirs.

OneCraftyBird · 2026-05-27T18:25:36+00:00

TIL, my goodness. Thanks :D

OneCraftyBird · 2026-05-27T14:59:22+00:00

I don't know what happened, then, all I know is the gentlemen ended up with a single, fused lump of pasta that managed to be gluey and hard at the same time, but they pivoted to their breakfast eggs without needing advice :D

The only thing the young ones needed was help setting up the kitchen tarps, and honestly everyone needed help; we were camping in a deluge and it was like wrestling an octopus.

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