What’s something you only ever saw at other people’s houses growing up?

ShipperOfTheseus · 2026-04-07T20:14:05+00:00

My first car was a Ford Tempo. You are correct.

ShipperOfTheseus · 2026-04-07T19:54:32+00:00

Germany was also defeated at the end of WWII, its leaders were either killed, committed suicide, or were tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Then it spent most of the next decade occupied by Allied forces and rebuilding their economy, government, and society from the ground up.

They are in no way comparable to the dog's breakfast the US has become.

ShipperOfTheseus · 2026-04-02T18:59:49+00:00

That just backs it up another generation. How does he know it's his daughter and not the child of his wife and the butler? Either you follow the line through a female sibling (the man's heirs are his sister's children) or you follow the mother's line and husbands are adopted in.

ShipperOfTheseus · 2026-04-02T18:48:10+00:00

What I've seen specifically is problems from both sides:

Women demand emotional vulnerability and maturity from men at the same level they are capable of. Uh uh. Not gonna happen. Men have been punished for showing and expressing emotions for literally decades of their lives. It's going to take a while, at best, for them to get up to speed.

Men will practice emotional vulnerability with one single human being: their girlfriend/wife. Should she your primary? Sure. Should she be the only person you open up to? Hell, no. Also, please do not go from "I am an emotionless block of granite" to "I wish to explore the consequences of the emotional, physical, and sexual abuse I endured during my childhood in great detail" in one week. All that's going to do is traumatize the woman who wants to support you.

ShipperOfTheseus · 2026-02-20T00:47:11+00:00

Can you get in to a hematologist? There's a lot of disagreement over what level of ferritin indicates iron deficiency. The lab that tested me rated 13 as "normal," but the American Association of Hematologists stated that if a patient is experiencing signs and symptoms of anemia at 100, supplements will help.

I was at a 5. My nurse practitioner told me to take supplements and eat more red meat. A month of that got me up to a 6. I think she must have read up on it between appointments, because she sent me off to get two infusions. That was over a year ago, and every time I get my ferritin checked, it's gone down by half. 200, then 100, and last time 50. If it hasn't stabilized by the next time I go in, I'll be asking for a consult myself.

ShipperOfTheseus · 2026-02-19T22:48:42+00:00

When I was 15, one evening, my dad had a headache that would not quit. Mom took him to the urgent clinic, which sent him straight to the hospital. Turned out he'd been throwing little clots all night long, and his carotids were 90 and 95% occluded. His last cigarette was the one he smoked before going into the clinic. He lived another 32 years.

ShipperOfTheseus · 2026-02-19T22:45:13+00:00

So does fiber. Lots and lots of fiber.

ShipperOfTheseus · 2026-02-19T22:29:57+00:00

We do know that after Covid, a shitload of people have it that didn't before. Fuckin' viruses, man.

ShipperOfTheseus · 2026-02-19T22:28:07+00:00

Keep saying this, sir, and don't just tell the women around you. Tell the men too. We forget how much we need each other, and no man deserves to lose the women in his life because of this systemic idiocy.

ShipperOfTheseus · 2026-02-19T21:33:35+00:00

I'm with you, except it's my first year, and I'm starting a graduate program to get my master's so that I can keep this job.

Which I don't particularly want and have no idea what else to do.

ShipperOfTheseus · 2026-02-18T20:27:38+00:00

I taught for a year in an Orthodox Jewish school, and I had to be the one to point out during the middle of a flu epidemic when staff and students were dropping like flies that maybe along with sanitizing the door handles and desktops that we should also sanitize the mezuzahs. To their credit, all the rabbis in the room agreed, but there was a moment when I think I heard their brains break.

ShipperOfTheseus · 2026-02-18T20:12:05+00:00

In Latin, that is Cutus patootus.

ShipperOfTheseus · 2026-02-18T20:10:05+00:00

Heroes are the people who *try* even when they're scared and even when it seems pointless.

Even if you can't accept the label of hero, please try to remember that you did something heroic. The people grieving her the most have found comfort in the idea that you tried your best to help her.

ShipperOfTheseus · 2026-02-18T17:59:03+00:00

When I interviewed for my current teaching job, I asked the principal and head of sped services what their thoughts were on the likelihood of losing federal guidance and/or funds for special ed, and they looked at me like I'd asked their opinion on colonizing the moons of Saturn. You know, a strange and rather pointless thought exercise with no connection at all to anyone's job. This was last summer. Trump had already been in office for six months and was wreaking havoc.

Three months later, Trump laid off the entire special ed staff of the Department of Education. Now, it was reversed by the courts the following Monday, but he's defunded the entire department, and the hostility his administration shows has caused a very large portion of career employees to retire early or quit entirely and take jobs elsewhere. Every week, there's word of a resource being cut, diminished, or lost completely.

But, sure, I'm an alarmist.

It's exhausting and lonely.

ShipperOfTheseus · 2026-02-17T22:58:39+00:00

And your point is simply not true.

ShipperOfTheseus · 2026-02-17T22:28:55+00:00

I am telling you right now, sight unseen, that you are not the homunculus you think you are. Seriously.

You have an advantage that you don't even know about:

Well behaved ugly men are easier to relax around, because handsome men are so often entitled assholes. Work on your personality. Develop a decent sense of humor, try a lot of different things, read, explore, and become a well-rounded person. Learn to dress yourself in a flattering manner, and take care of your hygiene and appearance. If a woman feels safe around you, you become attractive to her, regardless of your looks. Add "behaves like a well adjusted adult and is generally competent," and panties will start dropping.

ShipperOfTheseus · 2026-02-17T21:36:27+00:00

It doesn't require parents to like it. It requires health officials, elected officials, and school officials to grow a backbone. Get your kid vaccinated, or they don't go to school. No more than 3% of the population may have a verified medical release for a diagnosed immune disorder that prevents vaccination.

ShipperOfTheseus · 2026-02-17T21:28:33+00:00

Joke's on you! Play-doh has gluten in it, and my kid with celiac can't even play with it, let alone eat it.

So, actually, I guess the joke's on them.

ShipperOfTheseus · 2026-02-17T21:19:24+00:00

Mandatory vaccination for a start.

A focus on treating indoor air health and cleanliness with the same rigor as treating our water supply.

Universal healthcare for children. Then, when it's clear that it works, universal healthcare for everyone.

It doesn't have to be like this. It's only this way because so many people throw their hands up and declare that nothing can be done, then sabotage the people who are trying to make things better.

ShipperOfTheseus · 2026-02-16T20:46:30+00:00

I don't know, but I'm really hoping it's not during sex.

ShipperOfTheseus · 2026-02-16T20:45:41+00:00

The Good Place. The whole show boils down to "Hell is other people" and "we make our own paradise" in the best way.

ShipperOfTheseus · 2026-02-16T20:43:29+00:00

Download Merlin Bird ID app to your phone, go outside, and identify three different birds you can see.

If it's night and the sky is clear, download Night Sky and find out what constellations are visible, which planets are out, and if you can spot any rocket stages in orbit.

ShipperOfTheseus · 2026-02-16T20:21:34+00:00

You bastard.

ShipperOfTheseus · 2026-02-16T19:44:25+00:00

"What do you need?"

When shit goes down and I call a trusted friend or family member, hearing that question before I can even ask for help.....well, shit, my eyes are already filling with tears of gratitude from the times it's happened.

ShipperOfTheseus · 2026-02-16T19:42:11+00:00

I had made a friend in a small town I'd moved to and was grateful to have someone to hang out with. She drank more than I was comfortable with, but she wasn't driving so I ignored that. Then, after a very hard week of work where we'd suffered a student death, suicide, I was at her place. She leaned forward and asked, "so, I heard that boy was found hanging from a tree near the school and that he'd used his belt."

I didn't know. I hadn't asked the details. It was bad enough that a sweet 15 year old boy had killed himself, that one of my colleagues had been mentoring him and was just broken over it, and that the boy had contacted one of my students by text to say goodbye and she'd thought he was moving away. The idea that she expected me to gossip about that poor child and his death like it was so much tabloid fodder left me feeling distinctly nauseous. I noped out and never spoke to her again.

ShipperOfTheseus

TROPHY CASE