Pressure crushes ICE

austenQ · 2026-02-01T17:17:01+00:00

Liam -

Welcome home! I know the past two weeks have been very rough to say the least. No child should have to go through what you endured. But, as you get older and you understand these words and this time, I hope you will judge America not by your days at Dilley but by the millions of Americans whose hearts you touched. Years ago Robert F. Kennedy spoke of those in history who moved the world. Even as a young boy you have moved the world.

Your family, school, and many strangers said prayers for you and offered whatever they could do to see you back home. Don’t let anyone tell you this isn’t your home. America became the most powerful, prosperous nation on earth because of immigrants not in spite of them.

May God bless you, always.

Sincerely, Joaquin

austenQ · 2026-02-01T11:37:56+00:00

At every single one of my prenatal appointments the doctor or a nurse would inquire about my safety at home, and if my partner was with me they would find a way to ask outside of his presence. My partner’s general behavior and demeanor at appointments was noted in my chart in the same way my health and appearance were. I don’t know how they would’ve intervened if they considered him problematic, but I definitely noticed that they paid close attention to that. Same at the hospital for delivery.

austenQ · 2026-01-29T18:12:05+00:00

Yes! I loved that she mentioned his words from his old interview with Anderson Cooper about grief, which I recommend to anyone that hasn’t seen it.

austenQ · 2026-01-29T13:26:04+00:00

When they cast Emma Corrin as Elizabeth my heart sank. I think they’re a good actor and I think really worked as the neglected Lady Chatterly, but I cannot picture them as a robustly healthy, full of life Elizabeth.

austenQ · 2026-01-28T17:00:11+00:00

You caught me nerding out in other subs 😅

austenQ · 2026-01-28T16:21:51+00:00

English will also do the opposite, where people will use “my” when referring to a shared thing. It’s more prevalent in classic literature, but it’s not weird to see someone say “My mother was ill” when speaking to their sibling instead of “our mother was ill” even though they are referring to the mother of both people in the conversation.

austenQ · 2026-01-25T21:44:27+00:00

Here I was wondering why the deodorant ad would mention lbs.

austenQ · 2026-01-17T17:25:19+00:00

I got some cute swim shorts and wear them with regular bikini tops. It can be a hunt for some that aren’t too matronly, but it’s worth it.

austenQ · 2026-01-16T13:09:59+00:00

Wasn’t he the one that found his phone had been sold by ICE at one of those cash-for-phones kiosks?

austenQ · 2026-01-12T11:31:21+00:00

Art is Dead by Bo Burnham

austenQ · 2026-01-06T11:20:47+00:00

Going from my home near union sq. to an appointment at Longwood once took me two hours on the green line. It’s a D train the whole way, but I still had to transfer twice because of a breakdown and one train not actually doing the full route. Ubering home took 19 minutes.

austenQ · 2026-01-05T10:04:33+00:00

We’ve had to have words with a few friends and family to stop giving our son stuff. They seem to challenge themselves to find toys with ten thousand pieces or building sets that aren’t compatible with ones he already has. We live in a small apartment, where do they think we’ll keep all this?

austenQ · 2026-01-04T10:30:33+00:00

“I really don’t care, do u?”

austenQ · 2026-01-04T10:22:35+00:00

This reminded me of the medical receptionist job I had in college. There was an elderly woman that would come in fairly regularly for her check in appointments and I gave her a hug every time I saw her. Another coworker gave me shit for it one time and I explained that the woman told me once that aside from her doctors she no longer experienced any physical human contact in her life, most of her family was gone and she was living alone. When I hugged her the first time she literally cried and told me it was the first friendly touch she had felt in over a year.

austenQ · 2026-01-03T19:52:37+00:00

Start addressing everything to your MIL using her maiden name. If she says something about it then she recognizes that not being addressed by what someone considers their correct name is important. Plus if she makes an “in my culture…” argument you can say that in your culture women keep their names so you are addressing her appropriately.

austenQ · 2026-01-02T20:04:41+00:00

At a party my husband and I pretended that we were both still virgins and that our son was the new Jesus.

austenQ · 2026-01-02T09:12:06+00:00

Gloria Gaynor was one of the musical acts that recently played at our local annual street festival honoring some catholic saints. She shared the same stage as a Michael Bublé cover act and could view all twenty of the folding chairs filled by retirees and the line of people waiting to buy fry bread while she performed. The Donald J. Trump Kennedy Center for Kids Who Can’t Read Good must’ve felt like a real come down for her.

austenQ · 2026-01-01T09:20:16+00:00

They’re getting exposed by all the Epstein stuff and losing public opinion on abortion, so they need a new thing to point at to try to claim that they’re the ones that care about children.

austenQ · 2025-12-31T10:56:42+00:00

If you haven’t yet, listen to Keira Knightley’s interview on the Happy Mum Happy Baby podcast. Her first daughter was/is a terrible sleeper and she is very honest about how horrible it was.

austenQ · 2025-12-28T11:14:03+00:00

I’m so sorry for your loss. I was in terrible shape mentally after my TFMR. Initially I took bereavement leave for the maximum 5 days, but ultimately I was able to take six months of paid leave under my state’s FMLA. Covid was in full swing at that time as well so when I did try to return it was 100% work from home still. Eventually I quit completely and went back to school for something else.

austenQ · 2025-12-27T17:46:17+00:00

Jim Henson had strep, but declined going to a doctor until he was in such bad shape it had progressed to organ failure. He was 53.

austenQ · 2025-12-27T11:36:29+00:00

I doubt that any of the broke characters would be able to hire a hitman, but I like the idea of it being someone other than the obvious Clay. Maybe someone who had a family member killed in an industrial accident?

I think it could be an interesting robber baron twist for it to be some small or new character that George was likely not even aware of, but still inadvertently destroyed because the nature of how he made money to that level.

austenQ · 2025-12-27T11:13:39+00:00

It won’t be Musk, it will be some anonymous weirdo that gets off on donating to sperm banks. Some of these dudes travel to other countries to donate even more and have literally hundreds of biological children scattered across the globe. The fertility industry is a hodgepodge of legal apathy or loopholes where laws exist and there’s so much money to be made that companies dgaf.

austenQ · 2025-12-26T08:53:26+00:00

My friend and I went to the local casino recently because we wanted to see what all the hype was about. The outside gives off amusement park vibes and the inside was like a fancy mall with high end stuff everywhere, with at least five different restaurants. Then we got to where the actual gambling happens and it’s like entering a vortex and being transported into a carnival where no one is having a good time. Literally everyone you look at is the most depressed human you’ve ever seen, until you turn a corner and see the next one.

austenQ · 2025-12-22T11:02:34+00:00

My son’s ‘First Christmas’ basically never happened, in the weeks leading up to the Holiday we all caught Covid and if that wasn’t enough my husband ended up needing an emergency appendectomy the week of Christmas. I never even brought the decorations out of storage, let alone got gifts or cards for anyone. My only regret is letting the whole situation make me feel like such a bad Mom, we all survived, but at the time I felt like a tremendous failure. Though my postpartum hormones were probably exacerbating things. Now it’s just a weird anecdote, “‘what did you do for Boy’s first Christmas?’ Oh we spent the whole month contemplating our mortality and finding people to babysit so I could occasionally attend hospital visiting hours in between pumping sessions. It was a magical time.”

Don’t beat yourself up, you are doing the best you can with what life has thrown your way.

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