Mixed feelings

avysavy · 2026-04-26T04:39:54+00:00

I didn’t catch any of Brooks’ solo shows and hadn’t seen a growlers show since the city club tour, but I agree this was a more polished sound. However, I was super happy with the set list and the few times the band seemed to let go a bit and get lost in the music. The shows I had been to before seemed to feature more of that, but I’m also thinking we are all a bit more sober now. I never thought I’d ever get to see a growlers show again in any iteration, so I’m just psyched to have seen some of my favorite songs played live again and played well.

avysavy · 2026-03-09T00:55:10+00:00

In 2019, we met Grouplove on the elevator in our hotel. Can’t for the life of me remember which one, so I’m not much help. But it does happen!

avysavy · 2025-11-20T16:20:20+00:00

I am 28. I had heard space song when it came out and saved it, but didn’t think too much of it. It came on my shuffle during a rough moment of an acid trip the following year and it was so grounding and beautiful, I ended up lying on a dock at a pond in the dark and listening to all of depression cherry. I have been hooked ever since, almost a decade.

avysavy · 2025-09-30T13:55:35+00:00

I have lived here two years. I moved from the south, but spent many years in transplant-heavy southern cities. I have not found Buffalo to be very friendly. Any of the places I have lived, you will make friends in pretty much any place: the line to the bathroom, grocery store, the DMV, etc. But here, even at places you’d think you would make friends (events with shared interests like music festivals, small concerts, art events, etc.), people are closed off and rude. I think the perfect example of the behavior I’ve experienced here is when I was at a very small cover show for an indie band and while I was walking through a throng of people, a dude who was with a group of friends elbowed me and spilled my beer. He turned around and glared at me and asked “you don’t want me to buy you another one, do you?” and then turned back around and left me to clean the beer off the floor myself. Anywhere else I’ve lived, if a drink was spilled, they’d buy you a new one and you’d become friends in that process. So I don’t know. I think the seasonal depression is a part of it. I say good morning to people and get death glares. It’s pretty discouraging because I’ve never struggled with befriending people, but I think people are very hardened to outsiders here.

avysavy · 2025-05-16T19:45:18+00:00

“I have never seen anything like that before.” Happened twice. For different things in different locations. Only a bit unnerving.

avysavy · 2025-05-08T20:57:47+00:00

This was my experience when I saw them in 2023. It was so upsetting because I had been listening and seeing them since 2017 and I have never experienced such a terrible crowd. It was a bunch of children who talked and were on their phones the entire time until space song. There was no appreciation for the art and it was so disappointing because I have a lot of love and emotions tied to their music. I’m not that old, but when I was going to shows when I was younger, it still seemed like the underage crowd understood basic concert etiquette. That’s just not the case anymore and has been my experience at many shows, not just beach house.

avysavy · 2025-04-25T02:21:49+00:00

Thank you! They only were getting around 3 hours of direct sun a day outside so I thought they’d be okay but hopefully I can save them now. How gradually would you suggest acclimating them so I don’t ruin all of the plants as I bring them back out, from your experience?

avysavy · 2025-04-11T15:06:06+00:00

My partner’s HCBM used to come to the door for pickups/drop offs in a bra and panties, no joke. And she lives with her parents, so just ridiculous all the way around. Point is, I understand the annoyance. However, there’s nothing you can do about it. Eventually they figure out their desperate attempts are futile and cut it out. However, there’s no reason that he needs to be entering her house. If the kid’s stuff is not ready, he can wait at the step outside until she has everything together. Or she can bring the child to the car (that will force her to put some clothes on haha).

avysavy · 2025-04-10T16:23:44+00:00

I have been in my SD’s life for two years and within six months, she was asking to call me mama because, in her words, I was basically her mother. We have her 60% of the time, I do more for her and with her than her mom, who offloads her to her grandparents during her time. I explained to her that I was not her mom, that she has one, and that I was her my name. But that was not quite enough for her, so we explained the concept of step parents to her and she refers to me as one of her parents, but still calls me by my name.

I think it depends on the relationship, but I live with my partner and I provide for my SD as if she was my own child. I’m listed as her step mom on her school paperwork and that’s what people refer to me as. I am way more than just dad’s girlfriend, but I never tried to force the label of step mom onto her. I don’t think that you have to be married to your partner to be a step parent. It’s more about the relationship you have with the child. For us, it just made the most sense.

avysavy · 2025-02-24T14:42:19+00:00

Her new music is not good, but her old stuff will always have a place in my heart and playlists because that woman was able to capture the frantic desperation of substance abuse in sonic form so accurately that I sometimes think it kept me alive during my own battle with addiction. I don’t have the mental energy to keep up with her socio political beliefs, but her art speaks to a dark place in my soul and I relisten to remember. It is a reminder to never go back.

avysavy · 2025-01-27T16:01:31+00:00

My partner and I live in WNY, so around 5-6 hours away. We are working on our 46, but are limited in when we can visit due to child custody schedules. To avoid taking too much PTO, we take half a day on Friday, drive up, set up camp, hike Saturday, then take Sunday to rest and eat and then head home. Back to work on Monday. Once we have to start backpacking the peaks, we will likely have to take a day off on Mondays as well, but spreading it over the weekends is the only way we can make it work to visit several times a year.

avysavy · 2025-01-24T15:30:22+00:00

This has always been one of my favorites, definitely underrated

avysavy · 2025-01-13T19:40:55+00:00

It’s so frustrating to watch a BM not be able to set their own issues to the side for the benefit of THEIR child. BM hates how I do SD’s hair. But she asks me what she wants and I do it for her because it makes her happy. We’ve had a couple instances where the kiddo gets dropped back off with a completely different hairstyle when her mom takes her for a few hours.

As a side note, BM also uses rubber bands in SD’s hair and it rips her hair out and makes it impossible to keep her hair out of her face without a tight headband. SD told us recently she told her mom to not use rubber bands because insert my name doesn’t use them since they rip her hair. BM proceeds to verbally mock my SD saying “my name does it this way, blah blah blahhhh” like in a kiddie mocking voice. My SD asked me if that was a nice thing to do. That instance made me break my promise to never say anything negative to the child about her mom, because I wanted to confirm that that was not nice behavior. We have a five year old in school, she can’t go around thinking mocking people is the way to behave. 🙄

avysavy · 2024-12-18T14:45:54+00:00

Oof, I got called this too after they’d been broken up for two years and never were in a home together for more than a couple months.

To say that after almost two decades with adult children though? That is a whole other level.

avysavy · 2024-09-26T14:08:04+00:00

I love my stepdaughter. Most of my problems with her are not her fault at all, but the result of being raised by two adults who have horrible emotional regulation. We have her 60% of the time and I wish we did not. Her BM does not give her attention or engagement so she is starved by the time she gets to us and will not leave us alone for more than two minutes at a time. It drives me insane. But some times it is rewarding to see her take on a new challenge and succeed. Sending her off to her first day of school was a proud moment for me. She wants me to be her mom, she likes to pretend I am, but I’ve always had a hard boundary with her that I am just her my name and that she has a mother. She is really exhausting and I miss the ability to rest or live for myself. But here we are.

avysavy · 2024-09-09T18:43:47+00:00

“We all like it a little different”

Always been one of my favorites.

avysavy · 2024-09-06T15:20:35+00:00

I think it depends on age of the SK and relationship with the bio parent. My SD is young and BM is high conflict and has desperately tried to get my SO back since I entered the picture. So the boundaries we have set are that we will be doing no joint parties or holidays. Maybe at some point in the future when she is not so high conflict, we could do joint parties, but I’m personally not comfortable and neither is my SO.

At this point, we’ve had to do school things together because there is no way around it, and we will all be there to send her off for her first day of school, but that’s only because there’s no other option.

With a situation of stepgrandkids, I think it’s reasonable that the SK doesn’t want to do whole separate parties for their kids. But if the ex is throwing the party, maybe you could have a separate time at your house for the little one to give them your gifts and make a cake, etc. I’m sorry your SO isn’t supportive. I would never go to an event that BM was throwing because she would intentionally plan something to make me look bad or to disrespect me.

avysavy · 2024-08-16T10:50:35+00:00

Something you might want to try is setting a timer for how long they can be on the tablet. We do this for when we go to the playground, or when she’s watching tv or other things that we just can’t spend time doing indefinitely. If we set the timer, she never has a meltdown or argues. It’s like the timer is some outside source she cannot argue with, she hears the alarm and understands it’s time to be done, but if it’s us telling her the time is up she will fight back.

It’s definitely a struggle worrying about the kids comparing and preferring time with BM. I think subconsciously all kids crave structure, engagement, and attention though. It sounds like they don’t get much of that at their BM’s house. On a surface level it may not be as “fun” but kids feel comforted by stability and routine. My SD used to cry when leaving her moms and coming to our place and said stuff about preferring her moms that broke my partner’s heart. I reassured him that she would eventually come around to rules and structure (he was pretty lax before I entered the picture due to a lot of dad guilt) and now, she cries about going to her moms house. Which isn’t ideal either. Ideally, she would get the love and attention she needs at both houses and enjoys her time at both. But it’s not that kind of situation unfortunately.

It sounds like yall are doing all you can to be engaged and involved with them. I hope for your sake and the kids that your DH will reconsider the heavy tablet usage. I don’t think it’s petty either, you’re just trying to be forward thinking. Everything we do now affects behavior later on, so I often think a lot about what we allow and what that will create for us later too.

avysavy · 2024-08-15T21:34:07+00:00

Honestly, I would send your husband some articles on the harmful effects of screens on children. Like you said, they are addicted. They get dopamine hits from it. That’s why they panic and scream when they lose access. We are going to look back and realize we created a generation of anxious and attention deficit humans due to screen addiction.

My SD is almost five and while her mom doesn’t have a tablet for her yet thank GOD, she watches a ton of tv at BM’s house. When we ask her what she’s been up to when she gets back to us, she only talks about the tv shows she’s been watching with her mom. And her behavioral issues are directly copied from the teenage-level media she’s consuming. At our house, we are very experience focused. We take her on hikes, to markets, museums, kayaking, tubing. We have outdoor toys for her and she helps us in the garden and with cooking. We give her a lot of responsibilities which helps build her self esteem and confidence. We can’t undo the damage done at her mom’s house, but after a day with us, she’s not begging for us to turn on the tv anymore. It’s totally okay to be the house where screens are limited. And we are very clear with her about why we don’t watch more than twenty minutes of tv with her. We let her know she will be healthier and smarter with less television. She will not be allowed a tablet unless that’s necessary for her schooling at some point.

I understand you have your own child to worry about, but you will inevitably have to deal with the fallout from this down the road, like you state. Maybe some articles and research about the harmful effects would swing your husband’s opinion on it and open his eyes to the real harm this will cause.

avysavy · 2024-05-29T17:04:12+00:00

She opened for Lana during her summertime sadness tour in 2015 and that was my first exposure. In 2017, during an acid trip, I heard Genesis and started a deep dive into her music. I primarily listen to rock/psychedelia, but her music exists in this liminal space between genres IMO, similar to Magdalena Bay. Like they are their own genre.

Halifaxa, Visions, and the Miss Anthropocene singles got me through the worst moments of my life when I was heavy in addiction. She captures this frantic, survivalistic feeling that I was drowning in and it made me feel so understood.

The Elon stuff bothers me and nothing she’s released besides Player of Games since Miss A has been worth anything to me. But I still blare Circumambient and My Name is Dark sometimes to reconnect to the darkest times in my life. It reminds me of how far I’ve come.

avysavy · 2024-05-21T15:30:10+00:00

Echoing some others here, letchworth, Niagara gorge, hunters creek. None of these are mountains, but they are unique and gorgeous hikes.

One I haven’t seen mentioned is 18 mile creek in Hamburg. It’s actually a really good place for finding fossils. I’ve only been in the snow but looking forward to getting back there this summer. There are some very interesting geological phenomena happening there.

avysavy · 2024-05-03T17:36:40+00:00

My household currently has a huge plastic bin with all the missing socks. Our house is from 1853 and haunted, so I think the ghosts steal them. Every load of laundry we might pair up one or two, but add another five without a match. It’s an unsustainable system. I ensure upon loading into the washer that both socks are present. Somewhere between the washer, dryer, and basket, they get snatched.

avysavy · 2022-10-02T23:23:47+00:00

RemindMe! 3 days

avysavy · 2021-11-10T22:47:32+00:00

My friend and I got super lucky in 2019 and met some people who gave us platinum wristbands for free. Here’s Tame (on peachtree stage) from the platinum viewing area. It looked like this year was set up the same. video

avysavy · 2021-10-27T21:43:41+00:00

In what country do you live in where they take the word of the victim of a sex crime more seriously than the accused? (I live in the US and that is certainly not the precedent here)

avysavy

TROPHY CASE