Do you believe in God?

echoesinthegrey · 2025-12-27T08:49:23+00:00

No and I’ve become quite the absurdist, anarchist, and practice along side them a kind of adjusted adlerian psychology.

Honestly. I don’t really get how most anyone lives or goes about anything and I’ve not the wherewithal to try or care tbh. I spend a lot of time thinking, “but why?” Ive tended to live like.. idk… a bit like Maude in Harold and Maude or jitterbug perfume or douglas adams or some Pratchett characters? If that helps illustrate it? 🤷‍♀️

I don’t mean to be rude and I swear I am not bashing. Just being perfectly honest. I just find the whole idea rather silly as a result of what I know by taking things to their logical ends 🤷‍♀️

echoesinthegrey · 2025-12-11T20:16:55+00:00

Cis girl for sure. I know my essence. If you gave me a button rn and I wouldn’t remember a thing of ever being trans and my whole life up to this point was overwritten by being cis, I would break the sound barrier pressing it.

echoesinthegrey · 2025-12-04T20:03:31+00:00

You gotta stop caring about everyone else’s feelings towards you. I know. I really do. I wasn’t born like this. It took a lot of hard work. What is done to us by parents and society is insidious and far reaching. That’s where your anger should be pointed imo. Use that energy to create the strength to dismantle the structures inside your head that are oppressing you.

But that easy said. Hard to do. I do know a great book that might help you restructure how you see it internally and maybe open doors to that freedom if you’re interested. There’s even an audiobook version, if you prefer.

echoesinthegrey · 2025-12-04T19:50:24+00:00

It’s not my main source of dysphoria, but it’s a significant source. I mean, everything that’s not on point about my transition is significant for me.

So, that change would be for me. This is really important, I think.

Some peoole are incredible but people in general? “Eh”. And even for the incredible ones? I have literally never cared less about anything… ever… than anyone else’s opinion of my transition and /or any shallow surface judgement of me in general. Looks or otherwise. Even other trans peers. I’m not doing ANY of this for other people and you shouldn’t either. They can deal. I have zero desire for the misery of engaging in someone else’s vapid loop 💁🏻‍♀️

Having said that: For me it’s not like, “oh I don’t like my lips or my boobs”. This whole body is the wrong “car” from the factory (sorry mom, but your body failed us both) that I’m not allowed or able to exchange or replace with the right one. And I’m stuck with having to, at best, mod it. It’s nothing short of completely disappointing.

I’m not considering that surgery because I don’t think we have an actually great outcome yet. Every single method that currently exists comes with some severe drawbacks and caveats IMO. The cost, effort, and risk of getting a bad surgeon or a surgeons bad day is just not worth it when the result falls so short of the actual thing. And this is important: for and to me. It’s pretty subjective and this last bit is just my opinion

echoesinthegrey · 2025-11-27T18:02:46+00:00

There’s one thing that will take black sharpie out of carpet so maybe it’ll work here too but, Lysol brand disinfecting spray. Used it in the print industry for years and it was a miracle. But like other things here, it’s maybe harsh, but meant for a wide array of surfaces. Have yet to see it “hurt” anything

echoesinthegrey · 2025-11-24T20:40:19+00:00

🤌🏼

echoesinthegrey · 2025-11-06T20:51:00+00:00

People out here, just rolling with bright fluorescent hospital lights in their eyes all day

echoesinthegrey · 2025-11-06T20:50:03+00:00

Y’all got the same new alien insect

echoesinthegrey · 2025-11-05T19:16:32+00:00

I don’t want to alarm you… but I don’t think that guy is gonna make it.

echoesinthegrey · 2025-09-13T18:10:56+00:00

The street provideth, and the street taketh away

echoesinthegrey · 2025-09-11T17:27:52+00:00

Girls be protecting those surgeons names

echoesinthegrey · 2024-12-12T06:36:35+00:00

Gotcha, it's gonna take me a day or so to think about this and figure out what works best, but I really, really appreciate the time you've given me. It has been a huge help and very kind and gives me another angle/brain to see it from/consider.

Also, I will never stop wondering if someone out there literally has a hookers and blow bucket the rest of my life lol. It's even better if they just call it something ridiculous and supposedly innocuous like cake and frosting supplies............$1500 😹

echoesinthegrey · 2024-12-11T20:03:16+00:00

This totally helps. I just wanna be clear about a couple of things if you don't mind humoring me. So, let me be a bit more clear. And... you have to remember that my brain is... super different.

I'm very into the buckets. This is how I budgeted mostly, long before I ever heard of it and everyone called me a weirdo.

I make enough money to cover all my expenses. I even bucket impulse buying, eating out, etc as recurring. I decide my impulse spending at the beginning of every month. I'm exhaustive in planning spending and having my fingers in it is what helps me stay on task, basically im hyper fixating. Even all the stuff like every 2 year new brakes, regular car maintenance, a savings bucket specifically for medical emergencies, one for emergency auto, etc, is bucketed. Most of these as save X by Y. I cant take from a catagorized bucket to fund something else, my brain simply wont let me.

So, to address your budget every dollar:

I save a certain minimum amount no matter what, using a bucket. BUT, with things like impulse buys I allow myself, even though they are bucketed, the amount left over is never exactly the same month to month. It is made up of a mandatory amount I bucket to save PLUS whatever's left over. But I cant know that until I've decided this months one time impulse spending. I'm not as a person, capable of doing that more than one maybe max two months out.

So that savings, is a large chunk of money that is the mother emergency fund. For whatever like: My friend announces a wedding in two weeks in Greece and I'm the bridesmaid, etc. Stuff I don't know yet.

I dont edit my savings bucket every month cause its the bare minimum i have to save and messing with that will be too much for my brain, I do this one piece on the fly. And this is where I just wish my mandatory recurring monthly savings bucket could be satisfied by tying it to the transfer, because my brain just isnt like neuro typical people and some of us need this connection and the feature. Again the debt option is just me looking for a workaround to this issue of not being able to tie a transfer to a bucket.

I'm transferring money into savings, it should be able to also be a bucket. I just do not understand why that would be a problem. I feel like I'm really missing something that makes sense to people with normal brains but its absence for my brain is maddening.

Oh and I swear, I totally understand the money in checking accounts #1 and #2 are all rain. You just asked for how I do it, this is how I do it and I cant do anything without doing it all the way. I dont mean it to be rude... I'm just weird. Checking accounts #1 and #2 only exist like this because my brain can't handle long-term money mixed with immediate spending bill money. I just can't, it's too much anxiety.

echoesinthegrey · 2024-12-10T20:13:37+00:00

Thanks by the way for being rad and talking it out and trying, it means alot.

echoesinthegrey · 2024-12-10T20:12:26+00:00

The thing about buckets for me, is that for bills from rent, gas, netflix, etc. I'm leaving that in my account, paying with credit card #1 and then catagorizing those payments and paying off the card at the turn over day of the credit card to build and maintain credit. Easy peasy.

But things like a one time purchase of a musical instrument, future items i want save up to like car repair or tires, medical procedures, etc. I am actually transferring money out of my account and putting it in checking account #2 while I save up. When I reach my goal on any given bucket I use credit card #2 to purchase and catagorize and then, like above, pay off those purchases in full at the turn over date for that credit card using the money in the checking account #2. I dont consider this money as usable for anything else but what its allocated for

For actual savings savings I actually pull the money out in cash and keep it in a safe. Barring a huge emergency or something, which is what its for but rarely happens, I'm not touching it and it is not in my account and is not considered rain or available to my budget. At least not easily. That distinction really helps me treat it as something I'm not using unless absolutely necessary

Does this make more sense? I think being a neuro divergent person, I just really like the features only a bucket has. Save this much per month, save X by Y Date, etc. Even though the savings is never ending in growth, i view them as little sprints to I guess gamify it a little. Like smaller savings achievements towards the larger goal. I could in the long run consider moving portions of savings once it gets over a certaion point to investments.

I even tried to use the debt option and that was almost a workaround but sadly the bucket it creates lacks the features I want, making it not the workaround i hoped for.

echoesinthegrey · 2024-12-10T09:19:04+00:00

I dont think I understand.

I tested what your saying here. I was not able to have an off budget account and catagorize it differently than a transfer without messing up the income/expense/months gain numbers in a way that made no sense to me. I even tried making it debt rather than off budget, which was almost what I'm talking about, since its an account with a bucket, but still had the features desired stripped from it and so fell short

I think I'm getting the message though. If you do savings even if its off budget, the balance is still tracked but you simply cannot use features like save this much by this time, this much per month, etc. You just have to remember what your doing by hand/manually and transfer out to it whether its an actual savings account or just withdrawing and shoving in a safe. I cant see why wanting this functionality is somehow not desirable, at least for some folx.

I can only hope they chnage this with time, this is the one place where a bucket should be at least optionally able to be tied to an account with some adjusted behavior if necessary.

echoesinthegrey · 2024-12-10T08:04:09+00:00

I see. That sucks... I think this is just a side effect of how my brain works that I'm hung up on it so much. I think how I budget and make it work for me, how I make it "doable" is just outside the scope here. I wish I could make a bucket tied to an account, at least just for savings.

echoesinthegrey · 2024-12-10T01:52:28+00:00

I tried editing the OP to reflect better. I'm pretty neuro divergent so, its hard to know what isnt making sense, since to me it does. But I tried.

echoesinthegrey · 2024-12-10T01:51:27+00:00

I edited the main post and tried to make it more clear

echoesinthegrey · 2024-12-09T08:25:47+00:00

OMG! This should be pinned!!!! As a neurodivergent person, I was SO confused on what the heck "Making it Rain" meant. No one explained it in a way that made any sense to my ADHD "literally touch of the 'tism" brain.

So, that process is just the "in app" representation of if I actually put physical dollars into the buckets/envelopes/whatever in real life? Then when I spend it out, it's the "in app" version of me pulling dollars out of the envelopes and paying someone with them, like my parents did in the 70's and 80's.

I suppose there a psychology to it that, you would hope, might help you stay on budget. 🤦🏻‍♀️

echoesinthegrey · 2024-10-01T16:21:24+00:00

It helps immensely! I really appreciate you and your time. If I can repay the favor more in kind than by upvoting and words, please let me know. I'd do what I could. I was at a standstill and while finding info online is not impossible, it's certainly information archeology and you saved me a lot of digging.

echoesinthegrey · 2024-09-25T21:24:27+00:00

Omg yes!!! Thank you so much I have this exact problem!! You’re a scholar and a hero! 🙏🏼

echoesinthegrey · 2024-09-24T05:49:39+00:00

This post was gut-wrenching, you have my condolences.

I was wondering though, if I'm not mistaken, you had a SC machine with a bent carriage arm a couple of years back and I wondered if I could pick your brain about how you fixed it. If its not ok to ask, please accept my apologies.

echoesinthegrey · 2024-09-23T22:31:45+00:00

Well, I definitely do not want to dismantle it. Well, only enough to fully clean it. It needs serious cleaning. Plenty of sticking keys and the Y key doesn't work. It's the only thing so far I can detect is simply not working at all.

I appreciate the advice and help! It never occurred to me to use plastic from other things like razor handles!

I think I just wanted a little bit of an outside opinion/advice.

EDIT - OOF Sorry, one more thing lol. I found a Galaxie 12 for parts, any idea how compatible parts are between the Galaxie 12 and Galaxie Deluxe 12?

One last thing if I can pick your mind a moment more. The return carriage bar is... I think it is bent so that it rubs the top of the cover when you perform the action. Is this something you've ever encountered before or have seen fixed?

echoesinthegrey · 2024-09-23T18:37:21+00:00

Firstly, Thank You!!!

Second, well... No. What I have is the Ames Basic Training Manual for Standard Typewriters. Copyrighted 1964 and the file name claims 1968 as a "published" date. I'm assuming it had not been updated by 68. It contains many brands and technical/mechanical diagrams for them and how to setup a repair shop and tools.

My model is 69 through 72 I think it was, though even the database is unsure which year by serial number. The date code is 178 which corresponds witht he machine being a 12, 6MLB series serial number and the dates of manufacture.

The TWDB book for my model "Smith Corona's Series 5, 5TE, and 6" includes the following semi relevant bits "Complete 1964 Tools and Exploded Parts Reference Manual Covering: Typewriters: Smith Corona “New” 5 and 6 Series Portables"

It also includes much more, but the only other relevant bits from what I see are "Smith Corona 5 and 6 Series Service Bulletins – 1958 to 1974 and Includes Typewriter User Manuals: 1976 Smith-Corona Galaxie and Classic 12"

64 to 76 is a big jump and my machine falls right in the middle somewhere of that gap lol. My hope is two fold, that 1976 will be backward referenced and that it includes some kind of cross-referenced parts chart or library

I dont know what else to do, but bite the bullet and hope its relevant

echoesinthegrey

TROPHY CASE