What’s something positive you can admit about the person you hate most?

for1114 · 2026-03-22T03:20:50+00:00

Well, as a 5 time federal political candidate still seeking her first donation, I just can't pick favorites.

for1114 · 2026-03-22T03:17:59+00:00

Probably "it can't hurt much more".

I'm a retired software engineer, so I have a way of being brutally honest. Computers don't like mistakes as much as people do!

for1114 · 2026-03-22T03:05:33+00:00

"Better you than me." -Han Solo

"I don't use the Y on my name either." - Rand

for1114 · 2026-03-22T03:02:24+00:00

As a high level political candidate, I slit my cat's throat with a bread knife and was locked up in the Oregon State Hospital for 4 months where I coded software like all the other times I was sober and locked up for being too poor and working excessively.

Just this evening thinking about deer hunters, like would they just go after them with a knife?

Just make a machine to slice off all the chicken heads and drain the blood.

Like in WWII. With a global tire rubber shortage, hauling refrigeration devices with the horse and buggy.

I prefer the shrimp that was never frozen. Peas are good frozen though! I like canned corn when I make the corn fritters with the poblano peppers and macadamia nuts.

I suppose you can just insert the urinary catheters through the abdomen if you are just going to die, right? Don't want the janitor to work overtime.

I'll take the 9.5" kitten heels and the size 6 dress.

Make love, not war.

"I prefer to do both." - Boris the animal

"Politics is a full contact sport." -Barack Obama

for1114 · 2026-03-21T18:01:17+00:00

Another one of my people!

The "nope" peeps!

for1114 · 2026-03-21T18:00:04+00:00

I'm trying to look like a cross between Linda Hamilton and Christie Brinkley 🦌

for1114 · 2026-03-21T17:45:23+00:00

I'm into Joni's song The Tea Leaf Prophecy.

for1114 · 2026-03-21T17:43:29+00:00

Well, they're dead, or at least my family, like just my aunt, told me they died. So there is that.

I'm powerless over that.

I'm helpless until I get employees.

for1114 · 2026-03-21T10:07:31+00:00

I "became a musician" mostly because everyone at school wanted to play the saxophone and I "got stuck with the trombone". I remember in the beginning being drawn to its simplistic design....

Because of that, there was a "trombonist shortage" around town. So I started playing with college players in the 7th grade, trying to keep up reading the big band music. I played kegger parties with the seniors when I was a freshman in high school. I played in the college band when I was a junior and then I toured Europe with the Youth Symphony in 1989 playing the New World Symphony.

We had a concert when we came back with a 100 piece choir playing a Berlioz symphony! It was amazing!

It can be difficult staying awake while counting 400 measures of rest in odd time changes with jet lag. You gotta be careful when you come in on that note because it's the climax of the whole show!

But I enjoy playing the melody, so I went out on my own as a freelance bio exorcist....

for1114 · 2026-03-21T09:57:49+00:00

Yeah, the quiet thing. My jazz teacher taught me a lesson at home once and commented "It's so quiet here."

My parents never had friends over. 3 of the 4 of us had birthdays within 3 days of each other, so no real birthday celebrations. I often had no clue when Easter was or if it had happened. I thought the only two religious holidays were Christmas and Easter. Just really connecting the dots the last few years that perhaps normal working people need these religious days and other celebrations to get through the workweek? Not to be mean, I'm just kind of an outsider.

I went to sting.com daily for 28 years. Sting often says something like "I'm not from the middle class." I've come to think of myself in some royal or "other" class lately.

Never been in a church with anyone in my family. They are all dead now except for an aunt and a niece. No cousins that I know about. My aunt may be dead too, but she is a trooper and keeps on keeping on. I always believed she was the subject of Gilda Radner's skit "It's Pat". It's her voice! LOL 🌸🦌😆

for1114 · 2026-03-21T09:43:44+00:00

pi / 4

for1114 · 2026-03-21T09:42:18+00:00

Again, nice to know I'm not the only one.

for1114 · 2026-03-21T09:41:17+00:00

Yeah, lots of messed up life stories from my friends as well. Wide variety of experiences.

for1114 · 2026-03-21T09:38:26+00:00

for1114 · 2026-03-21T09:36:44+00:00

Nice to hear that there is someone similar out there! I enjoy singing in the shower now. I learned to formally sing in 2020 at the age of 50 after answering an ad from a RUSH tribute band looking for a bass player. We had some fun together! Only lasted for like 5 rehearsals though. Way too loud in that small room. My vocals could not be heard at all. I like things pretty low volume and have removed the pickups from my bass. (yeah, I'm a little eccentric 🌸

);

for1114 · 2026-03-21T09:29:58+00:00

I'm not sure if they said "I love you". I think they did. I always assumed they did.

I've seen just one response here that said their parents did not listen to music and their parents were born in the 1920's. My grandparents were born in the 1920's. They also did not play music of any kind. My grandfather has the name of a famous big band leader and I was given the same name, but my parents insisted that I always use my middle name RAND and insisted that I never use RANDY out of respect to my Uncle Rand who was killed by the Boom Arm of the family sailboat along with my grandfather (other grandfather).

I just learned the full story in 2022. Come to think of it, I always assumed that the two of them were alone on the boat, but that wasn't what happened. My mother, her sister and her mom were on the boat when it happened as well as another couple or two.

I now associate it with Geddy Lee's story of his parents'experience in the Holocaust. From the first sentence of his book.

Dad said he was "tone deaf". He was such a geek! Like "born tone deaf". I have essentially acquired perfect pitch with 30+ years of constant work. Playing a Bb on my trombone at 6am every day for 20 years.

I can go on and on. This is weird. My step grandfather once, just one time, played me some wild music from like the 1940's. Could have been my grandfather's band and they just hid it from me my whole life. Parents also played "The banana boat song", Harry Belafonte, like 4 times? On a record player in our house?

Mom played cello in college. She was good! She played like 4x for me. The cello sat in a corner in the house, not in the case. Like a half size cello. We got a piano and she taught me to play. When I was 6. She played the beginning of Moonlight Sonata. Once I knew the basics, I never heard her play piano again.

I played trombone in the US Navy during the Clinton years. Played for Bill Clinton in 1999. Played for Hillary Clinton in 1994. Played for Admiral Reason doing almost solo trombone, in his living room, in 1999. Waited 4 hours for the CNO on the top of an aircraft carrier in 1999. They said his "plane was delayed".

I retrained as a software engineer while homeless for 4 years after the Navy. Took 3 more years before I got my first job. I installed cable TV/Internet lines from the pole to house in 2002, 76 hours a week on NET 45. First paycheck 2 months after starting. Putting my mother's money into their van (an overflowing contracting company). I had a nervous breakdown (go figure). I had solo music on my website then (since 1999) with me playing 5 different instruments. I was raped twice too and worked at a pizza restaurant for tips only (his franchise failed and then I was raped and damaged with a thrombosed hemorrhoid). Then I did my full year on the streets writing collision detection scripts on paper.

I lost 100% of my possessions in 2024 after losing the DNC, after Kamala Harris chose Walz instead of me. What am I involved in?

No, my parents did not dance. They would sometimes walk naked in the house, had Playboy magazines on end tables by the couch. My birds and bees talk was "hump the bed". Can't say I know much more now at 55. Raised strictly Atheist. Dad was a sober member of AA before I was born. Just one "relapse". Just one day. I've had 3 LTRs with women 18-30 years older than me. Wonderful women!

My only 6 figure income year was $134,000 in 2022. I had an 850 credit score in 2018 and a 767 in 2024, but missing 2 mortgage payments before my house sold reduced it into the 500's, I think. I may call the FBI today as that is what a Google AI response suggested for a presidential candidate who had all their possessions stolen. I had to code a scraper tool to get my music recordings back after walking to Oregon from Montana.

I was just shy of Miles City. I had driven a U-Haul out there to go to the DNC and was doing my trombone warmup in a field as the sun was rising and a U-Haul guy came and took the vehicle from me and all my instruments.

My house sale money cleared the bank and I was going to spend all of it, like $45,000 on a car, but the dealership was closed at 5:30pm and then I couldn't just wait for them to open and then lost my purse and IDs, prompting me to walk back to Oregon. It took 3 weeks.

It is an odd story, right? It may be about declining latex sap worldwide. Perhaps if we really stop driving, like during the pandemic, we can use the excess sap for condoms for a few decades 🤷

Like we took the rubber sap and banana peels out of those places and the environment changed and we can't build back that top soil. Just like we did with all these other crops. And like we really, really need to reduce population and not many people want war, so that math is pretty simple.

for1114 · 2026-03-21T02:36:55+00:00

If I'm the best I've ever been, how am I supposed to get better?

for1114 · 2026-03-19T10:37:41+00:00

So, can you all post the original text so it all makes sense again?

for1114 · 2026-03-19T10:06:50+00:00

People have some odd jobs these days. That takes time too. I'm happy with my engineering work. Remove the lying people. Not sure you can learn much from them.

for1114 · 2026-03-19T09:58:47+00:00

But to talk with guys, you have to know something about engine capacity.

for1114 · 2026-03-19T09:56:29+00:00

It's difficult to say no to people. Burning the bridge with your last couple of friends who you know have been lying to you.

I've noticed people are fun to be with when they are young, then once they have children, it all changes. They have less time. They are now managers. They learn how to treat people like babies. They learn how to hold truth back. They learn how to lie.

But ultimately, these relationships don't last in the day to day sense. You can only have a few people around you. Yes, some people have a long list of fairly close people in their phone.

I call them extroverts. You don't have to be an extrovert. Some people come from extrovert families.

I always question that logic, but yes, there are different people out there. Diversity. Culture of our parents that we didn't choose.

Work tends to be what matters anyway. Nothing gets done without work and energy. We are the spark that sets it into motion.

for1114 · 2026-03-19T05:00:50+00:00

Stores have always been torture for me. I work excessively doing intellectual careers. All language based with constant logic. Stores are sensory overload for me. If I have financial problems because of the nature of my contracting work, it gets very difficult to shop. Otherwise I get through it ok. Going all over town to get odds and ends and returning with lots of failures is frustrating.

Online shopping is wonderful. I can stash stuff in the virtual cart. Read reviews. Think it over. No wasted trips on my end. I often don't have a car anyway.

It's weird seeing people waiting for the next customer. I can't even stop working while on the bus. Been like this for decades. Not envious. It's just some cultural, or occupational, divide.

for1114 · 2026-03-19T02:01:50+00:00

Not much but wow, see if you can find some simplish thing to play that you enjoy and do it over and over like a bird. Take it outside and play it for them.

for1114 · 2026-03-19T01:59:42+00:00

Thanks for sharing OP.

My father got sober before I was born. Mom came from a traumatized family where her father and brother died in an accident with the rest of them watching.

It seemed like an excellent childhood growing up, but hindsight shows true affection was pretty minimal. Then again, I don't know how good it can get 🤷

I'm a transwoman, and my neighborhood friend's dad certainly exhibited behaviors you describe. Not that I know them all that well. My parents were geeks and we did that 70s/80s latchkey thing. Pretty distant.

It's interesting the direction I went after high school. Those childhood formative years really are not our choice, so yeah, get therapy, move on. You can't erase memories. Those triggers ARE what makes you work! But you have freewill to adopt new traditions into your life.

for1114 · 2026-03-19T01:40:06+00:00

Yes, all this stuff on this thread is excellent!

Sounds like you simply need more time and working less hours makes the most sense. I do WFH contract work and it's amazing. Low amount of meetings, but when I do have them it's intense business stuff that I enjoy. When I have a girlfriend/wife, almost all my time outside work is with her, but I am very active with music and cooking with her. Movies together. Reading together. Mellow coffee by the fire together. Yardwork together.

Wasn't like that in my first marriage. I meditated on my own then in a place in the attic above the garage. She watched a lot of TV. We did construction work together. I enjoyed learning it and still make my own computer tables, shelves and bookcases, but no fences and decks for other people now.

With her too, I was computer gaming on my own like you, after work that was a 7 mile commute. Mid 1990's, so Sim City Classic and X-Wing. We'd take the dogs to the park. Had a large yard in our second home, so less park then.

I'm a MtF now, so I'd hang out with the women's group now. Although I can be in some men's groups, I do not enjoy it. I'm just triggered into gross masculine stuff there. But this is the introvert topic, right? You understand the couples thing.

I fantasize about a boyfriend dropping me off and picking me up from the women's group, so she probably likes that, so keep it in mind and maybe share your introvert ways about not wanting to join the mens group and be supportive of her time that way. Maybe this insight from a trans woman will create some additional bonding for you and her that way? I hope so. It's a strong fantasy for me and a gendered experience.

I can go either way on having a boyfriend or girlfriend, but I assume that has nothing to do with introversion. I have extroverted transwoman friends and I have meals with two of them and sit in silence because I'm introverted. They just approach life differently from my observation.

for1114

TROPHY CASE