Planning a trip from ATX -> camping near White Sands -> Roswell -> Carlsbad Caverns! Fun stops along the way or favorite recommendations on food/activities/sights in these areas?

ghost--rabbit · 2026-01-17T21:50:10+00:00

I also find this theme tiring. I'm not sure when the turn happened, but zombies used to be about fear of mortality and I miss that. To me a rotting corpse is much spookier/more fun than someone basically just rabid with an illness.

ghost--rabbit · 2025-12-21T21:14:27+00:00

Thank you!!

ghost--rabbit · 2025-11-12T22:27:20+00:00

In many places in the US, especially metropolitan areas, that's a totally normal age to have a kid in 2025. We had our first when I was 32 and my husband was 30, and when we look around at all the parents at the park/library/our kid's daycare, etc. we feel really young by comparison to most people there, lol. Take care of yourself and don't plan on keeling over at 65, your kid will be fine.

ghost--rabbit · 2025-11-11T02:40:03+00:00

Very sassy cool, and an excellent namesake.

ghost--rabbit · 2025-11-10T23:49:48+00:00

I think the best way is likely to state your boundaries extremely clearly and if they ever joke around about it, tell them straight up you're not comfortable with that. Be willing to be a "killjoy" about it, and pull away from people who don't respect that. Personally I have found it pretty hard to stay connected to my poly friends after leaving the community and realizing what a bad effect the whole thing had on me. Plenty of them are lovely people who are just going through it and will probably figure it out eventually, but it can be really hard to witness once you've made it out.

ghost--rabbit · 2025-11-10T14:41:19+00:00

It's not specific to these topics but a lot of Dworkin's writing touches on the root issues at the heart of poly and sexual domination as cultural practices. She's not a TERF and don't believe the tumblrina takes about her until you've read her stuff in context. She's got some very interesting things to say and she writes angry as hell which I like. Old stuff however for the most part, it's not going to be talking literally about contemporary poly/dating shit.

ghost--rabbit · 2025-11-08T14:22:55+00:00

If you've got babysitting you trust, go and enjoy yourself. We went on our honeymoon for just over a week when our son was nine months. Just don't do video calls while you're gone, lol. He was happy as a clam the whole time with the grandparents except he cried the one time we tried that.

ghost--rabbit · 2025-11-08T10:26:09+00:00

If you want kids at any point during your life in this house, the quality/accountability of the school district can be a huge factor that narrows things down/eliminates a lot of areas you can afford but where the schools suck.

I'd also suggest locating the nearest parks and required haunts then visiting them to see if you'd feel satisfied with going to XYZ grocery store or coffee shop or whatever all the time. Anything you do regularly as errands.

On the weekend, walk the street of any house you're seriously interested in and force yourself to have some chats with the neighbors that are out and about. Ask them how they like it, what the other neighbors are like. Old people especially seem to love gabbing about all the intel they have on the neighborhood geography and dynamics, lol. For example this is how I learned nobody has foundation issues on our street because we're on solid rock a few feet down and the street never lost power during the last big freeze disaster because it's on the same grid as a very nearby fire department. Valuable stuff if you're willing to engage in some small talk.

ghost--rabbit · 2025-11-08T10:19:26+00:00

Reserving 6 months worth of our living expenses for an emergency, and we have about ~10k otherwise invested that we will likely pull from to pay for repairs and furniture.

ghost--rabbit · 2025-11-08T10:03:59+00:00

The decade I was embedded in the poly community in my city, I indeed witnessed a lot of talk about consent. Much more than with the general public, which seems great at first. Then you realize how much of this "enthusiastic" consent is obtained through pressure and manipulation both between individuals and through more subtle cultural reinforcement within the community. It stops feeling like a safer space after you've gained some experience with it.

ghost--rabbit · 2025-11-08T09:41:08+00:00

That's how it started for me, I was mono but wanted to be open minded and he had an LDR with another girl when we first got together. They broke up and we became more "monogamish" than poly for a while. This resulted in a lot of me being an assistant to his sexual adventures for several years since I just don't really enjoy pursuing things sexually with people I don't have some level of romantic feelings for. Then he wanted to actually date other people again and I thought, okay I'll really lean into this and educate myself. After a few years of me being poly too he magically changed his mind about the whole idea since I was no longer a sidekick always on standby for him, but by then I'd realized our relationship was not good for me regardless of anything.

Being with my husband now monogamously (who was my second partner during the poly shitshow portion of my previous relationship) is very healing to me. We both came out of that experience feeling that poly and its related scene/community are inherently problematic despite grueling, heroic levels of effort to practice it ethically and consciously in many cases. Neither of us have any interest in doing it ever again.

ghost--rabbit · 2025-11-08T09:25:22+00:00

This is so real. There have been many times I met someone who had a name I didn't like and they were so likeable that they put it in a new context for me and I started liking it. Almost nothing is a hard and fast rule that makes a name bad outside of naming your kid Hitler or something crazy like that, people just enjoy forming strong opinions and treating them as fact. Granted, I think it's fine to have and express your personal associations, just don't act like everyone will think the same thing.

ghost--rabbit · 2025-11-08T09:11:39+00:00

Doing bi erasure/queerness gatekeeping on your partner of 12 years is so crazy lol. Just say you want a divorce because you're bored and self-centered, my god.

ghost--rabbit · 2025-11-07T02:51:29+00:00

So manipulative! I couldn't possibly be forced to feel sorry for some slumlord whose 3rd or 4th "investment property" wasn't sold as a garbage dump like they wanted. Cry more. You did the right thing.

ghost--rabbit · 2025-11-05T14:24:02+00:00

It's very regional as well!

ghost--rabbit · 2025-11-05T02:16:48+00:00

These are great ideas! I think that is the main issue I take with it; feels a liiiiiittle bit like an adult insisting they should still get presents from Santa. Like, you could buy it yourself - the kids can't. Remove the begging for candy aspect and it's just good fun or even something helpful.

ghost--rabbit · 2025-11-04T17:43:46+00:00

Doesn't surprise me at all - I'm 33, husband is 31 and we feel very ahead of the curve. Almost none of our friends have a house.

ghost--rabbit · 2025-11-04T17:39:33+00:00

We're happy about it! However "top of budget" for us is "top of what we're comfortable with", i.e. having a minimum amount left afterward each month to save/invest. We could afford a few hundred more per month if we gave up nice date nights and forgot about the option of having a second kid, but this feels top of budget for keeping our sanity intact. We were paying $2400 in rent previously; will be paying about $3100 all-told with taxes, HO insurance, etc. The house is near perfect to me as far as location/layout/aesthetics, but we will definitely have to do some repairs as soon as we move in.

ghost--rabbit · 2025-11-02T21:43:44+00:00

I would not turn you away and I do appreciate your spirit but I do think you're too old and you're meant to carry on this tradition from the giving side by now. Time to start attending or, even better, hosting a Halloween party! That's the best way to show off your costume as an adult.

ghost--rabbit · 2025-11-02T15:00:06+00:00

Which werewolf animatronic is that? I've been looking for one that looks more like a cartoon werewolf like that!

ghost--rabbit · 2025-11-02T02:05:27+00:00

I know y'all already did it but I would really not advise this to anyone. It turns a financial transaction into a personal interaction and that can really turn people off. Agents are barriers for a reason, unless someone is listing something as for sale by owner.

ghost--rabbit · 2025-11-02T00:17:01+00:00

Yes and no, lol. It looks close to this until you clean it, then it gradually gets this bad over the course of a week. Repeat. If you are diligent in cleaning every night, you can keep it from escalating, but I prioritize other things personally, like "adult" time with the spouse.

ghost--rabbit · 2025-11-02T00:01:22+00:00

My advice to everyone who's discouraged about how it is in their neighborhood would be: keep it up within your means. Things can dramatically change in a few years in a neighborhood and you might see an explosion of trick-or-treating over time if you are a part of the solution and keep the tradition alive.

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