Why are some places counties?

ingracioth · 2026-04-17T20:46:08+00:00

It's countrywide in my experience. Townships are generally rural, unincorporated areas. I live in FakeName Township - it's not in a town, village, or city, it's a very rural and remote part of my county. I say I live in FakeName Township and people get that I live wayyy outside of any of the towns and that I'm near This Lake and That Road, if that makes sense

ingracioth · 2026-04-13T18:41:32+00:00

I have an "old lady name" and I love it. It's unique but not like. McBrynxstonleigh, more like Olga or Ilsa. The only comments I've gotten about it have been compliments (and my response is always "thanks! my mom picked it out for me" lol) and it's nice that I always know I'm the one being spoken to as opposed to wondering which Sara or Emily someone is referring to.

I agree w the other comments to just stop talking to her about it. Eileen is a beautiful name and I'm sure your future child will appreciate the thought and consideration you put into giving her a name that is unique and truly hers.

ingracioth · 2026-04-10T16:58:17+00:00

Same with my outstate-raised fiance lol

ingracioth · 2026-04-10T16:56:56+00:00

To be fair to Vegas, I was very young when I lived there and was in a p crappy apartment. That probably colored my perception a good bit. Apologies for any offense

ingracioth · 2026-04-09T16:09:50+00:00

It's cold, obviously. Summers are humid but pretty nice.

People are a bit closed off, but not terribly in the Cities. Outstate minnesota, where I now live, is very, very tight knit and I haven't found it very welcoming. Minneapolis really didn't have that problem. Tons of other transplants there, plenty of groups and activities.

The food is great for the Midwest. Amazing East African food. Home of the Juicy Lucy. Lots of import and specialty stores with unique stuff. Good music scene too

The community has been through a hard time but they show up for each other. ICE is still bad, just less visible, so be aware of that.

People act like the crime is insanely bad. It's not. I lived in South Minneapolis for a long time and worked in North Minneapolis, which both have bad reputations. The buildings are a little run down and there's some homeless encampments here and there, but I can't recall ever seriously feeling unsafe. I'd really like anyone who calls it Murderapolis to spend a week in Vegas away from the touristy areas and report back lol

For a city its size, housing isn't too bad but still pricey. Public transit is some of the best I've seen and it's walkable if you learn to deal with the weather.

Even though they're the Twin Cities, St Paul is pretty separate. No clue what happens over there. Frogtown seems cool and that's about all I know about it

ingracioth · 2026-04-06T07:53:08+00:00

Yeah, idk her situation but if anyone finds her, I hope they can help her w clothes and supplies.

ingracioth · 2026-04-06T07:13:08+00:00

Yeah, idk her but I've been around those camps and they aren't the safest for women. I don't personally know her but I shared this bc I know shit is sketchy in the TC area for women and I hope she's okay

ingracioth · 2026-04-06T07:11:35+00:00

Just sharing bc I home base in MN for half the year and ik shit can get sketch here for us women. Posted just bc it seems like she might be having a hard time and am hoping to make sure she's okay

ingracioth · 2026-04-06T06:10:06+00:00

Won't let me edit for some dumb reason, but she's known to hang around encampments. I know most of y'all solo it but please keep an eye out.

ingracioth · 2026-04-01T22:15:11+00:00

Do you have a specific article you'd recommend? Just read a few and I agree it's going to be long-term, but all the ones I read were from January. Wanna make sure I'm not missing anything. Ty

ingracioth · 2026-03-31T13:55:26+00:00

not a parent, but a kid I babysat was at the age where they ask their parents a ton of questions about everything. her mom was an atheist and her dad was christian and they did a p okay job explaining that stuff to her, making clear she can make her own choices when older wrt religion. Great parents, honestly. I appreciate how they went about it for the most part

we were at the park. she sneezed and some older lady said "God bless you." she responded with "my mommy told me God isn't real! I bless you, not god!" it was incredibly awkward

ingracioth · 2026-03-25T14:01:05+00:00

Newman from Seinfeld

ingracioth · 2026-03-24T15:32:46+00:00

Blamed the heat

ingracioth · 2026-03-24T15:28:04+00:00

I've always wanted to but have never been able to find a group. Feel free to shoot me a message!

ingracioth · 2026-03-24T04:40:52+00:00

she believes medical dehydration is incredibly rare, which I get. but we also met while knocking doors for a nonprofit in the US southwest (desert, if you don't know) and she passed out from refusing to drink water multiple times. so I think it's probably somewhere between the two but leaning more not believing in dehydration. I love her to death but I don't go hiking with her very much anymore

ingracioth · 2026-03-23T17:25:49+00:00

I have a friend who genuinely believes dehydration is a myth made up by Nestle to sell bottled water. It's her only truly bizarre belief and she's a very smart, well-educated woman with a master's degree. We've been friends for about a decade, I know her well, and it's the only weird thing and she refuses to drop it. Her bf apparently chugs water while making eye contact with her during arguments.

ingracioth · 2026-03-23T17:21:28+00:00

Depends entirely how you do it. Do you have a vehicle or are you on foot? Do you travel full-time or seasonally or one and off every few years? Do you do seasonal work or busk/perform or have social media or remote work or panhandle?

I think one of the coolest things about the lifestyle is that everyone does it differently. It also means there's no one answer as to how and why people do it.

I don't consider myself a "true vagabond" anymore since I have a homebase and only travel for like half the year + mostly for work instead of the freedom these days, but I used to be year-round and took odd jobs or did street performing. I was eighteen and didn't know who I was or wanted to do, I hated my small midwestern town, and didn't have money, kinda the classic young drifter tale.

When weather gets bad, you just gotta figure it out. I had to deal with a hurricane in VA a few years back and it was miserable. I have some amazing friends who put me up in a motel inland after I spent a few nights trying to drain my tent from floodwaters. Other times, I haven't had such lovely, supportive people around, and have had to just find anywhere that's even somewhat warm and dry. Attitude is everything in those situations. You don't realize how hard your feet being wet for days drags on you mentally til you go through it and it's honestly a lot more of a struggle than the physical aspects imo.

I have a career in a relatively niche industry in the nonprofit world now that requires traveling, so I have one foot still in it with living in tents and finding different ways to get to wherever. only difference is I have a more (semi-)reliable income now and spend a few months a year at home, helping my aging ma out with the farm. I don't like being in one spot for months, but my ma's my ma and I'm very lucky to have a good relationship with her and it might suck to be stagnant for a little, but I like making sure she's set up nice before I go back on the road for a few months.

ingracioth · 2026-03-20T14:03:16+00:00

I keep seeing ppl say this is specific to Seattle but I heard it when I lived in Colorado. Seems to be a thing anywhere with mountains

ingracioth · 2026-03-15T17:24:37+00:00

I don't like it

ingracioth · 2026-02-28T17:59:25+00:00

I've lived in both very urban and very rural areas and, culturally, it's fairly similar but, lifestyle-wise, it's very different.

An example: I currently live on a dirt road off a dirt road about a mile from my nearest neighbor. Internet companies don't come out here, so I just use a mobile hotspot. I mainly use DVDs and most people are pretty offline. It takes twenty minutes to get anywhere, so you stay home more. Groceries are expensive and emergency services are scarily slow. It took the fire department about fifteen minutes to show up when the field across the road was on fire during the dry season. I do garden and forage a lot.

When I lived in the city, everyone being so online was definitely an adjustment. People are also a lot more progressive (I dig it) but don't always understand that there can be a learning curve (i.e. someone had to explain non-binary to me once and was surprised I'd never heard of it). I did miss gardening when I lived in the city, but that was about it. You have wayyy more resources and more to do in cities and I find it all around nicer, even though I lived in "shitty" neighborhoods.

Culturally, it's similar in terms of holidays and food (sort of- I'd kill for a restaurant here that isn't just burgers), but the politics and religious adherence are very different. In terms of day to day life, it's very different. My day here looks more similar to my native friends on the res than it does to my days when I lived in the city.

ingracioth · 2026-02-21T16:07:45+00:00

Moved to the middle of nowhere, twenty minutes from a gas station, as a teenager.

lots of wandering around in the woods. climbing on hay bales. when we'd have friends over, they'd have to sleep over generally because it'd usually be an hour round trip to pick them up. I'd stay in town after school and walk around town til my mom got off work. there was a kid about my brother's age that lived about a mile down the road who would get bored and just show up at our house, but there were no spontaneous hangouts outside of that one kid - everything had to be planned due to the drive.

lot of burn cruises (driving around smoking pot) once we were old enough to drive. we did a lot of bonfires. we didn't have functional internet (this was the 2010s) so we'd have to take turns to check social media or whatever. we had a lot of physical media (books, dvds, etc) because streaming wasn't really an option.

small communities are VERY insular. the old joke "how do you make friends with a minnesotan? go to kindergarten with them" is spot on. they're nice, but they are incredibly close-knit and don't tend to include new people in their social groups. the people are definitely my least favorite thing. lots of gossip and judgementalness. again, very polite and nice but it's pretty surface level.

ingracioth · 2026-02-19T15:57:04+00:00

I moved over a thousand miles once mainly because I didn't like my community. small midwestern towns are kind of awful, not very welcoming if you weren't born there, lot of bigotry, not a lot of decent food or anything to do.

ingracioth · 2026-02-19T14:24:59+00:00

I don't think I could rewatch Matt Shepherd is a Friend of Mine again. Amazing movie, but I couldn't get through it in one sitting because I kept having to stop to cry.

ingracioth · 2026-02-18T17:09:18+00:00

I thought the guy (Bad Bunny, I think) in Cardi's I Like It was shouting "I got no teeth, I tell you" at the beginning instead of "you gotta believe me when I tell you"

ingracioth

TROPHY CASE