I have an RL name that has a common alternate spelling and yes I need to correct people. It’s not really a big deal to me, having to give my name in a way that involves my spelling it out is not an everyday occurrence. When someone mispells it on something like a takeout order it’s fine, I really don’t care.

Honestly, Violet/Violette is really not that bad as far as spelling things differently. Violette is kind of nice, and I’d be happy it wasn’t Vylit or Vyelytte or something worse. If your main concern is that she will have to correct people, I mean… eh. It’s had little to no effect on my life. If your partner feels strongly about it and you go along with it, you will still be doing a lot better than Talula Does The Hula in Hawaii.

I don’t have much time to respond so I’m going to just hit one bullet for now:

Are you going to try to argue that Khan and Gul Dukat weren’t given nuance and development? Some of the things that made them such compelling antagonists is that we were given insight into their motives and backgrounds and perspectives. Khan absolutely was nuanced and the persecution and illegality of genetically enhanced humans was a great stepping off point for him. Just about every antagonist that pops up in Star Trek gets some kind of explanation why they are doing the things they are doing, and the crew takes a moment to acknowledge their inherent worth as living beings and, if they’re sentient, discuss possibilities for negotiations or nonviolence. I haven’t forgotten that Klingons, Ferengi, Borg, Cardassians and many others start off as villains, but we are given many opportunities for them to be “humanized” through characters like Worf, Quark, Hugh/Seven, Garak and others. There are no “good” or “bad” aliens in Star Trek.

So keeping that in mind, how did things go with the Ba’Ul? How did they handle Control? What nuance was Lorca given? In Discovery, your first impression of a bad guy being bad is always correct.

I have an intense distaste for Discovery, and wouldn’t recommend it.

I could rant about it a la Angela Collier for 4 hours but here’s my main issues boiled down to a bulleted list:

Some things I like about Star Trek:

• Optimistic future, humans can create greatness and beauty if they continue to check and overcome their faults
• No black and white villains. All antagonists are given nuance and development and many become favored allies
• Themes of teamwork, a functional ensemble, core crew are all valid and valued, no one star of the show.
• No such thing as magic or gods, everything is in the realm of human understanding if we have sufficient knowledge

Guess what Disovery has?

• Nihilistic, apocalyptic future
• Bad guys that are just bad, they’re evil, don’t ask questions
• One principal star of the show that is the focus of nearly every episode
• No attempt to explain things with any veneer of science

Then add on some blatant examples of total ignorance for the universe it’s set in, attempts at ham handed fan service by shoe horning in clumsy references to characters from other series, you have a show that is farther from Star Trek than a 14 year old’s submission on IO9. When it actually let the supporting cast do things, they were charming and likable, but Stamets, Saru and Tilly weren’t enough to keep me from getting mad at just about every episode.

If you don’t really care about or know anything about Star Trek it can be entertaining I guess, but why watch it when there’s Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks and The Orville?

Yes, last time we played we had a schism in our group over how sexy an animal a bearded dragon is 😆

Love rosemary with garlic and lemon. I use it on my dry brined turkey under the skin, crushed in quinoa and in herbal bread. So good, definitely my favorite herb.

Sorry basil, I do love you too but it’s not close.

Because as much as they want to claim they’re logical and rational, no logical or rational argument would ever be the thing to convince them. Identity politics prevents people from accepting anything from the “other side”, so they ask for sources so they can point to it as biased and unfair etc. There’s really no point in arguing with someone like that using facts. The things most likely to change their mind is their own personal experience or writing an entirely new narrative about the world.

First thing I would look into is how water is getting into those cracks in the first place. Check your gutters and make sure they’re cleaned out and at appropriate angles, and check the downspouts. Water should be draining away from your home, not into it. You might need to put up some sort of awning or tarp, and fix the angles of those pavers/concrete. If there’s water flowing into the foundation then it’s going to be a reoccurring problem.

I think they’re kinda cute, I like to say they’re not skeletons, they’re “bone golems”.

This is what we dealt with last time we tried childcare. We attempted to put him at a nice place at age 2, but he was just not ready and too attached to us to have a good experience. He stuck it out for a couple of months but the light left his eyes as soon as he realized we were gone. We pulled him out and kept him home for another year.

When we mentioned trying it again to him, he was immediately anxious about being left. The day we were supposed to start he was scream crying and inconsolable. The people at the daycare kept saying “just drop him off, don’t worry, we can distract him” but I didn’t want to betray his trust again. We took it slow, we went on a tour, spent some time with his teachers, and then did an hour of him playing without me there. We built up the length of time without us over a few more days, and now we have a much better foundation of trust and familiarity. He actively looks forward to going now, which is huge for him.

The “laughs” all felt from the outside. There was very little humor aimed at the people who would self identify as nerds and way more “haha look at these nerds and how quirky they are” set ups. Sure there are misogynist asshole nerds but usually they need to grow beyond that to find friends and partners. As far as I could tell none of them did. Sheldon and Howard were still super sexist, Leonard was still passive and whiny, but the story pushed forward foisting “perfect matches” on them.

Throughout the whole thing there was very little actual geek humor, and it felt denigrating to actual nerds.

We were lucky enough to have a bloom by our house and I cleaned them, cut them and pan fried them with butter. Truly delicious, intense chickeny flavor and great texture. Would actually prefer to eat them over chicken, but they are so hard to cultivate and very unpredictable as to when to find them.

It sounds to me like you might have trouble communicating what you need and the behavior you expect from others. There probably needs to be some work done on establishing boundaries and what constitutes healthy relationships before working on the DBT stuff. I don’t think you can fully blame the therapists, because you probably have been going to them and saying “I have trouble with emotional regulation” but not giving the greater context of “people keep transgressing my boundaries and it’s driving me more and more crazy”

Because yes, the only thing we have control over is ourselves and the actions we take, but you absolutely do not have to tolerate being treated poorly. It sounds like you need some tools in your tool box for healthy communication, because we teach others how to treat us. Learning how to assert your needs, your space and “rules of engagement” and then sticking to them is a whole other thing than emotional dysregulation.

I’ve posted this a few times but here it is again for you:

I have managed to nearly eliminate Amazon entirely from our lives for the past two years. I usually find things by searching what I want to buy on DuckDuckGo and then adding “-amazon”, “-etsy”, “-walmart”, “-temu” and “-pinterest” as search modifiers.

A lot of little shops are perfectly legit, but watch out for:

Things being ridiculous bargains. Small shops will almost always be more expensive due to higher overheads and less bulk

Too much variety in product (unless they’re a marketplace with 3rd party vendors). A legit shop will have inventory that makes sense together in its theme. If they sell everything from bubblebath to uranium they’re either probably not actually selling it or drop shipping it.

Pictures that look like they come from lots of different sources, or no consistency in images. If they don’t have their own pictures of products or standards of presentation that’s suspicious

Some general recs that apply if you’re in the US:

For anything electronic or computer related: B&H Photo or Microcenter

For music stuff: Sweetwater, but there’s a lot of great small music stores, or you can use a marketplace like Reverb

For clothes: if you have any clothes you already enjoy, go directly to their brand website. If you don’t, go to local secondhand shops and touch, handle and try on some clothes to see them in person. I’ve discovered some brands I like by finding something in a thrift store that was well made but not my size or preferred color.

For house repair and DIY stuff: we order from a local building supply store, but there’s also hardwareandtools.com, 1stoplighting, Waysource, Lightbulbs.com, Timothy’s Toolbox etc.

For food items, local grocery stores often offer online shopping and delivery. If it’s a specialty item or imported the import companies sometimes have their own websites.

For cosmetics, skin care and some home cleaning things, there’s Hive or Grove Collaborative which try to prioritize sustainability

For tea, coffee and spices, Adagio and its sister websites

For that “everything store” experience, Costco will ship a good percentage of its offerings for free with a membership in the continental US.

For something hard to find you can’t find another site for, try Ebay.

I do business with all sorts of independent retailers and have only had good experiences with them. These are sites that I’ve personally bought from but there are a lot of smaller sites just trying to make a place for themselves on the internet

I’m a different flavor of neurospicy, but I had an extremely positive experience with a therapist who specialized in it. I think it’s important for a therapist to have an understanding of your mindset, and knowledge of common maladaptive patterns that can be related to the unique ways neurodivergent people operate. I don’t think good therapists are that rare, but finding one that’s a good fit for you can take a few tries.

I HATE STRUCTURE and I hate that it makes me live my best life and accomplish my short and long term goals 😡

This reminds me of Althea Chrome, the artist who made all of the knit accessories for Coraline.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NQCf8fjgoJQ&pp=0gcJCRsBo7VqN5tD

Sounds great, Photuris for supreme dictator!

It seems you’re aware of your emotions at least, but when you’re having these conversations with others you will probably want to scale the level of response to the situation and the relationship. A coworker who asks you how your weekend was should get a very brief and vague response, and a close friend who earnestly asks you how you’ve been over coffee can get the details.

How are you?

Level 1 : Not great, honestly
Level 2 : I’m going through a rough patch right now
Level 3 : I’m dealing with a loss in the family
Level 4 : My cat died, and I miss him a lot
Level 5 : I’m heartbroken, he was with me for such a big part of my life, I don’t know if I can go through this again with another pet

If someone asks you how you are in a time sensitive setting (work, grocery store, party with other people) and they’re just an acquaintance, basically never go above level 3, even when pressed. If you have an hour or two to talk with a close friend that has been equally emotionally open with you, then go for it. There’s no reason to be dishonest but try to limit the detail you go into to roughly the same amount of time they have spent sharing their feelings with you. If you don’t know how long that is, or they haven’t, then be as vague as possible. You need to listen to them as well, and build up a reciprocity of sharing. If they don’t share with you then they are probably not interested in that level of intimacy.

The NZ one really “gets it”, it’s my favorite alt version

Two so far today, probably another three by the time I go to bed.

Having a young kid is kind of cheating though 😁