Posts made by Auspice

I just spent 5 minutes trying to spell corduroy. My initial attempts were so bad even spellcheck was like 'bitch i got no idea'.

This one is actual embarrassment. This one is 'if I am ever a writer on a television show, it is being written in.'

One of my brothers is 8 years and 2 days younger than I am. This means that the last birthday party I ever had was my 8th. After that, every birthday as a kid/teen was 'we'll sing happy birthday to both of you, but as the elder sibling...'

Anyway, for my... I think it was 12th birthday and his 4th, we had my grandparents and my dad's friend and my dad's friend's kids over. Said friend's kids were a group of boys around my age. I guess my parents thought I'd appreciate this. I guess my parents thought 'teenage girl will like having some teenage boys around.' Mostly they just liked that it was free food, cake, ice cream, and access to the basketball hoop we had in our backyard.

Now, when the cake came out, there were very stern words to KEEP THAT BALL AWAY FROM THE CAKE and I, being the very anxious sort I was, just had a feeling and I'd been stood in the general area between table and where the hoop was. I happened to turn just at the time the ball winged off the hoop and went flying towards the table. I jumped up to try to catch it and there I was... hands in the air just as everyone standing around the cake, now splattered in cake, looks up to see me with a horrified look on my face.

Imagine what it would be in a sitcom and it was exactly like that. Teenage boys scattered.
Me with hands in the air looking like I'd thrown the ball directly into the cake.
My brother in tears.
My other brother (8 at the time) already pointing at me and blaming me for it despite having seen nothing.
My grandfather, parents, father's friend all covered in cake and FURIOUS, all yelling at me at once.

Trust me, it didn't help when the 'hot one' of the teenage boys snuck up to sit outside my door an hour later and thank me for taking the fall. I even told him that, y'know, he COULD try coming clean instead. No Disney Channel ending for me.

That moment of standing there, my hands in the air, as the worst possible outcome was laid out before me will be forever etched into my memory, but goddamn if as an adult it isn't just hilarious how picture perfect it is.

When I was a teenager and had begun dating, my mother was very... hands off in the 'be safe' department. She assumed I was having sex, but she very much didn't want to talk about it.

After all, my 'sex talk' was simply her stopping in the room one day, looking at me, and going: 'You know how to find stuff at the library, right?'

Fast forward a number of years and I'm dating and all I've been told is 'If you're having sex, just don't let your father find out.'

So there I am one day, on the computer, minding my own business and my mother comes storming up to me. She is furious.

'You know I don't care what you do but the least you can do is not leave things around where your brothers can find them!'

I am flummoxed. I have no idea what she's talking about. I have less than an idea. This is absolutely out of the blue, even for her and her short fuse.

Suddenly, she slams her hand down on the table and reveals...

what appears to be the world's tiniest condom.

'I found THIS on the floor downstairs. Your BROTHERS were playing with it. I expect you to be more responsible!'

For a minute, I'm stunned. I'm caught between the absurdity of the situation and my utter anxiety from being yelled at. The 'oh holy god what is going on.' But finally the absurdity wins out and I begin laughing.

She's thrown off by the laughing and just demands to know WHY I'm laughing. I get up and walk out of the room with her yelling at my back, demanding to know why I'm walking away.

I return with the first aid kit. Specifically, I return with the box of finger cots from the first aid kit and set them in front of her. And if you've never seen a finger cot, well, they look like tiny condoms.

'Mom, I'd be worried if I was dating someone who needed a condom that small.'

She just stared at them for a moment and stormed off in silence. She didn't speak to me for the rest of the day.

...I suppose this isn't about my embarrassment, but having your mother scream at you about what she assumes is a condom is p horrifying. It was also one of the first times I managed to actually find my voice (as it were) to stand up to her when I was a teenager.

@Auspice said in The Crafting Thread:

@tek said in The Crafting Thread:

@JinShei all I can see are my mistakes. I made fewer on the first hat. But thank you!

I hate that feeling and know it well. It's something that all makers feel. I have a few stitches on my current piece that are pinching each other and the fabric and I know they will ease out, but I am fighting myself not to rip hours and hours of work out to fix just these 4 stitches.

And I know, when it's done, I will wash and iron it and they will disappear and no one will ever know buuuuuuuuuuut......

I lied.

I'm tearing out about a cumulative 8 hours worth of work rn.

We just had a going away happy hour for someone who quit (better opportunity) a couple weeks ago (mine is tomorrow).
Spent three hours hanging out at a bar.
Decided we're gonna make it a weekly event. Yes even those of us who don't work at the company any more.

I really love these guys. Convo went from work to just....all the things. I will really miss this place.

@tek said in The Crafting Thread:

@JinShei all I can see are my mistakes. I made fewer on the first hat. But thank you!

I hate that feeling and know it well. It's something that all makers feel. I have a few stitches on my current piece that are pinching each other and the fabric and I know they will ease out, but I am fighting myself not to rip hours and hours of work out to fix just these 4 stitches.

And I know, when it's done, I will wash and iron it and they will disappear and no one will ever know buuuuuuuuuuut......

@SinCerely said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

When your routine has been consistently fucked since Christmas and getting that momentum of motivated self-employment and working out back is like pushing a car sized boulder up hill.

I mean getting rid of pollution is cool.

But it won't change how, thanks to a childhood battle with pneumonia, I now struggle to breathe if the temperature gets cold fast. Or can require a steroid treatment when I get sick. Or the struggles someone with CF has.

Could help, but we still would like to be able to... I dunno. Feel pretty when we wear masks to breathe better.

@Kestrel said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

Back to RL peeves, disgruntlements and irks.

I just saw a fashion advert on Facebook for stylish anti-pollution air masks.

If that's not peak capitalism I don't know what is.

Yes/no.
It's showing up because of that virus, but they've been a thing for a handful of years at least because of kids with severe asthma and allergies and such who need to wear them.

And I'm pretty in favor of lettIng the kid with a health condition have a cool thing to help them feel better about it.

@TNP said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@Auspice

She’ll always have a female voice, but if you want her to have an Australian, Indian, southern U.S., or some other accent to match your family’s speech patterns, you can absolutely do that.

Alas. Though the accents are pretty cool.

Well, hey, on the bright side you can make Waze a dude. Or sometimes a boy band. Or sometimes C-3PO.

@TNP said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

I want an Alex. I'm not getting an Echo or Dot till I can have a guy.

https://dgit.com/how-to-change-alexas-name-and-voice-54352/
(I dunno if they have male voices but XD)

I've sometimes thanked them.

I also once swore at Siri and she chastised me.

@Sunny said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@Auspice

Yeah, IT wise I’m still very anti iPhone as a work phone, for a wide variety of non-nonsense reasons (starting with phone recovery if someone messes something up, lose a 1k piece of equipment once to a bad password and you’ll know what I mean) but I have to learn to support them, because we have a few for equally valid reasons as not having them.

This is the easiest way for me to learn. Sigh.

That was sort of how it began for me. The client I had needed me to have a Mac, Windows machine, iOS device, and an Android. I had the Macbook (thanks to school), a PC, a tablet.... and I needed to upgrade my phone anyway. So I grit my teeth and did it.

And I was like oh. Huh. Okay, I guess.... I guess I see it now.

And back then, people wanting to jailbreak their iPhones was more common. Now all the 'but my phone can't-' is a non-issue (esp. since flash is going away for everyone). And overall? I'm too busy / too lazy (little column a, little column b) to even WANT to root my phone these days. That's for people with way more time on their hands than I have. 'Must be able to root my phone' isn't on my list of must haves. I just want it to work.

@Sunny said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

Idk which thread so this one.

I am because of work using an iPhone right now. Blah blah everything sucks whatever.

I cannot stop myself from thanking Siri. Every. Time.

I was anti-iPhone for the longest time. I was one of those 'diss iPhone and iPhone users' Android people and I now apologize for being one of those assholes, I really do. Because, for work, I had to get an iPhone a handful of years back.

When I had an Android, I had to replace it every 1.5 years roughly. I had my iPhone 6 for 3 years with zero issues. It ran amazingly. I upgraded to the iPhone 10 only because I COULD. And I'm on the 11 because I'm on my parent's plan (it's cheaper for me) and they upgraded everyone.

the phones, by and far, have been more solid, run better, and... keep getting software updates (vs. 'oh we released our new model so we stopped releasing updates so your only option is to root your phone sorrynotsorry').

I know there's a lot of Apple hate, but it's one less thing for me to worry about in my life. And these days, the two (if I want a decent piece of kit, looking at you Google and Samsung) cost about the same.

So yeah, I apologized a year-ish in to my iPhone to some of the people I'd been an Android snob to.

So I've been reflecting a lot lately on self-care: the easy parts and the hard parts.
I've also been reflecting a lot on self-love (no not that kind you perv).

I thought on the whole 'someone else can't love you until you love yourself' and how much I revolted against that when it came up recently because it came up in a thread on attraction because some of those who brought it up brought it up in regards to physical attraction and I think that's where it got to me.

I hate my physical appearance.
I know others who do as well.

And it is okay to hate your physical appearance. You can hate your physical appearance and still love yourself.
You can hate your physical appearance, still love yourself, and still be open to being loved by another. And I think that's why it made me so angry. I shouldn't have anyone telling me 'you have to love the way you look to ever be loved by another person.' Because I found myself thinking of all the people with various forms of body dysphoria and feeling for them.

I hate the way I look. I probably always will to some extent (I have some scarring in a couple places that, even if I lose the weight that has me especially depressed, will always be an issue). But I don't hate everything about myself. I'm not consumed by self-hatred. I just hate the way I look. So when I'm told things like 'oh no one will love you until you love yourself (aka your appearance)' (which, in the context of that thread being about appearance is how it came across and is also what my mother has told me my entire life)..... it's infuriating. People have loved me despite my hatred of my looks.

I dunno where this is going, but. I guess I wanted to share since I know there's others on the board who struggle with acceptance of their appearance and I don't want them to feel the same: that they can't be loved/accepted by others unless they manage to accept/love their appearance and I just don't think that's true. I think you can still be loved even if you hate parts of yourself.

@Wretched said in Tyche Banned:

@Admiral Ya'll Queda?

@Ganymede said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

@Auspice said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

I hate this. I hate how even finding a method of working out I like.....and my body is rejecting it. I hate how I WANT to get in shape.... I mean an hour may have been the issue and once I recover I should prob do less but I was having fun! I should be able to have fun and enjoy myself and not pay for it for days on end.

Unsolicited advice: don't give up.

Maybe you should do less. Maybe you should do more. As long as you're doing and loving it, you will hit your goal, even it is "just have a bit more fun."

Also, maybe stretch.

I don't plan to give up.
I'm just... grouchy. Grouchy that I enjoyed it. Grouchy that I'm struggling to even walk and everything hurts and I feel like I'm moving through mud today even tho I slept half the day yesterday.
I wish I could go home and do more because I enjoyed it, but instead I'll go home and sit on my ass.

Meh.
RL group I'm in.
Planned an outing on FB, not the Discord (most get planned in the Discord & FB, dunno why this was just FB).

Screenshot posted in Discord as a 'Hey guys, I'll close voting tomorrow!' showed it was a difference of ONE VOTE between two dates and I was like 'Hey! Can it be the 14th not the 7th! Please!' because the 7th is Austin WitchFest. Which I have a ticket to. I ALSO remembered our last meeting a handful of people sighing over the date because they had voted 14th.

Today the date went up. The 7th.

So I commented 'Hey can we start planning the next trip so I can go?!' because I've been wanting to go to this place for AGES. And sure, I could make the 2hr drive solo, but...... why would I want to?

Go msg'd by the organizer and bitched out for being negative and so on. And I was like look, most things have been scheduled in the Discord, but this one being scheduled on FB felt like a slight against me. I know it wasn't, but my vote got left out.

She insisted she counted mine, but it was still a 'wide margin' between the 7th and the other dates.

Really?
Because that screenshot showed 12 votes on the 7th and 11 on the 14th. My vote would make it 12 and 12. I doubt it changed that much overnight.

I apologized anyway, said I wouldn't be 'so negative,' but I'm still really vexed (because I also know I'm not the only Discord-only person). She could've gone 'hey, this big event is happening this weekend: let's not try to schedule then' and looked at other weekends. Or done the scheduling in both (Discord and Facebook). Or, I dunno, understood that some people would be disappointed by the date chosen.

ETA:
and even if my vote WAS counted, still a difference of just one and.......maybe still just not schedule on a weekend with a big event? Or let me be disappointed and voice that disappointment? OR NOT SAY IT WAS A WIDE MARGIN?!