Posts made by surreality

@JinShei Considering that adorable pup, I can't blame you! I'd be won over, too.

@JinShei We're pretty sure this girl is a Turkish Angora. They have a number of unusual traits, and she nails every one. (Stunning since she was found as a stray, I mean, yeesh. Though it was in a very wealthy area where she was found, and the vet's convinced she was owned as a kitten to be so social, so very possible.)

No blanket-covered feets are safe, ever. Her usual 'love me' method of making sure I'm distracted from freaking out is to plunk down on my pillow and wedge me right off of it while chirping for pettings. (A king size pillow, even! She's not a big kitty! Talent.)

If the pettings are not forthcoming, she will do things like 'burrow nose into armpit until you move, and if you don't, you will be sitting there, baffled, wondering, 'WHY YOU NIP MY ARMPIT OF ALL THE THINGS?!''

Sometimes I'm pretty sure cats operate on the principle of 'if you are more confused than angry, I win'.

@JinShei And now I'm secretly glad flouf is in the bedroom, or she might get ideas. When I looked up the breed we think she likely is, it mentioned 'they have a sense of humor, but often only they will find it funny.' ACCURATE. This would totally give her ideas.

@JinShei YEP, that is familiar. I end up getting that, too. Thankfully, just with the catnip mouse... (she's caught a real one, so it could have been worse?)

"OH HI, YOU'RE AWAKE NOW, WE CAN PLAY!"

@JinShei I find myself weirdly grateful for the new flouf, 'cause I swear she is the only cat on earth that never sleeps. I wake up like somebody dropped a bucket of water on my head, and I get a flouf immediately jumping up onto the bed for all the petting forever. It helps. It really, really helps. I'm still awake, and there's no getting back to sleep, but there is cuteness and d'aww that at least helps bring on the 'slightly less panicky' faster than usual.

@JinShei That actually is a really good way to put it: it's how you wake up if you're waking up to an actual blaring alarm or the sound of someone screaming like they're being murdered. A lot of people don't get it, and I'm totally stealing that to help explain it.

The husband could sleep through the apocalypse, and fall asleep again easily after almost any interruption.

Meanwhile, me:

@JinShei Sometimes I think the anxiety portion of our brains decides, 'Pfft, nightmares are bragging about how they can wake up the body, HOLD MY BEER!' and then we're just screwed.

@JinShei Empathy virtual hug sent. That's... pretty much my last three months; it used to be 'every so often' but now daily. Fingers crossed it fucks off much, much faster for you!

@Derp I legitimately don't know if I love or hate this but I heard two people have a deeply sincere conversation about using the mathematical formulae of fractal generators to more deeply connect with 'universal bee energy' and the mathematical wisdom and awareness of bees we have only now started to understand. I don't mean 'we're only now starting to understand the fractal patterns of nature in bee-created structures', they really and truly meant 'bees math so much better than we do, because they math from their very souls'.

Also, the food at that show is good. Really good.

As my husband put it: "Dinner and a show! Could do worse at $25 for a table."

Am leaning toward 'love', because... yes.

I manage to avoid having to people for the vast, vast majority of the year... and yet somehow manage to end up with two art shows on the same day, one picking up right as the other ends.

At least it's just the one day, but holy crap. That's too much adulting and peopling for me in a condensed timeframe.

@Pandora Oh jeebus. Pardon me while I wipe the coffee from the monitor; that was spit-take inspiring.

That said, if we ever run out of things to gripe about here -- ha! -- I suppose reading everything in rewind could prove entertaining as a diversion.

@Auspice Yeah, if 'work from home' is a freely available option and they're sick, that's just stupid on so many fronts I can't even begin to describe it.

Staying home to recover while working would be better for them AND everyone else.

I sympathize with it more when it's work. I can empathize with 'I cannot lose the income from that day' enough to be frustrated rather than angry. (ETA exception: Food service of any kind. STAY THE FUCK HOME.)

I do not understand it when it's regularly occurring social shit, like a weekly tabletop game or movie night or similar. This is when I will get seriously fucking pissed off.

A jackass went to one of the husband's tabletop games with a plague. Not only does everyone in the game work (and can't afford to miss work since nobody's NOT scraping by), but the gamerunner has twins in elementary school who do NOT need to pick up a plague to spread even further there, lawd knows there's enough of them in school already. This? This is when I will get royally fucking angry.

Dude, you did not need to pretend to be an elf that goddamned badly.

@RightMeow Just promise that if it ever falls on a 3 day weekend, it will become The Birthening, a Festival of You-ness (or similar, it's pre-coffee, and my event day naming mojo is way off).

ETA: "Oh, you were in labor for 17 hours? It took 3 whole days for my amazing ass to come into this world." <-- also that.

@RightMeow I say 'I have legal evidence of two birthdays, therefore I reserve the right to celebrate twice' is the appropriate response here.

I mean, fixing it, yes, you should, and yes, that's pretty fucked up, but I say claim the Second Cakeday like a hobbit with Second Breakfast.

@Sunny said in How to Approach (nor not) a Suspected Creep:

Can somebody explain to me why it's problematic behavior to go:

p X=You ok?

This would be my go-to, too, but I still had to seriously think about this one before posting.

When I first read the question, this was my reaction, and it's definitely a case of 'instinct'.

I know I've been in situations in which someone is engaging with me in a way that suggests that they have NOT read the room re: appropriate tone/behavior and there's a notable disconnect about cluing them in to why their actions are Not Cool even when I've said something to them. Needless to say, someone being 'lifeline person' in those situations would have been extremely helpful.

That said, I get why it's hard to be that person when it's a stranger. It is REALLY EASY to come across as 'wrongfunning someone' if they are perfectly OK with what's happening by asking if they're uncomfortable when they're not, which could in turn make both parties uncomfortable. So I get the hesitation or unease -- it's a case of 'do I save the seemingly harmless rabbit from that bear trap, or is the rabbit in on it with the bear'?

This issue on the whole is a case of 'err on the side of caution' or 'err on the side of protective instinct'.

In these cases, I'm heavily on the side of 'fuck caution, if they want to be mad at me for trying to help, let them' for the most part. If it's borderline or not super clear to me? I may go with caution instead.

@Ganymede I'm going to be looking into that after the holidays. The old traditional Atkins worked wonders -- it's just SO expensive.

That's one of the sad bits; even good quality carbs are fairly cheap compared to even average quality meat and fresh veggies. This is a pretty significant factor for us at the moment.

@Sunny Of all the posts on this forum I have wanted to upvote 300 times, this one wins out over all of them. ALL OF THEM.

It's not even the calories. What is going in makes a huge difference. Me? Seltzer and a few saltines a day, I will gain weight. Eat a half pound of bacon a day for a week with other high fat no-carb things? I will drop weight like I'm literally pissing it off. (SERIOUSLY body, what the fuck is with that?! There are worse things that could work, sure, but that's expensive as fuck. I clearly have the strict carnivore flaw, which blows for someone who loves a good artisan whole grain bread or sourdough. :|)

@Rinel The folks who truly love and care for you are gonna love you and care about you for you, whatever shape or label or anything else is attached.

Realistically... I think this community tends to be pretty dang open-minded because we're used to the idea of exploring personalities and experiences that aren't the expected defaults of our inborn baggage in the creative sense. I don't think people can do that for years and stay closed-minded for long without some serious cognitive dissonance. It's really hard to not grow some empathy. (Some people manage, but that's gotta take effort.)

(I am still all grins that there was a happy goose under 'proud' on a gif search, too, I mean seriously that's kismet.)

@Rinel

Good on you, goose. Very proud of you.