Have a conversation with my now-talking dog.

Don’t have so many kids you barely know their names, let alone needs and interests.

Don’t parentify the girls, making them into mini-mothers that care for the others.

Don’t instruct the boys that keeping a clean home, cooking, and hygiene is women’s work and beneath them.

Don’t use physical negative reinforcement (no hitting, no limiting calories).

Don’t teach that reaching out for help is a moral failing.

Don’t indoctrinate them into a religion.

Don’t instill pride and moral superiority in being “better” and “different” than other families.

Do sit and introspect on how you’re treating your kids. Challenge your preconceptions. My parents could read the above and insist they never did any of them, that they were great parents.

Not tech related.

Catholic school with uniform including khaki pants. I started my period and bled thru. I swapped to sweatpants. Most teachers just figured I must have some reason and didn’t bother me. A couple asked after it, one accepted my reason and offered to to let me out of class to have a little more time to cleanup or call home or whatever I needed to feel comfortable. The last one gave me detention for being out of uniform.

School administration reversed it when they heard why I was being sent to detention. I was advised to just go to the main office if it ever happened again so they could help me instead of having to deal with each teacher myself.

My highest rating on Letterboxd for a film from the 50s is The Night of the Hunter. I really haven’t watched much from that decade. It is a pretty good movie, great at building suspense.

deleted by creator

If someone gave me an AI-generated song, I would be baffled at how little they know me. Any friend of family member of any depth would know I would place zero value on an AI-generated song as a gift. Even “it’s the thought that counts” doesn’t work because there’s no thinking, it’s been outsourced to a bot.

deleted by creator

MAGA freaks should love me. I didn’t get banned from reddit, I self-deported.

I actually had a Fediverse account several years before the Great Reddit Migration, but it didn’t keep my interest at the time. Tried again and stuck with it after the API change killed third-party reddit apps and they started inserting reddit-approved mods into all major subs.

deleted by creator

Ditto.

It historically the charging port for me that fails first to the point I can’t reasonably return it. So this time I got a phone with wireless charging … which stopped working after a few months and I’m back on USB C charging for years now.

At least C is a little more physically robust than older versions.

I haven’t had a phone reach end of life for security updates yet, but that drive me to get a newer one too.

Yes, please. I was just thinking about looking for a new citizen science thing to do over the winter and this falls in my lap. Please DM the discord link to me as well.

I would never say single parents shouldn’t date. What a horrible thing to say. Some single parents maybe shouldn’t date while they get their personal lives in a good place, but that applies to anyone whether they have kids or not.

As for whether I would date one, sure. Age of kid(s), how the single parent sees my role, and where they are with establishing custody if there’s another parent in the picture matters.

Very unlikely to date a single father ever again. Tried that multiple times and the draw of gender roles to put mother-type responsibilities on me was an ever-present threat.

The single mothers I’ve dated had their child-rearing under control, had good communication, and were intentional with how they asked me to interact with their kids. Much healthier for the kids and for our relationships.

I probably wouldn’t date someone with multiple very young children. I will not date someone in the middle of contentious divorce or custody negotiations.

No, I don’t remember all the places. I had a stretch of time not being welcome at my home address, so couch surfed for a couple months. I stayed in at least six different places. That summer is a blur.

Leto is impervious to cancellation somehow. He managed to tank Morbius in theaters not once but twice. Plus something like 9 sexual assault allegations. How are any studios still taking a risk on him? Either people are gonna hate any movie he’s in, or he’s going to get caught assaulting women again. Why, why, why, when there are so many men out there who are better actors and who don’t assault their coworkers?

When they’re dirty and/or when the doors are terrible. 1 inch gaps between panels, loose or missing hardware, door flies open and I make eye contact with a stranger walking by as I’m poopin’.

Pre-covid, I had used Tinder, OKC, others a few times and while living in various states. Location made a big difference as to which platform was any good. One city, Tinder would be king and give decent results, but next city it would be a wasteland with trash and bots.

Post-covid, either the apps got even more money-hungry or I changed enough to not deal with the bullshit on those apps anymore. I found them worthless and haven’t gone back.

I recall one message that was almost word for word match for a DM I had gotten on Reddit in that similar timeframe. Something along the lines of using my body and leaving me ruined for life. I figured if a pseudonymous reddit account, no photos or physical description of me, no posts even vaguely waving in the direction of sexual things gets the same sort of messages as my actual, intentional dating profile, I no longer wanted to interact with the men on those forums. Yeah, yeah, “not all men” but there’s no way to filter them out from the ones with baseline social skills.

Yo, want to swap YouTube recs for shits and giggles? I’ve got one new one from a sibling I’m particularly keen to explore.

NightHawkinLight - really down-to-earth guy who finds ways to make more complicated chemical projects from home with easy to source ingredients. His latest videos are about DIY aircrete that might work in some projects I’ve been mulling.

And I recommended Bobby Fingers, an Irish guy who makes dioramas. The topics he picks for his dioramas are hilarious. He made one of Fabio getting smacked in the face by a bird while riding a rollercoaster. His clay modeling skills are also amazing.

Chipping away at the largest cheese ball I have ever seen. My mom made it. I don’t know why. She’s never once made a holiday cheese ball before, but doggonit, if she’s going to do it she’ll go all out.

Other than that, toodling around in my dad’s garage/workshop using some tools I don’t have myself at home. Probably play some board games later. Eat lots of food. Swap YouTube recommendations for makers/DIY type channels.

I like the world building in Fifth Element and Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. But Luc Besson is probably a rapist and certainly a sexual assaulter. I’ll watch his old stuff I already own but won’t put any more money towards it nor support any new projects.

Edit: oh, also he’s not “cancelled”. He came out with another movie this year or last, if I recall. 9 times our of 10, celebrities that say they were “cancelled” just had their feefees hurt by people on social media.