Jump to content

Menu

livetoread

Members
  • Posts

    3,518
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Reputation

12,815 Excellent

Recent Profile Visitors

The recent visitors block is disabled and is not being shown to other users.

  1. Agreed. I went to a Christian boarding high school about eight hours away from home. I wanted to go so it wasn't a parental thing. Our class of just over a hundred was unusually awesome, and we got close. Every five years over half the class returns for reunions and they are always some of my favorite events. Three of my closest friends come from there. While the kids were amazing, the faculty were very much a mixed bag. Two of my friends were sexually abused by faculty, and there were reasonable rumors of others. The girls dean bullied my roommate so badly she had a breakdown and left. Faculty had pretty much complete power over us because it was insular with little parental oversight. There were faculty who loved us and were dedicated to our wellbeing, but the system as a whole allowed the predators to act easily. It's interesting to me how many of my classmates still support the school and even sent their kids. They are aware of the abuses but either don't believe them or write it off as "bad apples" rather than a systemic problem. While abuse can happen even under the noses of parents, there are conditions that make it easier, and the boarding school setup fits that.
  2. I was raised YEC, and these books really helped me understand why science accepts that evolution happened: Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin (also a PBS special mentioned above) Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters by Donald Prothero I think the Prothero book gives the most overall picture, but they are all very interesting and written in an accessible manner.
  3. I am way more cautious than I used to be about thinking I can read situations and predict how they will turn out. I've seen huge red flags that turn into reasonably happy marriages (for example) and I've seen the opposite. I can look at things and see concerns, but really I have no idea what is actually going to happen. It's helped me with my more controlling tendencies to accept that I don't have the answers, and life has taught me it's a strange journey for all of us. So yes, as I've gotten older I have way more empathy for those who look around and wonder how "x" happened, even when others cautioned about that very thing. It could have turned out differently - you never know. Which doesn't mean just throw up your hands - we can still go with the odds as we see them - but that's all they are, somewhat unpredictable odds. We make our choices based on all sorts of things, only some of which are based on facts as we see them.
  4. Here you go: https://www.thefoamfactory.com
  5. Sounds like you are set, but just in case, we replaced the foam in our couch seat cushions (it's a tightback so no back cushions) and it was great. Dh handled it all so I'm not sure where he ordered from, but it was online. They came in the mail perfectly sized and we just zipped them in. They were much firmer than our old cushions (not sure if he ordered them that way) and we've gotten several more years out of our sofa. The sofa is good quality and has lasted at least fifteen years now. ETA I can ask him where he ordered from if you want the info, and he might remember.
  6. I read that book as a young teen, and yes, it certainly was, though I'd use other adjectives as well. Makes me mad to think about now. So much harmful stuff I was fed as a girl trying to figure out my place in the world.
  7. Ohhhh, I just now got it! "Fundie" as in "fundamentalism" not "fundie" as in "trust fund"! I kept seeing the term and thinking it meant a trust fund baby, and I was trying to figure out why they would talk like that and what it had to do with the current event triggering the term. I was so confused. This makes so much more sense!
  8. My son was a very attractive boy and he attracted attention in public. I noticed the looks and people would often comment. Obviously most of that was totally harmless, but I was aware of how pedophiles can see a child or an image of a child and get obsessive. I was angry after our son was on the news after being filmed playing on the neighborhood playground for a news segment on National Neighborhood Night Out without my permission. I also refused the several news interviews we were approached to give over the years over various little things like voting. Obviously one can't control that completely, and I knew the odds were small, but I figured it's one thing I can control - limiting the exposure he has on media when he's young. Plus we're a family of introverts anyway, so no loss not being in the public eye. We have to weigh the very small risks versus the real benefits of our kids interacting in public and living a normal life, but when it comes to being on the news, that was an easy call for me. If he had been older and made the news for something good and wanted to do it, I would have said yes (but wouldn't have liked it). Around the same time I was weighing all of this (twenty years ago), one of my friends put a picture of her very beautiful five year old daughter on her blog. The daughter was doing something completely innocent in the picture (and fully clothed) but a warped mind could see something different. Men flocked to her blog and started sharing the picture around the internet with disgusting captions. To this day I'm haunted by that. Editing to add, anyone obsessive about your kid can pretty easily find out enough info to do them harm.
  9. I have a bleeding heart in my front yard that is a division from my 100 yo mil's plant. She got a division a very long time ago from her grandmother's farm. I have no idea how old the original plant is, but I'm honored to keep it going. Funny story. Mil asked me about fifteen years ago if I wanted a division and I, of course, said yes, but since it was peak July heat, I told her I'd dig it out and divide it when things got cooler in maybe Sept. The very next day she shows up with a division that she had dug out (yes, in her 80s). It looked terrible, as they already do that time of year, and had only a little bit of root, but she was pleased with herself. I gulped, planted it, and watered religiously but didn't have high hopes. Next spring it grew up happy as could be. They are tough plants!
  10. My parents were decently wealthy by the time I was a teen, and this was still their philosophy. Just because you can spend the money doesn't mean you should. Both dh and I feel similarly in that I can't get pleasure out of things when I know I'm being gouged, so if I'm buying something for pleasure (like junk food) it better be reasonable or I'm not buying it. It's not about being able to afford it - it's about a pleasurable thing losing its pleasure because someone thinks I'm a captive market. Nope.
  11. Ferns might do well, especially ostrich fern. Liriope does well almost anywhere. Red twig dogwood is a shrub that would like it there, but it is less deer resistant. Sweetspire and summersweet are also shrub options. Our voracious deer nibble those but don't destroy them, preferring the roses next to them in my yard.
  12. It would be cheaper, but we eat pretty similarly so it would mostly just mean less of what we eat now. We have shifted mostly plant based from vegetarian and are eating less processed stuff too. I like a variety and I like to try new things so I'd still be buying weird ingredients for recipes and just continuing what we're doing now.
  13. We have been together 32 years and our fights have been rare and mild when they happen. No yelling and we stay on topic, but the tone gets firmer, lol. I think our worst one was when we were dating and we got into an argument about racism. We are both pleasers and we tend to be over-analyzers, so while we get irritated sometimes, we tend to just shut up and wait it out. If we still think it's important after a few hours, we bring it up again, but usually we both realize whatever it was wasn't worth it and that's that. I grew up in a family that argued intellectually while dh did not, so the whole racism argument was much harder on him and he didn't offer another opinion on controversial topics for literally years. Even now he doesn't like debating things that we don't agree on. We come closest to fighting right before and during our travels. Any complicated traveling makes us both tense and lack of sleep adds to it. We still usually just revert to our usual discussions but are more irritated deep down than usual. I don't think this is necessarily better and I know plenty of happy couples who get angry and fight (but don't demean or belittle each other). It's just not our conflict style.
  14. Sorry, yeah I was thinking I've derailed things. Back to KDrama!
  15. But where would Kpop be without it? It seems to me the industry very heavily encourages the development of parasocial relationships with fans. Idols have a heavy presence offstage with their live chats and fan meets and their postings. They themselves post so much about their lives and their interactions with each other for fans. They go on variety shows and play ridiculous games in ridiculous clothing and act out scenarios all to encourage that parasocial thing and stay popular. So much is expected from idols offstage but at the same time they have to act within a heavily controlled, tightly prescribed way that includes in some instances playing up the deep, close relationships for fans. As for close, deep friendship versus a different vibe, all I can say is of course I can't know for sure, especially given cultural differences, but I have my opinions anyway, lol. To me it is obvious that some idols are pulling for a different vibe whether real or gaybaiting. If you don't watch very many offstage videos and especially avoid bl stuff, my guess is your feed just isn't showing you those interactions while mine is because I'm interested in the dynamic. I mean seriously, given percentages, some of these guys are actually gay, and while I agree deep close friendships shouldn't be assumed to be gay, they shouldn't be assumed not to be as well. What bugs me is the teasing and purposeful suggestiveness they do to encourage fans to put them in those relationships in a society that actually doesn't tolerate it. I mean this is a dom/sub vibe, and I'm sure they know it: https://youtube.com/shorts/ov0uprqxypU?si=yHZ7UJ9OtRuMRWgk
×
×
  • Create New...