From what I have seen in my life, yes. From what I have read and studied about DV (which is a lot), also yes. Sometimes it is the case that someone’s behavior drastically changes (though that is usually more apt to be getting less aggressive as they significantly advance in age rather than more aggressive and less functional as they age but sometimes someone becomes violent later in life) but in general, people who physically assault their intimate partners have a history with their other intimate partners.

This is true for many types of family violence. That said, people who batter their intimate partners tend to have a pattern to their intimate relationships that they play out again and again.

Frankly, my older son (who is autistic and has social anxiety) has learned more valuable soft skills from joining a sports team as a senior than he did in the rest of his time in high school + he realized how important exercise is to his mental health. If I have any regrets about his time in high school it’s that I didn’t sign him up for a sport or other intense physical activity from the beginning. While there were other factors (hello, COVID), he had major mental health crisis in high school that almost completely derailed him from being able to graduate. I am all about sports in schools, especially no cut sports and sports that it is practicable to start at anytime. I’m not altogether sure my older son would be graduating this year if he wasn’t rowing. When I think back on my own childhood, I credit my involvement in sports and the lessons I learned while playing softball until I graduated as being a significant part of the reason I even did graduate. As a first generation high school graduate on one side of my family, finishing high school and college completely altered the arc of my life. Neither of my brothers graduated high school. I definitely don’t idolize sports but I do think the role they play, especially for some kids, is one that is substantial and not at all unrelated to academic success.

I live in the area and there is usually a big get together every five to ten years. There was a big thing for +\-20 in 2018. I say +\- because it’s a small school and the gatherings tend to be for anyone who went to this school from about a 3-5 year range. I didn’t go. I never go. I have my friends from high school who I see when I see them (some when we happen to be in the same town, some are actually still regular friends). Theres one teacher I am still friendly with. There’s no one I wonder about whom I’m not still in touch with to the degree I want to be. Right after I graduated, a long time popular teacher who I suspected to be a creep got fired for being a creep. He picked the wrong girl to creep on that year and her parents were lawyers and they went for his job and kept going until he was fired. As they should, he more than had it coming. This caused a huge rift in the school community with someone people defending him and attacking her. And honesty, I don’t want to go and deal with the people who came down for the teacher and against the student.

I would have bought everything else for Thanksgiving had I thought to order it in time. 🤣

This aptly sums up the kind of year I’ve had: I BOUGHT PIES FOR THANKSGIVING.

Imagine the sound my head as it exploded on learning that that Dad had been denying his building entry into his apartment for months when they came around to check for and treat for bedbugs. 🤦‍♀️ They are treating now. I was like “why is that an optional unit entry and why didn’t y’all call me to let me know this was happening.” Needless to say, he looks waaaaay better now that he’s not getting eaten by bugs and he’s taking his meds so he can consume food and liquid. Fortunately he’s not really a hassle to have around. There was some initial confusion over “why are you on the computer all day, I wanna go to the store” but he now understands that when I am clacking away on the big computer it’s because I am doing my job. The fact that one can do their entire job through a computer still rather amazes him. He’s on the waiting list for an apartment closer to us (actually on the same block as us). That would be close enough he could walk over for meals if he wanted and we could walk over there to ensure his pills go down his gullet but give us all more space.

That some good dad-ing your son is doing. So cute!

I was speaking about a number of people I know who think this is their biggest issue. And no; these people do not regularly interact with people in a personal way who do not have a college degree. While nearly 6/10 Americans do not have a college degree, there are definitely places where the figure is much lower than that and the social divisions are such that people stay in their bubbles. I suspect based on what I have read that this pattern plays out in other large metropolitan areas where there is a lot of social stratification, even if people want to pretend it’s not there. I used to work for a non-profit that conducted various workshops and exercises around class with donors. One of the parts of the workshop was counting the people that you knew well and personally who didn’t have a college degree. The results were illuminating every single time that question was asked. People would routinely mention their household employees, their grocery checker, their favorite bus driver. Contrary to what an affluent person thinks, their nanny is probably not their personal friend and the nanny was the most likely person for them to have any social contact with outside of the service being performed. Most of my neighbors are working class and don’t have a degree. That is atypical for my area. Two blocks over, different story. To be clear: they *encounter* them but they don’t commonly have contract with them outside of the times that they are using a service or buying something. It’s a social bubble.

The government in most cases didn’t make the loan. They guaranteed the loan. Student loan forgiveness doesn’t erase the debt- it means that the federal government pays off those loans. Even if the federal government was erasing loans the federal govemebt held, the money still comes from somewhere. If I loan my brother $100 and he doesn’t pay me back, I don’t have that $100 to pay my light bill or whatever. So I have to earn an extra $100 or shift that money from another line of my budget. This is why I only give my brother $100 if I can afford to gift it. I don’t think that the federal government can afford to gift all the money that is currently held in student loan balances. Further, a lot of student borrowers with the largest balances don’t have federally backed loans because they had to go into the private lending market to exceed the federal limits. Yet those loans are still not dischargeable in bankruptcy- which is a huge problem and one of the reasons we got into this mess in the first place. This also directly contributed to skyrocketing tuition. Don’t get me wrong. I feel for borrowers (including myself). I do think that there’s a way to right the system a bit. I don’t think that low income borrowers should be paying their loans before they feed themselves or figure out a way to own a home. I just think it’s more complex than “erase all student debt” and that there are significant equity issues wrapped up in the idea of doing so.

My husband and our younger son were baptized at the Easter Vigil. Both of them + older son were also confirmed. My dad was the sponsor for the boys, which he especially appreciated. First picture is my older son and dad looking at the bonfire before the vigil, second is younger son after he was baptized and the last is the boys in their church clothes, lol. My sons, especially the older one, take after their dad in that they really do enjoy dressing up when the occasion presents itself. My dad thought I would get them white suits like he had for his first communion. I reminded my dad that the boys are not 7 and it’s not 1949 like he was/it was when he had his first communion and I am far too cheap to buy them nice clothes they can’t wear again. It had been awhile since I’d been to an Easter Vigil and I’d forgotten the length. I should have napped and caffeinated myself first.

I’m so sorry. That’s a big loss.

The irony is that after all that cleaning, my normally clean place was messier than it’s ever been because the people who do the heat treatment rip everything apart to make sure they get everything. My extra shoes from my closet ended up in a laundry basket in the kitchen. My jewelry landed in the bathroom. A stack of client paperwork turned up on top of the fridge. My husband and I are still finding clothes in each other’s drawers. The blinds all ended up on the patio. The overall effect made it appear we had been raided by the feds. 🤣

The company that did the heat treatment came back around and applied spores to the baseboard and various hidey holes. Apparently the spores make any bedbug that comes in contact with them toxic to other bedbugs. Then they come around twice more with a bed bug sniffing dog to make sure they aren’t there anymore. There’s a warranty as well meaning they will treat again if necessary. We will definitely be monitoring closely. When my husband retrieves anything from my dad’s, he wears plastic and sprays his shoes. Then anything that comes out of the apartment is sealed in a bag until it is washed and dried. Then immediately washes anything he was wearing and showers. It’s a lot. If his apartment building won’t heat treat and really kill them off, I am going to press the place that runs it to at replace his electric recliner and adjustable bed.

I am well aware, having taken out student loans prior to 2007 and seeing many family members and friends do the same. That said, I don’t think that calls to erase all debt for all borrowers without regards to their ability to pay is equitable. Most low income student loan holders have total debt under $25K- the median outstanding balance was about $17K for all borrowers. The average is about twice that. It’s a relatively small number with outstanding balances that exceed $100K. My mother, talented and brilliant but poor AF, didn’t finish the 6th grade. I’m the first high school graduate in her family. At this point, there are three total high school grads and 2 college grads in her family. I was accepted to a school that I could have racked up $$$ loans at. I had zero way to parse what would be best for financing college. I went to a public school instead for a lot of reasons. My opinion would be the same if I personally owed $20k or $200k in student loans: there are things I would like to see be a bigger priority in federal spending than erasing any and all debt. Because the people in my family who didn’t graduate from high school or college? Need help a heck of a lot more than I do in very real ways.

The money for the payoff/forgiveness *comes from* somewhere. It doesn’t fall from the sky like manna. Why are college students and graduates household balance sheets more important than the wide array of unmet human needs in this country? I know that blanket forgiveness that is need blind is unlikely so I’m not overly worried about it but personally, most of the people I personally know talking about “erase all student debt” aren’t really considering the needs of people who are getting by without a degree and far fewer options. Many of them don’t regularly encounter people who don’t have a degree in their personal lives unless that person is providing them a service.

So in the last year for us, like for many others, it’s been one thing after the next. To the point that having our car totaled registered more as a minor annoyance in the grand scheme of things because hey, it was insured. Things (be it extended family, our 18 year old son, my health, my dad’s health, work, school stuff) keep coming every which way and we do our best to sort them into “on fire” “urgent” “probably shouldn’t wait” and “can think about tomorrow” “can think about never”. For some lunatic reason, I took a staff job in December but I don’t have anyone to blame for that but myself. And benefits after years of self employment are kinda nice. So we are getting by. A couple weeks ago, my dad ends up in the hospital, dehydrated and undernourished because it apparently started hurting to swallow and rather than tell anyone about this, he just stopped swallowing stuff. The reason it hurt to swallow? He cancelled necessary medical procedures last year and forgot to take his GERD meds. So he can’t live alone but the wait time for home services evaluations is…long. We are working on it. As such, he’s moved in with us. Which is less than ideal but we aren’t willing to let him die of starvation and it’s easier to take care of him here than drive back and forth between his apartment and our place while juggling everything else and WFH. So to cap it all all, we got bed bugs from my dad’s apartment (which is one factor in why it’s easier to have him here- he’s in a high rise low income seniors building and their bedbug issue is bad right now.) We cleaned and cleaned and treated and cleaned some more. Finally we gave up an hired a company that costs $$$ to do a heat treatment to get them all. The heat treatment worked. Nothing from my dad’s place comes here without being treated or decontaminated. We are working with his building to see if they will heat treat his place so we don’t have to trash most of his stuff. They get in everything people. Everything. This post is mostly because: 1. I know a lot of you care for elders yourself. 2. Celebrate that I didn’t burn my home up to get rid of the bugs. Believe me, the thought crossed my mind.

I’m all for helping low income borrowers. I’m all for public service loan forgiveness for those who put their professional skills to work in the public interest at a reduced salary level for an extended period of time. I’m all for helping those who were taken in by predatory practices of for profit schools. I think student loan interest should be very low. But despite being very liberal, I am not for either blanket student loan forgiveness or entirely free college. It’s a massive resource transfer to people affluent enough and with sufficient Executive Functioning skills to be able to attend college and finish one or more degrees.

I’ve run into this with doctors before. It’s infuriating. While I know it can happen to anyone, I noticed that it happened a lot more to my mom than my Dad and it happens more to me than to my husband. Reading through our medical records is interesting because you can see the difference in how they describe us. It’s nothing super overt but it’s there. I’m sorry you are having to deal with all this. I hope you feel better soon.

We were 22 and 23 and paid for the wedding ourselves. We did a self catered brunch at a garden club off season. It was less than $1000 (2002) but we fed everyone. There were about 60 someones to feed. We did baked eggs, roasted breakfast potatoes and veg, homemade granola, homemade muffins and served coffee, tea and punch for drinks + cheesecake cups for the cake. I absolutely would not invite people to a party and expect them to pay for the food. I would invite fewer people or serve cheaper food, which is what we did to fit our small budget. I think we hit the sweet spot. We also wanted an alcohol free event due to all the alcoholics in our family so we felt it was easier to omit it from brunch than other meals.

So it's safe to say that for some people the swearing detracted from the story. For me, it really didn't. What detracted from the story for me was the direction, the editing (parts were choppy and the camera closeups got to be a bit much). Some of the most important parts of the story felt like a movie trailer rather than a full film. I thought that it was an interesting story overall and didn't think that the film quite did the man himself justice. The whole thing felt like a great idea for a film rather than a great film. I wanted to like it more than I actually did like it.

I'm not convinced that there's a lot of street gang activity in Helena Montana but maybe I am wrong about that. Was he ever arrested for anything other than a DUI?

And then he immediately reversed himself and said "not every scene". I watched the film. I heard a lot of swearing but nothing that made it impossible for me to believe that this man had a sincere religious conversion. Maybe I am misremembering but I only recall Fr. Stu going to confession twice and then him hearing another priest's confession. Do not recall any swearing when he was hearing confession. Since I haven't seen a confessional used in decades (I made my first confession facing the priest in a small room in 1986 and every confession I have every been to has been face to face), I was more surprised that he was going to confession in a booth than by his language TBH.

Fr. Mike’s three guidelines about when swearing is sinful more or less line up with the guidelines we have always used for our kids regardless of religious practice. 1. No swearing at people. 2. Don’t make the profound profane or degrading and 3. Be thoughtful with how you speak in public settings/aware of how your language comes across to others. Fr. Mike interviews Wahlberg:

He wasn’t a priest for very long at all. He got sick in seminary and he only lived 7 years between his ordination and his death. It’s my understanding that most of those years were spent in a nursing home because he needed significant daily care. I think if anything the movie *played up* the seedy impression of his life. In real life, he obtained a college degree in English Lit while he was boxing as a young man. He left boxing because of an injury, not when we was old/washed up. Some of his last jobs before entering seminary were running a museum and teaching at a Catholic school while he discerned if he was really being called to the priesthood. I think he had DUIs and he worked as a bartender at some point but I do not get the impression that he was “a gangster”. Here he is in his own words: Priests definitely have smoked and drank, sometimes heavily. When the seminary building near my home was converted to other uses after two decades of disuse, they found a mysterious sap oozing from the walls of the apartments used by the staff priests. They sent it for testing🤣, IT WAS NICOTINE from the decades of heavy smoking by the priests who lived and worked there.