NameAlreadyInUse

Him being the airplane dipper absolutely would’ve tracked. Oh well.

Well I wouldn’t have ruined her life because I’m me, but I’d have been doing my best to ruin my own life. Or I would’ve wound up dead from drugs or alcohol or suicide. When people try to lie to themselves about things they fundamentally know are true about themselves, it takes a toll. Acting out in destructive ways is common, and the results can be awful for the person lying and the people they are connected to. Fucking sad that we are actually actively trying to go back to that time.

Wait, lobo is cruiser, the airplane dipper?

TG&Y for those of us who didn't have a mall nearby.

One of my junior high coaches had those parents. He'd get whipped whenever he used his left hand. I remember him telling that story and thinking it was bizarre. Then I later when I started hearing about the gay conversion movement I thought back to that story and realized that some people just need to have control over everything. They want you to choose x because they want you to choose x and there is no better reason to choose x than because they said so. I feel for all the people who chose x when their natural inclination was to choose not x in an effort to get along with their parents or other authority figures. I'm thankful every day I figured out how to get past that.

Yep. Need more than that. Had a conversation with my mom about it last week. "But the police let all those people in, I don't know what they were doing wrong." People on the right are choosing not to see the stuff that would show them that anything nefarious happened. We also talked about the crazies arming themselves because the dems are getting ready to outlaw all guns. Her response, "Well not yet." So it doesn't matter what the Dems actually say about the 2nd amendment. Reality is no longer a factor to those on the right. They are going to believe what they believe and they are going to ignore any evidence that tells them maybe they shouldn't believe it. I told her that being duped into believing something is fine and is no stain on her, as long as she quits believing it when presented with information that she was duped. After that, it's 100% on her if she keeps believing nonsense. I expect her to keep believing nonsense.

LOL - “Well, it’s convenient because there’s a Safeway right there that sells eggs,”

Well, the good news is, it's complicated, so it's ok if you don't know all the details, since it's not details that ever affected you directly. But in the end, most people are either straight or they aren't. Those that aren't may choose to try straight relationships. That doesn't make them straight, it just means they are trying to ignore their non-straightness, sometimes it can be done successfully, but usually it's a recipe for disaster. I was gay the whole time I was dating females. And that's why I stopped dating females, because I finally was willing to admit that and deal with it.

And this last string of responses is why I love you all! Fucking fantastic!

So you know man, saying it once, getting corrected and not continuing to say it is the only thing I ask for, so I'm not going to rake you over the coals for word choice. I've been guilty of poor word choices plenty of times in my life so live and learn. And yes, I had girlfriends all the way up until I broke up with my last one at 24 years old. Up until I got to UT, I was sheltered enough that I thought that all gay people were flamboyant, and I wasn't, so I didn't think it applied to me. I grew up in a time where this don't say gay thing was the norm in all schools, and my friends at UT were just like my friends back home. Being gay was a really really bad thing to be. It was a fucking social death sentence to be out in high school. Hell it was a social death sentence to even be thought to be gay in high school. My experience at UT was the same. Having girlfriends helped to keep any suspicions at bay. Plus I like hanging out with women so aside from the sex part, which I wasn't into, it wasn't a super hardship. When you throw on parental expectations, well..... The reason I think this is so terrible is pretty simple. I already got to grow up in that environment. I already got to see what that environment looks like in practice. I saw that when it's a whispered about topic and never talked about out loud, it becomes a taboo topic that is weird or gross or scary, and things that are weird or gross or scary get separated out and ostracized by their peers. It's a very lonely place to be. For some kids, it's too lonely and will lead to all kinds of problems. Self abuse, self harm, destructive behavior, suicide are all things that are pretty common amongst that cohort. I do not want any future kids to be stuck in that rut because of their sexual orientation. I know that if this bill is effective in the way they want it to be, that will be the effect. And that, to me, is unconscionable. And yes, to be a gold star is to only have had sex with people with whom you are actually attracted. A gold star hetero has only had sex with the opposite sex. A gold star gay has only had sex with other males, and a gold star lesbian has only had sex with other females. I suspect a lot more young people are gold stars today because they don't have to worry about being ostracized to the extent that it was a worry for any kid who thought they might be gay back in the 80's. This law will have the effect of pushing a lot more kids right back into the closet for no good reason at all.

What’s nuanced about a female teacher getting married and changing her last name?

So do you consider you are “advertising it” when you talk about your wife at work? Put another way, would you be concerned if your youngest kid’s teacher was getting married and told her class she was changing her name to match her husband’s midway through the year? What about if that same teacher instead said she’s getting married and is changing her name to match her wife’s? if you think there is a material difference between those scenarios, why?

If you don’t care about looking fat I’m not going to stand in your way, just sharing advice on how to wear clothes in such a way that your wife will find you better looking.

Anytime. Would you call me talking about my husband at work “advertising it”? By the way, I’m doing my best to temper my words to not seem leading or cruel or anything. I’m asking these questions for clarity and to learn, not to play gotcha.

To answer, I was pretty blissfully not self aware about why I didn't like my hometown. I was also an athletic kid who played football, soccer, basketball, baseball and swimming so I wasn't a target of bullies. I had no real idea that I was gay, even though I managed to find several other boys that were willing to trade blowjobs from junior high til graduation. I didn't truly understand that I was gay until I saw 2 guys kissing on the front page of the Daily Texan my first week at UT. So, when my tennis coach called me a queer, I didn't see it as an assault on my identity. When my preacher talked about the homosexuals going to hell, I didn't think he was talking about me. But had I been a bit more self aware I might've. And there wasn't a single soul in my hometown I knew of that I could have gone and talked to about that, who would've supported me through that, and who would've done anything at all to reassure me that things would be ok. I can easily imagine a world where I was less athletic and more self aware, where not only was it harder to make friends, but I was getting a barrage of negative actions and words thrown at me by society, by my teachers, by my church, by my friends who don't know about me, by the bullies that have figured out I'm an easy target, by my parents. Imagine all those people just cutting you to pieces over and over again. And there is NO ONE you can go to about it. There is nothing you can do except keep taking it. I can absolutely see where kids can see this as a ride they do not want to be on. So yes, representation matters. Hearing about Tommy's 2 dads or Billy's 2 moms or the teacher's brother marrying another boy are all little toe holds in life that self aware gay kids can use to help them get to the next day and the next until they are in a place where they can actually stand on their own two feet, where they can finally get out of that toxic environment and they can make a new family of friends who can help them overcome the years and years of casual abuse that was heaped on them while they sat in silence. And by the way I call it casual abuse because most people have no idea it was abuse. I'm pretty certain that tennis coach never would've called me a queer if he thought I actually was, but that type of casual name calling, which is a good gotcha for straight kids, is psychologically devastating to the gay ones. And finally, I say all this because every kid needs someone they can trust. And this is true for every gay person I've ever known. At some point they reach an inflection point where it is no longer possible for them to keep this to themselves. In the environment I grew up in, there was no one. I went to an anti-gay church, so I knew my parents agreed with the church and I was an abomination. I had friends and teachers that had no compunction around calling people fags and queers. 18 years of that environment took its toll, and it wasn't until ~10 years later that I finally talked to another person about what I knew about myself my first week at UT. It was another 2 years after that before I told someone that I actually cared if they rejected me. Thinking I would have non-supportive parents delayed my ability to grow up and start being an adult and fully living my life for 10 years, at this point fully 1/5 of my life. And that's someone that didn't have to suffer the slings and arrows as personal attacks. Imagine how much worse it would've been if I had? Would I still be here today? I actually don't know. Sorry to go on about this, I'm late to this thread.

There's a difference between slim and skinny cuts. I'm not talking about skinny. Those look terrible on everyone. And I don't live in a world where larger than 34 is fat. I said 40 is fat. The point is that you don't want to wear jeans that have enough extra fabric to billow in the wind around your legs. You want them just big enough for your leg to fit comfortably in, where they give your legs definition. Wearing shirts that hug a bit closer to your body also help you look less fat. For the most part, guys were clothes that are too big for them. That doesn't look good on fit guys, it looks even worse on guys that could lose a few (or a lot) of pounds. Also, never wear pleats in your pants. Those can make even skinny people look fat.

What exactly do you not think they are ready for? And what exactly does "advertising it" mean? I can tell you that the law is written in a way so that technically, your children's teachers wouldn't be able to talk about mommies and mommies or daddies and daddies at all. It also wouldn't allow them to talk about mommies and daddies. But let's hold our breaths and see which of those three groups actually get talked about every day in school and which ones cause an uproar. I suspect that number is a lot higher. But most people who didn't grow up in cities graduated from high school, got the fuck away from that town, and dropped their old friends who they had already figured out would not be supportive. So it's not surprising that the fact they were gay would never get back to you, because they don't talk to their high school friends anymore and chances are, their parents are at the very least private, but more likely have either cut ties with their kid or are very very embarrassed that they have a gay kid, so they aren't going to tell anyone either.

Maybe you are right about that. But what was also unwise was to create these mandates without some sort of metrics that we could all work towards to lessen/remove the mandates. Austin has had that, and they announce when cases go down enough to change our behavior, and they announce when cases go up and we should be more vigilant, and by and large people in Austin have been good about it. But as much as I was arguing the other day about water bottles through security, and that being a bigger deal, mask mandates are perfectly fine as long as they are logical but they suck ass when they aren't. What I think you really are asking for, and it's shocking to me that the CDC hasn't done this yet, is they need a really really really top notch PR team. They let too many scientists get out in front of the public and hem and haw about this stuff. They need to make everyone who is talking for the CDC be very very clear on 1) Why we are asking people to do x, 2) how long we need them to do x, 3) what changes could cause us not to have to do x as long, and 4) simple language about what is happening that is causing x to happen. They aren't doing that today, so most people have no fucking clue how safe or dangerous things are, because they don't understand what the CDC is doing, and since the CDC is looking at sometimes conflicting data sets and doesn't want to accidentally say something that they can't scientifically prove, they appear to be wishy washy on the science, and it erodes public trust. On Tuesday Austin was pretty close to 70% masked but hte plane was closer to 50/50 to IAH. Houston to St. Louis was more like 50/50 in the airport and 20/80 on the plane. Yesterday, St. Louis airport was maybe 10% masked, same with the flight to IAH, and 20% from Houston to Austin.

Hmm. Well I’ve probably thrown $100 worth of bottled water in the trash in the security line because I forgot I had it on me. Why aren’t we fighting to be able to bring our own fucking water on the plane with us? We’ve all seen it as no big deal for 20 god damned years now and there it is. So clearly, masks were not no big deal. If it were actually no big deal we wouldn’t have 10 pages on it today and 0 pages on the bottled water ban today. One of them has been orders of magnitude more burdensome and expensive over the years and fucking crickets.

I have never not had access to booze on United and I’ve been back flying for over a year now. 1. Umm I do have noise canceling headphones. That hasn’t stopped random blue hairs who wind up next to me from deciding to interrupt my quiet time by trying to get me to take them off and have a conversation. 2, 4, and 5 - you must’ve missed the part at the beginning where I said I’m not sure they matter on a plane. I was mostly poorly attempting to be funny. however, #3 needs to be discussed. Yes the whole point of wearing a mask is to protect yourself from others and to protect others from yourself when you are in giant crowds. Inside the airport giant crowds are still a thing that happens pretty frequently. On the airplane I think the filtration is likely good enough that they aren’t needed but the airports didn’t suddenly spend billions on improving their air filtration systems. Where there is no social distancing I’m ok with masks being required until we are out of worldwide pandemic stage. We aren’t there yet. I say this as someone who will likely not wear a mask except when traveling with hubby. Or when I’m getting close to vacation and I’m working my ass off not to get sick beforehand.

I can't say I'm in favor of it, in fact I'm not sure it matters so much once you are on the airplane. However, I fly almost every week for work and I've noticed some giant benefits. From most to least important, here are my reasons: 1. People talk less with the masks, which makes me very happy whenever I have to be on an airplane. Please do not talk to me unless you are asking what I want to eat/drink, thank you. Yes, I'm ok with sitting in the exit row. 2. Fart smells don't seem to be as intense with masks on. Ma'am please go to the restroom before you exercise your colon again, good lord. 3. There is no such thing as social distancing at the airport. People press together, standing dick to asshole in the security line and then again at the gate. I actually liked not having my personal space invaded. I liked it a whole fucking lot. 4. I love to travel, my husband is less enamored. My husband is also a germaphobe. My expectation is that vacations without a mask mandate are going to be harder to cajole than they have been with everyone masked up. 5. Seeing the people that weren't willing to wear their masks made it really easy to pick out the unpatriotic assholes. Their country asked them to do the least little thing for their countrymen and they couldn't be fucking bothered. I like knowing who those people are so I don't accidentally get myself mixed up in their anti-American shenanigans.

Pleated pants add 30 pounds, man. Just stay away.

I think the point of this topic being started is that we liked it better when it was a great value, full stop. Yes, we are still cheaper than most of those places you mentioned, but it's less true every day.

First, if you are wearing 40 jeans and xxl shirts, mix in a salad. But also, yes you do want a slimmer cut down the leg of your pants because it will make you look less fat. You'll still look fat, but you'll look less so than going with those billowy cuts that would help you catch air in a strong breeze if you weren't fat. Also, don't ever wear pleated pants if you have bigger than a size 30 waste, unless you want to look fat. As someone who wanders around the territory of being fat periodically myself, these are all hard learned lessons.

Yeah, Austin isn't affordable. I'm definitely a beneficiary of getting a house here when they were still affordable, but I've lived in this house 7 years and could sell my house today for triple what I bought it for. That's insane. And what I could buy with the proceeds wouldn't be as good as what I have from a location/amenities perspective. That's also insane. We're now planning for the eventual time where we're going to have to leave Austin altogether because even if we work here for the rest of our careers, it will be prohibitively expensive to retire here even for people like me who do meet the definition of being able to afford a median house by Brisket's definition. How do they manage this in New York City? How do they manage it in San Francisco? It isn't a new problem, and people live/retire there as well. Do people just decide to live in shitholes?