Seconding this! Having the ability to get update alerts helps me remember to install them.

Just recently discovered I am on the aromantic spectrum myself. I always experienced relationships as essentially close friendships. I still feel love, I still like things people would consider romantic, but there is no line between “friend” and “dating” for me, aside from the comfort of the other person.

Realizing this and coming out as arospec was harder that when I came out as trans or when I came out as nonbinary. Mostly because I was now married, and trying to figure out how to convey “I am aromantic, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love you” in a way another non-aro person can understand is difficult.

The price of eggs in particular I haven’t noticed. I have been vegan for ten years, so I am over here trying to give people tips on how and where to replace eggs with other, cheaper stuff. I do anlot of baking and cooking, so I have tried all the swaps the internet recommended and have a pretty good idea which ones work.

However, the price of food as a whole is going up as well, and I don’t expect it to stop anytime soon. I am hoping to set up a ‘victory garden’ to try to help. If anyone else is looking into this, I recommend looking for an official victory garden guide that would have been issued for your particular area. I found one that was written by an agricultural professor at the University of Ithaca in NY, for example, and it goes over what crops and food preservation methods will work in my area. It will give you important information about temp tolerances, which is about to be more important than ever.

Assuming that this would cover all past legal names as well (as I have had a grand total of four, different first and last names): still not a lot.

I have changed a lot since I first started posting things on the web, and I am embarrassed about some of the older stuff that I said before I learned more about certain subjects. But (as far as I can remember), the worst comments I ever made were ones in defence of outlawing abortion, and even those I never posted hate in.

So, given that those few comments are vastly outnumbered by my more recent comments explaining why my previous stance was nonsensical, I would probably have to be more afraid of someone threatening me for being a trans person who advocates for bodily autonomy as a basic and inalienable human right.

I am short with a somewhat femme figure, sparse but obvious facial hair, a flat chest, and a voice that sounds somewhere between a very gay man, a 13 year old boy, and an older woman. I am very visibly crossing many lines that people look for when trying to figure out how to address someone. Meaning, in a time when attacks on trans people and our rights are very quickly ramping up, I am in more danger of harassment and assault than I have been in the last few years.

As far as who is looking out for me: I am, that is part of my goal, but I also have a husband and a few friends who I can ask for help. However, I am in a slightly better position in life than most trans people in this country, since I live in a blue state that is (probably) unlikely to strip me of my rights. Hence my focus on helping others. There will probably be a lot of people coming here for medical treatment, and I want to make sure I help in any way I can.

As a visibly trans person: survive, and help as many other people survive as I can.

I would love to, and when I buy a house sometime in the future that is a major consideration for me. Unfortunately, right now I have to live where I can afford to. I have had to move almost every year since graduating college and have never been able to take that into consideration due to finances. Even now, hubby and I will likely be given his parents’ current house that is much further away from our friends, and we are taking the opportunity because we can’t afford not to.

Having two dinners this year. My mother in law came over on Christmas Day, we had a Field Roast, garlic smashed potatoes, mushroom gravy, brandied cranberry sauce, and boozy nog, with plenty of cookies for dessert. It was a nice time, though a bit bittersweet as this is the first Christmas since my father in law passed.

This Sunday we are having friends over for another dinner, and I am making veggie pot pie, fondant potatoes, green beans in garlic butter, the rest of the cranberries, and ricotta cheesecake for dessert. It won’t be a huge crowd, just doing dinner and some board games, so looking forward to that.

If you are like me and looking for nice holiday lights that won’t hurt your eyes, check out Technology Connections on YouTube who has tested all the brands and found two that include soft blue lights! I am investing in them soon because I miss having colored lights.

Chalky foods (merengues, smartie candies, antacids, etc). I also hate the sound of chalk being used. It makes my teeth hurt.

Blue LEDs that aren’t properly balanced (they give me migraines)

Electricity whining (I can hear this almost anywhere inside)

Dense fleeces (they make me itchy regardless of material)

Turtlenecks (I feel like I am choking)

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/12/21/europe/suspect-germany-christmas-market-attack/index.html

Relevant part of the article: “In a now deleted feed on X apparently belonging to Taleb A., he made anti-Islam statements and self-identified as a Saudi dissident. He spoke openly about renouncing his Islamic faith, expressed sympathy for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and accused Germany of promoting the Islamization of the country.”

No, a bigot who followed Afd, Elon Musk, and other racists and spouted a bunch of Islamophobic BS on Twitter and other social media, according to all reliable reporting.

Great! When can I get one installed?

Semi-serious here. I have the absolute worst sense of direction and would be thrilled if I could get an update to fix it lol.

My husband deals with that, and one thing that has helped him quite a bit is setting alarms. If he knows he is taking on an extended task, he will set an alarm on his phone for every hour or so. When it goes off, it distracts him from whatever he was doing and interrupts anything he is watching, so he is reminded to get back on task.

Another tool is accountability to another person. If he is having a bad focus day, he will sometimes ask me to bug him if I notice he is distracted for too long. Use this sparingly. I have been this person for a few people with ADHD, and using this too often has resulted in me being responded to like a parent asking their kid to stop playing games and eat their dinner. You don’t want to end up viewing your friends and partners as though they are an authority figure.

My husband and I did this after the Dobbs decision came down and cited ‘future reconsiderations’ for Casey and Obergefell. Called a handful of friends and family and told them to meet us at the courthouse in two weeks.

Now, we are bracing to help people who may have to travel to our blue state to get married, just like they had to 15-ish years ago. We may not be able to leave, but we have some means to help others, so we are doing what we can.

As a NY resident, her ‘political concerns’ are getting in the way of her doing anything useful and instead have her focusing on assetting her power over normal working people.

She pushed for an end to remote work and forcing return to office in 2021, ended the eviction moratorium in 2022, she agreed to a deal to let the taxpayers foot the bill for a new stadium for the Buffalo Bills in 2022, significantly delayed signing the Digital Fair Repair Act and kneecapped it by adding an amendment that allowed manufacturers to supply repair services instead of being forced to sell replacement parts, appointed a conservative (LaSalle) to the NY Court of Appeals, vetoed legislation to ban non-compete agreements, said that Israel had a right to “destroy Gaza”, deployed the National Guard to crack down on “criminals” using the NYC subway, and proposed banning facemasks on the subway in response to protests.

Cuomo needed to go, but we need someone much better than her if we want someone to actually stand up against Trump.

This is obviously horrendous on the face of it, but in addition, he doesn’t even consider people who take medication classed as antidepressants for other issues. I am on a tricyclic antidepressant that does help my depression, but I also take it because it significantly reduces migraine attacks and mitigates my IBS symptoms. So even if you do think that depression is ‘all in your head’ (ignoring all modern information and proof to the contrary), you still should be enraged by the mere suggestion of a policy like this.

And where am I ruling that out? I never said that this resistance would always be peaceful. But the sooner you start coordinating with the people around you, the better prepared for that violence we will be, and the better our chances are to prevent a lot of deaths. You can claim otherwise, but sitting alone while my neighbors and friends die is unconscionable to me.

But what am I deluding myself about? I have literally admitted that what we do may not be able to fix things entirely, but we doom ourselves more if we don’t take action. You obviously know that already, given your statement about your footprint, so why are you arguing against another person calling for direct action?

Even if that is true, why take out your frustration like this, by raging against those of us who are willing to do all the good we can?

I am not promising that we will be able to fix everything. Heck, I don’t even know if we can fully fix anything. But until every last living being is dead, there is something here that deserves every chance we can give or get.

You don’t have to participate, but to argue against this kind of work is like denying pain medication to someone who is dying and justifying it by saying ‘meds will not save you’. If we can’t save the life, we can at least save them from as much suffering as we can manage.