Jumping in to agree with Liese - it's generally better to start playing on an acoustic instrument.

I'd recommend a classical guitar, which has nylon strings.

eta: Nylons strings are much easier on the fingers than steel strings.

I am a recent convert to support groups, but I am SO INTO MINE. Even when it's just awful stuff. So good to have a group of people in the same situation.

I recommend them for everyone!

I really wish my bank would quit trying to get me to add overdraft protection to my accounts whenever I do a teller transaction. I know what that really means, and you're NOT trying to do me any favors, so cut it out.

Victorian Batwoman

Scrappy, that's so fun!!

Cats Playing Patty-Cake, Translated (The One)

A video of some adorable cats playing patty-cake (but not very well) hit YouTube back in 2008, but it flew under the rader until recently. Earlier this month, someone named Justin C. Elliott posted his interpretation of what the cats are saying during the patty-cake fiasco, translated into English for your amusement.

Victorian Batwoman

Heh.

she is looking for a magical answer that does not include letting go of her blaming the son AND her ex, or being who they are. She keeps bringing the child to me, despite verbally suggesting she does not trust me. I think she's hoping I'll unlock something 'normal' in him and she won't have to grieve or process her own feelings.

There was an episode of the NPR program The World that was about parents of kids with ADD/ADHD who then discover -- due to their kid's diagnosis -- that they themselves have ADD/ADHD. There was a portion of the show where listeners could call in, and one dad called in and he was just a seething ball of barely repressed anger. The way he described his son's behavior patterns did, in fact, sound super frustrating (although it sounded like the kid had ODD, not ADHD [not that I'm a doctor]). I don't deny that. But this dad was just so angry that it made me sad for the kid.

That bat costume pattern seems to have really inspired some folks. That's the second drawing of it I've seen (besides the engraving that actually goes with the pattern). The fellow who did my album cover did one as well. [link]

OK, the writers for my local paper have senses of humor.

There's a gigantic development near here that suffers from both the bad timing of the collapsing real estate market and a good dose of "You think people who can afford the rents for this are willing to live in that neighborhood?"-itis. It's only a third completed, with one building half done and one building mostly done and a quarter rented out. The developers are utterly out of money, and every year the city says "You must pay the bond payment!" and they say "We can't pay the bond payment!" and one of the banks with a lien on the place ponies up the payment.

This past summer, the process was beginning again, and this is the final paragraph in the newspaper story: "An alternative would be to invite the nearest Borg colony to beam the gargantuan bloc of buildings into the next galaxy for new living quarters."

There is hope for my neighbors.