My whole life just flashed before my eyes! I gotta get me a life!

Xander ,'Dirty Girls'


Natter 78: I might need to watch some Buffy for inspiration

Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, butt kicking, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.


Trudy Booth - Feb 12, 2026 7:42:03 am PST #11540 of 11571
Greece's financial crisis threatens to take down all of Western civilization - a civilization they themselves founded. A rather tragic irony - which is something they also invented. - Jon Stewart

The girl is obsessed with musicals. So my evil plan to raise a daughter who wants to go to musicals with me is proceeding nicely. Unfortunately I forgot to create an evil plan for being able to afford to take her to all the musicals she wants to see.
We saw a lot of High School theater when I was a child. Did the trick nicely.

Yeah, we’re only in sporadic contact mostly because he has two jobs and plays in several bands so our text conversations are always asynchronous and spread thin over time. Anyway, he and his first wife were living with her parents in Texas: brother working on getting sober, wife very much not. She was stepping out on him and actually killed the guy she was seeing by hitting him with a car. I am pretty sure I trauma dumped about it here, but that was years ago, now. So brother moved out but stayed friendly with her parents and didn’t want to file for divorce while she was on trial and all that.
So... country music?

But I'm also fifty-two, and kind of fresh out of "little lady" energy--it's always been an awkward fit, on its best day. which probably peaked at the same time as, say Tears for Fears.
Well, now there's coffee on the monitor...


-t - Feb 12, 2026 9:16:41 am PST #11541 of 11571
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration

Happy Pix Day!

So... country music?

Should be, probably. The fiance lived in Texas with her first husband, too, but I have restrained myself from making "All My Exes Live in Texas" references


JenP - Feb 12, 2026 9:34:14 am PST #11542 of 11571

Happy Birthday, Pix! May the coming year bring many delights.

Happy Birthday, MFN! Same wish for you; we miss you around these parts.


erikaj - Feb 12, 2026 9:56:55 am PST #11543 of 11571
"already on the kiss-cam with Karl Marx"-

Funny song.(Well, if you're not them.) So far, the extra vulnerability I sent across the miles in e-mail that I sweated over yesterday? Kind of got me nothing.(I suppose it doesn't hurt to think of why I say what I say in a craft class, and there is the part where it can take time to send a response that in theory can be instant. And I wasn't even sure what I wanted, anyway, exactly, but sometimes, men in particular can make it really easy to tell I didn't get what I was looking for by just not doing shit.) Not that he is cute enough(or available) that I would want to sit around all "What do you think he meant by that?" because he is one of those weird guys that writes from a family e-mail account. Which is kind of a long-winded way of saying that all of those people that get on TV saying stuff like "The two sides just never TALK anymore, never find common ground or shared purpose," and Brene Brown "Your vulnerability is your *superpower* and not weak at all--well, I guess it made him disappear, so half-credit?-- well, they can bite me really hard.


Pix - Feb 12, 2026 5:03:38 pm PST #11544 of 11571
The status is NOT quo.

I just skimmed about 100 messages. Thanks for the birthday wishes! Busy as heck over here, but things are mostly good.


lisah - Feb 12, 2026 7:58:49 pm PST #11545 of 11571
Punishingly Intricate

Happy birthday, Pix and Maria!!!


Shir - Feb 12, 2026 10:01:20 pm PST #11546 of 11571
"And that's why God Almighty gave us fire insurance and the public defender".

Happy belated birthdays!


-t - Feb 13, 2026 8:27:30 am PST #11547 of 11571
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration

Trying to make congee uding up the duck bones leftover from Tuesday's lunch, I remembered the rice is supposed to be already cooked and thought making a small amount in the microwave would be better than on the stove. Burnt the rice, but using it anyway. The stock smelled pretty good but the burnt rice is not absorbing it well. Letting it sit for a while before trying cooking it some more, I think I can salvage it...


Jessica - Feb 13, 2026 9:38:52 am PST #11548 of 11571
And then Ortus came and said "It's Ortin' time" and they all Orted off into the sunset

Everyone in my org was assigned a time management course on LinkedIn Learning and everything about it is actively enraging. The instructor is condescending as fuck, he keeps stating American/English-speaking POVs as universal truths and is SO FUCKING HOSTILE to neurodivergence I want to screeeeeeeeam. (Not intentionally but he keeps saying things like "these systems will work even if you think you're too lazy for time management!" Fuck. All. The. Way. Off.)

He also keeps introducing systems with a million steps to maintain a to-do list/calendar/etc and then saying things like "this simple system will change your life." Yes, it will change my life into an endless treadmill of pointless busywork, how wonderful.


Jessica - Feb 13, 2026 10:42:08 am PST #11549 of 11571
And then Ortus came and said "It's Ortin' time" and they all Orted off into the sunset

Update: I implemented a time management strategy of my own and finished the course at 1.5x. That's 20 extra minutes in my day I can spend doing literally anything else!