The only time I saw my kids afraid of me, I was glad of it, it was the younger two, they had been fighting with each other and called me at work to complain about each other and I told them I was coming home, by the time I got there they had decluttered the room and were sitting at the table across from each other, calmly.

I’m not sure what they thought was going to happen. But it made them stop fighting and work together.

In general they are not, certainly they tell me anything (stuff I would never have discussed with my mom) so I know they trust me, and I don’t just love them I like them, and they seem to like me. It’s sad when parents think respect comes from fear, it most certainly does not.

Anxiety does lie. I’m not saying your mom wouldn’t hurt you, but you can’t trust an anxious mind, it can distort things. The fear comes first then looks for a cause to pin it on.

Night, to get into bed clean. I am a cool sleeper and live in a hot and steamy climate. Only shower in the morning if I need to wash my hair, so twice a week or so.

I am not at all nostalgic for high school, it was a nightmare. Don’t know anyone in real life who thinks it was a good part of their life.

It’s a common setting for stories from all over, though. Coming - of - age stories are eternally popular. And here, kids are in high school as they transition from child to adult, so that’s where many of those stories are set.

I don’t think I am, particularly. More like I am finally in a place where I can make principled choices - kids grown, stable living situation, working, feeling mentally settled, not as anxious or struggling as before. Like from this more privileged space I can avoid more of the bad choices that I might have made out of desperation.

Lemmy I just like because it’s smaller and not corporate. Reddit was like that once too. I don’t find it inconvenient to be on this platform.

I have a garden with vegetables, one with flowers, a few fruit trees and a maple, some elderberry trees. And a mowed space in front and in back. I guess technically it’s a lawn but we don’t water it or put any fertilizer or chemicals, just keep it mowed. We throw clover seeds out on bare patches but weeds mostly take over. It grows, we mow.

It doesn’t last forever though - it breaks down, and gets mold. I cannot understand it at all. What a mess. Like landscape fabric. Something to enjoy for a year and regret for ten years afterwards as it breaks down and you keep finding bits of it.

Even in places that aren’t as humid and alive as our subtropical steam room here, under ideal conditions maybe 10 year life on that plastic carpet of grass. All the time it’s shedding plastic into the world.

My mom always just mowed whatever grew in the yard and called it “grass” and that’s all I have ever done. Mow the weeds, who cares? They get nice flowers, the bees like them. Except bull thistle. We dug that up with prejudice before it could flower. But as far as lawn, that is just a mowed space where I grew up, and I did grow up in a suburb, though not a house farm sort of development, not an HOA situation. And it’s just a mowed space where I live now too. Maybe 1 house in every 10 has the literal Grass Lawn, with the chemicals and monoculture. 9/10 have a mix of whatever.

Not on Lemmy but I have found Bratabase to be a good resource. Really good measuring guides and pictures of different people in different sizes and bra models.

It depends on who is coming over, I more usually impress with cocktails & make food to satisfy people not impress them. Gumbo, I have had people say best they ever tasted. Lamb for my mother-in-law, slow cooked 4 hours in the oven with fennel and apricots and harissa. Sourdough baguette one year at Thanksgiving, those were chowed down on. Vegan kid is impressed when I nail a dessert for her. I do grow some of what we eat, feel like that is sort of impressive I guess.

But cocktails is where I get the most compliments - I made the

https://imbibemagazine.com/recipe/friend-zone-a-zero-proof-strawberry-drink/

With some really nice spiced strawberry fermented soda I made, with the goop from the strawberry syrup like she uses in the recipe, but also the tops and leaves. It doesn’t even have alcohol, my heavy drinking ex brother outlaw could not understand how it could be so good. “What’s in this?” “Tepache de fresa” “No, I mean what is the booze?” “None.” “See, THAT is why you are the best. How is this so good?”

You have to know your audience to have it be well received. There’s no one dish that is going to universally be magic.

If you are cooking for me, gumbo or a soup with an amazing broth. Or a really good sandwich. I love a good sandwich.

I have kids & step kids and kids my husband previously adopted and they are intelligent in different ways. Only one had some developmental delays and is not, she struggles, the rest - 3 academic hyper achievers, quick thinking and quick at learning new things, all ended up scientists of some sort. Two who are hardworking and think they are not as smart but whenever they have to take a test they score in top 10% or so, those two ended up in military intelligence. Youngest kid still in school can see things in different ways - can find solutions or ideas none of us even think of, and though they ALSO don’t think they are as smart as the others, I personally consider that to be very intelligent. One who was smart & frustrated, depressed, and no longer with us - saw too much I think but could not find hope. So different people are smart in different ways, and sometimes in ways that are not helpful to them.

If I had to choose one quality - it’s humor. That ability to say just the right thing in the moment that is so funny. That quick wit is a good sign of intelligence.

Same age, same thoughts. The past was violent & sucky but it really felt like we were making progress, things were getting better. Some things have, there’s a lot less violence where I live, and more to do, the city has progressed.

Honestly I think the slide started after Bush vs Gore, and very often wish I had been in the other timeline, where the votes got counted before he conceded, Gore seemed conceited but smart, geeky and took good ideas seriously.

With migraine, yes I would get hallucinations with the ones that dragged on. Like dreams they were, mostly fantasies about how to stop the pain by walking in the right direction or solving some math problem.

I do often hear music in the fan sound or running water. Those are funny because it sounds like music coming into my ears from outside, but is coming from my mind. Not particularly good music.

Wait, even if the baby is raised by a diverse set of people? Or they just prefer what they are exposed to regularly?

I can easily imagine tribalism being easy to fall into - little kids love sorting things into categories - but can’t really see any biological benefits at all to racism, can’t imagine why it would be innate?

Coffee has never been proven harmful, and may be protective for the brain. I quit caffeine a couple times when younger for months and (once past the initial withdrawal headache) all that happened was I got more migraines and gained a couple of pounds, saw no benefits.

So no.

Alcohol I practice moderation, once or twice a week but never, ever, ever an everyday drinker. That I’ve taken years off and didn’t feel better but not worse like when I tried no caffeine.

So usually no on that as well but I do sometimes go a month or two without.

I don’t do any other drugs.

Yes it’s confusing because “white” is a cultural category not a phenotype. Where I grew up the Hispanic people were the white people - all the rich Cubans who fled Castro, and people from Spain. You can be Hispanic & white, or black, or brown, it just means your grandparents spoke Spanish, basically. And it’s so funny because it was the white people who brought the Spanish language to the americas in the first place.

It’s not possible to understand racists with logic. Their ideas are illogical.

Pink Pony Club. WTF, why is it good? It’s good. Also Whole Lotta Rosie by AC/DC is such a banger.

Some bands have won me over with their live shows, Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness and Bright Light Social Hour and Lord Huron are like that, I didn’t “get” them until I saw them live in smaller venues.

I’m not nostalgic like that, love to hear new music, and see new shows, read new books.

But boy do I like to know what bird that is in the yard. I feed the crows. I grow things. I wear clothes with elastic waist and flat shoes.

And teatime meal >late supper, I feel so much better if I eat earlier.

What the heck? Dude, you don’t have to be a prostitute to get “out of wedlock” sex. It’s not like guys were worried about engendering children out of wedlock - wedlock was to lock the woman so she wouldn’t have kids with someone else.

Like, I know my kids are my kids because I am the one pregnant. It’s guys who wanted to control women to make sure the kids were half theirs.

I am into most of those “acceptable hobbies” but would throw reading and gaming into the same bucket. I read, the kids game and both engage your mind. Husband watches TV to unwind and that seems much less mentally engaging to me.

@Korhaka@sopuli.xyz homebrewing to me falls squarely into Cooking category. I also put cocktail making, and any fermentation in cooking. So “drinking” as a hobby isn’t necessarily passive, can be creative like cooking. Putting Drinking in unacceptable hobbies, they might as well include Eating. The consuming of it isn’t creative but the creation of the food & drink is. Also learning about wine, etc.

I don’t think it’s aliens or demons, but I do think the people of the future will look back on this time and see us as just as ignorant as the people who said there are demons. Whatever “it” is, it’s not demons nor aliens.