I have heard it said (this might help you) that love is a verb; it is an action, can be something you do more than something you feel. You can show love, without worrying about what you are ‘supposed’ to feel. Also if it helps - I am, as far as I know, pretty normal, and the feeling is not a bash you over the head certainty. It is more like a decision, in a way.

I think of romantic love as what follows infatuation, if you get there. The continued slow burn of lust, affection and respect for each other.

Friendly love is care, when you would let yourself be hurt to save a specific other person from being hurt, and are willing to be inconvenienced to do things for them, and trust enough to inconvenience them if you need something.

Agape - love, love for the world, is both easier and harder to feel. It’s easier to not be annoyed by things and people you don’t personally know, but hard to care so much about them. That universal love feeling , the joy of existence and care for the natural world is also love.

So yeah English in this regard just doesn’t have (or doesn’t use) different words for different types of love but they are different.

Well, mine are dead but my mom kicked me out at 17.

My first set of kids, I gave a little money towards college (they got scholarships and aid that paid most of it, we were quite poor) so they didn’t get student loans, and the younger ones I am letting live at home and feeding them and all as they are doing school locally but no cash, they have jobs.

As adults? No, not financially, but since they helped me with the younger ones I do have some indebtedness towards them. So sure, when they need something I try to help.

They all say they’d be happy to have a big ol family home with everyone in it, but if we ever do that I wouldn’t think of it as helping them at this point. Would be everyone helping each other.

Honestly I would like to try microdosing LSD, not mushrooms. Something that can be measured, and my youthful experience with these, the tripping is more comfortable/happy/open.

Also it’s the only drug I’d ever try again as far as recreational drugs go. Well, I tried cannabis but hated the high, so I guess not the only one but the only remaining one that I would like to try again. In particular the very, very minimal microdosing but might be willing to also trip. Since I am hella respectable now, too many degrees away from being able to get the drug, especially in a format I could divide up to microdose, not sure it will ever be possible. But other than the legal considerations leading to lack of access nothing else makes me not want to - other drugs I think physically unhealthy or bad for your cognition as you age, or too addictive. I don’t have those concerns about LSD. I think, like coffee it’s more likely to protect your thinking in the long run, and certainly almost nobody wants to trip often.

I think populations will crash, either gently through fewer kids, or violently through war and disease. That will likely throw us backwards technologically, maybe not.

Or, who knows, maybe the population will stabilize and we get everything going in the right direction, then an asteroid hits.

I am so confused. Did he think he had to marry a man because it’s pride month? I can’t ever wrap my mind around people who think letting others love who they want to somehow reduces their own freedom to love who they want to.

Congratulations, I guess. May your children be many, and gay.

Our Kimchi is working so hard on this and I don’t usually think of her as clever. She knows the knob opens the door so she bats at it, hangs on it.

Neither cat has been messing with the toilet paper lately though.

I got a new laptop at work and everything, every file I worked in, was creating a second copy of itself on OneDrive. It was so annoying and took awhile but I found instructions on deleting the duplicates.

It took all the files off my local machine and left the ones on OneDrive.

Aaaargh!

Emmylou Harris wrote two that are so beautiful and so sad, if you need to cry, Boulder to Birmingham:

"I don’t want to hear a sad song full of heartbreak and desire

The last time I felt like this, I was in the wilderness, and the canyon was on fire

And I stood on the mountain in the night and I watched it burn, I watched it burn"

And also in the same song she sings - “well you really got me this time, and the hardest part is knowing I’ll survive” wow.

If that somehow doesn’t work, Red Dirt Girl might.

"She loved her brother, I remember back when

He was fixing up a 49 Indian

Told her, little sister gonna ride the wind, up around the moon and back again

Well he never got farther than Vietnam, I was standing there with her when the telegram come for Lillian

Now he’s lying somewhere about a million miles from Meridian "

Beebop-a-rebop-a-rhubarbar!

You told it well here, I enjoyed this story.

You might really enjoy the short story ‘26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss’ by Kij Johnson.

Florida too. Even with the influx of racist northerners, it’s mixed politically here, mixed in every way imaginable actually but you’d never know it looking at the legislature.

Charlotte? Raleigh? DC?

I’m in Tampa and it’s a real mix here, but oof housing cost is out of control.

If you don’t like to be in a city, you will probably be in a backwards place, that’s just how the US works. But lots of mid sized cities are moderate politically.

My mom wasn’t much of a cook but I loved when she made seafood boils, put newspaper all over the table and we ate it all with hands.

My dad made Chicken Kiev it was so good.

Maternal grandma made fried chicken, and gave us bags of pecans, she would sit on the porch with her boyfriend for hours while they shelled pecans and talked.

Paternal grandma I remember oyster dressing at Christmas, yum. And I remember her lighting cigarettes on the gas stove.

I don’t think that’s a complete explanation of inflation. Prices sort of get bidden up. So say everyone wants a car now, but there aren’t yet enough of them to go around. Someone will pay more because they value it more, and the seller will always sell to the higher paying customer.

I do think an abundance economy is possible, with everyone working just enough and a more reasonable allocation of the money. In that scenario we need more automation, because a lot of essential (tough, time consuming, underpaid) jobs are done now by people. The ownership of these robots would have to be spread out to everyone. I do think then everyone could be rich, in the sense of having a nice house, household help, food and clothes and fresh water, transportation. As long as society shares in these benefits it will work, yes.

What do you mean about Monaco? Are there no underpaid housekeepers and nannies and other workers there?

I just wanna say I am sorry that it is near impossible for single dads to adopt kids. I understand the reasoning but want to cry because there are kids who need parents but you can’t be the parent to one.

I made a Tang-a-Rita for a redneck themed party a friend was having and it really was better than it should be.

Medjool Dates fresh are heavenly.

We get these fresh here, and wow I agree, these are so sweet and flavorful. Even if they don’t look as ripe as the other ones they taste better, you can smell them when you approach the display.

I suppose I am a basic bitch - Honeycrisp apples, Mission figs (fresh), haas avocados and the wee golden Champagne mangoes are the best IMO.

Oranges, though? Valencia or tangelos are flavorful, the navel oranges are bland nonsense.