Edit: Downvote me daddy

I was in 5th grade when my dad told me about the Nuremberg trials and the subsequent Milgram experiments.

Edit Wtf you sick perverts, I was talking about when your parents talk to you about authority bias and how you need to be suspicious of power structures that tell you to do things that you would normally consider horrible acts.

Jesus you can't talk about Nazis without someone dragging out Sex Ed these days smh

The Pacific Northwest is now getting Cyclones (Pacific Hurricanes)

I think I speak for many PNW folks when I say we always thought that was more of a Florida thing.

Maybe I'm just exhausted from getting little sleep last night and feeling really sad, but I could use some support.

I've [30m] started dating again since my last break up. For context, I've had a pattern of meeting people, looking for the best in them, get kinda excited although realistically I have reservations, and then within 4 months the whole thing blows up.

I'm off the dating apps because they get me down, and I've only dated friends a few times because I get huge anxiety about potentially losing a friendship if a relationship goes south. I get huge anxiety about relationships in general just because of a long string of heartbreak.

It's happening again- I met someone who came to an event I host, and she was so wonderful. Just a beam of light- her optimism matched mine, she is into many of the things I'm into like biking and climbing, and she even led a jam on piano at my event (I'm a musician and it's a jam based on a principle of musical humanism). At the end of the night, we even got to dancing in the middle of the room. That night I asked her to go swing dancing and if she'd want to see a show I was music directing before. She said yes to both and I felt so excited, but also knowing it was just as friends. I wanted to see if we would be compatible before asking any bigger questions.

The next day I sent a message and a meme, but got no response. My thoughts went to "I'm putting too much pressure on this and she's reacting" or "she's not interested" and it made me pretty blue. The next day I messaged her telling her that the place we were dancing is going to be 20s themed just so she knew what to wear if she wanted, and she texted back like normal- all was good again.

That night she came to my show and we both biked up to the Green Mill (the jazz club in Chicago) and we had a great time. In the middle when we went back for a drink, we kissed and I was so excited. We talked and found we had so much in common- our thoughts on the importance of family, community, and how we can lift eachother up to be better than the sum of our parts. We both are active and extroverted, and felt the same how often times we feel like society wants us to shut up and not be extra. We both love the same kinds of beer. We both had struggled with weed- she put it well that her favorite thing about herself is her social skills, but when she's high it all goes away, just like me. She works for a bike company, I used to work for a bike company. She wants to start a hot dog stand, I want to write a coffee table book about city flags. We even planned to go climbing together for a second date.

I honestly felt like I found my one.

But then she dropped that she had a long distance relationship with a guy in Amsterdam, and that they agreed that it's okay to be open in their relationship. She said she wasn't polyamorous, but it was a way that she felt they could be there for each other while allowing their needs to be met. I told her I'm definitely monogamous and had an open relationship before but it wasn't fun for me. That said she said she was reconsidering her current relationship, but I've also been in similar situations where I've waited for someone to leave their situation to be with them and those also didn't go anywhere.

We biked back that night, and we still had a great time, and she messaged me when she got home. I sent her my number over Instagram, but that was the last message I got. I guess id expect a "hey Meep this is __!" Text so I had her number, but I still haven't heard back. I'm trying not to push it so I'm going to let her be the one to initiate the next conversation.

In the meantime I feel like I'm on an emotional rollercoaster. I mean granted I just met her and I shouldn't be so heavily invested or excited. I should be taking it slow but I don't know how. Hell I barely understand what taking it slow means. I should be perfectly fine being alone in my apartment with my cat. I've done so much work on myself to try and be in a place where I can feel again, but now I feel like I'm going back into another heartbreak.

I know a lot of this is also because I live alone and my family is 2000 miles away. I wrote a song that paints the picture- "oh, I'm floating away/ oh, I'm floating away/ the spacewalk went wrong/ I clipped into the other side/ of the moon/ just to know what distance feels like". I want to feel secure. I want to feel at home. But these relationships I find myself in tend to do the exact opposite. I'm back on the high seas and it's a stormy night.

I just wish I could be like a normal person and not feel. Or at least not feel like this.

Charlotte was given to me as a 6 pound 6 year old lady, and I've had a wild ride with her health.

At first things were good, but then she started getting diarrhea, vomiting, losing weight, not eating, and peeing outside the litter box. I took her to the vet where I spent $2000 on tests to no avail, so we went with a prescription food.

Even then, she wouldn't touch the prescription food that was to help her sensitive stomach. She kept meowing for food, but wouldn't touch what I gave her. She went down to 4 lbs, which was really concerning.

I tried so many things, until recently I decided to just put some canned chicken breast under her prescription food- my god it's working. She doesn't pee outside the litter box anymore (unless I forget to scoop it), and her weight is back up.

Honestly I just think she hated the food I gave her so much that she would rather die than eat it. I also noted she likes diversity in her food, so I swap between canned tuna and canned chicken mixed with her normal prescription food. She also is much, much happier.

At the end of his life, my grandpa subsisted on 2 pints of strawberry banana yoplait yogurt and a pack of Coors light a day. What dietary hell will you fall into?

Hey I don't know where to post so I just have my darling Charlotte to trojan horse my bs into a community.

I feel like the skills I have are useless. After years unable to hold down a job, I decided to go all in and follow my dream. My problem was that I was $10k in debt after a temp job ended unexpectedly sooner than promised. I've been able to get to a point where I'm set to make $60k on my own, which may not seem like much but as an artist that's huge, but not enough to help me dig out of my debt.

I'm looking at moving back from Chicago to Seattle to get a higher paying job, but none of the skills I have seem to be wanted. I'm a music director at theaters, a multi-instrumentalist, and I'm putting together a non-profit for musicians to connect with values based organizations, but when I look to the world of tech, or at least where the money is, none of that seems to matter. I'm told I have skills, but I just don't think there's a place for me in this world. I just don't think what I bring is valuable enough for someone to say "hey, you should be able to eat". Frankly, today I've had that old voice come back telling me I shouldn't be here anymore. Charlotte is a needy girl and is making sure I don't leave, but man it's hard.

It's like... I want to give up on the dream, but like... Where would I go? Who would I be? I have done this before when I left comedy- I don't have the constitution for that world, but at least music was something I'm good at. I can play 22 instruments. I write songs. Improv. Jazz. I teach. I conduct. But none of that matters now. None of it is wanted. Especially with this new world and AI stealing our work, artists just aren't valued. I grew up in Seattle, the arts capital of the US from 1990-2010, but tech came in and napalmed it. I thought maybe I could join the "evil empire" but sure enough they don't want me.

I just don't feel like I belong here. I'm even thinking of giving Charlotte to a more capable human. Idk. Sorry.

How many of you consider texting an ex that was an amicable breakup to see if they'd be up for a hookup.

Update : I created a group text with all of them and now we are planning a 30 person Orgy at the Marriott in San Francisco.

Lol jk I just woke up and made eggs.

Harry Potter and the Military Industrial Complex