I don't wear nail polish. It just feels unnatural and I can't stand the sensation of having something adhering to my nails. You know how as a kid building models you'd get that glue that never comes off without taking a layer of skin with it on your fingers and then it'd be there for the next three days driving you…

So... I just had a thought. My entire life I've felt my brother is smarter than me and as a result, worked insanely hard to be distinguished from his shadow. My parents kept telling me that I was smart as he was and in many ways, smarter. I never believed them. But when things got rough for both of us, each in…

I've never been in an honest-to-goodness fight. I fight as part of a medieval reenactment group (sword and shield!) but otherwise... that's as far as I go. And there is something enormously satisfying to confront something with physical violence. When I was learning to fight I had a lot of trouble with crying,…

I only use psuedocode as sort of a programming shorthand for when I'm planning out a particularly tricky task or trying to explain what I'm doing to a less technical coworker. It's pretty much exactly what taodude described. You'd probably be better off starting with an actual language so that you know the concepts…

I'm going to be an optimist and say that either women are kicking such total ass this year that they couldn't decide, or that they're trying to make up for lost time.

I stopped reading at that point. I get being sad someone died - my gut reaction when I read the news was 'he was still pretty young...' - but so much of this grief just feels like posturing. It's like... did you really care about him that much while he was still alive? Mourn the man, celebrate his accomplishments,…

Well, she prefaced it by telling me I was super-smart and that high intelligence can have other issues... so it was like, 'you're a touch crazy, but it's only because you're really smart!' I'm quite a skeptic too, so I wasn't taking it really seriously. I'm still a skeptic. It could be interpreted in all sorts of…

I don't mind at all. I'm very open about this disorder because it's quite visible and it's much easier to just declare it so people aren't left wondering and because I feel I can normalize disability for people as well. It's called paroxysmal non-kinesigenic dyskinesia and it's sort of like having a seizure, except…

Soooooo my ovaries just tried to throttle me while screaming "GO MAKE A BABY SO YOU CAN DO THIS FOR HER SOMEDAY!!!!!"

Okay, I admit it. I got my tarot read once. It was at a Halloween party and the lady doing the readings was pretty awesome. There was a lot of good advice she was dishing out for people (probably based on what she already knew about people, but hey, good advice is good advice) She sat down and read my tarot and…

I used to have that "I can't change my mood with meds" attitude. Then I actually got some attacks - real ones where my brain was fucked up and what I was feeling was totally unnatural - and I realized that taking mood altering meds to make the brain unfuck itself was the best thing ever. Nothing wrong with using…

Being more open about this would be amazing. I'm going to be asking my neurologist this coming month about my Xanax and if I need to take it more often as I'm starting to have panic attacks. Mine feel so unnatural because they're triggered by whatever the hell is screwing up in my head but that doesn't make them any…

I've heard that cooking en masse like that is much different than what most people do for cooking. My mother grew up working in her mother's restaurant and yet I'm turning out better at cooking than her. I'm curious to see what all she asks me to do for Thanksgiving this year. I already make all the pies.

I have a friend that puts on dinners for large groups of people - elaborate ones too. Three course meals with multiple meat dishes. It really is incredible how good the food is and how cheap she can put these meals together. And when I say good food, I mean really good food. Scratch-made bread, cheese from a local…

That sounds amazing. How did they get the money for the program in the first place? Did it get voted in or what..? I'm all for people being able to contribute to programs that have a direct impact on their community.

Have school lunches declined or something? I was a school lunch kid and I ate TERRIBLE - I was hitting up the school store for candy daily - yet I was always on the low side of the weight spectrum growing up. Or does it just vary that much from school district to school district? I was in pretty affluent areas. …

I LOVE pitbulls. I want to adopt a rescue pit someday. Since Thistle there is my first dog I explained that I've never owned a dog and needed one that would be docile, as I have a disability and need some help. The workers at the shelter showed me to Thistle and she has just done wonders for me. Seriously, this…

90$ from the local shelter. We're pretty sure she's pure golden retriever. And! Already housebroken when I got her. I get that some people really want a purebred, but personally... I'll stick to the bargain bin at the local shelter. She's an amazing dog.

Whenever I read incidents like this I feel I need to chime in with my own TSA story, just to keep people from losing all hope in humanity. When I flew to my grandmother's funeral I had a hell of a time getting through security, as my movement disorder is triggered by stress, noise, and changes in air pressure.

My roommate is learning to cook. I've been trying to help but she seems pretty determined to do her own thing. I've got her to use the slow cooker at least. Is there anything else I can do to help her along?