Ten pounds of personality in a five-pound bag
Alternate lines of “do not stand at my grave and weep” with lines from “This is Halloween,” preferably the cover by Marilyn Manson.
I am the thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glints on snow
I am the who when you call “who’s there?”
I am the wind blowing through your hair
Something that crystallized recently, for me, is that financial advice from friends seems to come in two basic shapes:
I used to be more the first; but now, I’m striving to aim for the second. It’s less judgemental and more accepting of the fact that not all of us have the same financial priorities, and that’s okay.
Today I was reminded of this amazing essay on Livejournal about the true Eldritch Horror nature of Tom Bombadil.
https://km-515.livejournal.com/1042.html
Enjoy.
I saw this video on Instagram and it reminded me of one of my soapboxes about words.
“I’m sorry” is a phrase that has (at least) two meanings in English. One is “I apologize for the wrongs I have done to you.” The other is “I offer my condolences for the bad thing you have suffered.”
The neat part is, both of these are valid meanings!
Anyway I’m sorry her hamster exploded. I didn’t mean for it to end up like that.
Being a landlord is not “passive income” and the people who treat it that way are bad people.
Being a landlord is a job. You have to maintain the property your tenants live in. That is your responsibility for your part time job that you took on when you bought or inherited this property.
You can pay a property management company to do the landlord job for you, if you want. That’s definitely your prerogative, and it’s a good solution, especially for the people who just want to rent inherited property out until they’re ready to retire into it, or whatever.
But landlord is a job.
When I got my first job and moved into my own apartment, in 2006, I rented a “one bedroom with den” for $1000. It was about 1000 square feet.
At the time, I was making about $45,000 a year. By the 30% rule, my monthly max for housing costs should have been $1125, so I was doing okay there. (And it definitely helped that I had no student loan debt or car payment. I have a lot of class privilege.)
For grins, I went back and looked at that same apartment complex today. At first, I was impressed: the one-bedrooms are still being rented for $1000! But then I looked closer. The $1000 unit is 450 square feet. There is no “one bedroom with den” option.
Turns out, that’s now listed as the “two bedroom deluxe” unit, and it rents for $1750. (The “den” did have a window, so I don’t know why it wasn’t listed as a Bedroom in 2006. I don’t know what year the complex made this change.)
For comparison, someone at my same entry-level job today would be making $60,000. By the 30% rule, their maximum on rent should be $1500. So they probably shouldn’t live in the “deluxe 2 bedroom” apartment, but they’d still be okay in the 1-bedroom; and they’d be able to spend the “extra” $500 (girl math!) on, I don’t know, student loans or something.
I honestly think more places should be renting out efficiency apartments like that. It’s one part of a solution that’s going to have to be many-faceted (because one single solution can’t fix everything).
For reference, with the Maryland minimum wage of $15, the annual salary would be $31,200, so about half of what this Entry Level person today would be making. So to live in a 450 square foot one-bedroom efficiency, where I live, you’d need to have a roommate. Two people could swing it for the two-bedroom, if they were thrifty, but it would be tight. They could get a roommate for the second bedroom, which would make it a bit easier; 3 adults in 1000 square feet is not the most fun thing, but it’s workable.
In my ideal world, a single person earning minimum wage would be able to rent the aforementioned 450-foot efficiency apartment for 0.3 of their monthly gross wage, period. This should be our societal standard for “can someone afford to live on the baseline level, y/n?”
Anyway. Small soapbox over. Just ran those numbers today and thought it was interesting. (And if you’re local and you want to know the name of the complex, let me know. I’m not posting it here though because they’re not paying me and I didn’t love them THAT much.)
TikTok video by Abraham Piper:
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8HCyJqo/
A past decision can be canceled by a present decision without either decision being the wrong one.
Or, like I tell people all the time: just because a relationship has ended doesn’t mean it has failed.
A dichotomy I’ve noticed a ton over the years is the different ways people handle their phones at night (or when they sleep).
Some people keep their notifications turned on, and expect their friends not to send them text messages (the way, in the olden days, we didn’t call on the POTS phone after 9 pm because it was inconsiderate).
Other people set their phones on silent or Do Not Disturb at night, and simply check their messages in the morning.
I’m a part of Camp 2. I generally lose touch with Camp 1, because I’m never sure if it’s okay to text them or not.
In general, I treat texting as asynchronous. If something is urgent, I make a phone call (or other workaround if the person does not use the phone).
I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect someone to wake up to text message notifications. That level of sleep interruption is unhealthy (not to mention literally torture). Similarly, I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect someone to *not* send a text message when the thought strikes them; texting as a medium is very different from speaking (in person or on the phone). Again, it’s wholly asynchronous.
I’m aware that this probably makes me a Very Geriatric Millennial or whatever. Now get off my lawn.
In any case: like most Differences, this is something that folks hold in a very deep-seated way, where you’re unlikely to change the other person’s mind; all you can do is acknowledge the way they feel, and do your best to get along. Which is really disappointing, I know.
An Internet friend is trying to run a D&D game in her town, but she’s found that one of her players has (what I consider to be) frankly absurd expectations for the game.
Stuff like “what do you mean, the dragon attacked me when I threw a rock at it?” Ma’am, you cannot run around just Pippin Tooking all over the place and expect there to not be consequences! You’re lucky that wasn’t a Balrog! Sorry, I mean legally distinct Balor.
Anyway. My friend was distraught and thought, maybe she did something wrong? Now. I know I’m only getting one side of the story here, and that naturally I’m going to side with my friend. But here’s the deal: It doesn’t actually MATTER if my friend is Right or Wrong. She’s allowed to run a game where she expects the players to more or less behave in reasonable ways, not deliberately screw things over for the other players, etc.
If you want to be a PC who acts in antisocial ways, then that’s a conversation you need to have with your DM ahead of time, ideally during Session Zero. And it’s a good idea for DMs to have an Expectations Document, where they lay out what type of game they expect to run.
For me, one of my general expectations is “no PVP” (player versus player). I find it very stressful to have to navigate between in-character conflict. So if someone else really enjoys PVP and wants to play that style of game, that’s okay – they just can’t do it at my table. It’s a compatibility issue. And maybe their desire for PVP will make it hard for them to find a group to game with. Or alternatively, maybe my desire for a PVP-free group will make it hard for me to find players.
But the most important thing to remember is that nobody is obligated to change their playing style to suit someone else’s wishes. Even if that person’s preferred style changes mid-game.
And relationships are the same way. If you want fundamentally different things – even if you changed your mind about what you wanted after being together for a long time – then it’s not just okay, it’s *positive*, to go your separate ways.
Even if that means you spend a while without a partner.
When I was a teenager, I was a total weirdo.
I mean, I still am. But I was then, too. (Apologies to…Mitch Hedberg, I think?)
One year at our big family beach vacation, I announced at dinner that our cantaloupe was just like Achilles.
Everyone stared at me.
Sensing the fact that they did not understand my Galaxy Brain (we did not have memes when I was a teenager, so I am making up for lost time now), I explained.
Earlier in the week, the cantaloupe we had bought was large, but very bland. But the cantaloupe we were eating that night was small and very sweet! So it’s like Achilles, who was offered a long life in obscurity or a short life of glory, and chose the short life of glory.
Short life? Small cantaloupe. Glory? Sweetness.
It made sense to me.
Emilybook 