Hazor

It's because we have chins. They think we're weird.

"I literally think of you all as me"? Gads, of all the egotistical absurdities I have heard in my life. He probably thought he was saying something nice.

In my hyper religious, Southern Baptist upbringing, I often heard Christians say that Christianity is not a religion. The mental gymnastics employed to explain this position were varied. Most often it was "Christianity isn't a religion, it's a relationship [with God]", or something along the lines of "Christianity isn't a religion because it's true".

"Religion" in general was thus deemed a bad thing, because it was a term used to encapsulate all the other (and thus false) faith-belief-philosophy systems that were used by Satan to lead the world away from God. It bears noting that Catholicism and other major denominations always all fell under that umbrella of "other".

I don't know the justification, but I imagine the why is that some wealthy construction company owner asked for it because providing shade/water/whatever would reduce profits, and the bribe costed marginally less than the protecting their employees.

Most public schools have a gym or other big room. Election day should be a federal holiday, on which public schools would be closed and so not in use.

You know what has to be accessible? Public schools. You know what is right across the street from the two churches that have been my designated voting location? Public schools.

Oh man, we're trying! Fortunately the governor's "school choice" voucher plans have stalled in the legislature for now.

I can just imagine the conversation she had with the handler that gave her the instructions to do this, and the sheer exhaustion they must have felt in having to explain to her repeatedly that it had nothing to do with trans kids.

May or may not be relevant. Statistically, people with illnesses like schizophrenia are no more likely to commit violent crimes than the general population (but are more likely to be victims of violent crimes). There are documented cases of people with schizophrenia killing or commiting other violent acts in response to delusions, but it's usually in an act that they perceive as self-defense rather than being driven by malice or desire to harm. I.e., it's generally more like "I killed my dad because he was going to kill me" rather than "I went out and murdered some random women because no women like me."

It's a toss up between

1. R telling me she was on birth control, I guess thinking it'd keep me around if we had a kid, then when our kid was age 4 she said she had cancer and disappeared for several months. Turns out she never had cancer and just said that so I wouldn't think poorly of her for abandoning her child to run off with a guy in another state. ...Her child that she was barely present for anyway.
2. D getting me to empty my 401k to buy a house as an investment property for "our" retirement, only for her to keep it in the divorce. I could have pushed for it to be sold and gotten at least some of my money back, but she would have put up such a fight that I'd have spent in attorney's fees as much as I would have won from the sale, so it wasn't worth the fight to me, and she knew that.

What'd I learn from these? Not a whole lot, it turned out: my next relationship wasn't much better. But at least I figured out to end that one before it got TOO too deep.

If I hadn't just replaced my phone, I'd be buying one right now. I think it's probably a bit smaller than I'd find ideal, but ... Gads, I'm tempted anyway.