The little things that piss you off

[playwithfire]

My head is in a really weird place this morning and I'm thinking about shit that happened like 6/8 years ago. There was some off-board drama with some members of here, who are now basically lapsed, where I earned their dislike over me being a dumb/selfish 18 year old who was a shit houseguest. I'm not going to try to defend myself with that. But that translated into just bits of hate here and there on ETS for a while (read - years) afterwards.

I'd like, never acknowledge it publicly or respond because I didn't want to seem like a pussy, and I didn't want to add fuel to the fire. I remember at one point one of the people said what is to this day truly the worst thing any fellow human has ever said to me. They quoted a (positive, nice) post I made in the Fucking Thread and said something like "That's what happens when your Dad teaches you." and then the person I'd upset quoted her and was like "It's funny cause it's true." It wasn't true, but I did grow up in an abusive situation and things weren't always appropriate. At least the second person knew that, and I'd assume the first had been told. It is one of the only times I've ever been truly offended by something someone said to me.

There was also some cool drama where people realized I'd hooked up with someone (shocking, I know) and I'd get quoted in threads with comments like "Sorry, I can't hear you with ____'s cock in your mouth."

And like, whatever, I'm not saying I was cyberbullied (the most electronic form of bullying), but to this day I'm still a bit wtf at people I know that heart the person who said that really fucked up thing to me, or how I'm still friends with the person who said the latter (On Facebook? I guess?) and we just like... never acknowledged how shitty that actually was. Life is weird.

[Baphomette]

but to this day I'm still a bit wtf at people I know that heart the person who said that really fucked up thing to me, or how I'm still friends with the person who said the latter (On Facebook? I guess?) and we just like... never acknowledged how shitty that actually was. Life is weird.

So why not acknowledge it now? I think people let things go too easily. "It happened so long ago." "We were so young then." Fuck that noise. It obviously impacted your life (be it in a small or large way) since you're still thinking about it all these years later, so why not discuss it? I mean, if the situation were to happen now, how would you respond?

[elevenism]

People thinking that all texans are backwards right wing rednecks.

[allegro]

People thinking that all texans are backwards right wing rednecks.

A shit ton of your COPS are really fucked up racists.

I don't think anybody should be SO into any one state that they won't see its faults or won't live anywhere else. It's just short of nationalist craziness, and it's for sure exceptionalism. But obviously EVERY state has a LOT of fucked-up stupid ignorant people, and I really doubt that most people think that "all" Texans are "backward right-wing rednecks." Houston was recently voted as the most diverse big city in the country.

Pisses me off: these fucking invasive species of maples putting out their little maple seedlings. I have spent weeks pulling hundreds of tiny little potential maple trees from my lawn, bushes, everywhere. They're from my NEIGHBOR'S Norway maple.

[Harry Seaward]

I come from a long line [...] Bachelors

I'm no biologist, but I assume for there to be a long line of them, they couldn't all be bachelors.

[playwithfire]

It obviously impacted your life (be it in a small or large way) since you're still thinking about it all these years later, so why not discuss it? I mean, if the situation were to happen now, how would you respond?

I would probably be like "What the hell?" but basically we never really chat and it's someone I just kind have on there so /shrug. This is me addressing it? What got me *way* more were the people who stayed friends with the person who made that super horrible comment, but like, who knows. It was weird that I was thinking about this this morning of all things.

[elevenism]

A shit ton of your COPS are really fucked up racists.

i'm not gonna argue with you on that.
As far as Texas patriotism goes, well, i don't know what to say.
It feels like it's in my blood.
I see a LOT of faults with Texas, but at the same time, it's a very special place. It really, truly is.

Of course, i would probably feel the same way about any other state where i had been born and raised. I'm not sure.

And i DO see a lot of talk on the internet where people seem to think that we are all stupid bigots.
I try to explain to them that, Dallas, for instance, is no different than any other big city. And Austin is about the hippest place in the world.
People don't believe me.

[Dra508]

I'm no biologist, but I assume for there to be a long line of them, they couldn't all be bachelors.

Heh, you are correct, my grandfather had 8 brothers. He may have been the only one to marry and have children. My grandmother had 2 sisters who never married.

[Dra508]

And i DO see a lot of talk on the internet where people seem to think that we are all stupid bigots.
I try to explain to them that, Dallas, for instance, is no different than any other big city. And Austin is about the hippest place in the world.
People don't believe me.

It'll turn purple soon enough.

I heard Sanders get a huge crowd in Dallas this past weekend. Like 8K.

[allegro]

Of course, i would probably feel the same way about any other state where i had been born and raised. I'm not sure.

How would you know? You've never moved and lived anywhere else for any extended period of time?

And Austin is about the hippest place in the world.

Wait, what? How many other "hip" places have you been in this country? Or the world? San Francisco? Ann Arbor? Seattle? Toronto? Portland? Amsterdam? Montreal? Vancouver? I've been to 5 of these, and they're pretty fucking hip. I'm not busting your balls, here, I'm just saying this is just more Texas exceptionalism.

I can say "it's a really special place; it really, truly is" about at least 15 other states in this country.

That's not Texas "patriotism" -- when people think Texas is more special than anywhere else, that's Texas exceptionalism -- and that's just fuckin' weird, dude. No "state" is "in your blood." That's just tribal television bullshit.

Hey, look, Rapid City, South Dakota, wants you to visit there, too:

I heard Sanders get a huge crowd in Dallas this past weekend. Like 8K.

Like I said, above ...

However, no reference to Texas drew longer and louder applause than when Sanders mentioned Sandra Bland, a young black woman found dead last week in a jail cell in Waller County, about an hour north of Houston. Sanders, who was interrupted at a forumSaturday in Phoenix by activists angered by police brutality, brought up Bland while listing other African Americans who have recently died in police custody.

[Baphomette]

See #12? That's my neighborhood. Lived in it for nearly 20 years (native Angeleno) but you know what? There's a gazillion other places that I think could easily surpass it. Broaden your horizons, @elevenism .

[allegro]

See #12? That's my neighborhood. Lived in it for nearly 20 years (native Angeleno) but you know what? There's a gazillion other places that I think could easily surpass it. Broaden your horizons, @elevenism .

This is hip, but I think maybe in a negative "gag me with a craft beer" kind of way, LOL (I remember when it was still teeming with winos and homeless people, and we'd have to step over them during Around the Coyote)(that's the Flatiron Arts Building, below):



Actually, Silver Lake is number 1 on Forbes

[playwithfire]

Heh, I can walk to Bushwick (#7) (it's like < 10 min by bus) from where I live in like 20 minutes. Bushwick actually honestly is still really cool. I like it a lot.

[allegro]

I really want to go to Portland; every time I do one of these "where should you be living?" tests, it says I should be living in Portland.

Even though the taxes there pretty much suck.

[Baphomette]

Silver Lake

Silverlake. ONE WORD. (This is a dog vs. cat type argument. Natives and longtime residents spell it as one word. LA County officials and hipsters spell it as two words. Also, #10 in my link's list is totally bogus. It really does suck now.)

I haven't been to Chicago since I moved back in '00 so I don't know what it's like today but back then, I fell head over heels in love with it.

[playwithfire]

I <3 NY amirite you guys haha

[allegro]

Silverlake. ONE WORD.

Ooops, sorry those guys made it two words

I <3 NY amirite you guys haha

I have loved NYC since I started going there as a child; although at Christmas I love it but after about 5 days, I am totally ready to gtfo.

There is NOTHING like seeing the Rockettes at Radio City at Christmas. NOTHING.

And, it's a lot of fun being in the EASTER PARADE in NYC!

And, being in Times Square for New Year's Eve.

Someday before my Mom's passes onto the next realm, I want to take her back to NYC so we can go back to Keens. We used to always go to Keens.

G and I really love hanging out near Washington Square.

Crap, now I miss New York.

Pisses me off, though: All these people on Instagram losing their fucking MINDS that F.A.O. Schwarz closed the 5th Avenue store. HELLO, PEOPLE, FAOS filed for bankruptcy two times in 2003, and was bought by Toys R Us in 2009. Where've ya been? The rent's too high, there, they gotta move. And now you're just remembering their existence, just as they're leaving? If you'd bought more stuff, maybe they wouldn't be having these problems.

So long, F.A.O. Schwarz

[playwithfire]

I really like getting out of the city for a bit sometimes, especially because after about a week or two I begin to miss it, which feels nice. Also going to other cities and being alarmed by how much chiller things are (though I've never been to Chicago and have no clue if that's the case there).

[allegro]

I really like getting out of the city for a bit sometimes, especially because after about a week or two I begin to miss it, which feels nice. Also going to other cities and being alarmed by how much chiller things are (though I've never been to Chicago and have no clue if that's the case there).

In the Loop it's particularly insane. Just about anywhere else downtown, it's almost as insane. Outside of downtown, in the neighborhoods, the traffic is bad, parking is terrible, but it's not as nuts with the taxis trying to kill you and pedestrians ignoring the street lights etc. And the jungle "rush" disease has spread to the other neighborhoods of Chicago and the 'burbs. Everybody's always in a fucking hurry. We still escape to Wisconsin to chill out. They haven't been infected, yet. We have this new way to get to our new marina in Racine that includes DRIVING THROUGH CORN FIELDS AND CABBAGE FIELDS. It's so friggin' relaxing, it's like we're in a movie, complete with farm houses and red barns.

What gets me in the Loop, that I can't figure out: People READING WHILE THEY WALK. Like, READING A BOOK.

CROSSING A STREET WHILE READING A BOOK.

AND THE LIGHT IS GREEN. Meaning, like, the pedestrians DON'T have the right-of-way.

Honey, those taxis hit people all day, every day, and if you ain't looking, you're gonna be halfway into that chapter and you're gonna get LAUNCHED and it's gonna be a REAL SURPRISE.

[elevenism]

How would you know? You've never moved and lived anywhere else for any extended period of time?

@allegro , there's know way i could ever know, because it's impossible for me to ever have been born and raised in another state
Maybe you misunderstood what i was saying. I meant that, had i been born in new york city, or LA, i would probably feel the same pride for those places.



As far as texas being in my blood, it's a feeling and it's hard to explain. It's in my heart. It just is. And if you had spent your whole life here, i BET you would feel the same.
@Miss Baphomette i would LOOOOOOOVE to visit LA. i don't have the money.

Colorado is awesome, but it used to be part of texas.

Edit: and no @allegro , i've never been anywhere that doesn't border texas, except for a month in TN when i went to get my wife.

[allegro]

And if you had spent your whole life here, i BET you would feel the same.

Nope.

I was born and raised in the Great Lake State of Michigan, the 26th state, far more beautiful than Texas could ever hope to be. And Michiganders are proud but we aren't weirdo exceptionalists.

Dude, no wonder you only like Texas; you ain't been anywhere else.

Colorado doesn't border Texas. And I can't find anything in the history of Colorado indicating that it used to be part of Texas after it was a state. Colorado was part of the Louisiana purchase, then there was the Texas Annexation but Texas still wasn't a state and wanted to be separate from the U.S., and had just declared independence from Mexico.

[elevenism]

@allegro , i'll forgive you for not knowing Texas history
This is a map of texas in 1846. We had a fairly good part of Colorado.

Also, forgive me for saying that colorado borders texas. it DAMN NEAR borders texas.
I live in the very, very, VERY top of texas. So i'm fifteen miles south of OK, and it takes about 30-45 minutes to cross the OK panhandle into colorado.

And i don't ONLY like Texas! I just really adore texas.

Beauty, by the way, is subjective.

And there is nothing more beautiful to me than this

[allegro]

Yes, that is the Texas Annexation. Not ALL of Colorado, and it's territory they intended to steal when they wanted to be annexed, but it was never ratified. That's typical of Texas, "oh, yeah, we used to own all of Colorado." NO, you did not.

Beauty is subjective to somebody who has never been to Hawaii.

Or Michigan's Sleeping Bear Dunes




Or Michigan's painted rocks


Or a Ludington Michigan sunset

[elevenism]

There are lots of stunning places in texas.

But what i find the most beautiful is probably considered ugly by most-the browns and greys of the lonely panhandle, especially at night.

It stirs something in my soul.

I would love to visit places all over the world. I have a list.

But i doubt that i will ever find anything that touches my spirit the way the panhandle does.

Red River hasn't. Ruidoso NM hasn't. Denver hasn't.

I adore the great high plains.

As far as places i'd like to see, the holy land tops the list, but i doubt that will ever happen.
I desperately want to visit New England in the fall.
And i really want to go to the Mayan ruins.

It pisses me off that i haven't hardly been anywhere. There. I ended the drifting.

edit: just so you know , we do have shit like this in texas
and this

but i like this.

part of it is because i LOVE storms. We are right in the middle of tornado alley, and with the land up here being utterly flat, the clouds can be fucking STUNNING.

[allegro]

I desperately want to visit New England in the fall.

It looks exactly like that around here in the fall. But, I'd like to go to New England in the fall because these are the Great Lakes, not an ocean.

It's hard to beat Lake Tahoe, though.



I can't imagine being so hung up on one place when there's an entire undiscovered world out there. It's like my late father-in-law thinking life was just fine from his LazyBoy recliner. Because he grew up in that house.

That's why G and I are getting a 28-foot Airstream Flying Cloud and a Toyota Tundra when we retire. So we can hit the road.

[Sutekh]

I really don't like Ayn Rand. I'm fed up with alienated right wingers thinking her deluded nonsense has any weight or science behind it. She was a bitter twisted bastard who died on the welfare and had zero expertise or insight when it came to diagnosing humanity or society. She just tells entitled neoliberals what they want to hear

[Dra508]

Nope.

I was born and raised in the Great Lake State of Michigan, the 26th state, far more beautiful than Texas could ever hope to be. And Michiganders are proud but we aren't weirdo exceptionalists.

Dude, no wonder you only like Texas; you ain't been anywhere else.

I don't think you're being particularly fair here. I think we could all find something gorgeous about ever single state in the union.

As for @elevenism 's love of Texas. That is isn't unique. - Massachusetts folks that have never left, never will, love to complain about the weather, but if you said would you move - they'd say 'no way - never'. They also love to take credit for everything: Clam Chowder (the white kind), Babe Ruth (no he was a Red Sox first), Anyone who was born or a resident of the state (err Commonwealth) ever (Leonard Nimoy, Donna Summer, New Kids On The Block, Aerosmith, Jack Kerouac, Emerson, Kennedy (all of them), and on and on.

I agree with this Op piece that exceptionalism is not just a southern problem.

[allegro]

I think we could all find something gorgeous about ever single state in the union.

That's pretty much what I was saying. ANY exceptionalism (including New England) is stupid. People who refuse to ever leave are just, I dunno, boring? I know people who never left their small home town, never left the fucking county, not even on vacation. They also won't try any new food, and think Olive Garden is adventurous. I'm not saying that's anybody here, natch, I'm just saying there's a reason I moved away. I'd keep moving, like a friggin' nomad, if it wasn't for my husband. We do plan on moving farther west (with tax restrictions) after he retires.

This buttwipe across from us at our soon-to-be former marina suffers from Wisconsin exceptionalism, including spouting revisionist history like "OH, YOU MEAN THE UPPER PENNINSULA THAT MICHIGAN STOLE FROM WISCONSIN!" and shit like that. I ignore him, because he lives in Illinois to avoid Wisconsin's exceptionally shitty retirement taxes. The guy has a dog named "Maddie" (Madison, University of Wisconsin), and has 80 U-W flags hanging off his 36-foot SeaRay and he wears U-W Badgers shirts, hats, etc.

So on the 4th, I wore my most PATRIOTIC outfit: An Iggy Pop Lust For Life shirt, with this GIANT image of Iggy on the front, because nothing says "AMERICA" more than Iggy.



Now G wants to wear his Genitorturers shirts just to fuck with this guy.

That OpEd piece about segregation has it wrong about Detroit; white flight happened in the City of Detroit starting in the 60s; the VAST majority of the little remaining population of Detroit is black, and there is now "black flight" from Detroit to the 'burbs. And they bury this as a little footnote:

"Michigan’s Warren-Troy-Farmington Hills metro area, where segregation declined ."

And they compare Detroit to Dearborn,
which has the highest number of Arabs outside of the Middle East, but used to be run by Mayor Orville Hubbard, who tried to keep out all Dearborn residents who weren't white. I'm sure the old fucker is spinning in his grave.

Chicago is REALLLLLY segregated, though.

[Dra508]

Searay? Bleck. When we had a boat, we'd call those Clorox Bottles.

[Big Fat Matt]

And they compare Detroit to Dearborn,
which has the highest number of Arabs outside of the Middle East, but used to be run by Mayor Orville Hubbard, who tried to keep out all Dearborn residents who weren't white. I'm sure the old fucker is spinning in his grave.

"Keep Dearborn Clean"