Same to you!

Good cushions

Grew up in suburban midwest USA. As middle of the country as you can get. It wasn’t until I moved to the Pacific Northwest of the US that, like you, I wasn’t an aberration, I had just grown up around trash people.

You are fucking awesome.

I was born in the USA.

Doldrums

Being complimented by the urologist on my shaving for a vasectomy.

Judging by what I’ve seen lately: crime and opression to maintain my status because I only understand the world through the lenses of artficial scarcity and zero sum game theory.

I feel that from personal experiencto. I learned while earning 0 at the time. Fortunately I was living in Seattle which has/had some great food banks and food resources for the destitute.

Learn to cook beans and rice from scratch. Stock up on them in bulk. Emergency food packs can be bought from $45 and up depending on how many you have to feed and for how long you’re planning to need it.

Yep, that’s the right timeframe I was referring to.

I remember older gaming forums where people would have their uptime in their post signatures.

Edit to add: upon reflection it was all the more impressive because almost all gaming PCs were Windows.

Reminds me of the famous koan:

Before enlightenment; chop wood and carry water After enlightenment; chop wood and carry water

Be mindful in your daily activities.

Some of us had too much of the booze coping with being completely ineffectual as a voting block. I’m good now, though. Sobered up in time for the real nightmare.

See the other comment for a variation of the story.

In another telling of the story he arrives to find his meager shack ransacked by the thief and writes a koan with a broken piece of charcoal on a torn piece of parchment:

He left it right there In the window The moon

That’s translated and also my memory from a book I read 20 years ago. Do not take this as historically or literarily accurate.

Ryokan, a Zen master, lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening a thief visited the hut only to discover there was nothing to steal.

Ryokan returned and caught him. “You have come a long way to visit me,” he told the prowler, “and you should not return empty-handed. Please take my clothes as a gift.”

The thief was bewildered. He took the clothes and slunk away.

Ryoken sat naked, watching the moon. “Poor fellow,” he mused, “I wish I could have given him this beautiful moon.”

If it weren’t for my horse, I wouldn’t have spent that year in college.