Same with autism. It wasn't until I had my master's degree in math and teaching high school at age 39 that it ever occurred to me that I was autistic. A colleague and I had a mutual student, and he told me that he thought she might be autistic and that he was going to refer her to the school's diagnostician for testing.

So I found myself curious about the symptoms of autism, because Rain Man was my frame of reference. I researched the symptoms in the middle of a Geometry team meeting, and everything I read had my sitting up further and further in my seat, until I just blurted out "Oh my GAWD...?!" My colleagues asked what, and I said "Y'all...I think I might be autistic?" They looked at one another quizzically, like they were shocked at my personal revelation. One of them replied, "Wait...you didn't know?!" I said, "....what, you DID know?!?" She was like "Yes! We all know that about you! You seriously didn't know? 😂" HELL NO I DIDN'T KNOW!

I immediately called my mom on the phone to tell her that I thought I might be autistic. "Yyyyyeah...your dad and I always thought you might be." HOLY FUCKING SHIT MOM WTF?????? 😲😲😲WHY DIDN'T YOU EVER GET ME TESTED?!? "Well, you always made such good grades that we just didn't think it mattered that much.

I have since been diagnosed with ASD Level 1, and I think back a lot on my life lived. I marvel at how much easier my life would have been if I hadn't had to develop all of these coping mechanisms myself. I did well in school despite my autism. I earned two degrees despite my autism. I hold down teaching jobs despite my autism. The biggest problems I've had in my life, though, have been personal relationships. I can't imagine how much richer my life might be right now had I known all along how to exist as a self-aware autist in a neurotypical world.

Trauma bonding. (800) 799-7233

has unusual relationships with

That's a funny way to spell commits sexual harassment against.

Two. Two professors. Two are suing for their right to be shitheads. This needs to be clarified. It's not a class action lawsuit or anything. The vast majority of profs I had at UT-Austin, if they are still teaching there, were almost certainly protesting Palestinian occupation along with the students.

(This being said and Texas being what it is, I am surprised it isn't more than two. I can't leave this state fast enough.)

She was an hour and a half late. I only waited for her because she was responding to my messages, apologized for her tardiness, and said a couple times she'd be there within 20-30 minutes which led to a 90-minute wait). Once she got there, she told me that she was late because she was having some anxiety that day and went to a friend's to smoke a bowl first. She chainsmoked on the patio, and I sat away from her because I don't want to smell that while I'm eating. She told me about a terrible book she was writing, with the sort of stupid plot you'd get from r/writingprompts. And then she said she needed to get high again and asked me if I wanted to come to her car with her while she did. I declined and said I was gonna head home. Proceeded to promply never see her again.

Cops are like a box of chocolates. They'll kill your dog.

I support a life-term prisondency for him.

A student gifted me a Funko Pop at the end of the last school year. She designed it on their website to look like me, holding a game controller and complete with my signature long hair and fun button-up shirt. I thought that was a very cool gift. 🙂

I grew up in Arlington, TX and can confirm this is true. For our field trip every year, we'd go to the Southwest Airlines warehouse and take the tour. And by "tour", I mean we'd wait 15 minutes outside while our teacher got our wristbands, and we'd go in and look at the Commodore 64. Then we'd leave and eat our sack lunches.

OH...and the guy didn't have a mini-bat. It was full size, and any snotty 10-year-old getting his grubby little hands anywhere near ol' Tandy 400, he'd go "Uh uh uh!" and point at the bat.

In the book Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, the main character Sadie is a video game designer who created his game in which you play a worker creating factory parts. If you ignore what's going on around you and just focus on winning the game by making the parts better and faster, eventually the game ends and it becomes clear that you were creating equipment for Nazis during the Holocaust and, thus, you lose the game.

Movies love to have twist endings in which something would have been obvious if you were paying better attention. I think more video games need to do this as well.

It really is a thing. I went on one date with this super attractive redhead, and we were planning a second date, but I canceled because the time we were supposed to have together she whittled down (on the morning of) to just a couple hours she could pencil me in for. She got annoyed with me and became passive-aggressive because I didn't want to drive for two and a half hours round trip to her town for a two-hour date.

I didn't like the passive-aggression and explained that to her kindly. She got even more passive-aggressive at that. I told her I was no longer interested in dating her. She went ballistic, shit-talking me in a mutual FB group we were a part of, stalking my posts and comments on there so that she could add heart reacts to every single one before I blocked her.

I really should have known better than to try to date her as the first time I got to know her was when I was on vacation with my girlfriend in New Orleans where this woman and her husband were celebrating their one-year anniversary and we all met up for dinner, and she later told me they had a knock-down, drag-out fight in their hotel room.

So having your booger hook on the bang switch of your tiny-ass gun while you and your mayonnaise husband cosplay as Rihanna and Shy Ronnie isn't the right way to go about things, you're saying?

Right? And also...who needs space between two homes if there are no lawns? Just moosh all the outer walls together.

Come to think of it...that's gonna result in a ridiculously long line of houses. Maybe we could moosh roofs and bottom floors and stack 'em up a bit to make the line of houses only a half to a third as long, and then leave a little space between Consecutive House Stacks™️ - y'know, so that there'll room for more windows.

You mean like having movers coming in a few weeks but not getting off my ass for the past five days to start putting my life into boxes to move halfway across the country? Cuz it feels like you might be referring to my having movers coming in a few weeks but me not getting off my ass for the past five days to start putting my life into boxes to move halfway across the country.

Friendly reminder that YouTube Music laid off an entire team of 43 unionized workers the very moment two of them went before the Austin City Council to ask them to help pressure Google execs to come to the bargaining table to provide them with fair pay and benefits.

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://fortune.com/2024/03/09/youtube-music-google-unionized-workers-terminated-contract-austin-outsourcing-india

Welp...I was gonna visit NOLA one more time before moving from Texas to Oregon this summer and leaving the Deep South once and for all. But, as a public school teacher, I have to say this is completely and utterly monkeyfucked, and Louisiana isn't getting a thin-ass dime from me.

"...because our beef is beautiful and theirs is weak."

My brother in christ, what the fluffer nutter cyberfuck are you talking about?!?

Look them intensely in the eye as piss streams down your leg to establish dominance.

My youngest knew they weren't a girl at age seven. They are 15 now and been very happy for the last four years using they/them pronouns and a chosen name.

It was always possible that one day they'd have changed their mind...hell, their cousin is non-binary as well and used he/they pronouns and a male name for six years before reverting back to the name and gender she was assigned at birth (she's 16 now).

The important thing is to listen to your kids (and anyone who is trans, really) and trust that they know themselves infinitely better than you ever could. Let people tell you who they are, and believe them. They may refine their understanding of who they are at a later time, and you should believe them then, too. When someone decides to change their major, you don't tell them "C'mon now...you're a psychology major...you've always been a psychology major." It's not entirely dissimilar.