John Darnielle’s Devil House is a GREAT novel. All of his books are but it’s particularly great

A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley.

Letterkenny! The humour takes a few episodes for you to understand, but it’s absurd sort of in the Seinfeld way but way more subtle.

What We Do In The Shadows is HILARIOUS.

Pour Some Sugar On Me. It’s so terrible.

Droppies! They’re an acquired taste. I worked with a lot of Dutch people at one point and they were always bringing them in. There was one kind I swear that had a powdered coating it was dipped in which only could have been weed killer.

I haven’t actually tried this but my friend did.

I still have Facebook because of real life friends but otherwise I am on the fediverse and Bluesky only. I even use Maven. I have never gotten into Snapchat or Tiktok at all, and I dumped Instagram and Twitter a while back.

I would love to not be on Facebook but sometimes if someone commits a really trashy crime in the news and I look them up and their page is full of crazy it’s pretty delicious. Like a Southern Gothic novel.

Omigod.

I was on a tour bus for a food and wine event in Charleston SC some years ago. We had started drinking at 10 am and were pretty much all soused by the time the bus was taking us back. It was a wonderful day.

Anyway we were on this old retro school bus with the windows that you pop open and they open from the top, and we were crossing the bridge from John’s Island back to the city overtop of a marsh, and this drunk girl who was clearly recently separated took her ring off, snapped the window down, and flung it into the marsh below, and yelled “Sayonara motherfucker!”.

Then she saw me blinking in surprise and said, “I think that was the perfect place to do that”.

Well ok.

Omigod that’s ignorant. I’m sorry.

There was a girl on Reddit who broke up with her plumber boyfriend, who had installed a new toilet for her. He took the toilet with him.

That’s where mine went. I don’t want any photos of him.

I don’t know the answer, but I support people as however they identify, I don’t care and love them all, but I sort of would feel silly saying I was she/her. Like it’s like I’m participating in something that I’m not really a part of.

My 87 year old aunt volunteers for a local theater, which obviously has a lot of queer folks involved, and at one point the coordinator said when the volunteers introduced themselves at a meeting that they should announce their preferred pronouns. I get that the coordinator meant well, but my aunt said it’s nobody’s business what her pronouns are unless RuPaul is asking. LOL.

In its Facebook and onward phase, yes I agree. Prior to that we had this wonderful site called Livejournal where you could privately blog to a select group of friends, and it was the absolute best way to brain dump, have people give you real advice, and make the best online friends. Yes it had much controversy when it was bought by a Russian company, I can point you to a podcast if you want more detail on that, and certainly there was drama sometimes, but I would give a lot to just talk to my friends as a group that way again and really know each other deeply that way again, and other than the odd very ignorable ad, you weren’t forced to be part of an algorithm or AI horseshit or fake news or verified accounts or any of that garbage. You could buy a permanent account for 100 dollars for the added features, but that was basically started to keep the site running after it took off. It really was beautiful and helpful and loving and felt organic and true for that time.

Have you ever noticed how hard it is for novels or TV or any other fictional platform to include anything about smartphones or using social media? When it is mentioned it feels very awkward and forced into the narrative.

The best eggs are eggs from a farm that are unwashed and you keep on the counter. They taste a zillion times better and last for a long time. I get 3 dozen for 15 dollars at the local farm. It’s honestly better than the store.

That’s insane!

I’ve seen them, I worked in a CF clinic before. Yikes. Do they work?

Well that isn’t me, I’m super careful about keeping my dogs apart from them but I can’t help sharing hallways or elevators very much. And a lot of them really do scream and run and be theatrical about it. Some of the kids are curious and I let them pet them always or answer questions,clearly many of them have never had a pet before, which is fine. But honestly it’s pretty often that they absolutely hate your dogs.

I started to get a little ornery with the kids when they screech and run away, and tell them that being afraid of animals is a bad way to go through life. You don’t have to want or have pets, but you should be reasonably able to interact with animals.

Occasionally they will like them, but usually just kids who are curious.

Sometimes, and yes they very much don’t. I keep a tight grip on my leashes and don’t let the dogs anywhere near them but they sure still hate me.

This is in Ontario and we tend to be more strict about qualifications.