Former Member

Someone who just attended the weddings! ;–)

‘Dr’ Phil is a fake. Just like ‘Dr’ Laura. Or any of the actors who play doctors on TV shows. ;–) But Devon doesn’t claim to be a doctor.

As I was reading this I realized you’ve created a nearly all-Gay Torchwood! In Torchwood, the best they did was to have everyone have a same-sex kiss (or more) at least once! But it’s not just one person who lives forever like Cap’n Jack, it’s almost everybody! ;–) They need a customized SUV like Torchwood’s Range Rover so at least Devon, Colin, Mark, and especially Stan can do their hunting in comfort! ;–)

And neither one of them has a license! ;–)

And then there’s Airbnb and its competitors…

Would middle-class Don have rejected Robbie if he had two or three brothers to be adopted too? Crises happen that force families to move in with other family members. It could be a death in the family or it could be a natural disaster. Sometimes several families move in with the sole unaffected family member after things like hurricanes, fires, or floods. ;–) Or it could be multiple, related immigrant families sharing housing while they save up to buy individual houses for each family. In ultra-expensive cities like San Francisco, dozens of people live in what was built to be a single family house so they can afford the rent on minimum wage jobs. I can see all sorts of reasons why houses would be ‘overcrowded’ by our standards. ;–) But even if Lizzie II rented out all the spare rooms in her numerous palaces and other houses, it wouldn’t make a dent in the homeless crisis in the UK (much less the world).

Is that Chevron’s next ad campaign? The minimarts attached to Chevron gas stations are branded ‘Extra Mile.’ ;–)

I’m not aware of any regulations in the US regarding separate bedrooms based on age and gender except in the case of foster and adopted children. And I’m not convinced that any of my neighbors would be too concerned about those sorts of regulations anyway. I have the feeling that at least some of them are undocumented. Besides, who’s enforcing those sorts of regulations? They’d have to inspect every apartment and house in their jurisdiction – and how much do you want to bet they’d completely ignore the wealthy parts of town? Someone could challenge its legality based on the intrusive nature of the legislation, if not the likely discriminatory enforcement. ;–)

I’m not sure about that. Whenever you think you’ve fallen as far as you can go, you find out there are depths below that you’ve never even considered. I don’t think Jeff is likely to sink much further, if at all, but it is very possible. I was homeless for two years (I’ve been housed for five years now). I spent time in shelters living with people who had sunken much further than I ever did. There were many people who were alcoholics or recovering alcoholics. They’d lost their jobs, they’d lost their homes, they’d lost their families, they’d lost their friends, and they’d lost their self-respect. And these were the ones who were able to plan well enough to get into a homeless shelter – a very competitive process that requires lots of forethought and preparation with dozens or more competing for each bunk. One of the shelters I stayed at has a waiting list and you have to call every week to remain on the list – between the wait on the list and the mandatory wait between stays, it took me about 6 months to get back into that shelter. Another shelter doesn’t have a list at all, you either have to be very lucky and show up when they have a vacancy or you have to have a friendly staff member who will save the bunk for you. It’s not easy being homeless. Oh, and when you’re homeless, you have to wait in lots of lines, long lines. You wait in lines for government assistance (lines that are intentionally long to discourage people from applying). You wait to find out if you’ve been approved. You wait in line to maintain that government assistance. You wait in line to eat. You wait in line to stay at some shelters. You wait in line for everything. Your primary job is acquiring the things you need to survive. Finding employment is a second job. You can’t order it online. You can’t hire someone else to wait for you. You can’t just call it in. And once you’ve sunk that far, it’s much easier to sink further. It’s difficult enough to maintain your status. It’s extremely difficult to climb out of the pit. I only got out because I’d been seeing psychologists and psychiatrists and I already had several years of documentation of my depression and anxiety from before I became homeless. After fighting Social Security for two years, I was finally awarded Disability for Clinical Depression and Anxiety. The lump sum back payment allowed me to make the deposit on an apartment and the monthly payment cover my rent and other costs.

I wish all teachers were as dedicated and devoted to their jobs and students as Vic and Jack! I know it’s often a difficult job and it’s very easy to get burned out. And you’ll never become monetarily wealthy if that’s your career! ;–)

Is she really that bad? Her heart seems to be in the right place. It’s just her choice of meeting location that’s bad – and that’s been more Jeff’s choice, I think. ;–)

Wiggle it a little to loosen it so it comes out easier. ;–)

I think most alcoholics stumble a bit before they finally kick the habit, just like cigarette smokers or any other addicts. I can see Jeff falling off the wagon once or twice on the way to sobriety. It’s difficult to quit a habit that initially provides such a welcome feeling. ;–)

I don’t know, several of my neighbors live in studio apartments with their entire families (children and adults). Only houses in some cultures have separate bedrooms. It might be cramped, but it can be done! ;–) Personal space varies depending on culture (or even sub-culture in some cases). We only think we have to have separate rooms because that’s what most of us grew up with. Our culture believes that sex is private and must be hidden from children – that’s not the case everywhere. But I’m glad I never saw my parents being intimate! ;–)

The haters show up at San Francisco’s Pride Parade too. They have their own cordoned off designated section next to the parade route. Most people ignore them. I think they like attending Pride Parades. They get to feel like they’re a perverted part of our community. They’ll be petitioning for their own letter in our Initialism soon. ;–)

How rude! You’re going to make @Butcher56 sit in the parking lot while the wedding is going on? Now I can believe you’re from another planet! ;–)

I’m more curious about its efficacy! ;–)

It was that hateful mother of Will or Liam. Whichever. The one who tormented them! ;–) She was working with Kyle and Kaleb’s vile, disgusting parents! ;–) John was a coconspirator. ;–)

Who’d want to march in a parade in the desert in June? It’d have to be a night parade. Do people go down to LA or Long Beach for Pride? SF Pride dominates the Bay Area, but there are much smaller events held in smaller cities and towns all over the region. San José/Silicon Valley has its own moderately large celebration. Oakland Pride is a more family-friendly affair than San Francisco’s and is held in September. ;–)

But with Andy’s assistance, it would be possible. Here in the US there are also several specialty chains that advertise two pairs of glasses for a relatively low price. I’m sure Eric would prefer to have someone helping him choose the frames and see for himself what they look like on his face. Maybe Eric can have an adventure in the nearest large town or small city with Andy! ;–)

I notice you didn’t say anything here about Sam and his people. You wouldn’t want to reveal a big secret like that! Hordes of scientist and government officials would descend on the real-life Sanctuary attempting to investigate and probe. Very invasive and disruptive! So, when do you and @MichaelS36 plan to have your child/heir? ;–)

So is this a place of sanctuary for the Green family or a sanctuary for Sam’s people? I’m not certain why, but I am reminded of the pre-Captain Cook era Hawaiian custom of the City of Refuge. Apparently if you were a criminal and you managed to get to the City of Refuge before your pursuers, you were allowed to live. It’s on the Big Island, south of Kona, I think (I’m remembering from a single visit to the Big Island in 1967). ;–)

My experience has only vaguely resembled films and movies. I’ve never been asked to lie down on a couch. But almost all of my experiences have been with non-profit agencies with little money to spend on furnishings! ;–) My psychiatrists have almost all worked for county health systems. I had one psychiatrist who prescribed the same bad medication to me and one of my homeless friends. I had complained about not being able to get enough sleep each night and one side effect of the med he prescribed was sleeplessness. My friend has low blood pressure and a second side effect of that pill is lowering blood pressure – she went to the emergency room and was told to immediately stop taking that med! (When you’re homeless and dealing with similar issues, you start comparing experiences.) I switched to a different psychiatrist immediately and got prescribed a different medication as soon as possible! I complained to the new (to me) psychiatrist about what had happened. I don’t know what happened to my previous psychiatrist, but he seemed to have left the system soon after. I should have placed a formal complaint with the county heath system at the time.

I guess I’m stubborn enough to not let my therapists get away with an agenda. Plus it helps that all but one have been interns, just completing their training before they get their doctorates. I’m sure some of them got very frustrated when they attempted to get me to try different strategies and I just shot them down. One tried to get me to imagine my bad characteristics in the seat next to me. What would I say? What would I do? I told her that Star Trek’s evil analogs from the Mirror Universe always had facial hair. But I couldn’t go any further with the exercise! She tried to get me to imagine walking through a doorway to get past some now-forgotten issue. I didn’t even let her get past mentioning that one! Back in around 1990, I was going to groups at the local Gay community center. They sometimes suggested imagining the future. I always said there was a huge brick wall that was too high to see over and too long to get around. If I jumped, I could get a glimpse over the wall, but all I saw was impenetrably dense fog. (This was long before I read George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire.) The only other example of imagining that I could ever come up with was that my problems were like a huge boulder (like the one in Raiders of the Lost Ark) and that therapy had rubbed off some of the rougher sections of the boulder and it rolled a little more smoothly than before. I couldn’t identify where or what they were, but I recognized the difference. I’m not good at imagining those sorts of things. I need things to be more tangible. And in therapy, I frequently go off on wild tangents and only a few of my therapists were ever able to rein me in! ;–) In conclusion, you need to remember that you’re in charge of your therapy, not your therapist. The therapist is there to assist you, not force you to do things their way. Interns are easier to manipulate than older, more experienced psychologists and psychiatrists (I never get away with anything with psychiatrists, but their role is different and I never spent as much time with them). If your therapist isn’t working out, you have the right to change therapists. ;–)

I had a very difficult time deciding between Loving and Laughing at this! ;–)