zompist bboard

I was actually just speaking in the future really with the term 'spouse.' When we apply for a visa, or when I apply, or however we work this out, he will be my spouse. Right now he's my fiance. We are indeed getting married, at a courthouse in Minnesota because our home state of Michigan does not legally recognize gay marriage, and even if the Supreme Court overturns their ban, it'll be too late to apply for the visa married. Illinois has a bizarre law on the books that two out-of-state people can't get married there if their home state doesn't recognize the marriage, which was designed for other things, but ends up affecting us. Neither of us are big fans of Indiana or Wisconsin, Iowa is just not exciting, everywhere else is too far away. Minnesota is a state I love because LGBT support is high there. They passed marriage through the legislature, not the courts. The state is competent, and I have always enjoyed the Twin Cities, especially the quieter St. Paul which has a gorgeous Art Deco courthouse.

But now things are just depressing because people I thought cared about us are flocking left and right. I invited 15 people, and neither my grandparents nor my partner's parents say they'll come. They say it's the travel, but I honestly find that ridiculous to say that traveling to basically another Midwest state, especially when you can fly, or when we offered to arrange rides, is an excuse to miss the first marriage of a grandchild, or your child's marriage. They accept our relationship, but honestly I wonder if it's the fact we're gay, or the fact we don't want to spend a fortune on a wedding and would rather have a simple non-traditional courthouse wedding that is focused on love and not how big of a party can we throw. I'm sorry we can't afford an actual wedding and have parents who can't afford an actual wedding and don't desire an actual wedding. I'm just sorely disappointed. At least my father and brother and best friend are confirmed, but my partner has no one so far. His best friends might be flocking too....

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Falgwian and Falgwia!!

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.

The thing to do is to have a modest party at home afterwards. If you don't think a wedding is worth the cost, fine, but then you should have some insight into why people don't think watching you give paperwork to a judge is worth a plane ticket or 3 days in the car, time off work, etc.

I understand what you're saying, and years down the road when we have money perhaps that is a possibility. But I don't think the lack of a traditional wedding is an excuse. You're there to celebrate the couple. What do you honestly get out of attending a traditional marriage besides a lot of trouble? An open bar maybe, some free food. Well we're paying for dinner, so there's the free food. Better than a buffet. When you're immediate family you shouldn't be looking for selfish gain, you should be looking to support the ones you love no matter how they chose to marry. I traveled 7 hours plus a hotel for my best friend's wedding in the back of a hotel and a modest reception afterwards. I didn't care about the travel or taking time off work because it was an important event.

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Falgwian and Falgwia!!

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.

Even if I would have the means to get myself a huge marriage with plenty of stuff and a huge expensive thing, I don't think I'd still go beyond a simple, mostly private civil ceremony with a selection of friends.

Then again, I have to consider what marriage is legally and, in Quebec at least, it's clearly written in the civil law (C.c.Q. Art. 392 à 430); it was a really interesting read when I got through it when looking for something. It's also available in English, for those who are interested to see what mariage entails in a civil law juridiction.

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"Ez amnar o amnar e cauč."
- Daneydzaus

civil unions are perfectly understandable. there is, at least in america, a bit in the tax forms that changes. and something about hospital visitation rights? it can be a useful bureaucratic operation.

marriages are also perfectly understandable, because cargo cults are perfectly understandable. there was once a thing that got some stuff done, so let's do some stuff that kind of looks like it and hope it works by magic. has the divorce rate passed two thirds yet?

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Siöö jandeng raiglin zåbei tandiüłåd;
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.

Is it not terribly reactionary and all family traditional values muh jesus asdaogag to go "marriage is not good because divorce" ? I mean, it amounts to saying marriages that last 12 years and then end are like failures, and that No True Marriage unless Forever and all of that shit that made perfect sense when we had no medicine or condoms but is total bs now.

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Articles on Suenu - Amphitrite

Besides, the "half of all marriages end in divorce" statistic isn't accurate. The divorce rate is actually primarily going down, in the US. (not for every group, of course, but on average) According to this article, the divorce rate peaked at around 41% (average for all people who had ever been married) in the 1970s and has been going down since then. (there's other, newer articles on the subject, that's just the first one I came across that actually had a statistic for the peak in the 70s)

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I generally forget to say, so if it's relevant and I don't mention it--I'm from Southern Michigan and speak Inland North American English. Yes, I have the Northern Cities Vowel Shift; no, I don't have the cot-caught merger; and it is called pop.

It seems to me that the 'marriage lasts until death do us part' idea worked a lot better back in the day when mortality was higher and it was pretty plausible that you might be a widow/er in 5 or 10 years. If your marriage is on the rocks, you can hope that hubby or wifey gets a cut from a rusty nail and gets infected and dies from lack of good medical care, or whatever.

There's a guy at work who decided to try to convert me to Christianity, and who wasn't using very good arguments (e.g. citing his out of body experience without explaining why I should consider it as more than just a hallucination (assuming there is such an argument; if there is one, he didn't attempt to provide it), misunderstanding how the theory of relativity works even at the pop level understanding a nonscientist like I have, and making false claims about Roman Catholic teachings on the resurrection of Jesus (I mean come on, of course the Catholics believe he was resurrected. Do you think I'm an idiot, coworker?) Now yesterday, we were talking, and someone made a remark about Barack Obama (I didn't catch what it was, just that it was about Obama) and this religious guy did that thing where you say you aren't prejudiced, but then proceed to utter a bunch of racist stuff, in this case about how Obama's a secret Muslim and how this is a Christian country and how we shouldn't let Arabs and Muzzies come over here. I was inclined to engage with him before, in hopes of at least getting him to provide better arguments for his religious claims, but now I'm unsure that it's worth my time, since it would probably be too much work.

Except, which days were those? Now, I'm too lazy to go and do the research again, but I remember reading that historically low average life expectancies had more to do with high infant mortality rates skewing those averages sharply downwards, rather than there being any significantly larger chance that you'd keel over when you were thirty. That is, our biggest improvements in life expectancy are in the 10- and 60+ ranges moreso than in the middle.

That, though there was still improvment. However, when you look at the Kings of France, where you have a lot of legitimized bastards, it's hard to believe fidelity was that much of an issue...



I learned yesterday that it can be very satisfying in itself; so it's not necessarily a waste of time. It can, however, be a lot of work.

On my side, my birth country is getting worse every single day that passes, and it pisses me off, knowing I'll be going into that.

Ew.

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"Ez amnar o amnar e cauč."
- Daneydzaus

You're right about how infant mortality was a big driver of low life expectancies but (and I'm also to lazy to go do the research again but I recall having seen numbers on the subject) you were still much more likely to die of cause X than you are nowadays. The first time I had this thought occur to me was while reading a book on some subject of colonial American history and noticing how many people were noted to have been married more than once, on account of their first (or in rarer cases second or third) spouses dying.

You need to listen to the soothing sounds of music played on the harp. https://youtu.be/CvI5oy25QO4

Yeah.

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"Ez amnar o amnar e cauč."
- Daneydzaus

You need to put things into perspective because most levelheaded Americans find Canada to be a paradise, except the cold. But with reasonable politics, more than two parties, national healthcare, effective gun laws, well there's a lot to like for those of us who live in the world's craziest Western country.

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Falgwian and Falgwia!!

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.

I am fully aware of that perspective; I could probably find myself some kind of job in the US, even moreso if I complete what I want to do after going back. But comparing to worse is never a good thing when you aim to do your best.

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"Ez amnar o amnar e cauč."
- Daneydzaus

When you check out a cute guy's profile page on Facebook and you don't know enough about him to guess whether the bald eagle and American flag cover photo is ironic (à la Colbert) or sincere.

Please to live in bolivia for a couple months, or jordan, or nigeria, before you declare living in the most wealthy country in the planet "the worse".

still, yeah, what's happening to canada is sad... sic transic gloria mundi

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Articles on Suenu - Amphitrite

My friend is having some problems with life, but he gets really mad every time I give him advice. He says he doesn't want me to tell him what to do. I'm really bothered because he's refusing to acknowledge these problems but it doesn't seem like there's anything I can do about it. It's also totally throwing me for a loop because he says 'everyone hates the way I give advice' but I have never heard anyone say they distinctly did not like my advice other than this particular person. So I'm wondering if I really am bad at helping people or this guy is just a special case. So confusing

I think it's best not to give him advice unless he asks for it.

re advice:

Theta, I'm not sure what your friend's going through, but just to give a bit of an insight into how illogical my mind can be when things are not going well ...

I have some really unhelpful quirk of my personality that means I can't deal with advice from people a lot of the time. I overthink everything to begin with. If something sucks and I tell someone and they tell me what to do, 99% of the time, their advice is nothing new. For example, at the moment, I'm pretty sure I have depression. Everyone around me is telling me to get a job. I already know I need to get a job. I want to get a job. I know it would help me, take off the stress of looming financial ruin, give me a reason to get out of the house and be active and make me feel like I can function in the world again. This is good advice, but it's not new to me. It's hardly an obscure idea. Hearing it from others just makes me feel more pressure and makes the whole thing seem harder and I end up completely freezing up and feeling like I can't do anything. I can't even bear the thought of even looking at my CV right at the moment, let alone tinker around with it, translate it into German, and then the next time I see these friends and they ask how the job hunt's going and there is no rational thing that I can say to explain why I have done nothing. I know it's only coming from a place of concern and genuine willingness to be a good friend, but I just can't deal with it, so I avoid the topic, avoid the friends, or I pretend that everything's OK around them from then on. All I want is to feel close to people without any judgement and I know that, in time, I'll find the strength to do what I need to do. I just need space.

On the occasions where the advice is something I hadn't thought of, something really helpful that I'm grateful for, it's still easy to feel external pressure. I know it shouldn't matter, but I really feel choked by it. I need to let the idea sit in my head for a while till it connects with the part of me that really wants to do it. Years ago, when I was younger, deeply depressed and still living with my family (which was not good for me), some friends of mine asked me to move in with them. All I felt was "I can't. I can't. I can't." They knew me well. They let it drop. I had to get the "I can't" out of my system. A few weeks later, I suddenly felt like I could do it and I called them and asked if it would still be OK if I moved in with them. It was. It was their idea and they had planted it, but I needed time and space to even consider it as a real possibility.

I know this is not logical. It's not rational. People can do anything they put their minds to and all that blah blah blah motivational posters on walls and you can do it. *high five* The logical part of me that knows this is still in there, shaking his head at the rest of me, but the emotional part of me has a switch that can completely shut me down and make it hard to leave the house or face other human beings. I know I need to eat and sometimes just feeding myself seems like too much of a responsibility. I know that when I get like this, it means I'm sick, but all I really need from people is to just be there, laugh with me about stupid things, listen to me if I need it, be nice to me and not focus on the fact that I really suck at life at the moment. I know that and I don't need it pointed out. I feel like that's all really demanding and needy of me, but actually - it's not.

I obviously don't know the situation with your friend. I know it's really hard to watch a friend going through a tough time, especially when the answer is right there in front of them and you don't understand why they're not fixing their situation. It can be frustrating. The natural urge is to help them - point out the things they should be doing, follow up with them to see if they're doing it and ask why they're not if they're not, but it might not be helping. If someone wants advice, they can ask for it. (Even better if you make that clear, that you're there and they can ask for it if they want but don't have to.) Saying that "everyone hates the way you give advice" is a bit harsh, and I'm sorry you heard that. It must hurt to hear that when all you're trying to do is help, but I have a feeling your friend is just trying to push the advice away - not because it's bad or because he doesn't appreciate your willingness to help but because he just can't handle hearing any advice.

Potentially, I'm projecting and none of this fits your friend at all, but it's a possibility so I thought I'd share.

EDIT: Removed "people" from "how illogical people my mind can be" ...

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Glossing Abbreviations: COMP = comparative, C = complementiser, ACS / ICS = accessible / inaccessible, GDV = gerundive, SPEC / NSPC = specific / non-specific
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if there are places outside nyc where you'll be shot down for saying that the high divorce rate might not be a good thing, i don't know of them. how are medicine and condoms relevant?


i'm familiar with the statistics.


but how much of that decline is people just not getting married? and even so, it's still far above where it was.

i wonder what the statistics for children look like -- what percentage of children have unmarried parents, what percentage have divorced parents, and so on. [i would guess that, as you go up the class ladder, likelihood of marriage increases, likelihood of divorce decreases, and number of children follows an inverted-J curve, but i don't know.]

marriages that end in divorce after twelve years will mean, if there are children, that the children now have divorced parents, at ages between zero and twelve. which, speaking from experience, kind of sucks. [in my parents' case it was inevitable, but still, it kind of sucks.]

then again, there are some visible-to-me benefits of no-fault divorce, in that my father did not have to run away to michigan, whereas my grandfather did. but this is an anecdote and should not be taken one way or the other as far as the general effects.


always and everywhere, the upper classes fuck around. some societies [like the pre-christian norsemen] formalize it [i.e. have polygamy], and some societies [like america] try to push it under the rug, with the hilarious result that people were surprised about the epstein thing.

probably everyone else does too, and it just doesn't get into the news. there is a bit in that one huizinga book about medievals fucking in churches -- apparently you could even find prostitutes there, searching for customers.

oh man where's that anecdote about kim jong-un going to boarding school in switzerland and getting caught with bondage porn

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Siöö jandeng raiglin zåbei tandiüłåd;
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.

So, in the parlance of British politeness, exactly how damning is, "Really not a good idea"?

If someone has responded to a suggestion with this, then what you have suggested is so far beyond the pale that your interlocutor is seriously considering cutting off all contact with you and reporting you to the authorities.

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"I suggest you avoid that course of action, you utter plonker, because pursuing it may result in your limbs being bitten off by crocodiles."

To me, if someone says they think that something is really not a good idea, this strongly implies to me that they think that... well... that it would really not be a good idea. As in, no ifs or buts.

It doesn't have to mean that, of course, like everything you can exaggerate. I think I'd find it milder if someone said it about themselves - that is, if someone's telling a story and says "turns out that's really not a good idea!", the outcome is probably less serious that it would be if someone warned you in all seriousness "That's really not a good idea."

But yeah, to me this calls up exchanges like:
"I know I'm wasted but I think I'll drive home. It's just a quick nip down the motorway..." - "Really not a good idea"
"Sod it, I'm just going to tell him I slept with his sister... what's the worst he can do?" - "Really not a good idea"
etc

But, *shrug*, everything depends on context.

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Blog: http://vacuouswastrel.wordpress.com/

But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!

Yup, that's pretty much what I figured. *sigh*