When it comes to American history, I could do American independence - present day. Most public education stops at world war 2, you never really learn about Korea or vietnam. You might learn about the civil rights movement during black history month, but it wasn’t well covered in my school. I was born in 1979. I’ve had to educate myself about stagflation that happened in the 70, along with the geopolitical events that helped stagflation, which includes british and american usurping iranian sovergnty to install a dictator that looked favorably upon capitalists oil interests, which brought me to the iran hostage crisis, which eventually gave way to a war between iraq and iran and the contra scandal. The shit Reagan and his officials got up to is insane, and Reagan managed to maintain enough deniability and have fall guys to keep from being impeached. There was a halfhearted attempt with H.Res.370 — 98th Congress (1983-1984) to Impeach President Reagan of the high crime or misdemeanor of: (1) ordering the invasion of Grenada, in violation of the Constitution and certain treaty obligations; and (2) preventing news coverage of such invasion. There was another attempt for the contra scandal. I’m old enough to remember the Berlin wall coming down. I lived through Kuwait, Iraq invasions, Tiananmen Square massacre, 9/11 and the bin laden hunt, Clinton deregulation of telecoms, yugoslavian civil war, 2000 dot com bubble recession, 2008 housing bubble recession, covid, and trump installed as president to enable facism/techno feudulism . . . we didn’t start the fire.

I came here to say exactly this.

So does this mean it’s non binary? Emo baby?

All your base are belong to us.

Congrats!

Have you tried couples therapy? Do you think that would improve the toxicity or your relationship?

I currently live with my g/f and the relationship is a happy one. She slowly moved into my one bedroom apartment and I refuse to let her contribute to rent or utilities because I don’t want to be dependent on her income. (Also she and her retired mother went halfsies on a new trailer. She’s paying the lot rent while her mom lives in the trailer. She also has her own room there too.) If she starts pestering me to move into a bigger place, I will be damn sure it’s something I can afford on my own. I learned my lesson after being thrown out of a place 2 weeks after breaking up while I had no stable income.

Here is my list of cheap foods I tend to keep on hand for making inexpensive meals.

Non perishable: Rice, Beans (black, chick pea, and lentils), dry mixed beans, bulk flour, bulk sugar, cans of tomato paste, cans of diced tomato, dried red chills, dry noodles, (like soba noodles or ramen noodles,) cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, vegetable oil, white vinegar. (I don’t really eat traditional pasta, but that is also a cheap, non perishable.)

perishables: Onions, garlic, cilantro, carrots, Asian cabbage like nappa cabbage, green onions, green bell peppers, corn, potatoes, ginger root, soy sauce, ketchup, mayo, mustard, worcestershire sauce, oyster sauce, yeast, bananas, tomatoes, cucumbers, seasonal squashes, seasonable fruit.

More expensive optional perishables: Block of store brand cheddar and mozzarella cheese, eggs, butter, condensed milk, sweetened condensed milk, plain yogurt

spices: Salt, pepper, paprika, chill powder, oregano, basil, cumin, coriander, garam masala, tumeric

With that list of ingredients I can make these things: Fresh breads including naan, sandwhich bread, flour totillas, banana bread. Cheese pizza, vegetarian Chinese dumplings with dumpling sauce, felafel, channa masala (a chick pea curry I eat with rice and naan), black bean burgers, black bean chilli, spiced lentils, Dahl (a type of lentil soup), Raita which is a condiment made with yogurt, spices, and veggies, Vegetable yakisoba, cheap ramen enhanced with egg, corn, carrot and green onion, home made brownies, tomato soup, cheesy baked potato, mashed potato, home made caramel to serve with brownies, or fruit, or mixed into yogurt with fruit. With the seasonal squashes I can make a squash bisque using butternut squash, or veggie soup using the mixed dried beans with the squash and other veggies.

When it comes to spices, I find that they are cheaper in my local asian grocery than the standard grocery store. When it comes to ketchup, mustard, and mayo, I get that for free just by asking at fast food joints, or grabbing them when they are freely offered in fast food joints.

The other thing that keeps the cost of the foods I eat low, is the fact that I am making it all from scratch. You can see that I am primarily cooking vegetarian, because meat is really fucking expensive. PM me if you would like the recipe for anything I mentioned.

I grew up with gaming on a DOS PC, Atari, and original NES. My parents didn’t regulate my use, but refused to spend money on consoles or the games themselves. I supported my gaming interests with summer jobs, skipping lunch and saving the lunch money instead. Both of my parents were also addicts, so I could usually steal 5-10$ once in a while when they were high without being noticed. Not sure when the ESRB rating system rolled out, but it’s something I paid attention to when buying games for myself, and eventually my kids.

When I had my own stepchildren, they were free to game as much as they wanted when chores and homework were done, and adhered to a 10 pm lights out to get 8 hrs of sleep. As my stepson grew more interested in mature titles, I often played those titles to see what the content was like before deciding if I would allow him to play it. His bio mom was clueless about games, and tended to be more restrictive than me. I played OG halo before deciding it was a game he could play as a 14 year old. I played some of the GTA games before deciding he had to be 16 before we would let him play those. (My issue was picking up a prostitute and then being able to beat her after to get the $ back.) I started playing WOW because my stepson wanted to play. After some exploring I thought it was a safe title for him. Gaming was something that brought us closer together, and I spent so much time gaming with him. If I had the chance to give birth to my own kids, I would wish for a biological son like my stepson.

Sliced BBQ Porkbelly in tonkotsu broth with ramen noodles, soft-medium boiled egg, green onion, bok choy, shredded carrots, corn, and enoki mushrooms served with a bottle of chilled, sweet, filtered sake.