Oh, right, I forgot about that aspect.

Waterbeds suck, honestly. They’re great for people who have a very consistent body temp and don’t have a partner. Get warm or cold in the middle of the night? Tough, it takes ages to change the temp of a huge mass of water. Partner with a different comfort zone? Too bad.

Made before Trump took office, right?

We must be about the same age. The VCR was a game changer. As I recall, the answering machine came just before it, and it’s kind of amazing how fundamentally that changed things, too. People from more recent generations just don’t get what a different paradigm it was when you couldn’t necessarily contact your friends. You’d call their house, but if there wasn’t an answer that didn’t necessarily mean much. They might be outside, or maybe not home. Maybe they were on their bike heading to your house.

<Gives you the side eye>

English teachers: 😢

Yeah, that’s a good point.

No, there’s more to it than that. Immediately taking the manager to task gives more credence to an employee lawsuit. Their “best” first approach is to talk to the employee, even scold them. What they want is for the issue to go away without the company getting bad press or a legal issue. It’s not that they’re bad at their job, it’s that their job has zero to do with being an employee advocate.

They might also scold the manager, but that will happen off the record and behind closed doors.

I’m surprised so many people still don’t realize that HR exists to protect the company, not the employee. Yes, since a bad or reckless manager can put the company at significant risk, sometimes they will take the side of the employee, but not because it’s their charter.

Thanks a lot. No worries about my dad -he was pushing 80 when he died, and he lived a life most people would be proud of. It was also 24 years ago. Sadly, my mom lived ten years longer, and I think the only reason she didn’t die of a broken heart is because she got Alzheimer’s and kind of forgot about my dad’s dying.

I don’t think there’s one kind of healthy relationship. Every person has strengths and weaknesses. The key is finding a person whose strengths and weaknesses meshes with your own. I’ve seen people with significant issues have happy marriages with spouses who just love them and balance with them.

Ultimately, all we can do is try to work with our partners, understand that every relationship has rough times, and hope we can weather those times. Sadly, there’s no guarantees, as I can attest to.

Thank you

Saying “I love you” with food is a wonderful thing. My mom did that and I for sure learned that from her. I think the transient aspect of it is great too.

It’s funny, one of the people who really wanted me to find a way to make my sculptures permanent was my high school art teacher, who I stayed friends with for a long time after graduating. Who left that school the year I graduated and went on to be a pretty well known imagineer at Disney. Not looking after he started there, he hit me up and said I have to buy some sculpy, which they used at Disney a lot. Turns out it feels just like modeling clay but you can bake it in the oven and it ends up like a hard plastic. So ironically, I still have a few pieces I made from back in the day.

Sorry you’re going through that. I’m going to make the assumption that, with it being a ten year relationship, you’re not super young, but much younger than me (I’m 62). I hope you and your partner are both able to move on in a way you can be at peace with it, and once you’ve grieved the relationship are able to find someone who works better.

Goes both ways, I’m happy to chat if you’d like.

I’m an open guy and didn’t mind sharing whatever, but I’m not sure which aspect you’re interested in. I had great role models - my parents were happily married for 50 years until my dad died. My wife and I had problems off and on for years, and we’ve been more roommates than romantic partners for quite some time. We had an argument and she confessed that she hasn’t been in love with me for some time. She’s not with anyone else or anything like that, but she doesn’t want to be with me.

When I was young I used to like sculpting in modeling clay. After I had made whatever it was and shown it to my friends, I’d smush it up and make something else. I had a constant stream of people trying to get me to change my medium so that stuff could be made permanent, but I didn’t like the feel and I was fine with the pieces being temporary.

There are a lot of things like that. People make ice sculptures or do performance art. People enjoy an experience, sometimes as simple as a sunset. Yes, some of those people will try to capture the moment, say with a photograph, but lots of people are okay with the ephemeral.

Yeah, I think you’re right here: it’s all about intent. If someone starts a business, it does well, but then they end it because they want to do something else, is not a failure. If they wanted the business to keep going, but people weren’t buying enough of their product to keep the doors open, that’s a failure.

You could do the same with any of the examples. It’s not a failure if the people are happy to stop or it lasted as long as could reasonably be expected, but if it ends before the people wanted it to, that’s a failure. The rocket that lifts its payload to orbit, then shuts off and falls back to earth is a success. But no one says “Well, the rocket ran great halfway to the planned orbit, so even though it and the payload fell back to earth, it was successful.”

My wife just moved out after 30 years of marriage, and it sure feels like a failure to me. Maybe some people get to the point where it’s not working, and they aren’t invested in the marriage so much that walking away is painful. I think most people would say they shouldn’t have been married if they weren’t that invested in making it work though.

A lot of people have suggested that we should have marriage contracts that have a renewable time limit. Like, “Hey, let’s get married for ten years and see how that goes.” I could see that being a good thing, but I also think it’s fundamentally a different mindset than the traditional expectation of forever.

Won’t surprise me if Trump pardons him then

Was it a state crime, or is Trump going to pardon him?

I noticed similarities with The Player of Games (you can see my comments on that one). It’s like none of the main characters have close relationships, even with people they love.

A number of people told my to just skip Phlebas, because it’s the weakest, but I decided to read it anyway. I didn’t hate it by any means, but I did have issues.