u/bratbats

Hi there, my strength is not in arranging/freehanding folk tunes but would really love to play O'Sullivan's March. Does anyone know of a good solo arrangement (both R and L hands, not just the fakebook bare notes) for purchase? I've already tried most of the major harp music websites and no dice. Thanks in advance.

Me and my partner have been together for just over 2 years, and my relationship style/attraction style/level of affection has shifted significantly during that time. Prior to meeting, I considered myself fully aro/ace and did not want to date anyone ever again. During our relationship, I became more exploratory and so there was a bit of sexual contact there that I can no longer initiate without discomfort. Now 2 years in, I identify as gray aro/ace and I am not a big fan of romantic and sexual attention/affection. He has been very understanding but has admitted he doesn't always understand why I've changed so much, as much as he wants to accommodate me. I really love this person and I even want them to be my life partner/get married, I just don't want to have sex anymore and I sometimes get uncomfortable with PDA and romantic affection. I'm feeling so guilty about it and I don't know how to feel better. I guess maybe I'm internally aphobic or something but I have a hard time believing that my partner gets everything he wants from someone who is very closed off. It's not just that I struggle with SHOWING affection, the hardest part is RECIEVING it, which for him is what is most fulfilling. I just don't want him to feel rejected.

Is there a way that I should reframe all of this for myself so that I don't feel so guilty? We are very compatible emotionally and socially. I love him a ton. He has never expressed that he is unhappy with me. I'm just so irrationally worried about it, it's eating me alive. Help??

Looking for more nonfic to read, previously mainly read history books but starting to enjoy science more. Especially cosmology, astronomy, medicine, physics, etc. I've been discovering a lot of books that I think I'll be interested in but then they are so hard to parse that I get bored and give up on them. I like reading for knowledge but I also like to enjoy the process.

Have recently read:

Packing for Mars - Mary Roach

How Iceland Changed The World - Egill Bjarnason

Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs - Brusatte

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry - Neil deGrasse Tyson

I really enjoy Mary Roach's style of writing. I found Neil deGrasse Tyson too difficult to understand, and too math-heavy. I am looking for something written in the style of a Hank Green video that is still for adults and has some comedy folded in. Anyone got anything good?

Howdy.

I'm visiting my older sister in early August. I have two awesome nephews (M14, M6) who are both higher needs autistic. I am L2 autistic myself. I would love to be able to bond with them more this trip, but I have no idea how. I struggle a lot with interacting with kids since I struggle to relate to them and have some sensory sensitivities/restricted interests. My sister has asked me to do some babysitting while I'm there (fair enough, I'm staying with her for a week instead of in a hotel). I'm getting pretty anxious about it.

I do know the oldest kiddo loves board games and they both love Minecraft and LEGOs. I've tried buying sets to put together with them but they have issues with sharing/control (I do too, to be honest lol) so it's not always a good option, and often results in arguing. We do enjoy playing board games together but the younger kiddo doesn't have the emotional regulation skills/cooperative skills to enjoy them. Younger kiddo also loves words and spelling but older kid is not interested in that.

Any ideas for things I can do with them (non-screen, if possible)? How can I be a fun uncle?

Note: Please do not just tell me, "It's time to move out". I live at home out of necessity, not choice. I don't make enough money to move out and can barely work. Living at home gives me support for my disabilities, despite the other issues. This advice is not helpful for me as well-meaning as it may be.

I'm an adult autistic person who lives at home with my (adopted) parents. I was an inter-family adoption, my (adopted) mom and dad are my biological aunt and uncle. My bio mom passed away in 2014 and my bio dad is extremely estranged (they were never married). I have one biological sibling, who was not adopted by these family members.

CPS took me away from my biological family due to infant neglect and because I was nearly intentionally suffocated/smothered. I was adopted as an infant and grew up for the first 10 years of my life thinking I was immediately related to everyone in my household. Around then, I was 'asking too many questions' so my parents decided to tell me the truth even though they elected originally to never tell me at all. Apparently around this time there was a lot of family conflict happening because they were almost in their 50s and hadn't planned to have another child (I have 4 older sisters, all their biological children). The very limited relationship I had with my bio mother was cut off in 2014 when she passed away in a state hospital due to medical neglect via contracting pneumonia from a feeding tube.

Ever since my parents told me I'm adopted, there has been constant guilt tripping about it. I am constantly called ungrateful, even though I had no say in the decision for them to bring me into their family. Any time me and my parents have an argument, it always ends with "you are so ungrateful, we didn't have to take you in and did, and we only survived it by god's grace. You tore our family apart and you cant even be grateful for what we did for you."

I realize from their perspective that I seem ungrateful for their sacrifices but I don't see how it's my fault that they decided to make the adult decision to adopt me when I had no say in it whatsoever. CPS very easily could have placed me somewhere else or put me into foster care, they didn't HAVE to do anything. They fostered my biological sibling but did not adopt them. The possibility was always there, they MADE the decision to adopt me instead.

I realize I was not an easy kid to parent (I was higher support needs autistic but was not fully diagnosed, my parents were anti-mental healthcare when I was a child) but I was a kid, and a pretty profoundly disabled kid at that. I still struggle a lot but have managed to find meaningful employment that I try very hard to keep despite the effort and difficulty involved for me.

I just don't know how to get them to see that when they bring this up, it just makes me feel like crap for being alive and for "forcing" my way into their family. At this point, I no longer feel integrated at all in my family and I feel completely ostracized in a way that doesn't feel fixable. I feel unwelcomed by people who are supposed to love me - remember that I went most of my childhood thinking that they were my flesh and blood immediate family no strings attached. It hurts so bad and I don't know how to feel better about it. I'm in therapy but nobody understands.

Hi there, I've been diagnosed with autism (L2) for about 2-3 years now, and have been on a swaying journey between masking and unmasking, figuring out what works for me. Before anyone gets mad at my post, please PLEASE understand this is my personal experiences with internalized ableism and I am not being critical of anyone else, I just desperately need advice. Please don't yell at me I'm not trying to be rude.

I'm an adult (transgender) man and I've hit a major roadblock with unmasking: it makes me feel super infantilized and ashamed. I've been in contact with a therapist about this issue but nothing seems to be able to help. I also can't find many autistic people online with this experience (beyond those who just say 'well just embrace it'). I only mention I'm a transgender man because it's often viewed as inappropriate socially for men to act childishly in public. So it feels harder to "get away" with being unmasked in public if unmasking for me looks like what most people would perceive as childish behaviors.

For example, I struggle with using stim toys anymore because I find them a bit childish/infantilizing feeling. Same for communication cards and AAC's. For some reason, my brain just immediately associates any kind of accommodation or support as self-infantilization, and the shame is physically painful. I just cant bring myself to engage with any of it, or even with my interests that feel 'childish', because the shame is overwhelming and the physical sensation of feeling it often causes me to melt down. I think a part of it is that so much about autism is solely focused on children, even being labeled autistic sometimes makes me feel like the world sees me as childish. My unmasked behaviors are very visible and very obvious and often pretty grating for others - lots of making noises, stimming aggressively, emotional dysregulation, etc.

I have a lot of trauma around being self-sufficient and I am a very high agency and high independence person (I really dislike needing help, even though I often need the support BADLY). Therefore, any state of mind that causes me to be very vulnerable or external really intensely frightens me and causes a lot of shame. It sucks because often I am (internally, never externally) quite judgmental of others who are able to engage with unmasking in this way, I don't know if its internalized ableism, jealousy, or if I'm just so uncomfortable with the idea that I have those thoughts. It just feels so much like babying yourself, and I desperately need advice on how to change those thoughts because I am drowning trying to mask at my highly demanding job and through all of my relationships. I know these feelings are internally ableist and I would never want to hurt someone with them, please don't misinterpret what I'm saying here, I'm trying to improve sincerely.

How do I navigate unmasking without feeling so much like I'm just infantilizing myself? I want to maintain agency and independence as much as possible and not be treated like a child by others. Should I just challenge these thoughts until they go away?? I don't even know where to start. :(

https://preview.redd.it/gfl868791v7h1.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=e603af47f27c3d019cc742470f2fc3cac0f81977

Come hang out with us and celebrate pride on Saturday between 10 A.M. and 3 P.M. at the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library (1515 Young Street, Dallas, TX 75201). This event is all about joy, community, solidarity, love, and creating a hopeful future.

We'll have crafts (vision boarding/collage, DIY pride buttons, origami), trinket trading, a community resource and vendor market, and a zine space (DIY zines, plus local zine distributors/vendors)!

We're also doing a special projector showing of Jim Henson's Labyrinth at 1 o'clock.

This is a come-and-go, all-ages event; and as always, it's FREE!

Rainbow Connections Pride | Dallas Public Library

Hope to see you there!

I had been looking forward to going to pride all week, as I work close by and knew I could come in for work and then leave at 3PM or so and head over and have a good time. Prebuying tickets appears to have been a requirement so I spent the 16 bucks and walked over to Harwood.

Instead of getting to go in, I was stuck waiting in a 4-block-long line for almost an hour, wrapped all the way around the park. The instructions about where the line started and ended were completely confusing, and there seems to have only been ONE security checkpoint for the entire event, resulting in hundreds of people waiting in line to get in, stuck in the sun, in feels like temps of 95+ due to sun and humidity. Even with an umbrella I still got blistered from the sun.

After almost an hour of standing in a stagnant line, I got too hot and left. At least at Fair Park there were always 3 lines for people to do bag checks and get their tickets checked. One checkpoint is insane and I hope they learn from this and do better next year because I wasn't the only one complaining in that line. Absolute insanity.

A friend sent me a postcard in the mail Sat., May 23rd. It's been almost 2 weeks and it still isn't here, and this is coming from MN to north TX. Normally mailing times between us is 3-5 service days (including Sat), I understand there was a holiday on the 25th but 2 weeks for a domestic postcard??? Also I ordered stamps from USPS over a week ago and they still have not arrived. I have informed delivery on and haven't seen anything for several days besides ads. Worth noting my father also had a bill delivered 4 days late so I'm not sure if there's a problem regionally (Dallas, TX area?)

What is going on? I'm a huge postal service supporter but this is insane.

I've searched Yelp and Google Maps and found pretty much nothing in the vein of stationery or craft stores in the Garland area. I'm honestly pretty shocked that we don't have anything. I know there are stationery stores in Bishop Arts but it's too far.

Does anyone know of any small businesses in the Garland/Plano/Richardson area that sell stationery or craft (i.e. scrapbooking) supplies?

I do not buy from Hobby Lobby and the Michaels near me is always a wreck and has a terrible selection of stickers/stationery supplies.

Hi there,

I'm a Dallas resident, but I just joined a site that lets you send postcards to random strangers across the world (PostCrossing)! However, I'm having a weirdly hard time finding Dallas-specific postcards. I know the Perot and DMA have some that are specific to their museum themes, but I'm not finding any designs that have like, for instance, the Pegasus sign, the Majestic, the Texas Theater, the Old Red Courthouse, or really any that display Dallas-specific architecture, history, etc.

Anyone know where you can get some interesting Dallas postcards? My only other ideas are hotel gift shops, coffee shops, maybe some of the places in Bishop Arts or Deep Ellum ...

I will also take recommendations for fun places to visit that might have post cards. (I already know the Perot, DMA, DWA, 6th Floor, HRM, etc., have gift shops - looking more for small stores, lesser known museums, etc).

Thank you! <3

Howdy,

I've been trying and trying for the last several days to get caught up in a new read. I've recently breezed through The Drive In by Joe Lansdale, Rest Stop by Nat Cassidy (not interested in his other books unfortunately), most of David Sodergren's books (not novellas, but they're SO good!), and some of Harlan Ellison's short stories.

Nothing I've picked at since has gripped me! Anyone have any recommendations for fast paced, insta-hook horror novellas? The bloodier, the better. I'm an EH fan but I'm looking more for something fun/breezy, funny, and corny.

I've searched through the subreddit for key words like "pulp" "funny" "unique" "campy" but none of the recommended books have really grabbed at me so far, except for The Drive In which was exactly what I was looking for (and I loved it).

Fave themes:

- Undead, zombies, vampires
- Slashers, crime thriller
- Monsters, cryptids, etc.
- Think "Return of the Living Dead" or "The Thing" rather than "The Shining" or "Hereditary"
- Self-referential horror (haunted VHS tapes, haunted movie theaters, etc)
- Campy, pulpy goodness

Not complaining, I swear. My blue line train this morning around 7:30AM dropped us off at Pearl/Arts and had to turn around and go back to Rowlett. Something about an accident at Akard that was impeding traffic. When I got up there (walked), there was no obvious sign that anything had happened. Multiple trains on multiple lines had to turn back.

I'm just wondering what happened - purely curious/nosy, the GoPass update just said there was an "incident".

A lot of the posts here can be a little on the negative side, so I wanted to share this nice bit from my shift today.

I just had the sweetest lady come by the reference desk - who apparently was a library worker from Sweden! I work at a large urban library in Texas but even so, tourists who specifically come for the library are quite rare. I was so happy, and loved having a conversation with her about the differences in libraries between our two countries. I love when other library people treat out-of-town libraries like tourist destinations! It was such a small moment of my day, but it meant a lot to me. I feel like talking to other people in our field who have different experiences is really important for helping us feeling connected.

But now I'm curious: for any non North American library workers, what do you feel are the most unique parts of your libraries?