Do people do good, spirited debates anymore? Most of what I see would be more akin to wrestling a pig.

Aren’t we all?

Thank you.

We will survive. It’s what we do.

Funny you should ask.

I’ve been almost completely ignoring the hellscape that my country is turning into because last week starting just before the inauguration was one of the worst years in my life, and it’s still happening this week as well.

Over the past 26 years, I’ve often thought that parenting is not a job for the weak. I keep thinking I know what that means. Now I realize that I will never know how bad it can get. Anytime you think you’re past the worst, you get the universe’s boot up your ass again.

I’ve earned a couple serious breakdowns in the last week, but I’ve got to put them off because I just can’t do it yet. I don’t have time.

Did you at least lay him out?

Not me, but my wife.

She trained and worked as an optometrist. She absolutely loved it, but she started having health problems and after about 10-15 years in practice she had to give it up.

It’s been very slow in developing, but it’s starting to look like a progressive neurological disorder. She can’t work, and she can’t drive anywhere. She can still walk around the house, or down to the corner, but the more she does the more pain she feels, and if she does too much, then she won’t be able to move.

Medical appointments are almost the only thing she leaves the house for, and it’s starting to affect her memory and ability to communicate (difficulty coming up with words).

She’s feels disconnected from the world. After our last child moved out for college, we got a could guinea pigs and she takes care of them for the most part.

She also feels guilty since she can’t earn money. She had private disability insurance which covers her until 65, and she gets social security, but it all amounts to a fraction of what she could be making as an eye doctor.

She also has trouble staying involved in conversations, and I think she’s more sensitive to that than she used to be.

Less is more.

I knew a guy who was gay, but closeted at work, or at least, he thought he was closeted at work.

He came out to a friend of mine at work, and she took me into confidence, nervous about revealing his secret. I had to tell her everybody knew. I suggested that she let him know that he could be out to the rest of us and it wouldn’t make a difference (partly because no one cared and partly because everyone knew).

When one of the guys was getting married, the gay guy was the one that insisted we had to have a bachelor’s party at a strip club for him. We all went to a strip club because we weren’t supposed to know he was gay and we couldn’t just say, “Dude, you’re gay. Straight, adult guys don’t really do this. Can we just go to a restaurant and get dinner or something?”

Straight =/= misogynistic. In fact, I would argue misogynistic would usually mean some kind of confusion or anxiety about sexual identity anyway.

Straight people aren’t all the same any more than LGBTQ+ people are the same. I’m a straight, CIS male. I don’t like sports at all. I don’t drink beer. I like deep, emotional movies. I like show tunes and musicals. I sew. I also like trucks. I like the outdoors, but I would never want to go hunting because I don’t want to kill anything.

There’s a guy from my high school who everyone thought was gay. He’s not gay, but there’s have probably always been people who thought he is. He has a kind of flamboyant persona. He’s married to my wife’s best friend from high school and they have two grown kids.

My advice, just be who you are. If you can’t be out, don’t be out, but you don’t have to put on an act. The closer you stay to the truth the easier it is.

I’m not sure if this is going to be an unpopular take or not, but at this point in your son’s life, it’s not your job to judge him or the people in his life.

Your son may be making a mistake, but now you’re just supposed to be there to help if that turns out to be true.

You had 18 years to raise him. Now you have to trust the job you did.

Hang out with King, get to know them. Make sure your son knows you’re there no matter what.

I’d like to be able to raise my children again. I think I could do better.

When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, ‘tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.

• Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to Richard Price. October 9, 1790.