TygerLili

I agree with everything TWB mentioned. I was also wondering if she gets any kind of allowance or money from you. If she does, maybe when she makes a mess you could deduct it from her allowance, and let her know that if she wastes something, you have to buy more, which means she doesn't get as much money. Or, you could maybe set something up where, if she goes a certain period of time without wasting anything, you'll buy her a some kind of treat, like candy or a toy, with the money you saved. Maybe she'll start to understand that when she wastes something it costs you money, which affects her. I think TWB's idea about taking some time for messy play is also a good one.

There are two sides to every story. If you can't just agree to disagree with someone, then you have to sit down and try to figure out why the other person is behaving the way they are. People rarely ever say negative things about someone just to be an asshole. In my experience people say negative things about someone else for one of three reasons: 1) they believe that person has done them an injustice in some way, 2) they are threatened by that person and want to take negative energy away from themselves and put it on someone else, or 3) they are simply calling it as they see it and pointing out a character flaw they've observed in that person. Once you've figured out which of these is the motivation for what was said, the next step is deciding how to deal with the person. In case 1, you have go back to the root of when the problem started. You have to figure out why, initially, they felt that you were being unkind or unfair to them. Even if, in your mind, you didn't do anything wrong, you have to figure out why, in that person's mind, they feel you did. It's been my experience that if you make a genuine effort to understand the other person's point of view, and to admit that, while you didn't mean any intentional harm by what you did, looking back, you can see that there was probably a better way that the situation could have been handled, the other person will be receptive to hearing you out, and admitting that they made mistakes as well. If you can't do this, then you have to just agree to disagree. In case 2, it's really not your problem, it's the other person's problem. Usually people who behave this way have severe insecurities of their own, and lash out at others because misery loves company, and it temporarily takes the heat off of them. They rarely target just one person, and usually have several victims, so it's best not to take negativity from these individuals personally. This is the type I tend to ignore, as their issues are not about me, and I figure anyone worth being friends with is smart enough to realize that the other person is being a bully to try to cover up their own problems, and smart enough not to take the things the bully says at face value, at least not without asking me about it. But if you can't ignore them, you can either ask them to explain why they are being mean to you, in which case they either won't have an answer for you, or will have a bogus answer like "because you're ugly," or you can give them a taste of their own medicine. In case 3, there's not much that you can do, other than acknowledge your weakness, and if you feel it necessary, try to work on changing your flaw. Some people are more blunt and tactless than they need to be, but that doesn't mean that what they say isn't true. Not everyone on the planet is designed to be good friends with everyone else. We all have character flaws, and we all have observed traits in others that make it almost insufferable for us to be around them. The right thing to do is to still treat those people respectfully, though you know you'll never be close friends with them. But some people never learned common courtesy. Again, these are the people I tend to ignore, because we just don't see eye to eye. If their acceptance is important to you, you can try to change, but your real friends will accept your flaws and like you anyway. Change is possible, but you can't just expect others to change their ways or opinions if you aren't doing anything to change yours. You have to meet them somewhere in the middle by taking at least some responsibility for the way things are if you want to see a change.

Stagnant. But not motivated enough at the moment to do anything about it.

Well, we all have to, realistically, take stock of our flaws and shortcomings, because we all have them. Then we have to realize that even our closest friends and family members are going to have things about us that they don't like, and days when they need to vent about something that involves us. Criticism usually only bothers me when 1) it's something that I, at least in some way, can see is kind of true, and/or 2) it comes from someone that I am close to, or someone whose opinion means a lot to me, like a teacher. As annoying as is may be if someone you don't get along with says something negative about you, if you don't like them, you can't, honestly, except them to like you. I tend to be a confrontational person, so if the person who upset me is a friend, relative, significant other, mentor, or someone else who I feel is worth my time, I'll ask them if we can talk about it, and find out why (we all need some amount of constructive criticism to grow) they said what they did. If it's coming from someone I don't like, or don't really know then, well, then they are criticizing me with out having the full story. Either they are saying something that has some truth to it, and I ponder whether it's something that I want to change about myself, or whether I am fine with the way it is, and with the fact that some people may not like me because of it, or they are saying something that simply isn't true, and isn't worth getting all worked up about, coming from someone who doesn't mean anything to me anyway.

Lol!

People who start drama for no other reason that to alleviate their own boredom.

Bad things are happening all the time, to everyone. People who tend to be happy or content have just learned not to dwell on them, but to take them in stride, deal with them, and still try to enjoy the good things that happen to them. I am constantly reminding myself: No matter what happens, someone is always going to have it worse than me, and someone is always going to have it better than me.

Gray flare-legged pants, sleeveless, semi-see-thru watercolor print top, black cardigan, black flats, glasses.

If pink is a girls' color, then why do they make shirts and ties for grown men in pink? Most people I know, male or female, played around dressing as the opposite sex at some point as a child. My best male friend as a child once got all dressed up in my pink dress, lacy socks, easter shoes and bonnet and put lipstick and eye shadow on, while I put on his suit and drew on a fake mustache with an eyeliner pen. Today we are both heterosexual non-cross-dressers. What's the big deal?

I agree with you Cherny, and not just when it comes to having kids. I see lots of areas in life where people who made really stupid choices in the first place get tons of praise and get told constantly how strong they are when they are trying, sometimes not very seriously or successfully, to sort them out, when people who just made the right choices in the first place get nothing. And no, I am not saying that having kids is a stupid choice for most people. But I definitely know a few people for whom it was.

I think that really any choice that you can make as to whether to not to have children is selfish to some degree, but if your selfishness isn't harming anyone then I don't see what the problem is. The personal choices we make in our live are pretty much always selfish, anyway. If I choose not to have children I am not hurting anyone, and likewise, if my friend wants to have a child and has the money to provide for that child, and is willing to take the time to spend with that child and give him or her a proper upbringing, that's not hurting anyone, either. It's the people who have children who either know that they can't afford it on their own, or who hire someone else to be with their kids all the time so that they can go out and party and act like they're single and child-free who are malevolently selfish, and who bother me.

At the risk of sounding arrogant and conceited, pleased with myself to the point of smugness. I said something that badly needed to be said.

I feel like I don't miss working weekends, at all. I feel like I had a nice day with going out to breakfast, then going to the DIA.

Tan, green, navy, red, and black embroidered blouse, green and tan sweater coat, navy dress pants, black ballet flats.

Most clubs that have a "dress code" don't specify what you have to wear, they just specify what they don't want you to wear, and it's usually a short list. I think something like: no baseball caps, no tennis shoes, no flip flops, no baggy blue jeans, no sweat/athletic pants would be just fine. This is what a lot of mainstream clubs do, and really, it only requires you to at least put minimal effort into looking somewhat presentable when you go out. Now if someone wants to come into the goth club wearing penny loafers, khakis, and a sweater vest, or a long tie-dyed dress and hippie braids, I really have no problem with that. Individual styles vary a lot, but sloppy and lazy is just that. There's no reason you can't put on a pair of black clean jeans and Doc Martens and comb your hair instead of throwing a baseball cap over your greasy hair and going to the club in the wife beater and sweat pants you lay around the frat house in.

I agree that what you described is almost certainly about dominance, especially if they are both fixed. Cats aren't like humans in that they don't mate for pleasure, they mate because of instinct to breed, so in that sense, I don't really think cats can be gay. However, I think that sometimes two cats can form a strong bond with each other(you know how sometimes two cats will curl up in a chair or bed together and wash each other with their tongues) and in some cases two males or two females will bond (or as mentioned, sometimes a cat and another animal like a dog or a rabbit) and I suppose that you could consider that equivalent to a non-sexual human partnership, so in that way they could, sort of, be gay.

So creepy...reading that just made my skin crawl a little.

So tired the words are swimming on the page. Guess I should go to bed, then...

I'm thinking that long signatures are really annoying when I am trying to read DGN from my phone...especially when the same person posts 5 or 6 times in one topic.

I wasn't even going to comment on this, but I pretty much agree with the above 100%. I will admit that probably more than half of the people on my Facebook, including my fiance, are people I met directly through DGN, people I met at City Club and found out that we were connected through DGN, or people I met through friends who were on DGN, but DGN has changed a lot since then, and so have I. I, too, like the fact that my Facebook is totally comprised of my friends, or at least people that I have rapport with and respect for. When I want to post details about my life, I want the people who are reading them to know me, so that if they respond to what I post, positively or negatively, I know that they are giving me their thoughts on my situations based on what they know about me, not just spewing a bunch of crap based on stereotypes, or trolling just to piss me off. I still come on here, mostly to read the Nightlife (for obvious reasons) forum, the Current Events (because that's where the interesting discussions take place) forum, and the Relationships and Homelife (because that's where people post about life events like getting married or a death in the family) forum. The rest of the board just really isn't relevant to me anymore. I'm just not that interested in the Detroit goth scene anymore, like I was when I was younger, and knew fewer people. There are only a handful of people on here I interact with who are not already on my Facebook, and at this point, Facebook suits my needs better. Cherny, if you like DGN better than Facebook then . I will say that I do sometimes miss the emoticons on Facebook.

Annoyed with people. Namely, my fiance's grandparents, friends who don't understand our financial/employment situation, and pretty much everyone I had to deal with at work yesterday. Like I want to call in tonight, because I am sore, and because my coworker called in last night and left me to cover for her when I know she wasn't really sick, but two wrongs don't make a right, and I kind of want to save my sick days in case I really get sick.

Has your husband addressed the e-mail she sent and her ungrateful behavior with her? If not, he needs to do so, pronto. However, a note in a Christmas card is not the time or place to do this. That's not the point of a Christmas card, and it will just cause more problems and hard feelings between them. I can totally understand why you feel hurt, and why you feel like you don't want to send something to someone who doesn't seem appreciative of it, or you. But, if it were me, I would still send her a card with a small ($10-20) gift, and then address the issue separately in an e-mail or on the phone. Don't sink down to her level of pettiness; be the bigger, wiser person, and hope that she'll learn from your example.

It was just spray in stuff. My lifestyle doesn't lend itself to having bizarre colored hair for more than a couple days. I think the color was called violet. I only colored the front pieces.

Tired, overworked, and grouchy.