On FB just now, an acquaintance announced that they've just had surgery. A mutual friend commented, "I hope you get the health you deserve," and it's so great to see an UMC wholesome woman leave an ominous threat like that in such an otherwise upbeat, supportive thread.

The kids and I were talking about bridges on the way to school, and I played them Bridge over Troubled Water, and listened to the lyrics closely for the first time since 1998, and realized I'd never understood them. During the verses, when he's addressing "you", ie when you're down and out, I thought he was addressing the generic you. "You know the feeling, when you're down and out, when you're all alone." During the chorus, I thought he was describing what he does when he's feeling all alone - Iike a bridge over troubled water, I lay myself down. I thought it was a song about feeling isolated.

It now occurs to me that it's a relational song - when you, the other person, is feeling down and like you have no friends, I, the narrator, will be a bridge for you, over your troubled waters.

My central tension in my teenage years was my desire and utter failure to be truly emotionally close with anyone else. I wanted to share my deepest darkest secrets, but I had extremely high standards for who would be worthy, and of those people who I actually valued their opinion, I would never let myself be that vulnerable. Being a young adult is so hard. I would have never let myself be comforted by someone else, like in the song, and possibly that's why that meaning never occurred to me.

Now I think that a large part of growing older is a dulling-and-fine-tuning of the emotions. It's like a palate: when you're young, flavors are very intense and nuance is lost on you. Or learning how to drive a car: you start off with these big jerky swings to stay in your lane, and you have to learn subtle motion skills - how to respond quickly but without force. Emotions are like that too - how to fine tune responses without gigantic swings. I think a lot of it is just dulling of the size of the swings, coupled with a skill set of how to respond quickly, but with nuance instead of force.

(I mentioned a book post yesterday, but since this occurred to me, I'm seizing it. I made a rule for myself in 2008 to always post impulsively here, lest I get bogged down and cease to post, and it has served me well.)

Lw writes:Hope this isn't unhappy timing. There's certainly more topical stuff to discuss.

My broad idea: as more of real life shifts online, conflicts that formerly took place in the real world under public oversight now take place online, private exchanges now. Amazon is both explicitly competing with successful vendors (by duplicating any sufficiently viable product ať a lower price) with dispute conditions set in The terms of service. And also owner of the online venue gets to choose which sketchy schemes are allowed. I enjoyed this one.

Like a scratch-off ticket investment scheme. Probably my belly laugh at first was mean spirited; Thinking part of me considers anyone buying this as deserving compassion.

• GUARANTEED CHUNKY NUGGET GOLD INSIDE EVERY BAG - Each paydirt bag is factory sealed for premium quality!
• 1 SCOOP GOLD PANNING PAYDIRT - All paydirt and gold found comes from historic gold belt!
• 1 IN 3 BAGS = Motherlode Bag!!
• MOTHERLODE GOLD PAYDIRT BAGS = 2-5x bonus added gold, some bags contain one+ gram of gold!
• PAYDIRT CONCENTRATE FINDS MAY INCLUDE- Gold nuggets, gold pickers, gold flakes and gold fines!

Heebie's take: I think there was supposed to be a link to this. I'm posting without yet verifying with LW because I have to go teach for a little bit.

Convincing review from the comments:

Gold is roughly 40 dollars per gram. I bought 2 of these, in order to average out the gold per bag. I obviously didn't get one of the great lottery bags, together, I panned just under .5 gram. So that's about 20 bucks, top dollar price for this gold. Don't get me wrong, they did have 1 decent sized nugget in each, which represented probably 20 percent of the gold found in each pan. If you are getting into gold panning and want some practice, enjoy the thrill of the hunt, these are a great way to go. Or, you might save a few bucks and buy one of their cheaper bags, still find gold, and still have fun. At over a 60 dollar combined cost, with a 33% return on investment, I don't recommend that you purchase these if you enjoy the idea of coming even remotely close to breaking even.

To make matters more complicated, this company does offer an incentive to rate them 5 stars, they will give you a small pay dirt bag with your next order. So read these 5 star reviews with a little skepticism. You have to come close to 1 gram each bag to break even, when you consider that this gold wouldn't be at the top dollar market value, since it's not been purified to 24 karat.

Less convincing review:

This pay dirt was worth my investment or money received lots of picers And if you have a mesh of 100 you can get all the flower gold have smelt it but it's worth it definitely in the most concentrated gold of the 4 different Paydirt I have gotten This is the best for what the prices that you're paying if you're looking to be rich from this I didn't gonna happen but it is definitely worth the fun and the experience that when you go out you'll know what to do and what to look for golden Paydirt is one of the best pay dirt I have come across and I will be buying from them again.

We're back to stupid Trump and his minions sucking all the oxygen out of the room for anything else to talk about, aren't we.

Anyway, the inauguration is next Wednesday. Will the state governments be sufficiently prepared? Are there enough diehard violent MAGAggers to have successfully violent showdowns by state? Which states are the most vulnerable - I'm guessing Michigan?

So how nervous are you about the new strain(s)? Or rather, how nervous should I be?

This is intended to be our system for checking in on imaginary friends, so that we know whether or not to be concerned if you go offline for a while. There is no way it could function as that sentence implies, but it's still nice to have a thread.

Episode 62.