I drive past a nearby house a few times a week that has one of these signs in the yard. It makes me smile every time.

There are dozens of us. Dozens!

Patriot, on Amazon streaming. I’ve been telling people for years—it’s the BEST show that NO ONE watched.

A depressed deep-cover operative sings bleak folk songs about his job at open mics. Stylistic elements (both visual and writing) from the Cohen brothers and Wes Anderson. Incredible cast. Funny. Sad. Two seasons, and both are great. 10/10

Thankfully, I’m not completely void of any sewing skill. I can hem pants, or repair some outdoor gear, as you mentioned. But, I don’t think I could make a complete shirt that didn’t look homemade.

I have a massive wingspan:weight ratio, so I always have to choose between sleeves being long enough on a shirt that’s 4x too big, or sleeves that end 3 inches short on a shirt that mostly fits. If I could make my own shirts and hoodies from scratch, it would be great. I just have too many other hobbies, and not enough time to dedicate to learning a new one right now.

I guess it’s cultural, or regional, or just who you spend time around. Among my male friends, most of whom are straight and married with children, I don’t think any of them would even blink an eye at either of these things.

I do have colleagues from other cultures and US regions (US Italian, Central America, rust belt) who I’d bet would act the way you describe. I’m not jealous of that aspect of those cultures.

i can sew my own clothes and bake?

Weird. Creepy.

Hard disagree. I wish I knew how (and had the time to) make my own clothes. And, who doesn’t love baked goods? These both sound awesome.

I feel seen! If you get “regards” instead of “best regards” you should know you’re on my shit list.

You pass! I’ve done several thousands of these over the past decade.

You’re talking about variables. But, pi isn’t a variable, it is a constant number. This would be more akin to saying “let 7 = 9”.

I replied to the person above to brain dump my love for the audiobooks. I can see where the first half of the first book could be a slog to actually read, but the audiobooks are really quite amazing IMO. Highly recommend trying it out.

The audiobooks are among my all time favorites. I’ve listen to them 4 or 5 times all the way through. Mark Bramhall is the narrator, and he he’s incredible. Many times I think, “jeez… how is he doing that? I know if I were reading that paragraph it would not have been that powerful or interesting”.

I think having been a young boy, and now being a grown adult, helps relate to a lot of the emotional parts of the story. The naive love of youth, and the conflicting feelings of welcome-banality and a desire for life to be more as an adult.

The books get criticism for being “Potter/Narnia for adults”, but I think people who say this maybe haven’t actually read the whole series. That is extremely surface level, and is plainly discussed in the story. The whole point is that this kid grew up obsessed with books like this, and is now just outgrowing the phase of youth where it’s not weird. All of the magic stuff becomes pretty meta after the first half of the first book.