[AdamSpeight2008]

Did you bait and switch the topic on me?
I was expecting more stories of humiliation of the freak shows we call friends.
The more potentially libelous the better.

[totgeburt]

one of my friends in the marine corps called me up to his barracks room one day and presented me a bacon plate, made of weaved together bacon, with a pound of bacon on top, topped with a 12oz steak wrapped in bacon. then he said i'd disappoint the motherland if i couldn't consume it in one sitting, so i did. i suppose that's more funny than weird though

[Celerian]

macosxnerd101, on 19 July 2012 - 08:17 PM, said:

Can you point them out to us?

No, but he can reference them.

[strawhat89]

I'm a bit confused. Will they be able to see our privates?

[Choscura]

I've got a friend who contributes to the only open-source religion I know of, who rants on Crustal-Shift Displacement Theory and various assorted bodies of evidence that civilization might be tens of thousands of years older than is currently thought (surprisingly legit, at as far as the evidence that he's pointed to and said "see? that's older than everybody thought, that part doesn't even make sense unless it was built X years before we thought and served Y purpose!". ever noticed the water erosion on the sphinx?)... and other stuff. Probably argue with him more than anyone else.

[Celerian]

strawhat89, on 20 July 2012 - 08:12 AM, said:

I'm a bit confused. Will they be able to see our privates?

No. You have to make them public first.

[BenignDesign]

I have three besties.

A is an addictions counselor with a compulsive spending habit and a taste for cheap wine and expensive cocktails.

W is a park ranger with bipolar disorder, scars from a failed suicide attempt, and a prescription for anti-psychotic meds. She's slowly becoming her mother which is horrible because her mother is fucking terrifying.

R is a massage therapist working as a proof reader because of her intense fear of people. She's a manic depressive cutter with daddy issues and a complete lack of standards regarding who gains access to her nether regions. She is the widowed daughter of an alcoholic and a womanizer who frequently touts the greatness of her "new" self... which oddly enough resembles her "old" self with an attitude problem.

Just typing that makes me feel more normal.

[baavgai]

It's a spectrum thing. There are aspies, silly pagans, poly people, conspiracy theorists, etc. They tend to group. I once knew someone who collected people with Tourette's syndrome. I seem to always find the aspies.

The Tourette's chick was pretty good strange. She was allergic to pot smokers; actually sneezed around them. I independently verified this when I ran into her with a friend she'd never met. She started sneezing and asked me later. He boyfriend just stuttered.

One of those aspies has probably taken more LCD than a hippy commune. He acts like he's had a stroke, but hasn't. Looks like what Shakespeare probably had in mind for Shylock; beard, hunched over, yellow teeth. He'll occasionally go into a fugue where he just stops still and doesn't react to external stimuli. The best part is, he's a defense contractor.

There's the woman that used to be the male marine. She leads the local druids and blesses the crops in her farm community. Wears clothing appropriate to a high priestess and usually caries a staff. Still married to the woman who married her when she was a he. The sex change was biological; the marine physician asked him if he knew he had ovaries. She went with it, but still looks ex-mariney. One dyke you do not want to mess with.

[jon.kiparsky]

@b9 - Your poem was broken. I fixed it.

A is Addictions Counselor whose spending is compulsive
W is the Ranger whose behavior's too impulsive
R is the Therapist whose story is repulsive
Having crazy friends with behaviors that require intervention'll
Serve to make your own life seem by contrast quite conventional.

This post has been edited by jon.kiparsky: 20 July 2012 - 07:54 AM

[BenignDesign]

It saddens me that I can only upvote that post one time.

We've been friends for 16 years now. We used to get together every Friday night. My ex called it my "fucked up therapy session". This is the name my lady friends and I have used for ourselves ever since. When I finished college and was unable to walk in my graduation ceremony due to being in the hospital birthing a rugrat, the girls made me a neon plaid mortar board with tassel and an honors cord emblazoned with the letters "FUTS". They're fucking nuts, but I love them. <3

[jon.kiparsky]

baavgai, on 20 July 2012 - 09:51 AM, said:

There's the woman that used to be the male marine. She leads the local druids and blesses the crops in her farm community. Wears clothing appropriate to a high priestess and usually caries a staff. Still married to the woman who married her when she was a he. The sex change was biological; the marine physician asked him if he knew he had ovaries. She went with it, but still looks ex-mariney. One dyke you do not want to mess with.

I dunno - these people don't even register as strange to me anymore. One of the great people at the radio station in my previous life was a radical feminist lesbian separatist who was married to a formerly very angry formerly very macho ex-military ex-fellow who had gone from being Steve to being Theresa, on the air. People find their own ways to work things out, and it's cool. Theresa, last I saw her, was much happier being Theresa than she'd been as Steve - if that's weird, I'm all for it.
I might be on the strangeness spectrum, but most of the people I know who qualify as "weird" by normal standards are actually living the lives they want to live, and doing pretty well at it. Since you just get the one go at this, I'd say it's pretty strange to do it someone else's way.
If you only get one bite at the apple, you might as well bite your own apple.

This post has been edited by jon.kiparsky: 20 July 2012 - 08:23 AM

[modi123_1]

jon - let's not forget "strange friends" was being defined by a fourteen year old. There are many "strange" things to the young'in - like his budding bromance for one.

[baavgai]

jon.kiparsky, on 20 July 2012 - 11:10 AM, said:

I dunno - these people don't even register as strange to me anymore.

It's more a whole package deal. I don't really consider the gender change alone as particularly strange. Though it's unplanned nature was curious.

I've known a number of transgen folks. Some have found happiness in their decision to make the change. Some, however, had a lot of other broken crap in their lives and gender really wasn't the root of it. This is kind of sad. For the ex-Mormon, ex-woman, ex-Jew, ex-ILostTrack, I don't think chest hair was the answer.

I did know a gay guy whose real name was John Thomas. He was so enthusiastically proud of his name. Still makes me chuckle.

[BenignDesign]

I went to high school with a John Thomas. In college, he saw something on television about the 10 names men most often give their penises (penii?). When "John Thomas" appeared at the top of the list, he immediately started demanding to be called by his middle name.

[jon.kiparsky]

baavgai, on 20 July 2012 - 10:25 AM, said:

I've known a number of transgen folks. Some have found happiness in their decision to make the change. Some, however, had a lot of other broken crap in their lives and gender really wasn't the root of it. This is kind of sad. For the ex-Mormon, ex-woman, ex-Jew, ex-ILostTrack, I don't think chest hair was the answer.

Oh, yeah, I absolutely agree there. There are people who seek out wrong answers, and that's sometimes pretty sad. Just because Steve was happier as Theresa doesn't mean that Bob will be happier as Belinda.

Quote

I don't really consider the gender change alone as particularly strange. Though it's unplanned nature was curious.

Yeah, I guess that'd be a bit of a shocker.