Pronell

I have a weekly D&D game with my favorite aunt and uncle, as well as my Dad and my cousin's husband.

The latter runs one weekend, and I run the next, completely separate games of course.

I'm 51, my dad is 79, and his sister and her husband are a few years younger than he is. No idea on my fellow DM, I suspect late 40s.

If you find a common thread to hang on to, you can have a great relationship.

In this case, my aunt and uncle knew I was a huge weird nerd whose dad introduced him to D&D at 7 years old, so they thought to invite me when their daughter's husband made a game for them.

Seven years later, we are still at it and I run a game for my friends as well.

These relationships can be nurtured, as all can. You just have to find and maintain the why's.

Even people who don't give a crap about birdwatching may still love to see the birds their old friends spot.

But to further your point, I don't make much of an effort for those relatives that I don't have much in common with.

This year's Christmas present is a box of homemade fudge, rice krispie treats, and spicy chex mix, all homemade.

That's the effort I put in for those I don't have in my weekly or monthly life but are extended family.

I am very sorry to tell you that it's quite likely you came to sentience just so you could eventually be killed by one Arthur Dent.

I was at my wife's work holiday party last night.

They had a clever icebreaker bingo game with facts about the attendees. One person's was "survived three school shootings." I found her and got a bingo. The prize was a $10 doordash gift card.

Lame prize, great game idea. Terrible that this has happened to her but she's a bright and cheerful woman.

My wife and I met through Okcupid about fifteen years ago.

I had been in an insanely stupid long-distance relationship, called it off, and started looking for someone local.

The woman I broke things off with was younger than me and baby crazy, so I extended my age range by the same amount and met my wife quickly thereafter.

Specifically, we chatted for two or three weeks before I suggested we meet at a coffee place.

Two dates later we were exclusive.

She is seven years older than me and had never been in a serious relationship.

Just keep looking. Lonely people are absolutely everywhere, and you're bound to find someone you just link up with eventually.

I never put it together it was the same dude. Obvious though.

USPS has a way of combining smaller towns and suburbs to the largest nearby city. In practice this is very useful. You know your friend is near Nashville, say, and the zip codes do the heavy lifting.

So I would posit that using USPS as a source in this case is not a great idea.

NAME THE PEOPLE.

From my experience, IBS is both about diet and anxiety.

Obviously not eating isn't going to help. You'll have to learn what foods set you off and limit or eliminate those from your diet. (For me it's raw onions and overly starchy foods.)

But I believe your condition is fueled more by your anxiety and depression.

I can't really help you there other than to say that controlled breathing exercises seem to be helping me. I often take cold showers when in an IBS attack that has verged into being a panic attack, but in that cold shower I realized I focus on my breathing.

My background is that I knew I had IBS but it was getting out of control. It turned out I had a hernia that was causing an occasional intestinal blockage. Once that was fixed, my IBS started to slowly improve.

It should've been massively better, but I had been training myself to be anxious each morning, worrying whether I'd be able to function at all.

I had to unlearn that worry... and it took a long time.

I dunno that I can give you advice on making friends. I am lucky to have a very good core support group of friends who have been with me through the last twenty-some years. We are all middle-aged dudes now, with our own complicated lives, but we still get together for board games, d&d, and chat on a discord all the time.

There was a time when we grew apart a bit. (We are stoners and one of our rowdier friends went to jail.)

I called a few together for a board game night, and it stuck. If I had not done that, we would almost certainly not still be in each other's lives.

So find some friends and keep them close. It is very hard to get through life alone, as you know. It takes hard work to make and maintain these relationships, but they are necessary.

Glad to help!

Also, funny Lynx story from a long time ago.

My dad loves this morbid story his parents read to him, The Hobyahs.

About twenty years ago, he got a dog, a weimaraner, and named her after the dog in that horrid story, Terpie.

I am on IRC and telling my friends about this dog and her morbid namesake, and find a site with Lynx (not the one I linked above, sadly) that had the story and shared it with my friends.

Apparently the link I found had a lot more to it... it was a woman in Texas making and selling concrete yard art.

I got my Dad a Hobyah for his birthday. It was perfect.

Is this it?

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/dumptys-dream

I googled 'Lithgow Trump poem' and was pretty sure it was from the New Yorker.

And finally, our eldest, Miles Morales, who didn't really wanna cooperate. The rest willingly hopped into the circle on a square, as most cats will.

And Abed Nadir!