I have been doing a lot of reading and responding in my head. I really miss having a thing at work called downtime, and the times before reading on the phone or iPad. Sometimes the thought of having to deal with autocorrect for our shared language, names, and abbreviations gets me down and too lazy to respond in the moment.

I got the error too, dcp (but I clicked in because it was Laura). My error was from safari, and that someone might be trying to get my financial info.

That graphic is adorable.

David- I have been following the stuff about your parents.Amy Parker is wise. I, personally, would tell people, but I am also firmly of the belief that secrets are sometimes the trauma. As someone who grew up with a lot of secrets, it pains me that there are certain things I will just never know. I don’t know if it is different for the following generation, as things might not have been so weird for them. My my informing trauma was my grandparents’ stuff (which informed my mother’s stuff and her propensity for keeping secrets to protect me, so it is a little personal to me) Dani Shapiro has a really good podcast called Family Secrets where she explores this [link]

askye- I am following along with your recovery from the concussion. I think you are doing so well with advocating for yourself. I do not have a concussion and would totally throw away the paper check instead of the junk mail. I was in a bad spot the other week, because I lost my debit card, ordered a new one, found the old one (which was cancelled) and then lost the new one!

Steph- I was just in Nashville, and though it sounds like your friend brought it from outside- boy did it seem like a breeding ground for Covid. I noticed that their did not seem to be a mask mandate, but most of the service workers were all masked up. And there were a lot of women riding party busses- that must have been the bachelorette parties.

In my news, a beloved former student who was a teacher locally just passed away. Unfortunately my memory is shot in terms of time, but I think she was about 30. The cause is “undetermined” and she was found similarly to ita. There were none of the code words used for suicide- which since I have lost two other students was a relief. But my students should not be gone from the world when they have so much to give.

Oh, that's so sad, Sophia.

I can't even begin to respond to everything else, so I will just say kind thoughts to all -- and Laura, I love "Otter Bliss"!!

Love it when the first thing my work computer does on Monday morning is update the BIOS. Not at all alarming.

Edit: Oh, and the threat of rolling blackouts because it's been over 100 degrees for days and will continue to be for the forseeable future. Awesome.

David - My Mom was in her 60s when she learned the "family secret" (her dad went to prison for a couple of years when she was an infant for embezzlement). She had never known. It didn't upset her, but it did explain a lot about her mom and childhood and made her sympathize much more with her mother, who was a difficult woman. Not in a mental health way, but annoying, whiny and put-upon and socially rigid (not really the right word - insistent on doing things the "right" way). Anyway, it helped Mom to understand what her mom had put up with and how it made her what she was. So learning it was a good thing, I think. Particularly when her mom developed cancer and became even more annoying and whiny.

Of course, my sister and I thought the whole thing was a hoot and loved having a family scandal to tell people. I wouldn't say it helped us deal with Grandmother - she was still annoying and so we avoided her whenever possible (which I kinda regret now, but we were young).

YMMV, but it sounds to me like a good lesson for the kids about the kinds of issues the previous generations were dealing with and how that helps explain them.

David- I have been following the stuff about your parents.Amy Parker is wise. I, personally, would tell people, but I am also firmly of the belief that secrets are sometimes the trauma. As someone who grew up with a lot of secrets, it pains me that there are certain things I will just never know. I don’t know if it is different for the following generation, as things might not have been so weird for them. My my informing trauma was my grandparents’ stuff (which informed my mother’s stuff and her propensity for keeping secrets to protect me, so it is a little personal to me) Dani Shapiro has a really good podcast called Family Secrets where she explores this

Thanks, Sophia. I was mindful of your and Drew's histories when I was thinking about it (and Bonny and Nanita too, thinking about my mom's childhood). I'll check out the podcast.

David - My Mom was in her 60s when she learned the "family secret" (her dad went to prison for a couple of years when she was an infant for embezzlement). She had never known. It didn't upset her, but it did explain a lot about her mom and childhood and made her sympathize much more with her mother, who was a difficult woman. Not in a mental health way, but annoying, whiny and put-upon and socially rigid (not really the right word - insistent on doing things the "right" way). Anyway, it helped Mom to understand what her mom had put up with and how it made her what she was. So learning it was a good thing, I think. Particularly when her mom developed cancer and became even more annoying and whiny.

I think it does help to have that context. Of course another factor is that Emmett's turning 26 this September, and Matilda's turning 16, so they're not at the same place in their lives. I'd have a hard time talking about some of my mom's traumas with Matilda at this age.

Emmett's the only one who has met that side of my family, btw. He went with me to Georgia for my Dad's memorial, and I introduced him to my Aunt Edna and my cousins on that side. Including my cousin Malcolm, who's like 6'5" and beat the shit out of my Boogeyman Uncle Raymond when he drunkenly set the house on fire. So it's not super distant in time or generations really.

Covid update: all 3 of my roommates have tested positive, but I'm still feeling fine and tested negative Saturday night and Sunday night. I did get there a day later than the rest of them, so the possibilities here are (1) I'll test positive today or tomorrow, (2) I won't test positive because I had a shorter cumulative exposure to the virus, or (3) I won't test positive because I still have antibodies from having Covid at the end of January. I'm obviously hoping for #2 or #3.

David - My Mom was in her 60s when she learned the "family secret" (her dad went to prison for a couple of years when she was an infant for embezzlement). She had never known. It didn't upset her, but it did explain a lot about her mom and childhood and made her sympathize much more with her mother, who was a difficult woman.

My parents got divorced when I was 12; my mom was the one who filed for divorce. She got primary custody, and was unbelievably neglectful of me and my brother for years afterward, although it was particularly bad the first 5 or 6 years after the divorce. So I blamed Mom for the divorce because she was being selfish and neglectful, and of course Dad supported that worldview and was basically my hype man in hating my mom.

When I was 24 or 25, my mom told me that Dad physically abused her and that's why she filed for divorce. She said that she didn't want to tell me and my brother at the time, because we were still young and she didn't want to impede us having a good relationship with Dad. That definitely doesn't excuse how neglectful she was after the divorce -- it was REALLY bad, and it's a big part of why I'm in therapy -- but it sure the hell puts things in a different light.

And the interesting thing to me is that Mom just wanted out of the marriage, and once she was, she never talked shit about Dad, not once, and she sure could have done so. Dad is her absolute opposite there -- they've been divorced for 39 years, and he STILL shit-talks Mom with zero provocation, and his audacity to continue to shit-talk her when he had no problem abusing her is just astonishing.

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

Sheryl has anyone talked to you about Mr. S having sensory issues and i donr know his diagnosis but a lot of times with Autisct people/kids when there is sensory oveoad and distress it can show up as self harm OR lashing out at others. Also with problems regulating emotions.

For myself a lot of times it would look like i just lost it over nothing but there was stuff building vip for awhile. Days or sometimes weeks. That didn't really improve until I learned more about having my sensory issues and better about why I felt certain ways...which was just in the past 6 or 7 years.

That definitely doesn't excuse how neglectful she was after the divorce -- it was REALLY bad, and it's a big part of why I'm in therapy -- but it sure the hell puts things in a different light.

Makes me even madder at your dad when he's being a manipulative asshole.

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

Larkin knew.

On the broader subject of family secrets, I'll note another dynamic that's in play here.

When our beloved grandmother died, the whole family went to Oregon for her memorial service, and I stayed at my cousin Gary's house. (Which had its own curious vibe as his wife and his ex-wife became best friends and they would hang out all the time. But I digress...)

With my grandmother dead, my father, and my Aunt Dot (my mom had a macabre story about her that I doubt her children know) were the oldest branch of the family tree. As such there was the sense that they were free to discuss some things that my grandmother didn't want discussed.

So while we were all there, my Uncle Noel's kids started asking my dad about "that weird summer where the kids were sent to distant relatives and Gary stayed with a nice old rich couple who spoiled him, and Donnie and Sandy got sent to people who wouldn't let them in the house and barely fed them." And my dad says, "Oh yeah, that was when Noel abandoned the family for six weeks and just took off." While Aunt Dot smiled and nodded and smoked.

Which was not the first time Noel just took off, as he had gone AWOL during WWII and spent six months in the brig (where he learned to be a Radioman, which was his career in the Navy for the next 25 years).

Anyway, my Cousin Toni (who is the only member of that side of the family that I have regular contact with) wasn't around for those discussions and I filled her in on both of those instances of her dad bolting responsibility during a FB msg chat.

So, I think one reason my sister is talking to me about this stuff is that she just went through cancer treatment last year and is approaching 70 and there's a sense of handing down the family lore to me. That with the passing of generations you either open up about those secrets or all that history/context becomes lost.