Stuffnsuch

May I present the best apple:

A Trusted Contact doesn't have the ability to make changes on the account (withdrawals) or see statements or anything like that, but it is an important resource if financial professionals are worried someone has diminished capacity or is the victim of fraud. We can reach out to a trusted contact if we're concerned.

We're seeing and stopping more complex scams all the time... They can happen regardless of age or financial experience. In the past month alone we have intervened in 2 separate instances where the clients were about to liquidate their entire IRAs because of a scam.

Listen I wrote this out and deleted it a few times but I’m gonna keep it 100 for real 😂 there’s a lot of “definitions” in communities like this and I’ll be the first to tell you that I don’t subscribe to 99% of them because honestly I just don’t give a fuck about them so with that said:

If I am casually dating, then I’m casually dating with different partners. That’s it, that’s all. There’s no hierarchy there and I’m fine with that. Everyone gets their fair share of time and attention and whatever. If it works, it works.

If I have been dating one person for a while and we have decided that we’re in this for the long haul, that person is my primary partner 🤷🏻‍♀️ it’s not anything against anyone else, it’s just the reality of things. That’s person undoubtedly takes precedence over other partners when/if the time comes.

That’s not to say that if my primary partner gets “jealous” or “sad” that I am spending time with another partner that I will cancel time with said partner…that wouldn’t happen. Communication is HUGE for me in general so something like that gets talked out immediately.

But say something happens to my primary partner that lands them in the hospital and I have a date that night with another partner. I’m not going on that date, I’m going to the hospital and I know my partner would be okay with setting another time for the date. I know this because communication and honesty are at the forefront of ALL of my relationships.

I often see that hierarchy in ENM means that you “aren’t giving any consideration to the rights and dignity” of other potential partners and that they’re “treated as disposable”…which…what??? It’s a lot of “well I’m not dating your primary partner so why do you let them control your relationship” bullshit and honestly it’s tired. That’s why my last relationship ended 🙄

I make sure that my non-primary partner(s) 1) know that I am not looking for a primary partner and 2) know what I want out of the relationship we have. Rules and expectations are set out in the beginning because I don’t fuck around. I don’t like being surprised and I don’t like wasting my time.

privilege isn’t an excuse for ignorance – everything you do and do not vote for will and has been affecting you. when you do not vote because “it doesn’t affect me” you are the very foundation of privilege.

when police get away with killing unarmed citizens..when family planning clinics are shut down because men don’t want women to have control over their own bodies..when states pass laws to put “god back in schools” and post the ten commandments..when the house and senate are voting to take away healthcare for millions of people in the country..

“a well informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny” is the quote by thomas jefferson that one of my history professors always had posted in his office and i will never ever forget having the conversation with him that changed my entire thinking about voting.

do. not. be. ignorant. of. your. government. what you do and say MATTERS. what you do and don’t vote for MATTERS. our elected leaders are the images of US; we allow them to govern US. if you don’t want to be governed by radical conservatives who are trying to destroy our democracy then FUCKING MAKE IT KNOWN.

These are the things your character claims are just “how they are” but really, they’re bleeding all over everyone and calling it a vibe.

╰ They say they're "independent." Translation: They don’t trust anyone to stay. They learned early that needing people = disappointment. So now they call it “being self-sufficient” like it’s some shiny badge of honor. (Mostly to cover up how lonely they are.)

╰ They say they're "laid-back." Translation: They stopped believing their wants mattered. They'll eat anywhere. Do anything. Agree with everyone. Not because they're chill, but because the fight got beaten out of them a long time ago.

╰ They say they're "a perfectionist." Translation: They believe mistakes make them unlovable. Every typo. Every bad hair day. Every misstep feels like proof that they’re worthless. So they polish and polish and polish... until there’s nothing real left.

╰ They say they're "private." Translation: They’re terrified of being judged—or worse, pitied. Walls on walls on walls. They joke about being “mysterious” while desperately hoping no one gets close enough to see the mess behind the curtain.

╰ They say they're "ambitious." Translation: They think achieving enough will finally make the emptiness go away. If they can just get the promotion, the award, the validation—then maybe they’ll finally outrun the feeling that they’re fundamentally broken. (It never works.)

╰ They say they're "good at moving on." Translation: They’re world-class at repression. They’ll cut people out. Bury heartbreak. Pretend it never happened. And then wonder why they wake up at 3 a.m. feeling like they're suffocating.

╰ They say they're "logical." Translation: They’re terrified of their own feelings. Emotions? Messy. Dangerous. Uncontrollable. So they intellectualize everything to avoid feeling anything real. They call it rationality. (It's fear.)

╰ They say they're "loyal to a fault." Translation: They mistake abandonment for loyalty. They stay too long. Forgive too much. Invest in people who treat them like an afterthought, because they think walking away makes them "just as bad."

it's in the knowledge that to them, you are important enough that they continue to choose you even when they have chosen others as well. it's in the knowing that your love calls to them so strongly that they feel it even when they have the love of another.

she is free to love however and whoever her heart desires. i do not tie her down (well, not in that way lol). i do not limit her, i do not restrict her, i do not contain her. she can and does find love in others. but i am important enough to her that she is always going to come back to me. it's not just a hope, a maybe, it's woven into the very fabric of the relationship. i am not less significant because i am one of a few, i feel like i am actually more significant because of it. my love is so unique and valuable that she has to have it, even when she is getting so much love already. that feeling is so powerful to me.

There are people – some in my own Party – who think that if you just give Donald Trump everything he wants, he’ll make an exception and spare you some of the harm. I’ll ignore the moral abdication of that position for just a second to say — almost none of those people have the experience with this President that I do. I once swallowed my pride to offer him what he values most — public praise on the Sunday news shows — in return for ventilators and N95 masks during the worst of the pandemic. We made a deal. And it turns out his promises were as broken as the BIPAP machines he sent us instead of ventilators. Going along to get along does not work – just ask the Trump-fearing red state Governors who are dealing with the same cuts that we are. I won’t be fooled twice.

I’ve been reflecting, these past four weeks, on two important parts of my life: my work helping to build the Illinois Holocaust Museum and the two times I’ve had the privilege of reciting the oath of office for Illinois Governor.

As some of you know, Skokie, Illinois once had one of the largest populations of Holocaust survivors anywhere in the world. In 1978, Nazis decided they wanted to march there.

The leaders of that march knew that the images of Swastika clad young men goose stepping down a peaceful suburban street would terrorize the local Jewish population – so many of whom had never recovered from their time in German concentration camps.

The prospect of that march sparked a legal fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court. It was a Jewish lawyer from the ACLU who argued the case for the Nazis – contending that even the most hateful of speech was protected under the first amendment.

As an American and a Jew, I find it difficult to resolve my feelings around that Supreme Court case – but I am grateful that the prospect of Nazis marching in their streets spurred the survivors and other Skokie residents to act. They joined together to form the Holocaust Memorial Foundation and built the first Illinois Holocaust Museum in a storefront in 1981 – a small but important forerunner to the one I helped build thirty years later.

I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly. But I know the history intimately — and have spent more time than probably anyone in this room with people who survived the Holocaust. Here’s what I’ve learned – the root that tears apart your house’s foundation begins as a seed – a seed of distrust and hate and blame.

The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.

I’m watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now. A president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac – and suggests — without facts or findings — that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash. Or the Missouri Attorney General who just sued Starbucks – arguing that consumers pay higher prices for their coffee because the baristas are too “female” and “nonwhite.” The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here: They point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems.

I just have one question: What comes next? After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities – once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends – After that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face – what comes next.

All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question. And if we don’t want to repeat history – then for God’s sake in this moment we better be strong enough to learn from it.

I swore the following oath on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible: “I do solemnly swear that I will support the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the state of Illinois, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of Governor .... according to the best of my ability.

My oath is to the Constitution of our state and of our country. We don’t have kings in America – and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one. I am not speaking up in service to my ambitions — but in deference to my obligations.

If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this:

It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.

Those Illinois Nazis did end up holding their march in 1978 – just not in Skokie. After all the blowback from the case, they decided to march in Chicago instead. Only twenty of them showed up. But 2000 people came to counter protest. The Chicago Tribune reported that day that the “rally sputtered to an unspectacular end after ten minutes.” It was Illinoisans who smothered those embers before they could burn into a flame.

Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the “tragic spirit of despair” overcome us when our country needs us the most.

Sources:

• NBC Chicago & J.B. Pritzker, Democratic governor of Illinois, State of the State address 2025: Watch speech here | Full text

And I’m like “well Rachel and Becca’s wedding wasn’t a Catholic wedding”

And she says “I guess that didn’t really register as a wedding to me”

And I’m here, ready to have a real hard conversation with my mom about homophobia and Recognizing others and as I’m having this spiral this bitch goes “cause it was outside”