Simply The Worst Star Wars Fan

Anyway, apparently the GOP is holding an unprecedented “Midterm Convention” in my former home city of Dallas, and this is 100% because, instead of sticking with John Cornyn for their senate candidate, who has been a senator since 2002 and does not rock the boat in any meaningful way, they chose the batshit insane Attorney General of Texas, Ken Paxton. Trump endorsed him because Paxton kisses his butt far more proactively than Cornyn does, but a lot of more moderate conservatives in Texas are pretty pissed about this because, again, Ken Paxton is several crayons short of a box and has a career littered with scandal after scandal. The Democratic candidate, James Talarico, is a professing Christian who’s about as moderate as a Democrat can be and seems to be a pretty likable guy.

(I need to be so clear right now: I do not and will never proactively bring up politics with my “I’m not MAGA, I’m Republican” grandmother, but my dad both forces her to talk about this stuff and is pretty mean about it, so I think she brings it up with me because she knows I’m not going to yell or whatever.)

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Grandmother: Your dad’s a socialist now.

Me: what? He said that? (Sidenote: my dad is a conspiracy theorist who was MAGA and I’m pretty sure once thought Obama was a lizard person, but he left QAnon, voted for Harris in 2024, and now I understand his politics even less than when he was super right-wing because he’s still a dang conspiracy theorist and believes too many racial stereotypes but loves Obama now??? Have no idea if he’s just accepted that lizard people are people too or if he’s renounced his Reptilian Elite beliefs entirely and I’m too scared to ask.)

G: Next thing you know, he’ll be a communist.

Me: He told you he’s a socialist? I don’t think he’s a socialist, at least not how you’re thinking.

G: that’s what he said. He said he’s a Democratic Socialist.

Me: okay, so that’s different than pure socialism. It’s not like what they have in Russia. (I did try to explain a little bit more of what I understand of democratic socialism here as well, but the explanation was brief and apparently lacking as you’ll soon see.)

G: Well, I don’t like what’s going on in New York.

Me: You don’t have to. You don’t live there.

G: I just don’t understand why all these people who hate it here so much don’t just leave.

Me: what people? It’s hard to leave even if you want to, but who are you talking about?

G: those people in New York.

Me: …are you talking about the primary winners?

G: yes. I just don’t understand why they stay here if they hate America so much.

Me: what did they say they hate about America? Because I’ve been told I hate America, but I don’t. I have a deep appreciation for our Constitution and the system that was set up, but I also don’t agree with how things are being run now.

G: Well, I don’t know. I don’t like that mayor.

Me: Mamdani?

G: yes. If he hates how things are, he should just go back to where he’s from instead of making everyone change.

(I need to interject to emphasize that my grandmother has absolutely no ties to New York City. I’m not even confident that she’s ever set foot in New York state and no one she knows lives anywhere near there.)

Me: Well, people voted for him because they liked his ideas and I’ve been hearing a lot of good things from New Yorkers.

G: He doesn’t need to change everything. I don’t like how things are, either, but if you just wait a while, they change eventually.

Me: … …

Me: well, but they change because people who care enough to do something about it actually act to change things. Things don’t just change all on their own.

G: I just think if he wants to be a socialist, he should go back to wherever he’s from and be in their government there since he likes that so much.

Me (as I frantically look up what sort of government Uganda has): I mean, he wouldn’t be able to be in a socialist government in Uganda, either. They have a parliamentary system. (At this point, I’ve abandoned trying to explain democratic socialism and am just working from her worldview, which is that the commie-socialists, probably led by Known Socialist Zohran Mamdani or an AU Communist Kamala Harris, are going to take over the US and plunge us into the depths of despair.)

G: he might as well go to Iran.

Me: you think a democratic socialist would be allowed to lead in Iran? They’re a religious dictatorship right now.

G: well. I just don’t like him.

Two (2) different coworkers: **inserts whatever answer CoPilot gave them when they typed “Convert XML file to CSV”**

1. Rare sighting of Posey and Winnie sleeping within a foot of one another (Winnie fell asleep before Posey hopped up there, so she was unaware). 2. Some flowers that I took a photo of in hopes of trying to paint them. 3. Watercolor of a weird photo of Winnie. 4. Some prints in an antique store that I’m positive someone in my family owns.

No-pressure tags:

Oh, thanks for sending this to me! Though, I’m finding it difficult to get the list down to five favorites simply because I always interpret “favorite” to mean “favorite now and forever” for some reason, and I think my opinion shifts sometimes. So, I’ll just say these are my current favorites, I guess?

Annnnnyway, I feel like I stick Just Tauntauns on these sorts of lists all the time because it’s the fic where the gap between my personal appreciation of it and the readers’ appreciation is the largest. It’s a silly fic, but kind of sweet, and I really like how it turned out. Terrible Taste and In Their Absence are both shorter vignettes that I really like.