#I have a huge crush on Sheldon Cooper

[theromanticrationalist]

You mean Sheldon and Amy can KISS AT ANY TIME NOW. 😲😲😲🫨🫨🫨🤯🤯🤯

[andswarwrites]

Day 6

I'm going to tell a few personal stories this month, and this is the first of them: how S- and I became "S- and Stacey".  For context, tomorrow is our sixteen year anniversary.  S-'s parents are going to have a sleepover with N-. So S- and I will get to spend tomorrow and the day after together.  S- likes to get take out or take me to a restaurant, I like to just hang out with him, anywhere.  We've already given one another several gifts.  But we're like that all year long, we just step it up around this time.

I met S- twenty years ago, more or less.  I was a teenager and he was in his twenties.  To be exact he is eight years older than me.  My family was helping my sister move, and there was a lull before the work began, so I was outside talking to a friendly guy, when he looked up and said "Hey, S-!" and I turned to see this tall, dark-haired goofball sliding across a large patch of ice in the parking lot of my sister's building.  He had nice eyes, a big smile, and a baby face.  He introduced himself, and joined the conversation.

The whole time we were helping with the moving, S- hovered around me, and I felt at ease with him.  As a child, I'd always clicked with boys.  Not all boys, of course, but I also didn't click with all girls.  In my teens, though, I started to be self-conscious around "guys", and I was no longer natural with them, my behavior was forced and, in retrospect, just embarrassing.  That was never the case with S-.  He made me laugh, he was a good listener, he and I had a lot in common.

Despite the age difference, we had enough mutual friends that we would see each other when we would go see movies, and when we'd go to a coffee place after the movie, he and I would often end up sitting near each other.  That situation evolved into my parents trusting him to give me and my friends rides to parties.  Meanwhile, I was growing up, and one day I was no longer a cute little kid in S-'s eyes.  He noticed that I was pretty attractive.  I was completely oblivious to my feelings for him.

I'd had a pretty potent crush on someone else for a few years.  There's a quote from a movie I love, the remake of Sabrina (1995): "Illusions are dangerous people, they have no flaws."  I thought if I "loved" someone hard enough, they would eventually love me back.  Notice how I put "loved" in quotation marks, because there is such a big difference between infatuation and real, honest love.  The whole time I was chasing the illusion, real love was budding in me, but I was completely unaware of it.

Until.  Usually, when S- came to pick me up in his car, I would end up sitting in the passenger seat, next to him.  But when we also picked up one of his close friends, that friend called shot gun, and I was relegated to the back seat.  I was not happy about it, even though the back seat was perfectly comfortable.  I was like Sheldon Cooper being forced out of his "spot", and I realized that the reason it was my "spot", was because I wanted to sit next to S-.  I wanted to be able to look over and see his profile as he drove.

I'd always friend-zoned S-, possibly because he never hid his enthusiasm for my company.  When I appeared, he would make a beeline, with a huge grin on his face.  He still gravitates to me, even now.  And now, I finally appreciate this tendency of his.  Funnily enough, while I had a crush on another guy, S- had a crush on another girl.  So we each considered the other a good friend, even though we had such amazing chemistry.  And we got closer and closer as friends with each passing year.

I now had my own car, and a job at a little retail store, and I didn't bother to pack myself a lunch, because I thought skipping the midday meal would help me to lose weight.  I had a little Nokia flip phone and I had given my number to S-, and he called, and for some reason I confided that I had skipped lunch and I was hungry.  He was on his way home from work, and the place where I worked was on the way, so he stopped, got me some food, and brought it to me.  From that day on, he'd check in to make sure I was eating, and since I wasn't, he'd bring me food.  I got used to having him stop in every day to see me.

We were texting one another, seeing one another, I was falling for him hard.  But he wasn't asking me out.  And there's no other word for it, I had been rejected recently.  I didn't have the courage to ask him what his intentions were, even though they were pretty obvious.  So one night he texted me: "I just saw a shooting star!"; so I asked: "What did you wish for?"  He replied: "I'll tell you tomorrow."  I couldn't wait for tomorrow.  I was sure I knew what he was going to say.

When he joined me, just as my shift was almost over (by the way, I always worked alone in that little shop, and in the evenings we had the place to ourselves), there was a little bit of awkwardness.  He tried to get the words out, and he was just too shy.  Finally, he said: "Well if you'd wished on a star, what would you have wished for?"  Now, I'm a forthright person and I go after what I want, but my heart was still healing from that dumb crush.  Nevertheless, I just went for it, and said: "I'd wish I could go out with you."

"Really?" S- asked.  "Really," I replied, and thew my arms around his neck.  I closed the store, we went to a nearby coffee place, ordered two hot chocolates and sat talking.  And the rest, as they say, is history.  If I were to describe us in one word, I would use "inseparable."  Friends first.  Friends always.  We’ve had some pretty rough patches.  At times I worried we weren't going to make it through certain storms.  But with each upheaval, we've come to know one another better and better, we've seen how to support one another in more and more loving ways.  I'm confident that I have found my life's partner.  My one and only.

[jessefandomunited]

Science nerd Mason here!! 🤓🤓🤓🤓 Anything involving science, I'm all for it! Bill Nye was my inspiration and my crush is Nick Uhas. My friends always call me the "fun Sheldon Cooper" of the group, I'm also the tallest. I'm 23, my hair is fuzzy and black, and I wish to become a teacher in my later years. I'm currently taking a side job as a lifeguard and I love getting to know and meet new people. Hope you have an awesome day!!

I am so incredibly sorry it took me so long, But i ’ve been super busy,but i have been listening to audio books and that has got me PUMPED TO WRITE, So LETS GOOOOOO. Sorry it’s like 10:00 and i’m slightly crazy. But you sound lovely and I’d love to talk to you.

Since you’re such a smart smol or…uh long bean, I ship you with Mark (mostly because he’s smart and I haven’t shipped anyone with him yet :3.also I know the real Mark is a lovely guy, this is Jesses rendition of him though >.

Your face was shoved into your pillow and you feared you’d never get back up, yep, you were sick. You felt your stomach churn and you quickly looked to see if your roommate Mark had heard you. You had been rooming with Mark for a while now, he was cool but slightly emotionally void which slightly made you unhappy because you had a thing for him. It definitely wasn’t an overnight thing either. He was one of those people who you meet and they’re these cold, rude people who you just kind of have to live with , then they grow on you, that was Mark alright. He started out distant but you soon were in heated conversations on almost every topic imaginable. You took a slight peek up from your bed and noticed that he was gone. You let out a sigh of relief and ran over to the bathroom and proceeded to vomit. You staggered back out and flopped on your bed, no school for you today, you couldn’t think of anything pressing you had to do for school anyways so it was the perfect day to be sick. Suddenly your phone rang. You sighed and hesitated before picking it up, “ Hello?” “ Mason where are you , you were not in biology,” Mark said curtly. You rolled your eyes, “ oh ya, i….uh decided to skip out on school today.” You tried to hide the sickness in your voice, you weren’t sure why, probably just not wanting to worry him. “ Why on EARTH would you do something so stupid,” Mark said . You growled, “ LEAVE ME ALONE WHY DO YOU CARE SO MUCH ANYWAYS!!” You snapped, you weren’t sure what came over you. Years of trying to get this guys attention and the one thing that does, you skipping out on school, now he was acting like your parent, WHO WAS THIS GUY!!???? There was quiet on his end for a couple minuets then he asked, “ Mason are you sick?” His voice had this softness that you had never heard him use before. You felt your face turn red as you stuttered, “i…i’m not sick..no…me..i never get sick.” “ shut up you’re a bad liar , are you really really sick or just like a cold,” he questioned. “ Listen i’m fine , why don’t you just hang out with your buddies at the bar and leave me alone tonight,” You hissed hanging up the phone. You laid back on your bed feeling worse than ever. You didn’t mean to yell at him , you didn’t want to, it’s just, time after time of him brushing you off, and now he shows an interest in your life, because you’re sick. You turned over and closed your eyes , trying to ignore the pain in your stomach, and drift off to sleep.

You awoke to a hand resting on your forehead. You jumped back kicking your covers into the air and falling back. “ Calm down, i’m just checking your temperature,” Mark said almost annoyed. Goodness did this guy ever take a break. You decided to evade talking about yourself and shifted the topic onto him, “ wait why are you not in class?” He cocked an eyebrow and sighed, “ you are sick, it’s 5:00, I don’t stay in class that late unless i have a death wish.” You were slightly shocked at this, had you really slept through the entire day? You ran your fingers through your unruly hair, “ geeze .” You collapsed back on the bed covering your face with your hands. “ Alright enough moaning , i brought soup and you are going to eat it,” he ordered as he pulled out a Tupperware container filled with chicken noodle soup. “ Where on earth did you get that, you definitely didn’t make that,” you scoffed, still a tad salty from your conversation earlier. “ I didn’t I asked a friend, they made it for me,” He said simply. “ Wooow you have friends , that’s a new one,” You mumbled. “ Just shut up and eat it,” He said thrusting it in your hands before getting up and going into the other room. Normally you wouldn’t have given him the satisfaction of doing as he said, however, you had not eaten all day and you had not gone shopping for the week yet, so that was really all you had to eat. You decided to swallow your pride along with the soup. It was actually really good, your stomach was starting to feel better already. Mark came back in holding a cup of water and a small pill. “ what’s that,” you questioned. “ It’s an antacid it will help you,” he said simply. You put down the bowl of soup that you had demolished and took the pill, hoping it was what he said it was, then you drank the rest of the water knowing you were probably grossly dehydrated. “ Thankyou ,” he said so soft I almost didn’t hear him. “ excuse me, what was that,” you asked, laughing in amazement. Two things you had never hear Mark say was Sorry, and Thank you, unless it was laced with at least ten pounds of sarcasm. “ I’m not going to repeat it, you definitely heard me or you would not be chuckling ,” he said in his regular monotone voice. “ Please, enlighten me,” You said sarcastically, “ why on earth are you so concerned about me all of a sudden, i have been trying to get close to you for year and this is what causes you to..” You stopped, blushing furiously, you did not just admit what you just admitted. You suddenly wished you were still asleep and this was just part of a huge dream that the two of you could laugh about later. You looked up, biting your lip to see Mark stunned. He didn’t show too much emotion in his face except for very subtle things like his eyes and his jaw. His jaw was slightly more ridged then it had been and his eyes were wide in surprise. “Just go,” you blurted out, “ you’re incapable of emotion anyways, i don’t know why i tried so hard.” You were about to turn away when he caught your hand and stuttered, “ i have been awful with my emotions, however i’ve seen how keeping them buried pushed away all the important people in my life. I still think they’re terrible things but i’ve always had…..feelings for you Mason, i have. Please i can’t let another person walk out of my life.” You looked over and noticed that he was the closest to crying that you had ever seen him. You slowly pulled him into a hug, “ come here you idiot.” He was unsure of what to do with his hands at first, hugs were not a norm for him at all, however he slowly relaxed into it, causing a smile to creep onto your face. As you pulled away he leaned in and gave you a quick peck on the lips before quickly standing up, “ i have…uh…work to do…bye.” He turned around and left and as he did you saw the cutest smile on his face. You laid back on you bed and sighed, best sick day ever!

[libertariantaoist]

Although the Grateful Dead told us that “every silver lining’s got a touch of grey” (lyric by Robert Hunter), it’s my nature to look for one anyway. At the risk of being accused of gross naivete, I’d like to hope that the Trump presidency (I still can’t believe I have to type those words) will once and for all sour people on government and politics.

My hope is rooted in Trump’s very being. Barack Obama has been a truly horrible president, both in foreign and domestic policy. But — and I realize I open myself to trouble here — he at least displays a certain dignity and class. Sure, he can be self-righteous and demagogic, but at least in my book, he passes the would-you-have-a-beer-with-this-guy? test. I think I’d like having a conversation with him, if conversation means being able to grill him on his autocratic and murderous policies in the Middle East, his provocation of Russia, and his ignorance of even basic economics, among other things. I imagine he’d have some thoughtful — although wrong — things to say in defense of his actions, but it would be a conversation. I might not be able to change his mind, but something resembling a Socratic dialogue might come out of it. (“How do you square what you said here with what you said there?” I think he’d try to answer.)

Trump, on the other hand, fails the beer test miserably. I can’t see that a conversation with him would have any value whatever. It’s hard to believe that he ever learned how to listen and think about what he is hearing. (Agreeing with someone you want to impress or who has flattered you is not the same thing.) Listening, in his mind, apparently, means waiting until it’s time to speak again. When he says, “Excuse me…” in that insistent tone, it’s a sign he’s waited long enough and is going to speak NOW.

But that’s just the beginning of why I have grounds to hope Trump will cause a significant number of people to finally lose faith in government and politics. The man not only has no respect for the truth (i.e., reality), he is not embarrassed when caught in a lie. He doesn’t seem to know that’s he’s been caught. He simply lumbers on, suggesting that you misconstrued him or that he never said what he most certainly said. He acts as though reality and history are responsive to his words. He’s not only the smartest man in the universe, not only God’s gift to humanity (his middle name should have been Narcissus), he’s also uniquely powerful. He can make the world conform to his wishes, even when what he’s talking about has already taken place and is clearly on the record. (He insists he always opposed the invasion of Iraq and the bombing of Libya — when we know those are lies. He blames the rise of the Islamic State on Obama’s honoring George W. Bush’s 2011 negotiated deadline to exit Iraq — even though Trump called for a declaration of victory and exit while Bush was still in office.)

Further, he has shown himself to be a man void of conviction. He’s been on all sides of issues and gave many mixed messages over the course of his campaign. People praise him for speaking his mind, but in light of the contradictions, he has a most disorderly mind. Maybe he speaks his audience’s mind. What he says at rallies differs from what he tells the New York Times editorial board. During his campaign, he often gave the impression he was improvising as he conjured up answers to questions he never thought about before. Someone pointed out that when he reads a speech from a teleprompter, he sometimes says, “So true” — as though he was reading the line for the first time. He probably was.

In Trump, we have a man who knows next to nothing (I may be giving him too much credit) about events and policy — and who seems to believe he doesn’t have to know. Why study, why acquire knowledge, if you think that you’re uniquely gifted with an intuition that enables you to give the right answer to any question on the spot? (And, hey, if you get something wrong, deny you said it or claim that everyone else misunderstood you. Besides, your people will say you shouldn’t be taken literally anyway.)

All this would make Trump one of the most insufferable and unqualified persons alive (not that anyone is qualified to be president), but he doesn’t stop there. He’s got to be one of the pettiest, most vindictive people around. He’s truly a case of arrested development — a spoiled brat and bully who sees the world in zero-sum terms. Others have been notoriously petty and vindictive — Richard Nixon for example. But Nixon indulged his vices largely behind the scenes. Trump is so self-centered, so smitten with himself, that he seems incapable of passing up any opportunity to take down anyone — no matter how powerless — who’s said anything less than glowing about him. He’s the alpha male who defines everyone else. His favorite word for a critic is overrated. He’s not satisfied with showing that a critic is wrong. He’s got to go for the jugular and accuse the person of being a no-talent loser. That speaks volumes about him. The man is insecure. He knows people laugh at him.

What also speaks volumes is how he lies about the election. Someone this great must have set all kinds of records, right? But no, Trump did not win a historic electoral landslide — not even close. And of course, he lost the popular balloting by nearly 3 million votes — which is obviously such a huge burr under his saddle that he blames this on an unsubstantiated illegal vote.

I could go on, but let’s move to what all this has to do with the coming political disillusionment. Remember the scene in the Wizard of Oz when dog Toto exposes the blustering and “powerful” Oz to be nothing but a little cipher behind a curtain? Trump is that man. He can bluster and work the levers of power that constitute the state, but he is unlikely to rise above his petty, petulant, mean, obnoxiously conceited, bratty little self. How will that play with even die-hard Trump supporters as the years wear on?

A Trump fan might say that he will be forgiven any shortcoming because he’s working for a good cause. And what cause is that? Liberty? Sorry, no. You are not for liberty if you intend to stop consumers from buying whatever they want from whomever they want at freely offered prices. You are not for liberty if you intend to build a wall on the Mexican border (on private property) and root out people without government papers. You are not for liberty if you favor a war on drug users, makers, and sellers. You are not for liberty if you like the “stop and frisk” and want guns confiscated in the process. You are not for liberty if you think a president should cajole and bully companies about where to locate factories. You are not for liberty if you like eminent domain. You are not for liberty if you see civil liberties as dispensable. You are not for liberty if you plan to confront China, Iran, ISIS, and who knows who else? You are not for liberty if — well, you get the idea. Peruse Trump’s pronouncements and you will see the point.

Well, he’s going to make American great again, right? Assuming that actually could mean something, how is that desirable if liberty is crushed in the process? The Jeffersonian Abraham Bishop saw through that ruse in 1800: “A nation that makes greatness its polestar can never be free.” A national greatness striven for by a cult-of-personality strongman is to be opposed with all our might.

What this little man is out for is power and glory for himself, and he will do whatever he thinks needs to be done to win. Who knows? Maybe thinks that is the path to national glory too. We have better things to do than speculate about his herculean power to rationalize.

When even his supporters see this, I hope they will run for the exits, retching all the way. They may forswear looking for a “leader” to fix their lives ever again. They may give up the state as a parasitic monster. And they may discover liberty, un-coerced social cooperation, and freed markets.

Or they won’t. Maybe the libertarian movement can make a difference.