Kaymyth

Yes, there are. I know some of them. They generally refer to themselves as being Hellenic pagans, or just plain Hellenic. There's a name for everything. My husband is also an atheist, and he had a similar experience with an ex-girlfriend before he met me. She kept trying to convert him, and it made him really uncomfortable. They eventually broke up because of it. Now he and I, we have a mutual understanding. I don't try and convert him to anything, and he doesn't say he thinks I'm crazy when I talk about having Unverifiable Personal Gnosis experiences with deities. It works well for us. And I agree that while the hymns can be quite beautiful pieces of music, I can't sing them, either. It's just too....weird. My UU church has some songs and chants that we do, but it's a pretty different kettle of wax.

At this point, you can bet that pretty much any pantheon of gods that is known from history has some sort of modern practice that's been built in the recent resurgence. There's actually an entire Kemetic Orthodox church based out of Chicago; I read a bit about them, and ultimately decided that it wasn't for me. What's fun about me is that I have very different private and public practices. In private, I have three Egyptian deities as my main focus, while the rest I'm more familiar with on a casual basis. But publicly, I go to a Unitarian Universalist church that is populated almost entirely by a wide variety of pagan folks, so our weekly rituals tend to run the gamut of every religious tradition imaginable. It works very well for us. Very well said. To pull a quote from The King and I: "We do not see the world as it is; we see it as we are." I think that this is very true for religious practice. What we do and what we believe is very much shaped by our lives and how we see the world. The paths we walk reflect ourselves. The point to never lose sight of is that whatever religion we follow, it should be spurring us to try to be better people. Better than last year, than last week, than yesterday - so long as we are always striving to be our best selves, we're on the right path.

I know I've stated this before, but I'm a Kemetic pagan. Kemetic = ancient Egypt, so my gods are those that the ancient Egyptians had. I'm not quite sure that "worship" is quite the right word for what I do - I pay attention to them, I give offerings, and I do the occasional ritual, but my relationship with my three primary deities is more based on teacher/student sort of dynamic than what most folks would consider a traditional religious practice.

Usually the key to feeling better is to figure out exactly what the problem is. And if there's no outside trigger, then usually mood swings like that are physiological. It might be as simple as not getting enough sunlight, or a vitamin deficiency. It might be something out of balance in the brain. Try a few things, experiment a bit, and see what tends to life your mood. Do you feel better after a walk outside? After eating an orange? After sitting down and writing out a good, solid fanfic scene? Or after posting here on 17S and having people remind you of how awesome you are? This, +1. Also, that link is awesome. ... I want a potato death ray.

...NO I'm actually talking about this: http://www.eclipse2017.org/2017/path_through_the_US.htm We've got an amazingly extensive total solar eclipse that's gonna march clear across our obnoxiously oversized nation in 2017.

I'm afraid that my expertise does not extend to bb code. Star Trek: Voyager. I do like it, but it's probably the weakest of the series.

Well, Tom wasn't the only pilot on the ship. He was the best one by far, but he did not have the sole knowledge of how to fly the ship. Also, Janeway had a trump card: "Tom, behave, or I'll tell B'Elanna to punch you." At least up until they got married, at which point Tom had gotten over most of his rebellious ways.

Well, it's official, then. I've changed my member title.

Nope. I'm the Mom, remember? Now behave yourself, Kobold, or I will turn this forum around and go straight back home.

Beard ninjas! This is it exactly! Seriously, I'm on basically the opposite end of the spectrum from being face-blind - I'm so facial recognition dependent that full beards just completely ruin everything.

Or the mad scientist dad who secretly created half of the forum denizens?

... 17th Shard Total Eclipse party?

*bluuuuuuush* You guys are all awesome, you know that? So, would that make me Twi's big sister? 'Cause I'd be down with that. Clearly, we're related - I mean, we're both ponies, right?

I'd be in, so long as it isn't next year. I'm afraid that between CostumeCon and MidAmeriCon II (WorldCon 2016), I'm full up for major conventions. I only get so much vacation a year, and I ought to save some of that for going on a proper vacation with my husband. (He's not much of a con-goer. Too many people for him.)

I like the first idea! Yes! Come to Kansas City and visit meeeee!

You cannot control people's behavior. It's hard to accept sometimes, especially when it's your own family, and you're having trouble reconciling their bigoted actions with them being your family, but the only people with the power to change them is themselves. The only thing you can really control is your reaction to them. It's hard to set healthy boundaries, and even harder if you happen to be in a situation where you are living with the family members causing you distress. Unfortunately, until you're out of the house, the best thing to do is to just keep your head down around them. But reach out to your cousin, and let her know that there is at least one member of her family that accepts her for who she is - that can make all the difference for someone who's just come out. She's got a hard road. The one thing you can do is let her know that she's not alone in this.

I was indoctrinated as a child, thanks to my dad. He'd always watch it on the local PBS stations. When I was little it scared me, so I didn't really get into it until right about the dawn of my teenaged years. Then I went through my dad's entire VHS tape collection one summer. They were just labeled "Doctor Who". No episode names, no Doctor identification, nothing - so I watched years of stories (the U.S. always broadcast each serialized story in one big blob) in random chunks completely out of order and labeled them as I went. Thus, NuWho has been like experiencing the rebirth of my childhood.

You could try crushing up some edible metallic-colored sugar beads. I don't know exactly how they'd look dissolved in water, though. Experimentation would be required. You must do it! For Science!

Over 50% of our oceans have now tested positive for significant quantities of this chemical!

Admittedly, I have a near-encyclopedic knowledge of Doctor Who, thanks to the unparalleled obsession capabilities of once being a teenager. I yelled at the screen when NuWho got his age wrong. (Yes, they pass it off now as, "Oh, the Doctor just has lost track of how old he really is," but I strongly suspect a whopping case of Didn't Do The Research.) So...when it comes to Doctor Who, I'm sort of the equivalent of a scientist watching any movie that tries to use science ever. Especially when it comes to all of the tidbits of Gallifreyan history that drifted across the screen.* I'm probably not the best baseline when it comes to judging the movie. *This does not include New Adventures material, or what came from the radio plays. I know the basics of how they spun that, but never had the access to keep my collection of those novels running. Back then, American bookstores weren't exactly known for keeping a good stock of Who stuff.

The movie is terrible. Not because of McGann; he's brilliant. It's everything else that's bad. The writing, the backstory, the details that Hollywood got hilariously, ridiculously wrong. This movie is 20 years old, why am I putting in spoiler tags?

I'm, er, rather partial to Seven myself.

Finally had a full-on Cosmere dream last night. Unfortunately, all I remember is being on Scadrial and somebody making a reference to the moon. Unnamed Scadrian #2 said, "Whoa, we're getting a moon?! When?"

Hah! That's perfect. And I feel your pain, though for me it was more the extended family rather than immediate. My parents never had any trouble with the fact that I was perfectly happy playing by myself. But when my dad's side of the family got together....ooh, is that ever a pile of extroverted people. Extremely nice, oh-so-happy to see you, talkative extroverts. I love them dearly, but as a kid I'd occasionally sneak off to read a book for a bit to recharge. And then they'd realize I was missing and come and find me and drag me back in. And I couldn't be mad at them, because it was such a genuine, "But we missed you!" sort of thing. I'm pretty sure that if "visiting" were an Olympic sport, my aunts and grandmother would all be multiple gold-metal winners. And I have cousins who have followed in their footsteps. I think my dad is considerably more introverted than his sisters. My own husband leans strongly towards the introverted side, much more so than I do. The benefit of this is that we can spend time with each other without ever making any social demands on each other. We can share our bubble, so to speak. This has also gained him a reputation of being a Conversational Ninja amongst our friends. At gatherings, he'll settle in quietly, listening to all the conversation and letting people forget that he's there. And then he'll suddenly break in with a comment that has the entire room rolling on the floor with laughter. I love my husband.

But you didn't see the update? I found some! Multiple pairs! I found just the right combinations of adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine to fit me properly. And now, I give you That Spells DNA: (I can't figure out how to get the video to embed, so it's a link.) Edit: IT DID IT FOR ME. I am confused but happy. Edit 2: No, it's not really a video, it's a static image to a song. But it's a good song. Jonathan Coulton is the King of Geek Rock.