When I was seven years old, my aunt gave me a dog. It was a toy poodle, the runt of the litter. She was from their first litter. They didn’t originally want to give me the dog since she was the prettiest. But I took her home. My aunt said she was expecting me to give her back after a few months. I didn’t.

I still remember holding her in my arms for the entire four-hour car ride back home. She didn’t like me at first. As it turns out, she didn’t like children much at all. As we grew older together, however, we formed a bond. Because of how young I was, I accidentally named her Doggie. She recognized several names afterward, including Baby, which is what we ultimately stuck with on documents. But she first knew herself as Doggie.

She had her favorites in the family. I remember her going crazy whenever my dad would come home from work. She always sat next to my mom when she was eating and watching TV. She’d come to our rooms and ask us to put her in our bed. I remember once, while I was in the middle of a stressful study session, she barked at me outside of my door because I wasn’t paying attention to her.

She was a very smart dog. There are many instances of her ability to problem-solve or think things through. She had this cough, and she recognized that whenever she coughed, I would look at her. So after failing to get my attention for a while, she faked a cough to get me to look.

She was, through and through, a member of the family.

I remember when I was almost 15, I did the math. At the time, my dog was seven years old, and I figured she would die by her 10th year, as that’s what I was told was the norm. She didn’t, obviously, but a year later on my 16th birthday, she almost died.

I awoke to my dog crying under my bed. She wouldn’t come out, so I checked, and she was covered in blood. We immediately took her to the emergency vet. As it turns out, she was attacked by a coyote. She somehow survived. She broke several of her teeth off attempting to fight the coyote. Like I said, my dog is a toy poodle, you could put her in your lap and still have a lot of room left over. This tiny dog successfully fended off a coyote attack. She made a full recovery.

She was a constant in my life. By 2020, I figured she was in her last days. She started losing her sight, her hearing, and her sense of smell. She was still functional, but it was clear she was starting to decline. Year after year, I would think, “This is probably her last year.” And year after year, she proved me wrong.

She gained more chronic health issues starting in 2022. What always worried us were her mammary gland tumors. They were benign for the most part. But one of them ruptured last week. A sign of cancer, sure, but frankly they only gave us two solutions: surgery or euthanasia. With her age, the outlook for post-surgery recovery was not great, if she even survived the surgery. She always hated doctors. I remember her recovery from the coyote attack was long and brutal on her, and she was half the age she is now.

After 18 years, I put her down. I don’t feel guilt in the sense that it wasn’t her time. It was. If I didn’t do it now, she’d get worse. She might not understand the concept of death, but the pain was very real to her. So I put an end to the pain.

I’m devastated. I, of course, knew this day would come and have been mentally preparing for years. But it’s odd that she’s not here anymore. In a way, she hadn’t been here for a long time. Her behavior radically changed over the past year, she was a shell of her former self. But now she’s not physically here anymore. I can’t grab her anymore. I can’t hear her cry. I can’t wake her up.

We grew up together, and I saw her get old. I saw her survive the unthinkable, I saw her outlive every single member of her family, including the one child she had.

I brought her to our home holding her in my arms. And I said goodbye to her the same way.

I have no idea if anyone else is into this, casually or just past experiences, can remove if inappropriate.

Haven’t seen anyone else talk about it here in Tildes, so, anyone else have any experience with any sort of psychedelic adventures?

I try to trip once every couple years because I feel like its easy for me to forget about myself and what I want and how that fits into what the world wants from me. I use the ‘me’ time to just sort myself out, get my priorities straight, and keep going.

Anyone else?

And as long as I'm asking ... nginx or Apache (or Caddy or whatever else you think is best).

I'm hosting a few web sites and services, but currently, everything is "out there" on VPSes. I want to bring it all in-house, go back to the old days of actually hosting websites out of my living room.

Towards that end, I am gradually upgrading and overhauling all the sites and services, fixing long-standing issues and inefficiencies in the config files, merging servers, etc.

I have never learned Docker. I've started to several times, worked with it a bit on a job once, used it a bit here and there; so I'm not clueless, but it would be a learning curve.

Also, I'm running one main service (Nextcloud) that officially, only supports Apache -- there absolutely are nginx setup guidelines and tutorials and such, but that's all unofficial, experimental setups.

And I'm running another major service (Synapse), on nginx.

And I want to merge the servers, and choose one web server to host both of them, and I don't know which way to go there.

Thanks for any feedback.

In mythology the phoenix is an immortal bird that, when it's time, burns to death. In some versions of the myth, it's intentional. Sometimes things happen to it and it's forced to begin the cycle anew.

I admire the phoenix so much. After all, immortality is just another way of expressing the will to endure.

But sometimes I also wonder. I wonder if the phoenix, in the moments of burning, regrets it's choice, secretly hoping to prolong it's current pace because it's happy where it is. I wonder if, the moments before it's forced to start the cycle, it looks back at it's choices that lead up to it, and wishes it chose differently. I wonder if it regrets it didn't do more in that life. I wonder if it looks forwards to it's new life.

When it's done burning, I wonder if it can look back at it's old life. Would it look and wish that it burned again, hoping to get back it's old life? Is it able to carry it's old memories and grow and be a better phoenix? Would it hope that some of it's old life comes with it? Does it look at it's next burning with dread, or hope?

I don't know where to put this, was thinking in ~creative or ~health.mental or ~misc. I've been pretty out of it and super depressed still, but this is just some of the things I've been thinking about.
I wrote a bit about where I've been here

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

My sister and I were raised largely by our single mother, a passionate, fiery woman bordering on histrionic. I remember like it was yesterday how proudly she looked at my sister when she was crying or having a fit. My mother would later comment, multiple times, on how she admired my sister's ability to express her emotions in colorful ways, unimpeded by any constraints.

To my mother, my sister was "true" and "real". I was not. In my home, introversion was a crime. I was viewed as broken, and my lack of emotional display was something to correct. Throughout my life, different extroverts arrived at a similar opinion. Why aren't you crying? Why can't you be exactly like me? Are you a psychopath?. I am not. I experience the full range of emotions. I express them differently and at my leisure. But I feel them completely.

Sometimes, when I reveal that I do not cry, people assume that I am against emotion and against crying. I am not against crying or emotion. I understand that, to some, crying is important to emotional regulation. It can be uplifting and cathartic. Crying does not make someone weak -- much to the contrary. Men shouldn't be ashamed of crying, nor should they take any measures to avoid crying.

In the same way that no one should feel constrained in their crying, no one should feel oppressed into crying, or be made to feel ashamed of not crying. My emotional life is beautiful, deep, and intricate. I express it in a myriad of ways. The fact that I work through my emotions without the use of my lacrimal glands must not be viewed as a disease to correct. I have many problems. No crying is not one of them.

A few months ago I went to the psychiatrist and we talked for like an hour. We got onto the topic of autism and I mentioned how I was always curious if I had it. She spent like five or so minutes asking me questions and said she would put me as autism coded in my chart.

I wasn't sure if that meant it was an official diagnosis or not but I didn't think to ask until after the appointment. It seemed really quick for it to be an official diagnosis.

I went back to her last week and brought up that she marked me as "autism coded." I asked "is that a diagnosis or does it just mean it's suspected?" She didn't really give a straightforward answer and just said that I have "really really high functioning autism."

But I don't know if that means I'm officially diagnosed. And if I take her at her words of calling me autistic and then applying that label to myself I feel like a fake because I never had a huge assessment like most people.

Thoughts? Advice? Am I overthinking this?

Strange New Worlds Season 3 is out. So far 2 episodes have been released. I have seen the first episode.

I have some thoughts about the underlying themes of Strange New Worlds. This will not have spoilers because most of what I'm talking about appeared in previous seasons and in the trailer for season 3.

The main theme that I see in the show is that the people in the crew are actualized adults. They have empathy and compassion. If they do something heroic, it is in the spirit of self sacrifice for their friends and colleagues and the human race in general. They have some flaws, but when they find out about the flaws they try to work on self-improvement.

This is most completely embodied in Captain Pike. He expends much of his energy getting feedback from his crew. He gets opinions from experts in various fields, and then makes a decision without doubt. He is open to criticism and fights for what he believes in. He is the opposite of an authoritarian leader.

I would contrast this somewhat to the behavior of Captain Kirk from the original series. Kirk would go to his advisors (mostly Spock and McCoy), but usually as a secondary source. Pike makes a much larger effort to check with the crew first, and relies on more different opinions.

It can also be contrasted with the behavior of Captain Picard. Picard is much more authoritarian and has a very rigid moral code which seems largely based on tradition and values like honor and service.

I enjoy Strange New Worlds very much. I am aware that it is extremely "woke", and that I am being given an example how how we should treat each other and solve problems. I don't mind this at all, and it seems completely in line with the morality which has always driven the best Star Trek.

There is one other thing I noticed in S3e1: Captain Pike takes a moment to pray. I don't remember seeing this in Star Trek before (but it probably has happened). I haven't decided yet why the writers included this. It could be to show a little background about Pike's upbringing (he mentions his dad before doing it). It could be a concession to conservatives who watch the show. It could be that Pike will try all possible avenues in case they may help.

What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

How is Linux these days for everyday desktop use? I'm looking to reformat soon and I'm kind of sick of all the junk the comes alone with Windows.

I've used Linux briefly, back in the early 2000's but..not at all since really. I'm also learning web dev so I thought it could be fun to use to get used to it.

Do you use it for everyday use?

If your unfamiliar with Linux, how difficult is it to get things "done" on it?

Do most modern apps work these days?

As someone that's been using Windows for most of their life, do you think it's difficult to pick up and get running?

Do games work?

Edit I'm going to test out mint tonight on a thumb drive, thanks everyone!

How long after someone giving you their number is considered too long to contact them?

This person gave me their number weeks ago, and I was thinking of asking them out to coffee, but I’m not sure if that might be considered rude due to the time lapse. I don’t think it would be, but what do I know — I haven’t had anything to do with the dating scene in many, many years…

So, I’m not really looking for advice, but rather perspective. What do other people consider normal in these sorts of situations?