First, thank you to everyone who replied to my intro thread, I'm sorry I didn't respond to everyone there and just for my silence in general, just know I did read every single reply and that your thoughts and insights really meant a lot to me; it certainly gave me a lot to think about.   The last few months have been a somewhat emotional journey of just accepting the path I want to take, finding the strength to take those first steps and then following through with them. Since my last post I made significant progress in therapy; I discussed my sexuality with my wife (again) - progress has been made, but there's still work to do; I've met with my PCP to discuss HRT and next steps, thankfully they're really supportive; next week I'll start coming out at work, and start to build out my support network, and over the next 3 months I'll attend my first Pride, come out at home (and eventually the rest of my family), and start my journey with HRT. I'm happy, I'm excited, I'm nervous, a little terrified, a little sad, but most importantly I know I'm doing what is best for me, that I'm finally giving MY health, happiness and wellbeing the attention it deserves. 

oh nooo, my secrets out HP sauce, grin.  

@Mirrabooka Did I say anything specifically against the AP?  No.  Just a general principle of things we should look for when evaluating stuff, no matter where it comes from.    Without information such as sample size, location, funding source, etc. readers have no ability to determine if the results are worth any more than the writer's opinion.  Its just basic critical thinking skills we should all have, regardless of our beliefs or political leanings.   "Believe nothing you hear, and only half of what you see."

LOL!  Reminds me of a MIB quote: "People are dumb, but a person is smart."   I've been running my music blog for 27 years and it's just the nature of it.  I'm one person and not in charge of distribution no matter if I pay $900 for a .cn name/address or not.  I click send and hope for the best the same way I hope my fun and productive stuff is still at home when I leave on my hopefully, mostly, circular journey.   I employ the philosophy of "don't get paranoid".  We have to have these logins to sites like TGP and FB to keep our profile. Not for the security of limiting my content to my so called friends.  It's kinda like my sFTP username/passphrase.  And as far as research goes, I try to use numbers of something I'm familiar with that perhaps other people can be familiar with.  Q: Is it really half a pound?  No wonder they had me/us proving the theorem over and over in school!  I wanted to get on to higher math, but these parenthesis are dang important!  And calculus seems to be mostly trig and pythagorean theorem done in a loop.  Still so much to learn, but it is fun to be working on today's step.  At the grocery store coffee shope with my 24" monitor.  They have the best electric in my neighborhood! LOL!  

For me courage begins with picking out the smallest positive step forward. And then taking it. And then celebrating it (wish I could dance).

They want to control all the sources of news.  It's part of the playbook.

Cape Verdean musica—tan bién.

So…  What's new? This is the world we live in now.

Oh, @kat2. HP sauce, mmm. 😎

Good...whatever it is where you are. It's around 10:30pm here. Still getting mild/warm and dry weather a fortnight before winter here. No traditional 'autumn break' with big rainfalls so far. The weekend ahead is looking a bit yucky though, with grey skies, scattered showers and temps in the low teens C (50's F). But next week is looking mild and dry again, in the 60's F. It's both lovely and worrisome.

I don't care whether I am geographically disconnected from Trump's hatred or not, because it still has an effect on me due to our local media's infatuation with him. Seems like they can't help but to give him oxygen, even though he thieves it.   I choose to deal with that effect by raising my middle finger to him.     I can understand your suspicion of anything published by AP because Trump banned them from the White House so they must be dodgy, right?      

Told spouse about consults, lanced boil.

How do you heal your mental or spiritual pain?

Had a lovely afternoon walk yesterday covered quite a few miles between our national parks, rounded off with a nice meal