I learned a new word today while reading HuffPost. The article is about the rise of the label heteroflexible, what people mean when they use it, and why some people embrace it while others are critical of how closely it stays tied to heterosexual identity.

It is heartbreaking to see this happening.

A 12-year-old should be hiding safely, not guarding a military checkpoint. Iran’s IRGC recruiting children as young as 12 as “homeland defending combatants” is a gut punch. HRW calls it what it is: a war crime. Kids deserve protection, not deployment.

I am late in acknowledging World Autism Awareness Day and the entire month. But the day is over yet. I already wrote a couple blog articles on Autism. All I need to create an image for each blog article.Will share them when they are published throughout the month.

So Happy World Autism Awareness Day.

“Autism is not a limitation. It is a different way of experiencing the world.” —Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari

Studying for my driver’s permit. Hoping to take the test next week. I haven’t driven a car in 30 years. Wish me luck. The road should be nervous, not me.

Tomorrow is April 1. March was a blink. Where did it go? What was I even doing? Scratching my head.

There are only 51 Rice’s whales left on Earth. They live exclusively in the Gulf of Mexico — that’s their whole world. Today, the Trump administration’s “God Squad” voted to strip their Endangered Species Act protections so oil drilling could proceed unobstructed. No energy company even asked for this.

That would be devastating if those whales are gone. No more whale watching. Can you imagine that?

As one law professor put it:

“If Trump is successful here, he could be the first person in history to knowingly extirpate a species from the face of the earth.”

Most streaming services default captions to the smallest size, don’t carry across devices, finding where to adjust them varies. The How-To Geek article breaks down where to find the settings. For Deaf/HoH viewers, that’s not a minor annoyance. It’s a barrier.

I’ve been a geek my whole life. I just didn’t always have the word for it.

It started early. It survived a Tandy, MS-DOS, Windows 3.1, and decades of blogging across more platforms than I care to count. Eventually it even became the name of this blog.

Which made me start wondering where the word actually came from — because it clearly didn’t start as a compliment.

“Three central components of subjective well-being were considered: life satisfaction, positive emotional states, and negative emotional states.” - Dr. Susanne Bücker

Research points to the 70s as the happiest decade of all.

But for me, at 50 is my happiest time of my life, living in a tiny house in the Appalachian hills, working a side job on my own terms, sitting on my porch watching the mountains do nothing fast — I think I’ve already found it. Maybe happiness isn’t an age. It’s a life that fits.

But I’ll check back in at 70. Just to see.