yeah, I do.

I was a kid on free and reduced lunch. there’s stigma around being poor enough to need it, and I was bullied for it. my home life was sufficiently dysfunctional that it could be the only food I ate that day, and there were still times I’d rather be hungry than bullied.

so in the interest of removing something kids can be bullied over, sure. tax the rich more, and let a relatively tiny bit of our taxes buy every child at least one meal a day.

-childless taxpayer

my grandparents have passed away now, but when i knew them they were unfailingly polite in public.

in private, Grandma had reservations about japanese people. i gave her leeway. Pearl Harbor was bombed on her birthday, and Grandpa went to Iwo Jima. i still felt i could bring a japanese boyfriend around, and as long as i was happy, he’d be treated right. Grandpa didn’t even suggest reservations. he took everyone as an individual worthy of respect until their behavior suggested differently.

my parents are in their 60s now, but i don’t have contact with them for other reasons. the last time i looked at my mom’s twitter i thought she had been hacked, the MAGA rhetoric she was spewing was so awful. not hacked, just an asshole.

definitely not. i hope you can find something to help.

imagine you start to get your shit together, start some habits to get you on a better footing, and then there’s a week where you just can’t every month. and maybe there’s also a mid-month slump, because hormones suck.

i didn’t see a therapist until i had one weekend to run all the errands, see doctors and vets, clean the house up… there was just the one weekend where i was sure i’d have enough of an upswing.

-general anxiety and depression diagnosis, plus PMDD (pre-menstrual dysphoria disorder), the drugs are great and i’m better now

my grandpa used commode, but i haven’t heard it from anyone younger. grandpa was a Depression era kid, and the family was poor to begin with.

he also said “shorts” instead of “underpants”, which caused my brother who only wore long pants some confusion and trouble.

you mean the thing where people, often women, have spent decades trying to expose the abuse happening in private homes, and trying to get it addressed?

because that’s what happened. women’s voices, speaking about marital rape and domestic abuse. getting the political power to change laws, to make it illegal, and give domestic victims the means to escape. it also surfaced the child abuse, again. it’s just not been buried again yet.

if one of these just ramps up the anxiety, skip that sense and do the others. trying to pick 5 things i can see is. …not useful. …in a panic attack. but closing my eyes and doing the others does help. it took a very long time before someone suggested skipping sight to me, so i share the insight whenever this method is suggested.

my cat thinks “up” and “down” both mean “get off my lap”.

she also recognizes that when I sit and talk to myself (voice chat) is perfect petting and cuddles time. she’s well known to my therapist and team because of zoom meetings.

and both guinea pigs and the cat have all decided that we do cuddles about 830pm. I thought it was “after work and dinner, sometime before bed”. but the number of times I look up to see what the fuss is, and it’s 830 and all 3 are looking at me expectantly… I assume they figure the time by daylight, because it’s not consistent when I get home.

for me, it’s seeing how similar we are. I went low contact and moved away almost 20 years ago. getting to know my now-transmasc brother when we’re both adults is wild. he’s dealt with things differently, but despite 8 years age gap and 18 years not talking, we have a lot in common still.

I had ferrets for a while. they liked to steal and hide things. you learn to check under the couch weekly just so you don’t find things by smell. and hope it’s not somehow inside the couch.

mostly it was the one guy, who preferred his chips and sweets, but knew his sister liked other things. she didn’t eat tomatoes or apples or fruit, but he’d carry that stinky orange down stairs for her, lips peeled back so he didn’t have to taste it too much.

not the OP you replied to, but someone else who loves the Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain book.

I think 5 days is ambitious. but a lot of what the exercises are doing is training you to see a different way. so it’s not impossible.

someone neurodivergent may struggle to get what the exercises are trying to teach or to reach the point they’re aiming for, so it might take them longer. those more inclined to pick it up faster probably aren’t going to need the exercises in the book; it’s already natural to them.

as we grow up, we learn “this is what a tree looks like, this is a dog looks like, this is what a car looks like”, etc etc. the way we see a new car then goes through that filter of “this is what a car looks like”. those filters are great for quickly identifying things and generally being a human in the world, so you don’t get hit by a car while you’re still figuring out if it is a car.

but those filters get in the way of drawing accurately. your eyes aren’t literally filtering anything; that’s all in your brain. so you need to learn to stop that part of your brain when you draw. that’s the biggest part of being able to draw decently. the rest is technical skill you get with practice.

I’d still recommend the original OP look for an artist collaborator, since children’s books need the illustrations to be as strong as the writing. there’s no way to get there in just 5 days.

I’m sorry for this. I adore seeing men being fathers, being positive adults in the lives of children. my own dad was more absent than not, but my grandfathers taught me a lot about how to be a decent human being, how to have relationships with others.

please don’t be absent for your daughter just because too many people have forgotten men are also capable of being nurturing adults for children.

as long as you don’t think the function bar is a search bar. coworker opened my excel spreadsheet and I guess thought it functioned like Google?

I was right behind her to train so no formulas were injured.

oh weird, Lexapro failed entirely at managing my anxiety. worked great on the depression side, which meant that dampener of the anxiety wasn’t in effect. spiraled quick, had to email the doc for an emergency appointment.

Effexor (venlaxafine) is the first SNRI I’ve tried and it’s been like magic.

same with ferrets. if you don’t give them outlets to be “bad”, they will destroy everything. lots of pretending I don’t notice a they drag the old shoes across the floor to the new hiding spot, or “steal” kibble from the bag. had one guy that would check to see if I was busy in the bathroom before he’d go do the thing he really wanted to do. like steal the candy off my desk.

my cat, on the other hand, just yells for what she wants. worst case, if I leave her alone too long, she might decide she deserves a treat and will get it for herself. from the bag I left on the floor, knowing she could her it herself.

I used to! I picked up a set of Black Co at a used book store to try and loan out. finally didn’t come back after I “lost” the cover and apologized for the state of the book I was loaning. but got another convert, so a win in my book.

it depends. I live in a studio, I still have a kitchen trash and bathroom trash, paper towels and cleansers in both. it’s just easier knowing I’ll always have quick access to clean up a mess. like cat vomit.

ideally I’d also have a flashlight and first aid kit stashed in both places, but those have been less necessary and so fell off the critical re-supply list.

I too am a new to Linux person. I started with mint, as the most like what I’m used to. I like seeing that there are options I might like better, along with why I, personally, might prefer them. as well as why mint didn’t rate high. and I like that it’s not just spitting out the creator’s favorite distro.

some people get decision paralysis, i get your recommendation. but you’ll also lose some people if you just give them the Linux that’s easiest and closest to what they already know, instead of highlighting how it’s flexible and customizable. we need both methods of recommending a distro.

there’s plenty of beginner guides telling me to start with mint. I like this picker that considers my interests. looks like I might be trying OpenSuse in the future.

in the same vein, I’m so glad they reprinted Glen Cook’s Black Company books, because no one I tried to get interested in them would read them with the old covers. I’m not sure even I did. I certainly can’t imagine I deliberately chose to pick up a book with this cover.

then the correct answer from the Dr should’ve been a referral to a gyno, not “that shouldn’t be treated yet in my medical opinion”.

and she may not have realized it was perimenopause when she went to the Dr. fatigue and migraines alone could easily sap libido and be completely unrelated to anything “down there”.