4:

• English (native)
• Spanish (school)
• French (school)
• Korean (Taekwondo)

Hopefully next week I’ll add Polish–I’m on day 3 of learning it in an app.

The thing that convinced me my ADHD diagnosis was correct was taking my prescription stimulant and then taking a nap. See also coffee: I’ve found no correlation between my last cup of the day and when I get to sleep. I’m also incapable of drinking enough coffee to make me jittery, not even when my office had an all-you-can-drink Keurig stand.

Well, Virginia is for lovers.

Oh, no worries. I compensate with a B12 supplement. I just need the supplement because my diet doesn’t otherwise contain enough B12. I’m low-meat because I want to reduce my environmental impact, cows are cute, pork violently disagrees with me, and I don’t like chicken.

Cow milk always tastes a bit off so I’m never sure when it’s really off.

We keep almond milk for drinks and cereal, powdered milk for cooking (because macaroni and cheese/some sauces just don’t want almond milk).

(I’m not vegetarian, just low-meat enough that I have to compensate for a B12 deficiency. Jazz hands).

I installed one of these in a hallway. It was nice to know exactly where the light switch was, since it was not near a doorway or other nighttime landmark. I’d hate it in my bedroom.

I could see calling panic attacks a “mental health crisis”.

I had them years ago. I would feel one coming on during my drive home and so I would pull off into a parking lot, park the car, lay the driver’s seat all the way back, and blast the air conditioner while focusing on my breathing until I felt safe to drive again.

I’m glad no one ever called the cops on me.

My aunt is in her 70s and still traveling the world, very active. She’s visiting Japan last I checked. She and her husband are signed up to move into assisted living in a few years, which seems a gentle way to start slowing down.

I hope I take after her and not grandma-on-the-other-side: surprise dementia in her, iirc, 60s. Didn’t seem to bother her. Bothered the fuck out of everyone around her.

I’m putting what money I save by not having kids into my retirement fund. Compound interest ftw. I’ll hopefully be able to pay someone else’s kid to take care of me if/when need be.

Bonus: I don’t have to worry about navigating a child through the current American political environment. I’m worried enough about my elderly dog and normal-aged partner.

I’m just going to drop this link right here… (Some states charge inmates room and board)

Lucky. My mom can’t even name my gender, sexuality, or name, much less an existential dread or phobia.

Escalators. Those things freak me out. They’re just waiting to eat my flip-flops, which I don’t wear, or catch fire.

Military service is one of the ways out of poverty we dangle at young people. I can’t blame an 18-year-old for wanting in on the GI bill. Student loans suck.

My local Lowes turned me off by having their music blaring way, way too loud for some event. Like, needed earplugs on that half of the store loud.

Now Home Depot has turned me off by not having any human-run checkout counters anymore, and all the self checkouts have incredibly distracting “we’re recording you” screens. Plus, you know, the politics.

The Ace hardware is still awesome and has a store dog (no outside dogs allowed). Store dog is a friendly, happy lab.

There’s an adorable phone game called “Tender” where you go on dates with various aliens via a Tinder-like app. That game did a good job showcasing different styles of profile and profile pic–highly recommend. Also, fun.

And the Wii can be Linuxed, if you get creative enough. Source: former roommate did it

It’s spring (your hemisphere may vary) and time to set out tick tubes!

Tick tubes are cardboard tubes stuffed with cotton fluff soaked in permethrin. Mice use the cotton to make nests. The permethrin kills ticks on the mice, reducing the tick load of the area. It doesn’t hurt the mice, and is much more targeted than just spraying the whole yard for insects.

I’m 40 and my partner just reaches out his hand whenever he needs help getting up from the group. I’m the shorter one, so I’m the designated “bottom shelf grabber”. He’s the one approached at the grocery store by other short people who need help grabbing things from the top shelf.

No, I thought capitalists wanted to appeal to mainstream consumers. DEI and pride displays are marketing techniques. Removing them says “nope, minorities aren’t worth appealing to”.

The performance serves as a barometer for how, idk, accepted a thing is. Having LGBTQ displays made me, an LGBTQ person, feel like Corporations thought we were a market worth wooing. Taking that and DEI away is a kick in the teeth. It feels worse than never having the displays or DEI programs in the first place.

Bob’s Red Mill makes a powdered, shelf-stable egg substitute for baking purposes. I keep it on hand because I can’t be arsed to keep real eggs in stock.