sappho [she/her]

They made it so much worse. Essentially any person you encounter (the language says “occupant” of a public or private space iirc) can legally require you to remove your mask.

It’s really fascinating to me that this is what people make when the barrier to artistic creation disappears. It reminds me of some Youtuber books - they’re written by people with no literary skill or experience, but they produce them because they’ve gotten popular enough that the books are a profitable endeavor regardless of quality. Until you read a Youtuber book you don’t consciously realize what is necessary to write a book, because usually, mostly, only people who have that ineffable something do write novels. And here: you don’t realize what is needed to actually create art and not just images, until you see people with no artistic literacy or skill produce what they think of as art.

Visual art and literature are windows to the soul, and normally only a certain type of person goes through the effort to open that window for us. Here, and in Youtuber books, you can see inside a completely different type of person. And their soul looks like waifus and cowboys.

I’m always like “Does that make sense?” after I go on for more than a couple sentences and need verbal affirmation that I’m not being silly/confusing

Ooblets. It is the game equivalent of a warm hug. Charming, polished, anti-capitalist.

I don’t know about Temu but I use AliExpress frequently in lieu of getting the same item from a reseller on Amazon. Over the years I’ve had a couple of things just not show up ever, but that’s rare - most of the time everything goes as expected. I tend to pick items that have photos from reviewers, and I don’t buy stuff that goes into my mouth/otherwise enters my body.

I just use bookmarks. It’s not the intended use maybe but it works great. Make a new subfolder and fill it up. It’s convenient because it’s only one button press while browsing the store, then you have a nice little list to look over and go back to your favorites. You can do stuff like select multiple entries and open them all in new tabs.

The Forest for sure, assuming that magical deep rest works even on my ME/CFS. Can’t do any of the others without my health anyway

If I wasn’t sick, though, I’d pick the shop. For stress relief sometimes I enjoy making massive wishlists of items I never actually buy, and this is like the upgraded version of that. Just seems like it’d be fun to wander and marvel and gather and choose… Plus it’s the one that is most likely to be helpful to your outside life and other people you care about.

How much water do you drink in a day? I have a pretty normal size reusable water bottle and it holds more than enough for a workday. You could just fill it at home in the morning instead of needing to use the water fountain that other people are using.

Is this a new symptom for you/do you want practical suggestions for managing panic attacks without medications? I have had frequent panic attacks for many years, and I’ve tried a lot of stuff, so if there’s an aspect that would be helpful for me to info-dump about, let me know. I’m sorry you’re going through this

You can do a somewhat less effective but more convenient version with enough ice packs on your forehead and cheeks. You know it’s good enough when you do the big involuntary gasp

The single best thing you can do to ensure you’re protecting yourself is to do a home fit test. Surgical masks, KN95s, N95s have generally the same kind of filtration layer; the essential difference is the fit. Is it sealing on your face with <10% leakage, even when worn for long periods and while you speak and make facial expressions? You can’t really know this for sure unless you do a fit test.

It is pretty cheap and easy to do a DIY fit test.

Here’s a video that explains how to do it with a trash bag, some Splenda, and a $7 nebulizer.

Here is a written guide.

There’s a source control version of the Eclipse with no exhalation valve. One could also just cover the exhalation valve with either something impermeable or the electrostatic filtration layer scavenged from a medical mask or respirator if needed.

Other elastomerics that are popular these days:

MSA Advantage (speech diaphragm, with source control)

3M Secure Click (speech diaphragm, great feature where it auto-seal checks for you, no source control)

Honeywell RU8500 (speech diaphragm, no source control)

FloMask (low profile, good speech audibility, source control)

EnvoMask (low profile, source control)

There was a window of time where it was super easy to jailbreak iPhones - and there were tons of cool customization options, plus you could easily pirate apps and get in-app purchases for free. That was neat. That was the only period in which I owned an iPhone and felt okay with it. I’ve heard jailbreaking is a lot more difficult these days but I don’t really know because I switched to Android.

It also just isn’t true that humans are the only creature that shows empathy. We’ve observed altruistic and empathetic behaviors in lots of animals, and I think anyone with a pet would argue they can love

I feel the same way, but I think for most of these people it’s actually about the social rewards/ego strengthening effects and not the material boons. Like, imagine if the constant drumbeat of capitalist society that tells you “you’re disposable, you’re subhuman, you’re nothing” was actually whispering the opposite in your ear. “You’ve won. You’re better than all those wretched people. You are justified, you are sanctified, you made it, you’re gonna live forever.” Like that kind of external motivation and validation is not a recipe for true happiness, but I have to imagine it feels damn good to have all of society’s messaging and all the people you know pretend that you are some elevated class that actually matters.

Kalimbas are cool. Cheap and they sound lovely like a music box even if you don’t know what you are doing. The sound is so nice that my cat has several times fallen asleep right beside me while I’ve played

a. The hostile anti-human AI takeover already happened, except instead of paperclips it’s maximizing plastic

b. Not only is a rock conscious, so is the United States

Ugh, this gets right to a massive pet peeve of mine regarding mainstream climate change coverage. This relentless fucking fixation on having hope, the absolute strident necessity that we all feel the “correct way” about what approaches us. It’s toxic positivity. It’s emotional policing.

All of these people are terrified of death and they have no idea what hope even is! Yelling at some teenager grieving the destruction of the biosphere, “Be more optimistic! Look at the cool tech!” - it’s not just ineffective, it’s the literal opposite of helpful.

Hope isn’t optimism! Hope isn’t believing that we will win. Hope is when you’ve gone fully into despair and then find yourself, somehow, still alive there. This facade of positivity they call hope will break at the first sign of stress; that’s why they push it so hard, insisting we all perform optimism as well, propping up their fragile feelings for them. I just want to shout it in their faces: You can’t have hope without death! You can’t have peace without grieving! Fuck you, start weeping!

I feel you, my cycle was delayed like a full week this month due to stress and it scared me a ton :( I don’t have the pregnancy concern because lesbian but I was so worried that something else was going wrong in my body. I’m unfortunately underweight due to health issues and I just started a new medical elimination diet, and I was terrified that I wasn’t managing to eat enough to get my period.

She finally came, thank goodness, but I really couldn’t tell what was going on with my body and what my hormones were doing at all for a while there and I hate that. I am still learning to sense all aspects of my monthly cycle because for the last two years I’m finally having it again after being on continuous birth control for a decade. I like the feeling of being in alignment with my body but man do I wish I could stress less about it.

Possibly there is something about the beer that you’re reacting to. Like, beer has gluten in it. If you have a sensitivity to gluten you get an inflammatory reaction, and a hangover is a inflammatory response too, so it might just feel like a worse hangover instead of a more obvious gastrointestinal sensitivity.