I had trouble till (hormonal) IUD, would never discount the side effects of most birth control available to women - copper IUD nearly killed me with hemorrhage, and pills raised my blood pressure, anything that went inside me (diaphragm, etc) either gave me yeast infection or bladder infection, so many of the methods seem designed to punish women for wanting sex without pregnancy.

But I’d think guys would love condoms because it’s the only reversible birth control they can control themselves.

A crow I did for Halloween, dunno about beautiful but it’s the first time I tried watercolors.

Do you have olive oil or butter? You have sauce.

I have very small bottles of wine, decanted when we opened two different wines, if you have wine you have sauce.

Soy sauce and butter is pretty good for a sauce, miso butter is even better.

I dunno what your pantry holds but I think here we always have some way to make pretty good pasta of some sort. My kids live spaghetti fried in chili garlic paste.

I cooked rice in a pot for decades before my kids got me a rice cooker. It’s not much more complicated, and is quicker. Put rice in a pot, rinse it, cover with water by about 3/4 inch (from fingertip to first knuckle, yes? You have seen some old person sticking their finger in the rice? That is what we are measuring. )

Bring to a boil on high, cover and turn the heat way down to low (medium low if your stove sucks) Check it in 15 minutes if white rice, 45 if brown rice. If done, take it off the heat. If not, give it 5 more minutes on the burner then move it.

Beans and rice, we always have beans and rice. Today I also have sauerkraut, kielbasa and pierogi so I can make exactly what is planned.

But at any time, can make beans & rice of some sort.

I think Alzheimer’s is complicated by having a body, though. My grandma had it and was happy, not angry. It sucked for us and for her because she eventually forgot how to eat & take care of herself at all. To have that lack of understanding of reality doesn’t seem nearly as bad if you are a disembodied consciousness, as this suggests. It seems more like a death than the other choices.

Alternate Dimension I would go for only if it was a gamble not a certain “being torn to shreds by demons over and over” situation.

I don’t generally enjoy pot, find the effect annoying not pleasant but twice in my life have had some laced with something wonderful (once, hashish, once I have no idea) and soul food is where it’s at. Beans and rice and sausage, bursting with flavor. Nothing sweet and nothing so fancy just simple and satisfying.

Emotionally ready like am I ok with it, or would I rage rage against the dying of the light? Yes I think so, I could go gently.

Don’t want to, still happy but I am not that worried, if I had to I could, my kids are grown, I have experienced a lot of stuff, learned a lot, enjoyed being alive and physically embodied, probably more than many people do in a lifetime. I would not feel like I got ripped off or anything.

I don’t usually talk about my feelings (I am a woman) but people of all genders seem to feel comfortable confiding in me.

So maybe it’s not so much that men don’t express emotions, more that people in general don’t express them to men?

Or even more likely we are all different and it’s not so much a gender thing. As a stereotype I’ve heard it plenty but in practice it hasn’t seemed so. If I was being sexist I’d say men complain more about physical pain and women complain more openly about unhappiness, but I can’t say it’s a big difference IME.

Yeah I am often so shocked that people think the modern world is dangerous. Like, I guess, but crime where I live has dropped precipitously since I was a kid here, especially violent crime, so I always want to laugh when someone talks about a ‘rough neighborhood’ or worries I am walking somewhere. Crime has been dropping for the last 50 years!

The most dangerous place to go is the past.

I was a single mom of 4 when dating so was not open to dating childless men my age. Ended up with so many kids without having more, when we consolidated, but they all get along and as adults are happy for the network of siblings. They are much closer than I was with my brothers and sisters.

I absolutely would NOT have expected a childless man to be into me - it would have been an uphill battle to convince me. If I had been younger, maybe, but it seemed like anyone my age would have already had kids if they wanted some.

Oh yes. I call them by their names and they know their names.

I am very commute sensitive, won’t take a job too far away.

Other than that, I hate, hate, hate the unequal compensation the most. Too much money to the people at the top, and raises by % just make it worse.

I worked with a lady whose married name was Xu, she’d kept it when she divorced him. She was Laotian. (Really cool lady, grew up in refugee camp, married high roller Chinese guy, got t educated, when they divorced she moved to the US and was successful on her own). One day i forwarded her an email from a vendor, his name long and unpronounceable, and she looked at it and said, oh! That is the same as my maiden name! I could see why she kept the last name of the Chinese husband :)

Hand lotion, lip balm.

I buy my hair gel in liters when the price goes low enough, not when I need it, so have two or three liters sometimes.

Two dogs and two cats because people left them with us. I’d be good with one cat.

We have a road that goes under a bridge so that you can make a right to go east on a 4 lane road. People would sit at that corner waiting to go left and it caused massive backups. (Which made no sense, why go under the bridge then? Use a different corner and make a right to go west!). We asked the city to make it right turn only - they interpreted it slightly differently and thought we meant people were heading straight the wrong way up a one way, rather than turning to that corner, came and put a temporary sign. I went with one of my kids, wearing safety vests, and moved the temporary sign to the corner we wanted it at.

Later the city came and put the permanent sign where we had it, and ALSO changed the paint on the road to make it one way right at the corner and disallowed left turns INTO that corner, they just broadly said no left. Which is good. Nobody should be stopping at the bottom of a bridge to wait to make a left turn.

It’s not like NOBODY does the left anymore, but there are not backups now because nobody is going to sit there waiting to go left, they get honked at.

I have a 6 week wishlist for most smaller stuff, to avoid impulse buying. More like 6 months for something like a computer and 6 years for something like a home renovation.

I think if you’ve waited so long and still want the same thing it’s safe to say you really want it and will enjoy it.

Oh - another thing you can do - we have a savings account but also a “goal savings account” that is for things like this, specific items that cost sort of a lot (or a whole lot, for years now it’s been saving for a car for my husband.) Save the money away from the regular accounts so it is your extra money.

I was doing payroll recently for my work, and came across Harsh Harsh. I had to ask our HR lady, really? His last name was Harsh and his parents named him Harsh?

Well, no. She said his name was simply Harsh but our system required a last name so she repeated it.

Still, pretty harsh I think.

I wish you the best of luck!

Haven’t been fat but have been hugely pregnant and had to lose weight and even though people say you can’t outrun a diet, exercise has been the only thing that’s really made a difference for me. The more I exercise the less I weigh, the “out” part of calories in, calories out makes the bigger difference for my body.

Borns made some of the best indie pop on the radio, got in trouble for grooming, disappeared. One of the most heartbreaking losses musically for us. Then years later tried a comeback but seems to be an unrepentant whiny bitch now, the song he released was so bad. It seems to have broken him.

I still think his early stuff is so good.

Ender’s Game is a great book, and I did keep my Neil Gaiman books, the ones I already have.

I think in general (obviously there are exceptions) broken people make the greatest art, it’s hard to have that drive when you don’t have some sadness inside you, dissatisfaction, some missing part you are trying to fill. And with old guys (not Garrett Borns) they did grow up in a different time - I don’t think that excuses them, but it does explain it. My mom thought Jerry Lee Lewis marrying his 14 year old cousin was scandalous but wouldn’t have thought it criminal or really wrong.