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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: June 14th, 2023

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  • 4 hours of work 5 days a week. 5 weeks off per year.

    Enough money to not worry about money.

    A short run in the morning, short weightlifting after work, yoga in the evening. Two non consecutive rest days with just stretching and walking. To feel good enough to do that so I can keep feeling good enough to do that.

    Going out on one weekend night to do something, staying in the other nights.

    Pet cats, and maybe one dog.

    Traveling somewhere every year.

    And having enough money also to get the house in the shape we want.

    Basically I want a well funded partial retirement.


  • Our library did a “big book club” thing where they made infinite e-reader copies available, and I thought hmm, I’ll give it a try and wow I did like it. Later my penultimate kid read it, not knowing I had, and recommended it as one of the best books she’d ever read.

    It was fantastical and strange, I can imagine not liking it but wow I sure did, and so did my kid.

    Life of Pi is the one people seem to like that I hate. I want my 2 hours back, feel it was wasted.





  • We get a real one from our neighbor, he does yardwork & sod most of the year but at Christmas he gets some trees to sell from some guy he knows in N Carolina and they are always amazing all of them. Yes it costs a lot, we have a large family who come for Christmas and it’s nice, I categorize the expense as entertaining.

    When I was poor, I would just make a “tree” each year out of something. One year the coat rack, one year on the wall in construction paper, one year I found a inflatable one like a beach ball, one year my ex cut the top off a bush & hedged it into a cone - that went on for almost 20 years, always something different. My kids didn’t mind at all, nobody ever said “you need a tree” only “cool”. You don’t need a tree. Don’t feel obligated at all.

    At work I have a wee artificial one.



  • For me, cast iron are by far my most used pans. You know how flannel starts out sort of awful but gets better and better as it gets older? That’s cast iron. Starts out sticky PITA but over time becomes satisfying satiny nonstick surface. I’ve always used them a lot so that’s how my cooking style evolved.

    We also have one steel pan we call the Stick pan, sometimes you want food to stick so you can deglaze. My kids use it for potsticker dumplings, and they like it also because it’s lighter, cast iron is heavy. And of course a rice and pasta pot, those are steel.

    I don’t buy “nonstick” pans, they don’t last and I’m not convinced they are safe.





  • No. I have had dreams that happened later in real life, precognitive (I used to set an alarm early, jot them down, and go back to sleep.) Not big, predictable events. I’d dream of someone I hadn’t seen in years, seeing them in a location, and then see them. Sometimes comically. Never in any way that was helpful.

    Most notable example, I dreamed that I went to the local bank, they had a scale to weigh people. I got on the scale but it went backwards! I turned around and saw this girl Joann who I’d not seen since middle school. Wrote that down in my dream journal.

    Couple weeks later - I am at the bank I dreamed about. I get on the scale, but it’s broken. Tells me I weigh 30lb. I turned around and who did I see? Joann, who I hadn’t seen since middle school.

    I do not say this to convince anyone. It’s my own evidence, and I personally know the dreams were precognitive, only because I wrote them down and often wonder if everyone does this, are we all dreaming the future? It really pissed me off when it happened because it made me feel like the future had essentially already happened and we had no free will.

    I guard my sleep more now and don’t do the dream journal, but do still have them somewhere. If I hadn’t written it down when I dreamed it I would have just thought I had deja vous.





  • I saw Joshua Ray Walker open for Marcus King and didn’t even like his show but looked him up and found his recorded work to be incredible, THEN he found out he had cancer and that was part of why the live show was weak, nothing to do with his music, and says he is recovering now, but I felt so uncharitable thinking the show sucked when he was dealing with something so awful.

    But anyway - I do use streaming but like you find bands other ways, opening acts, radio, sometimes Brooklyn Vegan, that site posts about bands I’ve never heard of, I listen and find stuff I like (and a lot I don’t).



  • I am an enthusiast but not a musician. So somewhere in the middle I guess? I try to go to several live shows every year, I’m aware of when someone I like puts out new music, I seek out unknown artists because I do love live performances more than recordings.

    I care enough about sound to buy Klipsch Bluetooth speakers on sale for the portable ones, all wired earbuds sound fine to me, as do the Google speakers we have paired to do stereo in the living room. I don’t have the sort of ears that can tell great from good speakers, but can’t listen to music on my phone speaker like my kids & husband can, those are so bad it bothers me.

    Music to me is art and entertainment, I don’t think I’d call it content.


  • I am similar, everyone said Oh just wait till your 30s, oh just wait till you have kids, oh just wait till your 40s but it was my 50s that the weight really did stick, and like you I am not fat by any real standard, smack dab in the middle of healthy by BMI, and probably more conventionally attractive body type with a little bit of T & A but was so attached to being skinny it is disorienting. Logically I know this size is probably healthier for my bones and I feel good and am active, but I feel like I lost part of my identity, and don’t like it.