I guess it always felt the same to me as when they said I’d eventually want a baby.

When I was younger and living in a conservative area, it seemed like I was broken. where people often started conversations by asking about my husband/boyfriend/crush before hitting oh, you must be one of those weird women who doesn’t want husband/house/kids. a lesbian. (you’ll obviously eventually want sex and progeny. to do otherwise is just… immature, especially in a woman.)

When I was older and had moved to an area with a lot more different kinds of folks and it came up less, it’s just who I am. if some wiseass thinks they know better about how I feel - well, they’re definitely not relationship material. not even friends.

and it’s a spectrum. I currently have a partner I see every 6-8 weeks, which works for us. but for decades it would be easier to say I was ace than try to explain the circumstances where that might change.

my Dr said to expect a couple weeks when I go off it, if I ever do. and supposedly the all the way off is worse than just going down

oh my gosh. I was starting to think this was something I made up. you totally made my day.

when I was a kid, we had Biggles taped from TV so we could play it (vcr) all the time. it was one of the movies we could all agree on, and it just had part of a label with something that I was pretty sure was Biggles scribbled on it. the time travel shtick is definitely why my mom taped it, and probably why we enjoyed it (not exactly war movie kids, but we’d watch anything vaguely science fiction).

but now no one else in my family remembers it, so I thought it might be a Mandela effect thing.

I finally switched away from the across the street Walgreens because they never filled a prescription until I stood in line to pick it up. online refill of anxiety meds, never notified they filled it but the notifications are glitchy, go in 2 days later and it’s not filled. call for refill of the same meds, same issue. and it seemed like every other person in line had the same problem.

Bartells is more of a walk, but I don’t have to beg them to fill my prescriptions.

quoting from your link: No reductions were statistically significant. Only one difference [re:disease] was statistically significant.

plus it was done by a pro-vegan group with obvious bias. so the results from the pro-vegan funded study are not terribly good at supporting veganism for cats as more healthy. it’s about the same, maybe less disease (severity of disease wasn’t covered in the abstract but would be a significant part of a decision). show me a study not funded by a pro-vegan group with similar or better results before I consider feeding my pet a diet very different from their natural diet.

I’ve always had anxiety issues, and got to the point of panic attacks before I got help. my psychiatrist says that breakthrough anxiety is normal, when there’s something especially stressful. it’s not something to beat or get past.

since it seems like part of what is causing (perfectly natural) anxiety is that you don’t know what to expect, why don’t you reach out to the dentist to ask what to expect? maybe do a little research, if that won’t send you panicking about the worst case scenarios you come across?

anxiety helps us look and plan for all sorts of future scenarios. if you can’t eliminate it, try to direct it into things you can plan and prepare for. and if it’s still interfering a lot with your life, talk to your Dr about changing the meds.

that’s not what’s meant. they mean, how long you’ve had an account with them, whether you have multiple accounts or loans with the institution, if you’ve been late in paying or carried very minimal balances or have a history of harassing customer service to the point customer service felt the need to record it.

it’s your relationship with the institution, not the ceo, and whether you’ve been a good customer or not really.

I’ve allowed my partner to refer to me as girlfriend to make discussion with others easier. I don’t love it, it doesn’t sound like a longterm adult relationship, but I recognize it’s easier to say “my wife and my girlfriend”.

and both of us go to family Christmas, though not everyone needs to know relationship status.

… you’re absolutely right about the scheduling thing though.

there’s a whole 2 of us! seriously though, if there’s pink it gives me a stomach ache. as I’ve gotten older I can just about tolerate a medium well, but I still prefer well done.

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.

I was in medical billing about 20 years ago, specifically working to get ambulance billing paid by United Healthcare, Blue Cross, whatever. at that time I hated united slightly more than the VA. the VA was a year behind on payment, and they sent a lump check with the list of what it covered separate. but at least they kept track and paid.

we had to take United Healthcare to the insurance commissioner because their process was deny, then lose the claim, then deny for late billing.

instead of responding to the insurance commissioner or providing the requested docs or anything, they waited it out, paid the fine, paid the specific claims, and continued as usual.

so yeah. AI working the way they trained it.

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.

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.

guinea pigs are potatoes. usually you look for the ears, but on a curly multicolor those can be hard to find :)

Roxy (cat) and Jasper (guinea pig)

wide shallow bowl. she’ll eat to the bottom on the right side, then complain even though the left side is untouched. some cats are just special.

I dunno - none of my brothers are really my best friend level now we’re adults. we’re friends, we enjoy time together, but not my best friend, not the person I go to with fears and worries, hopes and dreams.

but absolutely best “grabs a shovel and a car when I say I have a body to bury” emergency backup. the brother who doesn’t respond for 2 weeks to a social invite (“hey, sorry I missed your message about last week”) is always there when I say I have an emergency.

when we had a lot of cats and the occasional intruder cat, “duels” between one of ours and one intruder were most common. meet on neutral territory, hurl insults, maybe there’s an attack but maybe not. and only after sufficient insults.

this was a specifically male behavior, too. we got a young female cat, and the 2 older males were horrified when she came and jumped their opponent. she was very no holds barred, get off my lawn, don’t mess with my guys. a different time, a different young female cat was equally willing to jump in swinging claws and skip the insults.

typically the other male cats would be hanging around, observing and jumping in only if things moved from neutral ground to their territory.

I’d say it’s about $15-20 for an average lunch here, in Seattle. transit is fairly cheap, $5.50 to and from work unless you live far enough to go through a couple zones, at which point I think it’s still under $8 round trip.