Let me introduce you to Tirana, Albania which has done exactly as you suggest! They elected a former painter as mayor in 2000, and the rest is history. So many of the brutalist buildings in the city are now covered with bright colors, murals, patterns, and more. You can check out some before and after images here: https://blog.ted.com/9-views-of-tirana-albania-with-its-bright-multicolored-building/
Prep the frogs, make a burrito, use a pillow, thread the stems, put it in the hydration chamber, processing and stripping, cram and jam, just tube it, mechanics, so many more!
I’m a (foam-free) wedding and event florist.
An Assassins Creed game as rich as Odyssey, but set in the Mali empire. Hanging with Mansa Musa? Visiting scholars at Timbuktu? Desert frontier towns, gigantic markets within cities, and everything in between? That period of history is so fascinating and it would be incredible to have the art budget to bring it to life.
This headline is bogus; the comparison to Brexit makes no sense here. Brexit was voted on in a democratic process (for better or worse), but all of these countries currently have junta governments that were not elected, and were suspended by ECOWAS because of it. Now they are unilaterally “choosing” to leave ECOWAS, but truthfully, ECOWAS considers them illegitimate and has considered military action (though done very little). It will be interesting to see if the threat of leaving finally prompts some collective action or not.
Thank you for posting, I never really pursued this but just downloaded Airalo for an upcoming trip and I’m really excited to not pay $10/day with my carrier!!!
For sure, the deaths are simply the final outcome of a vast amount of suffering that cannot accurately be measured.
The corrosion of community, friendship, and third spaces are all well documented sociological phenomena that our country has yet to sufficiently address. Part of this is due to the decline in religious worship, which, while not a bad thing per se, does reduce a historically large source of socialization for our country. Part of this is due to the urbanization of our country over the last 30-50 years, and the hollowing out of many small towns. And of course part of it is due to the increased toxicity of our political systems, workplaces, and economic realities that limit our participation in society.
I guess all of that to say - none of this is an individual issue, it’s all systemic and part of the same sociological story. Feeling like a weird person for interacting with a stranger isn’t an isolated incident. It’s more a testament to how much has changed about our social world in the last 30-50 years.
Haha, “Happy HONK” does mean something to some of us! Totally plausible that she’s already in a HONK band…
Sometimes keeping a symptom journal or diary can help your medical providers piece things together. They are only seeing you once for 10-30 minutes, but you’re living in your body and experiencing symptoms way more frequently. Don’t log obsessively, but maybe once a day review your pain (rated 1-5) and write down any noteworthy symptoms or episodes. And as someone else mentioned, get good at condensing your medical “story” to date, including your current symptoms.
Doctors will always go for the simplest explanation, even if it’s wrong. This is how they are trained (in the west, anyway). So don’t give up! Continue insisting on a proper diagnosis. Get another opinion. See a different specialist. If you find it difficult to advocate for yourself, imagine if this was your friend. How many mountains would move to get the same answers for a dear friend? And apply that logic and compassion to yourself. Have a bestie come with you to appointments if they are willing to.
A big part of the “suck” in this process is the not knowing. Will you be in pain forever? Will you get better? Will you get worse? Is it really a mystery illness? Will you ever get a diagnosis? With chronic pain you’ll find yourself exhausted often with the effort required to ignore the pain. So feel the pain sometimes. Lean into it. You may find it’s a relief to feel it instead of trying to block it out.
It’s maybe also worth accepting that these issues may never totally resolve. If they do, great. But what if they don’t? How can you live a happy and fulfilling life (which millions of people do with chronic pain/disability) even if it stays the same?
Lastly, I want to say that you have a separate problem, which is the lack of social support you are getting from your family. They are gaslighting you about your illness - of course you know your body best and are experiencing what you say you are. You are young and may depend on them financially, so that’s a needle you have to thread. But I’d encourage you to spend more time with friends who love and believe you.
If you have access, it’s worth working with a therapist on all of this. From what you’ve described, you have been left all alone to grapple with a disability that no one can even explain. That is an awful lot for someone to hold by themselves. Whatever happens with your illness, I hope you are able to get the love and support you deserve - which may never be offered by your family.
Discount
Misfits
Flogging Molly
Bikini Kill
Clash or Rancid… I can’t decide!
People seemed to appreciate the conversation in this thread about balancing privacy with the realities of wedding business marketing: https://lemmy.ml/post/7435311
A great example of this is Not Another D&D Podcast, a comedy D&D podcast. The first campaign has a player character who sounds like she’s from Appalachia!
Our cat will follow us around the house, screaming, until we either sit with him in our lap (human heating pad) or put him in his heated bed but remain near (human security blanket). He’s a sweet cat and has arthritis, so I get it. But sometimes we gotta make dinner, bro.
Our dog will constantly and shamelessly be nearby when food is present, whether we are cooking, eating, feeding the cat, doesn’t matter. His previous owner gave him human food all the time. He completely deflates when you tell him to go lie down. When we cook, we just let him be in the way, next to the screaming cat 🤷♀️
Actually, I lied, Strike Anywhere is my 5th pick
We were just thrust into this scenario with an elderly family member, and now we have a cute senior dog. It’s going okay, but it’s been an adjustment.
First, get vet records and/or go ahead and establish care at a vet. Vets are extremely busy after everyone adopted pets during COVID - so better to go now, and make sure pup is doing okay.
Second, you’ll need the basics immediately - food, bowls, leash, collar, bags, etc. Hopefully your situation is easier and your friend can pass that stuff along.
You’ll also need to figure out potty timing. Dogs love being on a schedule. I don’t. So it may be a big adjustment to not sleep in, and to go for 5 walks a day at the same time every day. But congrats, that’s what you’re signing up for. Our dog is also a tiny breed and was never trained properly, so we are getting up at 4:30am to avoid accidents in the house. Does it suck? 100%. But we are still learning how long he can hold it overnight without an accident. We’re up to 5 hours now and we increase it a little bit each night. There may be a learning curve for you too.
Lastly, we also have an elderly cat and he’s fine as long as the dog stays ~3 feet away. The dog is terrified of him, so it’s usually fine. If he does get close, the cat hisses and growls so they mostly have a détente. I do keep any eye out on eating time, because the dog is scared to eat if the cat is like 3 feet away staring him down. We’ve also tried hard to make sure they get equal attention and love. Still, the cat isn’t thrilled about having all this hyperactive little brother energy around. We’re all just doing our best!
No, because he’s repeatedly said that he has no desire to do it, and that it’s a total indictment of our system that we are looking to a comedian for political leadership, lol. (He’s not wrong!)
My most frequent issue is that links created through an email service provider like ConvertKit will get blocked by PiHole.
I’m a small business owner and so I get a lot of other people’s newsletters, on purpose. I like seeing what mentors and colleagues are doing with their businesses. But a link to their website, a blog post, anything really will almost always be blocked by PiHole if it’s sent via an ESP. This kind of “tracking” (email clicks from a small biz I know and trust) is something I am totally fine with.
It’s easy to disable for 1 minute to click through, but sometimes I forget that the PiHole is active and I can’t figure out why the links aren’t working.
Oops, your white supremacy is showing!
Panache is the way someone does something. Charisma is whether the person doing it is likable and charming.
Ugh, yes. The joys of small businesses, alongside the rare spam call about “funding.” Thankfully these emails all go to my spam filter now! But it is super annoying.
Shostakovich, Dvorak, Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky…I guess I have a thing for the Eastern Europeans, lol. I’m a violinist and idk how to explain it really, but it’s like the Eastern European composers understand the feel of the instrument better. Or maybe the way I play is just more aligned with that style. Either way, I find their pieces are more fun and dynamic (and sometimes, also challenging) to play.
Literally me thinking of your top 3 also…I guess we have to be friends now. Good picks!!
I’m a small business owner, and I notice a lot of online entrepreneur-ish businesspeople recommending that everyone start a podcast for marketing purposes. The idea is that you get people to listen, then you get them onto your email list, then you can sell to them. It’s a low cost (but high effort) marketing funnel for people starting out.
The result is that now, every idiot who wants to “coach” people online, or sell an online class, has a miserable podcast. I’m sure the raw podcast #s reflect a lot of 8-episode abandoned shows because Becky couldn’t sell her online hair styling course and quit.
I wrote out a long comment, but there are loads of people trying to change this industry for the better. 78% of all flowers in the US are imported and it’s a huge problem. I hope you’re able to always buy locally grown flowers from small farms like we do. (Many of whom also grow vegetables.) In our area, housing developers buying up arable farmland are the biggest challenge to small scale farms.
I don’t manage our PiHole, so easier said than done. I’m the non tech spouse (although not clicking ads or on TikTok all day, lol) but I can’t bug my spouse in the middle of the day to whitelist something for me. I can easily disable it myself and it takes 10 seconds. I could learn how to whitelist, but TBH I have enough tech to keep up with for the business already.
That feels so quaint now. A weird scream was enough to tank a campaign. Or John Kerry being a “flip-flopper.” Our politics have gotten so much worse it’s kind of astonishing.
If you image search it you will find all kinds of cool stuff! Even better if you get a chance to wander around Tirana and find hidden ones!
My husband has been slowly replacing stuff with Myles Apparel. He’s a weightlifter, so finding clothes that fit his quads (and allows him to still, you know, move) is a tall order. No ripping, tearing, funky workout stink, or any other issues so far! Also looks like they can ship internationally.
One of the most intense and fun punk shows I have ever been to - surprised the walls stayed standing!
Me too!!! I still play through it once a year or so and listen to the soundtrack all the time. My favorite game of all time; one of my favorite pieces of art of all time. Guess I’m due for another round!
I can’t tell if you’re joking, but apologies if this should have had a TW.
Oh, that’s so great that the dog is trained to signal to go out. I hope it’s an easier time for you, too! Best of luck!
Yes. This is the result of a privatized health system where the only outcome that matters is profit. Doctors write enough opioid prescriptions each year for 46% of Americans to receive one. (Source: https://drugabusestatistics.org/opioid-epidemic/)
It’s absolute madness, but I do think the prescribing is getting better slowly. Unfortunately, the massive jumps in ODs seem very related to fentanyl taking over an illicit drug market that used to be primarily heroin and rx opiates. When I worked on national drug use surveys ~8 years ago, fentanyl was not a part of the landscape at all. Things have changed so quickly.
Ugh yes, nailed it!
Yes! (Also, hi fellow NADDpole! There’s at least two of us here! Lol)
I should have linked that too, but yes, he’s great!!
I get what you’re saying! Never was great at music theory either, but Bach indeed uses a lot of techniques in his composing to create the layers you’re referring to, where there is clarity but complexity. Sometimes it’s a melody mirrored or reversed, sometimes it’s the way themes repeat across and within parts, sometimes it’s a well timed key change, but there’s an often mathematical approach to the composition that you don’t find in other composers (or at least, done as well). I find Bach to be a bit boring to play, but it’s like violin comfort food lol.
In my opinion, it would require a lot of policy changes on a national level (paid family leave, basic income/safety net things like expanding WIC and food stamps, universal healthcare including mental health and drug treatment, regulating social media for teens, stopping the use of fossil fuels, etc. - the wishlist is long!) as well as local investment in things like community centers, community events, support for parents, and small business.
We have plenty of money to do all of this, our leaders just choose not to. We need better leaders and/or a better system for electing them. And at this point, I don’t know how we get better leaders when a significant proportion of the country is in a cult.
Haha for real! At least we have some self awareness left.
No, I’m not referencing my original comment. I meant I drafted a detailed response to the water/arable land/invasives complaint about the entire cut flower industry, and all the orgs/lobbying efforts re: farmland and ag policy we are working on to change it, but deleted it.
To bring a slightly different perspective here: we’re not coping.
Our suicide rate has increased 60% since 2011 among youth and young adults. Rates of mental illness have doubled in young people. About 1 in 5 young people in this country will experience depression.
Our rates of overdose deaths have doubled since 2011. Over 100,000 people died from drug use in this country in 2021.
One in five of our kids go hungry. One in five Americans live with mental illness.
When you look at these data they are absolutely alarming and the opposite of most other countries, whose rates are falling. We are not coping, people are just dying these “deaths of despair.”