cleanandsunny

We have similar taste and you need to listen to Kalush (and Kalush Orchestra) - Ukrainian hip hop! The “Orchestra” group has more folk influences but all of it is just banger after banger. I don’t understand a word of Ukrainian but I love these guys.

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.”

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/

I don’t know about the notes, but I wanted to say that it takes time and effort to unlearn this idea that we are supposed to be productive all the time. This is a lie that many powerful people want us to internalize so we work ourselves to death, and it’s very insidious and omnipresent. It’s become a perverse “value” in our society at large and something to be proud of.

But you are not a machine. You’re a person. And that means you need and deserve rest and comfort.

You have inherent worth outside of your productivity, how hard you work, or how much money you make.

Those metrics don’t tell us anything about how you are as a person, your values, your kindness, your strengths, the joy you bring others.

ALL of that stuff has value. Real true value. You have to start challenging these beliefs about your worthiness. Because you are already worthy.

Some further reading/resources:

1. The Body Is Not An Apology
2. Rest is Resistance
3. Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle

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.

I think others have covered the economies of scale and niche products creating the disparity.

But I wanted to suggest that if your grandpa is regularly eating gluten free bread, we have found that making it at home is SO much more affordable than buying a loaf at the store. (Even though gluten free flour is also more expensive.) Most of the gluten free flours have their own sandwich bread recipe, either on the bag or their website. I don’t know what flours you have access to, but they can be wildly different blends, so using their tested recipes is always best.

We’ve mastered our favorite so it takes only 15 minutes of “work” and then just time in the oven. It’s also much better than store bought! I don’t know if that’s possible for you, but it could be a lovely weekly ritual for you and your grandpa.

Also, to anyone suggesting we just eat rice and beans, I’m an old celiac. We went without bread, pasta, cake, pastries, cookies, brownies, pizza, and crackers before these products came to market. These are mostly “fun” foods that I don’t eat regularly, but usually pop up in social situations. Do you know how many sad birthdays with no cake we’ve had? How often we’ve watched our friends and family eat things we could never have? I am so grateful to the “fad” gluten free people who made it possible to have culturally/socially important foods we were missing out on for decades!!

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.

Not a “song” per se, but Black Thought freestyling effortlessly for like 10 minutes straight is impressive AF: https://youtu.be/prmQgSpV3fA

For context, that show asks everybody to freestyle and some refuse, some do a few bars, but nobody goes for 10 minutes, lol.

For an actual song, and you wanna talk art, Blackalicious - Attica Black. Really love the sampling and the musicality of it, there are so many layers and it’s fun to listen to. https://youtu.be/qHRxorG8ABs

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.

Discount

Misfits

Flogging Molly

Bikini Kill

Clash or Rancid… I can’t decide!

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.

Haha, “Happy HONK” does mean something to some of us! Totally plausible that she’s already in a HONK band…

https://honkfest.org/ https://honkfestwest.org/

People seemed to appreciate the conversation in this thread about balancing privacy with the realities of wedding business marketing: https://lemmy.ml/post/7435311

Our 15 year old has a new habit of coming into the kitchen every time we do, and stretching out directly in the middle of the walkway so he is in the way at all times. We have a pretty decent sized space, but he’s a very long cat when he wants to be. I feel like he defies the laws of physics because I don’t understand how he’s in the way literally everywhere. It makes me crazy.

So when we cook, which is usually 2-3 times a day, it’s like, need to open the oven? Cat. Need to get into the fridge? Cat! Sink? Cat. Oh, I need to dry my hands? Cat. We have definitely stepped on him by accident since he started doing this, but he’s still undeterred. He has bad arthritis, so I don’t mind when he sits in front of the oven when it’s on, because at least that one makes sense. (He has multiple heated beds too; don’t feel bad for him.) But it’s like, I would love to be able to grab water from the kitchen or feed the dog or do literally anything in there without almost stepping on my cat.

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 🤷‍♀️

Willpower IS a thing and there is some really interesting research about how it is an exhaustible psychological “resource” we have! In other words, we can exercise our willpower up to a point, but it’s not infinite. Highly recommend reading “Switch” by Chip and Dan Health which goes into willpower as a concept if you are interested in this.

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!

If you can, look into local jewelers who can craft you something handmade with ethically sourced stones. I’m in Seattle and we have Valerie Madison who does great engagement sets and Everling Jewelry who uses recycled metals. A local artist will be able to recommend something within your budget, and your SO can and should be involved, as another poster mentioned.

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!

Actually, I lied, Strike Anywhere is my 5th pick

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.

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!)

Panache is the way someone does something. Charisma is whether the person doing it is likable and charming.

Oops, your white supremacy is showing!

Literally me thinking of your top 3 also…I guess we have to be friends now. Good picks!!

Oh yes, ours is a chair thief too! Little stinkers.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

If anyone has ever worked or talked with a refugee or asylum seeker, none of this is surprising. The US gives so little assistance to resettling refugees that it’s truly embarrassing.

They get three months of bare minimum help - often through religious “resettlement” groups who receive the funds. After three months, they are expected to get a job, pay their own rent, navigate life in the US (including driving), and speak English well enough to do all of that.

They get almost no extra healthcare, rent assistance, food assistance, trauma therapy, or anything else beyond that point unless they are able to navigate the systems to do so. And to be honest, that is difficult enough for someone born here. It’s almost impossible for a new refugee. What little assistance they do get after the first 90 days is often due to community and church groups, not the US government.

Theoretically, they have case workers etc. through the resettlement agencies, but it’s a total mess. It’s an absolute disgrace, and we can and should be doing better to support refugees and asylum seekers. Especially if they are going to get dumped in a small town with no resources. I really understand residents’ frustrations, but I also hope this ugly episode teaches people how woefully inadequate our refugee program is - and helps them advocate for change! We can do better.

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.

I always find that starting any new job is exhausting! There is so much to learn - not even the “work” itself, but processes, personalities, and systems that differ from workplace to workplace. Unless you are struggling hard financially, give yourself some time. For me, it takes at least 4-6 months in a new job to feel ready to add something else. (Now that I own my own business, it’s just adding the next thing in the business…then 4-6 months later, the next thing…). You will have to feel out your own balance and where you can draw the line. I don’t think it’s a bad idea to make more money, if that’s a goal. But you can’t do it at the expense of your sanity, relationships, health, etc. Make it sustainable.

I’m in the US for context, but have lived all over the world, and don’t participate in the hustle culture here. I work hard for my clients and there are crunch times, but on average it’s about 30-35 hours a week. That’s a sweet spot for me! I hope you find yours.

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!