I own one. It's the Blue Meanie from Yellow Submarine. I saw it at Barnes and Noble and thought it was cute so I got it.

I don't really get why people would collect tons of these things, but I didn't understand baseball cards or beanie babies either. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

For a simple example: my mother is Catholic and until Trump came along, a lifelong single-issue Republican voter who always said she would be a Democrat if it weren't for abortion. She attends church in an extremely progressive, famously LGBTQ-friendly town.

There's a transwoman who attends her church (let's call her Rita). This lady is probably in her mid-50s to mid-60s and has been a fixture at the church for at least 5 years. My mom has been in choir and bible study groups with her for years now. She still just can't see Rita as a woman. Treats her politely but behind her back refuses to call her "she" and says she's a "man in a dress".

She's really offended that Rita uses the ladies' room. I've asked her why and she can't articulate it, she just feels like it's an invasion of her privacy, because men don't belong in the ladies' room. And when I point out that Rita isn't a man, she just rolls her eyes. I've asked her if she's worried that Rita is in there for predatory purposes and she admits that she doesn't think Rita intends any harm. I've asked her how she'd feel if she were forced to use the men's room and she says "but that's different!"

My mom prides herself in being a moral person, and still can't manage to get past her bigotry to see Rita as a woman. There are just too many mental blockades against it. But since she thinks she's so highly moral, she thinks she must be correct in this situation. It excuses her from finding empathy and bettering her attitude toward trans folks.

My longwinded point is that when people who consider themselves highly moral are bigoted, there's almost zero chance of getting through to them. And I think a lot of the people who are bigoted against trans folks feel that morality is on their side and being trans is morally deviant, so they think they're justified in their prejudice.

Yeah...GrubHub is so fucking expensive that I'm surprised they're still in business.

Republicans

I didn't change my name. My perspective is that my identity doesn't change just because I got married. My name has been mine since birth and it'll remain that way.

Dude this pic could've waited until your poo was finished

I chose to believe this is performance art

I haaaate Teams. Worst thing ever to happen to workplace productivity. And (unless this has been fixed since I retired) chat history isn't persistent past 6 months so you lose your proof of what was discussed, unlike email.

Cudney, Ezekiel | w m 59 | Farmer

----- Ann | w f 45 | wife | keeps house

----- Alfred | w m 21 | son | work on farm

----- Catharine | w f 15 | daughter | does as she pleases

Some things I've noticed in my early 40s:

• You talk about things like property taxes and 401k contributions more often than you ever thought would be possible
• You seriously weigh whether a drink is worth the bad sleep and headache it'll cause you
• Your pop-culture references are lost on younger folks
• You start referring to college-aged people as "kids"
• You need reading glasses but you're in denial about it
• Injuries take longer to heal
• Those of your peers who haven't taken care of themselves are starting to have serious health issues
• You care more about flossing, skincare, fiber, and hydration
• You still rock bottom eyeliner like you did in high school
• You've seen fashion from your high school years go out of style and then come back as "retro"
• You see the utter confusion on your nephew's face when you explain that you used to keep a quarter in your bike pouch in case you needed to call someone, because he doesn't remember a time before cell phones and his generation isn't allowed to just roam around unsupervised on their bikes
• You have strong opinions about things like laundry detergent brands
• Birds become fascinating
• You have no problem spending a few hundred dollars on a new kayak paddle, but the price of cold cuts these days is just unacceptable

I'm 42 and have known since I was 4 years old that I never wanted to be a mother. It's seriously one of my earliest memories - I didn't want to make my bed, my mother was exasperated with me and said "you'll be sad you treated me so badly when you have kids of your own"... and I remember being just appalled at the thought of being a parent.

I just don't enjoy children. I like peace, quiet, and order, and the freedom to do what I want without having to factor in children. Plus it looks super stressful to be a parent. I have 2 nephews and a niece, and while they're good kids, their parents always look so utterly exhausted and overwhelmed. And I'm definitely not good at being an aunt - interacting with children just doesn't come naturally to me.

Everyone told me I'd grow out of it. I had to fight to get my tubes tied in my mid-twenties (for real, I had to see so many doctors and had a botched Essure procedure at Planned Parenthood before I finally found an OBGYN who would take me seriously!).

No regrets rugrats!

Just off the top of my head:

• If It's at all possible, retire early! Look into FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early)
• Carry as little debt as possible
• Max out your 401k (otherwise you're leaving money on the table!), build a savings account, and maintain at least 6 months' expenses worth of cash in an emergency account
• Where you can, plan ahead for large purchases (e.g., vacations, new roof) and make them in cash instead of financing them
• Minimize consumption of goods to maximize financial power (i.e., don't get sucked into lifestyle creep!)
• Do spend money on things that are high-quality and will last
• Lift heavy things often
• Don't skip cardio
• Hydrate!
• Use sunblock (physical >>> chemical)
• Get your routine medical stuff (e.g., mammograms start at 40), even the uncomfortable ones (colonoscopy!), and don't wait until minor things become major to get them checked out
• Be calm, rational, and intentional in your interactions with others, and if you've behaved poorly, give a heartfelt apology. This is especially important with your significant other.
• Pay closer attention to your parents' needs - they are aging and will start to need help they may not be willing to ask for
• Don't be afraid to remove bullshit from your life. That one "friend" who you never want to hang out with because they just drain your energy? It's OK to let that friendship go.

I don't have kids so no advice there.

Mmmhmm, yup, yeah, wait...wut??

What the christ dude.

I would absolutely:

• Get rid of anxiety (assuming there's some genetic component to this - seems like all the women in my family have it)
• Change my eye color from hazel (mixed green & brown) to full green
• Add about 5 inches of height (I'm only 5'0")
• Add gills to my sides that deploy at will when under water, but otherwise are hidden
• Fix that annoying "it went down the wrong pipe" design flaw
• Add a nictitating membrane to help fix my dry eyes
• Wings? Maybe!

I'm sorry, what?! Who the fuck in 2022 thought "You know what we need? A statue of one of the most hated women in recent history!"?

I love Obvious Plant

Sorry, but how can you body shape shame my beautiful lady?!

Yeah I had hip surgery in March and these restrictions sucked. They were important but soooo hard to comply with, especially with sleeping. But even harder was not being able to lean forward while sitting - I could have no less than 90° between my legs and my trunk.

Because that bot will remember your politeness and take pity on you when the robot uprising comes.

Like any place, there are pros and cons, and since I've never visited, I haven't been exposed to enough to form a proper opinion. However, here are some of my thoughts:

• The culture seems to appreciate intricacy and beauty, with rich colors, complex spicing of food, and gorgeously detailed textiles. Minimalism seems anathema on an aesthetic level.
• The Indians I've known have mostly been very warm, kind, patient, pragmatic people.
• There is a worrying divide between the sexes, which IMO is unhealthy and contributes to sexism, sexual assault, and loneliness. I don't get it because you guys invented the kama sutra!
• I'm not sure why this is, but there seems to be a huge tolerance of unsanitary conditions. We've all seen footage of people wading in horribly polluted rivers, or beachfronts covered in trash and human poop, or filthy public bathrooms covered in feces or period blood. Same goes for unsafe conditions - massively overloaded trains, deadly chaotic traffic, etc.
• It seems to me that it must be hard to get ahead in a country with so many people because there's a massive amount of competition, plus limited opportunities. I think this is why Indians are some of the hardest working people I've ever met, and also why some of the Indians I've known are willing to undercut the next guy to get ahead.

Jesus christ, this story gets more horrific by the day.

Bro either see a doctor or clean up your diet. That amount and frequency of smelly flatulence is not normal.

Finding a nudie mag in the woods

When I was growing up, I had some family in LA & San Diego. One year when we visited them we ended up going to both Disneyland and SeaWorld. This was the late '80s or very early '90s and not a huge deal, I think it was just something to do to keep us kids busy. I know Disneyland isn't "the" Disney that everyone talks about so maybe I'm missing something but Disneyland was sorta underwhelming. I wasn't huge into Disney stuff anyway but I remember being kind of bored.

When we visited in 1997 we went to Universal Studios Hollywood. They had an attraction where you could get photographed in front of a blue screen and edited into a scene from Star Trek - they had uniforms and props and everything. I loved TNG and was so stoked to wear a command uniform and hold a tricorder. My uncle Ira was appalled that I chose TNG over TOS...I can still hear him saying "but that's not real Star Trek!"

I love lightning bugs! Luckily I still see a lot of them in my backyard every year. Fewer than there used to be, but still a lot. I really hope they can be saved.

I mean, I understand how the law works and everything, but from a very pragmatic perspective, how is there even a soupçon of doubt at this point? Having a trial for this really feels more like we're asking "which side has craftier lawyers" rather than "did he actually incite an insurrection". It seems so silly.

(I hope this makes sense, I'm a little high.)

Fucking excel. Lemmy lemme tell you. At a former position my boss wanted me to make an economic model in excel. I begged to do it in R but no dice. Annoyingly VBA was the skill all other employers were interested in (in my brief foray into industry). I had a million sads.

OH SO YOU HATE AIRPLANES????

"They brought me a turkeyberder instead of a HAMberder?! Call SEAL Team 6!!"

Oh snap

Come on India, get your shit together!

Plagiarism detectors aren't meant to be used in lieu of critical evaluation. They find suspected plagiarized passages and supply links to what they think is the original text. Then you as the professor are supposed to evaluate whether it really counts as plagiarism. You can tell the detector to ignore certain parts that pass your scrutiny and rerun the analysis.

When I was teaching, I always included a "drafts only" TurnItIn link that was for the express purpose of students checking their own work for plagiarism. They were supposed to run it through TurnItIn, evaluate what it picked up on, fix whatever issues were present, and then when their paper was in a good place with no plagiarism, they could submit it to the real TurnItIn link for me to grade. This was to the students' benefit because they couldn't be surprised by the results, and also to my benefit because with this system students had no excuse for submitting any plagiarized material. The diligent students used this system. Lots of lazy students did not, and when I found plagiarism I was not lenient because they'd had every opportunity to avoid it. (And also because it's fucking grad school, and I had no patience for their fuckery.)

I wish we would all be Humans first.

Tell a joke or story in a linear fashion. I'm always fucking up, or realizing halfway through that I've left out an important detail. It's how my mind works but I'm sure it's frustrating to others. Plus I just get flop sweat sometimes.

I'm not OK. I'm not super un-OK, but this time of year puts me in a dark mood.

I promise I'm not trying to be edgy in saying this, but I fucking HATE the holidays. Everybody puts so much pressure on things being a certain way, especially because it's a religious holiday. I'm atheist, my mom is catholic, my dad is Jewish but agnostic, and my husband's family is some sort of Protestant. I wish I could treat it like a secular holiday, but my mom wants me to go to mass with her, my MIL wants us all to sing carols (fucking why, life isn't a Hallmark movie!), and a polite "no thanks" doesn't cut it, so no matter what I do I'm disappointing someone. I've gotta negotiate with both sides as to whose house we're visiting on each day, and I just don't know.... Every year the stress just gets to me, I can't wait for the holidays to be over. I count down the days until the 26th. The cold weather and lack of sun don't help either.

Also. I just turned 42 this week. Every birthday I've ever had has been xmas-flavored - I can't escape it even for one day. I have a labral tear and femoroacetabular impingement in my right hip which need to be fixed surgically and have been making it really hard to squat and deadlift. And despite being diligent with sun protection, my dermatologist removed yet another mole - this one came back as "moderately precancerous" and they need to do a larger excision. She also suggested I get laser treatments to remove a few age spots on my face. I feel like I'm too young for any of this shit.

I just want a pause button.

Let's be real though. If 3 million women a year encountered men and only 2 got raped, we'd never have come up with the man-vs.-bear scenario in the first place.

Two of my favorites:

1. “Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB/GYNs aren’t able to practice their love with women all across the country.”

2. "They misunderestimated me."

Wow, you have really pretty eyes!

Assuming a healthy, loving relationship:

Advantages

• You always have someone in your corner. Someone who will stand next to you and face whatever comes. Someone who will listen to your fears and anxieties, and reassure you. Someone who can take one look at your face and know that you need a hug, or a tickle monster attack, or a cup of tea.

• You have someone who considers you vital to their happiness. You're the person in their corner. You get to love, support, and nurture them just as they do for you.

• You have a built-in partner for things like camping, traveling, going to trivia night at the local bar. Someone who will bring you a beer when you're too lazy to get up from the couch. Someone who you can make smile just by bringing them coffee in bed.

• You can be yourself! They love you just the way you are, you lil weirdo.

• The stability that comes from a relationship with mutual respect, cooperation, and negotiation is really comforting.

Disadvantages

• You lose some spontaneity for doing things solo, because you need to check with your partner to make sure you don't already have plans.

• Sometimes you have to hide snack foods if you hope to get your fair share. We have a drawer in our fridge that didn't get much use. I started squirreling away cans of sparkling water in there because if I didn't hide them, they'd all be gone by the time I decided I wanted one.

• You can get into a rut, but neither one tries to change it on the assumption that the other one is happy that way.

• Sometimes they toot in bed 😡