not the guy you asked, but I just got a trike.
there are definitely options to address the carry capacity with a bike, but I haven’t seen anything to assist with balance.
my grandparents have passed away now, but when i knew them they were unfailingly polite in public.
in private, Grandma had reservations about japanese people. i gave her leeway. Pearl Harbor was bombed on her birthday, and Grandpa went to Iwo Jima. i still felt i could bring a japanese boyfriend around, and as long as i was happy, he’d be treated right. Grandpa didn’t even suggest reservations. he took everyone as an individual worthy of respect until their behavior suggested differently.
my parents are in their 60s now, but i don’t have contact with them for other reasons. the last time i looked at my mom’s twitter i thought she had been hacked, the MAGA rhetoric she was spewing was so awful. not hacked, just an asshole.
you mean the thing where people, often women, have spent decades trying to expose the abuse happening in private homes, and trying to get it addressed?
because that’s what happened. women’s voices, speaking about marital rape and domestic abuse. getting the political power to change laws, to make it illegal, and give domestic victims the means to escape. it also surfaced the child abuse, again. it’s just not been buried again yet.
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.
I had ferrets for a while. they liked to steal and hide things. you learn to check under the couch weekly just so you don’t find things by smell. and hope it’s not somehow inside the couch.
mostly it was the one guy, who preferred his chips and sweets, but knew his sister liked other things. she didn’t eat tomatoes or apples or fruit, but he’d carry that stinky orange down stairs for her, lips peeled back so he didn’t have to taste it too much.
it depends. I live in a studio, I still have a kitchen trash and bathroom trash, paper towels and cleansers in both. it’s just easier knowing I’ll always have quick access to clean up a mess. like cat vomit.
ideally I’d also have a flashlight and first aid kit stashed in both places, but those have been less necessary and so fell off the critical re-supply list.
then the correct answer from the Dr should’ve been a referral to a gyno, not “that shouldn’t be treated yet in my medical opinion”.
and she may not have realized it was perimenopause when she went to the Dr. fatigue and migraines alone could easily sap libido and be completely unrelated to anything “down there”.
not the guy you asked, but also .01%. I read. a lot. and I pretty much always have. mostly science fiction and fantasy, but I pick up the occasional nonfiction.
books were always around the house when I was a kid, and we went to the library a lot. my grandma taught me to read before I started school, so that’s about 40 years of exposure.
so nearly everything on that test, I’ve encountered in context and at least have a fuzzy idea what it could mean.
in my experience, there’s not even as much consistency therapist to therapist, psychiatrist to psychiatrist, as there is in the rest of the medical field.
I love my psychiatrist, but what I love is that she’s very much about staying up to date and knowing what she’s prescribing, and probing to see if it’s working (I am a terrible judge the worse off I am. no, really, it’s fine, I can just wake up a little earlier and add a panic attack to my morning routine, don’t change my drugs. huh…ok, since we upped the dose, I haven’t had a panic attack, I guess that was a good idea.)
I like this. in my family, I figured it out at about 3 or 4, promptly told the 2 year old, and broke the reality to the next two before they could even start to believe there was a real Santa.
instead, Santa was the spirit of Christmas, so any of us could be Santa if we gave presents with no expectation of recognition or a return gift. much more Secret Santa than magical man leaving presents.
this did lead to several years where the youngest would give away all their toys, only to then reclaim them after presents were opened. generosity isn’t an easy concept for the pre-schoolers.
she doesn’t drink tea (yet), but she does know head butting my hand when I’m holding a cup is a bad idea!
My cat recognizes the tea kettle whistle as time to get off my lap. “Up” and “Down” mean the same thing (you need to get down so I can get up).
She’s not the brightest, but a warning that she needs to move means I get clawed less.
I think there’s a human bias towards certainty, to believing in true facts. research is work, and when it undermines personal certainty, there’s an urge to just go with whoever does seem to be most certain. if you can’t be sure of the facts on a personal level, go with the guy who is loudest and most certain. and because people seeking to relay truth will make room for doubt, conspiracy theory guy wins.
understanding probability helps here - if 90% of climatologists are 90% sure of climate change, their doubt doesn’t make climate hoax guy right. the podcast 538 covers politics, but goes into polling theory, statistics, and probability in ways that make it easier for me to understand and apply in other areas.
I’m in my mid 40s, high school in Missouri. I wouldn’t say they taught media literacy, and despite having a computer lab with the internet, it wasn’t considered.
Research was finding sources to cite for a paper and was a big chunk of the grade in English one year. They did cover what were considered reputable sources, but that meant published non-fiction, news reports, and maybe firsthand accounts (consider the source reputation). They seemed to assume we knew the difference between, say, a real newspaper and a tabloid, or the difference between Channel 5 News and Jerry Springer. The idea that the NY Times or Channel 5 News might have bias in how they presented things, and in what they chose to present, wasn’t considered at all.
Since this was taught in English, it was much more about using proper citations, not full plagiarism, and writing persuasively. I know I couldn’t find enough actual books on my topic in the school or public libraries, so I padded my reference list with the list the encyclopedia used. It worked fine.
To be fair, I do still use questions i learned from that research paper to evaluate info. am I seeing the same info across multiple sources, including high quality ones? can I trace it to an original source, and how much do I trust that source? can I find several high quality, independent sources for a particular thing?
I’ve had several ferrets, and intelligence definitely varies in them, but it’s impressive what their little raisin brains can manage. watching them figure out a puzzle was the most fun.
but it wasn’t always fun. I had a ferret with some serious attitude, and he and my sister didn’t get along. one day, she shoved him aside with her foot and called him a little shithead. later that day, we found her phone, in it’s nice leather case, in his litterbox. he knew exactly how to get even.
same little guy would push open the bathroom door if he could, see I was ‘occupied’, and then get up to whatever bad idea was the current favorite. it took me a bit to catch on, but I got it after the cute little weasel poked in, then went and dragged a family size bag of m&ms under my roommate’s dresser, leaving a trail from my room to hers. little pest knew he had plenty of time before I could catch him at it.
“Hey, I need to use my lunch break to get away from work things/have some quiet down time. Give me a break and I’ll be better for the afternoon.” Subjects you don’t want to discuss: “Oooh, that doesn’t seem like a topic appropriate for work. What about [thing you are comfortable discussing, work thing].”
I highly recommend becoming very willing to spend time discussing one personal thing so they feel like they’re making a connection. I use my pets, but you can use a sports team as some others suggest, or a hobby you don’t mind sharing, like your progress on painting minis/knitting that sweater/book you’re reading/ latest album from favorite musician. Extroverts want a connection, give them a little and redirect to that thing when they probe.
If your boss persists in bothering you at lunch, ask if you should clock in since this is a work discussion, or if it’s really your personal time to use as you wish.
If they persist in bringing up wildly inappropriate topics like sex, say that you’re uncomfortable. Make it obvious they’re being weird at work. saying “I don’t like discussing my sexual preferences at work”, or similar, loud enough for others in the breakroom to hear should make them uncomfortable. if that doesn’t get you anywhere, there are protections in the US for some things. go to HR, explain you’ve tried explicitly telling them not to talk to you about whatever inappropriate topic, and it’s continuing. Call out that you’re feeling harassed by them continuing to bring up this subject that is not work related. HR might want to try a mediated discussion about it; 1 is reasonable, multiple is not.
if it gets to where you need HR and are worried about your legal rights, find a local worker’s rights lawyer to provide advice. they should be able to tell you what is reasonable effort from the company to fix the situation. be prepared to lose your job if it gets this far.
you shouldn’t have to discuss sex at work as small talk. it can come up in some jobs (medicine, sex work) but shouldn’t be in most workplaces, and there are protections from this kind of harassment in the US.