They are just propagandized. In general, it’s so much like racists - they may know trans people and just think they are the exceptions, like them as individuals and still think they hate them as a group. They are intentionally riled up by being forced fed edge cases and disinformation.

Trans people are just people. They aren’t angels who are never criminals and they aren’t degenerates who are always criminal, they are a diverse group like all of us are. But you can bet your ass that whenever a trans person does something criminal it will be blown up so big in conservative media and used to paint them all as criminals. It’s just the right wing media machine.

Marquise, is that you?

My kids love these meals and I’m not sure why. I usually say “watch me pull a rabbit out of this hat!” and throw something together. Unless it’s a stir fry, they don’t like that. But a leftover baked potato becoming home fries with eggs and the half a tomato and half an onion from the fridge? The leftover cabbage going into the last handful of lentils for a stew? Casserole of leftover pasta, odds and ends with cheese, topped with bread crumbs? They are so happy with these oddball meals for some reason, and I think if you can make something with whatever you have, that IS a valuable cooking skill.

The second part of that comment sounds like you are a culinary enthusiast not a survivalist. Like, I grow stuff in the garden to get better, fresher foods and varieties I don’t see in the store, and also for the local bees Saving money is secondary(tertiary?), though I think at this point the lines may have crossed and we are saving some money. I do it because I like good food.

If I lived where there was more to forage, you can bet your ass I would be foraging too. Wild food is awesome.

I do have a cocktails hobby, but would file it under “cooking”. Not being drunk as a hobby but creating something delicious is so satisfying. I don’t enjoy being drunk but do like a drink, make one 1 to 3 times a week for me and always something great for parties/entertaining.

I almost think it insulates against alcoholism the same way caring about good and delicious food insulates against overweight - I don’t really ever drink just to drink, or eat mindlessly. I make intentional meals, intentional drinks, and enjoy them.

I think it’s collecting vs reading. I’m a lady and read comics, well graphic novels, I don’t buy the individual issues. Half my bookshelf is graphic novels trade paperbacks. But I do not collect, trade, sell, I don’t think of them like that, they are for reading and enjoying.

Collecting I can see as an unattractive trait because it’s too close to hoarding.

Well, my last name isn’t my mom’s last name, it’s my dad’s, and her last name was her dad’s, then her husband’s. So why do I care, I don’t get a matrilineal name anyway.

I hyphenated, because we both had kids when we got married, and it made it easier to deal with the school stuff for my stepkids.

Otherwise, I really just don’t care because my family name is my dad’s name and it was only my mom’s name because she changed hers to his. Not that I didn’t care about my dad, was closer to him than my mom. I just mean I don’t feel like it means anything.

ETA: as the OP says, though - I really, truly don’t understand it when a lady has a cool last name and the man an awful one and they still use his. I used to work at a payroll place and saw this happen over and over, someone would be calling up for us to change their last name from, say, Valiant or DeLeon to Assing, or Fuckler or something . Really, why wouldn’t he be the one happy to change in that scenario?

For front splits: Very deep lunges to stretch hip flexors, hamstring stretches, then get as close as you can, preferably supporting your crotch (‘sit’ on a small stool, then a yoga block, whatever supports you in the position) so that you can relax into the pose.

Best to do these after a workout while you are warm, then again before bed when you are cool, and go to your edge but not past it, that edge will move.

For straddle split, I don’t know if everyone can get those but my nearly 60 year old husband can, and mostly he just lifts weights, so maybe. Those you can practice hot or cold, and if you do the widest you can and lean forward for 5 minutes it will also relax you for sleep. So good practice for bedtime.

This is key, it’s like they are bigger than they appear. We inherited one. Sweet nature, good with the cats, but weighs the same as the bigger dog in the household and strong as fuck.

Like the American below, I generally use 30-December 2023 partly because I work with an international company but mostly because after the century rolled over and we had years that looked like months I got confused.

Had a boss that formatted all dates as YYYY-MM-DD because that makes them sort correctly in lists.

My mom said she used to judge parents with bad kids, the ones having tantrums in the store, etc. “My kids would never do that”, she assumed she was doing something right and they were bad parents . "Then God gave me Janet ". My little sister, who was a tantrum throwing hellion of a little kid and the teenager who got brought home by the cops.

She’s a lovely person as an adult though.

Mostly because there are so many women dissatisfied with their bodies because of media, but only a teeny percentage have restrictive eating disorder. If it was because of social pressure like that, it seems like modern society would be much thinner overall. But this is No Stupid Questions, I am not trying to insult you for asking.

What an odd question. I can only offer one perspective. I grew up in a time when the ideal female body type (and only type considered sexy) was short, curvy, with a small waist, bigger boobs and ass, small delicate hands and feet. Petite and curvy I would say, maybe small by today’s standards but not at all skinny nor tall. Plush and short in height.

I was/had none of those things. Tall and skinny, big hands and feet, no curves to speak of. I liked being skinny and liked being tall too, but certainly there was not any outside social pressure to be so thin. Then I had a tragedy and was stressed, and yes looking back I am sure that the anxiety around eating was sort of a reaction to that grief and stress.

But at any point did I think I was controlling my eating to be in a more socially acceptable body form? Hell no. And oddly, when the taller, thinner models started appearing, I got much happier about my body, and it eased the anxiety around eating.

I think it’s internal. Anorexia/restriction in particular. And yes related to life being out of control.

This has been true around here since I was in high school (or that’s when I noticed) but once you get as old as I am now it’s different, only the people who took care of themselves look good and the distribution is more equal. So I don’t think guys are putting zero effort in, maybe as regards style but they must be maintaining their bodies at about the same rate, exercise and diet wise.

I used mine all the time and do miss it. Now I mostly use wired headphones plugged into the laptop, and use Bluetooth or casting to speakers from phone. If you don’t use yours you won’t miss it.

They do this with Cuban bread here all the time (they do ask). Presumably you aren’t making one yard long sandwich.

My brothers were swimmers and skinny and small (and really fast, won national titles) and that combination of young, male, and active does create a black hole of metabolism. I also had a friend who was 6’6" and 140lb but healthy too, poet not athlete. He ate, it’s just hard to eat enough to fund that much height.

The model though, that’s an aesthetic choice not an aspirational body type. Androgynous and otherworldly is what I think they are going for. It’s not mainstream attractive, certainly.

I moved over from Play Music, and if they had a music- only cheaper option that’s what I personally want, but the rest of the family does use YouTube for other stuff, and only the penultimate child is into sailing the seas of content. Per user price is not bad considering how much music we listen to.

I am honestly less mad about the price and more still mad that they shut down the best music streaming app (best recommend algorithm, the glorious “playing near you” function that was able to find bands I would like but had not heard and only within a few miles of home, the way it would adjust the music for morning, night, weekend, it was so good) and pushed everyone onto the YouTube Music before it was ready. It’s OK now but it’s been years and no way is it as good as Play Music was.

No, it’s not illegal, in fact it’s legal to leave it blank. The reason to choose Hispanic/Latino on forms is just to get information about discrimination and population trends. It’s supposed to benefit those groups not harm them, like there are school scholarships available for people from specific places, things like that.

Don’t overthink it. You identify how you identify, most people are more than one category here.

I would say Mexican of Spanish heritage counts as “Latino” or “Hispanic” in the US, yes. It’s a broad category here. You are also North American of European heritage. And yes of course, identify however the heck you want.