I’m so fucking tired.
I’m tired of dieting.
I’m tired of checking the news and everything is shit.
I’m tired of worrying about shit.
I’m tired of garbage people.
I’m fucking tired of stressing about money.
I just want to go on vacation and stay there.
Have a nice day.
RepubAnon
It is indeed a pity that so many people spend so much time trying to regulate possible motes in their neighbors’ eyes, while ignoring the 2×4 beams in their own.
Downpuppy
You forgot the soundtrack.
kindness
John you need to go from tired to retired. You’ll love it.
Jeffg166
Cue Orphan Annie singing Tomorrow.
gvg
I was so tired for a year. I talked to my doctor about it. Actually the one in his office group that specialized in weight loss. They both did a bunch of tests. I was prescribed some vitamins and something to boost my slowing metabolism, plus some help with appetite suppression. Weight loss has been slow, but at least I stopped gaining and the energy came back. It has really helped. They keep testing too. Family history of diabetes and I am on the verge so..
There has been a lot of discouraging news, but have you been medically checked out too? Tiredness may have a real physical cause. Something that can be found out.
Otherwise, try doing something artistic or creative that is cheap but satisfying to you.
Phylllis
@kindness: Officially on my first week; can attest to its awesomeness.
Citizen Alan
I had an epiphany a month or so ago. I realized that I almost never eat because I feel hungry, which is why medications to reduce appetite have done nothing for me. I eat because I something has happened that has triggered anxiety for me, and I start to crave the psychological feeling that comes from eating comfort foods (all of which is uniformly bad for my weight). I have no idea what to do with that realization except try to be more cognizant of my feelings and take a Klonopin instead of rushing to KFC, but maybe that’s a start.
debit
@Downpuppy: That was my first thought too.
And always too soon.
Tony Jay
You play it, we’ll sing along.
How does the chorus go?
So fuck’em he said
And he stomped to bed
With mustard, mop and Warcraft.
mvr
At one point my psychiatrist told me that the standard wisdom in their field is that people don’t get depressed over politics. He wasn’t sure he believed it himself, but I think that after a few years I convinced him the standard wisdom was wrong.
Hope you get a bit untired JC!
debit
John, feel free to tell me to fuck off, but how active are you? When I’m having the same feelings you describe, getting outside and doing something is the only cure. I bike to work, or go for a long walk, or even just do some yard work. I don’t want to do any of these things, but once I’ve started I feel better.
Also, stop checking the news and Twitter. Musk buying Twitter and stopping me from doomscrolling was just what I needed.
trollhattan
I see Twitter is still broke. The winning continues.
Chief Oshkosh
I’m so tired
I haven’t slept a wink
I’m so tired
My mind is on the blink
Matt McIrvin
@mvr: Wouldn’t that depend on the political situation? When it’s all an abstract game to you, getting depressed about it maybe is a sign that there’s some other underlying cause. But if, say, you’re a Jew in Germany in the 1930s…
Ken
@mvr: That should be made into a joke, if it’s not already.
“At first my psychiatrist said I was paranoid, but after just six weeks of therapy he’s also convinced the government is spying on him.”
Rebel’s Dad
I’m sorry, John. I hope things improve for you soon.
JML
I hear ya, Cole.
Tomorrow I get to have a “program review” that they keep saying isn’t a “performance review”. Why don’t I believe them?
Ken
@trollhattan: Twitter is not broke, it’s just changed its terms of service to “None”.
CaseyL
Yes, there is a lot that is shit, but people (including us) are pushing back.
I’m a bit concerned that you were so upbeat a couple of weeks ago, and so downbeat now. Not sure how to ask politely, so I’ll just come out and ask bluntly: Have you changed prescriptions recently?
It does seem, based on your posts, that you ate food which is not on your diet plan. You’d be amazed how much of an effect that can have on your mental equilibrium.
Maybe talk to Joelle about this?
Scrabblefoos
Remember its not garbage can’t, it garbage can!
The Up and Up
Pretty much.
The 4th of July celebration the parents attend was more subdued than those in the past. Hardly any cheers, hoots and hollers, among the parade goers and viewers. There were fewer booths. Food selection was slim thus everyone wanted pizza. The owner of the artisan wood fired pizza stopped taking orders due to a tremendous backlog. The town skews far right. This year the “Moms for Liberty” were in full force recruiting for “the cause.”
Manyakitty
I get it. All I can think about is retiring, which is highly unlikely based on my current financial situation. Blech.
Ohio Mom
@Citizen Alan: Maybe as an experiment, go to a psychiatrist and get a maintenance anti-anxiety med? That will have to wait until you are settled in your new life though.
@kindness: I can vouch that retirement did a lot of good for Ohio Dad’s mood. And mine, because I no longer had to listen to him fume about office politics. But I would caution that retirement does not help money worries.
When I used to hear oldsters complain about being on a fixed income, I’d think, “Who isn’t on a fixed income? Your job pays $X, and that’s it. It’s fixed.” But now I grok that complaint on a deep level.
I just finished a lovely fruit salad of watermelon and raspberries. That’s my news.
bbleh
Ok, pick a couple of midsummer weeks, midweek cuz the rates are lower, and a couple of non-destination beach towns, go on Airbnb or VRBO or Hotels.com, find something acceptably priced, and go do it. It’ll give you something to look forward to, it’ll be fun, you’ll be done before you get bored with it, and you’ll come home happier. And no doomscrolling while you’re there.
And yeah, maybe get some blood work done. Some vitamin & mineral deficiencies can leave you feeling pretty tired all the time.
different-church-lady
Stop posting my diary entries, Cole.
Jeffro
Maybe you just need something to help you let it all out, John. I recommend watching “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once”. Bawled my eyes out in parts. It might help you appreciate even the days that are bummers. SUCH a great movie!
PS I will probably never look at canyons…or everything bagels…the same way again. =)
Gravenstone
Here ya go, John. A little thing I like to call “Anxiety, the video”. A song about the uncertainties in life and the faces we choose to present to others while we question our very selves. Subtitles a must to get the full message.
https://youtu.be/4VGF9u7Hw5Y
NotMax
Guy having a bad day.
:)
Keith P.
@Jeffg166: How about Baby Billy singing “There Will Come a Payday”?
scav
Might raise my mood to beat that little orphan song to death with a shovel.
But then, I might not want my mood raised. Sometimes it is an appropriate mood.
In which case, I’ll beat that little song to death for purely cardio-vascular reasons.
Gravenstone
@NotMax: Just leave the pawprints there for posterity. But take the pooch.
oatler
@Downpuppy:
Here’s the broadcast TV version:
They’re coming and going and coming and going and always they’re BLEEP
Subsole
@Chief Oshkosh:
And curse Sir Walter Raleigh,
He was such a stupid git
Suzanne
@debit: Agreed. When I feel bad, I usually find I’m carrying a lot of physical tension in my body. Makes my joints stiff and muscles achy.
Ohio Mom
@mvr: Maybe that psychiatrist should do some reading in sociology. Really, one of the most heartening things is figuring out that your life sucks because of the societal conditions you must navigate. Especially if you are a woman, a minority, disabled, too old, too young, too not-good-looking enough, too fill-in-the blank.
You still have to find ways to get what you want and make peace with what isn’t going to happen for you but shaking the self-blame is liberating emotionally.
Or maybe my comment should read, Tell me this psychiatrist is a well-to-do white man without telling me he is a well-to-do white man.
Ruckus
I had physical jobs for 60 yrs. I like/liked physical jobs, because I hated just sitting at a desk.
I retired after I turned 72 yrs old. I’d just had enough of working. Or so I thought.
I’ve built furniture that I like and am very close to finished with that. Nothing complicated just functional, decent looking, useful. I walk regularly, leaving in a few minutes to do 2 miles.
Life is nothing like I thought it would be, ever, but my expectations any more are simple so there’s that.
Getting old isn’t for the faint of heart, because it likely will be different than you ever could have imagined, what you do, what you need, what you desire, what works, what doesn’t.
But I’ve learned to relax, worry about tomorrow – when it shows up.
Don’t worry, you can only change a very, very tiny bit of the world, unless you have enough money to screw up a lot. Eat, sleep, RELAX, enjoy simple things, like getting up in the morning, when YOU feel like it.
It’s life. It starts, it goes on – or not, you control so little and worry about so much, enjoy the little things, breathing, eating, living, and keep doing it. It’s different looking at now, when your past is longer than your future. So look at future as having one. One step at a time.
Kelly
Canadian smoke has made it’s way to Oregon. PM 2.5 is a mere 53 so mostly just that odd smoke filtered light. I can’t complain about the Canadian smoking the place up since we’ve sent our smoke all across the continent other years. Amature fireworks were quite subdued last night. The 2020 Labor Day fires disaster has made a lasting impression. Safety First!
zhena gogolia
@mvr: Oh, I absolutely get depressed over politics! I started compulsively doing word puzzles in the TFG administration. I think it’s a sign of depression.
Baud
I don’t get depressed over politics because that’s what the oligarchs and the fascists want.
frosty
@gvg: For the Blogfather: artistic and cheap: harmonica. Get a Hohner Special 20 in C and a copy of Harmonica for Dummies. It’s written by a very good player. I’m getting online lessons from him via takelessons.com. (That part isn’t so cheap).
Ruckus
@Chief Oshkosh:
That’s not sleeping. OK it is but more than that, it’s getting old. Which is a good thing, a grand thing, a not always thing.
Josie
I think you might be missing Joelle. Maybe figure out a way to spend more time with her. It could be pure old loneliness.
ETA: Ask me how I know.
Jess
@Downpuppy: I would pay a lot of money to see Cole reenact this scene. I bet a lot of us would. Money problems solved!
debit
@Jess: But he has to do it in a German accent.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
deleted by request. WG
Mai Naem mobileI
John – just remember this to shall pass. As others have said it may be physiological and your pcp can help you there. I don’t remember how long you’ve been on the diet but maybe you’ve hit the really hard slog part of it that you have to get past. Also, a suggestion and don’t laugh but maybe meditation/yoga can help you.
Alison Rose
@Mai Naem mobileI:
For a split second, I was like…wait wut no
hueyplong
@Subsole: I’d give you everything I’ve got for a little peace of mind.
Baud
@Alison Rose:
I get help from my Local Stress Diminisher.
Brachiator
Lots of good suggestions. Maybe some will resonate with Cole. Or spur some new ideas.
But even just a rant can help sometimes.
Old Man Shadow
Turn off the TV and the computer and spend your day cuddling with and pampering your critters. Critters are nice and one of the few things that make the existential hell of human life worth it.
Mai Naem mobileI
Here’s a story of not garbage people. The Wash Post had a long piece on the friendship between Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova and dealing with cancer at the same time. It does deal with cancer but still an uplifting piece. I used to follow tennis a long time ago but I didn’t even know they were close friends. https://wapo.st/3rhnyqz
trollhattan
@Ken: Feature, not bug!
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I guess this is a bad thread to drop #45 into. Somebody please delete. Sorry about that.
cain
@Kelly: huh – I wonder if that’s why I had poor sleep yesterday.
Also, we should rename 4th of July as Brexit Day.
Alison Rose
Animals are the best: Stray Dog Sneaks Into Store Display To Let The World Know He Needs A Home
Click through for the adorable photos. And yes, the buddy did find himself a forever home :)
Joey Maloney
How’s this for a start to a not slow news day – Trump lawyer Lin Wood has agreed to retire permanently from the practice of law. He was facing disbarment.
Eolirin
@Mai Naem mobileI: I don’t recommend meditation as a solution to any kind of depression or mental health related situation, especially without highly qualified facilitation. It’s not that it can’t be extremely helpful, it’s that is not meant for that and can be dangerous, especially if you don’t have a really good teacher.
Meditation really needs to be looked at as a tool to better understand yourself as you really are and the world as it really is and that process is both difficult and requires significant effort.
It’s not for stress relief. It just tends to result in happier less stressed people in the long run, because you start shedding all the stuff that makes you unhappy. But you do that by coming to an understanding of how you’re fucking up with how you’re thinking about everything and holding onto things as if they’re important when they’re not, and that cleaves off parts of what you identify with. It’s a transformative process and one that really requires you be able to deal with what comes up as you do that. It isn’t a pleasant thing to do.
If you’re in a depressive state it can make things much worse. It can make anxiety much worse. You have to be able to sit with those feelings in a neutral enough way that they can pass on their own and that can be difficult to do if you’re already fragile when you start to try. I’ve met people who have triggered hallucinations and psychotic episodes doing meditation practices that they shouldn’t have been doing in the state they were in. That’s extreme and rare, but the stuff isn’t generically safe like it often gets portrayed.
Elizabelle
NOTE: Link to the actual story, as originally published, is further down this comment.
WaPost today:
GQ pulls article slamming Warner Bros. Discovery CEO Zaslav after complaint
The writer said he asked to have his byline removed after GQ made extensive changes after publication. The magazine removed the story instead.
David Zaslav whined bigly, and GQ folded, when Zaslav got wind of a negative article.
SO: here, via the Wayback Machine — the original article, which GQ wanted to edit to make more palatable to its subject. The freelance writer, Joshua Bailey, asked GQ to take his name off the story, so GQ pulled the whole thing down.
But: it is your duty to read and share this one. Widely. You may recall Zaslav using catspaw Chris Licht to try to turn CNN into FoxLite (the Trump Town Hall), at CNN major shareholder John Malone’s bidding. Licht was fired, and he is an idiot, but Malone and Zaslav are the cancers.
Zaslav has most recently axed the top executives at Turner Classic Movies, bringing one back after an outcry from actual Hollywood talent (directors Martin Scorsese, Stephen Spielberg, a third whose name escapes me at the moment) …
Free link from the Wayback Machine, to its archived copy:
How Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav Became Public Enemy Number One in Hollywood
Further: an article from last August from Vox.
Why billionaire John Malone’s shadow looms over CNN
One of the world’s most powerful news outlets has a new mandate.
trollhattan
@Joey Maloney: So, “Wood splits”?
Elizabelle
@Joey Maloney: That’s marvelous. He should still be disbarred, though. One can come out of retirement.
Nunc Pro Tunc
Hey Cole,
What’s wrong with the garbage people? Someone has to pick up the trash, and they do necessary work!
/s/
Anyway
@Joey Maloney:
Yay, agree that he should still be disbarred.
Hoping the same for John Eastman.
mrmoshpotato
@Jeffro:
Is that a good or bad thing?
Sister Golden Bear
@Matt McIrvin:
Or an LBG-and-especially-T person in the US, particularly in Florida, right now…
JPL
@zhena gogolia: Practice quordle has saved me. Washington Post has a new game called Keyword. I might have heard about here. ah
JML
@Mai Naem mobileI: Sally Jenkins is a great writer. There’s a nice documentary on Evert & Navratilova that was on ESPN and gets rebroadcast from time to time, so I knew they were real friends, but this is next level. Good for them.
Kelly
@cain: The smoke was ok yesterday. Very high haze. Dropped to the surface last night. I guess we should have expected it with the east wind heating is up.
WaterGirl
@debit: So nice to see your nym here!
Geminid
@Joey Maloney: After the November, 2020 election put Jon Ossoff into a runoff along with Raphael Warnock, Lin Wood told Georgia Republicans to boycott the runoff to protest a “rigged” election process. The subsequent dropoff in Republican turnout was twice as great as the Democratic dropoff, a reverse of the typical pattern. That election gave Democrats a Senate majority, so I give Wood some credit for the successes of Biden’s first term.
I remember when Dennis Praeger devoted an hour of his radio show to persuading disgruntled Geogia Republican voters to come out for the January 5 runoff. A guy called in and told Praeger that because the RINOs let Joe Biden steal Georgia he refused to vote for Loefler or Perdue. The lugubrious Praeger tried and tried to talk the caller down but to no avail.
Praeger sounded pretty depressed afterwards, but that caller really cheered me up!
JoyceH
I’ve been a member of Weight Watchers since March of last year and have lost 50 pounds. What’s discouraging though is the setbacks for the occasional indulgences. Yesterday I had my 4th BBQ (and admittedly overdid it), and today I’m up 5 pounds. I’m following the news about the new weight loss drugs, but I know people who are on them and they really don’t sound like fun.
I don’t know about meditation, but I’ve often found deep breathing to be helpful for anxiety. Just a few minutes of counting long breaths in and out (there are apps that help) can really calm a person down.
My current issue is that next week I’m taking my first trip in at least ten years, and I’m waffling between inertia and overwhelmed. I think I’m ready – got a cat sitter lined up and the dog will go to puppy camp, got my plane ticket (an e-ticket, which is unfamiliar to me), got a reservation at a park-sleep-fly hotel over by the airport, so I don’t have to wake up at 3 am and drive two hours to the airport. Got new luggage and a new tablet. But… do we still mask in the airport? On planes? How much cash does a person need? Do cabs take cards these days?
JPL
@JML: That was such a beautiful story and I shared it with others.
Manyakitty
@JoyceH: Mask on the plane, at least. Beyond that, good luck, relax, and try to roll with the challenges. Enjoy!
eclare
@JoyceH:
Where are you going?
zhena gogolia
@JoyceH: 50 pounds is amazing!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@JoyceH: The last time I flew, a few people did mask, especially in the airport, but most did not. Cabs take cards. I don’t know about the cash. You can probably use atms if you run out.
Eolirin
@JoyceH: Deep breathing is great, our breath is deeply tied into a whole bunch of systems that regulate things like fight or flight reactions, and slow even breathing helps to activate calmer states. (I’m not doing so well right now and getting my terminology right on the systems involved is a little beyond me, but the specifics are in my head somewhere)
But even with that, for some people, especially if they have ptsd, but not exclusively, trying to take deeper than normal breaths can precipitate panic attacks and flashbacks. So you do need to know how your body reacts to things.
Josie
@JoyceH:
Airplane travel can indeed be overwhelming after a long period without it. My son and I took a long flight to visit my brother a couple of months ago, and I was a basket case until we got on the plane. Give yourself plenty of time to go through the security check. In some airports, it can be surprisingly long and tedious. In others not so much. Wear a mask on the plane if you can stand it. Once you are on and seated, much of your nervousness will evaporate. At least it did for me. We had a great trip, and I hope for the same for you.
mrmoshpotato
@Ohio Mom:
Sexy for your shirt?
Eolirin
@mrmoshpotato: Too sexy for this blog
JoyceH
@eclare:
I’m going to California! I’m going to spend about five days in downtown with a friend, and then five days out in rural Marin County with my sister and her husband, walk along the beach with their dogs, etc. It’s exciting, and all through the pandemic and whatnot, I’ve been wanting to travel, but I’ve… kind of forgotten HOW!
Also, I’ve been exercising for the past couple years and I know I’m in better shape, have more strength and stamina that I’ve had probably in a decade or more – but as things have opened up and I’ve started doing more, it’s dawned on me that because I’m stronger, I THINK I’m stronger than I actually am. Last month I went with a friend to tour Luray Cavern, and that turned out to be just at the limit of my exertion ability.
So this trip will be the test. When I get home, I need to get back to the diet and exercise for a couple months, prepping for October in England. I’m planning to become a Globetrotter.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud:
And we know the Baud! 20XX! administration is right around the corner!
I look forward to a honey badger in every pot – still alive! It’s its home now!
lowtechcyclist
@JoyceH:
Losing weight is hard. 50 pounds is a BFD – congratulations, and don’t get discouraged about the setbacks!
cain
Speaking of dieting – I gotta get back on the wagon for that. I weighted myself today and I was the heaviest I have ever been and that’s with doing regular 4 mile walks. This means it’s time to go keto and and cut back on carbs and sugar.
Joey Maloney
@Elizabelle: Wood’s signing an agreement that his retirement is permanent and irrevocable. George Takei posted the letter on his Mastodon feed. Agreed that disbarment would be preferable but I’ll settle for public humiliation.
Elizabelle
@JoyceH: Excellent plans. Yay you!
eclare
@JoyceH:
Sounds wonderful! Enjoy!
I haven’t taken a taxi cab in years, I use Lyft, which is an app linked to my credit card. There is also Uber.
mrmoshpotato
@cain:
Take off the diving belt and weigh yourself again.
Geminid
@JML: Sally Jenkins was also instrumental in exposing Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder’s horrible treatment of his female employees. There are stories that this was one reason that when Snyder had to sell the franchise, he would not consider bids from Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos.
mrmoshpotato
@Joey Maloney:
SAD! How will he wash off the orange shitstain? Oh! He can’t!
WaterGirl
@JoyceH: I bet half of your 5 pounds is water because your BBQ is likely to be much higher salt than you normally eat. So think of it as 2 pounds of fun and then get back to whatever it is that you’ve been doing.
JoyceH
@WaterGirl:
Yeah, I’ve noticed that half the Indulgence weight comes off easily – but the other half is a hard slog. But I’m not going to totally drop the indulgences until I get to goal, because I know that would make me give up. I’m not going to be keeping track of points when I travel, for instance. I’ll just have to make up for that once I get back home.
Ruckus
@Ohio Mom:
I’m 74 and just retired 2 yrs ago. I have that fixed income thing. Yes it’s enough to live on my SS because I worked so long. But it’s not the same and none of us should think that it is. This country, especially those that benefit from our labor and who think their shit doesn’t stink because of their money, it is the basic concept of living. Work till you almost drop – or do, and shut up about everything else, like owning your own jet plane or 11 homes, 10 of which you’ve never even seen, and actual physical or mental work is something you’ve never, ever done. Those people don’t do that on their own, they did it on the backs of everyone else. And they end up thinking their money makes them smart. Do you think that elon did one iota of the actual thought/engineering that went into creating the Tesla, other than maybe how it looks? (Because the front looks like, not an after thought, but like no thought whatsoever) Martin has stated here that he didn’t inherit all that money, he had to make it somewhere. But how much of what a Tesla is, (which while not perfect – in any way, is not a horrible car. Yes it can catch fire but so can a gasoline powered car, and they often do. Not on their own very often anymore, but then we’ve been building them for decades and if you don’t know, believe me, they are dramatically better than they were. Of course a lot of that comes from laws enacted because the manufactures didn’t seem to be all that interested in not killing their customers. Not to dismiss that customers are often as much at fault as well…. We live in a mechanical/electronic world and the changes in my lifetime are amazing, often great and as often anything but. It really won’t be long till buying a new automobile with an internal combustion engine will be history. Maybe 10-15 yrs.
I guess that my point is that we live a life, sometimes very short (I had a cousin who lived 6 months. His mother only lived about another year, long enough to have another kid. But life is different than it was 75 yrs ago, a hell of a lot different. In some ways a lot better, in some not really any different at all. In not all that long ago I never thought we’d elect a black man president or a black woman VP, but here we are. There is a backlash of the neanderthal humans in this country but then they can’t think at the speed this country is and has changed. They will be left behind, those that can’t think of change and betterment always are.
hueyplong
I have read a few of the Lin Wood articles and haven’t yet found anything saying that disbarment is off the table. All I see is that he has made the offer and agreed in writing that there are no take-backs allowed. Nothing I’ve seen so far says the Ga Bar (or Ga Supreme Court) has to stop considering disbarment. He’s just asking them to stop considering it in light of his promise to stop trying to practice.
I suspect his time has come and gone, even among the lunatics. The GOP itself is probably still a bit red-assed about his idiotic suppression of GOP votes in the runoffs so he gets no support there, and the loser stink from his dismissed-and-sanctioned lawsuits takes care of most of the rest.
sdhays
@Elizabelle: What a strange saga. I wonder how the story was changed to such a degree that the reporter wanted their byline removed. Was it softened, or was it made into something sharper that GQ then got cold feet over?
Zaslav (or maybe his billionaire boss) reminds me of that idiot Ayn Rand acolyte who ran Sears and K-Mart into the ground. No need to understand the business he leads, just force it to conform to an ideology that “can’t fail”.
There go two miscreants
@JoyceH: Congrats on the weight loss! For extended travel, I recommend making a checklist of the things at home that you need to turn off (or on), lock up, etc., and checking them off as you do them before you leave. That way you won’t be worrying about them later.
eclare
@JoyceH:
Sounds like you’ll be walking around a lot, that will help!
JoyceH
@There go two miscreants: And one thing that’s great about this new world we live in is texting! The cat sitter will be in every day, and send texts and if I remember something I can just text her.
trollhattan
Normally I’d call leaving Arizona an improvement.
Sounds like the nightstand gun really helped.
JoyceH
@eclare: We’re talking about going to see the new Indiana Jones. I can’t REMEMBER the last time I went to an actual movie in an actual theater.
Redshift
@JoyceH:
Most people don’t any more (which is frustrating), but nobody will give you any trouble if you do, in my experience.
I always mask in airports, because it’s sharing air with lots of people and not great air filtration. I still mask on planes, but supposedly they have some of the best filtration around after the doors are closed and they’re on internal circulation, so if it’s uncomfortable to mask for the whole flight, you’re probably okay without it.
As others have said, traveling without cash is easier than ever.
eclare
@JoyceH:
More fun! I think the last movie I saw in a theater was Little Women, pre-pandemic.
Yep, I just checked, and it was released on Christmas 2019, so the timeline fits.
JPL
@JoyceH: Have a great time.
Baud
@trollhattan:
But how did the gator get the access code?
mvr
@Matt McIrvin: I think you can get depressed over politics even when the badness isn’t coming at you personally, but yeah, it would be especially hard if it is.
mvr
@Ken: Chuckle.
zhena gogolia
@eclare: Haha, me too!
Mai Naem mobileI
@Eolirin: you’ve given me something to think about. I threw the term meditation too casually. I guess my version of meditation is having a quiet space and period of time away from all the noise and stimulation around us.
Ruckus
@JoyceH:
I’ve lost 15 lbs since I retired. I just don’t eat as much because I’m not always on the go. I can’t be going like that any longer. A major change in life is exactly that, a major change. Losing weight, retiring, etc is a major change in one’s life. It takes time to adjust, even if it is the best thing you ever have done. We like our normalcy, the one we create, till we don’t – or it doesn’t work for us any longer.
How many major changes in one’s life don’t we have to think about, how well or how not well they make us, should we or shouldn’t we? Every single one. We go along a path because it’s the easiest or the one we know, till we come to a crossroad and have to make that choice. Positive choices are seemingly almost always more difficult to make, to follow through, which is why so many humans never actually make them. In the long run though they almost always make us far happier that we made them and followed through.
RedDirtGirl
@sdhays: It was softened quite a bit.
Sister Golden Bear
Regarding the trans athletes discussion downstairs, the California Interscholastic Federation, which governs CA high school sports, has had trans-inclusive policies for years (policy and the more readable toolkit), and the only issues involving trans athletes have been transphobes harassing trans girls out of competing. The NCAA and Olympics both also have had trans-inclusive policies for years.
So if people are concerned about rules regarding trans athletes (and let’s be honest the concerns are almost always about trans girls, trans boys are never mentioned), there’s 1) rules that can be adopted wholesale, and 2) years of evidence about the effects trans athletes competing under those rules.
I’ll also note that we’re only talking about a handful of athlete, when Utah voted to ban high school trans athletes it affected only one — that’s right one — athlete in the entire state. Estimates are that there’s probably only a few hundred high school trans athletes nationwide.
mvr
@Ohio Mom:
Actually, we got along OK. He was generally somewhat skeptical of lots of what they teach about psychology (I should originally have said psychologist). But he did like to tell me these things to see how I would react.
I started seeing him around the time of the run up to the war in Iraq (but also after my mom died as well as a close neighbor friend) and it was on my mind a lot. It took a while but not too long before we both would complain about politics in our sessions.
Anyway
@JPL: Reminds me to
bragshare that I got yesterday’s quordle in 6 SIX tries. Seven was the previous best.Keyhole is fun. I do those once a week, wait for ’em to stack up.
Daily and Deluxe Waffles are my other regulars.
mvr
@zhena gogolia: Yeah, and really often a cause.
Cheryl from Maryland
@JoyceH: I was in Italy during the spring, and EVERYWHERE took cards. Even toll booths. When I traveled to Seattle 10 years ago, cabs took cards. My local farmers’ market takes cards.
WaterGirl
@JoyceH: You’re doing great! And don’t listen to yourself if you tell yourself you’re not.
It seemed that losing your sister, your twin, right?, knocked you back pretty hard. I think you are doing awesome.
lowtechcyclist
@mrmoshpotato:
Out, out, damned spot!
Our local theatre group just finished a run of Macbeth, so I’ve got all the standard lines on tap.
JPL
@Anyway: ha I did comment about that and the following day I thought I was going to but alas no. Did it in 7
Elizabelle
@trollhattan: That was not just a gator social call.
Panda was on the menu. I hope her nocturnal wanderings are over, effective immediately. Gators and dogs do not mix.
sdhays
@RedDirtGirl: That was the softened version?! Ouch!
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Went in through the doggy door and found the code once he logged into Don Schultz’ computer. ;-)
sdhays
@trollhattan: Not just any gun, either. A Glock. Isn’t that the kind that doesn’t have a real safety – it’s right next to the trigger, so it’s the equivalent of wearing a mesh mask to protect you from COVID?
I’m surprised he didn’t shoot his own foot off.
Elizabelle
@sdhays: From the WaPost story. It’s got links to Bailey’s original version, and to the GQ edits.
It was probably edited fine. It may have been too accurate.
trollhattan
You misplace ONE cigarette.
Much more interesting than those reality shows about buying abandoned storage units. “We already have a Veg-o-matic.”
Matt McIrvin
@Cheryl from Maryland: I used cash as little as possible on my last couple of international trips, and it worked with a couple of exceptions:
trollhattan
@Cheryl from Maryland: My problem, if you will, is so many places now don’t take cash.
JoyceH
@WaterGirl:
Boy-howdy, ain’t that the truth! And the pandemic immediately after really blocked off any rallying-around and coping mechanisms. I remember at Jane’s memorial service, my two other sisters talked about coming back later to help with the sorting and whatnot, but that turned out to not be possible. When Mom died, everybody got together in our hometown and went through everything, it was nice, like an extended wake. Lots of talking and going out to eat. When I went through Jane’s stuff – it was me by myself, during the lockdown, getting food delivered and terrified of the grocery store. And I sure didn’t want any of those folks to get on a plane and come out to help – I’m the baby of the family and about to turn 70!
Mai Naem mobileI
@Elizabelle: Zaslav is a POS. I loved the reception he got at the Boston Univ graduation a few weeks ago. He was their main speaker. Not sure why it was him and not Ketanji Brown Jackson who was also a speaker except probably for the $$$ he’s donated to them. His son’s involved in the management/ownership at Axios and is pushing for AI. Maybe if reporters would initially treat these people with more suspicion instead of being sucked in by the PR and the wealth.
Elizabelle
@JoyceH: I use cards for just about everything. Good to have some cash on hand, and definitely coins. (Restrooms, bus fare, etc.)
You do best with a credit card that does not charge a foreign exchange transaction fee. Fees are not huge, but they can add up.
eclare
@JoyceH:
That is awful.
Elizabelle
@Mai Naem mobileI: Axios. Gag.
Agree re Zaslav being a POS. How long before someone cans him?
Ruckus
@Eolirin:
As someone who used to be a mental health counselor I agree, 1000%.
We get ourselves into things, it goes along for some time and then we realize that we need to change. The question is always how do we do that successfully. And meditation can do that but it really, really takes someone that knows it, understands it and has been reasonably trained to use it well. That is 99.9% of the time not 99.9% of the population. Meditation can keep you from going down the wrong road in the first place, and that can is doing a hell of a lot of work. It is a good practice but it requires practice and the right mindset. Which is what meditation can get one to, the right mindset.
Relaxation – not the same thing as meditation, can help with stress relief. But it is only part of the process.
I agree that it takes help and time. Not, “I got myself into this, I can get myself out of it.”
Ruckus
@Redshift:
I haven’t used cash in so long I can’t remember the last time I pulled out my wallet to pay for anything. I normally use my phone to pay and don’t even pay that off with a check. I normally write 3 checks a month – rent, gas, electric. And I only write them because they make it difficult to pay any other way.
JustRuss
2 weeks into summer and I’m nursing a bum knee. Ain’t life grand?
Eolirin
@Mai Naem mobileI: I should also say, simple western style guided meditation is a lot less problematic, in that it tends to have a calming hypnotic quality and not go terribly deep into things. But even with that you can sometimes get depersonalization effects that can be a little disturbing if you’re not aware of the fact that they can happen and how to deal with them.
And I should note, I’m coming at this as someone who’s both spent a good amount of time working with these systems and also has a number of mental health related issues and spends a good amount of time around other people who have a whole bunch of different kinds of issues.
The mindfulness based stress reduction system typically used in mental health treatment modalities like cognitive behavioral therapy or dialectical behavioral therapy are meditation light (shorn of the deeper stuff in the traditions that created this stuff and also missing some of the warnings and prepatory steps of those systems), and even they have caveats around trauma and side effects. Like I said elsewhere, even just slowly breathing can be triggering for some people under certain conditions.
And to be clear, I don’t want to discourage mediation as a practice. I think it’s immensely valuable and something of vital need in modern times. But it’s not like going to the gym either. It’s more like training to become a pro athlete. You gotta really commit to some serious change to get anywhere with it and you can hurt yourself if you’re not careful.
Ruckus
@Kelly:
There is a bus station with a 3 story parking lot across the street from the apt complex. Last night I walked over and went to the 3rd floor to look around. Every single direction was a fireworks show. It was like a fireworks competition between 75% of the population. It started slowly after sunset and slowed down about midnight. Ran till about 1am. Many of the cities have laws against setting off fireworks. Those seemed to be disregarded in the extreme. From that 3rd story I could see fireworks in every single direction, on every single block. For miles. As you might be able to tell, I wasn’t impressed.
Eolirin
@Elizabelle: How are they going to can him? He’s the damn CEO. The board that he has a large say in selecting would need to boot him, or there’d need to be a shareholder revolt. So unless WBD starts bleeding money way worse than it was when the merger happened I don’t see that happening. He’s cutting costs and going all in on things that are likely to generate more revenue. There’s a good chance he actually improves the company’s financial position, at the cost of quality, risk taking, and employee morale.
And he’s got that asshole ego energy that makes him stepping down voluntarily in the face of public pressure unlikely.
Eolirin
@Sister Golden Bear: I had to step away. I hope things didn’t get even worse after I did.
Kelly
@Ruckus: Every year before the 2020 Labor Day fires the amature fireworks were bigger, louder and more numerous than the year before. After the Beachie Fire swept thru and burned about 850 homes attitudes shifted sharply away from fireworks.
Ruckus
@Kelly:
The local fire departments were on the move rather continuously. But then most of the time in LA county they are anyway because of the size of the population that it is larger than 40 states, within a land area rather smaller than any of them.
Lee Hartmann
My experience (limited) with dieting is that it makes everything else seem harder. So maybe take a small, occasional break?
Anne Laurie
Yeah, a *part* of why you’re tired, right now, is that your body is under stress, because you’re not eating all the fats & carbs it expects, which can read to your gut as ‘famine coming on — alarm! alarm!!!’
And don’t forget the weather; the combination of heat & humidity is physically exhausting, especially to those of us who could stand to lose a few (dozen) pounds. A tepid shower, or even a towel soaked in cold water & wrapped around your neck, can be a real mood-booster when the weather is like this.
StringOnAStick
Get your vitamin D level checked. It’s common for it to decline with age due to our guts not absorbing it as well, and low D will leave you feeling deeply tired.
Ivan X
I’m just gonna throw in that I empathize with those here with slowing metabolisms and non-hunger-related eating for emotional reasons. And drinking, too.
NGL: 3-4 months ago I went on a GLP-1 drug (Mounjaro) and holy shit all of those cravings were just like, poof, gone. Literally overnight. I went from “think about food = eat food” to having choice, and I hardly feel like drinking at all. I also discovered that eating unhealthy food was no longer more satisfying than eating something good for me, so I started eating more healthily. And less of it, so I dropped a ton of weight. I became more like the person I wanted to be. It kind of freaked Ms X out a little because the change in eating and drinking behavior was so sudden.
It’s obscenely expensive but it’s like a fucking miracle. I have no doubt that in ten years it will be discovered to cause oozing retinal cysts or something, but for me I think it will have been worth it. I think the psychological benefits — to be freed of wrestling with compulsion, and to dramatically reduce my alcohol intake — almost outweigh, if you will, the weight loss benefits. And I feel like I have psychic energy for other things, because I’m not spending it on trying to regulate myself. I’m also not going to pretend that the weight loss doesn’t make me pretty happy.
So, obviously not for everyone for any number of valid (or invalid) reasons, but it’s been significant for me.
Noskilz
These are exhausting times.
debit
@WaterGirl: Thank you! I’ve been trying to take my own advice and spend less time online and more outdoors.
Betsy
@mvr: WTF foolishness is that!?!? People don’t get depressed over politics!?! WTAF do the psychologists think everyone been dealing with since freaking 2016 #*$%@8*8’&@!!!! Are the mental health professions living in Antarctica!?
(Are none of them women?!)
Kifaru1
A friend on Facebook shared a post about “glimmers” today.
“Did you know about glimmers?
Glimmer is the opposite of a trigger. Like a micro moment that makes you happier, a little moment of awe, something that makes you feel hope. Once you start looking for them and embracing them, your life feels so much sweeter.”
I needed the reminder today. I’ve been watching a crazy bluebird competition to build a nest and we have a cute neighbourhood squirrel with a blond tail.
Burnspbesq
Grab a stick if you still own one, and go play some wall-ball. It’s the most soothing physical activity I know, a true Medicine Game.
StringOnAStick
@Betsy: The therapist I used to see in CO told me she had tons of old patients come back into active therapy after the 2016 election, nearly all being people who had dealt with NPD parents or spouses. It is why I was back in to see her. Having to deal with a raging narcissist POTUS was very triggering.
mvr
@Betsy: This was early aughts. I don’t think he really bought into what he was reporting and by a few years later we were often commiserating about politics. We had no idea then how bad 2016 was going to be and iirc the visit after the 2016 election was just a mutual “the horror, the horror” session. (Obviously I’m not the least stressed out happiest person in the world to be such a long term client.)
I’m not surprised though that this was the standard wisdom among counselors at the time. I just thought it was funny.
StringOnAStick
The only useful thing about the orange idiot’s time upon the national stage was my getting such an education in NPD. When you grow up with a parent who fits that description, what was normal as a kid suddenly becomes a whole new understanding.