I got asked if I would be interested in taking over some duties with updating information on a small website from time to time, creating new pages for events, etc. as the last volunteer hasn't done anything since July. It's a word press site and it's somewhat of a mess. There were broken links all over the place either from someone moving files or just outdated. The design is also a hot mess. So I got login details from someone else's account to start with which is a huge red flag and I spent some time fixing broken links and recovering missing PDF files from Internet archive. I fixed some things with contact emails and dates being incorrect, etc. Then the next day I noticed that the original guy is in there making edits and new pages, which have broken links and look horrible like he never checked his work. I also realized that the account I have has no access to create new elements on a page I can only edit things like text, links, and images within existing elements. So now I'm in an awkward situation where it looks like the last guy caught wind of someone new helping out and decided to now get involved again. If I'm going to have my name on this thing I don't want it to look like shit the way it does now, but I already committed. I haven't talked to anybody about it yet, so hopefully it becomes a graceful handover or they take responsibility back so I don't have anything to do with it.

A thick fog has covered my town. It reminds me of the game Silent Hill. It makes me feel disconnected from the outer world. It literally constitutes a veil, cast on my mind. A wall of silence* that I imagine being able to shield me from evil. And as I'm lying in bed, passively meditating on my mental illness, I find myself wishing that it devoured all the bad people. The rude people. People without empathy. People who laugh at suffering.

Go forth, Pyramid Head! I release thee! 🍆

* which is contradictory in that water supposedly transfers energy better than air, so higher humidity should improve the transmission of sound rather than dampening it** 😅

** there's also a wet joke in there somewhere, since "dampening" / water / fog or whatever

Hi.

I'm M18. I've been rotting in my room for an entire year after high school ended. My parents want me to go to college but I can't make myself focus on studying no matter how much effort I put into it.

I don't know what degree I want, and I don't know if I even want to do anything at all. I've been battling with depression since 12 and I just can't see a path forward. My mind keeps making excuses for why I shouldn't do things, even though I know for sure that I should be pulling my shit together ASAP. My parents can't afford to have me being a dead weight forever, and I know I'm wasting my time, BUT I JUST CAN'T MAKE MYSELF DO ANYTHING

I'm autistic and have a bunch of sensibilities. I've tried finding jobs around me (rural Brazil) but most of them are manual work and I'm not entirely suited for that stuff (sorry if it sounds like I'm making excuses). I'm still looking but so far I've had no luck.

I'm studying the possibility of moving out to live with my dad somewhere else, but so far that's not happening.

TL;DR: common post-high-school panic

I recently had to break up with my best friend. I realized how bad they were for me and my mental health, and it was even bleeding into my physical health (I have a new degenerative issue thanks to stress, oh boy! I guess at least it wasn’t a heart attack..?)

So I’ve been super isolated for a few months now. I only had a couple people in my life at all, and this friend was the only one in my area, and the one who actually talked to me more than weekly whether I reached out or not. We vibed super well together and they really got me. It’s super hard to give that up.

But it’s actually going well? I don’t feel worse, kinda a wash between better and not better, I just don’t have anyone to share my accomplishments with anymore. And the good feels are a huge motivator for me to get stuff done, I have a need to share.

So I’ll try here!

This week I’ve finished a bunch of stuff that I’ve meant to get done! I got my water heater installed (did it myself except electrical, boy is showering at home nice!), I raked most of my leaves into the chicken yard for them to play in, tho the rest decided today and tomorrow are the time to fall so it’ll happen again after all the rain.

And today I finished the new cover for my chicken run, and got it put up right before it started to rain! It’s weather protection over the part of the run I can trap them in if needed, like to repair the main run fence or whatever (I’m in town, fencing them in is required, and my yard is very exposed to elements). During winter they end up stuck in there for extended periods whenever it snows heavily, so it was important to get done before it got cold. Fortunately it’s been shorts weather… it certainly shouldn’t be 70 in November here, but it is… and I’m thankful for it.

I used to have plastic tarps on it, they were noisy in the wind, and only lasted 6 months before they had holes in them and needed replacing. Instead I made my own tarps. I (very roughly) followed this video, but I’m a massive cheapskate and like to reuse what I can. So I got an old crockpot someone was throwing out due to damage that makes it unsafe to leave unattended, and used it to melt all the old candle remnants I’ve been saving over my 40 years of life (ended up being about 6 lbs of wax), strained out all the crap (glitter, dust, paint, etc), and used that for the base. My ex-friend’s mom (screw ex-friend, their mom is still my friend!) gave me a bunch of old bed sheets, so I used that as the structure. I got a sewing machine from 1970 from my dad’s partner which I spent three weeks trying to figure out how to use.

This whole thing cost a grand total of $12, and that was for the gallon of mineral oil, of which I used half. For contrast, last year I bought 6 tarps to cover the same area, and each one was $8-12. And they only lasted one winter. This new thing should last several years.

I used 6 bed sheets that were going to be thrown out, sewed them into a big…. Cozy? Idk. Fitted cover. I attached tie on straps all over it on the inside so it would be easy to attach to the frame or the galvanized mesh (that part of the run is animal proof as it feeds into the coop, I take their safety pretty seriously since they can’t go anywhere else) and then I spent two days in the nude sweating my ass off over hot wax and a hot iron to press that wax into the fabric. HOLY SHIT Y’ALL! It was exhausting and hot and made me throw up four times! Every other sentence out of my mouth was “ah fuck that’s hot!” Because I burned myself again. Also I should have been wearing pants, I burned myself several times with wax dripping off the iron. I mixed my wax heavy on mineral oil because we get midwestern winters here and I don’t want it cracking and flaking in the cold. That made it disgustingly greasy to work on.

I got it finished, and put it up all by myself! (Considering it’s 10x12x6ft at the peak, and the 6 sheets plus wax weighed like half a ton, that’s an accomplishment!). It is not at all perfect, and it isn’t fully attached yet in the front, cuz it was starting to get cold and rainy as I was working, it leaves a lot to be desired, but its so much quieter! It covers so much better! It’s so much less wasteful than replacing what I had!

Now my chicken run smells like cinnamon shit. Scented candle wax is umm.. not super ideal for this use, but it was free. I imagine that will fade in a few days (it did make the 2-day ironing process even more hell, though..)

If I had to do it all again, I would

1. Wear pants
2. not use cinnamon wax at all
3. wax first, sew after (though this old machine wouldn’t have been able to handle that, it barely handled regular seams)
4. get help putting it on
5. umm probably do a better job of measuring… I genuinely eyeballed it after measuring the frame, and it worked out ok. But it would have been better if I was a better planner.
6. probably dip one sheet in the wax, then fold them together and iron? Ladeling it was not a great idea. Getting all the layers of such a big thing was a pain in the ass.

So here’s the thing below! Not terribly impressive to look at, sure, but so much work! you can see I missed some spots where it’s really light, but I’ll fix those on a warmer day. Around the bottom where it doesn’t reach the ground will be reinforced when the cold hits. I have some old siding that I use for that, that way it gets some air movement while still warm.

Next up - building a new, much larger, coop, made entirely from cardboard and reclaimed materials!

I didn't know I could feel even lonelier...

I just need to say it to someone; this is absolutely batty because she worked there for decades and we are unionized, and it would take a serious pattern of behaviour or something that would result in instant dismissal. She was really crazy in kind of a dangerous underground fashion, she broke every rule about treatment of others imaginable. She expected me to do her job whenever she felt too busy and would give me a death stare if I resisted. I finally grieved it and won, because I have a full time role that eats every moment of my day, and she could at any time file workload grievances herself to get herself more help. She would say and do really nasty manipulative things to you, but then turn around and buy you a gift. She got in fights with others fairly often, and told everyone what to do. She was a martyr about her workload, and just the nastiest, gossipy, two faced person. I refused to eat lunch with her and would go later.

Anyway, one day she was called to a meeting with the very good and fair and capable manager in the middle of the day and simply never returned. Several weeks went by, and she had apparently insinuated to other staff that it was a leave of absence due to family issues, and then one day texted one of us to tell us she had retired. A very strange "we wish her the best in her future endeavors" email went out, which was not in any way a retirement email, so we scraped together a goodbye dinner, where she stated she had just wanted to go out the door and be done. We got through the dinner and wished her well and said the things you should say, and that was the end.

All of this is obviously a lie; I found out later that we were told the party could not be held at work, she came after hours to get her stuff she left behind, and that was that. It felt bizarre. Some time later I heard that she had really sniped at the manager one day, and I think it was part of a long list of complaints. The time she was "on leave" would have amounted to all of her remaining vacation time when I count it up.

But what's most remarkable is how the staff didn't talk to each other about the problem really. Now that the tension has ebbed, we started talking to each other about it, and the depth of how much we were all pretending to get along with her, and how much each one of us actually did not. The coworker I thought was really her friend told me how much she hated her and how she felt she couldn't be herself for one moment around her. Little by little it's all emerging, the way we all tiptoed around her.

The moral of my story is, if someone is being manipulative to you, confront it. We've spent YEARS pretending to get along just to get along. I did speak up to her a couple of times over the years, but I always ended up paying for it eventually. Don't do this; if someone is doing this confront them. It sucks to walk on eggshells around someone you spend a good chunk of your life with.

You make me feel insane.

I wasn’t looking for romance. YOU wanted romance. I dared to hope BECAUSE of you. I was fine being single forever, I had accepted it.

And I thought I knew all the ways that a person could hurt me. I didn’t realize that I could do everything right, that the chemistry could be perfect, that almost every second spent in connection could feel amazing (seemingly reciprocally) — and that someone could still change their mind out of nowhere. And that chemistry is just… dead now? The way I made you feel is just… evaporated? I’ve gone from someone you were openly infatuated by and couldn’t keep your hands off of to an amorphous blob of asexual aromantic friendliness OVERNIGHT? I feel so fucking gaslit, but maybe that’s what actually happened inside your brain. Maybe a switch randomly turned off. Maybe you forced it off.

And I don’t want to hear you expressing gratitude for me awakening a part of you that you thought was dead. Fuck that. I’m so fucking glad that I could bring your sexual attraction out of dormancy so that the next person you date can feel desired and wanted in a way that I’m apparently not.

And I don’t want you to “make room” for me to be hurt and confused and frustrated, and to “be here to listen”. I’m hurt and confused and frustrated, and you don’t get to hear about it. My feelings aren’t safe with you. Maybe, MAYBE, if you could offer an explanation that made any sense, I would feel safer voicing my honest feelings. But you and your “I just feel like you feel better to me as a friend than a partner” is some bullshit. If it’s fear of intimacy like you said earlier, I get that. But I get the feeling you’re going to start dating other people, in which case, it’s not fear of intimacy, is it? It’s something you don’t like about me, but didn’t feel free to say at any point. And if you didn’t like something about me, why did you behave the way you did?

Or maybe it is fear of intimacy, maybe that is the real reason. In which case, dating other people is pure recklessness. And are you talking through any of this with your therapist? With anyone? Because, being aware of the problem very clearly doesn’t fix it. And it doesn’t matter how clearly you communicate with the people you’re dating, you’re still being reckless as fuck. Because you and I were dating casually, and even that was too much for you.

And I’m so fucking mad that I’m so fucking mad. I don’t get mad at sweet, kind, lovely people. I rarely feel anger at all. Being angry at a broken person whose biggest crime is not knowing what she wants is hardly a useful endeavor. But I know I’m not really angry, I’m just hurt, all over.

Dating you gave me a vision of a future I’d never dared to hope for. All of a sudden, I had a reason to get my shit together other than for my own survival. And yeah, that’s not great, my own survival should be a bigger and stronger motivator than any person. I should be intrinsically motivated, but I really struggle to be. That’s the part of me that’s broken. But I was motivated to look good for you, because you already thought that I look good, so I didn’t feel like I was trying to earn your attraction and/or love. I was motivated to land a more secure, sustainable income somehow in this apocalyptic hellscape, because I wanted to be someone a partner could rely on and not worry about.

And I liked being inside my head for the first time in a really long time. Before you, I had to drown out my thoughts and loneliness with YouTube videos and podcasts constantly. I needed to hear someone else talking so I wouldn’t hear myself. Then you happened, and all of a sudden, I didn’t want to hear anyone else talking. I started journaling more than I’d ever journaled before. I started just chilling for hours, listening to music. You inspired poetry. I spent less time on social media. I fucking loved being inside my head in a way I didn’t know was possible.

And now my head is worse than before I met you. I’m not suicidal, and I won’t be. I don’t want to self-harm, and I won’t. But I am dead inside. I do fantasize about getting hit by various pieces of heavy machinery, or getting beat up until I pass out. Because that’s how I feel on the inside. I’ve been crying for the past three days. I don’t know how long it’s going to take to cauterize this wound so that I can go back to suppressing everything like a normal functioning human, but I’m trying to get there as fast as possible.

And no. I don’t want to go out to queer bars with you so that you can wingman for me. You were it. I didn’t dare venture out to find love before you, and I sure as hell won’t now. I was already deeply terrified of being hurt. I had already massively been burned by so many unhinged, unwell women I’ve met whenever I’ve briefly thought about dating. And you unlocked an entirely new fear about a factor over which I have zero control. So no thank you, I do plan on dying alone, thanks anyway for the offer.

And stop trying to find “activities” for us to do now that we’re “friends”. I have news for you. I still want to get to know my friends, even if I’m not dating them. Friendship isn’t where I find fun things to do with another person to satisfy a shallow desire for social interaction. If we are going to be genuine friends at any point, you have to let me get to know you. You can’t distract me with “activities”. Being friends with me is still going to be uncomfortable as fuck for you, because it’s going to feel an awful lot like dating, just without the sexual/romantic connection. But the intimacy? The part that apparently terrified you? That’s not going anywhere if you choose to keep me in your life.

I should start with the fact that I'm a man, and my friend is a woman. I really care a lot about my friend, and she has been going through some hard times... but we all do, and I started to notice something lately.

I know she's been going through some stuff, so I always ask how she's doing, how she feels, how her week/day was, and I follow up on things she tells me. But I never get the same treatment back. 90% of the questions she asks me are about things I know, but not about me. If she even asks any questions.

For example, I recently I hurt myself, and I told her about it, but she never followed up to ask how I was doing. I also had kind of a big event happening recently and she knew about it but didn't ask anything about how it went. So brought it up, but she wasn't really asking questions or reacting so I cut it short because I was worried I was boring/bothering her. I also subtly mentioned how I've been feeling some burn out from social activities and big social groups, but she didn't say anything so I didn't go much into it. And at least according to a talk we had yesterday she has been feeling better, but still acts the same way. Actually yesterday felt even worse than usual on my end.

Part of me wonders if I should say this to her, but then I remember how much she is going through and feel bad about putting more stuff on her. But has a result I'm event more stressed and with more weight on my shoulders.

And the way this all relates to the title, is because of course every once in a while I have to listen to her talk about how men take so much longer to mature than women (we are the same age btw), how men have really low emotional intelligence and empathy compared to women, and how she would actually make an amazing boyfriend... meanwhile I feel she can't even be a good friend. And of course it's especially stinging when I am a man, and don't seem to act as described, but have to listen to this when she acts like she does. When I met her I though she was a really kind person; now I'm starting to think she's nice and sweet, but perhaps not really that kind... and I feel kinda like an ass saying that.

Overall, it's (parts of what) got me feeling like I'm the verge of breaking down and just disappearing from everyone's life for a couple of weeks or more.

Edit: Edited the title to be less generalizing and sensationalized

Maybe it's because I don't drink alcohol but I don't have fun when I'm around drunk obnoxious people, loud cheap music while being annoyed by some guy I'm not interested in while also being watchful that he doesn't drug me and rape me WHILE ALSO trying to keep an eye on my friends so they don't get raped either.

Then I have to be the babysitter of my drunk friends while one is vomiting and now we have to take her home 🫩

Yep, on my 7th day of "getting off kratom", I relapsed. I don't feel bad tho. In fact, I'm much calmer than I've been this past week.

I know how addiction works. I know this is part of it. But the reason I relapsed is the reason I don't feel bad.
The first few days were pure depression. No motivation or pleasure from anything. It wasn't fun, but it was bearable. However, in the past couple of days, something in my brain switched. Instead of pure depression, my brain started alternating between depression and pure, unfiltered anxiety. And crippling anxiety at that...

I'm an anxious person. I know that. But this was honestly something different. Nearly every waking moment I was stressed af, literally shaking, trying desperately to be productive and distract myself. Being in public was torture. And when I wasn't anxious, I was back to being depressed. Honestly, the depression was much preferable, because I didn't feel the existential dread and all of my life problems towering over me, like I was gonna have a heart attack or faint all the time. This was by far one of the worst things I've ever experienced. And so I discussed it with my bf...

We struck a deal. One day of the week, I can go crazy with kratom. Otherwise I take none. That's the deal.
Honestly? I predict I'll feel great that one day and spend the rest of the week in withdrawal. But to be brutally honest, even that one day is worth it. Cause this anxiety...it's hard to put into words. It's pure hell. Always stressed, unable to relax at all, heart rate always through the roof, permanently in fight-or-flight mode. It's really hard to describe...but it's the worst.

Today is that day. I already had some. And right now, I feel calm. I finally don't feel like the walls are closing in on me constantly. I feel like I can do stuff without having a panic attack. I feel...good, honestly.

And that's it. I needed to get that out. You can judge me, call me a junkie or say that I'm just making up excuses to take drugs. All of those are probably true. But...I just know that I wanna live. I wanna make it through this winter. I wanna be somewhat "normal". And I want the SSRI I'm taking to kick in soon, to help me with anxiety at least a bit...

Honest to god, I've never judged anyone for their drug use. I don't think I've ever used the word "junkie" to refer to an actual person. It's common in my country, people look down on them, insult them, call them names and say how it's all their fault. I see them as people, cause they are. I honestly believe that they're not at fault. I think anyone can fall into a bad habit and people shouldn't be judged and dehumanized for that. But what do I know? I'm just a naive person who gives money to beggars on the street that ask for spare change, while all the people around me call them nasty names and insult them and dehumanize them and say that they should "just find a job"...

I've never judged a person for their drug use. And, even if it's naive, I'd like to be treated the same way I treat these people.
I can't force anyone tho ofc, so do what you want...I won't care either way.

I think I've posted something similar to this before, so apologies if I'm repeating what I said previously. This is also probably a "first world problem", I fully acknowledge that I'm in a privileged position.

I have been in the tech industry since the early 2010's and I can definitely say that technology was always a passion of mine. I loved almost all aspects: hardware, architecture, programming, scripting, design, and even documentation. In some ways, that's still true. My homelab is still one of my happy places. However, from a career standpoint, I'm pretty done.

At my previous company, I survived 4 layoffs, somehow. Every time layoff news leaked, I would end up staying up almost all night to find out if I still had a job to go to. I would check if my team members still had profiles in the company portal, so I'd know what mess I'd be coming into if I was retained and the rest of my team was not. Eventually, after the fourth layoff round, with another one planned in the coming months, I decided to apply for jobs elsewhere. It was mostly because of the mental issues the layoffs were giving me. I otherwise loved my coworkers; even my manager and skip-level. I even sort of liked what I did for my job at the time, even with all the layoff bullshit.

Anyway, by some stroke of luck, after nearly 6 months of applying, I finally landed an interview with a new company. I studied my ass off since I knew part of the interview process was a coding session, and somehow, I landed the job. It was the only response I got to over 300 applications, and it was a nice pay bump, too. I was very lucky, I was starting to get very demoralized and it even started to affect my job performance.

The team members I now have, manager included, are pretty good to work with. The rest of leadership, not so much, but that's how it is these days. The soul crushing part of it for me is the drive for ultimate productivity at any cost. In the year or so I've been here, leadership has increased how much they're micromanaging every aspect of our jobs. Constant escalations with little warning, watching our individual scrum point burndowns, and enforcing the use of LLMs for almost everything. I can't even be myself at work, I have completely hidden that I'm trans from everyone due to the whole DEI crackdown bullshit. While my company still seems to have support networks for queer people, I just don't feel comfortable revealing that to them while Trump is in office.

There was also a round of layoffs, so I've now survived a layoff at the new company, making it a grand total of 5 layoffs I've survived in the past 7 years.

Honestly, this round of layoffs didn't make me all that anxious. It didn't make me stay up all night in worry. I've gotten used to it, and in fact, the severance package, I'd later come to learn, was very good. Even though I had only been at the new company for about a year, I would have been able to get nearly 6 months off. In the back of my head, I was slightly hoping or wishing that it would be me, as bad and fucked up as that sounds.

I'm burned out. Since I had a very bad injury in 2022 (and had to take around two months off), I haven't taken more than 5 consecutive days off. Before that, I barely took any time off. It feels like if I take time off, I'll fall behind and end up on a PIP and then be let go without much severance, if any. I'm struggling to be motivated at work, and it feels like any minute now, I'm going to have some sort of breakdown.

I have no other marketable skills outside of tech. I like to do GIS work, but I have no real long-term professional experience in that regard. I'd love to do something for my local county, but I have no idea what that would be other than another tech job that I'll get laid off or fired from eventually. I'd like to maybe do something outdoors, but those jobs are very difficult to get and I have a bit of a bad knee from the 2022 injury. I daydreamed about working at Costco (at the retail level), but I know it's also a hard place to get a job at. The job market as a whole, is entirely fucked, as I'm sure everyone knows. It's hard to see anything bright in the future. The only things that keep me going back to work are my family and pets. If I had no one to support, I probably would have moved to the middle of nowhere and turned my back to society by now.

I don't really get much sleep these days, to say the least.

For those of you that don't know, your router (sometimes correctly and sometimes incorrectly also referred to as a "modem") is your devices' gateway to the internet. Now, normally, the first "stop" (called "hop", but it rhymes, so that's okay) before your internet goes out into the world wide web to fetch whatever you where looking for 🤐 is your ISP (the company to which you pay money in order to "have internet"). Some people, like myself, don't want my ISP to know what I'm doing on the world wide web, because I'm worried I'll give them a heart attack 🤞 So in order to spare them that suffering, I let my router "scramble" all the information going out from and coming in to my home. I also pay money to another company that "de-scrambles" the information, so that it can actually interact with the world wide web (look for images, play video streams, chat, whathaveyou). These companies, often referred to as VPNs, often let you choose which one of their computers (called "servers") you send your scrambled information to, because sometimes you want it to appear as though you were in a different place than you actually are. Sometimes the speed of "your internet" is important, in which case you want to choose one of their computers that are closest to your actual location. And once you have chosen, you very often can be done with it and never touch it again. Which is what I did. And it worked flawlessly for FIVE YEARS.

Until today.

I come home work, connect to my WiFi and I have no internet. I troubleshoot like crazy. I go through my physical connections (cables, AC/DC power adapters, the internet cable plugs in the walls, etc), the interconnection between my various devices (phone to router, computer to router, etc), the software settings within the router... I even try downgrading the operating system of the router and my access points. God knows how long I spent doing this.

Then it hit me: let's check if my VPN has announced anything on their blog! Maybe that specific computer of theirs to which I'm sending my internet is out of order? And that was exactly it. I simply chose another computer of theirs and badabing badabom.

🫠

I remember a few years ago, bored scrolling Youtube and seeing this same channel randomly in my recommended and getting uncomfortable back then, bc upon looking at it I thought "i swear this feels like someones weird fetish" and hoping i never see it again, but unfortunately it has randomly decided to resurface on my feed.

At first glance it looks like TLC slop or just some makeover channel, but this channel is putrid and gives me bad vibes. What's the issue? If you look closer at the videos, notice how its ALWAYS "queer/alt" type people being made over to look more gender-conforming/traditional, and notice how it's never the other way around. It's ALWAYS gotta be some kind of tomboy/femboy erasure, or goth/alt erasure.

As a tomboy it makes me sad to see tomboy/masc erasure :( seeing all these gorgeous tomboys/mascs being stripped of their essence and made into generic basic girls hurts.

Like the concept of "wow what would this person look like in a different style" makeover concept is fine on paper, I kinda get it, there's so many ways to explore that concept, but this channel is just... it's ALLLLWAYS gotta be some kind of tomboy/femboy erasure, or goth/alt erasure.

It makes me uncomfortable because it has a lot of conversion therapy type undertones... and it feels like somebody's barely-disguised "force-fem/masc" fetish, it's just... gives me really weird vibes. Like "Making tomboy goth into pretty femme tradwife" like sorry but this stuff has some weird homophobic + transphobic undertones to it... And femboys aren't safe either, one video I saw was like "turning a femboy into a super masculine man"..

And there's always loads of comments that are like "Wow they look pretty and have so much natural beauty!" "she has such a pretty feminine face its a shame she hides it behind all those piercings/tattoos and scene hair bangs" "he would look so hot if he kept his natural hair instead of dying it" and idk it has weird conservative Churchgoer undertones to it too and like... sorry but this channel just makes me uncomfortable. I could be over-reacting, but I want to vent my feeling somewhere.

Like if someone wants a femme why don't they go look at femmes that already exist instead of forcing goths to become feminine, if someone wants to see masculine men why don't they go look at masculine men and mascs, instead of forcing a femboy to comform to masculine gender roles... I get it's for the gimmick or views but, tomboy/femboy erasure sucks! (Especially in this political climate where there is a lot of anti-trans rhetoric and negativity towards trans and gender non-conforming people) and this whole channel feels like "barely disguised conversion therapy fetish fuel" or maybe its just TLC slop and I'm overreacting but I'm a gender nonconforming and I am getting uncomfortable vibes.

EDIT: Also i forgot to mention, ive seen comments that are like "wow she looks so stiff and uncomfortable wearing that dress but she looks so pretty!!" like tell me that isnt like... weird

Half awake. I should've just called it in, like our policy says we should. But no, I'm going to be smart, I thought: since I happen to have my work phone at home, why not just send an internal e-mail (we use Outlook 🤣) to our admins. This way, I don't have to try to be articulate or explain things over and over verbally. I'll just type up a concise, professional, well written e-mail, describing what needs to be taken care while I'm recuperating.

Done. That was a GOOD e-mail. Even fucking ChatGPT's got NOTHING on me. Which is all good, but now Pandora's box (read: work phone) is open and naturally I leave notifications on:

*pling*

What's this? An e-mail from one of our neighboring offices (about a 100 clicks away, but still)?

"Hi there! Would you be so kind as to give the below caseworker the details that she's asking for on that case that you transfered to us the other day? Thanks! 😊"

Those exact details, which I am not in liberty to divulge here, I explained to that office earlier this week. TWICE. Once to an admin over the phone and once to a caseworker over the phone. Just to add a little frosting on top, that caseworker was so fucking demeaning, using phrases such as "you should do this and that, but not like this, but like that, because, mkay?" SHE DOESN'T EVEN KNOW ME. DON'T YOU CRITICIZE MY WORK WITHOUT FIRST ASKING WHAT I HAVE DONE, HOW I'VE DONE IT AND WHY. Motherf...

And now this e-mail? I just lost it. My finger hovered over the send button. I was in doubt. "This isn't me, I'm a nice person, I don't say shit like this, maybe I'm just still exhausted and I shouldn't do work while at home sick..."

I had typed up a response, which was waiting to be sent. "Hello! I have already provided this information previously at two separate occasions. You should review your chains of communication. Here are the details, again: details"

I took a deep but really annoyed breath and sent it. I just didn't want to swallow the pill of looking like I hadn't done my work, my due diligence, my frankly speaking OBLIGATIONS toward a what we call "sister office".

*pling*

"Thank you for the details. May I suggest contact our office prior to transferring a case next time?"

...

...

...

Shoot me in my dysophoria inducing cock and let me bleed out on the floor of that fucking office.

But for real, I know my e-mail was a little "aboveitall" or had a "tone" or was passive aggressive or whatever, but PLEASE. 😭 I am not going to take this one lying down.

Which is to say, what a LOVELY start of another day off. How do you recover from this? I'm thinking waffles, but I dunno.

Or rather, when people ask me about my life in general. The absolute worst is when I'm doing something on my PC next to someone and they look at my monitor and start talking to me. I just can't do it...I completely lock up, freeze and try to breathe. I don't know what's worse, the gnawing feeling of someone's eyes on my monitor, which to me feels like a massive invasion of privacy for some reason, or the fact that I'm being disturbed, forcefully having my attention directed away from what I'm doing. It's why I strongly prefer to sit in a place where nobody can see my monitor, not even from a reflection. I'm not even doing anything I should be ashamed of, I just fucking hate the feeling, honestly.

This isn't new. Even at 10-11, when me and my mother were walking, she used to ask me about the book I was reading. And I just...froze completely. I felt like I was being interrogated for no reason at all. So I stopped talking. She got upset, ofc and I got upset too. And...that wasn't the only time this happened. Every time someone asks me about what I'm doing, I know they're gonna be upset, I know exactly what's going to happen...but it's always the same anyway. I just can't...talk. I don't want to. Why won't they just leave me alone? I hate it...

My current bf. I've told him multiple times to not ask me what I'm doing. I said that if I felt comfortable, I would tell him myself. Well...of course he doesn't respect that. Just like many other things I ask him to respect...
And every single time it's the same. He asks, I shut up completely cause I feel I can't tell him, he gets upset, I get upset and start crying and then we're just both pissed at each other...all because of me.
The monitor thing is even worse tho. I hate it with a fucking passion. Our PCs are next to each other (I have a laptop), but I do my best to always move to a place where he can't see my screen when he's sitting next to me. Because he always does...no matter how many times I ask him, no matter how hard I try to explain how fucking awful it makes me feel...nothing. So I sit away from him every time.

I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't know why I'm like this. I just wish people would let me work and rot at my computer in peace. It's not like them asking will make things any better. With me specifically, things get much worse. And...I'm starting to kind of blame myself. This is definitely a me problem...

There is a ladybug above my head in the shower. In late October. I know it's freezing outside, but what exactly are you hoping to get out of this... Relationship or whatever this is?! 🐞💀

Imagine

You're at work. You are working with a psychotic patient.

That patient grabs a student after throwing stuff down on your mobile computer.

They go to a student. They grab them.

You tell the patient to stop, the attack you. You get visible bleeding marks on your body from this. It is jusy you and the patient.

You scream for help, that help is seconds away.

What do you do to protect yourself? What you NEED to so.

So, you push, you shove, you tell them to back off, just like you were trained to.

It doesn't work.

Your throw them to the ground, get on top of them and force them on their belly.

Help arrives, but only after you started bleeding.

Then you end up getting investigated for using excessive force, because some office person said that this is not what they trained you for.

Now you are scared to even defend yourself.

Picture this. Someone has their teeth in your arm. You arm is bleeding. You grab their hair. That office worker questions your actions.

I hate everything

Update: I have now compared a prerecorded audio tape (as sold in stores), one copied from vinyl without modification and one copied from vinyl with added Dolby Atmos noise reduction filter. For my take on the noise reduction, see OP. The prerecorded tape sounded like listening to radio in my kitchen back in like 1995, that is, zero bass, minimum mid, all treble (but not cutting sharp like the noise filter). In comparison, the copy from vinyl without modifications sounds awesome. A much fuller sound: equal bass, mid and treble but with the occasional vinyl pops and cracks of course. Absolutely enjoyable! In fact, I spent the whole morning at work yesterday listening to two albums like that! It was also a great conversation starter, he he.

Vinyl player: Argon TT-3 PLUS
Cassette deck: Harman/kardon TD 302
Cassette type: I
Cassette player: Crown SZ-32 (couldn't find any info, so it could be a China clone of something else...)

I'm taping (copying) vinyls to empty audio cassettes to not wear out the orginial audio cassette releases. My audio cassette deck with which I'm doing to copying has some kind of a Doly Atmos noise filter which is supposed to suppress hiss and whatever. So I decided to use it. For good measure, I also wiped the vinyl with some isopropyl alcohol which not only removes stains but also - supposedly - reduces static discharges, which of course makes popping sounds. All this in preparation for an hour long bus ride.

Results:

1. the noise filter just added a ton of treble, making the music unbearable to listen to. Like needles in my ears.
2. the isopropyl alcohol just made loose grit and shit, which the needle collected (well done needle, in ANY other situation...), which distorted the sound even more.

Only 45 minutes left on this God awful bus. 🥲💔❤️‍🔥💀

I'm digitizing analog tapes (VHS, Hi8, Mini DV, audio cassettes, whathaveyou) because I love tech. I love to learn. And I love to help. So, after spending loads of cash on putting together all the hardware, spending time on understanding the software and learning about analog versus digital signal and such, I offered to my colleagues to digitize shit for free. I figured, if it all goes well and I learn something out of this, maybe I could even register a little business? Whatever. One of these colleagues offered to give me their VHS player in exchange for digitizing their whole collection (20 ish tapes). They said it's going to take some time for them to gather all their things and hand them over, so I thought, what the heck, why not help another colleague in the meantime, because that colleague wants help with Mini DV, which I am already able to do. So I did. Four tapes. FOUR. Now that other prick who later gave me the VHS player suddenly texts me, asking "how come you helped X before me?"

THE NERVE OF THIS PIECE OF...

1. I'm doing it for free, so shut up
2. You told me you're gonna be late, so shut up
3. I'm not asking for single dime, so shut up
4. If you're gonna be ungrateful, just shut up

Using shear willpower, I haven't upgraded shit (read "computer components") since AI hit the fan, but now I literally need more storage. Period. So, like I used to do before we decided to throw media literacy, critical thinking, hardware and software craftsmanship out the window, I went to my go to hardware store and an 16TB 3.5' internal HDD still costs $900 new. Wai. What has the little person done to deserve this. Whatever. I'll watch some Black Mirror now.

I like makeup and skincare, I'm far from a professional but I have my knowledge, I'd have thought someone whose job is dedicated to the industry would know much more than me...

Well turns out this woman gave me the worst advice ever super confidently. I have very dry skin, I've always used hydrating foundations even if they transfer they make my skin look glowy.

Well this woman said that the brand I use is so terrible I should use another brand that was more expensive and of "better quality for the skin", my makeup looks cakey for the first time in my life, this foundation is so dry it sucks up the little moisture I have of my skin.

I did some research and turns out the price of a foundation doesn't make it healthier for your skin, all brands here have the same safety quality by law, so you're basically paying for the brand.

She also didn't know, as an aesthetician, that retinol can get rid of acne. I mentioned it to her and she said very confidently that retinol doesn't do that and that retinol destroys people's skin... Obviously if you use it wrong it will destroy your skin but the point is to use it as indicated. Also it was literally invented to get rid of acne so how can you be so sure the purpose of retinol is only for ageing?

Idk this woman really made me think I can only trust myself when it comes to beauty advice, that or a very professional Korean aesthetician because the western ones know jack shit.

I am a big proponent for not giving Visa, Mastercard, and the other fin tech monopolies a dime. However, I use them because the social credit score is almost essential in today's economy and I also get a little cashback for using it.

Today, I came across an establishment that showed a 3% added fee for credit cards and I was pretty happy to see this. If businesses don't want to be cucked by payment processors, provide more options, where it be crypto like Monero or something or just cash payments.

Even at farmers markets, where we have little independent farms and they seemingly don't have a preference or incentive to prefer cash or credit card payments via Square (who, I'm sure takes a cut).

Is there a downside I'm not seeing? Let me know especially if you have further information.

I know this isn't a unique problem, but my Mom is fairly smart about some stuff, but she's also a Boomer Prepper. Something about the Cuban Missile Crisis broke her brain, and she, along with tons of other Boomer-era preppers stockpile bullets and buckets of dried eggs, desperate for something to happen so they can have an excuse to sit on their porch and pop some shots off at anyone they don't like.

I recently learned that my Mom's favorite internet forum is one called TB2K - DDG search for it and you'll find it. She claims to like it for the homesteading tips on things like canning.

Everyone on there is a genuine idiot. Their predictions are always as wrong as could be - as it evidenced by the forum being based on end of the world stuff around the Y2K bug. Their motto should be "Consistently wrong in public for 26 years!"

Their analysis of geopolitics and US politics is worse than nothing at all. They're into the categorically dumbest conspiracy theories, and love them. They are proud racists, many seem to be die-hard maga fools, and would sell their own kids if it would mean Hillary Clinton stubbed her toe. Every one a "good christian" that glorifies violence and death. It's not even the worst cesspool of humanity online. It's a self-selected collection of idiots propping each other up. And then 2 or 3 threads about seed storage that are OK.

I can't find the user, but, I swear to you that, according to my Mom, the most accurate person on the whole site is an Irish lady that gets a hankerin' for corn before a big earthquake. So, maybe she's on Lemmy, too - has anyone correlated corn memes and earthquakes?

Anyway, it's stupid and dumb and I needed to vent. Thanks for reading.

Anyone truly paying attention New York City politics knows that under her predecessors, the NYPD leadership was an absolute shit show.

The previous NYPD commissioners were arrested and accused of sexual abuse / bribery.

Honestly, I like Jessica Tish. She brought professionalism, expertise and stability to a department that was in chaos. Zohran Mamdani made a good decision by keeping her.

Three weeks ago I took the front wheel off and put new bearings on it.

Total cost of tools and parts? Less than $150 and about 70 minutes of time.

Shout-out to Segway for making a repairable product. YES.