It was the inverse in my house, oldest daughter and I are chiliheads, ex was not, though he was ok with mildly spicy stuff, not oversensitive. So daughter and I go out for Thai food because if it’s just us we can get it so spicy. We bring some home and warn the dad don’t eat it, it’s spicy . He gets stoned and forgets, eats it and was literally traumatized; would not touch anything spicy for a couple of years.

Holy crap! That is dreadful. I have not worked anywhere that backwards. “Not to speak to male coworkers?”. Did you work for the Mike Pence campaign or something? What did the other women in the workplace think?

I did get paid less than the guys I worked with in the early 1990s, literally because they were men. But not since. We have female VP of Finance, female Financial Controller, I’d say it’s 75/25 still in the top so not equal, but about half our operational managers are women, and I work in sports, that doesn’t seem a wildly progressive industry.

Well she was around before birth control was legal or widely available, and before abortion was legal. Yeah I agree the US is getting more hostile but nobody at my work is asking me to get the coffee, or saying women can’t do the job. And raised 4 kids while doing a dissertation, widowed when the youngest was not even a teen yet.

I don’t think now is great but it’s better in a lot of ways.

I would still take my life over my mom’s. Things were not good for women back then.

Not at all weird where I live. Very good use of the park.

If it’s weird where you are, even better. Go for it.

We had a little used parking lot a couple blocks away from my old house and there was a guy who practiced the tall unicycle there. For 20 years, we would drive past that corner taking kids to/from school & us to/from work and it never failed to delight us when he was there.

About 4 hours but not in one go. Everyone is different but I can’t imagine 8 hours straight at anything.

Too late for that!

I’ve made cheese, though, it just seems more like food than the ones made from oil. Still - I know this is the vegan sub, and I cook for vegans quite often, I am happy for y’all that it’s getting better tasting, for sure.

Woah, I’ve not seen any of those! Yes I am old. I liked the animated Aeon Flux a lot, and there was a pretty bad live adaptation, so I thought it was famous.

I think sort of, yes. It’s funny because I will move somewhere, then it gets gentrified and people can’t afford to move there, it’s happened four times in my life. But doesn’t that mean I am an early stage gentrifier, when I move where I can afford to?

And on energy, I feel stuck, need a car, don’t use it often, with two large and two small salaries in the household we are solidly middle class but I don’t want solar panels because then my roof and house become uninsurable, we are all electric no gas.

In short YES anybody living in comfort is likely part of the problem, but I would love for everyone in the world to live in comfort!

Wouldn’t this depend on why the assassin is after me?

Is this obscure? I thought it well known?

Cheese is so interesting because it’s cultured, with different bacteria that make it all taste different. It’s more like a living thing. Vegan cheese is the stuff of school pizzas. Pasteurized Processed Cheese Food.

Still interesting, and happy for vegans, but coconut oil and pea protein made into an ultraprocessed cheese food doesn’t sound healthier than cheese.

You can hedge a loquat - one of my neighbors did this, and it keeps the fruit where you can reach it too.

The dwarf lime tree is the most productive in my yard. The people recommending loquat are not kidding, those are so easy. I want a Jaboticaba this year too.

I’m in zone 10, humid subtropical. Apples do not work here, most peaches don’t, but mango, papaya, bananas, carambola, loquat, longan, a lot of fruit trees are happy here.

My ex once stood in the kitchen for over an hour, with the cat on the counter, opening up every spice in the cabinet for the cat to smell.

“What are you doing?”

“Letting Max smell the spices”

All of them.

There is usually an alligator or two (or three, or…) in the pond by my work. They definitely get big enough to kill a villain before anyone bothers calling to have them relocated.

Yeah one can’t hang clothes outside to dry here, since it’s not dry outside, and line dried laundry is stiff and wrinkled, dryer laundry is soft and smooth. But I still pull half my clothes out and hang them inside to dry because oof dryers sure do wear them out faster.

This makes sense, if they modeled steamrolling people instead of gentle conversation I can understand you don’t have practice or guidance on conversation, and also it’s really normal to feel like you need to have alone space if your family didn’t give you enough of it.

But - unplanned and unwanted are two different things. Without that element of luck, randomness, our lives would be so dull. It’s nice when spontaneous conversation happens. It doesn’t have to go anywhere, doesn’t have to mean anything. I would say if you want to practice the non-confrontational small talk literally just look up from your phone when you are out and about and say hi to people, let them greet you too, see if you feel more comfortable over time.

I will note this is a sort of regional thing - Florida is sort of like ‘The South’ and kind of not, but in terms of people just striking up random conversations, we are like the South. It’s very much normal here. NYC is different people are in a hurry and brusque.

"Woah, those apples look so good! Which ones are they? "

“I can never tell if a watermelon is ripe, can you?”

When I am buying something, often someone will say “have you tried that before? What is it like?”

Stuff like that. Small talk. We aren’t machines, we are social animals who interact with each other. I do think people are quick to discount the value of weak social interaction, shallow relationships, and focus on deep friendships and romantic ones, but those weak connections are so valuable too. They are like a glue for a community, connections that don’t demand much from you.

I’m far from extroverted and moderately socially awkward, but still my life is so much better when I look up and say hi to people.