weekend open thread – November 16-17, 2024

by Alison Green on November 15, 2024

This comment section is open for any non-work-related discussion you’d like to have with other readers, by popular demand.

Here are the rules for the weekend posts.

Book recommendation of the week: Blood Test, by Charles Baxter. A mild-mannered father is thrown after a blood test predicts he will turn to a life of crime.

* I make a commission if you use that Amazon link.

You may also like:
{ 1,122 comments }

{ 1,122 comments… read them below }

  1. Ask a Manager* Post author

    The weekend posts are for relatively light discussion — think office break room — and comments should ask questions and/or seek to discuss ideas. “Here’s what happened to me today” personal-blog-style posts will be removed (because they got out of control in the past). We also can’t do medical advice here.

    These threads are no politics.

    Please give the full rules a re-read.

    1. Dark Macadamia*

      Be a Revolution – I love Ijeoma Oluo’s writing and this one has been on my list for awhile.

      God of the Woods – I’m not huge on mysteries but it’s a book club pick and I’m enjoying it so far.

    2. Sloanicota*

      “Margo’s Got Money Problems,” which I believe was a recc from here, finally came up in my library holds cue. I really like the author’s observations so far.

    3. Flower*

      Just finished Creation Lake (shortlisted for the Booker Prize, didn’t win it). People either think it’s brilliant or they think it’s weird and boring and it makes them feel stupid. I am in the latter camp. I have read lots of analyses and reviews of it and I still don’t see why people think it’s so great. (Please feel free to enlighten me, anyone! I would appreciate it.) I feel really dumb. The London Review of Books review made me feel a little better (the critic at one point said that while he was reading the book he thought, “why are you even writing this?”), but the naysayers are definitely in the minority.

      1. Flower*

        p.s. The only reason I even finished reading it at all is that it’s for my book group. Otherwise I would have abandoned it, and I never do that.

        1. PhyllisB*

          I just abandoned a book I had hopes for, and I hardly ever do that. I think this year this is the only one I did.
          The Marigold Mind Laundry. I like magic realism, like Sarah Addison or Rachel Linden and thought it would be something like that, but it wasn’t.
          Perhaps if you like fantasy you will enjoy it, but just wasn’t for me.

        2. Scallop*

          I liked it but not wholeheartedly. I wish it had either had more of a plot or used fewer tropes of a a spy thriller. I kept waiting for the action.

          I liked the getting the character’s perspective (especially reading a woman who doesn’t seem to have an impulse to please others) and her access to interesting subcultures.

          Kushner had clearly been reading the theorists who I use in my research — one of whom is even named Bruno (Latour). They’ve started influencing a bunch of storytellers (Adam McKay named his new production company Hyperobject Industries after one of their ideas). The results seem to be interesting but not to quite work as *stories*. I wonder if they’ll get better at it or if we’ll get a new genre.

      2. Goldfeesh*

        I felt that about The Road by McCarthy. In fact, I only read it after my mom called me raving about how good it was and she wanted me to read it so we could discuss it. I read it, called her back all, “What the hell? It was terrible!” Mom: “I know, I hated it! I needed you to read it so we could gripe about it together!” Thanks, Mom. LOL.

        1. Who Plays Backgammon?*

          I started reading that at the peak of covid. bad choice for the times. the writing is brilliant but the story was too bleak to continue. i returned it about a third of the way in and added it to my list of books i’ll finish someday (that is an actual new year’s resolution to come).

        2. allathian*

          I haven’t read that one, but I did like the 2009 movie starring Viggo Mortensen and Charlize Theron. That said, once was enough, and I’m not in the least interested in either seeing the movie again or reading the book.

    4. Jackalope*

      I just finished a book called Wild Girls by Tiya Mills. It’s a nonfiction book about girls and women in US history who were outdoorsy, and whose love of the outdoors helped them become stronger to fight against the bad parts of our society. There was a special emphasis on Black and Indigenous girls, which I enjoyed. Some of the book was rough, since it went into some of the most awful bits of our history (slavery and genocide against Indigenous peoples, as well as the Indian boarding schools). But it was overall hopeful, and I enjoyed reading about things like how the Indigenous children resisted their kidnappers at the boarding schools, or how Harriet Tubman’s extraordinary success at smuggling people to freedom (none of her groups were ever captured) was due in part to her fieldwork and forestry such that she knew how to move and keep people safe and fed. It’s a short gem of a book and I highly recommend if you’re at all interested.

      3. Lizzie (with the deaf cat)*

        Brigadier General Harriet Tubman now!
        This is from Axios dot com:
        “Harriet Tubman, the first U.S. woman to lead an armed military operation during a war, was posthumously promoted to brigadier general during Veterans Day commemorations in Maryland Monday. The big picture: Maryland Gov. Wes Moore paid tribute during a ceremony at the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad State Park and Visitor Center in Dorchester County to the abolitionist who led an armed expedition in the U.S. Civil War that resulted in more than 700 enslaved people being freed.
        “She continues to be our north star towards justice,” Moore said at the event promoting Tubman to brigadier general in the Maryland National Guard. “Today, we celebrate a soldier and a person who earned the title of veteran,” he added. “Today we celebrate one of the greatest authors of the American story.” ”

        1. Jackalope*

          That is awesome! I learned about HT a bit when I was in school, but reading this book made me think I’d like to know more. (I’m going to peruse the author’s recommended reading list very carefully before turning it back into the library.) One thing I really liked about this book is that the author didn’t sugarcoat the Lousiness of things that happened in the past, but she also didn’t see the people they happened to as just victims. She talked about ways small and large that slaves would rebel, for example, sometimes to escape but other times just to carve out small bits of joy in their lives. The idea that HT’s love of the forest helped her do her job so well added a lot to her story. And the kids at boarding schools who ran away, fought back, and tried to preserve bits of their culture were also good to read about. It was still horrible, but this book focused more on their own agency than any other books I’d read previously.

          1. Jackalope*

            Squee! Just discovered that the author herself has just released a book about Harriet Tubman! She’d mentioned in this one that she was working on it, but apparently it’s now published. I’d thought I’d still have to wait.

            1. word nerd*

              Cool, just checked out Night Flyer from the library. Let’s discuss in a couple weeks if you’re getting it soon! :)

    5. Squirrel Nutkin (the teach, not the admin)*

      Finished the Joan Didion novel *The Last Thing He Wanted* — another geo-political thriller like *Democracy* and *The Book of Common Prayer*. I feel like she’s a little like Graham Greene. I really liked the book, but I still think my favorite of hers is still *Play It As It Lays* (which is not a geo-political thriller at all).

      Started on a comfort re-read of E. F. Benson’s *Queen Lucia*, where nothing heavier than small-village social politics is going on. It’s bound with Benson’s *Miss Mapp*, so that’s next on the list, and then I’m going for a comfort re-read of what I think is Agatha Christie’s first Tommy and Tuppence novel, *The Secret Adversary*.

    6. Charlotte Lucas*

      Finished “Witches Abroad” and “The Last Dragonslayer.” Halfway through “Enter a Murderer” and about to start “The Song of the Quarkbeast.”

    7. Falling Diphthong*

      Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann. A shepherd is murdered and his flock decide to solve the mystery of his death. Told from the point of view of the sheep. Fun and engaging.

      Sheep are exceptional at acting casual.

      4. Lisanthus*

        Thank you!

        When I went looking for a place to order the book, I found out it’s also going to be a movie with Hugh Jackman and Emma Thompson heading the cast. Interesting….

      5. Reluctant Mezzo*

        I so loved that book (I have a sheep-oriented last name, so sheep are *always* on my radar). It was actually a Jeopardy question four or five years ago.

    8. goddessoftransitory*

      Finishing up the Crime Novels of the 30s and 40s collection, the last one being Cornell Woolrich’s I Married a Dead Man. The plot was super familiar and it turns out I saw a film of it with Barbara Stanwyck last year.

      At home I got American Scary by Jeremy Dauber for my birthday: it’s an overview of American themes in horror from the colonies until today. It’s very well researched and much deeper with a focus on the nation’s history and sins than just a catalogue of “bad stuff.” I now must read The House of the Seven Gables after putting it off all my adult life.

    9. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      After a discussion in last week’s thread, I have been rereading the Trixie Belden books that are available in ebook. Nostalgia. :)

      1. Trixie Belden was my hero*

        Way to go!
        After reminiscing last week, I went rummaging in a box and found 4 or 5 Trixies that I pulled out for my Sunday reading. Glad to know they are on ebook, will look into that.
        Thanks.

        1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

          There are eight of them available that way that I’ve found, and at least so far the three I’ve read have been literally the first three in the series. :)

      3. tangerineRose*

        I liked the Trixie Belden books too. I did try listening to the first audiobook recently, and I think I’m going to have to read them instead – something about the voice made me feel like this was for little kids somehow.

    10. word nerd*

      This week was mostly books I liked! Three faves from the week:

      Playground by Richard Powers (the guy who wrote The Overstory), which definitely required a debrief with my husband who had read it last month

      Mickey 7 by Edward Ashton, about an expendable human who keeps getting cloned when previous versions die doing dangerous jobs. The snark and light tone reminded me a bit of Murderbot and Andy Weir (although admittedly not as well done as either). A movie based on the book is coming out this spring.

      Life Among the Savages by Shirley Jackson, a memoir of her life focusing on her chaotic family life with by the end 4 young kids.

    11. RedinSC*

      I’m reading The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst. I’m about half way through

      It was recommended here a while back. I’m enjoying it so far, but the main character’s anxiety is a bit overwhelming.

      1. Filosofickle*

        That’s something I’m running into a lot. On one hand I am glad for the representation and normalization of anxiety and misfits, but I’ve had to walk away from a bunch of books that had overwhelmingly neurotic lead characters. I have enough of that in my own head! (I haven’t read this one so no idea if we’re talking about the same thing.)

        1. RedinSC*

          Fortunately it’s not overwhelming, I don’t think. But I’m actually listening to it, and when the main character goes into her “What if” scenarios, I’ve found myself shouting back to just stop!

    12. Rosyglasses*

      Priya Parker : The Art of Gathering – which explores how to assign deeper meaning to meetings, community gatherings, friend get-togethers, etc – and how that can lead to more meaningful connections.

      Barbara Pym : Crampton House – is arriving tomorrow on recommendation here.

    13. Filosofickle*

      Liked: A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger. Definitely not a story you’ve read before! An indigenous futurism tale of a girl trying to translate the stories of her great grandmother who meets a cottonmouth snake and their friends from a reflected world, and they join forces to save her grandmother and an endangered toad.

      Liked: Cassandra in Reverse by Holly Smale. A woman learns she can jump back in time, and goes about repeatedly trying to keep from getting dumped, fired, and kicked out of her apartment. But do things really need to be “fixed?” Realistic autistic character (who doesn’t know it), written by an autistic author.

      Hated: Wives Like Us by Plum Sykes. Can’t believe I finished this. Rich social climbing friends (“country princesses”) compete for status, the perfect butler, and the most enviable, IG-worthy life in the Cotswalds. Blech.

      1. Filosofickle*

        And today I have started Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi. I really liked Starter Villain, and this has the same (possibly overly quippy) humor.

    15. Jackalope*

      Just remembered that I also had a DNF this week: Pride and Protest by Nikki Payne. I’d previously read and enjoyed its sequel Sex, Lies, and Sensibility. As you might guess from the titles, they’re both modern day retelling of Jane Austen books, which was part of my issue. I want to like Jane Austen a lot, and I like the idea of Jane Austen. I just don’t find that her books resonate with me. But the second book had a lot of elements of story that I enjoy, and I had fun with the characters and the setting. Pride and Protest was too… modern? Everyone was super slangy, and not interested in the kinds of things I am, and they didn’t make their interests interesting to me. For anyone who likes Jane Austen and modern retellings, you may well enjoy these. I felt like the writing was good even if it didn’t capture me. But I was kind of bummed since I’d been looking forward to reading this one and then it just fizzled for me.

      1. Meh*

        I read Sex, Lies, and Sensibility and I couldn’t get into the rhythm of the storytelling. It felt like so many leaps in time and hardly any deep character development. Plus the younger sister is just unlikable. I finished it but I wanted it to be MORE somehow.

    16. English Rose*

      Just finished the latest Gamache thriller by Louise Penny, The Gray Wolf. Fast-paced as they rush to prevent a terrorist attack and intricately plotted, with a character from a previous novel returning in mysterious circumstances. Maybe not her best ever, but hugely enjoyable, and this series always makes me want to live in Three Pines.

      1. IT Manager*

        Wait what? My order is in pre-release, supposed to be here August *2025*….am I missing where to get this???

        1. GoryDetails*

          Did you order the paperback? That’s not out ’til next year, but the hardcover of Grey Wolf is out now.

    17. Evvy*

      The Practice, The Horizon, and The Chain by Sofia Samatar. I’ve read a few of her books but this is the first sci-fi I’ve read by her, picked it up as soon as I saw her name and have been loving it, she never misses!!!

    18. RussianInTexas*

      Finished The Three – Body Problem last night. I looked where the story went, it was rather different, but boy, the science was dense. I think a background in physics which I don’t have would really help. I want to know where the story goes, but hesitant.

      1. PhyllisB*

        When I read books like that is one of the times I miss my son the most. I like science and chemistry but not very knowledgeable in either. When I read Lessons in Chemistry I texted him a lot of questions. Now I write things down and Google. Not nearly as much fun.

      2. Reluctant Mezzo*

        The first book of the trilogy is actually the best. The second one is mostly interesting, but people are stupid in ways I don’t understand. The third one has a character I honestly wouldn’t mind seeing die horribly, the stupid is so strong in her.

      3. David*

        For what it’s worth, I do have a background in physics and I don’t think it helped me enjoy the story any more. In fact it may have made it worse: it just made me acutely aware of how ridiculous the “science” of the story was. To be fair, it’s a different “kind” of ridiculous than you usually get, because in this case the author seems to understand physics and the academic research process very well (some of the stuff about conferences and publications and being stuck in a windowless room poring over electronic equipment was deeply relatable). But the way the universe in the book works, once you go beyond known physics, feels very arbitrary – not that I think this is what happened, but it comes across almost as if the author had studied science but never understood it as anything more than a set of hokey descriptions of how things work, without any internal consistency, and then tried to extrapolate from that and just wound up with more hokey descriptions of how things work without any internal consistency.

        In case any readers would be interested, one book that I think very notably did not suffer from that problem is Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. That one is amazingly consistent. I mean, yes it is fiction so there’s stuff in it that couldn’t happen according to real science, but the approach in that story is more like, let’s change a couple little things about reality and see what logically follows from that.

    19. Falling Diphthong*

      Questland by Carrie Vaughn, in which a professor of literature is recruited to go with the mercenary team to penetrate the just-gone-rogue island of live roleplaying fantasy games, which was supposed to start beta testing. She understands the rules of quests the engineers will have set up, and is also an ex of the project manager.

      This was a fun light read but immediately started fading for me? There’s a theme of wobbling on the uncanny valley, where a fantasy element like unicorns is so real–up until you notice the flaw in the depiction, and then you can’t unsee it. I think I would have liked it to lean either more into the zippy quest side, or more into the why-these-stories-resonate side.

    20. Meh*

      I’m on the second Dark Education book, The Last Graduate – thanks for the rec on here. It’s a fun departure and I zipped through the first book since I’m avoiding doom scrolling.

      I’m waiting for a friend to be ready for the Assassin’s blade book. Reading with a partner (so we can discuss plot points) really makes me slow down and actually form theories and not just blaze through. I’ve been right on them all so far :)

    21. PhyllisB*

      Has anyone here read Real American by Rachel Kong? I saw an interview with the author in Time magazine, but haven’t decided if I want to read it.
      No spoilers, just your opinion on whether you liked it or not.

      1. Mrs. Frisby*

        I enjoyed it. There’s a thread throughout that I wasn’t expecting and I’m not sure worked (keeping intentionally vague to avoid spoilers), but I do enjoy multi-generational family sagas and seeing how different generations of a family interact with each other and how one generation’s issues bleed into the next, so enjoyed that part.

      2. word nerd*

        I loved it, even though multigenerational sagas tend to be hit or miss for me. I liked it much more than her previous book Goodbye, Vitamin. Read it and come back and tell us what you think!

        1. PhyllisB*

          I will!! Thanks!! And I realize that the title is Real AMERICANS. I was having some trouble with my phone and hit send before I caught it.

    22. Artemesia*

      I am reading Philip Roth’s Sabbath’s Theater for a book group and it is utterly repulsive. It got great reviews and I feel like I am swimming in a sewer. Yeah, so well written — but who wants to wade around in the mind of this pig? Feel like a right philistine but not getting this.

      Also just read Ordinary Grace and Foster for other book clubs. Both well written and one is drawn into the world of the characters, but both also very sad.

      1. ampersand*

        I just read a synopsis of Sabbath’s Theater and it sounds like it would be very difficult to get through! This is why I don’t read Cormac McCarthy, even though his books are objectively good.

      2. word nerd*

        I loved Ordinary Grace and how it made me appreciative of the power and beauty of religion even though I’m a staunch atheist.

        I also dislike Philip Roth!

      3. PhyllisB*

        I attempted to read one of his books years ago and HATED it!! Never tried another one. Glad to know I made the right decision.

      4. Jessica*

        I hated some of Roth’s more famous work decades ago, but more recently a really well-written and interesting review lured me into reading one of his more recent books, to my regret.

    23. Lifelong student*

      I’ve been waiting all week for this thread! I read a book that blew me away with the quality of the writing! The author is Geraldine Brooks and the book was Year of Wonders. I was so impressed with the language used- it was like reading poetry or listening to music. I enjoyed the story as well- although the ending not so much. I like so much I have gotten several more of her books and am currently reading a non-fiction one about the hidden world of Islamic Women. It is well written and easy to read. I have two more of her books from the library and will put all her books on reserve over time.

      1. Dark Macadamia*

        Year of Wonders is beautiful! I remember seeing on Goodreads a lot of people being like “I loved it until the end” and when I got there I was like yep, that part was not good lol. I listened to the audiobook and I don’t know how similar the narration is to the author’s natural voice but her performance was really lovely.

      2. The OG Sleepless*

        Ooh…I loved Horse and I’ve been meaning to read more of her books. I’m still not where I can read a book about a pandemic yet. Maybe in a few years.

        1. Bike Walk Barb*

          I went on a whole Geraldine Brooks streak thanks to one of these threads a while back. So many good books. Time to circle back and figure out which ones weren’t available from my library at the time.

    24. Balanceofthemis*

      I just finished the first book of the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch. It’s urban fantasy. I’m enjoying it so far.

      1. GoryDetails*

        I love the “Rivers of London” series – and so far it just keeps getting better, with new characters and challenges for Peter and Nightingale and company. (If you like audiobooks, narrator Kobna Holdbrook-Smith does an excellent job on the series.)

      2. Six Feldspar*

        I also love Rivers of London! Hope you enjoy the second one (my personal faves are Broken Homes and Foxglove Summer but they’re further in the series)

    25. Nervous Nellie*

      Two for me this week. I am still luxuriating in the Pevear & Volokhonsky translation of Anna Karenina, and am also greatly enjoying On Color by David Scott Kastan, a lovely little Yale hardcover exploring the history of each of the primary & secondary colors with bonus chapters on black, white and gray. It digs into the cultural, artistic and philosophical meanings behind color. The book itself is a riot of color. I bought it for a dollar at the Friends of the Library book sale, and like it so much I will order a copy as a gift for a pal who loves to paint.

    26. Khai of the Fortress of the Winds*

      North Woods by Daniel Mason. This book is incredible. It’s the story of a particular place in the woods, told by many of the characters who lived there. All linked to each other, sometimes by something as tenuous as an apple seed. The best thing I’ve read in a long time.

      1. Nervous Nellie*

        Wow – I just read the first few pages online. Ordered at the library immediately. Thank you for this – what a dreamy read!

      2. allx*

        I loved this book too. Agree with “best thing I’ve read in a long time” statement. So creative and intelligent.

    27. IT Manager*

      Had some time this week after there were no more weekend shifts to focus on, so caught up on my reading to fill the time and mental energy. Thank god for books.

      I finally got Project Hail Mary off my holds list – this was a recommendation from here and I must say THANK YOU. I loved it and immediately bought 2 copies for holiday presents.

      Also read Relic (interesting … Crichton-like. Not amazing but entertaining) and A Talent for Murder (very good if you like thrillers! I think this is a series? If you’ve read before maybe you wouldn’t have been so surprised by the plot twists as I was, but I found it a great read).

      1. Atheist Nun*

        I love Peter Swanson’s books. They sometimes riff off each other, but I am not sure if A Talent for Murder is stand alone? The Kind Worth Killing has a “sequel” of sorts, The Kind Worth Saving.

        1. Murray*

          A Talent for Murder is the third in the The Kind Worth… series. You don’t need to have read them for Talent to make sense (but you’ll be massively spoiled for the other books, which would be a waste).

          My favourite Swanson is Eight Perfect Murders. It’s a treat!

          1. Atheist Nun*

            Thanks for the reminder–I totally forgot that Lily Kintner is in A Talent for Murder! The books that feature her are wonderful.

    28. SarahKay*

      I’ve just finished a reread of Computer One by Warwick Collins. It is, far and away, the most unnerving computer apocaypse book I’ve ever read.
      The author comes up with a reasonable explanation for why this global supercomputer might want to wipe us out, and then a scarily plausible how.

      Spoilers (slight) in my next comment below so anyone who might want to read it and doesn’t want to know more, collapse this thread.

      1. SarahKay*

        .
        .
        .
        This is not a computer faffing around with Terminators, human conversion or anything of that type; this is a computer quietly, efficiently, and effectively working to exterminate *all* life on earth. The story is left open-ended as to whether it succeeds.

    29. GoryDetails*

      An interesting variety for me:

      Posted in the Past by Helen Baggott: the author enjoyed finding vintage postcards, and began doing research on those with identifiable names/addresses to see if she could find genealogical records or newspaper items about them.

      Clockwork Boys by T. Kingfisher, the earliest book (via in-story chronology) in her “White Rat” ‘verse, and the first volume of a duology with The Wonder Engine. This one opens with a motley crew of condemned criminals being tasked with a probably-fatal quest to stop an invading horde of magical-construct foes. So far it features Kingfisher’s typical snarky characters with troubled pasts and good hearts, and a plot that mingles “fantasy quest” adventure with occasionally-very-dark-indeed plagues and destruction (and slow-burn romance, but really, the characters do not have time for that – much as they wish it otherwise!).

      On the lighter side: Gin Austen: 50 Cocktails to Celebrate the Novels of Jane Austen by Colleen Mullaney. I picked that one up at a charming independent bookstore/gift-shop in a neighboring town: “Wickham & Willoughby,” named for two of Jane Austen’s most notable “charming villain love-interest” characters.

      The sections on the history of cocktails and on beverages popular in Austen’s day are good, as are the ones on basic techniques for assembling cocktails. The recipes themselves are grouped by Austen-novel, and feature some tempting combinations as well as little side-notes about the books and characters. (I did spot a couple of errors re the books, small things but they did irk me a bit – one involved describing Edmund, from Mansfield Park, as Fanny’s “cousin by marriage” when in fact he’s her first cousin by blood. Not sure if the author just miswrote the phrase – or was trying to get away from the marrying-your-first-cousin aspect {wry grin}.)

    30. dontbeadork*

      Continuing my re-read of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency books. Such gentle little mysteries (no blood! No gore! Very rare death!) are a balm in these far too turbulent times.

      1. allx*

        Based on a recommendation here last month, am reading Zelazny’s A Night in the Lonesome October for the first time. I loved his Amber series which I re-read every so often. This book, though, is genius. Well-written and humorous and mysterious. Thanks to those people here who had it on their October reading lists. I should be finished with it as it is an entertaining and easy read, but my spouse picked it up in a lull, so I’m waiting to get it back. Meanwhile, I turned to Milne’s Red House Mystery, also recommended here. Undecided about it so far. Seems familiar though I haven’t read it before. The book was what I now know is print-on-demand, which I couldn’t tell when ordering, and the formatting/font are poorly designed.

        1. goddessoftransitory*

          Ugh, I despise print on demand so much! It’s so cheap and sloppy with no breaks on the pages between chapters.

    31. Bluebell Brenham*

      Read Trust and Safety this week and it was fine. Not as good as The Very Nice Box. Also read Love Letters to a Serial Killer – wasn’t that impressed, but murder podcast folks might like it.

    32. Not Alison*

      I Never Said I Love You by Sarah Magee. Lots of references to University of Michigan campus and Ann Arbor area.

    33. Reluctant Mezzo*

      Just finished A History of Women in 101 Objects. The last one references the Iranian revolt of women but is more optimistic than things actually turned out, sadly enough. It’s by Annabelle Hirsch and is *really* good.

    34. IrishEm*

      Still on the audiobooks and since I really enjoyed listening back to the Tamora Pierce books that I read young and still hold up today I decided to try another author whose books I DEVOURED as a kid: Brian Jacques’ Redwall series. I started with the audiobook of the first of that series that I read as a 8 year old, Samandastron and it still holds up. There’s an extraordinary amount of feasts described, but otherwise it’s really good. The cast seem to really enjoy reasing it, getting to yell out war cries, and do accents and the narrator is really good at being invisible when necessary and right there when needed. 10/10 would read again.

      I also began reading Philippa Ryder’s memoir My Name is Philippa, about an Irish trans woman who grew up in Ireland in the 70s and 80s. The only slight issue is that the reader is from The Continent of North America and mispronounces things slightly. They got Dún Laoghaire correct but put the emphasis on the wrong syllable in Dundrum… I’m still enjoying it. I met Phillipa once at a corporate event at which she spoke and the book is as warm and genuine as she is. 12/10 do recommend.

    35. The OG Sleepless*

      I’m slowly, slowly reading How to Read Water by Tristan Gooley. It is absolutely fascinating, and I’ve been interested in how to understand things one sees in nature since I was a kid. It’s just so full of interesting things I’m having to read it a bit at a time.

    36. Falling Diphthong*

      Last night finished the novella The Christmas Appeal, sequel to The Appeal by Hallett. Disappointing, and more so in the light of morning.

      In the first I loved that the epistles (emails, texts) felt very real. They sketched in people’s reactions to events, and as a reader you had to fill in those events. This one opened with an over the top parody of the holiday newsletter, and everything from that character stayed at that level. The resolution also felt very weak, in a “Wait, why did you bother with all this?” way.

    37. carcinization*

      Winterlong by Elizabeth Hand. I’ve read something else by her and enjoyed it, so when I saw her first novel for sale used (with a blurb by Samuel Delany to boot), I went ahead and bought it. I’ve only read a few pages but it’s interesting so far.

    38. Bike Walk Barb*

      Typing this after staying up stupid-late to read Moon Called by Patricia Briggs thanks to someone’s recommendation here. Urban fantasy (werewolves etc.) with the addition of a walker (skinwalker, from Indigenous tradition), and it’s set in Tri-Cities, WA, which gives me a kick because I live in Washington (not in Tri-Cities but I’ve been there quite a few times).

      Read through all of Elly Griffiths’ Dr. Ruth Galloway books, went on to her 4 books about Harbinder Kaur, and am now in her Brighton Mysteries series.

      Waiting for Mrs. Pollifax and the Whirling Dervish after tearing through all the books before that one on an extended business trip with lots of flight time. Definitely need her plucky improvisation and amazing hats as a distraction from the now.

      Coming up in my hold list soon: The Nubian’s Curse by Barbara Hambly, in her Benjamin January series. It’s set in a time and place I don’t know much about: New Orleans after the Louisiana Purchase. Free Man of Color is the first in the series; that phrase describes Benjamin in the language of the time. Author is white and describes her research and efforts to write accurately in the afterword of that one.

      Next nonfiction on the list although it’s bound to be depressing: Dark Age Ahead by Jane Jacobs.

      My tastes are eclectic.

      1. Bike Walk Barb*

        Oh, forgot to mention that I just finished Amanda Gorman’s poetry collection “The Thing We Carry”. Her poetry is amazing. Also finished “You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World” edited by Ada Limón.

        I read poetry every morning, some on sites I visit regularly and others in book form. Takes me a while to get through a book. I’m not reading to finish, I’m reading to savor.

    40. Phlox*

      just finished Dead Girls Don’t Dream by Nino Cipri, and published this week! I haven’t been this fast from purchase to finish in years. it’s YA about weird woods, dead girls and Nino is just a brilliant atmospheric writer. I now need to reread their collection Homesick that has a short story that inspired the full novel “Which Super Little Dead Girl(tm) Are You?”

    1. Snell*

      Been a tough week in the big picture, but I finally replaced my car that got totalled a few weeks ago (in a fairly terrifying collision) + completed associated paperwork for it. Growing the good out of the bad.

      1. Squirrel Nutkin (the teach, not the admin)*

        Glad it sounds like you are okay and getting some nice transit as a replacement!

      3. Observer*

        I hope that the car was a nice upgrade for you.

        Silver linings can be over-rated. But still, they are nice to have.

    2. Six Feldspar*

      It was my birthday on Monday! I had a nice chill day working from home, then pilates after. I’m doing other things on the weekends before and after so it was nice to have the day itself be pretty low key.

      6. Hotdog not dog*

        The Onion buying Infowars is SUCH an Onion-y headline! The first time I saw it I assumed it was an Onion article, it’s even funnier that it’s real!

      7. dontbeadork*

        Oh, yes! This delighted me beyond all reason. I was also amused that the families helped back the Onion on this.

      8. Paralegal Part Deux*

        It got blocked by the judge because it wasn’t the highest bidder and was based on money that wasn’t readily available. Hearings on Monday.

      10. Emotional support capybara (he/him)*

        YES! Just imagine I dumped my entire “chef kiss” reaction gif folder into this thread.

      1. WoodswomanWrites*

        Ooo, I’m so envious! That’s a place I haven’t yet been and I’d love to see the native fox there. If you don’t mind sharing, how long were you there?

    7. RLC*

      Cold weather = more cat snuggles! Yes, they are little opportunists who are probably more interested in human body heat output than in actual affection, but we enjoy the attention.

    8. Falling Diphthong*

      I decided life was too short to eat more than one of the crappy mini eclairs I bought.

      (Sounds weird, but I had one at tea and was doing the “I could force these down if I were a guest at someone’s home, so we could have them for dessert tonight and tomorrow…” and then stopped and asked myself WHY.)

    9. Linnaea*

      When our server at the restaurant we go to every week told us we were the staff’s favorite customers. We’ve been going there since it opened about 20 years ago.

    10. Rosyglasses*

      Finally installing adblocker so that this site doesn’t stall out or reload in weird ways – hurrah!

      Spending an art night with friends and catching up on some colored pencil drawings for November (a daily prompt activity).

      Baking chocolate chip cookies to enjoy during Great British Bake Off!

      1. Falling Diphthong*

        This has been an exceptional season of Bakeoff. Great cast, well-designed challenges, and Noel took it down a notch which really helps for me.

        1. Rosyglasses*

          Oh yes – my husband is so irritated by Noel – mostly because he often mucks with the contestants while they are baking.

      2. Categorical*

        can you try another browser or some other way to leave the advertising? Alison allows free access to all of this bounty and should at least get ad revenue.

        1. Observer*

          Whatever @Rosyglasses decides about this site, an ad-blocker still makes sense.

          I *do* have mine (AdBlock+) set to allow “reasonable” advertising but the problem is the overlay stuff and things like that. I’ve tried on multiple browsers, and it keeps on happening. The good blockers allow you to whitelist sites, so when a site successfully manages to get their advertising under control, I’ll often white list it.

        2. Rosyglasses*

          The problem is the moving and shifting of the page constantly means I am either not going to read this site again or I can choose to try and access it without the aggravation of the page reloading multiple times.

      3. carcinization*

        We watched the first episode of the current Bakeoff season with friends last night, as they have Netflix. I sure miss being able to watch it on PBS! Such a nice show.

    11. BellaStella*

      Well it was a tough week at the place we do not speak of on weekends. So the joys this week were this site (!!! I am not reading any news any longer so this site, Longreads and a few fluff sites like Elle and lifehacker etc are gaining my views), getting my hair cut and coloured, making hot rum toddies, finalising last things for a wedding gift, packing to go to the wedding next week, and planning one full week off next week with family.

    12. The Pettiest Curse*

      My husband got me a piece of art as a gift and we got it back from the framing place this week. The frame we chose for it looks really great, so now we just need to find somewhere to hang it up!

    13. Trixie Belden was my hero*

      I bought an Amaryllis last weekend and its blooming.
      I just wanted pretty flowers to look at that will last longer that cut ones. I hope it makes it to Christmas, if not, I’ll just buy another.
      Ordered tulip bulbs for my front porch containers. Looking forward to another small joy in the spring.

      1. Frieda*

        My Christmas cactus (really a Thanksgiving cactus) is gearing up to bloom and I’m similarly delighted!

    14. RussianInTexas*

      As weird as it may sound, a few days by myself. I love my partner, but I also enjoy a few days at home just by myself and the cats, when he goes to his annual board game convention.
      I eat the foods he hates or can’t eat, watch only my TV, sleep in the middle of the bed, and just chill.
      I do miss him and it’s also nice when he gets back home.

      1. Wife of a Gamer*

        I see someone went to BGG. My husband was scheduled to go, which I was not looking forward to, but logistics got in the way and he had to cancel. Not ideal, but a least I have him at home.

        1. RussianInTexas*

          Partner used to go to three conventions per year, but Aggiecon died in the pandemic. The Owlcon is local and happens over the weekend.
          I love my days alone. I work from home, and he work hybrid, so we are at home together a LOT. So we take separate vacations occasionally. Plus, he went to cons for decades before we meet, I want going to take this away from him, he looks forward to BGG all year.
          I like board games myself, but not a con person.

    15. Artemesia*

      We just got back from a trip to Florence and I made my husband a birthday cake in the shape of and decorated like Brunelleschi’s Dome. First time for pouring ganache — I used white and milk chocolate chips and red dye to get the color and it came out perfectly. Used a carrot cake and a hemisphere pan and did it for our family party. Making a second one today for a dinner party of friends to celebrate. This one is chocolate with two layers of raspberry mousse and a layer of whipped chocolate ganache, so it is taller (a round cake layer with the dome layer on top. A little worried it won’t all stay together. Fingers crossed.

      1. GoryDetails*

        Re Brunelleschi’s Dome cake: sounds awesome! (There’s a very cool book on the dome by Rose King: Brunelleschi’s Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture.)

        1. Trixie Belden was my hero*

          I have and loved that book!
          Last night I watched (again) the Rick Steves show in Florence. He walked up the steps to the top and the view was amazing. Someday I will get to Italy and Florence will be my first stop.

    16. Tau*

      I decided to take the plunge and try to take up running two weeks ago – I’m attempting Couch to 5K. It’s obviously early days yet, but it’s surprising me how much I’m enjoying it. I always stayed away from running before because I hated it in school and figured I’d just hate it as an adult. But it’s really cool to see my endurance slowly improve even over the short time I’ve been doing this, I feel great afterwards, and when I got some bad news this week or was feeling down I surprised myself by thinking “man, I wanna go for a run and work off this frustration!” Like, I had to Google and have the internet convince me to not sneak in any extra running days (the program is 3x a week). Not where I was expecting this to go at all!

      2. Josephine Beth*

        I started running this spring, just attempted my first half-marathon (had to stop at mile 12 from heat issues) and I love it! I have never been what anyone would call athletic, and have always said no one could pay me enough to be a runner. And here I am, looking forward to some spring races! Good luck in your journey and enjoy the achievements along the way!

    17. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      I’ve finally been able to attend my weaving workshop! I got my big loom in May and the first workshop that didn’t conflict with my schedule wasn’t til September, but then I was the only one who registered so it got rescheduled. I’m STILL the only one who registered, but this time she said she’d do it for me solo anyway, and apparently she’s not regretting that — today is the last day, and we’ve apparently been able to cover a lot more than she usually gets to in a group class, and a few different times she’s said things like “You’re a joy to teach” which is nice to hear :) And I’ve been having a blast.

    18. GoryDetails*

      I’d been having trouble with my internet connection, and replacing the router didn’t help, so I had a technician come out – and he wound up replacing several cable connections that had been in place for decades and were messing with the signal. Afterwards, things were looking much better – except for the phone line. (I still have a wired-in phone, mainly because it’s bundled with my internet package, but I do like having it as a backup to my cell phone.) I discovered on my own that there was a badly-frayed splitter on the phone line, but a quick visit to the hardware store took care of that. (If I’d noticed it while the technician was there he could probably have fixed it even more quickly, but it was the kind of loose connection that worked – until it didn’t.) Was pleased to get things settled.

      Now for the rest of my overdue “to be done” list!

      1. Reluctant Mezzo*

        Landlines can be annoying, especially during Medicare Month, but they do make it easier to find the cell phone (and we’ve all done that, at least I have).

    19. Susie*

      A few friends have reach out recently to invite me to activities that are slightly out of my comfort zone, but I decided to go for it. I’ve done the first activity and now I’m obsessed–though I definitely don’t need another craft. Next activity is tomorrow–it’s a fitness class that is a stretch for my current skills, but I know I need some outside accountability so I can rebuild my skills so that this class is no longer a stretch.

      In perhaps related news, I just restarted an anti-depressant after 10 years of being off it. I wish I had done this sooner–the constant loop of second guessing myself is quiet and I have more emotional energy to put myself out there.

    20. Reluctant Mezzo*

      Finally got back to sleeping properly. The CPAP helped the week before, but not as much as actual sleeping does.

    21. Elizabeth West*

      I had a second thyroid biopsy yesterday (six needles this time instead of four! aack!). The endocrinologist is very funny — he says, “This is a drama-free zone!” and jokes around a lot with his assistant to put worried patients at ease. It was fun seeing him again even though it was more needles (and I got a piece of candy afterward, haha). After work, I went into my online chart and downloaded his notes. He called me a “most interesting and pleasant patient.”

      That made me feel really good. :3

        1. Elizabeth West*

          Thanks <3
          We were joking about surgery and I said to him that if it turned out to be bad, at least I picked the right city to live in.

    22. carcinization*

      Made a perfect rhubarb pie to take over to a friend’s house for dinner. I’ve made it dozens of times but sometimes the crust doesn’t turn out exactly right, etc., so I’m glad there were no problems this time.

    23. Bike Walk Barb*

      Managed to take a long walk in the nearby forested park three days in a row (a couple of times turning a work meeting that was mostly listening into a walking meeting). Coming back from the third of these, saw two young does (maybe yearlings) in a yard by the park. We looked at each other a while, then moved on.

  4. Literally a Cat*

    I would love to have some good thoughts please, thank you. At the vet waiting for the results of my geriatric kitty.

    7. Falling Diphthong*

      From my “visualize your body healing” tape: Picture a pet from whom you have felt love, and let that feeling surround you.

    8. anon24*

      Sending you and kitty all the best thoughts! May kitty be healthy and get to go home and get lots of cuddles.

    15. A313*

      I would like to echo all of the warm, supportive thoughts for you and your kitty; I hope you are both back home soon with good news and lots of cuddles! This AAM group is the best

    17. Six Feldspar*

      Best wishes for your cat! We’ve had a run of lovely sunny spring days this week and I am spiritually sharing the good vibes

  5. RLC*

    Alison’s cat crew looks ready to take on winter’s chill! What a comfy bunch.
    Do I see a heating pad under the group?

  6. Charlotte Lucas*

    Topic: Chemistry between actors in their roles. Sometimes I am so impressed by how much I believe actors are in love/lust or even true friends. Some of my favorites:

    Shawn and Gus as BFFs in Psych

    The British show The Musketeers – I believe they’re all each other’s ride or die, and the romantic chemistry between Aramis and the Queen is off the charts

    Bashir and Garak in ST: DS9 (I totally believed Worf and Jadzia, too)

    Henry Higgins and Ruth Newsome (of the Mimico Newsomes) in Murdoch Mysteries have the kind of wacko chemistry that is a joy to behold

    Nick and Nora in the Thin Man series

    Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in their movies

      1. Dark Macadamia*

        Basically all of the Good Place! Phenomenal chemistry between the main four plus Michael and Janet in various permutations.

        2. RC*

          I love everything about that show… but I never really shipped Eleanor and Chidi as a romantic couple :x I don’t know why, I just bought them as friends more than romance.

          Which is a little weird, because I also watched No One Wants This recently and I’m pretty sure Kristen Bell and Adam Brody could each have chemistry opposite a piece of soggy bread (I guess I bought that pairing a little bit more, but still didn’t feel super invested in whether they ended up in a relationship)

          But it’s also one of my small joys in the world to see times when people like each other enough to keep working together on multiple projects (See: Mike Schur’s shows, David Wain’s shows, and the occasions those have overlapped).

          1. IT Manager*

            I actually had to warm up to Nobody Wants This specifically because I just didn’t want to see Eleanor with anyone but Chidi!

            But she is such a good actor that I eventually stopped seeing Eleanor.

          2. Dark Macadamia*

            One of the things I loved about the show is that I was equally happy with their relationship in any form. I generally preferred the platonic friendship so it took awhile to get on board with the romance but they won me over with some of the really cute romantic moments. The idea that their relationship changes so much but they always choose each other is so powerful, and the “love triangles” in the show are never a source of serious conflict or competition.

        3. Artemesia*

          One of the great shows. We abandoned mid season one and my daughter insisted it was worth sticking with and it soo was. One of the best shows ever and the final episode was just so touching and powerful. Great great show — and the chemistry among the actors was a big part of it.

          1. Reluctant Mezzo*

            I did want to slap Chidi upside the head when he wussed out and got a ton of memories wiped rather than deal with personal relationships, but he was amazing in that last episode.

            1. RC*

              That’s the one major quibble I have with the show (well, that and Season 3’s “that’s not how science or randomized trials work, omg you guys, and if your n=4 you need to somehow quantify your uncertainties can we please acknowledge this???”). The memory wipe really just felt like stakes for the sake of the season finale, and in the end absolutely nothing became of it, which was a little off-brand from the rest of the show.

              But overall, loved it all, especially these days.

        4. Elizabeth West*

          I binged the entirety of this show not long ago — I didn’t see it when it was on — and I absolutely loved it. Perfect all the way through; no notes.

      2. IT Manager*

        Oh! Yes, this is one of the best. All of the group really, including when Michael joins. Remember that moment when the train pulls away and he says “you guys! I was so worried!” That is a great moment.

      1. Bluebell Brenham*

        If you haven’t watched Shrinking yet, the friend chemistry is wonderful- it’s also by Bill Lawrence.

    9. Charley*

      The 1960’s Man from UNCLE series for sure – there’s so much chemistry between the leads it essentially catalyzed the development of ‘slash’ fandom.

    10. Filosofickle*

      Shawn and Gus are the best! Their little dances and how Gus rolls with (most of) the ridiculous intros give me joy.

      Getting in a time machine, the TV relationship I always wanted was Jonathan and Jennifer Hart. They way they flirted and sparkled with each other was lovely.

    11. Happily Retired*

      Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd in Moonlighting.

      I think I remember reading that they hated each other’s guts IRL, but the sparks in the show, whew.

    14. UKDancer*

      Definitely Bashir and Garak. They were the first couple I shipped as a teenager and wrote some very bad fanfiction about which I am vehemently hoping is no longer around because it involved dreadfully purple prose and bad poetry.

      Duncan and Methos in Highlander but then Adrian Paul is gorgeous and Peter Wingfield could have chemistry with a rock he’s that charismatic.

      I didn’t ship any particular pairings but I always though the actors for the Fellowship in LOTR seemed to really like each other and have a good level of affection for each other.

      It’s not a show as such but I’ve always been amazed that Torvill and Dean could have so much chemistry between them and sizzle on the ice, but not be a couple. Also Chris Dean is really hot, a total silver fox now.

      1. Artemesia*

        Torvill and Dean were neither particularly attractive; she was always a bit British matronly and he a bit geeky — and then on the ice just such incredible chemistry and magic and grace. And of course they transformed their sport. They seem to have a lifelong friendship although romantically involved with others.

        1. UKDancer*

          Well I always thought he was rather cute and he’s definitely grown old well and is distinguished looking in Dancing On Ice. So I think attractiveness is in the eye of the beholder and he definitely pleases mine.

        2. Reluctant Mezzo*

          Do not get me started on how They Wuz Robbed of the medals they deserved. Whenever they do “Bolero” I joke that ‘now all the judges are pregnant. It is the mystery of the dance”. (ok, Simpsons fan here)

      2. allathian*

        Definitely Bashir and Garak! Also Bashir and O’Brien as purely platonic friends.

        I must admit I rather shipped Lieutenant Reed and Major Hayes on Enterprise, I just couldn’t stop myself seeing something erotic in their initial antagonism. Reed and Trip had a different sort of completely platonic antagonism although they also became friends.

        Also seconding G’kar and Londo on B5. Also Susan Ivanova and Talia Winters, who were lovers at least for one night, even if it was never shown on screen.

    15. Atheist Nun*

      One of my favorite TV shows is Broad City, and I really appreciate the chemistry between Abby Jacobson and Ilana Glazer. They capture the true love between best friends.

    16. ecnaseener*

      Claire and Jamie in Outlander have off-the-charts chemistry. It unfortunately makes it that much more obvious that Brianna and Roger have zero. There’s more electricity when C & J glance at each other from a distance than when B & R have sex.

    17. o_gal*

      Sheldon and Penny on The Big Bang Theory. Friendship chemistry rather than romantic, but w0w did they light up the screen during scenes with just the 2 of them.

    19. RussianInTexas*

      Scrubs! Tuck and JD.
      Babylon 5: Vir and Londo. Also, Londo and G’Kar, which is an adversarial chemistry, but is still amazing.
      Buffy and Spike. It’s rough, and wrong, and gets really unpleasant at times, but it’s absolutely there.
      Firefly: basically the whole crew. And Nathan Fillion in most of his roles manages to get chemistry right.
      Lucifer: Lucifer and basically everyone. Tom Ellis is amazing at this.

    20. IT Manager*

      Gus and Shawn are my favorite, favorite friends ever.

      I also really loved Lem and Phil on the sadly-short-lived Better Off Ted.

      Sherlock and Watson in Elementary are just the ideal “found family”, watching them develop over the seasons was lovely.

    21. Bethlam*

      Rizzoli and Isles. All the friends and coworker characters, as well as the mother/daughter and brother/sister chemistry.

    22. Banana Pyjamas*

      Bess and Henry McCord on Madame Secretary. Of course Tea Leoni and Tim Daly ended up together in real life, so maybe that shouldn’t count?

      1. Ata*

        This whole cast is full of fantastic pairings. I was going to specifically call out Jake and Amy if no one else did!

    24. Dark Macadamia*

      David Tennant and Michael Sheen in Good Omens! I remember seeing a fan ask if their IRL friendship contributed to the character relationship and it turns out they basically met through the show. Apparently the chemistry developed within less than an hour during the first table read.

      1. RC*

        Them in the 2020-set “Staged” is also excellent. It’s basically just them riffing off each other and you can tell they’re pals in real life.

      1. goddessoftransitory*

        Huzzah! It’s just not the same without her lopsided sort of insane but lovable energy!

    27. Rincewind*

      To continue on the Star Trek theme, I just started watching Strange New Worlds. (Yes, I’m behind!)
      Spock and T’Pring
      Spock and Nurse Chapel
      Nurse Chapel and Uhura (unexpected but AWESOME!)

      It’s all done in a very nuanced way but that just makes it better.

      1. Peanut Hamper*

        The character development in SNW is just remarkable. I’m even warming to the character I don’t like–La’an. I mean, she’s supposed to be unlikeable to a degree, but we are seeing sides of her in season 2 that make her charcter much more understandable.

    29. Happily Retired*

      Oh! Ned (Lee Pace) and Chuck (Anna Friel) in “Pushing Daises” (ABC 2007-2009.) Ned is a pie-maker who can bring back the dead with one touch. Chuck was his childhood sweetheart and is murdered as an adult. He re-animates her with a touch, and they fall in love again. He doesn’t want to lose her, so he can never touch her again. Talk about sexual tension.

      I suppose the show sounds creepy and weird from this terrible description, but it was sweet and funny and kind. Great regulars (Kristin Chenoweth!) and recurring and guest cast. I need to find out if there’s some way of watching it in these benighted times…

      2. Happily Retired*

        It would probably have helped if I had mentioned that one touch by Ned re-animates the dead, but a second sends them back to death forever.

    32. Peanut Hamper*

      The Zoe-Mal-Wash triangle in Firefly was pretty awesome. We will never see the likes of that ever again, alas.

    34. PMaster*

      Anyone remember Sports Night? Everyone! Dan and Rebecca (Josh Charles and Teri Polo), Dana and Casey (Felicity Huffman and Peter Krause), and Natalie and Jeremy (Sabrina Lloyd and Joshua Molina).

  7. LemonDrops*

    I moved several years ago and have yet to make any friends in the new area.
    My daily commute is very long and exhausting, so I find my weekend time is when I do errands and chores. It’s not much of a life. I want to make some friends here, but I’m stuck as to how.

    I’m an atheist. I looked into taking courses for adults, but they seem to all be offered during the day- must be for retirees. I have also joined meetup but find myself just too tired to drive into the city.

    does anyone have any suggestions I haven’t tried yet?

    1. Jenesis*

      Do you have neighbors? (It sounds like you moved from a city into either a rural area or a small town?) If you use social media, have you tried looking up your area on Nextdoor to see if there are any weekend events happening in your area?

      Does your area have a park, community/rec center, (bar/pub, if you’re ok with drinking culture,) or other place where people go to meet people?

    2. Charlotte Lucas*

      Do you have any hobbies that there might be a local group for? Or local groups to volunteer with? Farmers Markets often need volunteers, and it’s usually just a commitment to on or two mornings a month.

      Depending on the size of your community, maybe look into helping out at other local events. It’s a great way to meet people and learn more about where you live.

      If there’s a Unitarian church in your area, they welcome atheists and agnostics. Not sure if this is still the case, but the pastor of ours was an atheist.

      1. Unkempt Flatware*

        I agree to look for volunteering opportunities. If you have the emotional capacity, see about a companionship program at a hospice. Being someone’s best friend at the end of their life sounds rewarding.

      2. Jenesis*

        If I may ask, what does one preach about at a UU worship service, if not about God and Jesus and prayer? (Speaking as another atheist, who generally feels very uncomfortable in churches.)

        1. Rosyglasses*

          There is talk of a Spirit but there is not generally the typical God/Jesus construct. The sermons are more of spiritual nature and could draw from literature, Buddhist talks, and are geared toward social justice, being better humans, building community. There is prayer, but it is more the ritual of reflection and meditation, and in my limited experience, are a wonderful mix of atheists, humanists, folks who believe in God of all different walks and faith backgrounds and generally want to build connection on something that acknowledges the spiritual side of life.

        2. Sloanicota*

          In a recent service, they read an emily dickenson poem as the liturgy, the sermon was about the beauty of nature, and there was a prayer of general thankfulness and appreciation, with no specified recipient. However they do vary widely. Some are much more overtly Christian and just have “no credal test” (meaning they’re totally fine with an athiest being a member, but are still talking about God, souls, the bible, JC, etc).

        3. ItDepends*

          Depends on the specific Unitarian church, I guess. I’ve gone to a few services at two different congregations as part of weddings or to accompany friends who asked for various reasons and both were way too Christian for my taste. I also have a friend who’s a Unitarian clergyman and he is very religious (not local to me so I don’t know what his church is like).

          Happy to go to celebrate someone’s big day, but I would never go to a Untarian church to meet people as someone without Christian beliefs.

          1. fposte*

            I think UU tends to differ from plain U on that one. The “Universalist” part broadens the approach considerably.

          2. Rosyglasses*

            Yes – Unitarian is different than Universalist Unitarian. Here is a good description:

            While “Unitarian Universalist” refers to a single denomination formed by the merging of the Unitarian and Universalist movements, the key difference lies in their theological focus: Unitarians primarily believe in the oneness of God, rejecting the Trinity, while Universalists emphasize the idea that everyone will ultimately be saved, meaning no one will be condemned to eternal punishment; essentially, Unitarianism focuses on the nature of God, while Universalism focuses on the fate of humanity.

        4. dapfloodle*

          As someone else mentioned, UU is different than just Unitarian. I live right by a UU “church” and get their newsletters. Basically they talk (I don’t think they preach?) about activism both global and local. So how can we help folks in Bangladesh who aren’t doing well and how can we help the folks in our community who don’t have homes. And I think once in awhile they have secular music, usually classical, and people go there to listen to that. They also have light exercise classes like Tai Chi.

    3. Curlywhenwet*

      Buy and use season tickets to a local team. You will see the same people around you every game and will have a built in conversation topic.

      Join a quilting/knitting/gardening club that you can stop at on the way home from work.

    4. Not A Manager*

      – Some of my neighborhood bars feature certain musical styles once a month, like ska night or emo night. I actually haven’t been to those, but I’m quite certain that if I did, it wouldn’t take more than two consecutive visits to start recognizing some faces.

      – I have just started going to a local swing dance event once a month, and on my second visit I already knew a bunch of folks.

      – Some of my friends go to their neighborhood trivia night, which is in a pizza place although I know bars do that too.

      – Many houses of worship have robust volunteer options. The churches and synagogues in my area offer many opportunities to feed the homeless, clean up the local parks, etc. and do not require membership or worship in order to participate.

      Since my divorce, I have found that just showing up to the same event two or three times is enough for me to recognize a few faces. They are not all instant friends, but it was a very fast transition from feeling like a complete outsider to feeling like I knew a number of folks. And then eventually I did make some friends.

    5. Rocky*

      Since driving into the city is exhausting, you might start with some online groups. You may eventually turn virtual friends/acquaintances into IRL ones — or if not, at least you will have some online. I found an online book group my library sponsors and it helps a bit with the feeling lonely.

    6. purple pansies*

      can you find a sports/running group? Like, a couch to 5 km group, that’s on your way home from work? Learn to row? Learn to ski? Dragon boat? Showing up for the same sports group week after week will at least give you familiar faces. And, there’s usually the pub afterwards, at least where I live.

    7. Jay*

      I’ve made a number of friendships over the years just sitting by a river/lake/dock with a fishing pole in hand on a nice, sunny day.
      Fishermen like to talk and there generally isn’t that much going on.
      And if you ever find a fisherman over the age of 18 who doesn’t love swapping stories or under 18 who doesn’t love hearing them for the first time, call the police, because no you didn’t, you found the evil alien masquerading as a human and you need to summon help before it lays it’s eggs in your chest.

    8. Seashell*

      Could you try to plan a nearby event or start a nearby group on MeetUp/NextDoor/local Facebook group? It could be anything – book club, walking group, a happy hour, meet-up at a coffee shop, etc.

      Other ideas: see if your local library has any events or groups that might appeal to you. Google to check if there is any local group for newcomers. Check if any friends from a prior location know anyone near you and can do a platonic fix-up.

    9. acmx*

      Can you do things after work in the city?

      What about outsourcing? Have a housecleaner come in so some weekends you have some energy to go out.

      Most of my socializing is meet ups. But I don’t get to many of them. I also do art classes through a garden, different craft type events found on Eventbrite, concerts and running – I don’t necessarily get to socialize much but at least I get out (I work at home or travel).

      1. Jackalope*

        This would be part of my suggestion. Often when I find myself being too tired to do stuff in the evenings, I’ll try to do it before I get home. That way the inertia doesn’t set in.

        Also, you mentioned it being an effort to go into the city. How far are you from the city? Is there any place closer to where you live that you could do stuff? Are you out in the middle of nowhere, or are you in a nearby suburb or small town?

      2. Sloanicota*

        This was my thought. Honestly, I’d start by inviting some coworkers out for nearby drinks after work. Once I get home it’s probably not realistic for me to get up and do anything else on a weekday, so it has to happen either before I leave the city or on my way home. I have moved several times as an adult and just want to say, in the beginning, you’re just looking for pleasant socializing. It’s too much pressure to expect a kindred spirit and new BFF. Move slowly up the ladder. Just ask a few coworkers to drinks for a while to get your cup filled, maybe find one person who lives in your neighborhood who might get a coffee on the weekend. Your soulmate BFFs can be your old friends that you visit/call on the phone sometimes for now.

    10. BRR*

      I’ve had luck with bumble for friends. It’s been nice to get to meet potential new friends one on one instead of in a larger group.

    11. Frieda*

      I’ve had really good luck volunteering at donation gardens (you come and weed/water/harvest and the food goes to pantries) but community gardens (where you plant your own plot alongside other people’s plots) work well too. That’s obviously easier in the spring than the fall.

      If you’re at all athletic, there may be a nearby pickleball community that you’d enjoy (I’m not but still find it ok.)

    12. Artemesia*

      Is Meetup up and running again after the pandemic in your area? When I moved to a big city knowing no one, that was one way I made some connections. One lead to an invitation where we then met the people who are now are best local friends. And the good thing about Meetups is that you are doing something you enjoy and thus have social time that is pleasant even if you don’t end up finding a friend in the group. e.g. for a while I went to a classic sci fi group; I never met anyone I met up with outside the group but each evening meeting at the local pub where we met was interesting and fun.

      I like book clubs and now am in 3 — two women’s groups and one couple’s group (although we also have some single women in that group). I started by finding open groups e.g. one met monthly at a local book store and then eventually met people in private groups and I also helped found one with a couple of other people looking for a group.

      when I would be at a meeting or event along or with my husband and we would find someone or another interesting couple, I would take the initiative to set up a dinner together and then if that was interesting, it would go from there. sometimes it was a pleasant evening with people who proved not be that interesting or we proved not that interesting to them and it sort of petered out — but sometimes it worked. We now have a social circle of 25 or so with 8 or so good friends. And we socialize several times a month with these folks.

      You have to be where you can meet people. You have to be willing to take the initiative and suggest a movie or event. Most people don’t take that step but many people are happy when someone else does.

    13. Evan88*

      Maybe it’s because I’m from the south, but a stranger is just your new best friend you haven’t met yet. Talk to people. Talk to everyone. Find an introvert and befriend them. You can fill their social needs and they’ll fill your sit on the couch, alone time needs.

    14. Bike Walk Barb*

      You need a playground or the equivalent. That’s what worked for us when we were kids: repeated low-intensity time adjacent to each other. No high stakes.

      Do you want friends in your work city or where you live or both? Those require different levels of effort, scheduling issues, offer different opportunities. I found that when I lived in one city and drove 45-60 minutes each way to another city for work, my friends tended to be work-related and I did things right after work before going home. It was lonely not having friends where I lived–I hear you on that.

      My job at the time involved going to meetings with people from other organizations, which was a great way to make friends who weren’t coworkers. Are there ways you can build a social aspect into the actual work so you have a way of meeting people and getting to know them? Then you can follow up with “Would you want to get together after work Thursday?”.

      In that vein I created a scheduled “friendship space” once a month. I’d met so many great women I knew could be friends if we had time and got to know each other beyond professional space/time. I sent an email to a bunch of them, essentially said “I think we could be friends and we’re all so busy we have to schedule friendship time”, and set up a monthly gathering at a coffee shop, 9am on a Saturday morning. No kids, no partners, you’re welcome to bring someone who’s already a friend (because it could be scary to just show up and talk with a bunch of strangers; they might only know me as the common point of reference). It ROCKED! It became a long-running tradition–we met for over a decade and when I moved away someone else took on the email list (one reminder, once a month with the location) and it kept going for several years more. Some of the people I knew never came, or came once and brought a friend and their friend became the regular. It was a latte playground scenario.

      Can you use the commute time itself? If you’re driving, look into whether there’s some system that sets up carpool opportunities. Maybe a passenger doesn’t become your BFF, but they’re someone to talk with to make the trip itself less tiring, and if you end up with multiple people in the car that buffers the effects of any one person’s personality. If you’re taking transit your route likely has regulars. Without being weird you can start making eye contact, smiling and nodding at people you recognize. You have to sit next to someone so that’s an opportunity to chat if they seem open to it. (Plus for me that’s just so much easier to handle than driving; I can read, knit, do email, otherwise relax, so it’s less draining than driving.)

      Are you able to outsource some of the errands or chores to buy time? Are you able to lower any self-imposed standards to free up time? (Thinking of things like cleaning and organizing)

      My parks/rec has evening classes and I’ve made friends that way. Best class for that was improv–several of us keep taking the class every time a series is offered and one person took the initiative to create “Improv Friends Club”. Between the sessions (which run about 6 or 8 weeks) they host a potluck dinner and we do improv skits at their house. If you found a class you liked with regulars, you could be that person.

      Does your town have community theater? You don’t have to want to act. They need people to help build sets, work on costumes, sell tickets at the door, handle refreshments if they offer those. They’ll have a social group of regulars and you can become one. Or some other community (non-commercial) recurring activity you’d find enjoyable to associate with.

      My local yarn shop has a Thursday night drop-in for people to sit and knit/crochet together, and one of the coffee shops in town does something similar once a month. Other craft stores may have classes or a similar set-up that could fit with your schedule. One of my local grocery stores has a cooking school and holds a monthly class in the evening teaching different cuisines. It’s being a regular that creates the opportunity for friendship.

      Make time to walk around your neighborhood at least once on the weekend. Same route every time, smile and say hello to everyone you pass. Your body needs it from the description you give of your schedule! After the second or third time you see someone in the same general vicinity, stop and introduce yourself. “My name is LemonDrops. I live around the corner. Moved here in 20XX and I see you here when I walk so we must be neighbors.” They introduce themselves, you find out how long they’ve lived here, you admire their dog or flowers or house paint choices or something. Light, brief, move on after a while. Now you have someone you know to wave to when you go by. If you like them, invite them over for coffee one Saturday. Even if you don’t like them enough to do that, you’ve added some social interaction to your life that will feel a bit less lonely as a result. Or maybe you end up with a neighborhood walking group you create when people say “I admire that you’re so regular in going for your walks. I need to do that.”

      Are you civic-minded? Does your town have committees or volunteer opportunities? My town lists these on the same page with their job openings. Everything from parks clean-up crews to advisory committees. (Looking this up now has me thinking about applying for a seat on one of these, so thanks!)

      Good luck finding your people.

    15. Dinwar*

      If you have Facebook you can type in “local [insert hobby here] groups” or “[insert hobby here] groups in [insert area here]”. I’ve done that while traveling and gotten found some pretty amazing groups of people with common interests.

      If you have a dog you can go to a local dog park. You may never know the people’s names but you’ll get to know the regular dogs pretty well!

      The other idea is to just go somewhere social (bar, coffee house, somewhere like that), find someone that looks interesting, and strike up a conversation. You find some really interesting people that way! Maybe they’re a single-serving friend (a term I learned from a woman I had a beer with at an airport), maybe you agree to hang out more, maybe you meet an entire four-generation Chinese family and get pulled into their birthday part (that was a weird afternoon for my wife and me, but a lot of fun!). Or maybe you get brushed off. You never really know, which is part of the fun.

    16. IT Manager*

      Can you carve out a specific weekend time, like Sat morning or Sun afternoon outside of chore time, and then join something during that time?

      I’m not good at making friends, but I’ve found by year 2 of repetitive group meetings, I can get to “friend” with a couple folks.

    17. LibrariesAreAwesome*

      Maybe see if there are any interesting events at your local library, assuming you have one nearby? They tend to be low key and free so you can try stuff and back out pretty easily if it’s not for you.

    18. Lexi*

      You might want to try out a Rotary Club and explain to them going in you only have 1-2 days available a month. And then in order to fit them in skip your cleaning plans that Saturday or get a cleaner in.

    19. LemonDrops*

      thank you all for the suggestions! I saved several that may work for me. I’ve had 4 surgeries in 3 years( just hopefully had the last one last month) so I’m hoping to be able to do more physical stuff next year. I used to be on several teams and got a lot of social interaction that way.

      I live about 25 miles from the north city and 25 miles from the south city, but still in a city-like area. My daily commute/work is generally 5 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. to minimize the traffic was since I sometimes have problems sitting in traffic for hours. Oftentimes the last thing I want to do is get back in the car and drive somewhere else.

      I don’t drink, but I used to go to bars for the trivia nights. I haven’t found many that have started that up after the pandemic. I will look again.

      I do have some friendly folks in the neighborhood! I moved into an older neighborhood, so they are all retired and have health problems, so I always volunteer to help them around their house or yard when I can. One of them was my buddy/plus one for when I had a stranger coming to pick something up from Freecycle.

      I did do some volunteering with a local rescue up until my surgery, but it ended up being not very social, as I was working on site by myself.

      keep ’em coming, thanks all!

      1. bay scamp*

        Hi there, I think people have had good suggestions so far. I think becoming a regular somewhere is important. Since the bar scene isn’t quite right for you, are there coffee shops anywhere? Even if you don’t drink coffee they always have other drinks and it’s a little different than hanging out at a bar where other people are likely to be inebriated. When I needed to make friends in a new town I joined the Jaycees because I was young enough at the time, it “stands for” Junior Chamber of Commerce (obviously the regular Chamber of Commerce would be for people older than that). That combines community service and camaraderie so it was great for me, I met a really good friend there (almost 10 years ago) and am actually going to her small wedding next month! Where I live trivia nights are more often at casual restaurants than bars, I think we have at least 3 restaurants in my mid-size town that have them. My husband and I used to be regulars at a pizza place that had one but have had some setbacks recently so haven’t been in awhile, but they also have one at a seafood place and a chicken wing place nearby.

    20. Who Plays Backgammon?*

      Any neighbors you could at least have over for weekend coffee?

      your situation sounds like mine. relocated back to my former city, my former neighborhood in fact. my new job turned out to be exhausting to the point of soul-crushing, and on weekends i have nothing left except to get the basics done. the one sorta-friend who’s still around from before–well, time has not stood still.

      so sorry i can’t offer much suggestion, but plenty of sympathy.

    21. Clisby*

      Not sure what type of place you’re living in now, but in my past 3 locations (Columbus, OH, Atlanta, GA, and now Charleston, SC) one of the first things I did was to see if there was a neighborhood association (not an HOA, a neighborhood group that brings in speakers on things affecting the neighborhood; monitors what the city is doing that would affect the neighborhood; holds periodic get-togethers like coffee and doughnuts on a Saturday morning so people can get to know each other). There always has been, and I’ve made friends through them every time.

    22. Peanut Hamper*

      I’m in a similar spot, and your post just reminded me to join our local library’s Friends group. Their every-other-month book sales completely fund (and then some!) all the children’s programming.

      And I sense libraries will need as much help as possible in the coming years!

  8. Weekend Warrior*

    Territory-marking outside of work?
    The recent call for examples of territory-marking at work had a lot of great responses and made me think about how that looks outside of work. It’s hard to actually mark territory in most public places but I certainly have some strong preferences that are hard to shake. I’d mark if I could!
    For example:
    At the rec centre pool I have a favourite locker (top corner) and a favourite shower nozzle (harder stream than the others). When I bag these I feel like I’ve won a little lottery. Not getting them makes me feel a bit out of sorts. :) :)

    Some people claim their favourite change cubicles by leaving clothes in them while they swim. Officially discouraged and unpopular but still happens.

    Anyone else have territorial preferences? How far have you gone to mark them? Have you removed other people’s marks? :)

    1. Falling Diphthong*

      How I Met Your Mother had an opening bit about the official booth of the show’s heroes at the bar downstairs. Which was no better than any of the other booths, but the enmity when some other group sat in the booth was deep felt.

      Like you I have a favorite locker at the gym where I swim.

      1. Jackalope*

        I was thinking about this conversation this morning when I went to the gym. I have a favorite locker that so far I’ve always been able to get. But this morning there was someone just standing in front of it in such a way that I couldn’t get to it. I got all of my stuff out and got dressed and everything and she was just standing there talking. I knew she was going to the same class as me, so I asked if she could move a bit and she said she would in a minute and just kept standing there. And I was laughing at myself a bit because there were dozens of other lockers available and I just wanted MY locker. (She did eventually, but it still felt rude. But I got my locker!)

    2. Six Feldspar*

      I would never raise a scene if someone got to it first, but I definitely have My Ideal Spot at pilates and my favourite seats on the train.

      I have definitely removed my mugs from the kitchen to my bedroom in my sharehouse days if people were using them…

    3. Dancing the Night Away*

      I like a certain spot at the ballet barre and I like to be early to class to get it. I’m not the only one with preferences like, but some women don’t care and rotate the remaining spots amongst themselves.

      1. UKDancer*

        Oh gosh me too. I always have a favourite spot in my regular ballet class. I like to be in a certain position so I can see the teacher properly and I am fussy about where I am in relation to the mirror. I always try and claim my spot early and feel grumpy if I can’t (not that I’d ever say anything).

        I also have to have an aisle seat when flying and am sometimes choosy which one.

    4. The Body Is Round*

      We have two lunchrooms with four fridges and management had to put up signs that say all fridges are for every department to use. Some departments were getting cliquey and territorial about them.

      Each lunchroom has a cabinet for dishes and mugs and cutlery. Half of what’s up there is abandonware from someone who retired and forgot it. I never know what’s what aside from what’s been recently washed. If I need to borrow something I find the dustiest thing up there, wash it, use it, wash and put it back.

      Anything that is MINE mine stays in my own locker.

    5. Sloanicota*

      I was just noticing today that I generally park in the same spots in stores I go to fairly often (or at least the same general section of parking lot) – often not one that is the closest, since I hate driving around parking lots. It’s actually kind of nice because I don’t lose my car so often. My current car is very neutral looking. I only realized I do this because I came in a different entrance to the store this time, and thus parked in a different area – and when I came out of the store I confidently marched over to my “usual” spot and realized I’d forgotten where my car was, lol. This was mostly a subconscious behavior! So I guess I’m territorial in parking lots.

      1. o_gal*

        Me too! I like 2 parking spots at my gym, and I feel very disappointed when people arrive earlier than me and grab both of them. Considering that I get there around 4:50 to 4:55am, that happens very rarely LOL.

      2. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

        I do this — for me it’s because I won’t visually remember where I put my car, so if it’s not in my “usual” area (anywhere in the row is fine, though I prefer to park adjacent to a cart return if I can) I will absolutely go to the wrong place at least once before I find the car.

      3. Who Plays Backgammon?*

        I often take a snap of my car & the sign for the level/space i’m in so i can find my way back. i’m always getting lost in the parking structure at a theatre i often go to. god bless cell phones, what did i do without one? (got lost a lot, that’s what)

    6. RussianInTexas*

      For literally decades my friend and I occupied the same corner/nook of a bar for the Wednesday’s pub quiz, and before everyone got families and lives – also on Fridays, just to hang out. Literally, every single week, from the late 1990s to 2017, when the bar closed. For all that time out trivia team name was The Corner.
      Became real life friends with bartenders, bar managers, etc. Occasionally “our” corner would be occupied by someone else, but rarely. Someone would always show up pretty early on Wednesday to stake the claim.
      After the bar closed, we relocated to another one, but it wasn’t quite the same, lost a bunch of teammates, then the 2020 happened, and that was that.

    7. GoryDetails*

      I have a favorite gas pump at the station nearest my house; does that count? {grin}

      I don’t get upset if it’s not available – the place has at least ten pumps – but I always aim for “mine” first.

    8. Bike Walk Barb*

      On-street parking! People think they own the spots in front of their homes and they don’t. I paid for that public right-of-way as a taxpayer, thank you, and I can park there.

      I mostly bike for transportation so this doesn’t come up a lot but I’ve been in more than one friend’s house over the years when they look outside and say something along the lines of “Why are they parking there?”.

      Because they can, sweetie. Because they can.

      2. Shutterdoula*

        We were in the middle of a large landscaping project (retaining walls, new sprinklers, hardscaping, and all new plants) and our contractor had a dumpster & equipment trailer parked in front of our house (with a permit from the city to do that!) for three weeks. My neighbor across the street came over to complain because they were going to have a big party and that meant TWO CARS would have to park farther away!! The horror! He wanted us to move it all for him “just for the night”
        Sorry bud, it’s Saturday, I don’t have keys to his stuff or equipment to move the dumpster and I am NOT calling him out here on a weekend just for that!

    9. TerritorialAccessibility*

      I’m disabled and I often find there are only 1 or (sometimes) 2 seating options that work for me in any environment. I have to sit in the first seat opposite the bus driver on most buses (there’s one style of bus in use where I can also sit directly behind the driver) or I can’t properly hold on so I don’t get hurt (while seated). I will ask people to move if I have to, and if they don’t I have to at least make sure I have enough space to turn around and get off the bus before it can move from the bus stop.

      Aisles are often too narrow or chairs too tightly together to maneuver through many restaurants and stores – and they block things with random poles a lot. Two of the grocery stores by me only have one checkout lane I can use – if it’s not open I have to make them open it for me. The third uses a single snake line for all registers that I can’t navigate so I have to exit using the entrance then wait for one of the two registers I can use standing next to the front of the line (I would try to figure out where I should be in line but I’m in the way there so the store – which approved this process – takes me asap).

      Back when I could handle going to the movies most theaters only had 1-2 seats I could see from and it was different in each theater so I’d have to wait until previews started to figure out where to sit (I’d know it needed to be 1 of 2 or 3 and I’dbe settled in one well before the movie proper started).

      So I guess I territory mark, but for a reason?

    10. goddessoftransitory*

      Hee hee, back in the day I worked in a bookstore that had lockers for your stuff, but you had to provide your own lock. No one ever did, they just stuck stuff into whatever was open. Naturally, the most coveted ones were front and center, eye level.

      One woman figured out how to claim her own spot with no lock–she just placed a box of tampons, label out, front and center, right in the front of the locker. Every man working there recoiled as though from an angry snake, and every woman respected that power move.

    11. Heffalump*

      Every washer at the laundromat I use has a number, but it also has a silhouette of something on it. I like to use the washer with a cat symbol, since I’m a cat person. But if I have to make do with a different washer, I’ll live.

      1. Heffalump*

        I did laundry today, and I did get to use the washer with the cat. Some of the symbols on the other washers: football player, motorcyclist, cyclone, scooter, seal.

    12. PhyllisB*

      Classic one: I have a favorite place to sit in church. I wouldn’t say anything if someone else sat there, but I feel sort of odd sit in another spot. In fact that did happen one Sunday and the next day I had three people text me, “We missed y’all yesterday!!” I told them we were there but someone else wanted that space.

      1. allathian*

        I expect that’s common in communities where most churchgoers go to church every Sunday and most seats are taken. I expect that the tradition of family pews (see Anne of Green Gables) still exists in some smaller communities. There’s a very good reason for this sort of territoriality, just imagine the chaos and petty infighting if people had to negotiate where to sit every Sunday?

        I go to a two-day professional conference once a year. The conference’s small enough (100-150 attendees) that there’s only one track. People tend to pick a seat in the morning on the first day and stay there for the whole conference unless there’s some reason to switch.

        The same thing tends to happen on bus tours, even if there are no assigned seats, people tend pick a seat and stay there.

  9. Falling Diphthong*

    What are you watching, and would you recommend it?

    Just watched Emilia Perez on Netflix, and blown away. Zoe Saldana plays a severely under-appreciated Mexican lawyer, who agrees to meet with the head of a drug cartel in one of those “You could make a lot of money, or be killed: your choice” scenarios. The cartel head wants to start a new life as a woman, and needs the lawyer to figure out how to do this secretly, with a clean break.

    It’s about transformation, and about the ties to the past that persist through transformation. I didn’t know what was going to happen next, but each time it did it felt like of course, this was what would happen. Very satisfying.

    Also it’s a musical.

    1. Viette*

      How is the musical aspect of it — what type of music is it? I had heard it was based off an opera libretto, but is the music at all like opera, or quite different?

      1. Falling Diphthong*

        Less the Broadway type of show stopper, and more conversation slipping into repeated cadences until it became a song. A couple of “I am going to stomp through this gathering singing the song inside my head, illustrating my mental state” numbers.

    3. RagingADHD*

      I was sick this week and binged Dark Winds on Netflix. Highly recommend if you like police procedurals, and/or strong ensemble dramas. All the core characters have compelling arcs, and the acting is excellent.

      1. Artemesia*

        I loved Dark Winds. I thought Leaphorn was played by Lou Diamond Philips — but it is an entirely different actor. Good ensemble acting. I just read that it has been picked up for a third season.

        1. Clisby*

          Lou Diamond Philips played Jim Chee in a movie version of Dark Winds – maybe that’s what you’re thinking of.

        1. RagingADHD*

          I would say it’s more of a detective story.

          I suppose there is a “psychological thriller” element in S1 from the presence of religion / ceremony /witchcraft / “medicine”, which characters believe in / are influenced by to different degrees. In S2 there is a long-arc villain who is definitely not mentally right, and that is obvious from the first time you see his eyes.

          But it is not super twisty or disturbing. It’s a pretty straight line of crime-investigation-solve it-catch them.

        3. abca*

          Thank you both! Now it sound like something I would like, but sadly it is not in Netflix in my EU country. Fingers crossed we’ll get it too.

    4. noname today*

      Huge fan of murder mysteries and so, in no particular order:
      Murdoch murder mysteries
      Murder at the end of the world
      Murder and other details
      Magpie murders
      Moonflower murders
      Endeavor
      Inspector Morse
      Inspector Lewis
      Marlow murder club

      I know there are more…these are the first that come to mind

        1. goddessoftransitory*

          I like Midsomer Murders, despite their constant going to the “Adoptee goes nuts and murders because all adoptees are mental cases!” well. Gets really annoying after awhile.

      2. allathian*

        I’ll add:
        My Life is Murder
        Sister Boniface Investigates
        Grantchester
        McDonald & Dodds

        One trend I’m really sick of is a whole season’s worth of women murderers. The vast majority of homicides are committed by men and fiction should reflect that.

    5. BlueWolf*

      I’ve been watching Somebody Somewhere on Max. It deals with some heavy topics like grief, substance use, and difficult family relationships, but there’s also a lot of humor. Even though it does deal with some heavy topics, I actually found it kind of soothing because I’ve had some related things going on in my personal life and it deals with issues in a funny, yet moving way.

      1. A313*

        I’m also enjoying Somebody Somewhere! I wish each episode were longer, or that I wasn’t all caught up to the current one. It’s been wonderful seeing the characters, especially Sam, have personal growth and figure out what’s really bothering them and why and how to deal with it — it’s all pretty realistic to me. And it has some very funny and very touching moments.

    6. costello music*

      i just finished hazbin hotel and i liked it more than i thought i would! the music is great, the characters are fun, and the finale left us with more questions which i always like.

      i hope we get season 2 soon, but some asshole leaked most of the season so i think they’re waiting for that to die down

    7. Annie Edison*

      A new friend is very into K dramas so I’m giving some a try. I watched My Runway on Netflix this week and it is sweet and silly and fun. A high school girl dreams of being a super-model but is rudely shot down by a top male model judge at a competition. Through a series of electrical shocks at a karaoke bar, they switch into each other’s bodies. Hijinks, personal growth, and an unlikely friendship ensue

      My favorite bit was watching each of the actors take on the other’s mannerisms after they switch bodies. It’s fluffy and ridiculous but very fun

    8. Neon Lights*

      I tried to watch M*A*S*H (the TV show) recently because I like historical medical stuff, but just couldn’t get into it. Felt like it was going to be mostly about the main characters chasing their female coworkers for the whole series.

      Ended up watching Scrubs instead. I’m on season 3 and am loving it! Does anyone have recommendations for what to watch after I finish Scrubs? I honestly mostly don’t watch sitcoms or comedy stuff (though. Seinfeld and Friends were awesome). But I like how it’s silly/random yet relatable/realistic if that makes sense.

      1. Kathy (Not Marian) the Librarian*

        Try again. The first couple of seasons were more silly. It gets really good as the show matures.

        1. Trixie Belden was my hero*

          Agreed. It was made in the 70’s about a war in the 50’s so it was influenced by the 70’s sexual revolution.

          I’ve been watching old episodes of Night Court (it was a hit comedy in the 80s and I used to look forward to it)
          But now I think Dan Fielding would have been marched up to HR and escorted out of the building in the first episode.
          RIP… Harry, Christine, Mac, Selma, Flo.
          I tried the reboot but I couldn’t get into it.

          1. NoBananaPants*

            Same here with the reboot of Night Court…couldn’t get into it. Although I liked the actress who played Harry Stone’s daughter– (from The Big Bang Theory)- but in the role of the judge-nah.
            Yep, Dan Fielding would definitely be Me Too’d today if he stayed the same type of character in the reboot.

        2. SarahKay*

          Seconding the advice to try it again. I first watched it in my late teens and remembered it fairly fondly, so when it was being shown two episodes a day on the TV during the pandemic I picked it up again, and loved it.
          It definitely settles into a better groove in the later series; you could try starting with series three or four and see if it appeals to you more.

          1. Reluctant Mezzo*

            But he had some wonderful lines. “She said for twenty dollars she would make his teeth sweat”. And ‘that was with my shoes on’.

        1. RC*

          I rewatched Psych reasonably recently and was … disappointed how dated the 2006ishness of it all was. They’re ALWAYS falling over each other aooogah-ing pretty ladies, which I had not remembered, and just overall parts of it did not age well, unfortunately.

          I still liked a lot of their dynamic and some of the sillier mysteries, it just was also disappointing (same with Scrubs a bit too, in parts).

          And remember, Scrubs definitely ended after the musical episode, there certainly wasn’t any nonsense with a Scrubs: The New Class semi-reboot-continuation-whatever on ABC after that! (:

    9. Annie Edison*

      Double posting in this thread because I almost forgot to mention the absolute ridiculousness that is Netflix’s Hot Frosty, which dropped yesterday and I of course immediately cleared my evening to watch. It is the story of a sexy snowman who magically comes to life a few weeks before Christmas when a small town diner owner gives him a magical scarf. Friends. It is exactly as absurd as you might guess, and I loved every second of it.

      Does the story make any sense? absolutely not.
      Is the script a Frankensteined version of every other holiday movie ever, with predictable emotional beats that feel completely unearned because there is no real character development beyond basic holiday movie tropes? 100% yes.
      Does the snowman, who is played by Dustin Milligan from Schitt’s Creek, somehow have 8 pack abs and does the camera frequently linger on them? oh goodness yes
      Does the cast also include Craig Robinson and Joe LoTrulio (how did they have the budget for these two but couldn’t get even a slightly better script???), who are easily the best part of every scene they are in? Also, yes.
      And despite the predictability and obvious cash-grab nature of producing yet another bad holiday movie, did I still laugh out loud at the sheer absurdity of it, and then enjoy some happy warm fuzzy feelings by the end? Yes. A thousand times yes.

      If you, like me, delight in the terrible holiday movies Netflix brings out every year, this is a must-see. I rank it slightly below A Castle for Christmas, but above Princess Switch 3 on my list of joyfully bad holiday movies

    10. Mimmy*

      To nurture my interest in medical shows, I’ve just started watching Chicago Med on Peacock. I’m a little more than halfway through the first season. It seems similar to other TV medical dramas, including doctors with god complex (looking at YOU Dr. Halstead!). I love the female hospital director (I forget her name at the moment), she doesn’t take cr*p!

    11. Cookie Monster*

      I just watched Emilia Perez last night and it’s fantastic! Yeah, I never knew where it was going. Such a wild ride and so well acted.

  10. Bibliovore*

    When I asked for recommendations for a new picture book for gift giving last weekedn, I didn’t realize that the giving of a picture book would cause so many big feelings. Spent a day in an independent bookstore and found some new 2024 picture books that I am loving so spent a pile of money.
    I do give books as presents but remind people that book gifts are not “required reading.” And of course move them on to a little free library.
    I just knew that there are a lot of book people here and thought someone might have a recommendation that I had missed.
    “everyone is getting a book this year.” was hyperbole. I would not give a book to a known “non-reader.”

    1. ImOnlyHereForThePoetry*

      I personally enjoyed the thread last weekend. I love picture books – they bring back all the memories of reading to my kids

      1. Falling Diphthong*

        Also curious about this.

        I have one new great niece, and when she was born gave her board books that each person in my family remembered fondly. I am completely out of touch with what is current–but when my children were small loved discovering beautiful art. (David Wiesner’s Tuesday is a favorite.)

        1. oh wow really anon for this one*

          Tuesday is an interesting one because it’s used in an assessment for a certain… DSM-V condition in my profession. So I for sure have the sequence of that book memorized and will probably remember it forever!

            1. Nightengale*

              the fact that I, as an adult in a related profession, can’t figure out what is going on in that picture book was remarkably diagnostic. . .

    3. Amey*

      Seconding the request for the list of what you’ve bought! I’m 100% on board with the give everyone picture books idea – I’ve themed my present giving before in that way. People here do not know your family and social circle!

    4. WoodswomanWrites*

      I’m surprised you got negativity. I love your idea creative idea of giving picture books to adults, and would welcome being the recipient.

      1. ampersand*

        Me too. I like the idea. It’s a thoughtful gift and honestly, there are lots of really good picture books out there!

    5. The Pettiest Curse*

      I missed this discussion last weekend – but do you mean the type of book that’s often referred to as a coffee table book? I think that “picture book” has associations with children’s books, so that might have led to some of the negative reactions. (Apologies if this question was asked and answered last weekend.)

      1. Falling Diphthong*

        I am going to take this spot to thank the person who recommended “Humans of New York,” which I gave to a family member graduating and moving away from the city.

    6. Nervous Nellie*

      I missed last week, and that question but have gone back to read it. I am baffled at people’s negativity and nitpicking. My goodness! It feels like a violation of the forum rules to second-guess the author and criticize their question. If you don’t like the question, move on and participate in some other question that appeals more!

      I love the idea and think it’s very touching. If you have anyone left on your list for whom this would resonate, this is my favorite book on meditation for children: Thank You Breath by Jennifer Cohen Harper. I gave it as gifts to children AND adults a couple of years ago. It’s lovely!

      1. RussianInTexas*

        I think people have a lot of feelings and opinions on gift giving in general, and it can get rather fraught.

        1. Bibliovore*

          I am more of a occasional gift giver not holidays or birthday. And for me I like consumables. Books and other things get read or admired then moved on to a better place.

    7. Bibliovore*

      I didn’t mind the discussion. I found it super interesting. I do think some people who are insulted by a “children’s book” as a gift haven’t read a book intended for children in a very long time. Many are very sophisticated in language and themes. Witness Ann Patchett’s sudden “discovery” of Kate DiCamillo.
      What I bought:
      For the dog lovers in my circle
      Nose to Nose by Thyra Heder (for the people who like a funny book)
      Emma Full of Wonders by Elisha Cooper (for the people who like an arty book)

      For families with young children
      The Man Who Didn’t Like Animals by Deborah Underwood, illustrated by LeUyen Pham
      The World and Everything in It by Kevin Henkes
      Rescue Cat by Stephen A. Savage
      Chooch Helped by Andrea L. Rogers

      For my friend who loves all thing Hawaii
      Aloha Everything by Kaylin Melia George

      For my friend with a new baby
      Joyful Song: A Naming Story by Lesléa Newman

      For my friend who loves music LPs
      Animal Albums from A to Z by Cece Bell

      For my friend who is a newly minted MLS children’s librarian
      Go Forth and Tell: The Life of Augusta Baker, Librarian and Master Storyteller by Breanna J. McDaniel

      For my friend who English is a second language
      The Rock in My Throat by Kao Kalia Yang

      For my friends who are activists
      Signs of Hope: The Revolutionary Art of Sister Corita Kent by Mara Rockliff
      Fighting with Love: The Legacy of John Lewis by Lesa Cline-Ransome

      For my scientific friends
      Erno Rubik and His Magic Cube by Kerry Aradhya
      Evidence!: How Dr. John Snow Solved the Mystery of Cholera by Deborah Hopkinson

      1. Bike Walk Barb*

        This is a fabulous list. I’m thinking of books I enjoyed reading to my daughters, who are now grown women. Some of the ones we enjoyed:

        Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain: Based on a Nandi tale. Has that wonderful building repetition people will recognize from other stories like This is the House that Jack Built. Search on YouTube for James Earl Jones reading this. “This is the cloud, all heavy with rain, that shadowed the ground on Kapiti Plain.”

        Brother Sun, Sister Moon: Saint Francis of Assisi’s Canticle of the Creatures. Especially appropriate for someone with a faith practice, with beautiful papercut illustrations.

        Allison’s Zinnia: Gorgeous illustrations of flowers. Each girl brings a flower that starts with the same letter as her name to the next girl. “Beryl brought a begonia to Crystal.” At the end Allison gets a flower. Older book, names probably not representative of a variety of cultures; I don’t recall all the names although at one point I could have recited the whole thing to you. Would be fun for a gardener; not all the flowers are super familiar ones.

    8. GoryDetails*

      I’m a fan of many children’s picture-books – and while most of the ones I acquire nowadays are intended for Little Free Libraries, I enjoy looking through them myself. I don’t think I posted in the previous thread, so apologies if these are duplicates, but some of my recent acquisitions include:

      October is Having a Party! by Caitlin Friebel, lovely artwork and a sweet tale of woodland critters celebrating the change of season.

      Year of the Cat by Richard Ho is about the animals of the Asian zodiac, who had a great race to determine their order – a race that the cat lost, thanks to some shenanigans. The book’s a fun twist on the story.

      And an oldie, but a favorite of mine: the completely-textless Peter Spier’s Christmas! – Spier uses intricately-detailed illustrations to show the progress of the holiday season, from the big shops downtown to individual household decorations – and follows it all through the celebration to the rather sad aftermath, with packaging in the trash and Christmas trees at the curb. Very evocative.

      Oh, and the works of Barbara Reid, who uses a painting-with-clay technique to create her illustrations; books include The Subway Mouse and Have You Seen Birds, and there are many more.

    9. Don't You Call Me Lady*

      I didn’t see the post last week but trying to wrap my mind around how there could be negativity around picture books

  11. Jackalope*

    Gaming thread! Share what you’ve been playing and give or request recs. As always, all games are welcome, not just video games.

    I jumped back into Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes. For those who haven’t played it, it’s a spin-off of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, with the same characters (for the most part), and a side timeline. I’m doing my final house – Dimitri – and not looking forward to his path (always my least favorite), but glad to get my Blue Lions gang back!

    1. theinone*

      Still playing Stardew Valley- between classes and marching band it’s hard to finish my playthroughs but we don’t have a game this weekend so I can actually play! Finishing up my 1.6 run so I can start a new farm with mods.

      (I mean, I never play without Harvest with Scythe and UI infosuite…but I want to play through Ridgeside Village after I get perfection in this farm lol)

    2. Strive to Excel*

      I got a bonus at work so after being Responsible with most of it I decided to splurge and got a full set of minifigs for the Lost Mines of Phandelver DND module. It’s one of the intro modules that DND sells so it has a little bit of everything, and there’s a number of different enterprising Etsy 3D printing companies who sell the full sets. Or just parts of the sets. I figure it’ll be a really good jumping-off point into more minifigs if I so desire.

      I’m looking forwards to getting and painting them, but also to surprising the heck out of my table. And hopefully pleasing them.

      1. Banana and an apple*

        Ah your table will love them! That sounds awesome. We’ve got minis we never use because we play through zoom, so i am a bit jealous.

    3. ecnaseener*

      I played Elsinore this week and loved it. It’s a time-loop game where you play as Ophelia from Hamlet, trying to escape your fate. (Assuming basic familiarity with the plot of Hamlet, I trust it’s not a spoiler to say that just making it past the point where Ophelia drowns is only the beginning, because Fortinbras is still coming the next day to conquer Denmark and that’s not exactly good for you either!)

  12. Lizard*

    I am having a mysterious house problem, and I’m hoping that by telling as many people as possible, I will someday encounter an answer. Sorry this is long, but I wanted to provide all the details I have.

    A couple of weeks ago, I came home and thought that my house smelled a little like paint. (I have not been painting). When it didn’t go away after a few days, I explored more and found that it was strongest in the downstairs bathroom. The internet suggested that it might a freon leak, which made some sense because 1) it smelled a lot like it did when I had coolant blowing into my car and 2) that bathroom shares a wall with the outdoor shed that houses part of the AC unit. The smell in the outdoor shed is really strong.

    When I called the A/C repair guy, he said that freon doesn’t have a smell but agreed to come check it out anyway. He could definitely smell it, but he couldn’t find anything wrong with the A/C – including no freon leaks. He had no suggestions for who to call next. I asked two other appliance people (all of my appliances have had problems). One of them agreed that it wasn’t freon, suggested checking to see if there were chemicals dripping into any vents (I checked – there aren’t), and suggested buying an air quality monitor.

    I bought the air quality monitor, which shows higher levels of Total Volatile Organic Compounds (TVOCs) in the shed compared to in the house. 0.1-0.2 mg/m^3 in the house; up to 4.7 mg/m^3 in the shed. But I can’t figure out where the TVOCs would be coming from if not from A/C unit. (The only other things in the shed are a bike, some potting soil, and some empty pots.)

    I tried airing out the shed for 24+ hours (the smell got better but didn’t go away entirely) and then closing the door again to see if it builds up so that I have an idea of whether it’s a recurring problem. (Experiment in progress, no results yet). I also have another A/C company coming out on Monday for a second opinion, but I’m not feeling hopeful because a third A/C guy told me that guy #1 is very thorough and would have found a problem if there was one. He suggested talking to a duct cleaning company. I reached out to them but haven’t gotten a visit scheduled, and I’m not super convinced that this will be the answer.

    Anyway, if anyone reads all of that and thinks ‘I know something about HVAC units/TVOCs/things that smell like paint/anything that might explain this’, then I would love to hear about it. I’ve learned that the smell stays pretty localized to the bathroom/shed as long as I don’t turn on the heat or A/C. But once the air starts circulating, I immediately get a headache. It’s been pretty temperate so far, but I believe it will get cold one day. Thanks in advance!

    1. CheerfulGinger*

      This is a bit of a stretch, but is it possible that an old can of paint is leaking in the area? I know you said the shed only has soil and pots, but maybe it is in the attic and dripping into the wall?

      I once thought there was terrible smell coming from the basement. Turns out that a small animal had crawled under the deck and died. The stink was leaking into the basement and we didn’t figure out the source till the spring.

    2. Unvarnished opinion*

      The last time I smelled paint but there was no paint to be found, it turned out a small bottle of citrus extract haf leaked in the pantry closet and was eating through the floor varnish. Could something in the shed have leaked onto a finished or painted surface?

    3. Shiny Penny*

      This is both an intriguing mystery and also sounds awful to experience!
      My brain immediately leaped to ruling out the worst case possibility of a gas leak. Even tho the smell seems not to correlate, I would totally ask the gas company (assuming natural gas is in the area) to send a tech out.
      I had to do that twice and the tech was here with a meter within the hour. (Once my dryer WAS actually leaking natural gas, and once a weird outdoor smell ended up just being from freshly turned mushroomy soil— thanks hermit thrushes lol).

      Then I would try to measure carbon monoxide levels, because that’s another worst case. One of my neighbor’s appliances (a furnace?) appeared normal but started putting CO into their home. One of the better side effects are bad headaches.

      Then I would start looking for mold. Is the shed a separate structure set really close to the outer wall of your house? The space between house and shed could have become a mold zone. Is the shed actually more like an uninsulated room attached to the house? Then the shared wall could have developed a moldy interface inside. You can get a test kit to let you sample various surfaces and send to a lab for mold count and species identification. (Mold can create weird smells, and exposure can cause headaches.)

      I hope it turns out to be an easy fix, whatever it is!

    4. Shiny Penny*

      Another thought— the bathroom seems to be involved somehow. What if it is actually the primary source?
      Sewer gasses are VOC’s, and can cause headaches (at the least). Toilets can “burp” sewer gases if things go wrong (like if the roof vent gets blocked by fallen leaves) and also, if the water evaporates out of the P trap in a sink or shower drain, then gasses will come into the living space that way.

      I think the fact that you perceive the smell to be “a certain flavor” might be a red herring? Especially if a person has had Covid or some other illness, (or is just higher mileage lol) one’s perception of taste/smell can be altered. So “there is an odor” seems pretty concrete, but “it seems like Freon” might be misleading. Since you are having headaches and measuring higher VOC’s, my impulse would be to rule out all the riskier possibilities asap. And hopefully find it’s something really easy to fix!

      2. Observer*

        Sewer gasses are VOC’s, and can cause headaches (at the least). Toilets can “burp” sewer gases if things go wrong (like if the roof vent gets blocked by fallen leaves) and also, if the water evaporates out of the P trap in a sink or shower drain, then gasses will come into the living space that way.

        And if you have your own septic tank, it might not hurt to get that checked out as well.

        I agree with whoever said to get a carbon monoxide monitor.

        And yes, to checking out the pots and earth in the shed.

    5. ReallyBadPerson*

      If you don’t have a carbon monoxide detector, get one ASAP. This might not be your whole problem (you wouldn’t smell it in any case), but it can cause headaches.

      Are you on a private well, by any chance? Years ago, we were plagued by a smell similar to what you describe, and it turned out that our well pump was failing. Replacing it solved the problem.

    6. Sloanicota*

      I think you’ve done your due diligence and can now just focus on mitigation. I’d probably start throwing things like a portable fan, an air purifier, some of those charcoal packets at this now, in the hopes it will eventually dissipate. My guess might be something outgassing out of the soil.

    7. WellRed*

      I know you have a monitor but I was going to suggest having a monitoring expert come out and take readings. This sounds so frustrating.

    8. Not That Kind of Doctor*

      Wrong time of year where I live, but a friend once had tar from a presumed old, bad roof repair melt and trickle through the structure until it started to ooze through her bathroom ceiling. I can’t remember if they eventually found the source or if it was a “it’s probably an old patch but we might have to tear apart the whole roof” situation.

    9. Glomarization, Esq.*

      What materials make up the floor, walls, and roof of the shed? Could be decaying plywood or chipboard, say, if your shed has a roof leak.

    10. Jay*

      -Is your shed made of heavily treated wood? Like heavily tared or varnished? Things can go wrong with those products as they get older, leading to that sort of smell.
      -Are those pots wooden? Have THEY been treated with anything?
      -Are your bags of soil just soil? Or do they have chemical fertilizers, additives, or pesticides that may have developed an odor over time?
      -Have you checked the outside and roof of the shed? Are there any discolorations or marks that would indicate something got on there? You can work out how and why it got there later, just knowing it’s there can help.
      -Has your city/town done any spraying recently? Pesticides (especially mosquito treatments), herbicides, what have you?
      -Have any roads been resurfaced in the recent past?

    11. Fit Farmer*

      Ooh this is cartalk for houses. I wouldn’t pay for the duct cleaning unless you need it anyway; the smell clearly isn’t originating in the ducts generally…perhaps directly inside some part of the ductwork inside the shed/bath. Do you know what death smells like? Perhaps a dead animal in the shed. I wouldn’t worry about gas; the AC tech would have flagged that smell. However, if you can “suspect” gas, and call whatever safety inspector, they may know your particular smell—surely they are called out to many smells that are not gas.

      Overall I’d guess the smell is coming from something TBD in the area of the shed. Possibly in the area of the bathroom, but seems unlikely to be stronger in the shed than the bath unless coming from the shed area. Which leaves…AC mechanical, already checked. Coming from the ground itself? Sewer/septic line leak or drainfield issue if you have a drainfield? Rotting…something? Wood smells like mold/mildew; as a farmer I can say the strong rot smells come from wet rotting things—vegetables, waterlogged manure or organic mater, dead animals, etc. If you can find a leak or somewhere (newly) consistently wet, it could cause something to rot in a gross way?

      Good luck! A good mystery hopefully solved soon.

      1. ElastiGirl*

        I would definitely read a book that started with the sentence, “Do you know what death smells like?”

    12. Silent E*

      I’m with Fit Farmer on suspecting a dead animal, if none of the other possibilities of leaking chemicals pan out. If it is a dead animal, you may never find it unless/until the house or shed get torn down; smells from them tend to travel in odd ways, especially if the animal got trapped in a wall. This happened to me once. It was initially faint and smelled exactly like propane, then later had a harsh, strong chemical smell like paint and later somewhat of turpentine. It never smelled like something was rotting to me. It took quite a while (several weeks; it was winter) to fade, but it finally did. I got my answer by first calling the gas company to check it out immediately when I smelled gas; they suspected a dead animal when the results everywhere in and outside my house came up negative for a gas leak. The pest control guy took one whiff and said it was definitely a dead animal. He checked everywhere but never found an entry point, and cautioned against going searching for it – one can knock holes everywhere and never find the culprit. A friend of mine did that and ended up with many holes and a huge, unresolved stink for quite a while. I survived by closing up that room for a while and setting up a fan to blow the air outside. The pest control guy gave me some chemical deoderizer that I sprayed in the room initially to take the edge off and keep it from seeping into the rest of the house. I hope you figure it out and can find some relief soon!

      1. Silent E*

        *in the floor/between. I meant to say, “…especially if the animal got trapped in the floor/between floors” – not in the wall.

    13. Cabbagepants*

      Potting soil can get really aromatic if it gets damp and a new fungus moves in. fungus can make all kinds of crazy smells. Fungus can also move into your house if there is dampness, standing water in your vents, or anywhere.

    14. Lizard*

      Thanks everyone!! This has given me a good list of things to check out and the peace of mind to just mitigate if I never figure out the source.

      1. Juneybug*

        Gonna link an article that might help solve this mystery (and are we allowed to ask for an update in update season? :) )

  13. MozartBookNerd*

    I’m sheltering from political blogs for awhile – are there similar-feeling sites but that aren’t political?

    For years up until November 5, I habitually enjoyed checking in on political postings throughout the day. It was a way of taking a mental break from my own work, plus feeling connected to a lot of strangers, plus also keeping my brain going. But welp, all of sudden, I’ll be setting boundaries and sheltering from politics, at least for a healthy length of time. (Will return to it later with renewed vigor.)

    So I’m seeking new “go-to” web sites to replace my all-day political blog “habit” with! Frequent postings would be good; deep groups of writers and/or commenters would be good; in fact AAM is absolutely perfect (in so many ways) but I want additional ones! After all, when breaking any old strong habit, it’s helpful to substitute a new one . . . Grateful for the commentariat’s suggestions!

    1. Bethlam*

      Oh, wow, I was actually going to start a post asking the opposite! I am a blue person in a red family, in a red social circle, within a red county, in a state that flipped red this election. I have one friend – one! who shares my political leanings and, between our schedules, only see each other once a month.

      So I would love to find some political discussion blogs – do you have some you could recommend while other commenters are recommending non-political ones for you?

      1. MozartBookNerd*

        Absolutely Bethlam! What a pleasure to do a little “handoff” – – let me think a little and respond to you tomorrow. I have some real favorites and that’s part of what makes my little stage right now even harder!

      2. Nononon*

        My partner just started a website called TwoRedCrows dot com (we’re decidedly blue) and its mostly to help from feeling like they’re screaming into the void.

      4. Bike Walk Barb*

        Someone recommended Letters from an American by Heather Cox Richardson to me. Daily postings.

      5. MozartBookNerd*

        (Please see my post below, which should have landed here but I didn’t nest it properly! Cheers.)

    2. RC*

      Following this one; I’m avoiding large swaths of the internet right now because I know it will lead to an anxiety spiral and I just can’t. I haven’t found any replacement websites besides this one (maybe for the best?) but in other contexts I’ve been listening to the reruns of How Did This Get Made and watching Taskmaster (and just rererererewatched The Good Place).

      1. Tiny clay insects*

        Sorry, RC, are you literally me? Because that is exactly what I am watching and listening to.

        Favorite Taskmaster season? Mine is 7. The “build an extension” incident with James, Phil, and Rhod is the best thing ever.

        Favorite HDTGM episode? mine is probably Action Jackson. (so much good stuff, though i think the ‘man woman scene’ part is my fave.)

        Also, there is a rumor Jason Mantzoukas is going to be on the next season of Taskmaster!

        1. RC*

          I saw a rumor that they were going to have a “famous American” on the next one, and I was wondering Jon Hamm, because he has shown up on many weird, sometimes British shows.

          Just finished S7 again, but I’ll see your extension and raise you “tie yourself up so Alex is slowest to release you” lol. Now onto S9 for olds, and Australia, Junior, and 18 (which honestly is only ok)

          1. Tiny clay insects*

            Oh man, that is a good one! I also, of course, love when Jessica Knappett falls off the stage.

            We are currently rewatching S11. Guz Khan saying “there’s been another revelation” just kills me.

            1. RC*

              Immediately after Kerry foreshadows “What if we fall off the stage?” “You won’t be blindfolded during your walk, so you shouldn’t” rofl.

              And that’s why we call it the Knappett in future seasons.

              Just finished S9; I can see why Ed Gamble and James Acaster are pals in real life. I think I’ll make my way through to at least S14 or 15, those were the last really strong seasons IMO.

    4. KathyG*

      Arts & Letters Daily (aldaily.com) is an aggregator site that links to 3 pieces per day. It’s a rabbit-hole that I have to ration myself. Almost always has something interesting.

    5. Sloanicota*

      I think other than here, and Slate, which has more advice columns than news at this point, with very active comments (you can go direct to Slate/advice to skip politics) the best thing is to find reddits that interest you. There are so many reddits on all topics. I had avoided that site as I thought it was mancave neck beardy types talking about Females, but it’s actually quite a diverse community, so you just have to find a good one.

    6. Virtual Light*

      I’m in a similar place! The online places (besides here) where I am still hanging out in these times are:

      gofugyourself dot com has a couple of amazing former television without pity writers who comment hilariously and insightfully on fashion and celebrity. They also do some television recaps on their (well worth it) paid substack. Sounds light when I write it like that, but it is a lovely and feminist community.

      smartbitchestrashybooks dot com is a (feminist) book site centered on romance. I don’t actually read a lot of romance, but there is overlap into my genres from time to time in the comments. Their twice-monthly “whatcha reading?” post’s comments are always fun.

      I also have a long-time notalwaysright dot com habit. Small, mildly-humorous workplace anecdotes.

      Best of luck to all of our brains in these times.

    7. Nervous Nellie*

      While Reddit can be a bit of wild west, two subreddits have lovely comforting content: r/goodnews and r/upliftingnews. It’s a random mishmash, and admittedly there is touch of politics, but it’s cheery stuff.

    8. Bike Walk Barb*

      Anne Helen Petersen’s Culture Study and Virginia Sole-Smith’s Burnt Toast both have wonderful pieces on current topics and great, supportive commenters.

      Antonia Malchik, On Common Grounds. She’s a wonderfully observant and lyrical writer. Her topics have to do with private property, community-building, protecting our access to wild places, so they’re situated in the public policy realm without being overtly about elected official shenanigans.

    9. Nancy Drew*

      Have you heard of thefogbow.com /forum/ ? It’s a left-leaning, moderated forum with lots of different topics. During the former guy’s previous administration, reading commentary from Fogbow people with far more knowledge of the law and politics than I have helped me maintain my sanity for those 4 crazy years. This time around, I’ll be avoiding national politics as much as possible, so I appreciate discovering new sources of anodyne reading material to bookmark.

    10. MozartBookNerd*

      Lots of attractive ideas here . . .

      The analogy between sports and politics is rich, wow. And yeah these days I guess I weren’t a stranger to sports.

      What a great blog THIS is, everyone. And don’t let this message quell further suggestions! :D

    11. Filthy Vulgar Mercenary*

      Have you read Captain Awkward?! LOVE her and she has almost 2000 posts I think, so you’ll have plenty to browse through. I can’t wait for her book. Like AAM with her good explanations of human nature and scripts, except instead of work it’s for all of life. I can’t recommend her highly enough. She and AAM have collaborated a few times too.

      That Bad Advice Tumblr is no longer posting but her commentary in her archives is brilliant and biting, insightful, and it can feel cathartic to read. She writes answers to selected letters written to other advice columnists when the writer is clearly a jerk, and pretends to take the writer’s side in an eloquent and hilarious yet insulting way.

      1. MozartBookNerd*

        Yes indeed, I LOVE the Captain also. I faithfully check every day for her sparse-but-that’s-fine updates . . . and thanks for the reminder to plow around in the archives! (I guess the comments on that site have all gone away, even on the old posts?)

        I didn’t know about That Bad Advice . . . will make a point of looking, thank you!

    12. dapfloodle*

      I spend a fair amount of time on metafilter (both the main one and the “ask” part of it)… there are going to be some political topics but avoiding those should be like avoiding them on reddit, which is also being recommended here.

  14. Pennyworth*

    Does anyone have any strategies for overcoming inertia? I seem to have completely ground to a halt mentally and physically, even though I have so much to do, and I know I will feel so much better if I get moving. I just can’t get started, and I hate it.

    1. Not A Manager*

      Yes. I lie to myself. I say, I’m not going to tackle this project, I’m just going to set up for it. If I’m procrastinating cooking, I’ll JUST chop the veggies, or JUST weigh out the ingredients. Usually by the time that’s done, I’m happy to go on to the next step, but if not, I’ll cover everything and return to it. It’s easier to “start” the cooking when the prep is all done.

      Same thing for working out, or cleaning up, or anything else. I’ll pick a small preliminary step and do that. “I’m just going to stretch, and then if I decide not to work out, that’s okay.” “I’m just going to sort the laundry and treat the stains.”

      Another trick is to see how much I can get done while waiting for something else. I can empty the dishwasher while the coffee is dripping, for example, or make the bed and straighten my room while the bath is running.

      1. MozartBookNerd*

        On the same theme, there’s a catch-phrase that I find really helpful: “You can’t do a project. You can only do one step at a time OF a project.” Reframing it as just a bunch of little by littles . . . easier to step away and come back . . . chipping away at an array of different things.

    2. The Prettiest Curse*

      I narrate to myself what I want to make myself do. So if I’m lying in bed and don’t want to get up, I might make my inner voice say “you’re going to get up now” or “move”. It’s most effective if you can boil it down to one or two words and then just focus on repeating those. The trick is to break down the activity you need to do into small chunks and talk your brain into doing each of them.
      Also, try to only focus on that one activity while you’re doing it so that you don’t get overwhelmed by thinking about all the other things you need to do.

      1. Sloanicota*

        This latter is so important. I’ve gotten to a place now where, even when I’m doing one of the many things I need to do, I still feel bad about *not* doing the other things I need to be doing! Last week I really had to shake myself – if I’m making progress on an item on the list, no mental chatter, just think about the thing you’re doing now.

    3. Still*

      I remember seeing a post somewhere (tumblr…?) that said that a weird trick that worked for them was to start silently screaming in their head. I believe the phrasing was along the lines of “The goal is to fill my head with AAAAAAAAAAAA until I’m vertical”. Dunno but might be worth a try?

      Another thing: put away your devices. You’re allowed to sit down and not do whatever it is you have to do, but you’re not allowed to be on your phone / mindlessly watching stuff. Most people have a low threshold for boredom. You can keep scrolling on your phone forever, but once you remove that distraction, eventually your brain is probably going to decide that it would rather do a chore than be bored. Unless you fall asleep, in which case you probably need the rest.

      Another thing that always gets me to move is putting on a cleaning/decluttering video or a podcast. Even if I’m sick and tired and just put it on to have some background noise, give me fifteen minutes and I will get up to do stuff.

      For planned activities, pack your bag and prepare your clothes in advance, so that you can just grab and go. Starting is hard, make it as easy as possible.

      And +1 to all that Not A Manager said.

      1. All Monkeys are French*

        Yes, the grab and go is crucial. For years I had heard the advice about exercising first thing in the morning by prepping your gear ahead and just doing it, but it still didn’t work for me until someone told me their rule: you’re not allowed to think about it. You decide the night before that you’re going to do it, you set your alarm, and when it goes off there is absolutely no negotiating. Surprisingly, it has finally clicked and I have a new exercise routine. I’m working on applying it to other things with mixed results.

    4. fallingleavesofnovember*

      I will try to add something to make what I have to do more fun – put on music or a podcast during chores, go to a coffee shop while writing a paper/email, etc. One I used in university when I had long articles to read was to set myself up a foot bath at the same time – it felt like a treat and dis-incentivized me from going anywhere for a while.

      1. Sloanicota*

        Adding to this – the way my brain works, I find it useful to have a *specific* playlist to at least get me started on things. This is a trick I learned from writing fiction. You play the same background song every morning to get your brain into writing mode. Pretty sure they also do it in daycare, lol. Now I do it with a lot of transitions, like when it’s time to start the workday (I’m remote) I put on a specific classical playlist, and when I hear the first strains of the music I kind of feel myself switching into “work mode.” I also have a cleaning playlist. You can later vary the songs later of course, just that I find having the first couple ones be the Official Activity Indicator to be helpful.

        1. Double A*

          I’ve been a teacher for 15 years and have absolutely used this in the classroom and why did it never occur to use it on myself???

        2. Bike Walk Barb*

          I’m going to start using this to transition to work. I WFH 100% and this would be really helpful as an additional cue.

    5. ReallyBadPerson*

      I find ADHD to be quite helpful in this situation. I get overwhelmed by my massive to-do list, but oh, look! The vent hood needs cleaning! So I tackle that, list be damned, and kind of roll downhill from there.

    6. Sloanicota*

      Wow, are you me? For a few yeas I kept cutting back on things, thinking that would help me “bounce back” energetically – boy, that didn’t work. I used to work 40+ hours outside my office with a 40 minute commute and still go out with coworkers most nights and have full social weekends, while writing novels in the my spare time; it seems incredible looking back on it, I don’t know how I did it. I do agree with the advice from on here that sometimes it takes doing something fun and new and really different to make you feel energized, NOT cutting back on things. I’ve taken up a new hobby that’s really been reconnecting me (I just do it from home, but I notice a big difference in my engagement as a result). I also try to make sure to take a walk every single day at lunch.

      1. The Prettiest Curse*

        I also find taking walks at lunch really helpful.
        Also, when you’re trying to build new habits or drop old ones, mentally re-framing things can really help. Instead of aiming to do the new thing every single day and mentally beating yourself up if you don’t, try to focus on how much you’re able to do something. If you can do the new thing 4 days a week, you’re still doing it on a majority of the days in the week, month or year. If you can do it once, twice or three times a week, that’s still way better than not doing it at all!

    7. Neon Lights*

      When I end up with a long to-do list, I start with the easiest tasks first just to get into doing-things mode. Once you start with something small, it’s easier to just keep doing stuff/moving.

      If I’m dreading a task for some reason, I ask myself what the worst thing that could happen is and how I would deal with it. Knowing what I’ll do if things don’t go as planned helps make it a little easier to get started.

    8. Inertia Ideas*

      1- dor some reason I find it easier to move with a podcast in my ears if I feel stuck. the perfect amount of distraction while my body does something else. It’s to the point where sometimes just popping the earbuds in works.

      2 – Timer trick. If I’m avoiding something (dishes, working out, etc…) I’ll set a timer for 5 or 10 minutes and tell myself I don’t have to do more than that. I usually just end up finishing the task.

      1. The Prettiest Curse*

        I also find it much easier to do stuff if I’m listening to a podcast or music. For some reason, high-energy pop or rock music makes me power through work like almost nothing else, even though it’s not necessarily the kind of music I listen to otherwise.

    9. Temporary Name*

      I have the same problem. One thing that helps me sometimes is to give myself a specific number of things to do, but the things can be defined any way I want, and then I have permission to be lazy. So sometimes if I’m really struggling, the 5 things might just be folding 5 pieces of laundry. Other times I’ll get up and do one task such as unload the dishwasher, and I’ll start feeling more energized and end up doing 4 other tasks like wipe the counters, sweep, drink some water, take a shower.

    10. goddessoftransitory*

      Stand up and don’t sit down until you do one thing. I find that once I’m up, I can propel myself through chores and things, but once I’m sitting it’s over.

    11. Qwerty*

      1. Drink more water
      2. Don’t think about everything you have to do. Just focus on the next step. Your goal is to make progress, not to finish. ToDo lists may be a great way to procrastinate but they make us feel overwhelmed and tired
      3. Avoid the shame spiral. Don’t beat yourself up or focus on what you “should” do
      4. Procrastinate by doing something productive. Kinda like how in college every decided to clean their dorm room instead of studying for exams. That way at least something gets done!

      #1 is about forcing breaks. Telling myself that I’ll take a break between each episode of a Netflix shows never pans out, but pausing the show to go to bathroom means that I might as well throw on a load of laundry while I’m up or do some other small 10-60sec task. Sometimes I then go back to the couch, or I may start doing another small task.

      #3 is because guilt/shame make us tired and need to curl back into our comfort zone of procrasination. Find a small “win” and ride that dopamine hit. Try just standing up and stretching for 30-60sec to get the blood flowing every 30ish min, even if you sit back down and continue to be halted. Odds are you’ll start to get a little restless and need to move and DO something after a little while.

      I like reminding people that Terry Pratchett’s daily goal was to write 400 words and he is one of the most prolific writers. That’s less than 2 pages with double spacing. His reasoning was that setting such a low and easily attainable goal took the pressure off. Some days that’s all he wrote. Other days generated plenty extra. But it built the habit and the inertia.

      1. Qwerty*

        Also, find a way to make what you need to do something you want to do so it doesn’t feel like “ugh, I have to clean” or “ugh, I have to write this paper”. I frame it as “my evening activity is getting to make a home cooked meal”. (sometimes that meal is a giant vat of soup to feed me all week, made from a bag of frozen veggies, canned chicken, and pre-made chicken stock, but not everyone is a chef) I absolutely hate exercising but I know my body functions better when I do it, so I look forward to my weekly run as something I’m doing so I sleep great all week. Writing that white paper? Somebody cares about what I have to say on subject! Let me just do a brain dump into a file. Ok another day let me organize it as a favor to Future Self, etc.

  15. questioningWindows*

    My personal laptop is now suggesting I upgrade to Windows 11. I don’t like upgrading, but it looks like it might be free. I’d rather get it for free, but I like waiting until some of the bugs get fixed. What do you think? Does it seem like a good idea?

    1. Jackalope*

      I’ve found that it’s occasionally a bit annoying but otherwise pretty similar to the prior version. And there are a few features I actually like better; color me shocked. It’s been out for just over three years now, so I’m guessing the bugs are mostly worked out at this point. (Side note: how has it been that long??)

    2. WoodswomanWrites*

      I waited to upgrade for years but when my old laptop died, the only choice for the new one was Windows 11. I thought it might be a lot different but it turns out the changes are pretty minor. I still have Windows 10 on my work computer and go between the two without even thinking about it.

    3. 653-CXK*

      My netbook that I bought in 2015 (Asus) and my all-in-one desktop that I purchased in 2019 (Dell) are not eligible to be upgraded to Windows 11, and the security updates for Windows 10 will end in October 2025. I will likely buy either a new all-in-one or a mini PC with Windows 11 when next October rolls around.

      Hopefully, the Patch Tuesday (the second Tuesday of the month where Microsoft releases their security updates) for Windows 11 is far faster than Windows 10. The most recent one for November took me seven hours to complete as it was slow.

    4. Nervous Nellie*

      My home computer is still on Windows 10 and like others here, can’t be upgraded to 11, so I will need to replace it before the end of support mid-Oct 2025. With the probable inflation to come from tariffs, I plan to buy that computer on Black Friday this year just to get it over with. Then I will have 10 months to work up the courage to switch them over.

      My work computer is on Windows 11 and has been for some time. It is just fine – not dramatically different from 10. I hardly notice when I switch between them. And seconding the Patch Tuesday issues. I will enjoy again having a computer that doesn’t take forever to update!

    5. SuprisinglyADHD*

      I just set up a new laptop for my grandparents, they only come with Windows 11 now and this was my first experience with it. Overall it works very similarly to Windows 10, and many of the minor changes I found were improvements and new options. The UI and style feels a bit more “sleek” for lack of a better word. BUT, I ended up having to rip a lot of bloatware and features out to make it “grandparent safe”. Searching in the start menu gives website results at the top (which absolutely baffled me the first time I typed a program name and hit enter without looking closely). I also had to disable and remove Copilot, simply because ANY unexpected pop-up or notification could lead to disaster (ever see that post that’s wondering how someone made it through 6 menus to change the language to Chinese? My grandparents are like that). For most of the stuff I needed gone, I could disable or change in the Settings. I was able to navigate “behind the scenes” (uninstall programs, check the task manager, turn off startup programs, use the Run command, find the Registry) just like previous versions.
      Overall, Windows 11 is fine or someone used to the Windows OS, the user experience was nearly identical to 10. If your laptop can handle it, upgrading for free is a better option than waiting till you have to pay.

    6. Neon Lights*

      I replaced a 2014 computer recently. It had Windows 8, but I had a program on it that made the user interface the same as a Windows 7 computer. The change to Windows 11 was minor. The only frustrating thing was having to go through and disable/turn off a lot of stuff (like disabling OneDrive and turning off various settings that caused ads to constantly popup…took me a few days to get it to the point where there was nothing annoying).

    7. Qwerty*

      Been using Windows 11 at work for over a year and had no idea, so I’d say the versions are pretty similar.

  16. The Pettiest Curse*

    What’s the pettiest reason you’ve ever blocked or muted someone on social media? (I mean a genuinely petty reason, not because someone was being awful to you or to people in general.)

    I had to train the Instagram algorithm by blocking a ton of accounts that posted aesthetic photos of food. I also once muted a distant Australian relative of mine for posting constantly about how badly she wanted a very expensive car. So tell me about your petty blocking experiences!

    1. fposte*

      I blocked somebody on NextDoor who posted with huge images and always double posted. Nothing wrong with what they posted; it was just too much feed space.

    2. WellRed*

      Not quite what you asked but: I once refused to consider a potential roommate because she posted duckface selfies on FB.

      3. The Prettiest Curse*

        Yeah, that’s entirely justified. No point in trying to live with someone who annoys you before you even know them!

      4. Love me, love my cat*

        This doesn’t qualify as petty at all! If I ruled Facebook, she’d be banned for life. :):):)

    3. Dark Macadamia*

      I unfollowed my aunt because she posts A TON and it’s all very stereotypical boomer woman content, lol. Cutesy pictures of children with inspiring quotes, digital art being gullibly presented as if it’s a real photo, one-panel comics about hating your spouse, etc. She also posts a lot of political stuff that is well-meaning but kind of outdated and misguided, and the times I’ve commented she has been really oblivious so it’s just too annoying to keep seeing it.

    4. Nicosloanica*

      I had to block a high school acquaintance because I found her children singularly unattractive, and she posted about them constantly as if they were so cute, and I had this strange appel-du-vide urge to write some kind of comment clarifying the situation, so I realized it was in everyone’s best interest to block her posthaste. Thank goodness.

    5. Temporary Name*

      I unfollow friends/family for posting any political rants for both sides, for too much complaining, for posting too many memes, for passive aggressive comments, or for trying to get people to buy into their MLM.

    7. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      These are probably not sufficiently petty, but on Facebook I blocked
      -my husband’s sister – for telling him that he needed to get me under control and make me accept her friend request, yes seriously, the words “get her under control” literally came out of her mouth
      -my dad’s sister – because despite being asked repeatedly, she kept posting news about my grandmother’s failing health on Facebook before my dad had a chance to tell us in person, or even sometimes before my dad was informed at all. My final straw was when my siblings literally found out about gran’s passing from her Facebook page, and dad had only just managed to call me and let me know about three minutes before her post went up. (She was incensed that she had been asked to give my dad a couple hours to get and disseminate any info before posting, because that was, quote, an infringement on her right to have and share her own feelings, end quote.) So I blocked her, and then she called up my dad and pitched a fit at him about it, and he was like “She’s a 32 year old homeowner, what do you want me to do, ground her?” Which cracked me up.

      On a rather more petty level — I am known in my small social circle for finding most of my friends’ friends annoying, so I block anybody who makes comments on my friends’ posts as soon as they post something that annoys me, regardless of the actual content. I’m pretty sure I have blocked several friends’ spouses, lots of their actual friends, and probably half of my parents’ church membership at this point. :P

      1. Sloanicota*

        Yeah at any point where I realize I’m starting to get into “hate reading” territory (what’s so and so going to be whinging about TODAY?”) I have to block. Like if I’m actively looking for someone’s content because it bugs me, that’s my sign.

        1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

          I know I blocked one of my dearest friend’s brother like ten years ago because he was condesplaining to me about how no actually, I’m wrong, Joss Whedon is an AMAZING feminist and has done more for supporting the feminist movement than (that’s about where I tuned him out and hit the block button).

      2. Observer*

        for telling him that he needed to get me under control and make me accept her friend request, yes seriously, the words “get her under control” literally came out of her mouth

        That is so far from petty that I don’t even know what to say. Are you guys still in contact?

        Your second example is not petty either though a bit less egregious. But your Dad sounds great.

    8. H.Regalis*

      My cousin when she worked at this salon where the owners made employees advertise on their personal social media, because 90% of her total posts were about alone stuff. She doesn’t work there anymore, thankfully.

    9. AnonymousOctopus*

      They wouldn’t stop live-tweeting and retweeting other people’s tweets about The Expanse. It’s probably a good show but it was like 4 tweets/minute for HOURS.

      1. The Prettiest Curse*

        I’m all for unashamedly enjoying the stuff you like, but that does seem a bit excessive!

    10. Jenesis*

      I unfollowed/muted someone on Facebook because they would talk in excessively gushy terms about how awesome their partner was and I found it annoying. (The fact that said partner is my ex probably had something to do with it.)

      Separately, I blocked someone on Discord after they talked about their Pokemon Go account one too many times.

    11. Unkempt Flatware*

      Not social media but as a junior or senior in college, I took a children’s lit class and it was a mix of teacher candidates, like me, and theatre students. I sat down at a table group on the first day and we did the obligatory, “what’s your major” thing and all 6 of them said theatre so I silently got up and moved to a new table. I had no energy for theatre kids what with having to teach real kids every other day and I’m glad I did. The other teacher candidate who sat in that spot had to do every group activity in full costume or with puppets or some other wild thing. The look on her face was always so funny. No hate to theatre kids–love you all. I just can’t.

      1. londonedit*

        I don’t use Facebook anymore but when I did I absolutely muted several old schoolfriends who insisted on doing things like posting a family photo on their husband’s birthday/Christmas/Valentine’s Day/Father’s Day with a caption like ‘So much love for this one, my rock, best daddy, best hubby in the whole world, love you sooooo much, can’t wait for the next chapter, love you to the moon and back xxxxxxx’. You live with the guy, just tell him in person rather than broadcasting it on social media.

        Becoming really annoyed by things like that was one of the main reasons why I stopped using Facebook…

    13. Filosofickle*

      I unfriended someone for posting a good 20 times a day, almost all motivational memes and graphics. (This was purely for self preservation. My mother always told me if I kept rolling my eyes they were going to get stuck that way so best to remove the problem lol.)

    14. Might Be Spam*

      More of a fade out than blocking. A guy I was sort of dating never used punctuation in his very long texts, even when changing subjects. It was way too much work trying to figure out what he was talking about. There was other stuff, but lack of punctuation was the last straw and then I realized that he was just too much work.

  17. Anima*

    Hair question:
    I am 37 years old, female, and I have lost about half of my very fine, straight hair. I had a bunch of stress (and general bad life circumstances) in my mid-twenties that cost me about 1/4 of my tailbone-lenght hair, then it rebounded a bit. I lost the other 1/4 after dyeing it with box dye for my second wedding (to cover up the first grays). Now it’s very thin, my natural colour (including the grey streak at my forehead current life circumstances gave me) and about bra-strap lenght. I went to the doctor some time ago and I do have iron deficiency and need to take vitamin D3 (the latter clearing up *a lot* of my other health problems), which I do dilligently. It does not help my hair, though. I am under a lot of stress, but I generally do better, physical health wise, I eat better, sleep better (and enough). I do take a hair enhancing tablet from the drugstore.
    I still experience hair fall. What else can I do? If this continues, I’ll be bald when I’m forty!

    1. fallingleavesofnovember*

      My mother in law just recommended Dercos Hair Loss shampoo to me and said she saw a difference within the first two uses. I haven’t tried it myself yet but plan to try it.

    2. Chauncy Gardener*

      I’ve been using Rogaine for women for years now and it REALLY helps. The front of my head was extremely sparse and now it looks normal. I use the liquid, but there is also a foam. I recently switched to the Walgreen’s version and it seems the same and way less money. I also take one biotin capsule a day, plus vitamin E and a multivitamin.
      Good luck!

      1. Got hair?*

        I used to use this – and by the way, the mens is the same formula but they package women’s in pretty colours and tell you to use less then charge you more for the same amount.

        Anyway, after a lot of trials and ruling out of causes, this was a major cause of frequent migraines. Stopped using it and the migraines all but stopped almost immediately. Just in case that helps someone prone to severe headaches or migraines.

      2. goddessoftransitory*

        I also take biotin–it’s made a small but notable difference in hair and nail strength.

    3. WellRed*

      Assuming you’ve rul d out thyroid issues? Is there a dermatologist or other specialist in your area that might be able to diagnose more specifically? Even if it’s just to say, this might be how it is.

      2. goddessoftransitory*

        Definitely get your thyroid panel run, and check for any other vitamin deficiencies. Apparently Humphrey Bogart had a severe deficiency at one time, and it caused almost total hair loss among other symptoms. Once he started getting treatment it grew back

    4. tab*

      Your dermatologist may prescribe oral minoxidil for you. It’s helped me with my post menopausal hair loss.

    6. Spacewoman Spiff*

      If you haven’t been to a dermatologist yet, schedule an appointment. I started having hair thinning in my early 30s and, despite having annual mole checks every year of my adult life, didn’t realize they also handle hair. In my case she recommended I use Rogaine and that has worked really well for me. A derm should be able to inspect your scalp and identify the hair loss pattern and likely cause, and give you some more specific recommendations than a general doctor will.

      1. Spacewoman Spiff*

        Also, just adding on to my initial comment—I also recommend a derm because, honestly, hair loss is such a stressful and upsetting thing that there’s a lot of snake oil out there. There are actually only a few products (like oral or topical minoxidil, which is what’s in Rogaine) that can correct for hair loss, but a whole ton of products you can buy online that will do nothing

    7. H.Regalis.*

      Scalp massage. You have to do it **every day** for ten minutes, which is hard to do, and you have to do it for six months before you’re going to see any results, but is does work. It’s not easy but it does work. If you do the scalp massage after you apply the Rogaine, that helps even more.

    8. Dark Macadamia*

      Same age and I’ve been having hair loss for several years (I started noticing my hair was weird/different around 2019 I think and then a year or so later was like wait it’s because it’s falling out). I also started having really painful cystic acne, which is what sent me to the dermatologist who ended up telling me they’re both hormonal. I take spironolactone now so the acne is 100% under control and the hair loss has slowed down a lot, and I also use Rogaine. I don’t think it’s ever going to come back but I seem to be shedding a normal amount of hair now.

    9. Anima*

      Thank you all! I do in fact have seeing my dermatologist about my hair on my list, but I need to find the time.
      Regarding Rogaine, I do get migraines, maybe I should proceed with caution… The drugstore supplement is biotine and keratine, so I’m good on that front (and my nails are *strong* now).
      I just remembered I went off birth control as some of you commented it could be hormonal – it totally can be! I’ll look into that.

      1. goddessoftransitory*

        As commented above, be sure to get a thyroid panel and vitamin/mineral (including iron) deficiency test done. And bring a COMPLETE list of all medicines, supplements and other doses of anything you take or use topically regularly. Even an OTC medication can interact weirdly with other things, producing all sorts of side effects.

        1. Msd*

          Agree about the thyroid panel. So many issues (hair loss, itchy eyes, fatigue, poor sleep, etc) can be caused by low/high thyroid but it’s rarely tested. You may even have to tell the doctor that thyroid issues run in the family before they’ll agree to do this simple blood test. (It’s mind boggling. Some high percentage of women 60%? especially older women have hinky thyroids but it’s not a standard test)

      2. Courageous cat*

        There are varying types of alopecia with varying types of treatment, and the sooner you start it the better. I highly recommend making the time asap and getting a scalp biopsy if they recommend it, that will give you much more information.

    10. Imtheone*

      I see a dermatologist who specializes in hair loss treatments. In addition to minoxidil, which is otc as Rogain or by Rx as a pill, there are several other prescription medications which help. I’d recommended seeing a dermatologist and also getting a referral to one who focuses on treating hair loss. Most likely such a dermatologist will be at a university hospital.

  18. Rosengilmom*

    following a close miss with computer failure this week, I was curious as to recommendations for backing up a hard drive. Do you do it, and how? Looking for reliable, easy, set-it-and-forget it, comprehensive–but not necessarily free. TY

    1. My Day (they/them)*

      I don’t know of a program to do it automatically, but if you buy a physical drive to back up onto, I will always recommend Western Digital over Seagate (the two common brands where I am.) Seagate drives seem to fail a lot faster and unexpectedly.

    2. Mentally Spicy*

      Your backup requirements will be very personal to you. For instance, how much data will you be backing up? Is it just a few documents and pictures or is it hundreds of gigabytes? Are these files personal or business-related? How important is the data to you? Is it “it would be a bummer if I lost these files” or is it more “it would be a total disaster?” Do you need it backed up in multiple places on a set schedule or would backing up to an external hard drive once a week be sufficient?

    3. Redaly22*

      I use Backblaze, which is an encrypted cloud backup with unlimited storage. I used to do drives, I liked Western Digital, but I’ve got a lot of pictures and video so I had to have one external HD for storage and another as backup so it really added up, and after three failures in six months I gave up. Backblaze automatically backs up at whatever frequency I set, including attached hard drives if I want it to, and it does it all over wifi so the only time I think about it is if I haven’t plugged an external HD in for a while and it asks about it. I started with the free version as a test and then upgraded to a longer storage period, which will take a couple of years to cost more than another new HD. I would prefer to set up a home NAS, but have neither the space nor the cash for it currently.

    4. Generic Name*

      You might hate this idea, but I have my whole laptop backed up automatically to the cloud through Microsoft cloud drive. I also have all my photos on google drive. Yes, I’m aware of the security risks. All of my identity information is already on the dark web thanks to the hackers who broke into the Office of Personnel Management and Experian.

    5. SuprisinglyADHD*

      It depends on whether you’re worried about hardware failure, or a hack/virus/software problem. If the latter is a major concern you might want to lean towards remote backups, which often hold older backups in case the newest one is also corrupted. For hardware failure, a secondary drive will probably be enough.
      There are services that offer remote backups (to the “cloud”), they have the advantage of being safe from catastrophic disasters like fire or flood. Those are almost certainly going to be subscription-based, and depending on what you’re backing up you might not be comfortable having it on a server you don’t control.
      For backups to an external drive, I think Windows still has the option to schedule regular backups. I’m not sure how comprehensive it is (just files, or the whole OS), but it’s certainly an option worth looking into. This would have the advantage of being free, and having the backup on something you own, but requires an extra drive plugged in.
      Either way, you should check your backups periodically, to make sure they’re successful. Last time I dealt with restoring from a backup, it turned out that the backups stopped working TWO YEARS AGO, and even that backup was missing some important folders.
      One final note: I have copies of my pictures and really important documents on a thumb drive. I don’t often remember to add the newer ones, but if my computer drive does something truly catastrophic, my oldest and dearest pictures are safe on the thumb drive.

    6. H.Regalis*

      I would recommend having a local backup and a cloud one. Cloud in case your house floods or something, and local in case there’s a natural disaster or a fire wherever the server farm is.

    7. WFH4VR*

      I use IDrive cloud backup, which contrary to its name is not an Apple thing. I’ve been very happy with it and the annual charge is reasonable. From time to time I test-re-import some of my archived files, and it always works perfectly.

    8. Lapsed Economist*

      Macrium Reflect to an external drive. Set up is a little fiddly but then you can forget it.

  19. Number Sense*

    Question about number sense: I was a classic “bad at math” mindset girl who got turned off the whole subject sometime around multiplication flashcards, lol. In later years I came to realize that both myself and my mother have some similar perception issues with numbers: they don’t “mean anything” to us, like a 3 or a 5 is all kind of the same, and it doesn’t really make intuitive sense how they work in even basic addition TBH. Both of us complain that the numbers “changed” when we weren’t looking (some kind of short term memory failure). While I’ve never been diagnosed with dyscalculia or anything, I certainly see overlap when I read descriptions. It’s hard now because 2factors are often strings of 8 numbers or more, and something like entering a cc number into a website or remembering phone number is a challenge. But I assume that’s true for everybody, right? How challenging would you find it to, say, get a text of 10 numbers and enter them correctly into a website? Do you have any tricks for getting them to “hold still” ? Do I sound totally crazy or is this fairly normal?

    1. Number Sense*

      I do have one friend who must be my polar opposite: she said every number is a different “color” to her, so she would never mix up a 5 and a 3 because one is red and one is blue. Apparently this is a form of synesthesia. At least she also kind of sounds crazy, just in the opposite way.

      1. vulturestalker*

        Yep, me too, numbers are distinctly different colors! I have trouble with 2FA codes when the numbers/colors are too similar, but if the colors go nicely together or something then remembering them is a breeze.

      2. Tiny clay insects*

        Yes, same here! if it’s a long string of numbers, I kind of break them into smaller pieces in my head and then can kinda feel the colors of each smaller string of numbers, which helps me remember them.

        (although your friend is obviously wrong, as 3 is yellow)

    2. noname today*

      Am mildly dyslexic (mostly in output ) and yes numbers do for me what you are saying.

      Best way for me to do the code entering is to use the phone—when they text you a string, adding it from the text immediately becomes an option.if not a notion, then I just use copy and paste with a mouse if I have to be on a computer also solves the issue.

      As for remembering phone numbers, I try to find the pattern—hubbies phone number has 2 pairs in in it, though not at the break where you would usually do it in the US. So (area code) aab – bcde becomes for me (area code) AA, bb, c d e. Also, I set it into a tune—and the tune helps me remember.

      Also breaking them into small parts. Dialing internationally becomes for me USA international dial code, country code, then pairs or threes of numbers.

    3. Mentally Spicy*

      I’m not a doctor, and this is not medical advice. But I strongly urge you to look again at getting a diagnosis of dyscalculia. You have classic symptoms, particularly your description of numbers not “holding still”. My oldest step-son has it and your symptoms sound very much like his.

      One classic thing that people with dyscalculia struggle with is “subitising”, essentially “knowing the number of things without counting”. For example if I put four pencils in front of you, could you tell at a glance there were four or would you have to count them?

      In general people’s relationship with mathematics and strings of numbers vary widely from person to person. For example I do slightly struggle with strings of numbers, many people don’t. Many people can do mental arithmetic easily, many others struggle. But what you describe, in my non-expert opinion, I believe is very different to the “normal” range of human experience.

      1. Number Sense*

        I guess I wouldn’t see the point of getting a diagnosis now, as I’m not in school anymore, and it’s not something that comes up for me so often in work that I would need an accommodation. I was hoping if I just googled there would be “tips and tricks” like I’ve seen for dyslexia, but I didn’t really see much, and in fact a few website suggested dyscalculia isn’t even a real proven thing in the same way. Also like I said, my mom has had it all her life (maybe worse than me) and yet gone on to be happy and successful. Mostly I just wish I could go back in time and re-take math as a child without the bad attitude, as I’m actually very interested in science and would appreciate understanding the theories behind math much better than I do.

        1. Number Sense*

          Oh, and to answer your question – yes, I could tell 1, 2, 3 or 4 pencils at a glance, probably up to about five is where I would start to fail, but I think that’s pretty normal or at least on the low end of the range of normal.

        2. Mentally Spicy*

          I understand, and to your point about dyscalculia not being considered “real”, yeah I feel you. It took a very long time to get my step-son a formal diagnosis, coming up against a fair amount of push back from educators about it. In fact he was in his last year of school when he was eventually given a diagnosis and could get accommodations. It was immensely frustrating.

        3. Imtheone*

          I teach children with learning issues. Dyscalculia is a real thing.

          If you are interested in getting better at math, practicing subitising (there are exercises for this), building with legos, and other things can help with basic number sense. We mostly do this with children, but practicing the skills should help anyone

    4. sagewhiz*

      When a string of numbers (such as a verification code) is texted to me, I copy it and then paste into the “verify” box. Much simpler than retyping the string. Would that work with numbers you refer to receiving?

      As to cc, routing, tracking numbers, etc. I absolutely must review at least once before hitting enter because I’m all too likely to have transposed something.

      1. allathian*

        Yeah, and it also depends on the app asking for authentication and the texting app on your phone. Sometimes the authentication code will go directly from the texting app to the authentication app without any typing, at least on my Samsung phone. I guess it depends on the apps and the permissions you’ve set, I think both apps need access to the clipboard for this to work.

        Anything I type I have to review at least once, or twice if the number code’s more than 5 digits long, before hitting enter.

    5. purple pansies*

      I’ll say this as a scientist, with a Master’s in math (phd in theoretical physics), and who uses graduate and post-graduate level math on a daily basis. I would never be able to remember a 10-digit string of numbers read off a website like that. I have a terrible memory, and I mostly don’t care. 3 and 5 are kinda the “same”. 3 and 100 are different. I only learned my credit card number during the pandemic, and I still get one set of the 4 numbers wrong half the time. I can’t remember my postal code, ever. I know my childhood phone number (I’m 60 , now!). I don’t know my license plate. Again, this is all memory stuff, not math.

      If you really wanted to learn multiplication tables, I’d offer some suggestions, but it’s only memorization, not “math”. Math is a lot more fascinating, and is not really about numbers, any more than a story is about the letters. Sometimes the letters are important in a story, and sometimes the numbers are important in math. But literature isn’t “about” letters.

      1. Number Sense*

        Haha yeah! My people!! I didn’t want to say it because my post was already too long, but I actually also went into science and have been reasonably successful in my field – most people really don’t do a ton of mental math these days anyway.

      2. Falling Diphthong*

        I may not know the license plate of my current car, or my spouse’s current car, but my brain has carefully preserved the license numbers we had 10 years ago.

        I eventually wrote the current numbers down on a card, realizing that it would be deeply embarrassing if a car were stolen and I had to admit to the police et al that I had no idea of the license plate (“I think it has a V?”) but could rattle off the plate of the minivan I drove 15 years ago, would that help?

      3. ampersand*

        I’m fascinated by your comment that math isn’t about numbers any more than a story is about letters. It makes sense when you put it that way! Any chance you have any (layperson) book suggestions for learning what math *is* about?

        2. David*

          I’m not the person you replied to, but I just happened to be at Barnes and Noble and saw a book that might be a good fit: “How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking” by Jordan Ellenberg. I skimmed the first couple chapters and one of the key points made right up front is exactly that idea that memorizing multiplication tables and the like is not math, just as how learning how to spell words is not literature or learning how to walk is not sports. It seems like a fairly well written book too, at least judging by the bits I looked at – it’s not dense, it’s written in a conversational style and I found it pretty readable.

          FWIW having worked a lot with math in my life (I did some time as a theoretical physicist and I still like to keep up with math and physics news), I could not agree more with the idea that math is not about numbers. It’s a shame that this so often gets lost in our educational system. I once saw someone describe math as the study of patterns, and personally I think that’s very accurate. Numbers are just a tool we can use to help us understand some kinds of patterns.

        3. purple pansies*

          Caveat that I haven’t read the book, just skimmed a couple of chapters: How to Bake Pi by Eugenia Cheng looks like it’s a nice analogy between math & cooking.
          A book that I have read, but that doesn’t answer your question is: Math Girls by Hiroshi Yuki. It’s basically a set of high-school level math problems with the solution given in two different ways (the “straightforward” way, and the “more sophisticated” way). I’d recommend this more for people who are interested in seeing mathematical concepts explored in two different ways – but it’s really more about solving puzzles than “what is math”.

      4. goddessoftransitory*

        I find familiarity breeds ease of use with numbers–I too was a “flashcards are FROM HELL” kid, and distrusted math my entire scholastic life. But now, because I deal with pricing and simple math all day at work, I can add, subtract, multiply and divide in my head a good eighty percent of the time.

        One other thing I had a hellacious time with growing up was telling time on an analogue clock–the hands pointing at random dashes made no sense at all to me until I was at least a preteen. Digital clocks were just becoming widespread and I remember being relieved that at least I could still know the time that way.

        1. OP*

          Oh yes, I can’t read an analog clock, or musical notation, without a lot of pausing and maybe counting out loud. I don’t know if it’s related, but I also struggle with left and right in what “feels” like the same missing parts of my brain. I swear though I’m actually a reasonable intelligent person otherwise haha.

    6. Falling Diphthong*

      I am going to recommend the book Do I Know You by Sadie Dingfelder, which starts with face blindness but then goes into a lot of other “Hang on, you’re saying everyone’s brain doesn’t work like mine?” areas. One thing that was really interesting to me: The rise of the internet made it easy for people with unusual conditions to find each other and exchange tips. Over and over, something that started as “Patient BH had a small stroke that knocked out this very specific part of their brain, making things very difficult for poor BH” eventually turned up “Apparently a subset of people have that same brain wiring as BH, but as small children with plastic, developing brains they learned how to navigate around it and fit in.”

      I think ready number string memorization for most people is 7 digits, not coincidentally the length of an old phone number. I am good at math, and will confess I have not memorized the phone numbers of my children–I always contact them by hitting “Child 1” rather than typing in the number, and I don’t have to put the number on forms. It is nice when I hit the point of memorizing my credit card number (through repetition of giving it). But I think that’s limited to one card number, and notably when struggling with health problems I completely lost the ability to remember that or my passwords.

    7. Falling Diphthong*

      For math in general, a while back I listened to an NPR piece about teaching math. What struck me was that for everyone who loved all things math except this one subject, man they did not get (geometry, stats, other) there was someone who hadn’t been interested in math until they hit that one subject, and suddenly they were engaged.

      Like purple pansies, I’ll say that math as a large topic is about recognizing, describing, and using patterns. Numbers is one tool to do that. A lot of useful everyday math (rather than “because it is cool” math) rests on numbers, like “I started the day with 17 sheep, do I still have 17?”

      1. anon non-neurotypical school psych*

        Statistics for me… I failed regular college algebra twice, but made As in the graduate-level stats classes that were required for my advanced degree. Statistics makes intuitive sense to me in a way that other types of math definitely did not.

    8. RagingADHD*

      Many people would have a hard time retyping ten digits from memory if they only took a second to look at them. But if you mean that you have your phone in your hand and you’re typing on a laptop, no. It is not typical to struggle to retype ten digits while looking at the source.

      I don’t have issues with numbers in particular, or text or digits moving around, but I do have random errors and gaps where things blip out of my head when I look away (see username). This can be an issue for longer, complex strings like passwords with upper and lower case and special characters. So here are my tips:

      I use copy-paste when possible,

      or I try to bring the source as close as possible to the screen where I’m typing so I can keep them both in sightline.

      Or I’ll work out loud by reading 3 digits at a time, and then repeat them aloud as I type.

      Or I’ll use my finger to follow along the source, and check it against what I typed.

      Hope that is helpful.

    9. Harlowe*

      I do something I call “making brain PDFs” to memorize things like number strings. I stare at the content I’m trying to learn and completely disregard the definition/symbology/context, only teaching myself the visual aspect. I make a “flash photo” of the item in my head with no “metadata” riding along. So I can then automatically copy back the shapes and positions, but I would have to add back the extra step of assigning meaning to them.

      This allowed me to memorize facts/figures for exams in that I could mentally flip through a textbook, find the content, then re-read it in my head and re-interpret it to re-gain the knowledge. Breaking it into two separate steps sounds like more work, but somehow it’s so much easier.

      Obviously this won’t help you perform actual calculations, but for passwords and the like, it’s wildly efficient.

    10. I am not a number*

      You do not sound crazy, but I suspect that your experience is just a hair outside the typical.

      I’m probably on the other side of the equation; numbers are easy for me. Now, I wouldn’t remember that ten-digit text, but it would be trivial for me to read it and enter it into a website. “Yup, number on my phone and number in website field match, time to hit submit.”

      Credit card number? Burned into my brain. I could even tell you the tracking code for a package I’m currently expecting, which is a letter then a string of twenty-one numbers (took three exposures to it, and now it lives in my brain).

      How does this ‘work’? Well, it turns out that there’s a thing brains can do called “chunking”, which is essentially compacting information into a number of smaller packages and remembering those packages discretely. As an example, I don’t remember the sixteen digits of my CC number as a string of sixteen numbers: I remember it as four four-digit numbers (expiry date and security code are a “fifth number”). Similarly for other collections of numbers.

      There are other methods of remembering, natch. A neat one that I’m passingly familiar with uses mental imagery. Rather than remembering the first four digits of the CC are XXXX, the person has a visual memory of the numbers: say a room where XXXX is painted on the east wall. They remember the image, and convert that to numbers. By “walking through rooms”, they “see” all the parts of the number. Slower to use, because there’s a conversion step, but you can store a _lot_ of information this way. Pretty sure there’s an auditory version of this, too: essentially, one constructs a mental state where one remembers “hearing” the number as an earworm.

      1. Imtheone*

        For walking through an imaginary house to help remember things, see the book “Mateo Ricci’s Number Palace.”

    11. Rara Avis*

      My 16 yo is starting an evaluation for dyscalculia. Some of their challenges include seeing/thinking 4 but writing 5 (or vice versa) and trouble copying problems accurately from book to homework page.

    12. Not That Jane*

      This sounds like a form of dyscalculia to me. Source: I am a math teacher at a school for kids with special needs.

      You might want to check out Ron Davis’ book The Gift of Dyslexia. Addresses perceptual differences with all symbols, including numbers.

    13. SuprisinglyADHD*

      I have difficulty with very-short-term memory and struggle to remember verification codes. If I get them on the same device that I need them (eg a text for an app on my phone or an email for something on my computer), I always copy/paste.
      If I HAVE to type it manually, I can usually remember a string of 3-4 numbers so I have to break the verification code down into chunks. On bad days, I sometimes have to do one number at a time, which takes forever but at least I can make it work eventually.
      For phone numbers, I have to write or type them immediately and read them back to whoever is telling it to me. I call a lot of wrong numbers…
      For the few numbers I HAVE to memorize (social security, mom’s phone, bank account), I make them into a kind of chant in my head, so I’m remembering a song, not a number (like Jenny’s 897-5309)
      Hopefully any of this helps you at least a little. It’s a very frustrating issue to deal with.

    14. Fit Farmer*

      Is all or part of the issue that when given a long string of numbers to copy, you read the first four or whatever digits and then look away to type them into where they need to go (I think that’s how most people would begin?)….but then when you look back to the source to continue on, it’s hard to tell where to begin to get the next four digits in the string?

      With a long string, I’ll block off sections with my finger to mark where I stopped, so I can have a clear place to begin. Or capture a manageable set of numbers between my two thumbnails, if the printing is really small.

      Credit card numbers are broken up into sets of four on the card, which I think is what makes it possible for most people. It’d be way harder if it were an unbroken string of 16 digits. Perhaps it could help to somehow break strings into chunks that are manageable to you, so the bits who are not relevant at the moment can be blocked off or otherwise ignored.

    15. Honoria Lucasta*

      as another data point for you, I am someone who really didn’t study math beyond algebra 2, thanks being homeschooled, but I have no problem memorizing longer strings of numbers. One time I was planning a trip to New York and had to enter my credit card number multiple times on the same evening, and now I have that card number memorized. Phone numbers aren’t an issue either.

    16. Sigh*

      I am good at math and I struggle with this. (I used to get bad grades in math tests because I’d copy the numbers wrong).

      Try entering the numbers ‘forwards’ in small chunks and reading each chunk backwards to cross check.

    17. fhqwhgads*

      My otps are usually more like 5-6 digits, not 10, but if I have the text in front of me, typing in 10 digits is not difficult at all.

    18. Who Plays Backgammon?*

      back in the day i was a typesetter/proofreader working on projects like catalogs with lots of item numbers. lots of strings of numbers. sometimes did pages of columns of long strings of figures (this was way back in the day before “electronic paste-up,” and some poor production artist had to cut them all apart and stick them down onto mechanicals along with the product descriptions and pictures).

      my technique was to slow down, read and then type the figures 3 at a time(the grouping that just worked best for me mostly, but sometimes i did 2 or 4 at a time). this led to high accuracy. i still do that when, for example, typing in security codes from texts when signing in to my bank accounts online.

    19. allathian*

      If I can see the numbers, no problem. My limit for recalling a string of numbers is 5. The only phone number I remember is my own personal phone, I have to check my work phone number every time I need it.

      But I can still remember the phone number we had when I was a teen and that of my best friend’s parents.

      I memorize pin codes on the numpad by muscle memory, so I have to really focus hard it if I need to use my laptop keyboard for the PIN.

      I was pretty average at math, but I really loved statistics.

    20. coffee*

      I have the same problem with keeping numbers in mind to enter them into websites, and you can’t always cut and paste them. In those cases, I find it works best to read them to myself then say it as I type it in. Chunks of three numbers are the most reliable, but I can do up to six numbers that way (sometimes). If it’s a number of paper I use my finger to mark what chunk I’m copying across, but that’s getting rarer and rarer nowadays.

      I say “read to myself” – either out loud, or in my head, so like if I were practicing a speech before saying it. That way you’re not defeating the purpose of a security code.

      As a side note I don’t have any intuitive feeling on what a maths calculation should be. One of my classmates was once talking about a maths problem and was like, “Oh that number is too big to be the correct answer” – what? In my brain, any number could be the answer.

  20. RussianInTexas*

    On TV watching.
    FX released the full miniseries on Hulu called Say Nothing, based on an amazing non-fiction book of the same name. It’s about The Troubles in general, Price sisters in particular, and one murder as an anchor story.
    It’s very well done. It’s a hard watch, the is a lot of violence and injustice, just as it was a hard read. But I still recommend it.
    tw: there is an episode in which the sisters are in jail and attemp a hunger strike. If you have any issues with disordered eating, be forewarned.

    1. RussianInTexas*

      Just to clarify, the violence isn’t graphic or gory, or gratuitous, but it’s always there, which, given the subject matter, is expected.

    2. Clara Bowe*

      I read the book earlier this year and it is vying for my favorite of said year. It’s a stunningly compelling read, and while I am not in a visual media place, if the show is half as amazing as the book, I bet it is fantastic.

  21. Big loose jeans*

    I know this question’s been asked before, but I need resources for learning the basics (and beyond) of managing an investment and stock portfolio … and tips for working with a financial advisor who’s more familiar with the portfolio than me right now. Thanks in advance!

      1. fposte*

        Just to clarify that it’s bogleheads dot org, but I strongly second the recommendation—they got me to where I am, early retirement and all.

      2. Jeneral*

        I agree with this as well. When I realized I needed to start paying attention to these things, I read through their wiki and a couple of their recommended books, and now I feel like I’m in a much better place.
        One of the big benefits is the intended audience is the average person, so they advocate keeping things simple and keeping costs down.

    2. Cheesesteak in Paradise*

      Active management is usually a waste of time and paying a financial advisor an AUM will actually cost you tons of money over your lifetime. I’d suggest either do a Bogleheads 3 fund portfolio (there’s a wiki with fund suggestions and a Reddit group) or just do a Vanguard target date fund with your planned retirement age.

    3. Throwaway Account*

      Honestly, I binge read about a years worth of Kiplingers personal finance magazine and it gave me a basic foundation that was very helpful!!

      1. Squirrel Nutkin (the teach, not the admin)*

        For general feeling comfortable about financial terms and products, I second reading a finance magazine. I read *Smart Money* for a few years and felt like I knew what was what. That said, when I got an inheritance, I just parked it in an S and P 500 fund instead of trying to do anything complicated, as I had read that those tend to outperform actively managed funds.

    4. Surrogate Tongue Pop*

      I am early 50s and just got a financial advisor because while I have some knowledge of investing and have selected my own funds and such to-date, I really need an expert to help me understand various tax implications and the options on how I can retire early (around 57/58) and what that means when I can’t draw on SS or IRA money yet and still need to pay for health insurance. I am moving about half of my money invested to this advisor (with a 1% fee) and will compare how that does vs the money I left in the current accounts.

    5. Chauncy Gardener*

      My husband is a financial advisor. He says to make sure your statements are coming from a validated third party with an actual seat on the stock exchange. Your broker, unless they’re Fidelity, Merill Lynch et al, should not be producing their own statements, a al Madoff. His come from BNY, for instance. You don’t have to go with one of the big companies, and the fees might be a lot lower, just make sure they’re legit!

      1. Chauncy Gardener*

        I mean my husband’s client statements come from BNY, just to clarify. Madoff’s certainly did not!

    7. IT Manager*

      JL Collins book – the simple path to wealth.

      Ramit Sethi – I will Teach You To Be Rich

      If you’re an audio learner – So Money , Money With Katie, Stacking Benjamins are my go-to podcasts. All have some good “101” episodes in the archives.

  22. Blue Cactus*

    Has anyone successfully learned a language as an adult? I would really like to learn to speak Spanish, both for the place we don’t talk about on weekends and for life reasons. I’d love to hear about good resources, strategies, and other tips!

    1. Spacewoman Spiff*

      I have, and it was through immersion—I served in the peace corps and learned two languages. Apps like duolingo are fun, but I think can only get you to a certain rudimentary understanding. The 24/7 immersion I had is tough to achieve, but if you can look up local language groups or try to get yourself in environments where you’ll be surrounded by native speakers, I think it’ll have a similar effect. You just want to force your brain to think in the new language, and challenge yourself by following conversation. Watching tv or movies in Spanish, listening to podcasts, etc., are also all good—I learned a lot by watching tv with subtitles on in the languages I was learning, which helped me ID new words that I wasn’t quite catching just by ear.

    2. vulturestalker*

      My dad, who by his own admission is bad at learning languages, has been doggedly learning Spanish for the past 3ish years (it’s sort of his retirement project). He uses Duolingo every day (like seriously l, every day, I don’t know how he does it) and he frequently has conversation exchange sessions with people over Zoom (they speak in English for a while, then Spanish, so both people get to practice their target language). He has also traveled solo to several Spanish-speaking regions for immersion, which he says has worked well.

    3. Harlowe*

      I’m using Duolingo to relearn Spanish (took it in college) and while I really love the UI, it would not work if I didn’t already have actual coursework in the language. It’s all memorization with no actual instruction regarding grammar, rules, or meaning. Example: It randomly switched from making me use “quiero” to making me use “quisiera” and I had to look up myself that it was a softer request for politeness’ sake; i.e. “I want” versus “I would like.”

      I tried and HATED Busuu, to the point that I dreaded logging in. Awful UI, plus it forces you to do peer review by recording your voice and sending it to other students, which is a complete waste of time because you have no idea about the other person’s fluency or seriousness in doing the work. I also felt really icky about the privacy/AI concerns of teaching it my voice.

      I’ve heard good things about supplementing with Dreaming Spanish for passive learning/exposure, so I plan to start adding that to my routine in January. Life is too hectic right now to dedicate more time; I already do 20-30 minutes a day.

    4. Rara Avis*

      In my area there are adult language schools with evening classes, as well as various community adult education classes. A teacher and classmates to converse with make a big difference!

    5. RedinSC*

      Your local community college would probably have classes, and or the adult rec center if you have one.

      I did not find Duolingo helpful at all to help me relearn my Spanish.

      If you have the time and resources a 1-2 week emersion class in Mexico or other location would be a good starting point as well. I learned Spanish as an adult, but like another poster it was because I joined the Peace Corps. So that’s always an option, too! :)

    6. Luisa in Dallas*

      I highly recommend the book Fluent Forever by Gabriel Wyner. The subtitle is “How to learn any language fast and never forget it,” and the book is full of tips and tricks for doing just that – even for people like me who are “terrible at languages”!

      1. Esprit de l'escalier*

        I looked up this book and the description says you learn to “connect sounds and spellings to imagery rather than translations.” This might be great for most people, but I have maybe 5% (if that much) of a normal visual memory. Is his method heavily based on recalling images as that blurb suggests?

    7. Qwerty*

      Speaking as early and as much as possible. If you can find a class I highly recommend it. I learned a lot more on Italian in one course than years trying to do Spanish on Duolingo because the instructor made us all speak and could explain the details of grammar along with cultural differences. Getting a really good grasp of pronounciation helped.

      If you are in a medium to large city, Meetup might have a group of people who get together to talk in the language.

      App wise, I found Lingo Deer and Deer Plus to be great. LingoDeer is the language learning app and has good grammar explanation plus presents the words in different ways so that you are using them (and therefore remembering). Deer Plus is a companion app by the same company that has games that range from flashcard style to actual comprehension conversations.

    8. Chauncy Gardener*

      I learned a decent bit of Italian using Pimsleur before heading to see my son when he was there in college. It was REALLY good. I had no accent and people thought I was local until I ran out of words lol.

    9. Katy*

      I taught myself quite a bit of German about a decade ago, using a combination of Duolingo and a textbook which I worked through on my own. The textbook was a very old college-level one that was designed to be very straightforward, with a vocab list, a grammar point, a reading and exercises for each chapter, so I could basically do the work without having an answer key.

      That got me to a level somewhere above B1, but without a lot of confidence in speaking. Then I started taking classes, first with the Goethe Institut and then at a local community college, which gave me the speaking practice I needed to get closer to B2. At this point I don’t use my German much, so it’s gone back down, but if I had to suddenly move to Germany I could manage.

  23. Anon Poster*

    I went to Lisbon at the end of last month (I asked for advice here several times as I made my plans, thanks to the wonderfully helpful commenters who gave me great advice!). I came back with several cans of sardines because I felt very a strong tourist obligation to do so. Anyone have a particular way they enjoy eating them? I’ve done the standard on bread/ on crackers as a quick dinner, but I’m wanting to do something slightly fancier with my last few tins. There are endless internet search results (some way too fancy and time consuming!), but I’m curious if anyone here has a go-to snack or recipe they love that’s still quick, but better than “place sardine on cracker.”

    1. Formerly in HR*

      You can try these recipes: https://maysimpkin.com/easy-tasty-french-sardine-pate/, https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1025601-grain-bowl-with-sardines-and-sauce-moyo, or https://www.themediterraneandish.com/mediterranean-sardine-salad/. Or make a salad with 200g sardines, 250g cherry tomatoes, a handful of baby batavia/ rocket/ baby spinach, one avocado sliced, the juice from one lemon and some EVOO. Can eat this with crusty bread, or serve over couscous/ quinoa.

    2. Tiny clay insects*

      so I don’t eat sardines, but in a weird bit of timing, I literally just came home from Trader Joe’s where I happened to see a bag with a cartoon drawing of sardines with herbs and pasta. I couldn’t tell you what herbs, but maybe sardines and pasta is something to look up?

    3. Sloanicota*

      They’re great for adding umami flavor to things like salad dressings or sauces, but you have to have a good enough blender to incorporate them.

      1. Anon Poster*

        I actually just came across an instagram recipe for a pasta sauce with sardine blended in, so between that post and this comment I feel like I obviously need to give it a try!

    6. AvonLady Barksdale*

      Pasta con le sarde– one of my favorite Sicilian pasta dishes. There are a bunch of recipes out there. If you’re not into the raisins and fennel part (and I hate both, but I love them in this dish), then saute some garlic in olive oil (plenty of olive oil!), toss in some red pepper flakes, add sardines, then mix with cooked pasta. Little lemon zest on top. Heavenly.

  24. Throwaway Account*

    Is anyone moving out of the US and do you have any favorite resources for exploring this? We are nearing retirement and are considering several options but really anywhere!

    I’m also curious if you used an attorney for taxes/relocation and how you found your attorney.

    1. fposte*

      Your options will depend, bluntly, on your resources. Most countries don’t want us unless we’re rich, and some not even then. Are you comfortable in a non-Anglophone country like Costa Rica or Thailand? Those are popular and lower-bar-to-entry expat possibilities. The bogleheads forum mentioned above has several members who’ve gone expat and there are threads on that that might be useful.

    2. Glomarization, Esq.*

      What are your parameters for deciding where you would consider moving to? Tropical climate? Affordable living? Large expat community of Americans? Family or ancestral history? Something else? Google is your friend for exploring these kinds of questions. Then once you decide on which country or countries you would consider moving to, you can look up the government office of immigration and citizenship of whatever destination country comes to mind.

      You don’t need a lawyer for the relocation, because that’s more logistics than anything else, though you may want or need to hire a customs broker depending on what belongings you are taking with you. It’s your visa that you’ll need to hire a lawyer for. As for taxes, my American clients in Canada often do their taxes themselves, or they hire an accountant who has expertise in cross-border taxes.

    3. Throwaway Account*

      To clarify, I really mean anywhere that is not the US. I almost don’t care at all.

      I’ve googled all the things and it appears that a lifetime of living below our means and saving in our 403b, Roth IRAs, etc means we would be taxed very highly on most of our income and savings. For example, Spain taxes you on Roth IRA distributions. So we want to be wise about our tax burden in other countries.

      1. Glomarization, Esq.*

        There’s a recent article on Forbes dot com titled “Forbes Best Places to Retire Abroad in 2024.” The blurbs on each country discuss the issues most important to retirees.

        Taxes anywhere will be more complicated than simply the tax system of your destination country. There are tax treaties between the U.S. and many countries that will affect you, and there are provisions in the U.S. tax code — foreign tax credit, foreign tax exclusion, housing allowance, etc. — that will come into play as well.

        Bulgaria is mentioned below. I would only note that Bulgaria is hostile to members of the LGBTQIA+ community. Far-right anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation was passed earlier this year.

      2. Rocky*

        I have to say that it’s a little surprising that you are really okay with moving absolutely anywhere, and I urge you to think through that before making a move. You truly have no concerns about language, culture, political outlook, climate, healthcare, etc.?

        1. Throwaway Account*

          I lost my love for my country and would rather not move to another right wing hellscape but it hurts to see it here. I have less emotional baggage over it ppl do it other places.

          1. fhqwhgads*

            I think that’s the point. You don’t want to live literally anywhere else, because a lot of places are similar or worse, with regard to right wing hellscapes, high taxes or both.

          2. Rocky*

            I still think you need to be more specific and realistic about what you’re looking for, especially in terms of political climate. For example, do abortion, homosexuality, and/or same-sex marriage have to be legal? That rules out a chunk of countries. Does it have to be an electoral democracy? Does there need to be universal healthcare? Would you accept a state-established religion? How about a country with conscription, even if you wouldn’t have to serve? These issues all vary from country to country.

            “I’ll take absolutely anywhere but here” makes sense on an emotional level in the moment but may not be very satisfying on a practical level.

          3. Two cents*

            Politics is really, really hard to evaluate from afar! Because you’re very very likely to be unconsciously stuck in the mindset of where you have spent most of your life and learned your native language. Other countries’ political systems do NOT abide by the assumptions of the one you live in now. It is so hard to explain to someone with no experience living abroad, but this is literally what culture and culture shock is all about.

            I have run in to So. Many. Assumptions. about where I have moved to from people where I grew up, or, conversely, about my native country from folks in my current place of residence. They’re both just…wrong! Stuff like “if you are pro X, you must be pro Y.” Or “political topic A is intrinsically connected to political topic B.” Or “such a type of person likes both G and H.” Or “international politician S is good in my opinion, they must be well liked at home.” Nope! Think again!

            Even with years of language learning and exchanges, I can say with confidence that I had some bad assumptions too. That’s normal. It took a very long time and knowing many natives intimately to really get a handle on how people think here. And how people think is intimately tied to how people construct their politics.

            Putting it another way: I don’t think it will be easy for you to identify countries that fulfill your political agenda because the surface check list is too superficial and beset by cultural translation issues. And probably actual translation issues, if the place doesnt speak your language or languages. And that’s just the issues you’re sensitive to from home! I guarantee there are problems, big and small, wherever you choose to go. Stuff you haven’t even thought about, or that worked so smoothly at home you weren’t aware it was working. AND that’s before we get into the issues of taxes, money, the right to live someplace and other visa stuff.

            I also think, putting in bluntly, that it is significantly harder to live someplace long term if you don’t actually love it. As in, at some point in your process, to see it through with all of the trials, tribulations, disadvantages and unseen costs (emotionally, physically, financially), I think your motivation will need to be moving TOWARDS something rather than away from something in order to be ultimately successful. Which isn’t to say it is not possible, or not possible to develop that feeling along the way, just that “anywhere but here” is a type of motivation that may not breed happiness once you ARE somewhere else. And you’re talking about many many many years of your life.

            I’m so sorry you’re feeling so terribly about where you are now, though. I wish there was a magic pill, a magic place to move to, that would solve your anguish. Good luck!

          4. Nancy*

            You really need to research other countries, their laws, immigration policies, etc. Most countries don’t let people just immigrate in.

            there’s a reason why the vast majority of people who claim every 4 years that they are going to leave never do. It’s costly, time consuming, and there is no perfect country out there.

          5. ubotie*

            So uhh, you’re cool with moving to say, Iran? I hear they’ve got stellar reviews as far as general human rights (/s). (To say nothing of how they treat women or gays in particular).

            What about even the republic of Ireland? Yes they have gay marriage, yes they have abortion (before 12 weeks, after a 3 day waiting period). Yes, an overwhelming majority of their citizens haaaaaaaate DJT, and the type of far-right hate politics he spews in America, etc. Yes they sure like to “party” and they’ve got that socialized medicine.

            But the far-reaching shadows of the Catholic Church still basically rule every Irish citizen from cradle to grave, even if they’re a born and bred atheist. So are you cool with that? Are you cool with how Brexit again made it difficult to travel between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland?

            Yes, the incoming US presidential administration is going to wreck a lot of things but your whole “I’ll just pack up and go somewhere else, anywhere else, I don’t care” is shockingly ignorant and overly privileged. Maybe it’s a poor attempt at tr*lling, IDK.

            1. Not quite*

              Brexit hasn’t changed traveling between Northern Ireland and the Republic. not sure what you’re basing that on. There was a lot of negotiation and diplomacy about it and in the end, there’s no hard border. you don’t have to show your passport or have a visa to travel between the two. in a lot of places, the border isn’t even marked and you only know you’ve in one or the other based on the road signs and markings.

      3. Two cents*

        A lot of Europe is going to be out, taxes are very, very high by comparison. And the categories of taxed vs not taxed income are different and sometimes a bit sticky and unclear (as in: that word doesnt translate, so it is not possibleto know as a lay person if it is x kind of income or y). So at minimum you’d definitely need to double check with a tax lawyer familiar with both systems, which will be expensive.

        The foreign country I currently live in would not have wanted me as a retiree: they were happy to let me move as an employed, (high) tax paying young person with a loooonnng track record of learning the language and culture. And even then, I had to prove I had enough money in my account to not cost them money if something went wrong, for example unemployment, sickness, etc. Yes, I also had insurance and the social net that exists in this country, but as a non-citizen, access times and other things are different, especially when working on a non permanent visa. Basically, the only way to move here permanently later in life is by marriage, close and narrowly defined familial relation (e.g. parents) or maybe an excessively large amount of money that you probably don’t have.

        If you really have no idea where you want to go to (as opposed to where you want to go away from) I’d suggest making a list of countries that might actually work for your needs (e.g. do looooots of research about taxes as ex pats and visa requirements) and then go visit those places. It is easy to say “anywhere but here” but in the end very hard to actually pull it off, much less be actually content and happy with where you are. And content and happy for the long haul! You’re looking at a multi-year process, if not longer.

        Good luck!!

        1. Throwaway Account*

          What I was asking for was more what resources others have used to do the research.

          We have been half way looking for some time but don’t have favorite blogs or websites and wondered if others did

          1. Two cents*

            Ah, I’m sorry for trying to answer a question you didn’t ask! Perhaps I am too sensitive at the moment. Lots of people are asking me stuff like this and assuming lots of things that aren’t true…and I’ve seen enough expats have their hopes and dreams dashed over the years (at great expense emotionally and financially) that I worry a lot about how actually long term viable these plans are or will be.

            I am not super helpful on the resources part because my experience is too old and probably also too specificly directed. By the time I was in a position to move permanently, I wanted to move to the country I currently live in, nowhere else.

            I wish you much success regardless and I hope whatever happens you have some emotional peace along with it.

          2. Glomarization, Esq.*

            Seriously, check the Forbes article I referenced above, use google, and then check the government websites relating to immigration for whichever country or countries you find that you’re interested in. If nobody is mentioning a one-stop resource for “where should I retire internationally,” it might very well be that there’s no such site.(Also, countries change their immigration laws, for example, the availability of “golden visas” or “digital nomad visas” frequently.) I think you have to do the legwork on your own — and there’s a heck of a lot of legwork involved.

            1. Throwaway Account*

              Thanks! Yeah, it is a lot of legwork. I was hoping someone had a favorite blog about a couple who moved to Spain or something

      4. Chauncy Gardener*

        Have you looked at Delaware? I know it’s not a foreign country, but its tax situation is so good.

        1. ubotie*

          It seems like they’re over the US as a whole so that rules put Delaware too. But I’ll be honest. If they’re financially able to even consider moving to another country (putting aside whether or not that would ever happen and how realistic it is), then they are very likely to be MUCH more insulated from the effects of the upcoming administration than other American residents. So this whole “pffft, I don’t care where we hang our hats, it can be Russia! So what if my gay brother and his husband can never visit us??” shtick the OP is doing is pretty tone deaf, TBH

          1. Throwaway Account*

            You read a lot into what I said.

            I am over the US, painfully. And I’m not insulated from the effects of the upcoming administration. My brother and his partner are moving to Spain soon, they have very limited means and are able to make it work. You don’t need a ton of money.

      5. possibly*

        Having lived in 5 countries in four continents, I will say that most countries will tax you much more than the US. Also, if you want western style health care, expect your standard of living to drop. It won’t drop, or drop too much, if you move to a developing country, but if you’ve never lived outside of the US, you’re in for some culture shock.

    4. Double A*

      My brother just emigrated to Bulgaria and it sounds like the bar to entry is pretty low. I don’t know tons of details, but other than being time consuming and having some some visa stuff taking longer than expected, it seemed like the process went pretty smoothly.

    5. Undine Spragg*

      I found a book called “Exit Stage Left” which discusses some of the issues you will want to consider and suggests resources for finding out what a country might be like. It’s focused on Europe but I think you could use the framing for a wider net. For example, there is a Hofstede scale that measures countries on how communal they are, how masculine, etc. She suggests looking at this to find countries that might match your personality type. She also suggests listing twenty-two things you must have and twenty-two things you can’t stand (and I would say that is not just politics and weather, but do you want reliable utilities or are you okay with the water going out for a few days? How do you feel about having to iron clothes after they’ve hung on the line to avoid parasites that can burrow into your skin?) I would not agree with all the countries she lists (she does mention that you can go to jail in Turkey for criticizing the government, but you won’t want to discuss politics now will you?) but it is a good book to look at for framing your questions.

      1. Anono-me*

        What area requires ironing to avoid skin burrowing parasites? I need to know so that I can make sure to never never ever go there?

        2. Throwaway Account*

          I visited a parasite museum when I lived in London for a month. It totally scarred me for life!

    6. Kaleidoscope*

      usually the immigration website for that country.
      where I live (but am not from) we do not offer a retirement visa, you would need a significant amount of money and no/little health conditions. I’m in New Zealand for reference (and our cost of living sucks. and obviously we are in active volcano and earthquake territory)

      1. Throwaway Account*

        I’d love to move to NZ or Australia – we have friends there. But it is too far from our families.

    7. Miss Pantalones En Fuego*

      Bluntly, this is not actually all that easy and especially not as a retiree with a middling amount of savings. In a way it is rather arrogant to assume that you can just move to any country you like. It surprises many Americans to learn that other countries also have immigration rules and requirements, and they are not guaranteed to meet them. Even the ones that we tend to think of as inferior to the US.

      To be more practical, you will probably find better information by choosing a few countries and then looking at their immigration requirements first. No point spending a lot of time finding out how much Spain or Australia will tax you if you do not meet any of the criteria for a visa.

      1. Throwaway Account*

        I did not say I have a middling amount of savings. I said nothing about that.

        I do not assume I can just move to any country. And I know it is not easy. That is why I was looking for favorite resources about moving.

        I’ve chosen a few countries but am looking for any resources people like about moving overseas. It can be about any country, I find all of them helpful in some way

    8. Usually Lurking*

      My son and DIL (and grandchildren!) moved to Lisbon a year ago, and it was … so hard. They did hire an attorney/firm that specializes in helping Americans expatriate, and it was wildly expensive but honestly was the only way they could make it work. They have experts in how to choose a country, in tax laws there/here, in navigating the processes to get there, and after you arrive. They have provided translators at banks, and once in a three-way call with a car-towing company and the repair shop the car was being towed to, when neither of those companies had anyone who spoke English.
      They have met many families who moved to Lisbon from the UK or the US and … had to give up and move back to the US, often $100,000 poorer than when they arrived, because they did not use an attorney/firm with experts in the process.
      I don’t know how they found the attorney but suspect that my son joined (many!) Facebook groups and Reddit forums and got lots of on-the-ground suggestions and referrals. It took them over two years to start the process, another year to get approval to move, and 18 months to get their residency (so for six months they were “undocumented immigrants”). They are now three years away from applying for citizenship and SO SO HAPPY they made the move – but boyoboy it was hard getting to this point.
      Good luck!

      1. Throwaway Account*

        We loved Lisbon! We went there to explore and are considering it. I wish your son had a blog about his experiences! We are looking for an attorney now, and I think the hardest part is finding a firm that we like and can trust. I’m really looking for advice about that.

    9. Sweet as Apple Pie*

      If you have the resources to leave, then you definitely have the resources to stay and make your country a better place.

    10. Throwaway Account*

      OMG yall!
      I wanted resources you like – you know, you are not even thinking of moving to another country but found a you tube channel you like about a couple who moved to x country and they are funny and honest about the ups and downs. things like that.

      I love how everyone thinks so literally – By “anywhere” I meant I’m not stuck on Europe or just the mountains of Europe bc I like to ski or something and I’m not looking for resources for just one region or place. I’ll follow a blog about moving to Iran just because it is a good blog.

      Also, you all have no idea what I have or have not already done to make this country a better place. And you have no idea what my mental health is in the face of the current election and half the country voting the way they did. I know most of the world is going the same direction. I cannot stay here any more – it is like watching a place you love get dismantled. I honestly don’t care if another country/city gets dismantled by its own citizens, they don’t mean the same thing to me. Yes, I want a place that is LGBTQ-friendly and is not racist and misogynistic, etc. But I’ll settle for not being here.

      Finally, thanks so much for answering my question and not lecturing me about my goals.

      1. Glomarization, Esq.*

        I’m not sure I understand how you say you’ve done a lot of googling about this, but you haven’t found the blog or other resource that you’re looking for. If you want to read a blog about American expats living in CountryName, then it seems to me that it would be easy enough to find that by googling American expat living in CountryName blog. There’s even a sort of clearinghouse that will turn up if you google American expat blogs, it has the unsurprising URL of expatsblog dot com.

      2. Rocky*

        I honestly don’t care if another country/city gets dismantled by its own citizens

        Are you saying you wouldn’t have a problem living in a country that like? You would not be exempt from the effects of that just because you wouldn’t be a citizen. State dysfunction affects everyone. They’re not going to make an exception for you because you’re an American.

      3. Nancy*

        I don’t understand what this means: “I honestly don’t care if another country/city gets dismantled by its own citizens, they don’t mean the same thing to me.”

        Because this will certainly affect you if you move to a country where this is happening.

        In any case there is an entire website of blogs by expats.

  25. Unknown Number*

    Looking for tips to train a dear friend out of calling me out of the blue. It used to be uncommon, but now is creeping up. I’m talking mid-work-day calls “just to chat” or to catch me up on something we discussed. Love this friend and totally understand his desires but this doesn’t work for me. I was literally late to a work event and showed up without something important because he called me at 8:30AM and I thought it might be important. He knows I don’t like this and when I screen his calls he sends me texts like “I know you’re screening me, pick up!!” or says “I know, I’m your annoying boomer friend, I want to call you.” So I don’t see the direct approach working well other than to hurt his feelings. My approach so far is: 1. Never pick up, even if I am available – reduce the reward of doing this. Text later and say, “oh sorry, you know I rarely see calls, what’s up?” Up to me at that point if I feel like calling back or we just chat over text. It’s not working yet, but it’s early days. Other suggestions?

    1. Cordelia*

      Does he have different working hours to you, or a different work context, or not work at all? Perhaps it hasn’t occurred to him that you can’t answer calls in working hours – because I can’t see from your post that you’ve actually said this. You’re not doing him a kindness by avoiding a direct approach, as you are starting to resent him and be irritated by him, this is going to damage your friendship.

        1. goddessoftransitory*

          Well, be honest with him: this is ALREADY damaging your friendship. He’s not respecting your time. He needs an online or text group chat for excitable topics!

        2. tangerineRose*

          How about only picking up the phone when it’s a good time? He might not be willing to be “trained” to call at reasonable times, but ignoring him if he contacts you at bad times might work for you anyway.

        3. Who Plays Backgammon?*

          sorry to say, he sounds kind of selfish and self-centered, not like it’s a boomer thing. you’ve tried to set boundaries and he’s not respecting them, especially not respecting your work obligations and that you can’t just stop and socialize whenever. someone downthread suggested he might be just lonely. well, maybe, but that’s no excuse for disrupting your work.

          don’t hesitate to not pick up or to say, i’m at work right now, i can call you later, bye.”

    2. Bike Walk Barb*

      Have you tried scheduling? “I’d love to talk at times that work for me. Those times are usually Tuesday nights between 7 and 8, or Saturday mornings around 11.” Or something along those lines–setting appointments to talk and then following through, with you calling him occasionally during the specified time frames so he’s not always the one initiating.

      Or it’s time for a talk with a tone that’s about joint solution-finding (not problem-solving because a friend isn’t a problem). “I know you want to catch up and I love that. As my friend, can you work with me so we find something that works for both of us? You know I work and that I need to maintain a schedule. What will work for me is for you to suggest some times to talk via text, and I can let you know what works when I’m able to respond. Or we can set up a standing time (if this would work for you) and know that we’ll connect in our Sunday afternoon time.” You say it would hurt his feelings to be direct; it’s likely hurting his feelings when you don’t answer, too, so rip the bandage off.

      Good luck. Friend sounds kind of lonely. (This is not your problem to solve but it would sure be nice if he had something to fill his days.)

    3. fposte*

      I think it’s okay to hurt his feelings. Why should you take the emotional hit out of the two of you?

      I’m guessing because you put it that way, though, you’re not comfortable with the direct method. One consideration is to arrange a regular time(s) where you *will* be available for a phone call and really do it, and then the rest of the time either mite him or create a whitelist that he’s not on, to break you of the habit of responding. And I think it’s good to tell him that you’re doing that so long as you say you’re doing it to *everybody*. Disruptions have been a problem for you with so many people wanting you, yadda yadda, so you’re turning off except for your housemates or partner or whatever during the day.

    4. Still*

      I think your approach is good! If it’s a bad time for you, don’t pick up. If he knows you’re screening him and texts you, so what? You can lean into it when you’re texting at a convenient time: “Yes, I was screening you, you know I don’t take unscheduled calls when I’m in the middle of something. Anyway, what’s up?”

      You’ve been clear and direct enough. He knows what’s going on. He’s just trying to get his way and you’re under no obligation to let him.

      My only suggestion is to reframe what the goal is. If the goal is to get him to stop calling you or not be upset when you don’t pick up, you might be waiting for a long time. But if the goal is not to have unscheduled calls that make you stressed or late to stuff – you’re already achieving it by not picking up. That’s a success, your strategy is working.

      And, hopefully, if you’re consistent over time, he might actually learn that calling you doesn’t get him anywhere… but in the meantime, look at all those annoying calls you’re not taking!

      If you want to make sure that you’re still maintaining the friendship, show him you care in other ways. Call him when it works for you. Reach out to get a coffee together. Do whatever works well for you and see if he’s responsive.

      Here’s the obligatory “you might wanna check the archives at Captain Awkward for excellent advice about setting boundaries”.

    5. costello music*

      i mean, why not hurt his feelings a bit? “bruh i’m working, i can’t talk to you during work hours. call me tomorrow after 7 [or whatever]”

      he’s not respecting your time, you don’t have to put up with that indefinitely. and i agree with fposte, if he texts you right after a call, don’t text him back right away. you’re busy or just not in the mood to chat!! that’s fine. he can wait.

      1. tangerineRose*

        Also “i’m working, i can’t talk to you during work hours. call me tomorrow after 7 [or whatever]” doesn’t seem like it should hurt anyone’s feelings. It’s pretty normal not to be able to take personal calls while working.

    6. Neon Lights*

      I have a family member who will text me random questions that would be easy to google. If I don’t answer right away, they send several follow up texts (“???” “are you there?” “did you get my text?” “why aren’t you answering?”). I used to ignore the texts and then answer them later when I had time, explaining I had been at work and am too busy to stop and eat lunch let alone answer non-emergency texts. I silenced notifications from their texts so I don’t have to stop and look at my phone a bunch of times when I’m busy.

      You told your friend you can’t take out-of-the-blue calls at work, he acknowledges he knows this, and then calls/texts anyway. He doesn’t care about your feelings, so I wouldn’t be concerned about hurting his. Just tell him you won’t answer texts/calls while at work and then don’t.

    7. SuprisinglyADHD*

      Have you told him that worktime calls impact your job and you get in trouble for it? It sounds like he thinks the issue is you finding him annoying, and not that you don’t have the time. Being very direct might help the issue.
      Also, “I know you’re screening me, pick up!!” is SUPER rude. If he’s a boomer then he absolutely grew up (or at least worked) in the age when “not home” meant “not available”, and leaving a message on the answering machine was standard practice. If he’s just calling to chat then it’s absurd for him to expect you to prioritize that over your job (or driving, or food shopping, or talking with someone else…).

      1. OP*

        Well, it’s not just a work hours thing though. I don’t really want him to call me out of the blue on weekends or evenings either, tbh. No one’s trying to be an a*shole, we just have different communication standards. I’d be okay with “I want to talk about X, can I call you in ten?” As long as “that’s not good for me, can we talk later?” is an acceptable answer.

        1. Squirrel Nutkin (the teach, not the admin)*

          Hmmm. Now that you say that, I have a slightly different opinion of your situation, at least on weekends. Your boomer friend and those of us in Gen X grew up in a time when we didn’t have a texting option. No one texted on the weekend or at night to see whether it was a good time to talk — we just called and left a message if someone didn’t pick up.

          There has been a bit of a cultural shift where a lot of people prefer to be texted to arrange a call, but a lot of people are still operating on the old model. Given all you’ve said, I’d suggest being super explicit about what you want — “Can you please text me outside of work hours to set up a time for us to talk and can you please not keep pushing if I can’t talk right away?” Yes, you’ll probably hurt his feelings a bit, but it’s better than your feeling resentful at his constantly calling when it’s a bad time for you. And if he ignores your very clearly stated boundary, you know that he doesn’t respect your time and that you shouldn’t feel at all guilty for not picking up.

          That said, to look at this issue from the other side for a moment, I disliked it when some of my lifelong friends switched to a please-text-before-you-call model with me. That did mean that I didn’t call them very often, and because they didn’t call me, our friendships weren’t as close as they had been before. I tried to accept their decision with grace and accept that they didn’t feel like I was much of a priority in their lives. Now that their kids are grown and out of the house, a couple of them were talking about how maybe we could plan to retire in the same place, and all I could think of was that they hadn’t put much effort into the friendship lately, so why should I put myself out to keep them company in retirement?

          1. Dark Macadamia*

            The thing is, you can’t make the argument that he’s an “old model” caller if he’s expecting OP to always be available (or apologize/justify when they’re not).

            If he’s operating by the rule that it’s okay to call out of the blue, he has to also operate by the rule that it’s okay to not pick up. If he’s going to follow up by text, he could just text in advance instead. He’s trying to do “old model” calls AND “new model” texts in a way that always puts his communication preferences over OP’s.

        2. SuprisinglyADHD*

          Oh no, I didn’t think he was trying to be an asshole, I’m just baffled that he’s offended when you don’t have time to talk. Perhaps he’s interpreting you screening his calls as “I don’t WANT to talk to you” rather than “I’m not ABLE to talk now”. Expecting you to drop everything, whether at work or home or errands or whatever, just because he’s in the mood to talk or lonely. Does he have other friends he can call, or are your conversations the only interaction he gets regularly?

          1. goddessoftransitory*

            If the OP is female presenting, I have a feeling some “women are available for my needs” might be playing into it a bit too. I wonder, how many men does he call at random, then text demanding a pickup, every day?

            I don’t mean he’s an evil person or hopeless chauvinist, at all, but if he’s Boomer aged, that was the standard default model for most M/F relations.

        3. Saturday*

          Yeah, very different communication standards. I think you need to acknowledge that and just let him know what doesn’t work for you.

          Agree with others that it’s rude of him to expect you to be available on a workday, but on the other hand, essentially setting up an appointment to talk before calling on the weekend is going to seem awkward to a lot of people.

      2. Squirrel Nutkin (the teach, not the admin)*

        Yeah, your friend sounds rude and manipulative, like he’s trying to guilt you into picking up. I agree with everyone here — however you manage it, don’t let yourself be guilted into doing something that is harmful to you.

    8. RagingADHD*

      I think you need to change your thinking from “making him stop doing this” to “making it not your problem if he keeps doing this.”

      There is no way to magically accomplish #1. He is not a dog or a lab rat whose behavior can always be modified by conditioning. He is a human being with free will, and he may choose to continue doing this for the rest of his life whether you “reward” it or not.

      The point of #2 (which you are already doing) is that it will no longer disturb your work and allows you to choose the times when you want to engage. That means it is working.

    9. Dark Macadamia*

      First of all, putting on my AAM hat: have you actually been direct? He clearly knows you don’t like the calls but have you actually said the words “Please don’t call me unexpectedly unless it’s an emergency” or “I don’t answer the phone before 9am” or “I cannot chat during work hours/on work days”?

      If you’re willing to talk on the phone sometimes, try scheduling it so he knows you will make time for him. “Let’s have a weekly call at 6 on Thursdays” and then any other time he calls you can ignore it entirely, or text “let’s talk on Thursday :)” if you really feel you have to acknowledge it every time. If you never want to do a phone call with him, you don’t have to!

      Personally I’m very non-confrontational (wimpy and passive aggressive, lol) so I would just turn off all notifications for him, occasionally check my texts, and only respond when I want. Probably the better option is a direct conversation where you say something like “I really value our friendship but when you keep calling me and then trying to make me feel bad for being busy/uninterested I get frustrated and enjoy your company less” and then find a compromise or set a boundary.

      Don’t let yourself be guilted. He says “I know you’re screening me” you say “yep, I don’t like unexpected calls” or “no, I’m just not available” depending on which is true. He says “I’m annoying” you say “yep, it’s pretty annoying that you keep doing something you know I dislike.”

      Don’t pretend to be sorry you pretended to miss a call! Either straight up ignore that the call ever existed or do a “hey, just got off work, how’s it going” text where you are starting a conversation because you chose to and not because he called earlier and made you feel obligated.

    10. Hyaline*

      Big picture–does the ignore the call, text to acknowledge the call, and scheduling a catchup later work? If so….is there anything fundamentally wrong with just letting that continue, aside from it being annoying to you? Your way is annoying to him. Now you’re splitting the annoyance. Fact is, you can’t actually train people, so I think if you’ve already shared your preference for texting first but he prefers to just call…well, let him use the call as, essentially, a “are you free” text where the answer is perpetually not now and you end up calling later.

    11. Honoria Lucasta*

      Are you willing to get a new app/would he be willing to get a new app? I use Marco Polo to communicate with friends at a distance, and it’s fun because you send a video message so there’s audio and visual and you feel like you can share this thing that you are really excited about in the moment while you’re feeling the excitement, but your friend can wait to pick it up whenever they’re free.

      That said, all of the people I use it with are millennials, I don’t think I could get my Boomer mom to use it. But I’ve also trained my mom and dad not to call me out of the blue, or at least not to get hurt if I can’t pick up.

    12. goddessoftransitory*

      Is he recently retired or widowed? I’m guessing he may be bored and restless.

      Basically, you have to tell him that you aren’t a chat line, available 24/7. “I can talk on [X day] for [Y amount of time] but I can’t just pick up during my work day or when I’m otherwise busy.”

    13. The OG Sleepless*

      My brother does this, and since he’s my brother I get to be completely blunt. “I can’t talk right now. I will call you at X time.” Later on, “I’m not available between X and Y on my work days, which are A,B, and C. I can answer a quick text but I cannot do a voice call.” I also had to get after him about his abiding love of FaceTime…I rarely want to talk via FaceTime, but I sure as hell don’t want to when it’s 2 AM where I am on a different continent, and not on day 3 of Covid (I actually yelled at him about that one). Just set a boundary and stick with it. It’s not asking too much to not be available for a leisurely phone call when you’re busy.

    14. Observer*

      He knows I don’t like this and when I screen his calls he sends me texts like “I know you’re screening me, pick up!!” or says “I know, I’m your annoying boomer friend, I want to call you.”

      I think you can call him out on this. Don’t worry too much about hurting his feelings as he’s being incredibly rude.

      I might text back *later*
      #1 – Why? Perhaps adding “I’m screening for a reason” depending on whether you think this will help or not.

      #2 – I know you want to call, but I can’t talk now. (Do *not* explain.)

      It may also be worth a big picture talk even though he might get offended. Explain that there are times when you simply cannot answer the phone. You understand that he’s in a different situation, but for you it’s just not realistic. You could give him and example or two, but to *not* let him argue with you about it. This is not an attempt to figure out how to give him what he wants, but a singular attempt to help him understand why you can’t always pick up the phone.

      Also, if you do pick up start by asking whether it’s an emergency and say goodby and hang up if he says No. If he says yes, ask him specifically what’s up and if it’s not actually an emergency, again tell him good bye and hang up.

      I know it feels rude, but if he’s actually a good friend, he will deal with it. If he gets bend out of shape and starts giving you a hard time, well . . . .

    15. Despachito*

      Why do you pick up his calls if they annoy you/you cannot really afford to do it? You are reinforcing this behavior.

      “(Sorry) I can’t talk just now” is a complete sentence. If he indeed is a dear friend, he should absolutely understand this (and you can add “I will call you after work at 5 PM” if you feel like it).

      Otherwise, why not be open to him? “Fergus, I can’t take your calls and chat with you when I am working. However, I will be happy to talk after work/on Thursday nights (or whenever you will be really happy to talk to him.

      There is no chance that a reasonable person who is your friend and respect you gets offended after that. If he DOES get offended, he is neither and absolutely does not deserve you pick up his phones AT ALL.

    16. allathian*

      Do you want him to stop calling you whenever he wants to, or do you want to avoid hurting his feelings at all costs? Setting a boundary by definition hurts the feelings of the person whose behavior you’re trying to change, even in the best case when they’re simply ashamed that they didn’t get your soft attempts to change their behavior.

      But that doesn’t mean that you have to allow him to continue. Most relationships between peers require some compromises when you aren’t already on the same page.

      What positive things are you getting out of this friendship? In your shoes I’d consider blocking his number for a while if nothing else works and telling him exactly why.

  26. Neon Lights*

    Has your body ever had a bad reaction to something, and you figured out the source eventually but it wasn’t something obvious?

    I was wondering because I’m having issues with getting unexplained hives that keep spreading. Urgent care doc suggested it was “stress hives” and prescribed a low steroid cream. (I’ve never gotten stress hives before.) Cream worked great, but when I stopped using it the itchiness returned. Second urgent care doc googled a medication I’m on that can cause hives and was convinced it was that. (I’ve been on the med for 16 years with no problems though.) He prescribed a stronger cream and said to take two different antihistamines every morning for a week.

    The earliest dermatologist appointment I could get was November 29th, so if the itchiness returns after I stop the antihistamines and cream I at least have that. I’m bewildered though since the only new product I’ve used recently was a urea-enriched cream on my feet (my feet are fine, of course).

    Have you ever had a weird reaction to something that took you a while to figure out?

    1. Rara Avis*

      Yes, I got a dramatic rash all over my torso twice last winter, and the doctors never figured out what was causing it. Various prescription creams lessened but did not completely remove the itching, and it eventually went away.

        1. Neon Lights*

          It’s okay, I had a rash that I never figured out several years ago. It was red bumps that weren’t itchy, just looked bad. I went to four different doctors who all told me it was completely different things. About a year later, a few months after I finished the special cleanser recommended by the 4th doctor, it just went away. Never figured it out and it’s never returned!

      2. Bluebell Brenham*

        I had one of those last winter. Supposedly it doesn’t reoccur. Keeping my fingers crossed.

    2. Expectations*

      Yes, and be aware you may never figure it out or the drs may argue over it (dr 1 says it’s related to what dr 2 treats, dr 2 says it’s related to what dr 1 treats, wash, rinse, repeat).

      A few things: I hate when drs Target a med I’ve been taking for years as the cause of a new symptom, but every so often our bodies decide to react differently so if the med is not essential to life, you may need to titer off, show the symptoms still happen, then titer back on. Also, if you’re just having a skin reaction it would be weird to have it as a reaction to a medicine if you’re not applying it to that location.

      You may be able to/asked to take an allergy test. Be aware that they test for many fewer allergens now than they used to in the past so, while it may identify an allergen if it’s in the 40 or so most common, it won’t comprehensively rule out allergies. If hives are your only noticeable symptom it may very well be an allergy; hives are a common allergic reaction.

      Good luck!

      1. Neon Lights*

        Urgent Care Doc #2 told me to see the doctor prescribing the medication in question if the hives returned, but it’s a medication that I absolutely need to be on for the rest of my life. There’s alternatives, but there’s no way to know if they’d work as well, and once I stop taking this medication I can’t go back to using it. So stopping it would be a big deal. The wait for the doctor that prescribes the medication would be much longer than the wait for the dermatologist, and I figured he’d just send me to the dermatologist anyway, so I feel like the dermatologist is the best next step.

        I fear the allergen test. I read that’s it’s $50 per patch, and I have a $3,000 deductible. I’m getting a medical procedure done next year so I enrolled in the more expensive insurance that has a $1,750 deductible, so maybe I can get that test next year!

        1. allathian*

          Ask about blood testing for allergies, some can look at about 500 allergens from a single blood sample. No idea how much this costs, but you’d avoid the unpleasantly itchy patches.

    3. Banana and an apple*

      I get sore throats all the time. Tried all sorts of stuff. Took me years before I sat down with my mom and she was like “yeah my brother John has a bad milk allergy, and if I drink milk I get a sore throat”

      It bothered me less when I knew why I was having it.

      1. Neon Lights*

        I had constant sore throats and a dry cough for a couple years. Went to different doctors and none of their recommendations helped. I still have a dry cough and sore throat occasionally. Maybe it’s a food allergy!

        2. Dancing Otter*

          Hypertension meds are notorious for causing a dry cough. Not all, and not for all patients, but if you take them you should ask – or at least read the prescription insert, if you haven’t lately.

          Then again, it could be environmental. Even living half a continent away, I get respiratory symptoms when the wildfires are particularly bad out west, whether the smoke is noticeable here or not.

    4. Squirrel Nutkin (the teach, not the admin)*

      You may perhaps have developed some kind of food allergy or sensitivity? These can change over one’s lifetime (and some of them can get better or worse within shorter time spans depending on how much OTHER stuff you’re allergic/sensitive to you’ve been exposed to recently).

      Some that people don’t always think about checking into include sensitivities to salicylates/benzoates (if you do have a salicylate sensitivity, watch out for Yellow Dye #5/tartrazine, which is chemically similar to salicylates), oral allergy syndrome, and MCAS (mast cell activation syndrome), all of which you could look up to see if they might fit what you’re experiencing.

      In my own case, I got a dental filling that had a mercury amalgam, and my sensitivities to foods and other things worsened after I got it. After the filling was removed years later, my food and other sensitivities greatly improved. I didn’t realize a possible connection at the time, only in retrospect. My guess about the connection (if there is indeed a connection) is that my immune system was on high alert because of the mercury and kept misinterpreting friendly foods as foes! After I got covid a couple of years ago, my allergies got worse again. My guess is that perhaps my immune system got a bit out of whack again after the covid.

      1. Neon Lights*

        The weird thing is the hives started at 5:00 AM in the morning (the itchiness woke me up). So if it’s an allergic reaction to something, it was very delayed! (Unless it’s from the detergent/fabric softener I use, but it started in one small spot and then gradually spread over several days instead of being anywhere my clothes/bedsheets were touching.

        I googled the three things you mentioned, but they didn’t jump out as being culprits. I don’t want to look into it too much and freak myself out, lol.

        Your mercury story is crazy. I wouldn’t think to use a highly toxic chemical in someone’s mouth. I’m glad you got it removed and figured out the connection!

        1. Rosyglasses*

          Anyone with “silver” fillings has mercury in their mouth. That’s what amalgam is made with. It’s been used in dentistry for decades.

          1. allathian*

            Yes, but at least in Finland it’s been phased out. I got my last amalgam filling when I was about 30, and they removed my last one 10 years ago when it needed replacing. I got a ceramic crown instead that’s visually indistinguishable from the natural dentine.

            That said, I freaked out when I was pregnant and I cracked a tooth in my sleep and swallowed the loose piece, most of which consisted of amalgam filling. I got an emergency appointment with my dentist who extracted the rest of the tooth. Generally dentists won’t do or remove amalgam fillings when you’re pregnant.

        2. goddessoftransitory*

          If you’re allergic to an enzyme it may take a while for your body to break down whatever the allergen is into that compound, which then triggers a reaction. But yes, most allergies come on quicker than that!

        3. ivy*

          have you had a tick bite?
          my husband has developed a meat allergy from one and the key symptom is hives that appear in the small hours of the morning

    5. Deschain*

      I had this experience during my first year of perimenopause. Random hives, rashes, and fungal infections—right eyelid, one inch circular spot on forehead, under left breast, armpits… in my case, hormonal fluctuations were the cause. I got a prescription for the eyelid since you have to be careful about what you get near your eyes, tea tree wash for breast and armpits, cortisone for forehead. They all still flare up occasionally and I have to use the tea tree wash exclusively every day. I had to cut out any cocoa butter lotion or washes as they were increasing the fungal issues. It was a long and frustrating process. Never discount what your hormones can do! And consider that you may need different medications or products for different areas of your body.

      1. Neon Lights*

        I’ve seen perimenopause articles a few times while internet browsing recently. I’m in my mid-30’s, so maybe it’s that!!!

        I use a cream with cocoa butter in it on my face and hands at night–I guess I better not stock up on that.

        1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

          Mid-30s would be REALLY early even for perimenopause. I’m in my mid-40s and my medical team is telling me that’s probably too early for perimenopause symptoms (in the sense that they’re checking for other explanations first, not that they’re just straight up handwaving me).

      2. Tea Tree*

        This is a bit off topic, but can you share what tea tree wash you use? I used to use (and loved) the Tea Tree face cleanser from The Body Shop but they went out of business in the US so I can’t get it anymore. I’ve been looking for something similar to replace it.

      3. Itchy*

        Yes, my funny reaction was related to a hormone treatment. My scalp got itchy, but not immediately. It took a couple weeks to show up, which made it so hard to connect the dots. I went off the meds for an unrelated reason, but by then had contracted lice from my kid. Talk about timing! In retrospect, neither explanation covers the whole time (it was several months), but both would account for it. But it took a doctor friend sitting down with me and a calendar to really put all the pieces together (by that point I had been to three other doctors who just gave me antihistamines and sent me on my way).

    6. Jay*

      Out of absolutely nowhere my mouth, tongue and lips started getting badly swollen. It sort of looked like I had had botched plastic surgery. I had done nothing new. There were no changes to my diet or daily product use. After several months of this happening on and off, I figured out that it tended to happen after lunch. But not always.
      Then I figured out that it was happening specifically when I had a bologna or ham and cheese sandwich for lunch. But not always. I finally, after keeping track of everything for about three months, figured out that it was the mustard. I had spontaneously developed an adult allergy to mustard! A condiment that I have been putting on my food for decades. One that I was tremendously fond of and always kept multiple jars and bottles of various kinds in the house and at the fridge at work. And now it’s off the menu permanently :(

      1. Spacewoman Spiff*

        Holy cow! I’m sorry a mustard connoisseur is no longer able to enjoy mustard. :( I was eating some kiwis recently and had an allergic reaction, and am pretty heartbroken to take them off the menu…but this feels a smaller tragedy than losing a condiment.

        1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

          Be aware that kiwi allergies can cross-react with latex, so you will probably want to be aware that you may also now be allergic to latex.

          1. Spacewoman Spiff*

            I didn’t know this, thank you! I’ve been meaning for a while to look into allergy testing, so I’ll add this to my list of things to go over at my next dr appointment. I just seem to accumulate more and more allergies as I age.

    7. Almost Academic*

      I developed a sensitivity to soap, lotion, and laundry detergent – this was after I had been using the same brand successfully for decades, but apparently hormonal changes meant that suddenly I was more sensitive. Also at one point a laundry detergent brand changed their formulation slightly, and so that took a while to track down since the formula change wasn’t really broadly advertised. Perhaps try switching to sensitive skin / fragrance free / allergen friendly supplies for these, and see if it makes a difference? Keep track of what you’ve laundered in the new formulations vs. not when doing this to see if it’s actually where issues are stemming from.

      I also found out I was allergic to Teflon, and man that was a pain to track down. Not hives related though, more like weird intermittent flu like symptoms for a few years. Doctors absolutely no help there, unsurprisingly – had to do a lot of A/B testing to track it down, and even now it sometimes takes me by surprise that I’m sensitive to it when I consume something that unexpectedly had contact with the stuff. Allergies and sensitivities are such a pain to narrow down, you have my sympathy!

    8. Temporary Name*

      I think I have recently developed an allergy to adhesives (possibly) or maybe foam. I’m still trying to figure it out. I’m an early 40s woman and never had a problem before. It could be menopause related based on other women reporting skin issues around my age.

      I had recently noticed that I’d have a lot of itching around the area when wearing a maxi pad. Also I had to wear a bandaid on my arm for a few days and got a really itchy rash around the part with the adhesive on it.

      Maybe keep a journal of all product you use on your skin, and foods you eat, along with the occurance of the hives and see if you can find a cause?

      1. Spacewoman Spiff*

        I have a recent-ish adhesive allergy too, which is really frustrating. If I have to wear a bandaid for a few days, I use these nonstick gauze pads with paper tape, which I don’t react to as strongly. Also realized I have awful reactions to Neosporin, and things improved a lot once I switched to just Vaseline on wounds.

    9. Spacewoman Spiff*

      Yes! Terrible eczema outbreaks on my knees, which I finally realized seemed to be caused by a new carpet. (Terry Gross did a great interview with someone about, I think, the Southwest flight attendants who all started to have reactions to their new uniforms, which helped me figure it out.)

      I also had TERRIBLE stomach problems for years, which only abated when I lived in Europe for a few years, and raged back when I returned to the States. I finally realized I’m sensitive to inulin when a coworker shared this ridiculous review with me of Hasbro sugar-free gummie bears, and I thought, this sounds like how I feel ALL the time! Lo and behold, chicory root fiber (which is a form of inulin? Or has inulin? I’m not a scientist on this) is added to basically all processed foods, and once I removed them from my diet I was fine.

    10. goddessoftransitory*

      You may have an allergy to nickel. I sometimes get rashes around my navel from my jeans button once the coating wears off.

    11. Jenesis*

      Toothpaste.

      When I moved in with my then-boyfriend now-husband during the pandemic, I used his toothpaste, because it was there and it’s not like it was unhygienic to share it. Then I started having violent gagging fits every time I brushed my teeth, and it got so unpleasant that I stopped brushing my teeth altogether because I didn’t want to have to deal with it every day. I talked to my therapist about it, but there didn’t seem to be anything I could do to make it stop.

      Then I realized.

      I grew up on Colgate. My husband uses Crest. I am also neurodivergent and have weird sensitivities to random foods.

      I went to the local pharmacy and bought a pack of Colgate (for extra security, I specifically chose a flavored toothpaste marketed for kids). The gagging stopped. Going forward, our household stocks two different kinds of toothpaste.

      To this day I still have no idea why my body hates Crest.

      1. Elizabeth West*

        Crest is nasty. I had some little tubes of it my old dentist gave me that I put in my purse for brushing after lunch, and it just grossed me out. It tastes sugary, like I’m brushing with icing. That’s the best way I can describe it. I threw the rest of them out.

    12. Pocket Mouse*

      I know someone who developed an allergy to NSAIDs in their 30s. It presented as itchy hives and some facial swelling, and was tricky to figure out because NSAID use was usually infrequent, but they were dealing with ongoing pain and taking them most days for over a week. The first theory was that the pain and the hives had the same cause, but that turned out to be incorrect.

      This is not in any way medical advice, but if I were experiencing what you’re experiencing, I would consider an informal at-home scratch test. When my kid started solids, the pediatrician suggested dabbing a tiny amount of common food allergens on a small area of their skin, leave it there for 15 minutes, and watch for a local reaction for the next while (24 hours? it wasn’t even that long ago, but I forget) before actually giving them that food… carefully, separately, only one per day, etc. I had a scratch test done as an adult and there was a minor scratching component as the samples were applied—like trying to write on skin with a mechanical pencil, but quick, probably a thinner instrument, and not actually a pencil. So if I had an extra pill, I might wet part of the pill into a paste and try to test the substance that way on an otherwise unaffected area of skin.

    13. Hyaline*

      One thing to check—reformulations. Like you’ve been using the same toiletries, detergents, soaps for years, so definitely not the problem, right? But if they changed formulas, it could be a sneaky new ingredient. Same with that medication—try talking to a pharmacist if you can to see if it’s possible that an emulsifier or preservative has changed.

    14. Not A Cat*

      We have a natural wood butcher oak that we periodically oil. Even though we had been using the same brand of treatment for years they apparently changed the formula and my son was allergic to the new formula That took along time to identify.

    15. The Prettiest Curse*

      I would get a referral to an allergist. (I developed food allergies in my 40s that took a while to figure out.) One possibility that nobody has mentioned yet is a dust mite allergy. Dust mites can live on your bedding and if your hives are suddenly appearing at 5am, you’ve presumably been lying in bed all night by that point. Mitigation is fairly easy – you can get allergy covers for your mattress and pillows. You’d also need to change bedding weekly and wash it at a high temperature.

    16. Observer*

      Second urgent care doc googled a medication I’m on that can cause hives and was convinced it was that. (I’ve been on the med for 16 years with no problems though.)

      That’s not proof positive.

      The hives could be from something new you are eating – either new altogether or reformulated. (eg a snack I had been enjoying had an ingredient change about 6 ingredients down. And it was something I can’t have.)

      The thing is that it can also be environmental, and that’s harder to track down. Has anything changed in the environment in any of the places you spend a regular amount of time in?

      Also, please talk to your regular doctor, if you have one. Not instead of the dermatologist, but in addition to. And consider seeing an allergist and / or immunologist. It sounds like either a classical allergic reaction or an immune system response to something.

      PS allergies and sensitivities can develop at any time of life.

    17. EllenD*

      Several years ago I had a irritating rash over my body, upper legs and ankles. I went to the chemist and asked for an ointment. They asked about the rash, and then asked if I’d recently changed my washing powder. I realised the rash had appeared since I’d started using a scented fabric softener. The rash was where the clothes I washed touched my body. Trousers were dry cleaned hence no rash on the legs, but around the ankles due to socks. Once I stopped using the fabric softener, the rash disappeared. I’m not normally sensitive to products and have found unscented fabric softener don’t effect me.

    18. pocket microscope*

      I genuinely developed stress hives a few years ago for the first time in my life. No new product, no nothing. Just stress. (Which, obviously, I had experienced before!) Sometimes bodies just do this.

    19. I apologize in advance...*

      Sort of!

      I have a relative that had lots of non-typical allergy symptoms. Eventually, they had the skin test of the top 40 common allergens. The thing they were the most allergic to by a factor of ten was cockroaches. We live in a part of the US that isn’t famous for cockroaches. But a couple of times we’ve been to restaurants where everyone ate the same food but only they got very sick 30 minutes after dinner. We now suspect that when that happens, the kitchen has a cockroach problem.

  27. Jackalope*

    Low-stakes question: does anyone know where I could find unsweetened, no-stir, crunchy peanut butter in the US? For a long time Adam’s peanut butter had a no-stir crunchy peanut butter but they recently stopped making it and I can’t find a replacement. I don’t like my peanut butter to be sweet; it tastes too much like candy to me when it has sweeteners. I don’t want to stir it because it never stays mixed very well and even if I try to keep mixed up I always end up with a clump of dried-out pb on the bottom. And I really like the crunchy texture. Any thoughts?

    (Also, we have tree nut allergies in the house so I’m not interested in changing to something like almond butter or cashew butter.)

    1. Generic Name*

      I haven’t. I prefer the savory of natural peanut butter, so that’s what I get. I deal with the stirring by putting the jar upside down in the counter for a few hours. Then I’ll give it a good stir so it’s thoroughly mixed. Then I store it in the fridge. I don’t have to stir it every time when I do that.

      1. RedinSC*

        This is also what I do. It’s the keeping it in the fridge prevents the oil from separating again once you’ve stirred once.

        Trader Joe’s has the natural peanut butter, you stir it the first time (after storing it upside down for a while) and then refrigerate it. No more stirring. They have a no salt one, and the only ingredient is peanuts.

    2. Bike Walk Barb*

      I now get ours at our food co-op, which has freshly ground PB in both creamy and crunchy options. Some of our big grocery-store chains also have a peanut butter grinding setup in the bulk foods aisle.

      I make sure the lid is on really tight and store it in the pantry upside down on a paper towel as backup for any oil leakage.

    3. Annie Edison*

      I know this isn’t quite what you’re asking but just in case it’s useful…

      The best work-around I’ve found for the “clump of dry peanut butter at the bottom” problem is scooping the whole thing out into a mixing bowl when I first open it, stirring thoroughly with a big wooden spoon until the texture is uniform throughout, and then using a spatula to put it all back in the jar. That gets the oily stuff all worked through and it generally stays pretty well-mixed after that.

      I am often too lazy to actually go through the process and just accept that part of my pb is going to be gross and dry, but it’s at least worth a try if you can’t find no-stir anywhere?

      1. ampersand*

        Oooh this is a good idea! I pour out most of the oil when I first open the jar, mix in the remaining oil, and then just eat dry peanut butter once I get to the bottom of the jar. I’ll give this a shot next time!

        1. Not A Manager*

          I think the peanut butter tastes better when I don’t pour off any of the oil, but instead mix it in. I use the same dump/stir/replace/refrigerate system that Annie Edison described.

      2. Bike Walk Barb*

        Dumping it into the top of the next jar helps too–perpetually pushing the dry PB issue down the road.

        1. Cabbagepants*

          I do the reverse: spoon out the excess oil on top of the new jar and mix it into the dry stuff. this also makes it easier to stir the new jar without overflowing.

    4. Girasol*

      Another workaround: store a stir-type peanut butter upside down. Of course, be sure the lid is on tight, and it’s a good idea to put it lid-side-down in a bowl just in case oil escapes. Unless you leave it unused for ages it doesn’t get too hard on lid end, and it saves you from any stirring mess.

    5. Rosyglasses*

      They still make it – I saw it in Fred Meyer today (Oregon). It also looks like you might be able to order it on Amazon?

    7. mreasy*

      I have only seen undeeeteened no-stir in smooth, I think? Trader Joe’s has it. Otherwise for mixing ;I learned this tip from cooks illustrated decades ago: put one beater in your hand mixer, stick it into the jar all the way down, then mix on low speed. This keeps it stirred and avoids gross clumps.

    8. Loreli*

      I don’t think there are no-stir peanut butters that don’t have additives.

      Tip for the all-natural ones (my favorite is Teddie): for a new jar, insert a table knife vertically all the way to the bottom of the jar, then keeping the knife straight up and down, twist it a few times. Remove knife and make a new hole to the bottom, twist the knife. Repeat this 5 or 6 times until you have a bunch of holes. The oil that was at the top dribbles down into the holes. This makes it easier to stir the peanut butter and get to the really thick stuff at the bottom of the jar.

      The Teddie natural comes in smooth and chunky. There’s a no-salt version also. No sugars/sweeteners.

      1. Jackalope*

        I don’t mind if the peanut butter has additives; I just don’t want any of those additives to be sweeteners. It tastes too sugary to me, and I much prefer it without. So non-natural brands are okay as long as they aren’t sweetened.

    9. Observer*

      I think Skippy has started making an unsweetened crunchy peanut butter. I don’t know if it’s no stir, but it seems to be part of a broader trend – it used to be that it was harder to find unsweetened PB, and it was significantly more expensive, but now I’m seeing several brands on the store shelves where I shop.

  28. Nervous Nellie*