You’re one of the founding members of the greater Seattle area polycule, aren’t you?

In retrospect I think my comment sounds like I’m just excusing being sort of crappy if you’re humble about it.
I wish I’d included the sentiment that we’re all trying the best we can — because being a good partner should be the goal for any relationship.

Even though I’m currently only with my wife, I’m right there with you. I don’t want to add anyone to the mix unless their addition is very carefully considered.
I speak better in metaphor sometimes: It’s kind of like physics, almost. Imagine that we’re touching everyone in our life. If we allow someone to connect to us, they are going to impart their own momentum and direction. That is going to ripple through every connection we have, even if we aren’t able to measure or observe it. So we better make sure they don’t hit us so hard that pieces break apart or get damaged in the process.

If you’re somewhere in the world that has a TJ Maxx/TK Maxx or similar, go buy their random products that are on sale. Not all are winners, but if you change up your products and just experiment, you’ll find something you like.

I have long wavy hair, and right now I’m on a Shea Moisture curl and shine kick, but before then it was the Verb Ghost line of products for a long time.
Don’t sleep on after shower crap, either. My hair has been really dry lately, so I’ve been using a leave in conditioner by Shea, too (now discontinued, sadly). In the rotation is also the Verb Ghost Oil, and some random peptide leave in. JVN (Johnathon Van Ness) also has some excellent products, but we haven’t found them on sale in awhile.

I don’t use all the after shower products at once, but each has their use. Once you get a feel for what you’re going for, it’s like having a shelf full of tools.
And if you got a beard, well… use something and tell me if you figure out what works, because I still can’t figure that out. My hair looks great and my beard looks like it got lost in the desert.

That sucks, man.

I’ve been some stripe or other of non-monogamous for most of my adult life, and those types of relationships are often the ones that people experience first when they dip their toes in.
It’s honestly kind of maddening, because beyond making it seem like everyone who is poly/nm/whatever are all horny sociopaths (because almost everyone has something like that as a first story), it’s harmful. It’s physically and emotionally unsafe for the person who gets shafted. It treats people like they’re disposable and frankly, it’s selfish, insecure, and sometimes malevolent bullshit dressed up as a hippy-dippy love-fest.

It’s really fucking hard to be ethically nonmonogamous, and I wish people would stop pretending they knew what they were doing. No one knows, and it’s the faked confidence that gets so many people in trouble. People just trust someone to take care of them, and then the other person fails because they’re human, and humans fail. And yet… I can’t imagine not being this way, for some dumb fucking reason.

Toxic polyamory situation. A partner I lived with and was once very in love with fell away when she got interested in someone new. It was messy and shitty. I wound up dating someone new, who I had a great relationship with, and it was very physical. But I still lived in a 2 bedroom apartment with my ex.

My ex was a bit weird. She sort of viewed relationships as whatever things with no boundaries. Folks just do whatever they want in the moment and there’s no fidelity according to her. (Things I learned after I fell in love with her. Woof.) She also had intoned a few times that my new partner was a slut, which was sort of funny, given that my new partner had a pretty strong moral code.

My ex got a little less interested in her new guy, and tried to seduce me one night. And I rejected her. We had officially ended things, and I did not want to revisit that.
My ex sneered at me. “Fine. I hope you’re happy with [New Partner], and I hope [NP] is happy with you and your… magical penis!”

She practically spat that out at me, and… yeah. It was as funny then as it is now.

And for the record, it’s not magical. I just like to put top hats and little capes on it sometimes.

If I had one of those in my living room, my house would collapse.

I used to play 1v1 Ticket to Ride matches against my wife using the app.

As background: I’m not a very competitive gamer, but I’m decent at problem solving. When I first learned TtR, I played with fairly … great players. One of my friends was (is?) nationally ranked. They routinely beat the ever-loving crap out of me. I think of the dozens of games we’ve played, I have won maybe 10-20% of the time?

My wife isn’t bad at TtR, but she doesn’t see things the same way in terms of strategy.

We had this one game where I drew a bunch of short routes all over the map, which blocked her early in the game, and a series of lucky route draws lead me to connect them, inadvertently blocking her at least twice, including on the last play, where I was just dumping cars to end the game.

She was always a little upset when I beat her, but this time the discrepancy was so bad and she was so upset. I just stopped playing Ticket to Ride - like, at all.

Wait. No. It is a demolition. We’re just looking at it from behind.

Not to be a know it all, but I believe that there is a chimney remolition. It’s where they implode one together.

That’s when my mom became old enough to vote, and she was a real idiot.

It’s not, you know, the best theory, but it’s the best theory I can come up with while also doing no research.

I’ve turned off my voicemail with my cell carrier, and send all unknown numbers to voice mail.

It’s a peaceful life.

Mind you, 4.1% reflects only people who are unemployed that have looked for a job within the last 4 weeks.

Let’s add in people who want a job, have looked for work in the last year, but haven’t looked in the last 4 weeks. And let us also add in people who want a job, but have a job market-related reason for not looking for one. The rate is now 5%. Still not bad.

Alrighty. What about adding in people who are working part time, but would rather work full time? The under-employed, if you will. Oh. Now it’s 7.7%

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Cryin’ all the way to the bread line.

And besides none of the above discusses that the unemployment rate is non-comprehensive and does not measure the quality of the jobs - rather, how well those jobs pay people compared to CPI.

Reddit comment: Shaving does make your dinghy look bigger!

For the 5% of my adult life that I’ve had short hair and no beard: Quentin Tarantino. For the rest of my bearded, long-haired adulthood: Steve Burke from Gamers Nexus. But they need to have blue/green eyes and forehead wrinkles.
(Huh. On paper that just sounds like I look like Nick Offerman, but not really.)

Ooooh. It’s three!

I was wondering if I’d been opening windows wrong.

Paraphrased from Forrest Gump.

“Well, I’ve come this far. Might as well keep going.”

It’s great, because you just lie to yourself about the starting point of any task, and it doesn’t seem so bad.
If I’ve survived from birth until now, then I guess I can survive doing the dishes.

Many years ago, some guy was trying to impress my girlfriend with his super powerful laser pointer by shining it on a building a few miles away. He shoved it in his pocket very fast when she told him he was shining it at a hospital.
An unkind part of me was pleased when less than 30 seconds later it was revealed that he forgot to do whatever he needed to do to prevent it from turning on accidentally, and bumped it, burning his pocket/pants slightly, and getting soot inside the lens.

How does their synthetic hold up?

I’ve always bought their cotton boxer briefs and it seems that in recent years the durability has gone down. They used to last a few years a pair, but new pairs start to look baggy and sad after about 4-6 months. (They’re honestly off the list of products I buy right now.)

To your point about billing -
My insurer recently informed me that a claim submitted last September had been denied. Looking at the original explanation of benefits from September, it indicated that the insurer didn’t think the medical code was appropriate for the appointment, and wanted more information - stating they would work with the hospital to work it out.
I haven’t heard anything from the hospital, but I’m growing concerned they may just send the bill to collections due to the time elapsed.

A few weeks ago, a mom was at the hardware store with her young son – he was about five years old.
For some reason, we crossed paths a few times, And each time she was talking with her son about the things they were buying in the projects that they were buying them for. But what Caught my attention first was he asked her ‘What if we can’t do it?’ and she responded with ‘Well then we learned how because we can figure it out.’
This woman was endlessly, encouraging towards her son, and it was clear that she was setting him up to have an attitude of feeling like he was capable of tackling things in life. Which is something that I didn’t get us a kid - I was often told that I couldn’t do things or the things were beyond my capability and that if my mom didn’t know how to do something that it was basically impossible for me to figure out how to do it as well.

I was so impressed by their interaction, that when I saw her later while I was checking out, I actually said something to her and after she figured out I wasn’t trying to pick her up, she took a moment and like… just looked satisfied. I was happy with the interaction.

Beyond the fact that I mostly grew up without a father and my mother was very self focused to the point that it was pretty detrimental to me, I also grew up with undiagnosed ADHD that I only learned about in my early 40s. I am constantly discovering ways that I feel broken in the world, so you are not alone.