Naw, where I really messed up was I had thought that the temperature/comfort level had any relation to the amount of sun. Ask me about my first 18degree day in JANUARY

Well something I have experience in! Nothing prepared me for my first winter. Yes there is snow and it’s cold. The dark is what got me. I would leave for work before the sun came up and it was already setting as I was coming home. It was so deeply unsettling that first winter, like there was no warmth left in the world.

It is a lovely area. It feels so much older because they tend to preserve the historic homes and just driving around through the small rural towns is super cute. Fall is the best season in the NE. The colors are gorgeous! Apple cider donuts are the best donuts, most local orchards make them fresh too.

It’s pretty rural outside of NYC, Maine is especially so. You’ll most likely need a car, even if you’re in a town. The towns are walkable, but they’re small towns so the selection is limited. Getting hooked up with local events can be a challenge as word of mouth is the most common form of promotion. Get in good with your local coworkers or other local groups and they’ll help you find the cool ski deals and niche concerts.

On the whole car thing. Snow ands salt are really hard on cars. The inspection in NE is much more intensive than the SW which only checks emissions. Good tires are worth the investment, but the best method is just don’t drive while it’s snowing. Keep an eye out for black ice, the melting and refreezing is no joke. The people are nice though, had a kind man help pull me out of a snow bank when I made that mistake. If you’re ever unsure just go slow.

Whom ever. It mostly depends on who has time. There is agreed upon meal plan so there’s a list of recipes we plan on going through during the week. We usually break out who does what based on skill and interest, then people will make snacks or in-between meals as needed.

I’ve been trying to improve my handwriting so I started doing calligraphy. Getting back to basics has really improved the legibility of my writing. Since you want to improve your consistency, the calligraphy practice work books (or even just grade school level writing books) come prelined so you can get a more consistent shape. Reading some calligraphy books helped to because it better quantified the spacing between words and lines for me. Good luck

Just waiting for orchestra to start back up in the fall

I can’t disagree that things are shit, but that’s not a reason to treat yourself like shit. Even if you don’t have a long life, going to the grave with tense af shoulders isn’t comfortable either. If you’re able, stretching and walking in the sunshine will at least add some comfort. Nothing is good but that’s no excuse to be an accelerationist to destroy your body.

Your range is pretty broad. For digital media I have found myself using the Library more and more

Libby- ebooks, audiobooks, magazines

Hoopla- music, ebooks, audiobooks, and TV

Kanopy- films and documentaries

The code stack at my company. At one time, I was confident that I could affect change, add modern features, and make the process form streamlined and user friendly. Now I get to explain our tech debt to our new not yet soulless new hires.

I see you and raise, Las Vegas, NM.

Nope, just finished some scales and arpeggios and was moving on to some warm up pieces.

I am learning an instrument as an adult and my instructor commented “You’re so good at recognizing patterns.” That comment hit way harder than it had any right to.

OMG!!! I get to recommend Delicious in Dungeon!!! The show is a bit of a slow burn, but the early episodes set up the incredible world building and the basic plot points. Then as it starts churning it gets crazy. The story is strong enough on it’s own, but it’s animated by Studio Trigger so the anime is pure perfection.

I’m terribly sorry for your loss of mental health. Getting the vile shit of the internet directed art you as an adult is awful, can’t imagine how tough it is for a 16y/o.

For me it’s that I have to think less about my choices. I don’t have a ton of time anymore so if I pick a book I am not vibing with I can just return it and pick another in a matter of seconds. It’s led me to taking chances on books I normally wouldn’t read.

I love my local library because they’re keeping me sane on my work commute! I looove audiobooks and it’s so nice to be able to try so many and not have to worry about if I will like them because it’s all free!!!

There’s a reason why they’re my former employer. Upper management was discussing replacing our badges with the phone. We needed the phones to get into the building because that was where the covid protocol pass was kept and security checked. It was impressive how quickly they took advantage of the pandemic to make creepy breeches in privacy.

Preach. It wasn’t body cams but our company gave us all mandatory phones with custom location tracking software on them. It was done as part of their pandemic response. The phones were supposedly only tracking your location within a mile of the site and were only used for enforcing social distancing and infection tracking. Well when the return to office mandates came around, upper management was suddenly too informed about how much time we spent onsite. They swore up and down it wasn’t the phones and went to pretty absurd lengths to find some other metric to prove it.

Avenue 5 is a brilliant dark sci-fi comedy that I cannot stop thinking about. It’s basically a cruise ship in space but then things go wrong. The physics are actually sound which makes for some really fun and terrifying gags. It’s heavy on dark humor, but if you’re ok with that it’s such a fun ride. I am biased but I feel like this show is criminally underrated.

I try to buy local loose leaf.

If you are looking for a grocery store recommendations, I love Celestial Seasonings herbal teas. They have an amazing peppermint tea.

Porphyria’s Lover by Robert Browning just rolled around in my head for day after I first read it. It’s really dark but feels so completely human at the same time.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46313/porphyrias-lover