Real leather and good quality do eventually cost less if you keep them & take care of them (get the heels re-capped, etc.) so look for a timeless style like a 3.5 inch heel pump in black, calfskin if you can get that. I had some from the 1990s I just gave to my youngest kid’s girlfriend because I don’t wear heels anymore. They still look good, never seem to go out of date. Those were expensive Stuart Weitzman ones, you can sometimes get them on clearance for about $100 if you get lucky. I liked his because they had a 10 narrow, long enough but no slipping around on my feet, I could walk well in them without getting blisters.

This takes practice and depends a lot on your foot shape but Naturalizer are usually good, and some are good looking.

I’ve never had a high heel break though, how in the world are you walking that’s breaking them?

I stay in my same body, at the same age I am now, keep all my teeth, etc? I am nearsighted, it’s gonna be difficult.

What happens when I pass the day I am born, though? Are there 2 of me?

I don’t think I’d change the timeline much anyway, it seems hard to. Though I’d love to become a lawyer and advise Al Gore against conceding the election he won. Even if I ceased to exist that might be worth it.

It really depends on where you live. I’m in zone 10 (subtropical) and can grow successfully:

In the cold season - fennel, collard greens, broccoli, cauliflower, cilantro, arugula, lettuces. Sometimes radishes. Eggplant and peppers (eggplant can last a few years here if no freeze)

In the hot season - okra, watermelon, basil, eggplant and peppers, sweet potato (Stokes Purple). Tomatoes. Hong tsoi (plant survives winter but produces in the rainy season)

Trees - citrus, figs, carambola, longan, loquat, bananas.

If you are in a cold place with little space, radishes are fast growing. Potatoes are filling and good to do in containers so you can find them. Greens are very healthy with so much nutrition per calorie, and collards don’t mind a freeze, neither does fennel.

No. IF they ask, and you know they are really asking, sure. Or if usually they are an awesome cook, and you are also an awesome cook, and this meal is bad, they already know, so sure, especially if you have actual advice to give. But if someone gives you a meal they are enjoying and you don’t like it, I don’t think a critique is appropriate, and particularly if the critique is just “man, you suck at cooking.” Generally speaking, if someone makes you a meal there is only one correct response and it’s “thank you.” No don’t praise the food if you think it sucks but just say thanks.

I think the point of communication is to communicate. People who “have no filter” aren’t communicating because they don’t care how their words are received. (ETA, neither are those who send emails to cover their ass, just to prove they ‘communicated’) Knowing your audience is half the battle, right? I am harshly straightforward with other people who are, because if they can dish it they better be prepared to take it. But mostly I try to speak in a way that can be received by the person I’m talking to.

I’m ok with the no filter people unless it’s someone using it as an excuse to be mean, that does happen. “I’m just brutally honest!” No. You are not.

Sure, but being physically embodied is not some unclean state, and those ideas have some pretty dark roots. Purity as a concept is such bullshit. There were also the colonics people, who got these crazy enemas and tried to get their insides clean. I’m sure they are dead now, that’s just not how bodies work. We need all that gross stuff inside us to be healthy!

A huddle they were doing soon after a shift change. They were chanting, and I found it so creepy and unsettling. The last thing we need is a Walmart cult.

I used to work in a health food store and remember I could always tell who the raw foods guys were (it was always guys) because they had crazy eyes. They were crazy.

I’m sure most of us could stand to eat more raw foods, but dude. That fruitarian thing makes zero sense. It’s people who think bodies are dirty, they want to transcend this filthy mortal plane and be clean and pure. That whole mindset is so twisted.

What the fuck?

No. Though to be fair, I don’t live in the cold part of the US.

So sorry to hear that shitty education is not unique to us.

To do? Charcoal, or pencil drawing. Yes I try not great but it feels good to do. Nudes mostly. Followed by nature photography, if I can catch something cool. Here is one from my work’s office park.

To see? Animated stories and comics are my favorite.

It’s not my thing, I do have a small basket of stocks I call gambling (they break even) and husband spends $2 a week on a lottery ticket.

Other than those I abstain, it’s not really fun to me.

If it’s on purpose to deceive, I guess.

Not exactly. I can be convinced, am wrong often enough. But also often people just cannot hear or see anything from anyone else’s perspective, or they cannot be convinced because they are too brainwashed or just don’t have the same life experience I do.

So sometimes I would describe it as your idea may be correct but you don’t have the communication skill to explain it to the person you are arguing with.

Also - I have been told I’m persuasive. So maybe I could win and still be wrong, yes?

Arguing well is separate from having good ideas.

I have had a handful of “status migraines” in my life and that is by far the worst pain. I am so sorry, and hope you can figure out a way to end them. Mine always came while I was sleeping - would wake up with them, but once started even a drop of water would make me puke, and no real sleep just sort of hallucinations. 5 days is the longest, I used to be able to go get them broken with injections of some opiate mixed with an anti nausea drug, it didn’t make it stop just put me so far away from the pain I could really sleep and I would wake up without the headache. Alas, that is disallowed now. Last (and hopefully the last ever) time that happened it was $1500 in the emergency room and a cold IV of some hopped up advil (doesn’t work AND doesn’t get you high enough not to care) with an antihistamine. The IV liquid does help so not dehydrated but it did nothing for the pain.

Sorry long rant but I feel you - those long severe headaches are the worst pain. Worse than childbirth, worse than broken bone.

Fela Kuti, by far. That show, absolutely nothing else existed, probably best performance in the world.

Second place Henry Rollins, I almost sat out his set because he was so snooty to everyone in the club but holy crap.

And Marcus King has such charisma - he is a pudgy not particularly handsome dude and was wearing an unflattering outfit but I swear he transformed, not physically exactly but is so compelling on stage - he picks up the guitar you forget about his looks. I find that almost the definition of cool, in a way. Transcendent.

Ooh I am trashy as heck then, and proudly so. My favorite shirt, and the one I get compliments on, is silk leopard print button-up, it’s gorgeous.

I think trashy is behavior not style. Loud and messy and yelling at servers; behavior that indicates a lack of awareness of the feelings of anyone else around you.

What it means to me is different from what it did for me.

I didn’t marry my ex, we had kids so were a family regardless and I didn’t want to be a wife just a mom. I am glad we never married.

My now husband REALLY wanted to get married, like a wedding and the whole thing, he had already kids too, from an ex-wife (both their bio kids and his stepkids, court gave him custody of all of them and he adopted the ones he could). I caved and told him ask in 2 years, he did.

What it did was like some old timey upper class marriage shit, combined families & created a dynasty. I liked it because “stepmom/stepdad” can do things like school pickup that “mom’s boyfriend” can’t. And my kids & his kids got this amazing network of siblings, they all like each other. And I got a great MIL & FIL, and together my husband & I make kind of a lot of money when before we were each supporting a family alone, and struggling.

So basically because we already had families, getting married made us one big family. Which now makes me think of it like that, when before all I saw was the man-owns-woman shit and wanted no part of that.

Because working with people you like makes work so much more bearable? We have an AP lady who is a hotshot, does such a good job but so mean and hotheaded and thinks she is “honest” but is really just mean. Hates her husband , hates people, only likes her dog. Her manager is on her last straw because she criticizes everyone else all the time and dislikes half the people she works with, and she (the manager) has had to referee arguments she has with the rest of the staff.

You can train someone to do a job, it’s much harder to train someone out of being an asshole.

Best Coast doing the song Rhiannon

It’s close, because I LOVE the original but Porter Robinson’s cover of the Fontaines DC song Favorite is amazing and everyone in my family likes it so much. The interview where he talks about the song also great.

Probably more if I think about it, but those 2 came to mind as really good covers that do something different from the original songs.

ETA - just about anything by Bob Dylan or the Grateful Dead sounds better to me when another band does them, Dylan in particular writes amazing songs but I don’t like his delivery of them and the Dead, that sound annoys me so much I cannot.