frickineh

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frickineh ,

That's where I'm at. I moved back home after my divorce about 8 years ago and it's been really nice. My mom and I have always been really close, and it's nice to spend more time together as we get older. I'd rather pay rent to her and help with the bills than pay a landlord, too.

frickineh ,

I tried to rewatch John Tucker Must Die as something to have on in the background the other night, and wooow did that not hold up. I only made it to where they give him estrogen (which is insane and terrible) and he starts acting like a stereotypical "girl on her period" before I bailed. So many of the movies targeted at teenagers and young adults in that era are so bad. They went all in on punching down, and the amount of rape and sexual assault is wild in retrospect.

frickineh , (edited )

I suspect NK will kill their families if they refuse to come back, but I'd be completely unsurprised if some fake their deaths and try to disappear.

frickineh ,

Not necessarily. I've beat several thousand levels of a similar game (because I've trained my brain that playing it means it's sleep time and now it knocks me out) and haven't spent a dime.

frickineh ,

I was ready to be insulted, but then I remembered that I bought a whole ass Steam Deck and I've pretty much used it as a Binding of Isaac machine.

frickineh ,

There are a few companions in Mass Effect that seem to inspire a way stronger reaction from other fans and I don't totally get it. Like, I like Thane, and I'm sad about what happens to him, but some people are SO into him and I don't get it. I also love Tali and restarted my first nearly complete playthrough when I realized I couldn't save her and Legion, but there are fans who are full on obsessed. Then again, my love for Garrus can't be contained, so I'm sure some people don't get that.

At least we can all agree that Ashley and Kaiden are the worst, right?

frickineh ,

I wear a lot of cargo joggers, which are really the best of both worlds. 10/10. I usually have to buy them in men's because of the eternal struggle for pockets, but it's worth it.

frickineh ,

No, they're sweatpants, just with a slimmer fit and tapered legs so they're a little nicer looking.

frickineh , (edited )

I'd wait a couple of years and talk my ex-husband into keeping our house and renting it instead of selling it when we split up. It made sense at the time, since selling it was the fastest way to pay off all of our mutual debt (and most of our individual debt, too) and make it an easy split, but if we'd waited a few years, we would've made a solid 6 figure profit. I have no desire to be a landlord and mostly I'm glad we sold it to a nice family for what was still an affordable amount, but it would've been the only way I could ever afford to buy anything else on a single income, and it would've set him and his new wife up a lot better. I kind of hate the idea morally, but from a purely pragmatic view, it would've made sense.

frickineh ,

Same. I stopped eating meat in the mid 90s, was pescatarian until 2019, and have been vegan since. I don't miss meat at all. I'll eat an impossible or a beyond burger occasionally because it's sometimes my only option, but I could just as easily skip them.

I wouldn't judge anyone else for eating lab meat, though. I don't have any moral issue with it, it just isn't something I'm personally interested in.

frickineh ,

The lesbian flag makes me wish I was a lesbian, so I get it. The ace flag is kind of meh, imo.

frickineh ,

I work in government and we're not allowed to accept gifts over $50, but I really prefer no one give me anything. Any time someone has, it's been a thank you for work that's already done, but I don't want there to ever be any question about it. Plus, when you're a younger woman (so not so much these days, but early career), people question if the gifter was angling for something else, which is awkward.

frickineh ,

Even that wouldn't always work. This woman found out I was working on my birthday (I always do, but I guess that's s big deal to some), so she came back with cake, a bottle of prosecco, and flowers. My mom was like, "Was she trying to date you??" That woman was one of the most beautiful people I've ever seen in real life, I fucking WISH she was trying to date me. I am not that lucky. It's only the men my dad's age that are trying to hook up.

frickineh ,

Sadly, no. She was just a really nice person. It's ok though, it's probably better to not date people that make you feel like a bridge troll in comparison.

frickineh ,

In retrospect, it's no wonder my favorite colors were purple and teal as a kid. All my swishiest outfits had those colors.

frickineh ,

A long weekend to rest. I had a hysterectomy on the 1st and went back to work last week and by last night I was so sore. I'm feeling a lot better overall but sitting up for 8 hours a day was a lot harder than I expected. Having 3 days where I can lay down when I need to is really nice. Plus, it's supposed to be really nice out, so maybe I'll do some of the resting in my hammock.

frickineh ,

If it's laparoscopic, it shouldn't be too bad. I spent pretty much the whole first week in bed napping off and on, other than short walks every couple of hours. The second week, I worked from home (still in bed) and had to lay down for a few minutes here and there, but felt a lot better. With ice packs and rest, I only needed to take anything for pain the first 4-ish days and then occasionally when I pushed myself a little too hard, and I never needed anything stronger than advil/tylenol.

The only thing I wish I'd done was either taking higher doses of stool softeners or taking a laxative sooner - it's unpleasant to talk about but trust me when I say your SO really doesn't want to go several days without pooping when you can't really push without feeling like you're going to tear something important.

frickineh ,

People in FL complaining about not being able to get insurance, this is why. The whole state's gonna be underwater.

frickineh ,

We're on step 3 for the back and 4 for the front (kind of, it's not really wild but it's all native xeric plants) and I gotta say, highly recommend it. We have so many pollinators. I have to gently shoo them out of the catmint before I prune it because there are so many in there.

frickineh ,

The weeding is insanity. It felt like that's all we did last summer. I'm now paying some teenagers $40/hr to hand weed it because all the professionals just want to spray everything, and the kids are willing to be really meticulous because they don't want to jeopardize a really well-paying job.

Trump Supporter Trolls Trial With Penis Balloons Featuring Alvin Bragg, Judge Merchan Faces ( www.thedailybeast.com )

A pro-Trump New Yorker unveiled his latest piece of political performance art outside the Manhattan courtroom where Trump’s criminal trial is underway on Thursday, launching 100 pink penis-shaped balloons decorated with the faces of Trump foes like Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg and Judge Juan Merchan. The artist,...

frickineh , (edited )

I mean, I have way, way better things to spend $1500 on, but if this dude wants to spend it on being embarrassing, I guess that's his choice.

frickineh ,

Standing up for women's rights doesn't necessarily equal creep - that's what men should be doing. But you're not wrong that men who are overly vocal about saying they're a feminist are often creeps. It's kind of like the Nice Guy thing in my experience - if you have to tell me (ad nauseum) how nice you are, I'm definitely suspicious. Men who are actually feminists don't usually feel the need to say it 30 times in their dating profile, they're just out there living it and it'll be obvious to anyone paying attention.

frickineh ,

I would add green stuffed with jalapeño to that list, although I'm more enthusiastic about them than you are. I've never had an olive I didn't like.

frickineh ,

My office regulates airbnbs for the city and it's very hard to do anything about it. None of the rental platforms will work with us - we've sent them about a million notices that they're collecting the wrong tax amount and they don't even bother to respond, and they just send a check every quarter but refuse to break it out by address/owner. They won't provide any data on what addresses are being rented, either. Apparently some other cities have successfully sued airbnb, but for a small city with a correspondingly small budget, that's an expense that's hard to justify to taxpayers.

We have some owners that are great - they get licensed right away, get their inspections done, no problem. Then there are other people who have done things like dig out their crawlspace themselves and turn it into non-conforming bedrooms with no egress windows - no permits or inspections, of course, and an engineer basically said the entire thing was in danger of collapsing any minute. Or the person who had a buddy do a bunch of unlicensed electrical work that was so bad the city couldn't even let the owner stay there until it was fixed. I honestly wouldn't stay in an airbnb now, having seen what I've seen - people will absolutely put renters at risk to make a buck. And we can go after them but only if we know it's happening.

I'd personally love it if rental platforms were forced to provide owner data to cities/states, and for cities to tax the shit out of rentals that aren't also owner-occupied, but I'm not in charge and the people with money have a vested interest in making sure that doesn't happen. It sucks.

frickineh ,

Unfortunately, I don't know too much - most of the contact has been initiated by our sales tax staff to whatever department handles tax collection on the company side, but from what they've told me, they just don't get a response. Our municipal code only allows us to go after owners if they fail to get licensed (and even that is a nightmare for us to try to do) but there's nothing about the actual companies.

It's kind of the wild west at the moment - the problem isn't evenly distributed, so there's not one catch-all solution. One of the mountain towns here said they have 700+ rentals and their official population is only like 500 people. We have <100 in a city of about 40k. It's still a problem here, but nowhere near as bad as ski towns have it. Most of the laws I've seen are aimed at the owners, not at the companies facilitating the rentals, and they range from things designed to just make sure someone's actually inspecting the rentals so no one dies all the way to making it unaffordable to rent multiple properties by charging a fuckton of taxes and fees. I'd kill for something forcing airbnb, vrbo, etc to actually cooperate.

frickineh ,

I mean, paying to sue a massive company that definitely has more (and probably better) attorneys than we do in order to collect a few thousand dollars more a year in sales tax isn't necessarily the best use of city funds. If we were a bigger city, it would make more sense, but it would take us years just for the taxes to cover what we'd spend in attorneys fees and staff time. I don't like that that's the reality, but I can see why the idea isn't popular.

Also, the police aren't involved in regulating short-term rentals. I'm no fan of cops, but this is entirely civil and they have no part in this particular issue.

frickineh ,

No clue - most of that is either a department I'm not in and don't know much about, or it's way over my head. I'm just a mid-level peon. And politicians are the ones who have to give us the tools to actually do our jobs and all of these companies have deep pockets. That's the biggest impediment.

frickineh ,

Oh I 100% agree - when I finally managed to finish my degree a few years ago, I did my capstone research on suburban/rural homelessness, and I'm now an even bigger proponent of housing-first policies. Supportive housing works better than piecemeal programs, and outcomes are better for sobriety and mental health treatment than they are for programs that require those things as a condition of getting housing.

Unfortunately, people fucking love to hate the homeless. Everyone wants to put conditions on every scrap you give them because "I worked for what I have, they should have to, too!" There's not a lot of political support to be found for policies that are based on meeting people where they are. Saying we should use housing that's already vacant to help people get off the streets would get you booed right out of the room a lot of the time.

As someone who is aging. Late thirties. How can I keep my finger on the pulse of current trends, particularly in music?

As an example. I grew up in hip-hop but at a certain point I stopped listening to new people and realised recently that I’d slept on some bangers. Like Kendrick particularly, but even people like Juice WRLD and Xxxtentacion....

frickineh ,

Even if you're not personally experiencing the things pop music is currently about, there's still plenty of really great stuff coming out all the time that you'll miss out on if you stop listening to new things. For example, NPR popped up recently with a Tiny Desk Concert (which feels like a very Old way to find new music in itself) from Chappell Roan, and I would've been missing out big time if I'd skipped it just because she's 15ish years younger than me and in a different phase of her life. A lot of it feels more nostalgic (fucking Casual, man, so many of us have been there) than current to my life, but it's good music. And as a queer woman, gosh it's great to see these queer artists who are able to write their feelings and experiences without having to keep plausible deniability in the lyrics.

frickineh ,

Uh, you could literally just go around them and not say anything, or say excuse me or something. Happens all the time, and presumably these walks aren't at 3am, so most people wouldn't even question it. Saying, "I'm not a rapist," is such a weird choice that I'd immediately be on edge.

frickineh ,

I'll add to what others have said about listening, don't assume she wants you to solve every problem. My dad used to do that and it drove me crazy, especially when he'd point out out like it was so obvious. I often already knew the solution, but sometimes I didn't like it or just wanted to vent before moving forward. I think it's good for most relationships to ask, "do you want advice or is this just to get it off your chest," before responding, not just with daughters, but I've noticed dads are particularly prone to wanting to fix the thing.

frickineh ,

Stand up to other men when they say or do shitty things. My dad was mostly a pretty good feminist and advocate and I know he believed I could do just about anything I set my mind to, but there were times when family members would say some really crappy things and he just kind of stood by for the sake of keeping the peace. I never shut my mouth in those instances, but it would've meant a lot if my dad had spoken up. I'm not saying it has to be a whole fight or anything, but even saying, "Hey, not cool," helps. It shows that your support isn't just lip service.

frickineh ,

Yeah, like I'm not even motivated enough to go to the grocery store most of the time, I'm definitely not working up the energy to pick a victim, plan a whole murder, do a whole murder, hide evidence, go home, and then do it all again later. That's basically a second job.

frickineh ,

I'm starting to question my life a lot. I've played over 4k hours of BoI since the first version. I remember when people warned about WoW before I really gamed and how people were sinking their whole lives into it and I was like, "wow, can't imagine, that's crazy," and now I'm those people. I should go outside.

frickineh ,

In my case, little of column a, little of column b.

frickineh ,

I mean, by all accounts, Commander is a problem and biting staff repeatedly wouldn't fly anywhere but the White House, but the answer isn't shooting him in the backyard. She's a fucking psychopath. I shouldn't be surprised that she's decided to double down on dog murderer as a good quality.

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