Good job! Going to echo the other folks saying try a better set of shoes (though they'll still need breaking in), but it'll also get easier the more you do it.

I'm very excited it's walking-without-air-hurting-my-face season again, I have a PB distance to beat this year :)

I was at work. My kid was in high school, and I got the news that school wouldn't reopen after March Break. I was in a role that was already remote-friendly/expected but had argued my way into keeping a desk (had done full remote before but was getting squirrely over it, and I had newbies in my old role with little on-site support that I used as an excuse). Thought to myself "K, I'll work from home next week so kiddo has someone around if necessary/to poke him so he doesn't just rot in bed all day".

Took home all my work stuff, which was a good thing when the notice went out saying I was not allowed to go back to the building.

Perfectly fine. Bumps don't do what they used to do in messageboard/BBS contexts, so if you have something useful/clever/funny to say in a dead thread I say go for it.

Heck, sometimes it can prompt a follow-up when someone says "You know, I should do [x related to topic]" after some time has passed, which is fun.

As someone who whisked away jizz (at best) covered towels from hotel laundry carts for a living for a while, I am glad to have been part of the magic.

Tip your housekeeping staff if you can - we know what you did but keep it to ourselves ;)

(Also if you see the laundry guy when getting on the service elevator, do not make the "Is there a dead body in there" joke. There are far better choices, be creative)

I second mycoboutique, it is cute as fuck.

Similar dream I have for Ottawa - you give Chebucto Community Net a nice chunk of change to set up and maintain the infrastructure.

Been many, many years, but if the kind of person who worked/volunteered for CCN hasn't changed doubtless someone would be interested and have the skills.

This is going to come off terribly, but do you talk to many people IRL? There's no game here, just humans being humans.

That said, perhaps not your preferred types of humans, which is perfectly fine. If anything, not engaging people the way I describe here could be a filter for the kind of people you prefer to interact with. Really isn't anything wrong with that, though others may find it a bit constrictive.

If what you're doing makes you happy and secure in your relationships with people, then more power to you!

If you don't mind me asking, how is this reading minds? This is watching for behavioural cues, which lend some evidence of interest/disinterest. Men exhibit similar cues as well - think about the guy sitting at the bar, facing the interior with a grin looking about, versus the guy hunched over with a scowl counting the bubbles in his beer. Unless you're moved by pathos to clink scowling guy's glass, who seems more approachable?

Will admit there are folks who see a single behavioural cue and immediately jump to "They want to jump my bones"/"They wish me and my family were dead", which is dumb. What I'm talking about is more "Oh, looks like they may be open to chat with someone, go say hi", then noting if that impression stays or dissipates on fresh evidence. Again, the biggest problem I've heard of is people, but particularly women approached by men in a social setting, not wanting to tell the approaching party to fuck off (politely or otherwise) because of a perceived or real threat of violence. But this feeling often comes across pretty clearly in body language - if you're a decent person, reading those cues and and exiting gracefully just makes sense.

Discounting non-verbal cues in IRL communication is silly. We give out a lot of information about how we're feeling with our bodies to those paying attention. I'll admit it can sound kinda creepy when writing it all out, but for some folks this is all intuitive. For other folks, thinking about this a bit helps with being more at ease in talking with new people, whether platonically or with an eye to something more.

The thing is, there are signals - open body language, frequent glances around the room, etc.

The tougher bit for some folks is also seeing, and respecting, when they clearly want you to go away, AND not taking it personally. They may want someone to approach them, but for whatever reason not you. That's perfectly OK, and says nothing about your general worth, just their interest at the moment.

Go, initiate contact, and if you're getting one word replies, crossed arms/body facing away from you, refusal to meet eyes, inauthentic laughs, etc., exit cheerfully, move on with your day and let her move on with hers.

The biggest problem I've had women tell me about is not being approached, but guys not taking the hint if it's not clicking and leaving them be. Be the guy who reads the situation, takes the hint if present and doesn't get all fucked up about it, and you'll probably end up talking to someone who does want to talk to you later.

Should note this is often just human stuff, and holds for a lot of guys as well with the caveat that they're often, though not always, more direct.

Sometimes, I think about the fact that if I post something really useful here, our traffic's still so comparatively small that it probably won't come up in a search engine query.

But that's the way I like it, baby - I don't want to live forever.

Sup Nick! Love the energy, and if you legit haven't heard of our friend Nicole, this is hilarious in a good way.

Looks like you're also a sh.it.head (don't worry - this is a good thing!), and so far don't look to be a shithead (which would be a bad thing) so in my book we're already friends :) Welcome!

The difference between boofing and hooping is entirely contextual, it's the same act.

So I've since quit, and I understand why even what I'm about to describe doesn't exist anymore where I am, but right at the tail end of smoking indoors there were businesses/buildings doing totally walled off, wellish ventilated smoking areas. Those seemed ok to me, and when I (stupidly) took up smoking I was sad those were gone.

The only, and last, one I saw when I was a smoker was in an airport, which was an unexpected godsend because my fuck does it suck to be a smoker waiting for a flight.

(Yes, it's a gross and deadly habit that's also unhealthy and gross for the people around you and the employees who had to work in/clean such spaces, and it makes sense to have no smoking indoors).

Hike through a forest to reach the beach for chilling.

Fuck I miss Vancouver Island...

adds to 'Things to do on your last day to burn all bridges if you magically come into wealth' wish list

Something to think about, though of course do whatever makes the most sense for your circumstances: what's better - maintaining your current pace of work, without meaningful breaks, in a way that only further pushes you into burnout and risks impacting job performance to the point you could be let go for cause. Or, using your PTO, which is part of your compensation package, to take breaks and at least try to get some downtime to mitigate burnout, which generally has a positive impact on job performance and with that reduces the probability of being let go with cause?

Not going to lie and say you couldn't get blindsided and screwed either way, but with very few exceptions I always think not taking your PTO is a mistake.

Will acknowledge I don't know your circumstances and don't mean any offense. If what you're doing makes sense from a long-term survival perspective, then do what makes sense.

The issue is, what is the immediate alternative? You can simplify your life to minimize the amount of resources needed, you can find work that feels pleasant/meaningful enough that it doesn't always feel like a slog, you can have other people subsidize your lifestyle by working themselves (cool if said people are cool with it/there's some mutually beneficial exchange - usually involving domestic work, which is still work -, not cool if it's pure leeching). But ultimately, unless you come from wealth, either you or someone working for your benefit needs to work to get resources needed for living.

It doesn't have to be this way forever, but this is reality right now. Heck, this isn't even unique to capitalism - even in a socialist society, people still need to work, they just (theoretically) gain more of the benefits of that labour than in capitalist societies.

Leaning into this will probably garner attention from the right sort of women for you. The ones attracted to "traditional masculinity" (which is kind of a trap in some respects anyway) probably wouldn't be attracted to you sexually in the first place, based on what you describe here. So you don't really lose anything by what you plan to do. Go for it!

And if anyone gives you guff about it, tell them to fuck off (or whatever response appropriate to your vibe, but carrying a similar message, works best).

What I've found even more fascinating is, particularly in earlier iterations of the technology, visual effects produced were remarkably similar to visual distortions people experience with certain drugs.

Easy to make a lot out of this where it's not warranted, but at minimum it gives some interesting food for thought re: how visual processing works. Have seen people write about this, but am too dumb to actually understand.