I don’t have an office job in the traditional sense anymore, but when I did, I would do a lot of trip planning. My boomer mother always books tours or uses a travel agent, but I stay away from the first because they seem to be filled with mostly boomers, and the second because I’m cheap. I’m not really confident enough to do it for a place where English isn’t easily understood or used, but we’ve gone some cool places based entirely on my own planning and research.

Ooh thanks, great feature!

I’ve worn earplugs for years because my husband snores. But he recently got a CPAP, and the snoring stopped overnight, it was quite amazing. So I decided to try going without earplugs. I can sleep, but I don’t think it’s as restful; we have three cats and an elderly dog, and the dog is so loud! She snores, rolls over, snuffles, and goes outside for a midnight pee. So I’m back to using earplugs again and I seem to be getting deeper sleep. Sigh.

Fucking around and finding out

Hopefully the media is changing. Off the top of my head, I thought of “Inside Out,” where the girl is an only child (I think?) and her family is depicted as pretty loving, just going through a tough move. I suspect a lot of kids’ media has also adjusted to two kids max; I’m specifically thinking of shows like Bluey and Daniel Tiger for instance.

I’m really sad as a Millennial that this aesthetic has been dubbed “Millennial gray.” I’ve watched some videos on it that make the case that it’s a backlash from the 70s aesthetic we grew up with combined with poor financial prospects in early adulthood, meaning we couldn’t buy a lot of or very nice furniture. Now that I’m firmly middle-aged, I can afford better stuff and my husband and I are slowly turning over crap particle-board furniture for nice solid wood pieces (often secondhand) in the craftsman style.

Yeah I’m with you, sort of already in a way. I’m lucky enough to be able to work part-time and managed to (finally) get a job doing what I decided I wanted to do while in college. And it’s arts-related. So yes, I do enjoy my job. Do I enjoy working? I mean…. Not really, if I’m honest. But at the same time, it gives me an opportunity to better myself in certain ways that I wouldn’t get in my hobbies, and I do value that.

I live in the area and yeah, it’s everywhere. It’s become a game to spot the billboards that aren’t for AI companies.

Maybe the reason they’re sitting mostly unused is because much of the public feels similarly to OP and doesn’t want to jump through a bunch of hoops just to use a tennis court.

Agreed. I have one of each. Or at least that’s how it seems. Maybe all cats are both at the same time?

I did this once after getting these toothbrushes for my kids. Of course we didn’t figure it out before opening the package. Thankfully I found someone in the school community who could use them. Sorry it happened to you, too!

Yeah underdog might not be quite the right sentiment. I’m not sure exactly what it is honestly because I think it’s a bit ridiculous. I see it in my father in law. They’re so angry that other people are being helped in any way, so they convince themselves that they’re deserving of the same kind of help without acknowledging the intense harm that has been done to others in the past and present.

It is not at all that white people are seen as lesser or lower. It’s that everyone wants to be the underdog. It’s the same bullshit that has Christians feeling like their religion is being persecuted.

Can confirm, my mom gave me that story when I was a kid.

My aggressively pedantic music theory prof in college insisted that “French” was incorrectly applied to the horn and that we should instead call it the Horn in F. She did not play the horn.

All girls Catholic school (though I am not, and have never been Catholic). We had three nuns on campus, two teachers and a counselor. One of them taught religious studies and that was where we got 9th grade sex ed. This teacher was firm but beloved, a bit of a hippie, also taught a class about spirituality that was separate from religion, said things like “God has no gender” in class but would straight up call God a woman outside of class, exclusively played Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell music… you get the picture.

Anyway it’s become a bit of a legend now, but apparently during sex ed for the girls a couple of grades ahead of mine, one of the students boldly asked, “Sister, how do you know anything about this? Why are we being taught this by a nun?”

The response was, “I wasn’t always a nun. I’ve been around the block a few times.” You can imagine the uproar this caused for a bunch of 9th grade Catholic girls.

Presuming it was a girls school, probably for examining one’s own lady parts.

I called something “the bomb” the other day and my mind did a record scratch, like, did I actually say that unironically??

I mean, you do you! My daughter agrees with you in matters of taste. I did think it was awfully funny what the Scots thought of as “American.”

Okay this is totally not what you’re asking but I have to share a funny story. (To answer your actual question, can’t think of anything but I don’t live in NY or Chicago so…)

My family visited Scotland when my daughter was about 6, and there was one night we got to a hotel and just needed some food, and not a lot of places near us were open. But there was a pizza place, which would satisfy the kids. My daughter chose the “American” pizza, which had chicken, barbecue sauce, and yellow corn on it. (Yes, I’m serious.) She has been asking for that pizza for years since then. WTF?