There’s a webcomic called Just Roommates that’s based on this concept of the suits themselves taking on a persona.

Agree with everyone else that this isn’t normal for someone your age and get a second opinion.

However addressing your other questions: you’re at an age where lifestyle starts to really matter. Diet, exercise, ergonomics, environmental exposure to pollution/toxins, alcohol/drug use, sleep habits: these are all things that many healthy young adults can avoid having to worry about… until suddenly they can’t anymore. It is common, especially starting around age 30, to find there’s unhealthy behaviors from your teens and 20s that you just can’t do or do to excess anymore. It’s different for everyone; for some people it’s that they can’t sleep on a crappy mattress anymore, or drink certain types of liquor, or pull all nighters, or eat garbage, etc etc.

So while it sounds like you have some personal health issues outside of what’s “normal,” you still are at an age where the cumulative effects of a poor lifestyle can start to catch up to you. I think a lot of people greatly underestimate how sedentary their lifestyles are in particular, and of all the behaviors to change for the better as you age, going from sedentary to active is probably the hardest, given that our world is built to keep us sitting: sitting in our cars, sitting at our desks, sitting on our couches, basically sitting from the moment we wake until we go to sleep. Humans never lived like this until very recently: basically every decade since the personal automobile became the standard mode of transportation it’s steadily gotten worse. So yes, definitely do some doctor shopping, but now is also a great age to take stock in your lifestyle and how you’re treating your body. Because yes, it does get a little harder each year, but the speed of which it gets harder is at least partially up to you.

Actually harvested carrots can last for months if buried in sand and stored in a cool place.

The difference is if the primary (sometimes only) admin of your instance loses interest, goes to jail, or gets hit by a truck, your entire instance could be dead in the water, whereas there are way more safeguards to “established” social media like Reddit and Twitter. Plus the issue of “well shit my instance got defederated from most of the fediverse because it turns out the admin is an asshat” is completely nonsensical on platforms without instances. Example: before I knew that Lemmy had a tankie problem, I almost signed up on lemmygrad because I thought it was just a witty pun…

Plus when you say “point them to lem.ee” what scenario are you imagining? Because “you should join reddit” or “our business is on Facebook” or “Twitter is a great resource for artists” are all straightforward and easy pieces of information to convey and pick up. “Join Lemmy, a subset of the fediverse, I signed up via lemmy.world although I hear lem.ee is also good, but don’t let that stop you from picking another instance” is like… Dude, people just want to go to [site].com, click on “sign up”, enter a username and password (and maybe email) and that’s it. Just having to explain to people that “lemmy.com” isn’t a thing is already too complicated for most folks.

Lemmy (or at least lemmy.world) was bonkers levels of buggy last summer during the reddit blackout. Like, literally unusable levels of buggy. Getting the word out that it’s (mostly) bug-free now would probably be good, because I’m sure there were many redditors who tried it and quickly swore it off as a pile of shit.

Otherwise I’m in agreement that the instance-selection part of sign-up is a huge barrier, because what instance you choose is actually really important but it’s overwhelming when you’re just getting started. Plus not being able to migrate your account/communities/posts to another instance if yours goes to shit/shuts down/turns out to not fit your needs makes the fediverse feel really unstable.

Everyone makes fun of California’s prop 65 warnings, but this is exactly the situation they exist for: knowing which colorful plate sets to avoid at Crate & Barrel.

You say this like we don’t still have kitchenware with lead (or other nasties like cadmium) in them, often for purely aesthetic reasons. Most of these are discontinued products still in circulation, but some are still being produced (in theory they’re “safe for use” because the heavy metals are sealed behind something nontoxic, but scratches and chips may expose them).

There is plenty of grain-free food out there; it’s even a search option on chewy. The problem is the grain filler is often replaced by something else that’s either not nutritious for cats or possibly even harmful (like potato and peas), and that still doesn’t resolve the moisture content issue.

My cat gets both with every meal. My understanding is that wet food is much more nutritious, if for no other reason than the moisture content. Fortunately my cat is pretty good about drinking water, but getting enough hydration can be a problem for some individuals. My cat will usually eat the wet food first, then snack on the dry food over the next few hours.

I’ve watched family cats rack up huge vet bills and cause much heartache because they received improper nutrition; wet food may be way more expensive and inconvenient, but it’s a worthwhile investment (same as with humans!)

If you do, the full Xerces plant lists database (all US regions) is here https://xerces.org/publications/plant-lists

And the plants database is here https://plants.usda.gov/home

A great resource to get you started on native/pollinator plants is Xerces society. They have two plant guides for your area: https://xerces.org/publications/plant-lists/monarch-nectar-plants-midwest and https://xerces.org/publications/plant-lists/native-plants-for-pollinators-and-beneficial-insects-midwest. You can cross-reference these guides with the USDA Plants database (linked above) which has county-level data (zoom way in on the map) if you only want to plant species native to your county.

It can be difficult to find some native plant species at nurseries, in which case I source seeds online and plant those instead. Sometimes they don’t work out (poor germination) but seeds are so much cheaper than buying plant starts so it’s still more frugal even if half of the species you buy are unable to germinate. It’s best to source seed as locally as possible (a company based in Chicagoland, or at least WI, IL, or IN).

I’m in the PNW so we don’t have a lot of overlap in native species, however I can recommend selfheal. Selfheal is a great ground cover that’s native to much of the US (including Cook Co). If you let it grow it gets to be about a foot high, but you can also mow it and it’ll stay more grass height. It produces little purple flowers and is evergreen in my area (but probably not yours). I haven’t had any luck getting it to self propagate or germinate from seeds I’ve spread in the yard, but the plants I’ve germinated in pots (super easy) and planted in the ground have established and are still doing great years later. In other words, you can grow in amongst grass ala clover, or let it grow as a standalone plant.

But I guess that leads me to my main question, which is do you want to forego having a “lawn” entirely, or do you still want an area that can support foot traffic, but populated with lawn-substitute plants (eg native grasses and grass-companions like clover and selfheal)?

Years ago, when I was super into manga and anime, I tried to get into One Piece because of how popular it was getting (it was still finding its footing in the US but it was huge in Japan). I read the first few volumes of the manga and watched the first dozen or so anime episodes. It was well made but nothing about it grabbed me in a way that made me the least bit excited to continue (or even understand its wild popularity), especially compared to other shonen series at the time. The plot didn’t immediately hook me, and I guess neither the characters nor the premise/setting were interesting enough to keep me going until it did. Given how long the series has gone on for, I’m relieved I never got into it.

Anyone else struggle to find One Piece enjoyable?

I think Costco glasses are a good deal, even if you have to buy a one-year membership to get them. Don’t know if they’re available online, but don’t you want to try glasses on in person to make sure they fit and are comfortable?

I’ve heard there’s another reactor in the Willapa Hills that was constructed but never activated. Like some ghost story it still sits, unused, to this day.

Rearrange the photos so that upper left is lower right, upper right is lower left, lower left is upper left, and lower right is upper right, and you’ve got yourself a political compass meme.

Washington State checking in. They don’t call us “the evergreen state” for nothing!

All it took was sacrificing our river ecosystems and invalidating native tribes’ entire way of life

Ten or fifteen years ago I almost certainly would not have found the girls as bland and annoying as I do watching this today. I think a combination of having read/watched dozens of series with similar characters, as well as aging out of the teenage/young adult demographic, made me completely uninterested in these characters… to the point that watching TEW felt like I was unironically “watching it for the plot”: I’m just here for the trains, bizarre setting, and surreal vibe!

This is entirely a matter of opinion, of course. However of the people I know aged 30 and up who watch anime, I don’t think most of them would particularly enjoy the girls, and most likely would shy away from the series specifically because of their presence. That’s generally the type of audience I write reviews for; these reviews are posted to the “Animation and Comics after 30” community first and cross-posted here when relevant. Once upon a time I was into “cute girls find cute things series” (I re-watched Lucky Star at least once), but tastes change as you age, and while some older viewers may still enjoy these characters, I definitely did not.

One series I am really interested in this season is Dead Dead Demon’s Dededededestruction, in part because the teenage girl cast don’t look or act like stereotypical anime girls. Compared to most anime girls, it’s almost as if the manga author pulled an Alien and wrote the characters to be gender neutral, since they often act more how I’d expect teenage boys in anime to act. Watching this series reminds me of watching the live action series Derry Girls: here’s a cast that compared to most media feels like a real-life group of teenagers, awkward and weird. I don’t think the manga quite translates to the animated format, but that’s a topic for a separate review.

I’ll add in that Kino’s Journey was originally a light novel series, キノの旅 (Kino no Tabi). I never actually saw the anime, but really enjoyed the light novels (I read them in Japanese; hopefully the English translation is equally good).

I think Kino is a great series for anyone who enjoys dystopias and social commentary. It’s a bit like The Twilight Zone or Black Mirror with its episodic premise of “imagine if there were a society that functioned like [concept of the week]; wouldn’t that be interesting/weird/fucked up?” Definitely not your standard anime/light novel! And yes, the tone of TEW and Kino is completely different; as mentioned in another comment, the similarity is in the setting/premise of exploring different isolated communities that each have some bizarre unique feature.

Thanks, I’ll hop over and see what others said