Legitimately, the biggest thing that helped me was to join an RPG group. For me it was D&D. It made just talking to random people way easier, and I made a ton of friends throughout the years. Granted, I play exclusively online and join random games now and again, so I always have a new batch of people to talk to.

Otherwise, ask questions. Not boring, “how’s the weather” / “how are you” questions. But questions like “do you have any pets” or “do you have a favorite place/restaurant/hike/bookstore in the area”. Personal ish questions. People like to talk about their favorites or their things or their pets.

Also, mirroring questions. If someone asks you about your pets, asking them back is a good way to keep a conversation flowing, so I’ve found.

Hello fellow Washingtonian.

Sincerely, the moths flying out of my wallet

17 years ago. That is over half my lifetime, good god.

John Williams Acapella

CHEEZITS!!!

I love the idea of 13 months in a year with leap days here and there to make it so days don’t fall on the same days of the week. As much as that could be nice for planning stuff, I agree that people should have the chance for their birthdays and other celebrations to fall on weekends.

My radical thinking is that we keep the first 12 months as close to what they already are and the 13th month is just a big holiday. Kinda how England seems to treat August. And while we’re at it, let’s change working expectations to be no more than 32 hours a week

An electric eel is not an eel.
A mountain goat is not a goat.
A maned wolf is not a wolf.
A mountain chicken is not a chicken.

Also, there is an animal called the Headless Chicken Fish.

I knowww it’s shit on, and I hate that the price went up. But I can’t get rid of Spotify. I don’t love it, but it’s definitely the best music app I’ve used. I do love that it shows local concerts based on the music I listen to.

At least box elders are distinct looking. I’ve been getting elm bugs after moving to a different state and from afar they look like cockroaches. Eughgggghhhhh

BEARS! Gahhhh they look so cuddly and cuuute.

Having a domesticated bird would be really cool, I think. Like a roadrunner or puffin. A kiwi? Imagine having a hummingbird ride in your front shirt pocket?

Thank goodness I’m not the only weirdo that does this.

I was laughed at just recently for this.

I live basically on the border on the US side and pray that BC changing will allow WA to change.

Full DST is better imo. Having light after work/school/the day makes the dark months so much more tolerable. Helps alleviate my SAD partially, personally.

I prefer rounds - less cylindrical tots means more crunch per cm. But same thoughts.

I married my first bf and after 12 years, we split.

Ouch. Oof. Ouchie

I don’t know if it’s normal, but intrusive thoughts like that happen to, I’d imagine, a lot of people.

The other commenter that said you can train yourself to sort of step back from them isn’t wrong. That’s a big sort of “mindfulness” thing. Maybe that can help you and I would advise looking up some info on it.

Personally, I bounce off of the whole of mindfulness, it just doesn’t work for me. What’s helped me is to structure some sort of way to move away from that thought. In my head, I have the vague script of the garbage thoughts written on a huge mental chalkboard - like the ones in college lecture halls - and I will imagine a big eraser just cleaning the whole thing. Like a sort of power washing simulator thing. Haha.

But I would say maybe check yourself for habit revolving around these thoughts. Like are you checking your door is locked for sure or putting your blankets in just the right way? It might be more of an OCD behavior in that case, and I would definitely suggest talking to a professional.

I found Midnight Mass a little too pretentious and slow, but it was interesting.

Bly, for me, has a great pace with several twists that I would have never guessed. Even knowing the twists, I enjoy watching it still and picking out some of the fun things.

But I think what just brings it above Hill House for me is that I think it’s a really beautiful love story in several different ways. And truth be told, I’m an absolute sucker for it all.

I think I’d probably go for the YouTube version too. I love both, but yt is probably the better one by a slight margin

It’s the
✨Poop hole loophole✨

Since someone else mentioned Arcane,
My choice would be Chernobyl. I watch it probably once a year and I’m just as hooked every single time. Damn fine work.

I also adore Haunting of Bly Manor. Haunting of Hill House ranks just below that one, I think. But both of those are very good.

And if weird and irreverent are your thing, Bee and Puppycat is so cozy and fun.

I call myself a homing pigeon because I have some wicked intuition with spatial knowledge.

So that being said, yes. I could definitely map out everywhere I’ve lived or visited for an okay amount of time. I could also probably give a pretty decent map of the surrounding areas of each.

Yes.