This hits. I used to love hiking. I used to hike all the time. It’s free. But I have to drive there. That takes fuel. And the more I drive my car, the more likely it is that something on it will break. I can’t afford a repair bill right now, and I can’t afford to be without a car. I have a one hour commute to work with no public transportation available, and I have zero friends or family to help me, so if I’m without a car, I can’t get to work, now I lose my job, I can’t pay rent and lose my home, and I’m homeless.

All I want to do is go back to hiking to relieve some of the anxiety of life, but just thinking about it sends me into a doom spiral of “what if something happens and you ruin your life because you wanted to go walk in the woods”.

I always forget you can get just the card without the passport.

In my state you can apply to get your ballot by mail, but you have to do that for every election (which reminds me, I need to send my application in for the next election). If you don’t do that you can go in person to the voting location that is predetermined for you based on your address. They have a list of everyone who is registered as eligible to vote in person at that location. When you register to vote you get a voter ID card in the mail which is basically a little paper card with your name, county, and the location that you vote at. You just take your voter card with you to vote and they cross you off the list and give you your ballot to vote in person. If you already registered to vote by mail but you forgot to send your ballot in you can take your mail-in ballot to your in person location and they’ll tear it up and let you vote in person.

For people who might not be in the US and don’t understand why this is a bad idea in the US and proportionately hurts poor people, proof of citizenship is usually a passport. A passport costs $130. You need supporting documents like your birth certificate, SSN, and a drivers license/state ID to get it. For your first passport you usually have to make an appointment to go somewhere authorized like a library, post office, or courthouse to apply, and then they send the application off and it can take weeks to months to get back, depending how backed up the processing agency is (and I’m sure there will be artificial delays during voting years if this passes). Also, they are passing laws limiting where you can go to apply, so now libraries and the post office are losing the ability to process passport applications, so people will have to go to the county courthouse, which could be a long drive from where they live, especially if you live in a rural area. For people who don’t drive, or only have one car that is shared with another working adult, or use public transportation that has a limited range (or just doesn’t exist in most of the US), or are disabled and can’t travel far, this can be a huge problem.

Also, all these places are only open during normal business hours, so you probably have to take time off work to go apply. Federal minimum wage is only $7.25/hr while the living wage is actually much higher (living wage for 1 adult living alone in a 1 bedroom apartment where I live was considered almost $23/hr in 2024), and if someone is making minimum wage or close to it they almost certainly aren’t getting paid time off, so now they have to come up with $130 for the fee and lose time off work.

God of War: Ragnarok.

I don’t have a console so I had to wait for it to port to PC, then wait til it went on sale and I could snag it at a more reasonable price. I loved the one before it and was so excited to play. The first couple hours were good, and then I felt like it was an endless repetition of fight a boss, talk about our feelings while we walk to fight another boss, talk about our feelings some more, and repeat. The part where you have to play as Atreus helping that giant girl do her daily chores made me want to weep from boredom and it just went on forever. I think I gave up shortly after Freya met her brother again, but I don’t really remember the storyline because it was just so mind numbingly exhausting, like listening in on a bunch of therapy sessions (and I’m super pro “take care of your mental health and go to therapy if you need it”, but if I have to listen to a literal god whining and acting willfully helpless for an entire video game I’m out).

I have been told that it is actually a good game that gets better and I should give it another go, but I’m not sure if it’s good for MY mental health.

All my phone has is on it is an absolutely embarrassing amount of memes and pictures of my cat. There aren’t even any nudes on it, although maybe I should take some to traumatize any government agent who goes digging through it. Would serve them right.

I work in EMS. I’m also constantly checking out people’s veins (veins are beautiful!)

Any house I go into I’m mentally determining if a stretcher would get into the home, how easy it would be to get it around, and how I could get someone out if the stretcher didn’t fit. Basically everywhere I go I’m like “how easy would it be to get you out if you dropped unconscious?” I’m also judging how well the home is set up for maneuverability if the person living there has a sudden loss of mobility - even young people can break a bone and end up on crutches or temporarily in a wheelchair and you want more room to move than you may think. My apartment is up several flights of steps with no elevator, but if I could scoot myself up the stairs and get inside my apartment I’d be ok. I have everything set up in such a way that if I was injured I could get around very well inside for a few months, it would just be the coming in and out that would be a problem.

I also always back my car into parking spots, because we always back the ambulance in. When we aren’t on calls the ambulance is always backed in so that if we get a call we can leave quickly, and if we are on a call the ambulance is backed in so we can leave quickly if the scene becomes unsafe.

I started the first book February 3rd after a podcaster I listen to casually mentioned it and said it was a great read. I’m on the 7th book now 😂

I work in EMS. When we respond to house fires in the middle of the night there’s kind of two different ways they go. When people have smoke detectors and their house catches on fire in the middle of the night they’re the ones who call us and we get on scene to find them outside their home in their pajamas, watching their house burn, very shaken up but ok. They never need anything from us ambulance-wise except maybe some blankets. When people don’t have smoke detectors in their homes and they catch on fire in the middle of the night a neighbor or passer-by calls the fire in and we get on scene and the firefighters are dragging bodies out to us.

I’m in my 30s and I don’t feel ready for a job. Work sucks, I’d rather chill at home all day and do whatever I want, but unfortunately I got bills to pay, I live alone and I like my little apartment. Also, I spent 2 months at home on medical leave last year and the toll it took on my mental health was incredible. As much as I hate working, I need something to get me up and out of my home and around other people (and I hate people).

I would seriously consider trying to get at least a part time job. Growth is painful, but you can’t become a better person if you never push yourself forward and do the hard things.

I don’t think there’s a lot of doubt anymore that they interfered with the last few elections in some way, the only real argument is whether it actually mattered. But they’re testing the bounds of what they can get away with and building their own army of hired thugs and I definitely believe they plan to use it to interfere with voting, opposing politicians, and anyone else they don’t like or who stands in their way. If this isn’t put to a hard stop very soon Minneapolis is going to be written about in history books as the very beginning of a period of violence and evil, instead of the middle of it.

They’re putting far too much money into all of this to stop with immigrants. If anyone thinks they’re going to deport the immigrants and go “well that’s it boys, good job, close 'er up and you’re all unemployed now, thanks for your hard work” they’re deluded, but then again it feels like a lot of people have happily been deluded for years anyway.

Ironically, if Greenland ever did become part of the US all those people that Trump is pretending to care about will instantly lose free or even affordable healthcare.

Why is Trump sending free healthcare to other countries while US citizens are dying of easily preventable illnesses because they can’t afford medical care? I thought he was all about America first?/s

Lost Shadow by Gunship

“When someone tells me he is politically neutral, I always ask which politics he specifically has in mind” - Baptism of Fire (The Witcher Book 5)