I’ve got an ankle tattoo matching my husband’s shoulder one, got them on our honeymoon, they’re about a shared established fandom with no visible romantic connotations.

I’ve been planning to get a full sleeve celebrating my favourite operas for my 50th, so a couple more years still to deliberate. If any of you know a tattoo artist doing blackwork and who would be interested in the challenge of weaving together Bluebeard, Einstein, Trovatore, and Rossini chaos (with nods to other things if it doesn’t get too messy), preferably in Europe, let me know. 😁

And if someone recognized me based on that rather specific plan, hi!

I blame that the world, especially work, is more unforgiving of ADHD traits. Scatterbrained-ness isn’t as much of a deal in agriculture (where you usually can course-correct in time, I’d imagine) or monotonous factory repetition (of course it probably really sucks for ADHD-Hs for… well… monotonous repetition), but definitely is in an office environment. Also so many things now prey on your attention in constantly developing ways (all the ads trying to sell you things, just about every online service, streaming services, social media) that it scrambles even NT peoples’ brains, so of course it only makes it harder for ADHDers.

Adding Oulu, Finland.

• Map, abt 10 km diameter around city center
• Map, abt 20 km diameter, designated bicycle routes but not necessarily “baana”
• In action

It mulled in the background for about 30 years to process, and then I came to the conscious conclusion that out of all the possible equally pointless reasons to hang around, for me satisfying my curiosities and improving the world for my fellow experience-capable-beings are the ones I want to do. Of course I still slip into mind-numbing distractions a lot, that’s just being human in the world we live in.

That, and that practically, what are the options anyway? No point in ending it early, or wasting your finite life on something you don’t actually want.

My choice of philosophy is absurdism, honestly because I think it sounds more fun than “optimistic nihilism” or “existentialism”. IMHO there’s a whole host of philosophies that basically suggest the same guide to living well, with different emphasis (for example):

1. Figure out what you want (<- 20th century existentialism)
2. Do it the best you can (<- stoicism, confucianism)
3. Don’t let the other stuff distract you (<- stoicism, buddhism)

buttmonkey → b8y

I’d read b8y as “baby”, so absolutely ❤ this. Was this intended, am I an idiot for not reading the others as anything?

I’m going to steal this.

As a woman diagnosed at 40+, when responsibilities finally overwhelmed my coping mechanisms, this rather irritates me. “No you don’t have this condition we’re just starting to take seriously, for which there are medications and which entitles you to at least understanding if not accommodations in the workplace. You have ~lady hormones~. Are we going to acknowledge perimenopausal women might face challenges and benefit from workplace adjustments, but are still capable people? Silly hormonal thing, of course not.”

Ameglian Major Cow

While this is often true, I think it’s also important to say that peoples’ mental health struggles are equally real even if they have financial security and everything apparently well in their lives.

I absolutely adore that you looked it up, and feel seen and validated.

Any idea of how I could use RSS feeds but priotitize the sources? So if overnight the same piece of news has been reported by several sources, the reader would leave my favourite but skip the others?

I really need to find a way to scale back from my 1k daily headings but am loathe lose sources.

I thought this was on medical care for their dogs. Nope, acquisition. Huh.

Honestly this is the kind of ridiculous luxury shit I wish rich people would spend their money on. Bet those dogs are loved as heck, and improve the family’s quality of life more than $200k of just about anything else. That’s $200k that stayed in real economy without disappearing into the stock market black hole, into more “stuff” and pollution, or into inflating house prices by treating a fundamental need as an investment. Kudos to them!

Reading Iain Banks’ Culture series, don’t think that’s it…

There are so many grades of lapsang souchong. Some of them even add artificial flavourings to supplement/in stead of smoking. AFAIK the original chinese version isn’t even smoked, historically it’s either a 100% made-for-export product, or smoking was a way to make the lower quality leaves into something more interesting, and even then more subtly than the the tarry, campfire-y version we know today.

Point being, once you’ve tried one souchong, you’ve tried one souchong. Check what’s in the bag, and if you want to try again find a tea store that lets you taste or sniff beforehand. If you want to try a certainly non-smoked version, find jin jun mei; it’s a premium grade tea priced accordingly though.

I got my diagnosis under a year ago, and the way I’ve intellectualised it to myself is:

I’m in the top 5-10% for scatterbrained-ness or enthusiasm, or bottom 5-10% for working memory or personal project completion.

That’s it. If I was among the 5-10% shortest people, I wouldn’t have a “height deficit disorder”, but learning some tricks would be helpful, there are tools (or in our case meds) to help, and I’d possibly need accommodations sometimes. Ideally the world would work on universal design principles and include the extremes, but unfortunately it isn’t so. Same principle applies.

It’s not friends I miss though, it’s community groups.

Why I think so or why it gets me weird looks?

Healthcare is expensive. For public healthcare, it’s always a balancing act between how much to tax, and how to distribute taxed funds. I don’t want sky-high taxes (already live in Finland, not exactly a tax haven); and 100k€ spent on e.g. education is better than 100k€ on a treatment that will likely give someone a year more of life.

For insurance, same, I just don’t want to pay as much as “truly full coverage” would cost. I’m fine dying if a year of keeping me alive would cost over 50-100k$ to the shared pool, whatever it was, and would want to share the pool with others who feel like me. I wouldn’t grudge more costly premium plans for other people though.

I’m all for healthcare “rationing”, that is cost-effectiveness analysis for both public and insurance-funded healthcare and setting a cap that will exclude even some evidence-based interventions.

I’ve got two, so I have a whole week of time to keep forgetting to refill it.