The way our urban design influences society and community, and how the loss of third spaces and the dominance of cars in Western society has led to the loneliness epidemic and influence bubbles. I would talk about the movement to reclaim main street and encourage “traditional development”, and how that leads to the micro-encounters that help people feel like they belong somewhere. How parks, plazas and pedestrian areas create third places where people can casually encounter diverse individuals and create friends and community connections. Also with a hearty side about public transportation and how efficient it is, and what a better neighbor a tram rail is than a road of similar passenger load. This speech is pretty much 30 seconds away from coming out of me during any conversation anyway and it’s a conscious effort to stop myself. Would be nice to let it out.

My opinion as a pragmatist and a woman: an engagement shouldn’t be a surprise. The formality of the proposal itself can be a surprise, but just like a birthday party it should be something expected and at the very least loosely discussed with the person. Asking “what kind of proposals do you like?” and figuring out if they want something public or private, or in front of friends or something small is really important. What kind of engagement ring should go in this discussion. She might hate diamonds, she might love them, she might have a metal allergy, she might have a stone that means a lot to her, she might hate rings with stones at all because they catch on things. You don’t know until you ask, and by asking you’re showing her the respect and that you value her opinion.

Yes, he’s attracted to you. However, his behavior could be a warning sign depending on how old he is. Is he your age? If so I think he’s excited and enthusiastic about getting your attention, but if he’s older, I agree with other posters this sounds like he’s trying to buy your affection. It’s a warning sign if he’s in his 20s, and a huge blaring red alert if he’s over 30.

If he’s one of your peers, I would be cautiously optimistic but NOT go fishing and definitely do not let him drive you again. This is women’s safety 101: do not ever rely on a date for transportation, do not meet in isolated areas, and let someone know where you will be and when you should be home. If you are in a place that is car dependent, you are at the total mercy of whoever is driving, and giving them too much control over your freedom. Even with ride shares available that is a risk you should try to avoid.

Unless he has already told you where he’s going fishing and it’s somewhere visible and well populated, or you’re going with friends as a group, then you should suggest an alternate activity that puts you around people. Other people are safety, and accountability. If his intentions are good, he should be happy to accommodate you and won’t mind.

I remember when I was 19, I was not the beauty standard, so I didn’t have my guard up as much as my peers. It was flattering and exciting to have someone overtly interested in me. I was frankly naive and oblivious to the fact that I could be preyed on and manipulated. I thought I was smart and confident but I had no idea what was going on around me and a lot of people I thought were “just being nice” were wolves circling. You should know that there are a lot of men who see someone young and inexperienced in dating who might be kind of insecure and see them as a juicy target for control, abuse, and manipulation. Just take precautions. Things might be totally fine, but the consequences for them being a predator can be severe.

I was going to recommend Primal Kitchen! I only will get theirs, it tastes like what (IMO) ketchup is supposed to taste like.

Thankfully ice cream is something that can be easily made at home and the jump in quality makes it well worth it. Frozen drum type ice cream machines end up in thrift shops all the time, but are also under $100 new. I don’t eat any ice cream that isn’t home made now, it’s completely spoiled me. I use light cream, whole milk, sugar, my flavoring of choice, and add a little alcohol (the equivalent of a tsp of wine per serving) to keep it soft. I really can’t recommend it enough!

Try a used Dell Precision series from the past 6 years. That should be roughly in that price point and will probably be an old business cast off with either decent integrated graphics or a real graphics card depending on how patient you are about waiting for a good deal. They are solidly made with aluminum cases and made to take a beating. I have a Precision I bought used from 2012 that’s still going, and just got another from 2020 for about $230 usd with shipping. Mind you this is a US perspective and I don’t know much about international markets.

I enjoy a pot of spiced black tea, usually a chai blend with cinnamon, ginger and cloves. Sometimes I will add cocoa powder and pour the tea over that with sugar and milk to make a chai tea/hot cocoa drink that is a highlight of my day.

There are some lower sugar sodas, or hybrid sodas that use fruit juice along with Stevia or monkfruit in order to cut the weird taste. Olipop is my favorite, and Spindrift has some good flavors.

Hobbies, I can’t get enough of them, gotta collect 'em all. Every couple months it’s a new fixation.

Personally I’m fine with the restrictions. I’m not in any age restricted servers and I don’t use the Stage feature. I already have pms restricted to mutual servers. If they want to “assume I’m 13” let them. If I can get on voice with my D&D group idgaf.

No I’m not trusting them with my info, or RL identity, but it sounds like they’re not booting people off the service for not providing it.

I still get the itch to to start up Alpha Centauri sometimes, which came out in 1999.

Also needs to be said that he’s been creating for a decade and every video is consistently as good as the last one. The man single handedly spawned an entire genre and he just kept doing his own thing, algorithms and influencer culture be damned.

This blog perpetuates a lot of common myths about corsetry and I find that disappointing.

It’s a pretty widespread and common thing that children wear similar clothing to adults, and whatever the adult fashion is, kids often get a miniaturized version of it. The children’s corsets pictured in the ads there don’t minimize the waist or attempt to give them an hourglass, and would have been lightly boned or have no boning at all. If there was boning, it would have been made of flexible material like whale balleen (the material filter feeding whales have instead of teeth, which behaves like a soft thermoplastic) or ribbons, cording or even paper. These are not materials that can damage a body unless maybe you stab yourself with them or light them on fire.

Corsets were used to provide a smoothing layer under clothes, to give some structure and yes the fashionable silhouette. However, it was commonly understood that a body in clothing was very different from a body out of it. There was more body privacy and control over how your body was perceived. The combination of corsets, stays, “bodies” and strategic use of padding meant anyone could be the fashionable silhouette, no matter your natural body type. Far more women achieved those “tiny waists” by wearing bum pads, hip rolls, underskirts and crinolines, mutton sleeves and frilly blouses than tight lacing. It was all smoke and mirrors.

Now with skin tight knits and thin leggings and exposed skin the only way to have a fashionable silhouette is for your body to actually look like that, which fuels the fitness and weight loss industry. I find it interesting that these articles always talk about “unrealistic body standards” when ironically body standards have only gotten more aggressively unrealistic and unreasonable, not less.

Modern corsets have little to no resemblance to their historical counterparts, which were lightweight, flexible, practical support garments that provided some structure to the clothing of the time and bust support for women. Extreme outliers existed but were far from the norm. A lot of the period writing about the harm corsets were doing was written by men bloviating about how stupid they thought women were to wear the clothing they preferred, a time honored tradition which continues to this day.

There is nothing controversial here, children wore underwear too.

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Chores, organizing, cleaning. I spent so much time working on home projects this summer and when I look around it feels like I lost time. Somehow I’ve been working consistently without getting a foothold or making progress. Still laundry in the dryer and a mess everywhere.

I guess everyone has their own way of boiling an egg!

I’ve been very happy with the steamed egg method. I put a steamer basket in a pot with just enough water that it touches the bottom of the basket, bring it to boil and then put as many eggs as I want in to the basket using a pair of tongs with silicone grippies. I set a timer for 11min, put it on medium heat, cover the pot and set up an ice bath. After 11min the eggs go in the ice bath for a minute or two and I crack them and roll them on a cutting board to loosen the shells. They come out exactly how I like them with a golden yolk with a soft orange center and the shells are super easy to peel as long as I get my thumb under the membrane.

I’ve made them this way with fresh eggs, week old eggs, month old eggs, home chicken eggs, storebought eggs, and never had issues with peeling.

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Hmm maybe then, some friends in a suburb were saying their neighborhood had aged out of it. The place I went last night was hopping and had a lot of traffic. Maybe the internet has made people optimize their targets?

Trick or treating is alive and well in places where you can walk safely, and houses aren’t too far apart from each other. The problem is too many places in the US don’t fit that description.

His website has some good policy positions.

He wants election finance reform, believes in environmental protections, medicare for all, protecting small businesses and is anti-billionaire. Seems like the right kind of anti-establishment populist and it’s refreshing to see someone so unapologetically progressive.