Thank you for the tip with Inside Out, I’ll check it out! It was on our watchlist anyway and gets promoted to top rank now.

With the kids’ media that’s the thing - there is still always a sibling. We’ve always read a lot to our four year old daughter and every longer story with an only child ends up with a sibling being born. It breaks me because I actually would love to have more children and every time that I felt safe with a story and it finally was ok, a happy family of three, they add a sibling. My daughter won’t go through that. I won’t go through that. Unless, of course, the parents are divorced, one is dead, it’s an adoptive family, or a queer family. All of these are great and depict amazing, valid family structures, and I like these books too, but they still don’t represent our dynamic.

Funnily enough my daughter caught me reading Sailor Moon mangas once and at least there the protagonist has an only child. (If you do not count parallel universe stories which I don’t for my sanity.) Sailor Moon makes me cope the most currently.

In my case I think they really were angry because I am a Russian (only) citizen but I have never lived in Russia. I don’t hold an inner passport, only an outer passport (absolutely unfathomable to them), and I actually did at a point try to get the basic insurance set up, but I would have needed the inner passport for that. For them it was absolutely whack that I am a Russian citizen that has no Basic Insurance number and my very special circumstances (to add to that, at that point I was fluent in speaking and absolutely illiterate in reading and writing) were too complicated for them to follow and “every person has an insurance number wtf you’re Russian wtf is wrong with you just go and get a fucking number what’s your problem wtf why don’t you have a passport everyone has a passport from age 14 onwards wtf what is wrong with you” was absolutely the attitude.

But really, I understand, my situation was very complicated and my reasons were valid but going into all these details in a clinic, let alone an ER setting, would absolutely tire and drain the last remaining energy out of them. I absolutely prefer them being not lovey dovey and hand holding while telling me with a compassionate smile that they cannot do a CT scan without an insurance number, but instead getting necessary treatment and analysis on the spot. I don’t care if you call me names. I’ll forever be grateful to them.

I once collapsed on the streets in Russia when I was an exchange student there. Started seeing a message bubble over and over in one eye, then collapsed, I couldn’t get “help” out. Idk what happened or how I got there but I woke up in the hospital. Someone must have called an ambulance and I had a CT scan of my head while I was out. They did blood work and whatnot. Got food, it was just oatmeal and bread, but I mean, it’s something.

I had traveller’s insurance and wackily tried to explain that this is common and a “I pay out of pocket they reimburse me” thing instead of Universal Basic Insurance so they decided nah not worth it just go home. I haven’t paid a single cent. I’m not even sure I’m in their records, although I did show my passport.

I was in the ER on another trip to Russia, they really can’t be bothered. Checked me for appendicitis and thankfully I was cleared for a flight home.

I mean they were hella rude and have that typical baseline of Russian angriness and annoyance but you know what, I got taken care of well.

To me it is the number of children. All the happy family movies had families with multiple children, and it feels like only child families are portrayed overwhelmingly as dysfunctional and tragic.

I’m trying to work through this mindset because we only have one child, but it is hard because subconsciously, I feel like a failure, like I cannot live up to this expectation and my child is doomed to this gloomy, sad existence.

If anyone is reading this, I beg you, prove me wrong. This isn’t a challenge, I just desperately need picture perfect single child family portrayals.

I was in NYC back in early 2020 and downloaded the Uber app for that, there was no Uber in my country at that point. I’ve never used it since then. I still get emails every fucking month that my Uber account is about to expire and be deleted unless I log in. For 3 years now. JUST FUCKING DELETE IT FFS

I love pure cranberry juice actually. I mean I live in Germany so I cannot drink pure juice anyway, that would be insanity, it has to be at least 50% mixed with sparkling water. And cranberry juice is ideal for a lower juice content spritz when it is hot outside and you’re sick of drinking Apfelschorle.

Yeah maybe mixing up medicines and giving 11 year old me iodine tincture to drink wasn’t the best move

Honest question as someone who has no tattoos: why do people get cover ups instead of getting the tattoo removed? Is it a price issue? It often looks like a deliberate choice. But I cannot imagine that having a funny cover up of a tattoo you regret and still end up being reminded of is better than having it gone altogether.

Honestly 90% of the movies we want to watch aren’t on Prime (which we happen to have for non-movie-reasons) and we would need extra subscriptions for each of them. It is cheaper and more convenient for us to buy used blu rays or dvds of the movies. It’s 3,99€ to rent a movie for 48 hours (best case, usually it is some arthouse subscription) or 2,17€ for the DVD on medimops. We watch during lunch break so we usually can’t make it through a movie in 48 hours without stressing. (My spouse does not want to pirate anymore and I support that.)

Our daughter has her own small collection of cartoons and anime that she can choose for a TV treat instead of scrolling through the endless void of the internet.

I love booklets too much to ever let go of CDs.

Thank you, I was going nuts not seeing Fleabag. At some point in life I just kept watching it in a loop for several weeks. At this point I am like that girl who could watch Shrek in her head.

😭😭😭

I am getting irrationally sad because my headcanon is that this is Colin Farrell’s character from In Bruges

I use windows because I have no desire, time, or reason to put effort into switching to linux. Whenever I need a computer I am mostly asked to work with ms office anyway. If I will ever need to use computers more I might make the change, but so far I use my broken ass windows computer.

To be fair, I did know a couple of CEOs who really had a vision and were working like mad. To be even more fair, they were still cutthroat bitches and were ready to dispose of any “human resource” as they saw fit.

I love Sailor Moon. I know that it is an important franchise for the LGBTQ community. But I disagree with the popular takes that claim that all the seshis are bisexual/pansexual. I won’t hate on anyone’s ship either, but seeing every hug of two characters as proof that there is romantic/sexual chemistry between them is not only tiring but puts it into a light where any kind of physical touch or emotional connection between two people has to be romantic or sexual and cannot be platonic, friendship based, or simple kindness. It has an “oh look Timmy is hugging Susie he must have a crush on her haha!” energy that tainted tons of friendships in my youth.

I think part of that annoyance comes with the fact that there are canonically very gay characters in the franchise already. Two senshis are literally lesbians. They include a third one (non sexually tho) in a rainbow family construct to raise a reborn senshi. You have gender switching senshis. It is quite versatile as it is. For what it’s worth, I am talking about characters who canonically have straight love interests in the main story or in some side story.

But that being said, if you find strength, support, or comfort in your headcanon and interpretation of any fictional character being a closeted gay, that’s obviously great and more power to you. If this is what you need in your life that’s absolutely fine.

The First Daughter has been doing “a lot of reflection on how I want to live, how I think people are increasingly wanting to live.”

Her conclusion: We all want to hide away on some abandoned Mediterranean island that we discovered after jumping off a friend’s boat and swimming to shore. And now, Ivanka is working to “build something that’s a tangible manifestation of that” by constructing a $1.4 billion luxury hotel complex on an Albanian island.

The First Daughter dreamily described how she and husband Jared Kushner initially found Sazan (“We swam to the island, we went for a hike, barefoot all the way up to the top,”) and have, over the course of several years, “developed the opportunity to help realize it’s potential and transform it.”

Good God.

But why the massages? Serious question

Wait they planned on getting pregnant? Edit: ok I saw your other comment, this is bonkers

My daughter is 4 too. While I get the worries, and I absolutely don’t want to encourage or downplay teenage pregnancies, I’ve thought about it a lot, and if she ever became pregnant at a young age, I decided that my first reaction needs to be one of joy and congratulations. Because if she ends up keeping the kid, it’s gonna be loved, and I want them to know that people were happy about them existing and being chosen to exist, and not just looked at as a burden and accident. I can’t imagine how awful it must feel if the first reaction from everyone is shock, disgust, “fafo”, anger. That being said, the next thing is I would make sure I’d support her no matter what decision she takes. Abortion, adoption, raising the kid, I’m on board because it is her life, her body, her decision.

I hope your kid has books today.

My kid has books and we constantly read books so I am absolutely outread by the end of the day. To be fair, the hat trilogy by Jon Klassen and gymnastics for the tail Grigori Oster are a lot of fun to read and cut straight to the point, not like grown up books, so I find a lot of enjoyment in what we read in general. But whenever I try to pick up a book for adults I now automatically fall asleep. Best I can do is manga and graphic novels right now. Unfortunately my kid finds them and mistakes these for comics, I ended up having to read Persepolis to a four year old.

This has also impacted my ability to go back to work. I can’t read a scientific paper without falling asleep anymore.