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Well according to my idle google translating “peunc glave” (probably missing accents) means “shake their heads” in Romanian, that’s all I got for ya but maybe it’s something?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 5:05 PM on August 23, 2022

Thai basil is a much better fit for Asian food than Italian basil. I have a pot of it so I can just snip some off as needed.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 9:01 AM on August 22, 2022

I totally have this too, and someone just recommended that I try taking a shower as soon as I get off work. Have yet to implement this but it sounds like it could work!
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 3:37 PM on August 18, 2022

I think the human body kind of "knows" when it's safe to release. Like, have you ever been out, and you're like "yeah I kinda have to pee" and then as soon as you walk in your front door you're like "I have to pee RIGHT NOW".

My bra magically goes from totally unnoticed to unwearably uncomfortable the minute I walk in my front door.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 4:19 PM on August 19, 2022

Did he apologize for getting mad? Or for the long list of bullshit he pulled BEFORE he got mad that caused this whole situation?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 5:51 AM on August 18, 2022 marked best answer

I’ve been on the other side of this process many times in New York, and I think your first email would have gone in my “meet this person” pile but with misgivings, because you sound nice but possibly WAY TOO INTENSE for me. I think your attempts to explain precisely how chill you are wind up giving the exact opposite impression.

However, I also want to point out that the already-fucked housing market here is currently ULTRA fucked for a variety of reasons (which… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 3:34 PM on August 12, 2022

I would still lean towards leave it off, if that’s truly the only reason you’re including it. Reason being, I would be concerned that your “doesn’t really affect how I am as a roommate” meant “but when I say ‘doesn’t really” I mean “kinda does.’” To use a related example, I’ve lived with several vegetarians, and in some cases they were sincere that they didn’t care about what I did and in other cases it became a slow creep of me being made to feel uncomfortable keeping meat… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 8:25 AM on August 13, 2022

My family were all big readers so there were always books lying around on coffee tables. It became second nature that when you put down your water glass, you immediately put a book on top of it, otherwise our cat Pepper would bolt from wherever she was hiding and stick her paw or face right in it immediately. This book thing was so engrained that I had to make myself stop doing it when I went off to college. Our other cat, her littermate who had never lived apart from her since birth, never did… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 5:07 PM on August 10, 2022

If you don’t think it would be nice, why are you saying it would be nice? This person is presumably not psychic. Don’t get mad at them for taking you at your word.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 12:16 PM on August 9, 2022

I just managed a hiring committee for my replacement and, oh my god, so many people with perfectly good resumes DID NOT PREPARE AT ALL, like, didn’t understand what type of organization we were or what we actually did. You are a much better candidate than you think, because you are bothering to ask these questions.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 10:53 AM on August 9, 2022

I have never been able to figure out how people deal with this, they just literally drive blind.

My parents always pulled over to the shoulder and waited it out when this happened. I think a lot of people do that.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 2:49 PM on August 8, 2022

Yeah I’m going through this process myself and that Reddit has been my main source. (Also called the official hotline twice… apparently it’s fine and normal that I submitted in May and still haven’t heard anything official…)
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 4:47 AM on August 8, 2022

My friend was able to get a job as a vet tech with an unrelated undergrad degree. The pay isn’t necessarily great but it’s solid experience.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 9:28 AM on August 7, 2022

Olive oil any time you need oil.

I did want to ask about this specifically - my primary way of cooking (like when I’m throwing stuff together with no recipe) is strongly Chinese and Thai influenced, and I’m wondering if there’s a more neutral-flavored oil suitable for that kind of cooking that would be compliant with this.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 10:55 AM on July 31, 2022

Just got back from the store! Will update soon with what I’m planning in case it’s useful for someone else. Thank you guys, this was super helpful. Gotta say, it was weird walking around and looking at all the sweet stuff I wasn’t allowed to buy…
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 6:16 PM on July 31, 2022

If you felt you had to attend with a debilitating back injury, I wonder just how sick you’d need to be before you felt it was possible to not go. They way you describe this, it sounds like if this vacation happened the day you were released from the hospital after a triple amputation you’d still have to go (or you perceive it that way).
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 9:45 AM on July 31, 2022

I have a mother-in-law apartment in addition to my home and so I went to the County Roads and Bridges department and they gave me a second address. Which I showed to my post office and they allowed me a second box.

Well, yeah, because that's a fundamentally completely different scenario! If this person actually had two entirely distinct and separate units in their dwelling, of course there would be no problem. But they don't. So it's a problem.… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 11:32 PM on July 29, 2022

I write SFF and I would say that my work “has structure,” but I don’t ever sit down and think to myself “I am going to use X structure.” It’s more like I’ve absorbed a lot of ideas about how stories unfold from reading them over my life, and so when I start spinning an idea out into a plot in my head, things unconsciously fall into a structure. I don’t write by the seat of my pants, but neither do I really approach story creation analytically - I just think about my ideas and my characters for a… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 3:11 PM on July 29, 2022

It's definitely hard to ask for favors, but hey, gotta do what I gotta do, right? :)

Right! I’ve been working on this myself, and trying to change my mindset to - when a friend asks me for a favor like this, I feel honored and useful! And for some reason I don’t assume my friends will feel the same way, but usually they totally do!
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 4:00 PM on July 28, 2022

Story Genius is basically exactly this. I went through a workshop series that used it and I’d recommend checking it out for sure.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 11:54 AM on July 27, 2022

Y’all I assume a pair of self-described horror movie fans have seen The Thing. (Now, if you skipped In the Mouth of Madness as supposedly a lesser Carpenter movie, think again and add it to the list!)

I’ve been meaning to check out Burnt Offerings (1976), which was recommended to me as a great and influential haunted house movie that supposedly inspired Stephen King to write The Shining.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 10:32 PM on July 25, 2022

Since you have a history of picking an aspirational career track that doesn’t suit your skills, I would say that what you need to do now is to take a big big step back from thinking about what’s “marketable” and think about what you like and are good at (and what you hate and are bad at) ON A GRANULAR LEVEL. I’m talking about stuff like, I like organizing things, I hate being under rolling deadlines, I like writing but I don’t like writing to be all I do every day, I like jobs where I can be… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 8:18 AM on July 24, 2022

When I clicked your [more inside] I was expecting something like “I’m a marriage counselor but I cheat on my partner” or “I’m a prosecutor who compulsively shoplifts.” But it turns out you hate yourself for… wanting to have kids? Shopping at chains?

What you are describing is not hypocrisy. It is a feeling that people with power deliberately cultivate in people without power in order to make them blame themselves for systemic problems they have no actual power to change.… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 11:08 AM on July 23, 2022

Funny enough, I just started seeing a psychodynamic therapist and we had video connection issues initially in both sessions… so the first time, she called me on the phone instead, and the second time (when it became clear the problem wasn’t a one-off) she had us switch to a different video app that used less bandwidth, which worked great and we’ll use from now on.

Point being, just because this type of therapy can sometimes intentionally make you uncomfortable doesn’t… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 4:40 PM on July 22, 2022

He was socialized as and lived as a woman until fairly recently, including throughout most of the story, so I think a lot of the "cis men are useless" stereotypes aren't super applicable here.

You know this doesn’t make his behavior any better or more excusable, right?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 10:57 AM on July 9, 2022

It’s not your responsibility per se and I can see you being reluctant to do this, but… are there any receptacles nearby to throw butts in? Because as a person who used to smoke, sometimes I’d be out on the street and there would be absolutely NOWHERE to dispose of the butt, and then I’m just awkwardly walking for blocks and blocks with a dead butt in my hand, and it sucks, and it’s completely unsurprising that some people don’t bother.

“Well it SHOULD suck because… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 1:02 PM on June 4, 2022

For what it’s worth, the way you describe your relationship with your boyfriend was just how I felt about my one serious boyfriend. I loved him, he was family, he made me laugh all the time, he was my best friend, and I didn’t understand why it didn’t feel right, but it didn’t, so I ended it. I remember after we broke up, I wrote in my diary that I wished he had been my brother instead of my boyfriend, so that we could have been part of each other’s lives forever.

Yeah,… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 5:28 PM on June 2, 2022

Walking tacos.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 9:16 AM on May 29, 2022 marked best answer

Fictional, but I can’t recommend it enough: Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie: The Oregon Trail Diary of Hattie Campbell, 1847. I read it over and over as a kid. It does have some harrowing content (a few accidental deaths), but not graphic.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 8:25 AM on May 24, 2022

And I also don’t trust my view of my behavior because I know I’m really hard on myself.

With all the empathy in the word: You absolutely should not trust your own view of your behavior right now, because you are clearly in a terrible anxiety spiral about your social relationships, as shown by the almost a dozen questions you've asked about this guy and your ex-friends over the past couple of months. You are, in fact, being WAY… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 9:16 AM on May 22, 2022 marked best answer

To clarify: is death ok as long as there’s no gruesomely described violence? If so, the Miss Fisher books.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 1:54 PM on May 4, 2022

Now that you have the diagnosis, have you been to see a specialist in endo?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 10:05 AM on May 2, 2022

Hey here’s my take: fuck these people. He IS wrong, your job is not to memorize people’s names and faces, your job is to check people in and you’re doing it correctly.

I answer the phones for a popular park and I frequently get callers who say something like “my name is X, I called last week?” and then no immediate follow-up. I always tell them what you did: I get many calls a week and I’m afraid I don’t recall, could you remind me what you’re calling about? I’ve never… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 3:33 PM on April 28, 2022 marked best answer

Do you think he might enjoy chickens? I garden and I used to keep bees, and that’s always felt like “the next level” of those activities somehow.

I also know beekeepers who are allergic to stings and get a kind of medical venom exposure therapy before each season, which makes it safer for them to get stung. But maybe that’s precluded by his other health problems.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 4:41 PM on April 26, 2022 marked best answer

It sounds to me like you made some mistakes, but honestly nothing that I personally, or most of the people I’m friends with, would cut someone off over.

You can recognize that you should act differently in the future without completely buying into this group’s opinion of you, because frankly from my perspective it’s pretty extreme. They’re allowed to cut you off, but it doesn’t make you A Bad Person.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 5:10 PM on April 11, 2022 marked best answer

I remember attending my maternal granddad’s funeral, where he was embalmed and laid out for viewing. I walked up to the coffin with my dad and sister, and my dad, visibly shaken, said “don’t do this to me. I want to be cremated.” He died last year, and I and my family were glad we knew his wishes and could carry them out.

When you say “brutality” - no outcome for a dead body is ever going to be something you’d want to happen to a live body. Any method of dealing with a… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 10:48 AM on April 3, 2022

I’d just keep in mind that it’s totally normal to be withdrawn and not chatty at a funeral, of all places. You don’t have to make small talk if you don’t want to.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 2:05 AM on April 2, 2022

Reclaiming the basement apartment for my own use and renting out the upstairs instead is possible and would give me enough to get by on while allowing me to keep the house

But you can't rent out the basement?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 8:05 PM on March 31, 2022

I can’t believe how wrong you guys are about box cutters. OLFA makes the best box cutters. Source: office manager, open multiple boxes daily, practically wept with joy first time using an OLFA
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 9:07 PM on March 26, 2022

Much simpler: Trader Joe’s sells little tiny boxes of shelf-stable cream that will keep basically forever at room temp unopened. I always keep a few around.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 4:21 PM on March 25, 2022

I’m pretty sure I broke my big toe a few months ago when something heavy fell on it, but I say ‘pretty sure’ because it didn’t feel broken at all… just nebulously WEIRD in a way I couldn’t put my finger on, until I gave it an exploratory squeeze in the right place and it hurt like hell for a few moments. That’s another possibility to consider.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 6:03 PM on March 22, 2022

Would it be better for you to say nothing and continue to allow their failures to impact your work and your company’s work? Would it make you a better, nicer person to ignore or minimize what sounds like a quite serious problem? You didn’t tell them they were Bad People who should Feel Bad, you laid out an issue that SHOULD be fixed and brought it to the attention of people in a position to fix it. “Passive-aggressive” would be complaining about these things behind their backs without attempting… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 5:50 AM on March 4, 2022

Personally I feel like it would be extremely unethical for THEM to prevent you from doing this on your own time. It has literally no impact on them or on your work product, in fact the extra practice you’re getting can only help them, and the only reason for them to object would be pettiness and an unwarranted and undeserved sense of ownership over your personal time.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 5:21 PM on February 22, 2022

response to deleted
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 11:51 AM on February 26, 2022

Yeah I was gonna say, thrift stores.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 9:58 PM on February 16, 2022 marked best answer

Your drive isn't encrypted, right?

Considering I don’t know what that means, probably not…

Sorry guys I’m just panicking because when this happened with my iphone a while ago (yes I should have learned my godforsaken lesson and written it down in seventy places) it took three hours and a sobbing breakdown in the apple store to get them to bend the rules and get it fixed, against their apparent policy.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 6:49 AM on February 9, 2022

Thank you guys, I will try what I can once I get home and bring it somewhere if I can’t. Any other advice also appreciated.

My boss just called me a computer genius for fixing his ‘broken’ Outlook by closing the program and opening it again, which weirdly made me feel better. I may not know how to handle forgetting my PIN but I could be way worse off, understanding-computers-wise.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 6:56 AM on February 9, 2022

Lol, if any bits and pieces are gonna need to be removed from this device I am very much going to pay for someone else to do it!
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 11:08 AM on February 9, 2022

OH MY GOD I DID IT

There seems a few sites with instructions you could try. Not sure if this will work for your particular setup though

So, this site was aimed at a different issue than mine, but it ultimately was the key. The problem I had was that the link underneath the PIN field saying "reset my password" was no longer appearing - every time I restarted, it scolded me for too many wrong entries, then told me to… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 5:17 PM on February 9, 2022

I actually wanted to come back to this question because I experienced something similar at my current job and it wound up getting much better!

See, I spent seven years at two jobs where it was very much expected that you’d figure things out on your own. Need information? Look it up or try something you think makes sense. In the field I was in, this mostly made sense, though it was also reflective of issues in those workplaces, like bosses being too overworked to answer… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by showbiz_liz at 11:02 AM on February 9, 2022