I’ve been eyeing a Cordoba C9 or Yamaha GC12C for awhile. Kind of figure I’d save it to treat myself, celebrate a promotion or something.

I thought about getting something more affordable like you’ve described just to scratch the itch, and maybe that’d be better than depriving myself this long. But I guess having a luxury to look forward to has a positive psychological effect on me.

Depending on the model you probably got a great deal on that Takamine too

I’ve worked with people who read Capital annually and I can’t get them to show up to an action on time or to get through it without calling a mentally ill unhoused person a reactionary.

I’ve worked with people who haven’t skimmed the manifesto but work every week getting food for their communities.

The latter are much better to work with.

Ideal conditions would mean organizers are all super politically literate and active, but I agree with you that you can’t expect every member of a movement to read stuff like this as a prerequisite to organizing. Cadre members? Of course they should read. But the fascists aren’t making general members read hefty political tomes.

Buy a classical guitar.

I’ve been eyeing them for about ten years now but I don’t play enough guitar to justify the cost just yet. At some point I’ll probably just wake up one morning and buy one and play it plenty and wonder why I waited so long.

There’s people who won’t like me saying this, but I put a pin in the revolution talk to work on what’s immediate.

Like you, I’ve tried local groups and found they tend to have small, disconnected local chapters and actions sometimes have questionable efficacy.

I think some of this comes from being so focused on “the revolution”. I get it, groups like PSL don’t want to get bogged down becoming a band-aid organization. They want to get rid of the broken system, not be a food bank in a system designed to make people hungry. I’ve done the reading so I understand where they’re coming from here.

But then I attend meetings with groups that have about 10 regular attendees who mostly seem to tell each other to read more theory and paint a lot of banners. They get frustrated that the revolution didn’t come after the latest sit-in, call each other every political science term in the book, and break off to form an even smaller, less effective group.

What I’m trying now are advocacy groups for specific causes I care about. They more often seem to include members of impacted communities and have a better idea of their needs.

It bothers me maybe once a week to think that I’ll probably never go to space.

It’s actually amazing how quickly it killed my usage of the site. I deleted my account years ago but still lurked every now and then. Now I literally can’t go back, I won’t download the app and the new site layout is pretty much unusable for me.

Late 2000s but close!

I stuck it out with old.reddit for awhile. I deleted my account because too I would get halfway through writing a reply to things and say “nah not worth it”.

But without old reddit I won’t even bother lurking.

Reddit became sort of unusable. The community has changed a lot and I felt like I didn’t really know the site anymore.

I originally wasn’t going to find a replacement and spent a few years without one, but I found myself lurking Lemmy more and more so I made an account. Not sure if it will stick though.

Figuring out what to do when a friend needs money.

If you asked me when I was younger I think I would have either said I won’t loan friends money at all in order to preserve the friendship, or maybe something more altruistic like that I wouldn’t loan someone money, just give it to them. I had an idealistic view of what my adult friendships would look like where they either don’t end up in bad situations, or if they do it’s because they make bad choices and the consequences are their own.

But as an adult I have had friends who needed money I can’t afford to just give away, but if I don’t help them then they may lose their home. Often the amount they’ve asked for isn’t the end of it, after all if I cover one month of someone’s rent that doesn’t necessarily mean their circumstances have improved over the course of a month.

I’ve had to set boundaries, accept losses and say no to people I care about who need my help much more than I ever thought I would.

She was my friend’s cousin, we met my freshman year in high school and just hit it off right away.

Dated until junior year and broke up, which in high school felt like an eternity.

It was an immature sort of love between two very young people who were both years away from even beginning to figure out who they really were. We grew in completely different directions and our inexperience made us both pretty bad partners at times. But it was still love nonetheless, and the first time I had experienced it.

I try to keep in mind when I’m feeling annoyance or resentment for something that happened when I was younger, that it’s also entirely possible I’m thinking about a different version of that person than what exists today. The same way I’ve grown it’s entirely possible that unpleasant people I once knew have grown as well. It gives me an opportunity to let go of a few mild grudges I’ve held onto over the years.

However this is also the primary reason I don’t have a Facebook. It can occasionally either torpedo this idea by showing me the person who I once knew to be a prick remains a prick, or someone who I once thought highly of has become awful.

Ayy you got the reference!

I started because I wanted to grow Thai holy basil which I was struggling to find in stores, extended to different varieties of kind of pricey hot peppers, then a few flowers to keep it looking nice. I’ve had a few bad seasons over the years that made me almost quit but at this point it would feel weird to not have a garden to take care of.

The maintenance can occasionally be a pain but it’s sometimes nice to have a good reason to get up early. It only becomes too much work if I get greedy and take on too many plants at once. I try to keep it to a small and manageable amount, and choose plants that don’t require a lot of care.

Going for a walk is an essential activity for me to reset. Riding my bike has a similar effect. I’ve started leaving my phone at home.

Reading as well. Something light-hearted if I’m seeking joy.

I have a small garden on my balcony. It’s not successful right now but it’s enjoyable to watch something green grow.

So far:

Work, during which I’m kind of procrastinating.

Tonight my wife will be at the gym so I might finish a garden project.

Then dinner and tidying up.

Followed by video games and then bed.

I’d reckon my day will be about 30% what I want to do which is just slightly above my usual average.

It is an essential aspect of being Linux users that we claim our preferred distro is the absolute best and others are garbage not worth using. It’s in the terms I’m pretty sure.

I do it periodically. My phone contacts are restricted to friends I speak to frequently, family, certain work contacts and a limit of 3 people I don’t really talk to anymore but am leaving the door open for.

Right now allergies, I’m under-caffeineinated for how little I slept because I had to work last night, and I have unnecessary emails in my inbox.

More generally I feel the time I have to dedicate to the things I would like to do and the time I have to dedicate to work and tasks have reached unsustainable levels.

If I bought a lot of stuff or I bought something age restricted like alcohol. The person who watches the self checkouts is always really busy so if I need to wait for them to come look at my ID I’m going to be there a minute.

Not super thin crust but not thick either. Heavy on the cheese, topped with mushrooms, anchovies and basil.