I appreciate the apology and your thoughtfulness- no offense taken! And I do agree, outside shoes are for outside! But, when your whole house is functionally an exposed granite plateau… the most supportive shoes you need are suddenly for moving around the living room. Thanks for chiming in and trying to help, comrade!

Ordered a pair already, this is great- thank you!

Crocks, brilliant- already ordered a pair- I used to have a pair, and i loved them but somehow totally forgot abt them. Thanks comrade!

Found a drug store near me that has one, will be going this weekend! Thank you!!

I really appreciate the reminder about stretching feet, easy to get stuck in a negative feedback loop or barely touching them cause they are so sore- I can be foam rolling my feet, tennis ball, etc. Thanks for that!

Oh, that looks so nice- this is exactly what we would do if we thought we’d be here for more than another year! Thank you!

I got my partner into Red Dead Redemption 2!! So, I enjoyed watching them play for several hours- always a blast- love that game. Want to get a PC copy for mods!

Feeling pretty down. Changed my job and am doing more freelance type stuff. Not picking up enough work by a long shot, and being home all day long with my partner is really showing me some of the problems we have. I’m feeling anhedonic and apathetic- some of these relationship issues have been going on for over a year and all of my bids to talk about them have been rejected. Not fun. I’ve started taking better care of myself (Jan. has been difficult) and am doing well, but for the first time in 3 years, I feel like I do not want to engage with them, interact with them, I just want to avoid them. I’ve never wanted to GO TO work more in my life, had no idea how much being out of the house 4-5 days a week was helping me cope with my partner’s avoidance of important topics. I’m gonna try and touch a lot of grass today, so thanks for letting me vent and please dont take it personally if I don’t respond. Thanks again, comrades!

Comrade, I’m so sorry you had this horrible experience! As you’ve already mentioned, decision to drop them completely vindicated! Happy to hear you were able to connect again with a therapist that felt supportive. Ugh, again, sorry you had such an unpleasant experience with this clown.

Not my intention to be unhelpful. But please be very careful- basically any and all ‘health and wellness’ apps, mercilessly harvest and sell your personal medical data. I found this period tracking spreadsheet template in 30 seconds- something like that might be free and helpful while protecting your medical history. Best of luck!

Do you have a take on the AMD Ryzen AI PRO processors vs whatever they were using before? Looks like all their 2025 models have them Not true, I just got stuck on a certain model

Thank you for mentioning this!

Yeah, I really appreciate how you said that cause on reflection I guess I don’t actually want a gaming laptop- I think I just wanted to imagine having one. dedicated AMD graphics card sounds like a great idea, I am swamped right now- but hoping to start learning linux in Jan, so it would be great to be able to move a laptop over to Linux next year, thanks for the input!

thank you! I like the look of these T series, a lot! Seems like most of them could go to Linux pretty easy(gonna try and start learning in jan!) any take on this AMD ryzen ai processor? I’m especially concerned about AI stuff, because work stuff has to be HIPPA compliant and if I cant manage the ai correctly, thats a felony- so i’m mostly just trying to totally avoid out of abundance of caution

I’d offer to clarify your goals for yourself and the group as a whole are as a first motion. What I mean is if the purpose of your group is to form connection it would probably look different than if it was to organize people. Do you think you’d like to try and get folks less knowledgeable about the cause or is this more for dedicated comrades who want to do more than 101 type introduction?

Technically, I started a leftist/communist book club like 2.5/ 3 years ago. it still exists, but has gone through several iterations and that had led me to varying levels of engagement throughout. Ours started cause I found out someone I loosely knew was a comrade, and I’m in a comrade deprived area- neither of us had read ‘state and revolution’, so we wanted to fix that- we’d meet weekly and go 25-40 pgs at a time, and met at a local bar and talk about the book, current events, life in general.

Sometimes it has been a small group of well read comrades with a clear ability to express what they are interested in and able to organize toward it spontaneously. Other times, me and some others have felt like nannies managing a conversation between libs or at least folks that have never heard the term ‘eco fascism’ for ex. Figuring out what you want it to be seems important because it will impact how you feel about it- is it a chore and a service that you are providing for the community or is it an escape and safe haven for comrades who are already active in the world?

I think the authentic connections are the starting point, at least have been for us. We spend 20+ min starting out by just talking about our weeks, normal humans supporting each other stuff and/or current events; then we bring up the book, talk about what we all got out of the chapters, and riff off each other’s ideas (we do not use structured guiding questions about the chapters or anything- but it is a word of mouth org. so a certain level of structure isnt needed); then we usually blend thoughts on the book and current events, before wrapping up generally 90-120 minutes after we started.

Hope something in there helps, I hope you keep us posted and have fun!

Oh wow, I haven’t seen this since I was a kid! Does Northern Exposure hold up? Worth another watch?

Just want to say so much solidarity and support I have for you as a fellow human being, such a relatable moment and still always such a big one. Already lots of great advise, so i’ll just piggy back on- What happened with my current partner and me(we were friends for 9-12 months at this point): one on one hang “Hey…I’m nervous to bring this up but its been on my mind recently…sometimes I think I have feelings for you that are beyond friendship. I don’t want to lose our friendship or make you uncomfortable and I still thought it was important that I bring that up with you.”

Fun fact- one of the single largest thing a person can do to calm their nervous system is to move slowly. Slow, intentional movements communicate to your brain that you are safe it can remain calm. When we move quickly, we are communicating urgency to our brain, which brain takes as- stay alert, something dangerous could be developing. Experimenting with your pace; and breathing patterns may be helpful also. I like the idea that if we want to change our internal state, we have to “seduce” ourselves into it. eg. I cannot go for a run at 10pm get home, jump into bed and command myself to ‘Sleep!’ and expect that to work. But I can ‘set the mood’, ‘curate a vibe’, whatever, I can put on soothing music or nature sounds, light candles, slow my breath, think about gratitudes, etc- all of these things are almost a form a self seduction. Hope something in there is helpful!

someone’s gotta be up at night, tho! Lots of theories around generational sleep patterns and teen-elderly sleep schedules leave very little time where someone isn’t just normally awake- teens naturally stay up late and prefer to sleep late, old folks naturally wake up early and sleep early.

Fun fact: Barter only seems to occur in human societies when a. markets were previously established b. those markets collapse. Check out David Graber’s ‘Debt: first 5000 yrs’ for more info. Most societies are debt based- as in people just do things for each other but keep basic accounts in there heads. Eg. You paid for dinner out last month, i’ll pay this month(doesn’t really matter how much was spent, the exactness isn’t very important) Or, my grandma makes the coolest knit socks, I’m gonna ask her to make some for me and then shes gonna have me do some yard work when i visit later.