If I called it what I wanted to the first time around? It would've been a massive pile of shit designed to cause fear that fed his equivalent of selling gas station dick pills. But I'm trying to be a bigger person these days, and tempered my language. Ha

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it may be the only study article that The Lancet straight-up retracted, isn't it? That should say something, and I don't know why it won't die.

Anything marketed for weight loss.

I'm not overweight, but I've seen Requiem For A Dream and Valley Of The Dolls. That's a hard no.

It is when you're cognizant of the world around you. But hey, you know what they say, no brains - no headaches!

I'm filling someone else's garage.

And also that storage shed on my parents' property.

I've got a motorcycle in my buddy's basement.

Shit.

I am.

Yup.

Just remember it's better to take a point over a line than it is to re-correct twice. Ha

I just found the verbal instructions the person administering the road test has to read to you here.

They state you are given a point if you cross a boundary or line. They also state you are given a point if you pull forward while backing up.l to reposition.

Pro tip? Find out what the refund policy is with whoever you decided to test with. The folks I picked had a lenient policy that stated they allowed a re-testing period without a second payment if your vehicle didn't meet requirements or your documents weren't in order. Some driving places seemed super picky - I even had some folks tell me that if I didn't have working air conditioning I couldn't test at all. I did go out and replace a cracked mirror beforehand.

I then got myself some cones and practiced in a school parking lot to make myself feel better. I was even able to see what the course was set up like beforehand, so I could mimic it. There's a lot to be said for memorizing a pattern.

You do have to have your vehicle pass an equipment check and have all your documents before you do the first portion of the test. And I do know that if you fail the parking lot/skills section you don't get to go out and even attempt the road test.

After being terrified of parallel parking? I aced it with one move, but managed to let my nerves put me a little over the line on the easy one - backing into a parking space. I was docked two points, but still passed both that section and the road test.

Here's the list of "automatic fails" for Michigan. I don't see anything like that listed. I'm pretty sure they dock points. A fail is 26 points or more.

Automatic Fail List

Death.

I hopefully get cake too.

Don't you lose points for any corrections?

I'm agreeing with you. Ha

That's exactly my point.

The science was horrid and done incredibly poorly. It's been debunked. The article was retracted. But folks still believe it for some fucked up reason, and the main author had a resurgence in popularity during covid.

I personally find it disgusting.

I promise that your landlord will be far more pissed off about the whole situation if you stall and don't say anything when you should, and something else goes bad or causes more damage. You also just can't decide the sink is dead to you and stop using it.

Stop what you're doing.

Take a picture of underneath the sink.

Make sure there is no water draining or leaking anywhere and causing more damage. If it is? You'll likely have to turn the water off. Hopefully? You have shutoff valves that are easily accessible. Actually? Hopefully it isn't leaking at all. But if it is? Google that, find the valves, and turn the water off. If you can't find them? You're going to need to call the landlord and ask how to do it. Don't just text them - call, because water damage often happens quick in an expensive manner.

If nothing is leaking? You need to get that picture texted to your landlord and await their reply.

I get it. It's scary. Shit broke. You don't want to get blamed for it. But plumbing? Just breaks sometimes. It's a thing. So bite the bullet and get it done.

One bad study being published in the Lancet, and regardless of it being retracted and Andrew Wakefield discredited, folks still lap up this junk science.

I really liked the area between Grand Rapids and Muskegon in Michigan. Close enough to see trees, orchards, have gardens, and still do the dumb redneck shit I enjoy, but close enough to the city for culture and a night on the town. Good medical care. A little too conservative for my liking, but could be worse. I came from a similar rural area, so I can speak the language.

But the cost of living compared to where I am now? Oof. Of course, my other options aren't much better. I really enjoyed the music and weather in Portland, but it's expensive as hell. And then there's how great my bum leg was out in the Tucson desert, but it's again mire expensive, and I'm not a big fan of sunlight all the time.

I don't have kids, but money? Is why I live where I do really. it's sort of affordable here at least still. But I miss things like public transportation, quality healthcare, and big libraries and museums.

Dressing the way I really wanted to.

My animals are one of the few larger spending habits I allow myself to have. Both my cats want for nothing, and eat much better than I do. I like to splurge on myself by getting them special snacks, and buying bird seed for everything out in my yard. But I have a super hard time enjoying myself at an expensive restaurant when someone invites me out, because I know how much more food I could've gotten for that price, or that I could've gone to the food pantry and saved more of it for something else instead.

And I hate that I think like that still. I'm not well-off by any means, and I still need food pantries nor have the ability to have any savings. But I'm not homeless anymore, and don't need to be in panic mode during EVERY situation. But my mind is constantly adding and subtracting costs for everything I do, all day long, and there's still a magic number that just makes me feel like I don't deserve whatever it is due to cost.

And this? Is your opening to get to....

And, if I wanted to end it all? I'd just climb to the top of your ego, and jump down to your IQ.

Yup. At least as sure as I am that your parents didn't want you.

I've got a list of slumlords and local politicians that I'd definitely come calling for. Hypothetically, of course.

Most-definitely not, because they most-definitely weren't.

The higher-up district manager dude I spoke with at Hangar had A LOT of experience with the Direct Socket system both here and overseas since the 1990s, and his preferred system to throw people in for suspension is the Ossur seal-in that I'm already using, so I'm really hoping his recommendation on this being what to try next is solid advice that comes experience. The prosthetist now has also been directly involved with the system, so she's fit them before.

I'm willing to bet she sends most of her stuff to one of Hangar's central fabrication facilities, because it's the only way she can keep up with her workload. It's just her and a couple of office staff, and I think she lost one of them again the other day too. She's got the means to make test and definitive sockets herself in the on-site shop that's been in the clinic since it was a Teter, but likely doesn't have the time. I'm heading in that morning for the appointment, and she's hoping to get me out of there before 3pm, but it's an all-day thing when you're working by yourself and also seeing other patients. And there's just no way she'd be able to do every socket she made like this unless she found more help and a way to assemble-line this across two or three patients at a time.

Nope.

Lol

I am excited to try it. But to be fair, at this point? I'd be excited to try ANYTHING that isn't the same tired methods to try and fix this that my prosthetist keeps trying to use. I feel like she held off far too longer on making me a new socket the first time, and this one was headed down the same path. I'm not playing that game anymore, which is why I went right over her head. Hehe

The never-ending cycle of extreme poverty. Every day is waking up and performing one hustle, so that can lead to a second hustle, so that can eventually lead to gas money, so you can drive the car to the hustle you need to eat that day, and so on and so forth.

Most folks? Say they've been gone hungry, but have Anever actually felt what it's like to be really starving and hungry. They've never rationed a box of saltines between two people to stretch until the payday next week that is supposed to fix everything but never does.

Folks talk about "life-changing money" all the time, and you can often tell how poor is or has been based off how high or low a number they give you when asked what it'd be defined as for them. Even now, if you asked me? My thought process would be that $20 would mean eating three fancy meals that day, and that'd be dope as hell, but makes me sound poor so I need to say at least $100. And then I remember some folks have that in their bank accounts or even wallets on the regular, and I better say a higher number that makes me sound like the "normal" folk.

Being poor? Also made me hate things like disposable electronics. I need to be able to fix a TV, computer, car, or appliance until I literally can't anymore. The idea of just purchasing some product again and again on Amazon seems so wasteful. When I meet someone who's a jack of all trades? I often wonder if they grew up too poor to afford to pay someone to repair or replace stuff too.

Once you've lived in poverty? You always sort of live there in your head at least some of the time. There are many things I carry with me from being homeless, like my need to refill water bottles before I sleep so that my water for the day is there and available while the source is. And that's something a lot of folks who have never been poor don't understand. Even if you do manage to break out of something like generational poverty? Growing up poor or spending significant time in poverty changes you mentally - and physically, from things like stress, poor nutrition, lack of sleep, and not having access to medical care or follow-up treatment after an emergency.

I've had more than a few friends call me over the years because I'm the one in our friend group who's "good with stitches", and that's pretty messed up when you think about it. My thumb on my right hand has a super goofy curve to it, from it healing crooked and cocked to one side after breaking it as a little kid. My parents never could've afforded to take me to an emergency room for something so minor, and I at least got to eat the popsicle before they taped my finger to the stick. It wasn't because they were bad parents. It was because we needed the money for major things - like wood to heat the house through a Michigan winter. And food.

This just isn't true...