my guinea pig herdleader likes when everyone gets to eat a treat.

she didn’t really get why the cat liked meatpaste, but she’d yell until I put out a treat for the cat. I often grab a little something to eat while I sit next to the pen with them while they eat their veggies. it makes them feel like I am part of their little herd. i get all the positive reinforcement grooming and nuzzling affection.

she’s just a little too greedy to give me her food, though.

“Hey, I need to use my lunch break to get away from work things/have some quiet down time. Give me a break and I’ll be better for the afternoon.” Subjects you don’t want to discuss: “Oooh, that doesn’t seem like a topic appropriate for work. What about [thing you are comfortable discussing, work thing].”

I highly recommend becoming very willing to spend time discussing one personal thing so they feel like they’re making a connection. I use my pets, but you can use a sports team as some others suggest, or a hobby you don’t mind sharing, like your progress on painting minis/knitting that sweater/book you’re reading/ latest album from favorite musician. Extroverts want a connection, give them a little and redirect to that thing when they probe.

If your boss persists in bothering you at lunch, ask if you should clock in since this is a work discussion, or if it’s really your personal time to use as you wish.

If they persist in bringing up wildly inappropriate topics like sex, say that you’re uncomfortable. Make it obvious they’re being weird at work. saying “I don’t like discussing my sexual preferences at work”, or similar, loud enough for others in the breakroom to hear should make them uncomfortable. if that doesn’t get you anywhere, there are protections in the US for some things. go to HR, explain you’ve tried explicitly telling them not to talk to you about whatever inappropriate topic, and it’s continuing. Call out that you’re feeling harassed by them continuing to bring up this subject that is not work related. HR might want to try a mediated discussion about it; 1 is reasonable, multiple is not.

if it gets to where you need HR and are worried about your legal rights, find a local worker’s rights lawyer to provide advice. they should be able to tell you what is reasonable effort from the company to fix the situation. be prepared to lose your job if it gets this far.

you shouldn’t have to discuss sex at work as small talk. it can come up in some jobs (medicine, sex work) but shouldn’t be in most workplaces, and there are protections from this kind of harassment in the US.

quoting from your link: No reductions were statistically significant. Only one difference [re:disease] was statistically significant.

plus it was done by a pro-vegan group with obvious bias. so the results from the pro-vegan funded study are not terribly good at supporting veganism for cats as more healthy. it’s about the same, maybe less disease (severity of disease wasn’t covered in the abstract but would be a significant part of a decision). show me a study not funded by a pro-vegan group with similar or better results before I consider feeding my pet a diet very different from their natural diet.

not the guy you asked, but I just got a trike.

1. I have balance issues so I’ve never been able to balance a regular bike.
2. carrying capacity with a basket.

there are definitely options to address the carry capacity with a bike, but I haven’t seen anything to assist with balance.

my grandparents have passed away now, but when i knew them they were unfailingly polite in public.

in private, Grandma had reservations about japanese people. i gave her leeway. Pearl Harbor was bombed on her birthday, and Grandpa went to Iwo Jima. i still felt i could bring a japanese boyfriend around, and as long as i was happy, he’d be treated right. Grandpa didn’t even suggest reservations. he took everyone as an individual worthy of respect until their behavior suggested differently.

my parents are in their 60s now, but i don’t have contact with them for other reasons. the last time i looked at my mom’s twitter i thought she had been hacked, the MAGA rhetoric she was spewing was so awful. not hacked, just an asshole.

definitely not. i hope you can find something to help.

imagine you start to get your shit together, start some habits to get you on a better footing, and then there’s a week where you just can’t every month. and maybe there’s also a mid-month slump, because hormones suck.

i didn’t see a therapist until i had one weekend to run all the errands, see doctors and vets, clean the house up… there was just the one weekend where i was sure i’d have enough of an upswing.

-general anxiety and depression diagnosis, plus PMDD (pre-menstrual dysphoria disorder), the drugs are great and i’m better now

you mean the thing where people, often women, have spent decades trying to expose the abuse happening in private homes, and trying to get it addressed?

because that’s what happened. women’s voices, speaking about marital rape and domestic abuse. getting the political power to change laws, to make it illegal, and give domestic victims the means to escape. it also surfaced the child abuse, again. it’s just not been buried again yet.

my cat loses it if she wakes up and can’t see me. I live in a studio. there aren’t a lot of “out of sight” options. at one point, there was just a screen between me, in my computer chair, and her, on the bed. we still did the whole call and response.

she doesn’t look for me, she just starts yelling until I respond.

yep. I self-select out of dog friendly offices. if that’s a “benefit”, I can’t work there.

mostly, yeah! it was a very dysfunctional childhood, but we’re all mostly functional adults.

my HS graduation was on a Saturday, and my mom’s attempt was the following Monday. so I guess this has that beat for awful.

chronic depression really distorts your view of things. my mom honestly didn’t think it would taint my graduation or change my plans. sort of, like she was already gone from my life, so she was just trying to wrap things up?

unsurprisingly, even though she wasn’t successful, she still managed to screw me and my younger siblings up for a fair bit. it’s been 20+ years, and only one of us still is in contact with her.

for a lot of people in long term polyamory, it’s about intimacy, which sex is part of. even if you have relationships that are primarily about fun sexy times, you’re probably going to do a lot of scheduling to maintain those relationships, or find new ones.

cults often practice polygamy as a few men in power “marry” girls (teenagers or younger), and control the assets. this is a power imbalance that can easily be abused.

polyamory as a modern term is trying to differentiate from that. proponents emphasize enthusiastic consent (from all parties) and communication, and often will warn against any rigid hierarchy among the polycule members. that’s an ideal, so it’s certainly possible to find examples that fail, but the intent is that people are all equally respected.

for me, it’s seeing how similar we are. I went low contact and moved away almost 20 years ago. getting to know my now-transmasc brother when we’re both adults is wild. he’s dealt with things differently, but despite 8 years age gap and 18 years not talking, we have a lot in common still.

1984, not 1948, in case anyone goes looking for the reference

that’s not what’s meant. they mean, how long you’ve had an account with them, whether you have multiple accounts or loans with the institution, if you’ve been late in paying or carried very minimal balances or have a history of harassing customer service to the point customer service felt the need to record it.

it’s your relationship with the institution, not the ceo, and whether you’ve been a good customer or not really.

I’ve allowed my partner to refer to me as girlfriend to make discussion with others easier. I don’t love it, it doesn’t sound like a longterm adult relationship, but I recognize it’s easier to say “my wife and my girlfriend”.

and both of us go to family Christmas, though not everyone needs to know relationship status.

… you’re absolutely right about the scheduling thing though.

I had ferrets for a while. they liked to steal and hide things. you learn to check under the couch weekly just so you don’t find things by smell. and hope it’s not somehow inside the couch.

mostly it was the one guy, who preferred his chips and sweets, but knew his sister liked other things. she didn’t eat tomatoes or apples or fruit, but he’d carry that stinky orange down stairs for her, lips peeled back so he didn’t have to taste it too much.

not the OP you replied to, but someone else who loves the Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain book.

I think 5 days is ambitious. but a lot of what the exercises are doing is training you to see a different way. so it’s not impossible.

someone neurodivergent may struggle to get what the exercises are trying to teach or to reach the point they’re aiming for, so it might take them longer. those more inclined to pick it up faster probably aren’t going to need the exercises in the book; it’s already natural to them.

as we grow up, we learn “this is what a tree looks like, this is a dog looks like, this is what a car looks like”, etc etc. the way we see a new car then goes through that filter of “this is what a car looks like”. those filters are great for quickly identifying things and generally being a human in the world, so you don’t get hit by a car while you’re still figuring out if it is a car.

but those filters get in the way of drawing accurately. your eyes aren’t literally filtering anything; that’s all in your brain. so you need to learn to stop that part of your brain when you draw. that’s the biggest part of being able to draw decently. the rest is technical skill you get with practice.

I’d still recommend the original OP look for an artist collaborator, since children’s books need the illustrations to be as strong as the writing. there’s no way to get there in just 5 days.