It really depends on where you live. There are some parts of the world where environmental factors like ocean humidity or winter road salting will cause a car’s frame to rust through in a few years if you’re not careful. Look up the Rust Belt for an example.

On the other hand, if you live somewhere warm and dry, your car’s frame and body will outlast its original mechanical components.

My mom mortgaged me when I bought my current house. I’m in BC, Canada so you’ll want to check on your local rules. Here, the process of buying a house is separate from the process of getting a mortgage so if you don’t need a bank mortgage no one is going to scrutinize where the funds are coming from.

I got a realtor and went through the standard home buying process. As far as the seller and realtor were concerned, it was a cash sale and they didn’t care where the money was actually coming from, just that financing didn’t have to be a condition. They guided me through the offer process, told me when to get a lawyer to do the purchase paperwork, and the lawyer gave me details on how Mom should make the deposit and final payment. She could also have transferred the money to me and I could have done the payments myself but that was logistically difficult in this case since my credit union doesn’t have a branch where I live.

Mom and I then contacted a notary to draw up a mortgage contract. In our case, she’s not charging interest since she’d have to pay capital gains tax on any income over the principle. On paper, I own the house. Mom is listed as a lender on the title, exactly the same way a bank would be. If I default on my mortgage, she has the right to foreclose and force a sale. Once the house is paid off, the loan goes off the title. We have a handshake agreement that if my parents die before it’s paid off, the remainder will come off my portion of inheritance to keep things fair for my sister.

We could have set up the mortgage agreement first, but it made more sense for us to wait until we had the final numbers from the house sale.

Just one?

I have the following at home:

• My work laptop (2021 MacBook Pro)

• My personal laptop (2018 MacBook Pro)

• An old iPad Air

• My phone

• Living room PC (Linux, shared)

• Bedroom PC (Linux, shared)

My laptops live on my desk and I mostly have whichever one I’m using plugged into my external monitor and peripherals (mouse and mechanical keyboard). The portability of my personal and work machines is nice if I want to sit on the couch or travel.

The living room PC is hooked up to the TV. My partner and I mostly use it for gaming and YouTube. It’s a few years old but it can handle most of what we throw at it.

We only use the bedroom PC to watch TV in bed.

The iPad is for knitting patterns. Previously, it spent several years sitting unused in a drawer.

My phone is for doomscrolling and spam calls.

I smoked for almost 20 years. I lost track of how many times I tried - and failed - to quit. Last December I just felt done. Put it down and haven’t gone back to it. I even had a few cigarettes while out with a friend in March and had no desire to go back to it after. I know a few other people who quit like that, but far more who have struggled with it for years and still smoke.

I have no idea what changed for me. Every other attempt failed, even if I felt really ready to quit.

Whatever I want. Usually PJs. The three times a year I go into the office, it’ll be a tank top, jeans, and combat boots or high tops, generally all black or dark grey. I’ll also wear a plaid flannel over the tank top if it’s chilly in the office. I save my dressing up for the office Christmas party and shock the hell out of everyone.

It’s $26.99 USD on Steam.

I cancelled my Netflix account. I keep Disney Plus around for my stepkid, and Prime Video because it comes with Prime, although I’ll probably cancel that soon too. I’m keeping Funimation.

Streaming is becoming worse than cable. At least if I got cable (which I won’t) I could PVR shit and skip the ads. The idea of paying a monthly fee to get advertised at anyway is nauseating.

35, Canada, and manual is my preference although my current car is an automatic.

I learned to drive on an automatic, but bought a manual for my first car and got my ex to teach me how to drive it. It was important to me that I be able to get into pretty much anything and drive it. After driving an automatic exclusively for the last year, I miss having that level of gearing control, especially on hills and corners.

I found some money I squirrelled away for a big luxury purchase, so I’m buying a painting. It’s the first piece of art in years that’s stopped me in my tracks to stare. I have a print, but it’s not the same.

Walker Kong, with 47 monthly listeners.

I found one of their albums at a record store in Vancouver a few years ago. The band is defunct now, but they’re the best kind of weird.

Fleeing naked along endless paths through mountains of jagged debris. A world torn apart. Feels like moving through molasses. Enough light to register, but not enough to see more than looming shadows. The air is hot and oppressive. It’s hard to breathe. Sounds are muffled, no echoes. Safety lies at the centre of the maze but the path shifts and twists away like a living thing.

It was a recurring nightmare throughout my childhood. I still get anxious in really dim lighting, like when lights on a dimmer switch are down really low or candlelight in a dark room. I call it nightmare lighting.

I just finished The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor. I’ve kind of half-followed Welcome to Night Vale for years and enjoyed all the books so far.

I’m currently reading House of Leaves. This is my second attempt, after making it about halfway a few years ago. It’s a great book, but a challenging read because it’s dense and shifts context frequently. I find that the context-switching adds to the unsettling feel that the book is going for, but it’s definitely not for everyone.