u/Bookhead_212

In a situationship with my otherwise best friend for three or four years, and he's visiting this weekend. Last night, in the middle of an intimate kiss, I smelled cheese in his mustache and beard, and was a little put off, but he had had pasta and pizza at dinner. Then I smelled it on his hands and noticed that while I came back to the room from dinner and washed up and removed NYC from my hands and brushed my teeth, he just stripped and got into bed. I realize that not everyone (even after COVID) is as careful as I am, but when I replayed all of it, the history of our friendship, he had been less than hygienic: getting dressed after sex without a washup, even when we were going out to eat, small things.

I did mention, several months ago, that he should wash his hands because I'm prone to UTIs, and that's about all the detail I want to give here. But this morning I have the ick, and he's here all weekend. I just have no interest in sex. Does this happen to anyone else in this chat? I am 68F, he is 72M, and again, I thought I loved him wholly. I do feel bitchy about this, and I don't want to!

New channel for toddlers and their caregivers!

In the mass of emails I get about writing and publishing, a press release says Open Shelf Reviews is a new publication from the trusted family of brands that includes Library School Library Journal, and The Horn Book, at openshelfreviews.com.

"It was created because librarians and book selectors were voicing a need for more professional book reviews while also recognizing that many small presses and independent authors were not always getting consistent editorial attention. Until now."

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It's a professional paid review service, has anyone else come across them? There are so many services now for self-published authors, but this one sounds different--I know all those mags. TYIA.

I'm using Lovable so far as a public-facing website that welcomes clients and takes their payments (Stripe) then links to another platform I found, where manuscripts are submitted, evaluated by paid educators, and then published online and maintained in a searchable database.

I don't really like the other platform, because it offers little flexibility in the way of design or visuals; choice of font is serif or sans serif in small, medium, and large, and you edit text in Markdown.

I'm wondering if I should use lovable for the whole process: Invite submissions, assign the manuscripts to the educators, track the manuscripts through the process, pay the educators, and publish the accepted manuscripts online.

Does anyone think this is sustainable given lovable's notable drawbacks, including those of scale? Since I'm keeping the lovable website no matter what, is there a better platform for the stack than the limiting one I'm using?

Thank you for your suggestions, or simply just for reading.

EDIT. Thank you. I am grateful and amazed. My friend is the one who relayed the request from her daughter, so yes she knows.

If you find I am the AH, I respect that. I called her today and said I couldn’t find a way to bake them and transport them safely and that I was uncomfortable about working for two days plus all the ordering of ingredients and cost.

It got a bit tense of course and then I said I was uncomfortable even showing up, with or without the goods. We hung up and now i have to see. I will not do any outreach. They will be so busy! I made myself too self-centered here. I will not be replying further but again, thank you.

—-————Original post: My friend J. and I go back to our very first jobs in our field, and we've been close for over 40 years, with a couple of neutral silences--I was dealing the potential breakup of my marriage, she had a child with bulimia. The older child, her daughter, has been engaged for a couple of years and the wedding is in August.

J. said she went to some trouble to "clear" the invite for me; her daughter envisioned a wedding in a giant barn with just the closest of friends and family, about 175 people. J. had to tell her, about me, "she's my best friend!" before it was agreed to. Her daughter's solution was to invite me, but to say in the invite, "In lieu of a wedding present, please bring 200 of your famous ______" which was a refrigerated dessert that made the New York Times when I owned a bakery, bringing us some kind of fame and good repeat business. I have not had the commercial kitchen for 10 years.

This dessert has to be refrigerated if it's not served immediately, and as I said it is to be a barn wedding. Plus the drive to the wedding, with 200 desserts in the trunk and backseat, takes almost four hours.

AITAH for being mad about this? My friend J. would do anything for her children, at her own expense. This feels as if it's at my expense, and I'm so resentful that I might "come down with pneumonia" the day before the wedding and skip it. But that's not friendship, of course. Weddings make everyone insane. I appreciate your input--this is gnawing at me.