u/Master-Education7076

It’s been a bit since I’ve read BoC, but I seem to remember several mentions of bad chemicals floating around in people’s brains.

It occurred to me that Vonnegut may have been onto something regarding a powerful way to reframe depressive or harmful thoughts. If somebody finds themselves “on the brink” or even just overall feeling down, I could see how recognizing it and acknowledging, “Oh that’s just some bad chemicals in my brain,” could help pull them out of it.

I don’t have a learned background in psychology or depression, so I could be way off. But I wanted to flesh out this thought and get feedback from others.

Has anybody found themselves in moments of self awareness, acknowledging the chemicals in their brain and their effects in the moment?

I’ve booked a pretty big trip in the coming months that will involve a LOT of time on a plane to go to a tropical destination. One of the first things that came to mind regarding logistics—after booking it that is—was what to read on the flight. So I thought I’d come here for suggestions.

I don’t know if I want something action-packed or something with more prose and such.

I’d say my favorite authors, in descending order of how many of their books I’ve read, are Vonnegut, Dostoevsky, Agatha Christie, Steinbeck, and Robert Louis Stevenson.

I have also liked Middlemarch, Siddhartha, Catch-22, and short-story collections by Tolstoy and Pushkin.

Give me your best recs!

First, I’ll say this sub was invaluable to me during the early years of my twins. They’re now in lower-elementary school, and I will say that for those of you in the thick of it with infants: IT. DOES. GET. EASIER. Hang in there.

That said, despite getting easier, twins are going to go back and forth between fighting like mad and being best friends—sometimes multiple times within the same day or even the same hour 😆. Mine were recently fighting verbally, so I had them both come sit in time out on opposite corners of the room.

I eventually called each over individually to tell their side of the story. Not finding anybody at fault for anything more egregious than typical sibling bickering, I settled it the following way.

I had them come and stand on either side of me. I had them each raise their right hand—“no, your RIGHT HAND…yes, the other one”—and then touch their nose with their other, and repeat after me: I’M SORRY—I’m sorry—FOR MY PART—for my part—IN OUR FIGHT—in our fight. I LOVE MY TWIN—[giggling] I love my twin—TO THE MOON AND BACK—[more giggling] to the moon and back—AND WILL TRY TO GET ALONG—aND WiLL TRy To GeT aLoNG.

I then sent them on their way…unless either of them wanted to sit longer in their very comfy time-out spot on the floor. They went on their way and have been playing nicely and laughing together since.

Sometimes, you don’t need to find either one of them at fault in their disagreements. Getting them to reset with something silly, while reminding them that they love each other, can go a long way.

I worked in food service at a retirement home in high school. It seemed that there was ALWAYS some kind of random food salad as an option, from fairly common ones to obscure combinations. Potato salad, egg salad, chicken salad, tuna salad, fruit salad, bean salad, ham salad, carrot & raisin salad, broccoli salad, ambrosia salad, celery salad, cucumber salad, bell-pepper salad, etc.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized they were onto something. I almost always have leftover food from main dishes, and they often go bad, forgotten in the fridge. I’ve started taking those scraps, mixing them with some mayo, and maybe some carrots or celery or pickles, and—voila!—got me a salad to spread between two slices of toast for any meal of the day.

My favorite so far is bean salad, in part because beans are so freaking cheap. But who is really going to sit down and eat a bowl-full of beans? This concoction let’s me enjoy them quite a bit.

Once my beans are exhausted from the fridge, I think I will have way too many diced carrots leftover, so I’ll probably try making a carrot & raisin salad, which I would’ve gagged at back in my food-service days.

What are some other good salad ideas that you may not have thought would work but turned out to be pretty good?

I worked in food service at a retirement home in high school. It seemed that there was ALWAYS some kind of random food salad as an option, from fairly common ones to obscure combinations. Potato salad, egg salad, chicken salad, tuna salad, fruit salad, bean salad, ham salad, carrot & raisin salad, broccoli salad, ambrosia salad, celery salad, cucumber salad, bell-pepper salad, etc.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized they were onto something. I almost always have leftover food from main dishes, and they often go bad, forgotten in the fridge. I’ve started taking those scraps, mixing them with some mayo, and maybe some carrots or celery or pickles, and—voila!—got me a salad to spread between two slices of toast for any meal of the day.

My favorite so far is bean salad, in part because beans are so freaking cheap. But who is really going to sit down and eat a bowl-full of beans? This concoction let’s me enjoy them quite a bit.

Once my beans are exhausted from the fridge, I think I will have way too many diced carrots leftover, so I’ll probably try making a carrot & raisin salad, which I would’ve gagged at back in my food-service days.

What are some other good salad ideas that you may not have thought would work but turned out to be pretty good?

State governments can respond more readily to the needs of their citizens than the federal government. They used to get a say in the federal government via senatorial elections, but not anymore. State governments now have to constantly play catchup to whatever the fed says because they have zero say whatsoever.

Think about some of the worst federal decisions in the last century, like Reagan’s trickle-down economics or No Child Left Behind. Would such policies have flown if state governments had had direct representatives advocating for them in the Senate? We can only speculate.

I see this trope all the time that, “It’s a waste of time to study opening theory if you’re below XY00 rating level.” This is wrong.

When you’re playing, do you really want to have to think hard about your next move when you’re not even five moves in? THAT is a waste of time.

Am I saying that everyone should know the most common lines of the Ruy Lopez up to move 20? NO!

But if you play 1. e4 and Black meets you with 1…e6, should you have a general idea of whether or not you want to play into the French Defense, and what style of French Defense you want to play into? You betcha.

I’ve moved onto playing chess now.

For me, it’s the Guilford Courthouse flag. It screams, “They’re a little confused, but they’ve got the spirit!” Thirteen stripes and stars? Check. Red, white, and blue colors? Check.

But oh my god. I don’t know what’s worst? The clashing red and blue stripes? The side ratio? The proportion of the canton to the flag? The eight-pointed stars? The inverted blue and white in the canton? The awkward star pattern that almost works?

It’s all just so terrible, but together they make something oddly lovable.

What’s your favorite ugly flag? And be more creative than old-school Pocatello or Milwaukee.

They make you take a roundabout way to get anywhere.

Came home late at night from a long trip and saw something taped to my door. I thought oh sh!t, what happened when I was gone? Did I miss a package? Did a neighbor break a window or something? Etc.

It was one of the pieces of junk mail that flood mailboxes around election season, telling me I should vote for so and so for a local position. It even had a hand-written note added to it, saying sorry they missed me.

The fact that this person had the audacity to stick their campaign ad to my house means I will definitely NOT be voting for them. As annoying as junk mail is, imagine if they all got taped to your front door every day for you to see when you get home. No thank you. And the more I think about it, the more I think this must be at the very least a campaigning violation, if not illegal.

I’m not saying that I don’t find it annoying, but it is not easy to figure out what it is people mean when they don’t make an effort not to be unclear with their speech.

Contrast that with:

I’m saying I find it annoying that it is hard to figure out what people mean when they don’t make an effort to be clear with their speech.

I don’t deny that I rest my case.

I just devoured this book in less than two days, as it really hooked me and sucked me in—in a good way. What are some other books like this?