u/Wild_Sheepherder6120

Sometimes I see "Deleted by user" but there are still comments below.

Sometimes I see no hint that it was ever there.

If an account gets deleted, apparently the posts that that person made are still up, correct?

I deleted one post, but people were still able to comment (for a time).

Lastly, I gather that if a post/comment is going badly against a new user (sometimes I see similar posts get vastly different responses) it is best to delete it . . . based on this love of karma we all seek?

I just potted some bush early girl and little bing tomato plants (determinant, small) and will keep them outdoors until mid-June. At that time, I will have to be away from the house for a month. I can ask family members who are staying in the house to water any/all indoor plants once a week, but daily watering, pruning, etc. outdoors is too much of an ask. If I were to leave the tomato plants outdoors, they would surely ... not do well.

I have a grow lamp on a timer which has keep alive a monstera plant for years, under which I'll put the plants, and I can trust that the plants will be watered. I know that this is not ideal. What makes me most nervous is the lack of pollination. Does a month indoors sound like a major problem to you? Any additional suggestions?

Thank you in advance.

I was talking to my friend who has two kids about finances and casually mentioned that I had a bit of breathing room because I didn't have kids. He very tactfully asked me why I didn't have any. I wasn't in the least offended.

I hemmed and hawed a bit, stating that prices have gone through the roof, there is less margin of error for raising kids these days, technology has become a challenge, etc., and that I opted, generally, not to have kids for these reason.

Those reasons are 100% true, but the primary reason--which I left out--is that I think the world is in a lot of trouble. Suffice it to reference the Bulletin* of the Atomic Scientists, which has us poised closer to midnight than ever before in the history of our existence. Is it a good bet to say that this world will be largely livable in 50 years? Weeeell, I wouldn't bet the farm on it.

But I didn't think it was worth saying all that. I hope everything will turn out okay, and he will have to operate under that hope. I know it would have been different if he were saying, "Friend, do you think I should have kids?" At that point, I would have been totally honest.

(*It's not just the Bulletin. I could talk about PFAS, microplastics, novel viruses and so on, but I'll leave it at this.)

1. Leaning heavily on r/fearofflying. This group is incredibly supportive. Its contributors share similar experiences and genuinely want to see other succeed. Thanks to you all. I hope that this posts helps at least one person, even a little.

2. Old school distractions. For me, the discomfort in flying has less to do with the actual up-and-down of the plane and more to do with the confined spaces, the hurry-up-and-wait, the inability to move much during boarding, flight, and deplaning.

I brought with me a cheap paperback, a list of MP3s on an old MP3 player (with no internet connection), and a printout of a poem that I wanted to memorize. I said to myself that I was going to read the book for as long as I possibly could. Committed to it. Then I would move on to the poem. Last, I would move on to the MP3s, which were mostly just fun--comedy programs and the like, which would serve as a reward for having a) passed the time in general and b) read so much of the book and worked so long with the poem.

Even when I experienced some setbacks, which boarded the "uncomfortable," I spent so much time on the book and the poem that I never even made it to the MP3s--for the four flights I took and all the time waiting around. It was time well spent, I felt, and my stress level overall was much, much lower than it would have been otherwise.

I know that this advice may sound commonplace--to distract yourself--but it is worth repeating, I hope, and if anyone has gone through the same thing that I have, going with old-school distractions is, in my opinion, the way to go. The phone might work well for some (and I have watched my share of Peacock and HBO), but for flying, I needed to get off the phone.