It comes from OP: “We met in January and have been dating since last month.” (Emphasis mine.)

Pedantry warning, but I think this distinction is useful: The phrase “civil crime” doesn’t really exist. You can have a crime, you can have a civil case, or you can have both; but they are separate things.

Criminal court is where the government prosecutes someone for allegedly breaking the law (committing a crime). A pardon wipes out the government-imposed consequences of that crime.

Civil court is for legal disputes between parties. It’s not about punishing crimes but about one party seeking restitution from another. Sometimes that stems from a crime, but the civil case stands on its own.

So even if a crime is pardoned, the door stays open for civil lawsuits over the same event. (This is repeating your point. My beef was just the “civil crimes” phrase!)

Route as well. Depends largely on if I’m talking about routing Internet traffic or Route 66, though.

Even without attribution or ever reading this quote before, I just knew it had to be Sir Terry Pratchett and I was right.

That man was unmatchable in his wit and wisdom and how he packaged life lessons on simply being good people into entertaining stories. The world is lesser without him.

Silicosis is typically caused by years of breathing in silica dust at work, and can worsen even after work exposures stop. In recent years, after decades of inaction, the federal government finally took several important steps to reduce the incidence of this ancient and debilitating disease. Under the Trump administration, all that progress is going away, in but one example of the widespread destruction now taking place across the federal government.

Silicosis first caught the attention of the federal government in the early 1930s, when hundreds of workers hired by the chemical company Union Carbide and its subsidiary to drill a tunnel through a mountain of almost pure silica died of silicosis. Most of the workers were Black, and many were buried in unmarked graves. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s secretary of labor, Frances Perkins, issued a report on the widespread problem across factories and mines, informing businesses that control measures, “if conscientiously adopted and applied,” could prevent silicosis.

Weird as in unusual? Sure

Weird in a bad way? Definitely not

It makes sense to feel uncomfortable about this because it’s probably something you haven’t seen other people do. But it’s awesome and would bring many people joy to see someone doing it. Go for it!

Awwww, my childhood family cat, Boots, did this.

Or how God supposedly created all people in his image, but wait, no, not those people 🙄

Adding onto this, there are way more jobs than you likely even realize or will learn about. Figuring out what you enjoy and are good at might help you figure that out, but sometimes you just need to get out there and start trying things. You may still not know just from college.

I had never heard of one of the jobs I ended up getting (Business Analyst) and it introduced me to the career I’m in now: Product Management.

Product Management requires me to communicate with folks of wildly different backgrounds (end users, software developers, designers, business execs, etc.) and I need to both understand their needs plus help them understand the same things as each other. To do so, I need to understand people and context and basically translate information through a those lenses. I also look at data and a wide array of opportunities then evaluate their priority. It’s a job that uses my natural talents and it’s genuinely fun for me.

But I had no idea the role even existed until I was two years out of college and into the workforce, and still had little clue what the role actually did for two years after that.

Anecdotal observation I received from a doctor’s office indicates there may be some change in the insurance industry…

Last month I saw a surgeon who does not take insurance, but her office helps people get all the pre-authorizations done to file an out-of-network claim. They told me that of the codes they bill, there’s one that used to have a 50/50 chance of getting approved. But after 12/6/24 they see it come back approved every time.

Without more data to back this up I recognize it’s not enough to say anything for sure, but this does point to insurance companies more broadly approving claims.

I was so lucky to share a life with her! I also went on autopilot with her demands and would be asleep within seconds of my adjustments so I barely noticed them.

Don’t be surprised if your little man picks up new needs! I think that’s common as they age, and it sounds like you and I agree that it’s worth giving them everything they demand. I hope you have many more good years being his arm pillow!

Similarly, in the last few of her 20 years of life, my kitty picked up a new ”requirements” on how we slept. It started with her wanting to be in my arms, and she’d paw at me during the night until I woke up and wrapped my arms around her. Given her inability to communicate her desires, it took a couple weeks of significantly disrupted sleep to learn that’s what she wanted!

That continued but she also began pawing for things such as: 1) lifting the blanket so she could go under it, 2) laying on my back so she could rest her head on my hip, and 3) rolling to face her. The last was the funniest as she developed it only in her final two years. She just couldn’t bear me facing away from her even while I slept!

I lost so much sleep meeting that cat’s needs, lol. And it was worth every second of it.

Personally, I didn’t find this to be true. But I think the lifetime spent before the goodbye was worth all of the pain, as awful as it is. The hello to a new kitten was sweet and helped me think less frequently about the pain, but it wasn’t nearly equal to the pain of losing the old one.

That said, the girl I lost was without a doubt my soul pet. We spent 20 years together and losing her tore a hole in both my heart and soul. And yet I wouldn’t give up a single day I had with her if it would lessen the pain I have felt over the last 7 months since losing her.

I adopted a sweet new kitten about 3 months in and I am so glad I did. She’s wonderful and I think there’s a chance I got lucky and will have two soul pets in my life. But the joy of meeting her and getting to build a new relationship only makes me think less frequently of the pain of my loss, not feel it any less.

In your heart I think you know the answer or you wouldn’t be posting here like this. No, it’s not normal or healthy. That person is not a friend, and he seems dangerous to be around (maybe not for physical reasons but definitely for mental reasons).

Continue to be secretive and distance yourself from him; that’s not asshole behavior, that’s self-preservation. I hope you are able to separate yourself and get free from this person and in time find actual friends who care and support you for who you are.

Happy birthday!

Can you explain what you mean? Because I think we’re reading a very different meaning into it.

I read it as clever wordplay to acknowledge that one’s anecdote is not the same as data (by putting “data” in place of “dote” in ‘anecdote’ due to the similar sound). Considering that “argument from anecdote” is literally considered a type of fallacy, highlighting that one’s own experience is not scientifically rigorous enough to be considered data seems to be in alignment with general thinking on the matter.

Then again I’ve just learned that in 2020 the OED actually published “anecdata” literally as a facetious/disparaging plural of “anecdote,” so perhaps that’s why you take issue with the quote?

Plural of anecdote isn’t anecdata

I love this. Thank you.

Hello fellow Ruby-haver! Here is a picture of my Ruby. I have a toddler bed that her predecessor kitty slept on, but she hasn’t been interested in it. Instead, she sleeps on this cardboard couch on top of the bed.

I think your second point is fine, but your first point comes across as condescending and needlessly pedantic. The meaning was clear enough.

Ah, ok. Looks like West Virginia also had 100% of counties go for Trump, so “only” is still not right, but at least that makes more sense.