I lived and worked in New York and met a ton of celebrities/big names there. James Gandolfini was really nice. Bjork was not particularly nice. Tori Amos is one of the sweetest, most open and genuine people I've ever met. Ethan Hawke was a gross dick. Rik Okasek smells bad but is nice. I got shitcanned with Claude Coleman, my favorite drummer. My favorite celeb I have ever met though is Joan Jett, who I have met many times and is absolutely the best. It was super funny the one time I was just hanging out randomly on the street with a group of friends and this short little muscular blond lady rushed up to me, gave me a hard hug, and rushed away and I got to be like, "Oh, that was just Joan Jett" to my friends.

I've been trying to degender my language. I grew up saying "thank you (or excuse me, yes/no, etc) sir/ma'am" and then being in customer facing positions for years just absolutely cemented that in my mind to the point where it is an absolute knee jerk reaction to make assumptions about the gender of others. It's an awful habit and makes me cringe every time I do it. I try to either just avoid the gender identifier ("thank you.") which to my mind sounds impolite, or use gender neutral terms like "friend" which REALLY sound impolite. It's tough but I'm working on it! The real trouble is getting my brain to stop gendering others and as a quite elderly millenial who actually identifies as Agender it is an annoying and difficult task. I'm envious of younger folks who won't grow up with these kinds of ideas as a default.

Eh, it costs me nothing and actually helps me with a personal goal I have to not make assumptions about someone's identity based on what I perceive. As someone who has been misgendered many times in the past, it truly hurts, and while that may be a personal problem, I don't really love going around potentially causing others to feel hurt in any way.

Job hunting sucks. As other posters said, if there is a store or cafe or something that you go to a lot, that's a good place to start. If you're in a position where you can ease into things and not focus too too much on earning, I really recommend volunteering. Think of an interest you have, whether it is animals, art, sports, and look into volunteer organizations in your area. Special Olympics always needs volunteers and is a ridiculous amount of fun. Volunteer positions will pad out your resume, give you valuable skills in interpersonal relationships and learning job routines, and are an easy and low stress kind of soft entry into work.

Eta, your local library is a great resource for volunteer positions.

My partner finally finally got his driver's license back after having a seizure in December, so we spent yesterday driving around to all the different nurseries for me to look for monsteras. No luck, but I did find a tillandsia the size of a baby's head so that was neat.

I've been trying to put out of my mind the fact that I just learned that a close family member has lymphoma. They're young and in exceptionally good health otherwise (and the remission rate is already good for the specific type) so I am trying to hold onto hope that this will just be a bad memory in a few months. But it still sucks and I hate to think of them isolated and in pain.

It's not so much about offending someone (and yes, people absolutely do sometimes get aggressively upset about it) and more about attempting to change my own mental habits. I believe like race, sexual orientation, and politics, gender is a personal topic that doesn't really need to enter into a casual, never to be repeated interaction between two people. You don't say "excuse me, old person," based on your perceptions of another's appearance. Why is gender any different? It certainly isn't an objective concept or one that can be readily or factually assumed. It's outmoded and unnecessary.

Also, as I commented earlier, if I am using what I mean to be a term of respect to make someone else feel confident and comfortable, and through my language I risk doing the opposite, why would I want to do that if it's something I can personally change?

It's weird, right? As long as I am being a helper I can do anything. I think this is a pretty big clue that we should value ourselves as much as we do our friends!

This is great and something I also strive for. I find often that I gravitate towards other neurodiverse folks, and knowing that someone else is having difficulty navigating a given situation often makes me feel like not only that I can step up and help them, but that I want to do so. I wouldn't if it was just me, but I will always order coffee for my BFF rather than making her have a social interaction I know she is worried about. I'll also happily make phone calls to doctors or to set appointments for friends and I would rather die on the floor than do it for myself. This might be a clue to ways around my social anxiety, if I could learn to treat myself as a friend who needs help.

I find Discord is a lot better than social media for making connections. As another user said, it started out for me as a topic based platform. I get engaged in communities that are about my interests, and start posting and talking there. From being actively engaged in discussions about a common topic, you gradually start to know who you get along with, who you have other stuff in common with, and now I have several pretty good friends that I have ongoing DM convos with about off topic stuff and our personal lives.

Social media in general I think can be great if you're trying to create or foster community or a brand (as an artist, merchant, professional, etc) but for making one on one connections so far Discord is much better for me for creating actual friendships.

This looks incredible, thanks for sharing. Kind of a stupid headline though, might turn people off of what looks to be a genuine and realistic portrayal of the Black trans experience (I know OP didn't title the article, just saying, it felt like ragebait from the publisher).

Get it into appropriate soil. Unfortunately, "succulent soil" sold out of a bag is actually almost invariably inappropriate for most succulents. They want freely draining substrate with just a small amount of organic matter. So a mix of 70% pumice, lava rock, perlite, chicken grit, fine penbles, etc and 30% organic soil (peat, coco coir, gardening soil).

Echeverias are VERY light hungry. If possible, gradually accumulate it to direct (outside in full sun) or strong indirect (in front of a south facing window) light. And I do mean gradually, giving slightly more light a day over a several week period, as plants can sunburn and it is generally permanent or fatal.

Echis hate having wet feet and only need watering every couple of weeks, but this one looks like it could use a good drink.

Good for you for rescuing it. Several of my favorite plants have a similar backstory.

That I may be autistic. Literally had a friend of 10+ years who works with nonverbal pre-K kiddies with autism say to me "You know you're autistic, right?" So I started taking some tests online and reading some books and stuff, and dang, that would make a lot of sense. Not sure if I want to try and seek an official diagnosis as it is apparently pretty difficult to access in my area. But as an AFAB elder millennial who has struggled my entire life with making friends, interacting socially, and progressing in careers it is really freaking interesting to maybe finally have a reason for that.

ETA that I have spoken to my therapist about this at length and she has casually agreed that I may meet a lot of the criteria and we are spending a lot of time breaking this all down. I'm very fortunate to have the access to mental healthcare that I do have.

Believe it or not, most of the big actors and stuff I met while I was working at various big retailers in Union Square, like Circuit City (rip), Barnes and Noble, and the Virgin mega store. There are absolutely a ton more that I did not list and probably more that I have forgotten lmao. Taye Diggs (very nice, seemed shy), James Iha (super friendly and excited to meet fans), Natasha Lyonne (messy drunk), David Sedaris (nice, smells good), Elaine Aberlin (Lady Elaine from Mr. Rogers, over the moon to meet someone who recognized her as an adult, gave me lots of hugs, hard to end the conversation with haha), lots more.

I've always been low key and friendly when interacting with celebs, especially when seeing them while they're just going about their business. I don't think they're more valuable or interesting than other people and I think most of the time that is a welcome break.

I've also gone to tons and tons and tons of concerts throughout my life, many while volunteering or doing activism work, and I have met a kajillion bands and performers like that. Lots of people who started out small and later made it big.

I actually met Joan Jett at a county fair, and when I saw her play again a couple months later she recognized me (and then I saw her play again like 12+ times and eventually started just bumping into her because apparently we have similar interests and hung out in similar places lol). I highly recommend going to see her at every and any opportunity. She puts on an incredible live show that feels like a party and is a super sweet and wholesome person.

Thanks for engaging in productive discussion! And yes, I fully realize that in almost all but very specific and relatively easily identifiable cases, misgendering is something that happens accidentally and is not intended to be injurious. But for anyone who does not identify with their gender assigned at birth, it really does feel super bad.

I love that you also seem to have the same regard for social politness as I do. I feel like as someone who wants to use terms of respect to make others feel confident and comfortable, the possibility that I may accidentally do the very opposite of that is something that makes me want to try and better the way I interact.

At the time I used to see him regularly he wore the same pair of disgusting filthy grey sweatpants every day and was rude and condescending as all hell. Pretty sure he was probably going through a rough period in life but that doesn't give anyone a pass to be an asshole.

I mean, I don't think people being happy in self directed work from a comfortable environment free from the scrutiny and drama of coworkers really says anything at all about "what has the world come to." If I want to socialize, I do that outside of my work hours, and my work is far more productive and enjoyable without the constant interference and distraction of either coworkers or the general public. My experience with my past workplaces are my own, and I am far happier and have a much better quality of life without forcible socialization with people I would under no other circumstances outside of prison or a mass transport breakdown spend most of my waking hours around.

I am genuinely quite happy with my life. I have friends, family, a longterm partner, pets, a career that I love (that I believe does a genuine service to my fellow humans), money in the bank, and rewarding hobbies. I highly value my free time and like to use it how I see fit, instead of trying to wedge myself into social situations I don't find enjoyable or fulfilling. If that makes me a hermit, I am totally fine with that.

(Also just saying you may find a higher than average number of people who are introverted or value alone time posting on a relatively niche social media site with barriers to entry that require at least some level of computer savvy).

I don't think it is univerally okay to make assumptions about someone's personal identity before you know it. I am happy calling someone sir or ma'am after I know their gender identity. But in a casual interaction between strangers, there is no need for it at all and it is just an ingrained and outdated social convention that I personally am striving to move past.

Very fortunately, I now work from home in a job with basically zero interaction with anyone at all (it's great) so this mostly applies to casual social interactions at say, a grocery store. I have to say though, using your suggestion in this context is actually hilarious and would be super gratifying.

I spend 9-12 hours a day working on a computer listening to audio on headphones. I am so glad my workplace decided to go fully and permanently remote. I can't imagine a situation where me being in an office would improve my work performance in any way.

However, my partner hates working from home and desperately missed having an office to go to during the pandemic. His company closed their office as well, so now he just meets up with his boss a few times a week to work at a cafe or something. I wouldn't mind that but I have a ton of peripherals I need to use in addition to my computer and the couple times I've tried it has been more irritating than anything else to lug everything around and spend 15 minutes setting everything up.

Thanks! I just joined Lemmy and this was the first thing I looked for. Have to figure out how to post pictures but I'm excited to share my collection here!)