Lemmy for me is all Linux, politics, boobs, anime and sports. I'm a straight woman who hates sports and anime, has a surface interest in Linux but doesn't wish to debate about it, and likes to be knowledgeable about both world and US politics but hates the anger. I'm really debating if Lemmy is for me, but I won't go back to reddit and I need someplace to browse when the insomnia strikes.

When I was in my late teens/early twenties I truly thought that in ten years I'd own a home for sure, with some hard work and dedication.

Ten years later, I don't even get to buy groceries every week or eat every day. I've lost 30 pounds in the last year just from skipping so many meals.

I can't wait to see what the next ten years holds.

And if one more person tells me I should make sure to invest for retirement... I can't even feed myself, what you want me to invest? My retirement plan is work until I'm too old/sick/injured and then off myself.

When my cat was a very little kitten he didn't quite realize he wasn't human and would sleep in bed with the humans, tucked in under the blanket on his back with his head on the pillow. If one of us got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night he'd get up and go use the litter box. Our bedroom was down the hallway from the bathroom and the litter box was in the room across the hall from the bathroom so you'd turn one way into the bathroom and he'd turn the other way to the litter box. If he finished first, he'd sit in the hallway and wait until you were done and go back to bed with you, and if you finished first you could hear him frantically trying to clean the litter box as quickly as possible and I'd always stay in the hallway and wait for him to finish so we could complete the ritual together. Gosh I miss when he was a little guy.

When Trump was running for president the first time I always said that the "good" thing about him was that he said what he thought and so you always knew what he was thinking, but the bad thing was that everything he thought was insane and terrifying and full of hatred.

I'm also joining the group coming here from All, I've never heard of this, but just wanted to chime in and say I'm sorry some of you have to DYI your own healthcare because the system is failing you, please be safe and healthy.

One of the men I've most respected and most trusted in my life told me once (at the time a teenager) that when he was in his 20s, women in their 20s were so hot and seeing a barely clothed young woman was so hot. But he said that now that he was in his 40s, women in his 40s were so hot and whenever he looked at a woman in her 20s all he could think of was that she could be his daughter and that he just felt protective and there was nothing hot or attractive about her.

I'm a woman, but when I was in my teens and early 20s guys in their teens and early 20s seemed so attractive and anyone older was not it. Now that I'm in my early 30s I'm so attracted to men in their 30s and I look at teens and guys in their early 20s and they just seem like babies to me. I actually deal with a lot of young guys with my work and they're all cool people and I love talking to them, but dating them? Ugh, no thank you. They were in elementary school (or younger) when I was graduating high school. So yeah, I think for a lot of people your goalposts move as you move, and that's not a bad thing. I also am curious as to whether I'll someday find 60 or 70 year old men hot, but I've got a long ways to go.

About a month ago I was at the gas station filling up my 24 year old clunker when a homeless guy came up and asked if I would give him enough money for a coffee. I was going to lie and say I didn't have cash on me, but it occurred to me that I'm one bad day from being in his shoes every moment, so I checked the emergency stash I kept in my car and on impulse just gave him the whole pile of it. Idk how much it was, not a ton, but a handful of ones and maybe a $5 or a $10. And yeah, a week ago, that bad day happened. My husband dumped me via text message, and now I'm very, very close to homelessness in the next few weeks or months if I can't find a place to go soon. It's not always drugs, or addiction, or laziness. Sometimes it's making what look like good decisions and just getting fucked over.

I'm convinced that Trump could murder someone live on camera and then claim it wasn't him, a shapeshifter did it, and get away with it and still have a voter base defending him.

The sad thing is, my brother has a name like "Benjamin". My mother is a very mentally ill individual and is extremely militant about her children's names "I chose your names and you will go by exactly what I named you!" and refused to let him go by "Ben" or let us call him "Ben". Except, outside of the house he always went by Ben, she just didn't know it. I always called him Ben when we weren't home, because it's what he wanted to be called. So kids like this would have to bring a form home and get their ass kicked by mom for going by a name they aren't supposed to? Fuck that.

I wasn't smart enough to make that choice this time around, but next life being born into a rich family is my number one criteria :)

We missed our chance to all get together and collectively start acting like zombies as soon as the alert fired.

Then again... all of these lunatics have guns and are just dying for an excuse to start blasting. I'd rather not get shot trolling the crazies.

When I was an EMT working on the ambulance one of my paramedic partners was this absolute sweetheart of a man. Military vet, looked like a good ole American boy, but actually read studies about how women and minorities are treated differently in healthcare and genuinely recognized and cared that it was a problem and strived to do better. One day we were working and had a paramedic student who was a young guy full of energy and confidence.

We got called out for a woman in her 20s with a cardiac issue. I don't remember if she felt like she had an irregular heart rate or if she felt like her heart was racing, but either way, by the time we arrived on scene everything was back to normal. She reported that she'd been having this problem for a few months, had seen cardiologists and the cardiologists told her something was wrong, it was not anxiety, it was cardiac related, but they couldn't catch it happening so they couldn't diagnose yet but were still in the process of trying. She had even worn a portable heart monitor and had no episodes. She was frustrated that she just couldn't catch it in the act because she just wanted to know what was going on, but she had been told if it happened again to go to the hospital for monitoring.

Our paramedic student sat down with her and began asking her all sweetly oh honey, are you sure you aren't anxious, you sure you're not stressed, how is your mental health? You know anxiety can be weird. As I was about to lose my mind my partner stepped in and took control of the call away from the student and reminded him that an actual cardiologist had already diagnosed her with not anxiety so maybe stop being an asshole.

The most satisfying part was after the call was over. My partner pulled the student aside to give him feedback on how his interaction had been less than cool. As the EMT (Aka low man on the totem) it was most definitely not my place to step in, but as a woman I couldn't help myself. I cut my partner off and launched into an absolute tirade about how hard it is to be taken seriously by medical professionals as a woman and how I personally have experienced it and how bullshit it was for him to talk down to her in any situation let alone when she'd already said a doctor told her it wasn't anxiety. I ranted him into the ground and my angel of a paramedic just sat there quietly with a smile on his face and let me go off on him.

Ooh, can I share a sweet story instead, because this made it pop into my head and it's a memory of a wonderful person that I wish everyone could have known?

I used to work at this small business when I was younger, and one of the employees was an older guy in his 80s who had retired and worked a few hours a week just to keep busy. He loved us teens and twenty somethings and we adored and respected him.

As time went on, the assistant manager left and I ended up being promoted to assistant manager. And eventually daylight savings happened and the clock changed. This employee came in for his first shift after the time change and looked half dejected and half embarrassed and he quietly explained to me that he didn't know how to change the time on his watch, that the previous assistant manager had always done it for him, so now he was trying to deal with his watch being an hour off. I happily changed the time for him, and after that I changed it for him every time change. Even after he retired for good he would come in during my shift and give me his watch and I'd set it forward or back the hour so it could be right and he'd be thrilled every time.

1 is when I have had to pee for the past 2 hours but have had a warm happy kitty on my lap that I didn't want to disturb but now the situation is dire.

2 is every other time.

I cancel more often. Because who cares what I have to say? And sometimes I realize it's been more therapeutic to just type a comment out than it is to hit post and deal with people's potential responses.

I'd love to leave. I desperately want to. But I have no marketable skills (too broke to attend college out of high school, am trying now but still have 2 1/2 years to go, so too long), I'm terrifyingly broke, have a weird-ass employment history from years of undiagnosed mental illness and just recently diagnosed ADHD, and I never learned a second language because shitty education and I don't pick up languages well from those programs that claim to teach you. If I could go, I've have gone already, but nowhere worth going wants me and I get it. I know I'm a loser. I'm stuck on this ship while the cool kids are leaving in the life boats. And yes, I vote, but what does it matter?

Im a broke woman with chronic health problems in a red state who may be homeless soon and who sure as hell can't afford to leave and go somewhere better. I guess I'll just keep trudging along and hope that somehow we're all being hysterical and things won't actually get that bad but if they do and if I lose what little social assistance I have I guess I'll just tap out and call it a life, ya know?

My husband refuses to use ad blockers for some unknown reason (I installed them on his computer, he won't fucking use them/turns them off) and also is the person who gets the cookie settings menu and clicks "accepts all" every time. I get so stressed trying to use his computer but also like dude! Have you any idea just what you are allowing them to access??? Granted, I'm somewhat ignorant when it comes to how to be completely safe and private on the internet, but I try, and to see someone just blatantly not care makes me lose my cool a little.

I was a little lost until the iPod and the t9 showed up, then it was almost scary how normal it all felt. I didn't even realize I still remembered t9 but I didn't even have to think.

I commented that I had switched to Firefox browser from a chromium browser and that I was still using it but really didn't like it and listed a few reasons why and got more down votes on that single comment than I'd ever gotten total on reddit. The condescending responses were something else. I almost deleted my account, like sorry, I clearly don't subscribe to the lemmy hive mind, so I don't belong here. I also don't have strong feelings about Linux, guess I should get fucked.