it was the plan, the vetting of the plan, the sign off of the plan, the execution of the plan.

so I mean yeah, just like generally the plan. I haven’t made mead since, because it represents possibly the most monumental TIFU of my entire god damned life

yeah, I saw some guy on reddit break out of his depression nest through a herculean effort one time and he was cleaning shit with the scotch brite pad and I felt like I just unlocked the path to earthly enlightenment

my friend, sometimes ordering a pizza is a valid life choice

If I might make a suggestion: https://www.amazon.com/Holikme-Attachments-Scrubber-Attachment-Automobile/dp/B07P7NFV1F (or any appropriate analogue) makes “cleaning my mistakes up” way easier.

Sort of.

I was making a gigantic batch of mead. Like 5 gallons of it, boiling away merrily. I carefully prepared my glass carboy ahead of time and poured the must (aka: that-which-will-be-mead-after-yeast-farts-in-it) into my carboy. This was fine. All according to plan.

The bucket of ice and cold water I added to the sink to cool it down faster so that I could throw the pitched yeast into it… also according to plan.

What was not according to plan was a gunshot sound going off, shards of glass shooting through the air like a grenade, and honey water cascading out over the edge of my sink all over my floor.

I’ve never felt more broken.

My natural inclination is toward black gallows humor in situations like these, but I have to keep reminding myself that a lot of people are going to get harmed and laughing is an unacceptable faux pas.

I also have to remind myself that “not knowing what to do with all these feels” may result in unhelpful reactions.

Yet I still want to stand on DeSantis’ head and shout “what the hell did you damn well expect you fucking troglodyte”. Feelings are tricky.

A bit more liquid and a lot more garlic. It’s still distinctly a chili sauce, but the garlic is way more present imo

I’ve legit been enjoying “offbrand” sriracha’s way more anyway. My current go-to is https://fixhotsauce.com/

I don’t use this word often, but I’m going to now.

Heinous.

some states don’t have primaries; they have caucuses. which means you get to spend an entire day in a room with a bunch of other people arguing.

if you’re conflict avoidant, that’s the equivalent of a root canal without anesthesia.

Nothing screams “my kid is going to turn away from truancy” like having a parent in prison.

When your cure only hastens and reinforces the bad behavior, your cure is bad and you should feel bad.

I would have no issue at all with child protective services being engaged, but sending an overworked single mother to jail isn’t helping anything, it’s just slaking bloodlust for punishment when people don’t do as you’d wish.

If the goal is ensuring every child is equipped with an equal opportunity for education, then there are always better choices than hauling mom or dad off to jail. Can you seriously not see how patently absurd that is? It’s a boneheaded move from top to bottom and she should feel shame for the rest of her life for putting her political muscle behind it. Educating every last child is important, but this proposed solution only makes things worse.

And that’s what the issue is. It’s not that there was intervention, it was this specific intervention is stunningly short sighted and entirely punitive.

For me, it’s strictly because of this. I’m not suggesting truancy isn’t an issue worth combating, but going at it this way showed a shocking lack of sense - to the degree where I’m not sure I could trust any grown-ass adult who would go along with such an idea for more than 2 minutes.

My own experience in life makes it reek a lot like mental health issues in those who are antinatalists.

I mean, is that not a good enough reason not to have kids?

Assertions I’d like to make, in no specific order:

• Yes, my retirement might not even happen because of falling birthrates.
• We live in a world of finite resources and an imperfect method of distributing them.
• It’s only going to get worse, especially with climate change.
• If we don’t have a population contraction voluntarily now, eventually we’re going to have one involuntarily later, as people turn to force.
• Wars over constrained resources are an end in and of themselves. It doesn’t even matter if you gain control of other resources; if you win, you get more resources to buy your people a little more time. If you lose, you got rid of a lot of people who need and want things.

These problems are all solvable. These problems are also not plausibly going to be solved, as those who have will do their level best to turn away from those who have not. We have literal centuries of evidence neatly showcasing just how selfish our systems are, and how resilient to change they are.

You can absolutely have as many kids as you want. I personally think it’s myopic, as you’re forcing someone else to deal with these problems and you didn’t even give them an option - and by the time they’re old enough to understand the magnitude of the problem, they’re in too deep to get out. It just screams of selfishness and duplicity to me. But, I mean, I’m still friends with omnivores - hell, I’m one myself - being selfish and inconsistent is kinda fundamentally what humans are, so it’s not like my shit doesn’t stink too.

Edit: I should also note that the one reason I allow myself to eat animal products is because I’ve said “well, I’m not having kids, so I’m just a temporary problem, not an ongoing one”